The Rites Of Mythos
The body of a woman lay prone on the jewelled altar, naked save for a gold disk suspended from a chain around her neck. Five hooded figures circled the altar in a slow dance of forbidden magic. Music—the eerie, other-worldly wail of a flute—filled the air, a nerve-jangling, demonic dirge of death.
Suddenly, as on an unseen signal, the music disappeared, the dancers halted. A still, heavy silence choked the stench-filled air. Seconds passed without the slightest movement and then the godhead took its form. A small ebon statue shook on its pedestal. In the shape of a spider, the icon began to grow larger. Features became apparent, a disturbingly human visage ensconced between arachnid limbs, as the form loomed larger. Its chest heaved, emitting a ghastly mist from misshapen mandibles, and it moved all its limbs at once, no longer a statue but a mighty beast, larger than a man, black hide glistening in the fetid, rank air.
The demon awaited his due.

DEATHWALKER 1
Rites of the Demon

Roman Gastevano
tempo
books
Grosset © Dunlap Publishers • New York A Filmways Company

For Jim Frenkel
Copyright © 1976 by Grosset & Dunlap, Inc.
All rights reserved
Published simultaneously in Canada
ISBN: 0-448-12112-3 A Tempo Books Original
Tempo Books is registered in the U.S. Patent Office Printed in the United States of America

Prologue
  Twilight spread a purple glow over broad lawns. A circle of hemlock trees below a balcony threw long shadows across the grass. Their partly shadowed branches moved and whispered with the spring breeze, like a troupe of dancers conspiring. In the stillness of the elegantly landscaped grounds, a fountain of water spilled from a porpoise's mouth, falling back into marble bowls where Japanese goldfish swam, quick, wraithlike ghosts moving in the silent depths.
  A mockingbird laughed, darting quickly across the lawn. The bird bounced over the grass as a stone skips across water, its wings opening and closing quickly as it hopped, closer and closer to the circle of hemlocks.
  A worm, sluggish and obtuse, pushed itself up through the soil, attracted irresistibly by the smell of rain. The bird struck sharply with its beak, first to slash and then to grasp at the barely struggling creature, too dim to perceive even the moment of its own death. The mockingbird planted its talons firmly in the ground, yanking the stringy
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worm with all its might, using its body as a lever against the soil.
  Slowly and inevitably, the worm was drawn upward, shackles of earth breaking around it.
  Without warning, a slash of furry grey darted through the air from among the bushes of hemlock, landing neatly and precisely on its surprised prey.
  The mockingbird jerked under the weight of a fat Persian cat. Its wings fluttered uselessly as it struggled to escape the terrible claws and teeth. It shrieked once, then fell silent as the cat hunkered over it, its yellow eyes impassive as it bent to its reward, sharp teeth glittering wetly.
  The music of the fountain played gently on the wind. The sun, sinking slowly over the rolling hills, dropped behind a bank of purple clouds and spread its yellow-orange rays across the landscape one last time. The cat waited.
  The mockingbird, sensing the stillness, struggled to be free. For one second frozen in time, it almost believed that it was free. Something birdlike and soaring, an orin-thic hope rose in its soul ... and then, with a soft, ugly miaow, the cat swiped with its soiled claws at the bird's head, stunning the smaller creature.
The deadly game had begun.
  The DC-10 sailed through the dark night, humming gently with power. In the cabin, sleepy passengers dozed, talked softly, stared out the windows into the desolate blackness of the night sky, wrapped in their own thoughts,
  A small child stirred in her sleep and moaned crankily, nuzzling into her mother's side. Three men in first class laughed as a fourth slapped his cards down on the table with an original obscenity. The stewardess leaned against the galley counter, her mind far away in a bestselling novel. The pilot and co-pilot argued inarguable politics.
And the plane travelled on through the night.
Lucas Payne sighed softly, turning uncomfortably in his

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seat. He stared out the window into the black sky, thinking. And trying hard not to think.
  His long thin frame, in clothes that did not fit, folded itself this way and that in the stiff seat, trying to find a comfortable position. After nearly twenty-eight hours on planes and in terminals, it was not easy. His thin hands clutched the arm rests until his knuckles were white, his long jaws worked nervously back and forth as he stared into the void, looking for some sign, some hint of hope.
  His own face stared back at him from the double glass. Payne studied it with vague surprise. Never vain, he was still taken aback by the changes in his own appearance, etched during five long years in a POW camp. The ordeal had aged him, like wind and weather against a rock cliff. The youthful pinkness of his skin was gone with the heavy flesh that had once padded the high cheekbones and long, almost Indian nose of his ancestors. His face was longer, now craggy. There were small lines of sun and wind around his eyes and mouth. His own grey eyes stared at him from an old face, older than his twenty-eight years. His mouth, broad and slightly amused, was now pressed into a thin, tight line. Between his eyebrows, a faint greyish scar, no more than a quarter inch long was now almost invisible, yet the slight shadow it cast over his high forehead also served to make him look older.
  He put up his hand to his shaggy hair. His. reddish brown curls were tinged with grey streaks.
  He touched the glass pane with his long fingers, as if he could extract his lost youth from the essence of himself. But it was gone.
  He felt sad for a few flying seconds, angry at all that he had missed in a twist of fate. His youth had been passed in a strange country, among strangers, in a bitter battle for survival. And now it was gone.
  He felt abandoned, that once he were gone, no one had bothered to look for him nor even attempted to find out if he were alive or dead. Somewhere a world he had left be-
   
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hind had gone on without him, until there was suitable time to ransom him. He had felt betrayed and angry. And somehow afraid.
  The small greyish white scar burned faintly. Payne closed his eyes and thought of the small surgeon who had saved his Me. The enemy. "Risky operation; unexpected success," the small man had said in halting French, trying to explain how he had saved Luke's life.
  And a week later, the surgeon and his hospital were blown to dust. Payne sighed again, as if the air were a precious thing. And to a man who bad been dead and come back, it was.
  Prisoner exchange, he thought bitterly, and his lips twisted. Perhaps now the nightmares would stop. After all, now he was coming home.
  An evil ghost, deadly and cold, stole through his mind. Home to what? it asked mockingly.
  Luke continued to stare out the window. Angry, hopeful, bitter, happy, waiting. Emotions tumbled through his mind.
   The nightmare is not over, he thought. It's just beginning. Lazarus must have had one hell of a time returning from the dead.
   
One
  The woman who stood on the balcony laughed softly as she watched her cat torture the bird.
It was an unpleasant laugh, cold and without mirth.
  As in reply, the slight breeze began to stir the trees. To the east, there was a dim roll of thunder, like the drams of a distant army. A small flash of lightning burst across the dark horizon.
  The woman leaned against the stone wall of the house, looking up into the sky where a sickly grey moon was just beginning to make itself known in the sour milkiness of the sky.
  In the gathering darkness, lightning bugs began to dot the lawn. There was another thin distant roll of thunder.
  The woman lifted a beringed hand to her face. She touched her hair softly, assuring herself that the black tresses were still in place. The weather was oppressively thick and sultry, despite the slight breeze. It was as if the whole world were holding its breath, waiting.
  The woman glanced at the black crystal goblet she held in her hand, frowning slightly. It held a dark brown
   
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liqueur that came from the fruit of a tree in West Africa. It had a thick, sickly, bittersweet taste, but it was the closest one could get these days to the real thing, the dark wines of trees and fruits that no longer grew in this world.
  For a single second, the woman remembered the ghost of another wine. Philosophically, she shrugged. She had not come all this way by mourning the past
"Symrna, my dear!"
   Slowly and with grace, the woman turned to the lighted window. She could have been anywhere between twenty-five and sixty. In the light, one was struck first by her presence, and then, only secondly by her beauty. She was not as tall as she appeared, nor as slender. Her olive skin was deceptively lush and warm looking; the rose of her smooth face was a mastery of cosmetics, yet nothing known to science could have produced the almost opaque violet eyes under slender, sharply curved brows, the perfect nose, neither too long nor too short, the lush red-pink mouth, the perfect blue-black hair. All that marred the perfection of that beauty was a certain expression, a slight glint in the eyes, hard as jewels.
  Charitable people would call it character; those who dared to be her enemies called it ruthlessness. And yet, as the woman turned in the doorway to greet her newest guest, the soft violet of her dress rustling about her body, the brilliant jewels glittering and reflecting her eyes, she was almost perfect. Regal as a lioness, with something of that power.
   The small man was in his early thirties. His blonde hair was carefully styled, his white dinner jacket of impeccable Savile Row tailoring! A neatly trimmed beard accented his sanguine, rather boyishly WASP good looks, making him look the yachtsman and sailor he was.
Symrna offered her hand.
  "Dawson!" she exclaimed happily. "I hardly recognized you—in your new disguise," she smiled. "As it were," she murmured after a beat.
   
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  The two exchanged a polite peck on the cheek. Dawson smiled.
  "Just flew in," he said softly. "And I can't stay very long. Just here long enough to say hello to everyone and scoop up the divine Diana."
  Symrna nodded. "Ah. So Payne comes back tonight?" she murmured.
  "Mmm," Dawson said, glancing at the wafer thin gold watch on his well-tanned wrist. "The eleven thirty-two. I suppose it's going to be a bit rough of course, but. . ." he shrugged elegantly. ".. . We'll make do, for the time being. I don't see that it throws our plans off one way or the other."
  Symrna pursed her lips. "It probably will help us a great deal. He could be a valuable tool."
Dawson nodded. "Even so."
  Symrna glanced into the large room. A famous actress, currently in demand after the success of her latest film, was leaning against a small baize table, her elegant back hunched forward as she stared at her husband, a very powerful rock star engaged in a most intimate conversation with a honey blonde woman in a Halston dress. The actress sipped at her drink, looking unhappy. As she became aware of Symrna's eyes, she looked up.
  Symrna smiled. Her teeth were very sharp and very white. The actress did not smile back. Instead, she turned and walked through the crowd to the bar, clutching her glass as if it were a life preserver.
  Symrna made a clucking sound. "I don't like that one. I wonder what Holt had in mind when he married her."
  "Well, it was a mistake, that's for sure. But you can't blame David. After all, he didn't know what he was doing. His voice was flat.
  Symrna sighed. "You're right. Well, I don't think she'll give us any trouble. But she ought to be watched carefully just the same. She's Spanish, you know, and they can be unpredictable." She coughed delicately.
   
8	Deatkwalker
  "Exactly," Dawson said, catching her meaning. "And they have some tricks, if you will, of their own."
  "Mmmm," Symrna said slowly. A slight frown creased her brow, and then, her face composed, she walked into the room on Dawson's arm, all smiles.
  Wealth and power glittered in the huge hall like jewels ; in a treasure chest. Here was a genuine piece of royalty talking to a tobacco heiress who took too many pills; while an exiled Czech playwright watched a powerful publisher dance a shaky tango with a presidential aide. A diplomat's wife chattered to an artist whose work sold in six figures, attended by the Greek shipping magnate and his dark wife. Hangers-on and the very powerful, the dubious and the honest, all gathered together in this stately manse. Symrna smiled, acknowledging the respect she received from everyone. A cautious respect, mingled with fear, perhaps, but that was the meat and drink of life to her as she crossed the room, stopping here and there to murmur a polite word, a witticism that could be repeated tomorrow, a small gem of wisdom that would be treasured for years to come.
  Dawson clung to her arm, ever the gallant courtier. She smiled, content.
  "Symrna, honey," the blonde woman said, pecking at her cheek. "And you, darling Dawson, where have you been keeping yourself? That husband of mine has just got to go. No class."
  "I keep forgetting, darling, is this your third or your fourth?" Dawson drawled.
  "My third. That's just the trouble. I've got a fourth," Lady Ellen Major said slowly and seriously. Her blue eyes rested on Dawson for only a second and then she smiled. "You never were much good to anyone," she commented.
"Lady Ellen," Symrna said quietly.
  The woman sighed and shrugged. "Money doesn't buy happiness," she muttered.
  "Ah," Symrna replied. "But it does buy a certain freedom." She turned and bowed slightly to Royalty.
   
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  "She's really in her element," Lady Ellen muttered to Dawson. The small man nodded, sipping at his drink.
  "I wonder where she gets this stuff," he said. "It's a lot better than what we're used to ... though not as good as—"
"Look who's come," Lady Ellen said suddenly.
  A tall whiplike man dressed in an exotic robe strode across the room. There was something Byronic about him, and something of the Maygar and the Turk in his face, and his pale shining eyes were slightly mad. He smiled beneath his mustache, like a Mandarin.
  "My dear Symrna," he murmured, flashing low for her hand. He kissed it showily.
  "Kawalski," Symrna said. A small smile turned the corners of her mouth. "You've come."
  "And brought your little friend," he said, turning to Dawson.
Dawson nodded. "Good, good," he murmured.
  Dawson's eye ranged across the room as he sipped his drink. "I say, you've got just about everyone here," Kawalski drawled to Symrna. He placed a slight stress on everyone, as if to imply a select group, separate from the others.
  The woman nodded. "True. Very true. For which I thank Mythos."
  A tense silence clutched the room as she uttered that name. Lady Ellen and Kawalski both gave involuntary glances toward a black onyx statue that sat immovable as the vortex of people swirled and played about it, as if the statue were watching with its small, black, unseeing eyes.
  It was fully five feet tall, carved with terrible, ancient skill from a single slab of stone. Its shape was disturbingly human. Certainly, it had arms and legs, a head with eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Yet above the narrow, pointed representations of ears, two horns curved upward, almost meeting above the bald skull. It crouched against its buttocks, whatever gender it might have had concealed under long spidery legs, threatening to spring to life. As Symrna
   
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watched its terrible face, it seemed to grin in the electric light, more like a spider than a human. Spidery, like a great hairless tarantula-man, infinitely evil and sinister.
  "They all come to it in the end," Symrna hissed, more to the statue than to her companions.
  The fat grey cat appeared from nowhere, its small yellow eyes glittering as it rubbed against Symrna's legs.
  Kawalski gallantly stopped to pick up the obscene bundle of fur and hand it to Symrna. The cat hissed grumpily at being handled by someone other than his mistress, but allowed himself to be cradled in her arms, where it could watch the proceedings, still licking a bit of feather away from its maw.
  "Nice cat," Symrna murmured absently, her eyes still ranging over the room.
  Lady Ellen sipped at her drink, not the thick wine, but straight scotch with a single melting ice cube. "I  hate waiting," she muttered anxiously.
  Kawalski threw her a sharp look. "He'll be here," he said. "It's only a question of the news."
  Dawson surveyed the room wearily. "You're the eight-days wonder of the season, Symrna," he said quietly.
  The woman nodded. "They will go to anything that is novel, won't they? And yet, perhaps I am silly, but I do hope for a few converts. Not for us," she added swiftly, but for him." She threw a meaningful glance at the statue.
"Of course," Dawson replied swiftly.
  A newcomer strode into the room on those words, a tall, thin young man with blonde hair, with an androgynous Botticelli-like beauty about him. Women turned to watch him as he passed, caught by the sexual insolence of his tight, well-worn jeans and silver lame shirt. A scarf carelessly knotted at his throat gave him a rakish, buccaneering appearance.
  He stopped and spoke briefly to the famous actress, his wife. Together, their willow backs swayed gently, in rhythm. His long lashes fluttered against his cheeks as her dark eyes searched his. The long curve of her back stiff-
  
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ened as she spoke. His face grew sulky and closed; he turned away slightly, still watching her. She put a hand to her mouth and shook her head sadly, then left the room.
  He watched her for a second or two then found the group by the window, watching him as casually as if he were on a stage giving a rock concert, which was his business.
"It's over," he said shortly. "Mythos be praised."
  He removed a drink from a tray carried by a passing maid and drained off its contents amid their congratulations.
"Very good," Symrna said.
  The young man sighed. "I'd forgotten how hard it was. A new start, as it were," he laughed, and assumed a sad tone, "I regret, of course, to announce that my uncle has died. My wealthy uncle. And of course, my wife and I will have to go immediately to London for the funeral."
  "I'm so, so sorry," Symrna said. But she smiled. She bent close to add, "You must be very careful now."
  The young man nodded. "Well, here's to David Holt, rock and roll superstar." He made a face and drained his drink. "Is it time?" he asked them.
  One by one they nodded. He looked across the crowded room at the black onyx statue. "It's time then. And the bride has been chosen?"
  "Yes. The bride has been chosen," Kawalski said. "A young artist. Dawson found her. Apparently she's the girlfriend of that Payne man who just turned up from Viet Nam."
"Mmmm," Holt said.
  "Over there, next to the wall," Symrna suggested. "She's going to be painting some murals for me this summer."
  Holt turned and looked, frankly and curiously, as if sorting one face out from the crowd.
  A woman with dark, shoulder-length hair leaned against a wall, talking to a couple. The woman said something to her and she laughed, throwing back her small head and
   
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laughing, exposing a row of perfect white teeth. There was something fresh and candid about her face, something healthy and strong about the way she carried herself. As she lifted a glass to her lips, several silver rings flashed.
  "A most talented young woman," Dawson said. "And a perfect representation."
  The cat in Symrna's arms hissed softly, kneaded her arm with its paws.
  "Very interesting young person," Symrna said softly. "I rather like her myself. I think I can do great things with that. And of course, with Kawalski's help, she's more than likely to become famous."
  Kawalski smiled, shrugged. "I have endeavored to take her under my wing. To introduce her to the right people."
"She will carry the torch well," Symrna said quietly.
  "Well, I suppose I'd better be shoving off," David Holt said suddenly. "I must go right back to London. Do the right thing. But be assured I shall look into your organization there, Symrna. They wait for you."
  "For Mythos," the woman replied. "I am only his servant."
  "Mind that little wife of yours," Lady Ellen said sulkily to Holt. The look he gave her was not pleasant. "I. will, you can believe me. It's been quite a while since I— ... old bodies you know." He smiled, turned on his heel and left.
  "I've told you to watch your tongue," Symrna said sharply to the other woman. "You could ruin everything now—and you know we can brook no interference in the plan."
  Lady Ellen's face was an interesting study in fear. Then she laughed bitterly.
  "Well," sighed Dawson, "I suppose I'd better round up that girl and get going. I have to jet up to New York, and my pilot says it's going to take a while to find a place to land." He laughed at his own joke.
  "I'll come with you," Kawalski said smoothly. "I'm dying to meet this paragon of virtue. My rival."
   
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  Symrna threw Mm a sharp glance. "You watch yourself," she warned. "That girl doesn't belong to you."
  Kawalski smiled. "She's not ... ah ... consecrated yet," he said blandly.
  "What did you say her name was?" Lady Ellen Major asked querulously.
"Diana. Diana Donofrio," Dawson answered softly.
  Diana heard her name and turned to look at the group by the window. She gave them a trusting sunshine smile. They were her friends her man was coming home. All was right with her world.
  Diana. The engines of the plane seemed to churn out her name, Luke thought, staring out the window where the darkness slowly filled with twinkling lights, as the giant aircraft hovered over the airport. Sometimes he would close his eyes and think of her, imagining her dark eyes and thick black hair, her voice, her hands, her body sweet in darkness, light in daytime, like sunshine. And as he thought of her, knowing after five long years than in a very few minutes, he would see her again, his heart sang to him, crooned like a small child in his breast.
  As the great wheels of the 747 touched down on the asphalt runway, he sighed in relief.
  His hands unclenched from the arm rests of the seat. The tight lines around his mouth loosened slightly, the grey tired eyes flickered open.
  The rows of greenish blue spirit lights flowed past like an illuminated river, while far away, the bright lights of the terminal flickered. Something flickered in his mind.
  "This is Captain Galdone," the intercom crackled. "Flight 683 from Los Angeles is now landing at JFK. The temperature in New York is sixty-four degrees, with a light rain falling. On behalf of myself and the crew, I would like to thank all of you for flying with us. Have a pleasant evening." Static, then silence.
  "Do you have someone to meet you, Mr. Payne, or may I get you a cab?"
   
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  Luke Payne turned slowly away from the window and looked up at the fresh face of the stew who leaned over him. She was about his age, he guessed, in her late twenties, but she looked young . .. and American. Untouched. Clean and bright from head to toe. As she smiled, she displayed startlingly white, even teeth. Her eyes were careful-, ly made up, the long false eyelashes making them appear brighter, perkier than normal. Her hands were soft, manicured and trim. A medium sized diamond sparkled on the fourth finger of her left hand.
  As Payne looked at her, he thought of the women her age in Viet Nam, in the farm villages of Da Nang, In their late twenties they were lucky if they had all their teeth. Years of hard work and suffering lined their dark faces, and the only emotion that ever showed in their eyes was fear. Some of them had half a face seared away by Napalm, like Lom Yieu Thon, whose family had put him up...
  "Mr. Payne?" the woman repeated, snapped his thoughts away. "Are you all right?"
  Payne forced a smile. "Yes, I'm all right," he replied slowly, "and someone is meeting me at the airport. Thank you," he added as an afterthought
  The stew nodded. An alien look hooded her eyes and she moved away swiftly, as if afraid his madness was contagious.
  Luke leaned back in the seat and sighed. His head ached, as it always did. He tried to remember what Dr. Jackson had told him: It will go away. You just have to learn to relax. You've been through more than most men could stand.
  The plane jerked to a halt. Lucas unfastened his seat belt and stood up, stretching his long legs tiredly. By his own calculations, he had been in planes for almost twenty-four hours straight. From Guam to Los Angeles, from Los Angeles to New York.
  Every muscle in his body felt stiff and unnatural from prolonged sitting. The woman in front of him picked up
   
Rites of the Demon

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her sleeping toddler and moved down the aisle. She smiled at him. "Welcome home, Mr. Payne. I guess everyone that knows about you is glad you're back."
  "I hope so," Payne 'replied mechanically. " 'Knows about me?' " he asked.
  The woman nodded, stroking the sleeping child's back. "Sure. You're a hero," she said matter of factly. "Journalist held prisoner in a P.O.W. camp in North Viet Nam, exchanged by the Vietcongs, gets wounded ... survives." Her voice dropped. "My husband didn't survive."
  Payne wanted to offer sympathy, but he couldn't force the words out. The woman nodded again, and moved down the aisle toward the front of the plane where the two stewardesses were smilingly shuttling out the passengers. Payne moved into the flow. He hoped there wouldn't be any fanfare. He felt crazy, and suddenly afraid. Suppose she didn't come ...
  The warm night air, pregnant with rain, hit him like a slap in the face; it smelled of wet cement. The lights were blinding. As he felt his way down the tarmac, he looked across the strip of asphalt that separated the runway from the terminal, trying to catch a glimpse of her.
  People seemed to be everywhere. After years of seeing almost no one, after the quiet of the hospital, the crowds that surged about him were terrifying. Payne gasped for air as if he were drowning. A large man pushed him aside in his rush to hug an old woman. Luke turned, almost wildly, looking in the crowds, trying to walk toward the terminal, against the armies of people that seemed to be pouring out. His heart was throbbing wildly. Surely he would be trampled ...
"Lucas! Luke!"
  At first he did not recognize her. He had often conjured up her picture in the darkness of his cell, in the whiteness of the hospital. He had imagined making love to her, remembering every detail of her body, the little mannerisms of her speech, the way she pushed her dark hands through her hair when she was painting, leaving a
   
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streak of white or green or yellow in the brown mane. . . "Diana! Diana!" he called, and he was running towards her suddenly, pushing through the anonymous mass toward the one person who mattered in his life.
  The tall dark woman with the long, fluffy haircut pushed toward him, her face alight, the several silver necklaces about her neck bouncing against her wine colored shirt as she reached out to touch him. Her face was bright with joy.
  They touched, were separated by a stream of people and then embraced. The feel of her, of Ms Diana, alive and breathing, no conjured phantom of some distant past, was almost too much. He was holding onto her for dear life.
  Diana was crying, and her lithe arms were wrapped tightly about his torso as if she would never let him go. Very gently they swayed together, too strong and too weak to separate.
  It was she who broke away first, to hold him at arms' length, where she looked at him with eyes full of tears, then pulled him towards her again with a great choking sob. "I'm so happy, I could die," she cried. "Luke, oh, hell, I've missed you so much! I can't believe it's really you."
  Payne buried his face in her hair, inhaling the scent of her perfume. Like Saturn, he wanted to devour her, so that he could keep her with him always. Stupid, that, he thought abstractedly.
  "You'd better believe it's really him," a dry voice said from over her shoulder. "It's cost me enough to get him back here."
  Luke looked over Diana's shoulder sharply. The faint white scar on his forehead was warm. He blinked, suddenly on guard.
  "Jim!" he exclaimed, thrusting out a hand toward the small blond man. "The old sailor!"
For just one second, Dawson looked coldly at the hand

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thrust out to him. It was merely a second in time, and yet for Luke Payne it might have been an eternity. Something was wrong, not as he remembered it. Dawson had been his friend, his companion, his boon buddy. There had been no secrets between Luke Payne and Jim Dawson, and a deep lasting friendship. Yet, in that single second, moving like a loop of slow-motion film, Payne watched the man look at his hand as if he, Luke had leprosy. The warmth that had flooded through him when he saw Dawson slowly ebbed away, replaced by a watchfulness. Careful, screamed a voice in his head.
  As Dawson seized his hand, a bit too heartily for the circumstances, Payne was suddenly and painfully watchful.
  "Good to see ya," Dawson exclaimed. "Damn good to see you. The changes ..." he added swiftly.
  Still holding onto Diana, Luke studied Dawson, puzzled. Something had changed about the man. There was a closeness, a calculating gleam in Dawson's eyes that Payne had never seen there before. The Jim Dawson he remembered had been a slow, easygoing sort who would have given anyone who asked the shirt off his back. Dawson now looked as if his mouth would fall off if the wrong person approached him. There was something about him that didn't quite fit.
  His eyes shifted to what appeared to be the third member of the party, a greyhound of a man with dead white flesh and a long, thin black mustache.
  The man smiled softly, as if looking at him from a great distance. There was something soft and feminine about him. "Kawalski," he purred by way of introduction,
Payne nodded.
"I'm a friend of Diana's and Dawson's."
  "Oh, baby, I'm sorry, this is Kawlaski. He's a painter, and he's been very good to me."
  Luke tried to like the man, but there was something in Kawalski's manner that did not encourage him. Probably
   
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jealous, Luke decided slowly. Everything was happening too fast.
  He was tired and angry, and somehow these people were not right. Luke, normally an easygoing person, was surprised by his own hostility. And yet, the feeling was overwhelming. Something was out of order.
  "So you're the returning hero," Kawalski said as they walked to the car. His voice was flat.
  Diana's grip around Luke's waist tightened. "He's a hero," she said.
  Kawalski made a small noise in the back of his throat. As they piled into the car, he was careful to sit on Diana's other side, and all the way back to the city, Luke could feel the man's eyes on him like some malevolent snake, waiting to strike. Kawalski was silent, however, merely watching.
  "This sure beats an army jeep," Luke sighed as he leaned back against the upholstery of the Silver Cloud.
  "That's not all, Luke," Dawson said, leaning forward. He pulled a latch and a small bar slid open in the back seat. "Scotch, bourbon, brandy, vodka?"
  "I'll have a vodka tonic," Diana sighed, "with lime. This is the life, Jim. I should have given up my painting and gone into communications."
  Dawson mixed the drink swiftly. "Naw, you don't wanna do that. I've got an ulcer that won't quit, a therapist who can afford to go to the Riviera and an accountant with a tic. You still drinking scotch, Luke?"
  "A double," he said. "I haven't had a drink of good scotch in five years."
  "The best here. Nothing but the best," Dawson promised. He poured two double scotches, handing one to Luke. Kawalski took a proffered glass of brandy.
  "What all shall we drink to?" Diana said. She looked out the window at the Triboro Bridge. "It's been such a long time since we were all together . . ."
Dawson and Kawalski exchanged a significant glance.
"To better times?" Luke suggested. It was the old toast

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they had always made at the Cedar Tavern, a thousand years ago. No matter how good or bad things were, they would always drink to better times.
  "To better times then," Dawson touched his glass to the rim of Payne's, then Diana's, and finally Kawalski's. They drank silently. The taste of the scotch was good. A forgotten thing, like fresh fruit or smooth soap, television, supermarkets. It burned his throat as it went down. He leaned back, waiting to feel it in his head.
  Diana's hand nestled in his. She put her head against his shoulder, sighing softly. "Can't believe it," she said contentedly. "Just can't believe it."
  "We've both got some getting used to before things settle down," Luke murmured softly. His arm circled her shoulder seeking her breast. She giggled, pushing him away.
"Later, Luke," she whispered. Her eyes were soft.
  "Diana and I have, been thinking about it. We gave up your apartment when you were reported MIA . . ." Daw-son began.
  "So, you're gonna bunk with me for a while," Diana finished. She sipped her vodka. "Don't look so shocked. Everyone does it."
   "Well, sure," Payne agreed. "I think we ought to get married as soon as we can anyway."
A darkling look passed over Diana's face.
  Dawson coughed into the silence. "I was going to ask if you people wanted to have dinner with me at Elaine's," he ventured tentatively. "I've got a hot commentator from the afternoon news I'm supposed to meet there tonight."
"Blonde or brunette?" Diana asked drily.   .
  Dawson smiled. "Aw, don't knock an old bachelor like me," he said in his best Wallace Beery imitation.
  Luke laughed. "Still chasing skirts, huh?" he asked Ms friend. Dawson smiled.
  "To the ladies—or the women, as they prefer these days. You can't beat 'em." He smiled, more to himself than the others.
   
20
  Leaning forward, Dawson tapped on the glass. The chauffeur, a young, longhaired kid, turned around.
  "Well drop Ms. Donofrio and Mr. Payne off at Greene Street," he commanded. The chauffeur nodded.
  "Let Lukey rest up, Jimmy," Diana said. "Tomorrow night we'll all go out." She turned to Luke, smiling. "Remember that Indian restaurant you loved so much? The one on Fourth Avenue?
Payne nodded.
"We'll go there tomorrow night, okay?"
  Luke took a hefty swallow of the scotch. He felt loose now, and very tired. "Yeah, hon, sure."
  "Yeah. Tomorrow night," Dawson said. "Look, I'll call ya tomorrow. You won't forget the doctor's appointment?"
  "No," Luke said slowly, resentfully. "No, I won't forget." He leaned back against the seat, closing his eyes. God, he thought. I feel so tired.
   
Two
  It was late in April for a fire, but flames flickered on exposed brick, throwing a crazy dance of shadows. The big, narrow space was almost barren of furniture. Diana's huge canvases filled the walls.
  Lucas Payne lay on the bed, bathed and slightly drunk now, watching as the artist moved across the floor, pulling down the shades.
  "It was bad," she said, echoing his last statement She turned and regarded him curiously in the dim light.
  He lit another cigarette, looking around the room. Of course things have changed here in two years, he thought, not understanding his disgruntlement at changes that made it different from the way he had remembered it. Diana had built a partition between the living room and the bedroom, separated the huge loft into smaller areas. Work, sleep, eat. When he'd left, it was just a piece of raw space. He glanced at a canvas over his head. In neat, precise strokes she had defined the view from her back windows. Plants framed the window sill and the air shaft. In the depths of the canvas, one could see the airshaft
21

22
and the building next door. All precise, neat and defined, just as her Yale training had schooled her to be.
  "Yeah," he repeated. "It was bad ... but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Hell, everybody was living just as badly as I was. The CO of the barracks lived on rice and fish just like I did." He stretched out on the bed and sighed at its softness. His mind turned inward, trying to see where he had been. In a crazy way, it was like college. Away from home, in a strange place. "There were three of us. All journalists. A guy from England—Bernard, and an Italian, Pallaci. We thought no one knew where we were. We used to wonder if people had given us up for dead."
  Diana moved across the room. The hem of her caftan brushed against a low metal sculpture, then fell around her body. Her face was tight with compassion. She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him. "It wasn't too bad, after you got used to it."
  A log crackled. Luke tensed slightly, opened one eye, then closed it again.
  "I was only put in the coop a couple times. Once for talking back to the CO, and once for refusing to go to an indoctrination meeting. The coop was a hole in the ground, about three by three, and they would make you sit hi it till you revised your thinking. Bernard spend a lot of time in there." He opened his eyes and glanced up at the painting again.
  "I wondar how Bernard is? And Pallaci? Does anybody know where they are? I dunno ... nobody in the Army would tell me anything."
  Diana Donofrio sipped her drink. The huge brown eyes surveyed him with a hint of worry. But Luke was not looking at her. He was trying to see into the past. "The smell of fish, that's what I remember best. They're poor people, you know? Very poor." He looked at her.
  "I wish I could tell you they were really pigs, Di, but they weren't. No more than the Americans in the South. War's war. Damn, the CO, Lum Dui, and I used to play
   
23
chess in the afternoons ... talk about our friends, our lives. He was just a guy like me with a lousy job to do. Diana, I don't even know why we were there in the first place! I really do not know ... What in hell was it all for, anyway? I'd see guys get blown to pieces by mortar shells, and I'd write about it, and nobody listened. What in hell was it all about?"
"I don't know.''
  Luke closed his eyes again. "One day, they just came and said, 'Okay, look, we're moving out.' We didn't know what was going on. We might have been going to an execution, we might have been moved further North. We thought we were just moving North. I'd had dysentery pretty bad, a sort of relapse. It was fuzzy, everything was very fuzzy, I'd been lying around for days, in a fog. And we just marched through the jungle.
  "And then one night the strange little group of us—me and Pallaci, and some VC along for the trek—was caught in a friendly bombing raid. It was too much. The war was over. I was on my way to be exchanged, freed . . . but it wasn't happening for me.
  "One moment the air was black, and the sounds of the jungle surrounded us. The next moment there were bombs making craters all around, and my head was splitting from the sounds of fire and the explosions that were ripping through the jungle.
  "I looked to hide, but the war seemed everywhere. I ducked under a likely looking tree as a shell burst not five feet in front of me. It felt like somebody punched me with a spiked fire poker, right between the eyes.
  "When I came to, the place was burned out and my throat was parched. I staggered around in a complete daze, looking for the people. I never found them, or their bodies. For all I know, they might have all gotten away. It was dark, and I must've been out and hidden under the rubble of the blast
  "My dysentery was somehow gone, but I was completely cut off from people. After a few days, I started to
   
24
go blotto. My head was a mass of welts, but I was alive, and almost blinded by the pain.
  "At night I would have dreams . . ." he shuddered. "I don't remember anything. I kinda picked up my feet and moved. It was like that, you see. When you don't care if you're alive or dead. It was weird. I remembered being a kid in Maryland, hunting with my father in the marshes..."
  "It was kinda like that, only jungle. The mosquitoes were about three times as big as any Maryland mosquito could ever hope to be . . ." he opened his eyes and smiled " ... and you know how big Maryland mosquitoes are, right? Jungle for days. I tried to sleep during the days. I was always hungry, at first. After a while even that fish and rice they used to serve us looked good. I was eating raw lizards. You ever ate a raw lizard?" Diana shook her head.
  "It tastes kinda like sashimi—is that what they call that raw fish they serve in Japan? I don't remember. That's the crazy thing. I don't remember anything anymore. It was pretty damn depressing, though. I wondered if I was gonna make it."
  Payne sat up on the bed, rolling a cigarette and looked at Diana. "You know how I knew I was going South?"
  She shook her head. "The stars. I always found the North Star and headed in the opposite direction. Must have been thirty-five, maybe forty days. It was a long time. Swamps and jungles and rats ... it felt like forever. But I knew I was going to make it. I just kept remembering everything my father used to tell me, and obeyed that implicitly. It worked. You learn how to forage off the land ... finally, I came into a farm. Really poor peasants. I don't think they had a pot to pee in. But they didn't care who the hell I was. They just took care of me. Fed me, everything. They were good people ... They spoke some French, and I told them my story as well as I could, under the circumstances. Then the VC came, and I thought my luck had run out again.
   
25
  "Somehow, though, they got through to the VC what had happened, and they took me back to their base, where a doctor took care of me."
  Diana put down her drink. "And now I'll take care of you."
  Luke sighed. "Can you see the scar?" he touched the point between his eyes with the tip of his finger. "That's where the shrapnel went in. The VC doctor did something to it ... I don't remember, I was out. But the doctors in Guam thought I was really lucky."
  Diana sat down beside him. With a long finger, she touched the miniscule silverish line above the bridge of his nose. "Right on the third eye .. ." Diana mused.
"Huh?"
  "The third eye ... you know about the third eye, honey." She gestured, groping for words. "The third eye is the place in the brain, if you will, where one can see the mystic dimension. Like when you're meditating, or something, you kinda roll your eyes upwards, toward that point. Seers say their visions come from the third eye."
  Luke stared at her. "When did you start learning all that?"
  Diana shrugged. "Oh, about a year ago, I had a show at a gallery and that's when I met Kawalski ... he does very fragmented, mystical paintings. He sort of turned me on to the movement, you know?"
  "Just what's his story, this Kawalski?" Luke asked suspiciously.
  Diana smiled tolerantly. "He's quite brilliant. And we've become friends."
  Payne sighed. "Am I being a stiff necked old reporter?"' he asked half seriously, half in jest.
  Diana smiled. "That's one of the reasons I like ya, Payne. You've always got both feet firmly planted in terra firma." She punched his arm, like a man.
  Luke stared into the flames. "Diana," he mused, "we haven't really talked about anything you've been doing. . ."
   
26
  Diana shrugged. "Tomorrow, honey. We'll have all day tomorrow to catch up."
  As she touched his lips with hers, his hand reached up for the light switch.
  They lay close together in the dark, breathing silently. Slowly, Luke's hand touched the smooth firmness of Diana's arm.
  Very gently, she returned the pressure. "The nightmare is over," she said, more to herself than to him.
   The night jungle was alive with strange sounds: Chirps, calls, growls, roars. Strange misshapen night things slithered through the low foliage on their mysterious errands. A slight wind stirred through the high branches of the trees, pushing the branches to and fro with a soft, liquid sound.
   There was no light. A tired, weary figure, moved slowly, putting one foot in front of the other gingerly. Long slimy things brushed at his face and arms. They could be vines, or they could be snakes.
   The rags of his shirt clung to the sweat on his back; the thick gelatinous ooze seeped into his crumbling boots. Hungry mosquitoes fastened themselves to his body like remora on a shark.
   The moon was in the dark side, grudging even a small amount of light. Here and there a star twinkled in the blackness above the trees. He kept Ms eyes on the brightest one, the pole star that would ultimately bring him home.
   He had long ago lost track of the days and the nights. Time was separated into light and darkness. Anything that moved was a potential killer. The stench of rotting vegetation filled his nostrils, sometimes so strong it gagged him.
  Earlier that night he had managed to catch a small lizard. He'd torn the head off with his teeth, too hungry to care about the squirming body that twisted in his fingers.
  
27
The blood and meat were cold and tasteless. But it was nourishment.
   Blindly, he slogged on, feeling his way by tree trunks and leaves, stumbling and falling. Fever wracked his body; the sore on his forehead throbbed. As he moved, he kept up a rhythm in his head, like a marching song. Sur-viv-al surviv-al sur-viv-al surviv-al. The words rolled and tumbled in his mind like a squirrel trapped on a wheel. Sometimes he thought about Diana, about the loft and the smell of oil paint.
  He tried not to think of food. After the first couple days visions of plenty haunted him. Steaks, thick and pink, heavy with the taste of charcoal. Maryland crabs, steamed in their shells, eaten in butter, washed down with beer. Oyster pie and wild goose.
   He thought of old college roommates, whose names he had long ago forgotten, and of the football games he had played in college, the sharp clear smell of autumn mornings, running onto that field . . . he thought of Jimmy Dawson; of the nights they would drink at the Cedar Tavern and the days they spent in the Montana wilds.
   These thoughts kept him alive. If they all existed, then he believed he must exist, and somewhere his own world must exist.
   It was several darks and lights into the fever. Unable to move his body any further, he had crawled under the shelter of a bush, near a small spring to wait. Either to die or to live. How long he lay there wracked by hunger and fever, he did not know. He shook and fouled himself, and did not notice or care. Survival had taken him someplace away from his body. He was at once with himself and not of himself, as if all the nerve centers had died. It was calm, almost peaceful. He felt near death, dying in the midst of some forgotten jungle. His body burned with fever. Death would bring release.
The scar on his forehead throbbed gently, without pain.
   And as gently, he suddenly felt himself floating above his body.
  
28	
   Just like that. There was no other way to describe it. He was floating very comfortably several feet above his physical shell, looking down at the wreckage of what had been Luke Payne with as much interest as he would have shown an ant. Curiously, he held out an arm and regarded it. It looked just like his own arm, only . . . to him it looked as if the arm had been photographed as a double negative. He could see through the flesh to a clump of bushes below. Tenderly, he opened and closed his fingers. They moved as always.
   It was almost funny now. He laughed, but his voice made no sound. My God, I'm dead, he thought. It did not frighten him, and the idea that it did not frighten him was somehow reassuring. So, death wasn't all that bad. He experimentally kicked up one leg.
   It moved without effort. He realized the weight of his body had fallen away from him as if he had taken off a heavy coat. Experimentally, he tried to rise. It was something like swimming. He stroked his arms in a swimming gesture, rose slightly, floating on air.
   Curiously, he pushed down with his hands, closer to what had been his body. He studied himself. His real, for that was the way he thought about it, chest was moving up and down in short gasps, pushing air into useless lungs.
   He was still alive. Now, this was something! His mind progressed slowly, like a lazy peeler crab on a July day.
  His thoughts swam through a water of slow and beautiful colors. Nothing really touched him. He felt no anxiety, no pain. Just peacefulness.
   He gradually became aware of the warmth, the small glow of the white sore on his head. The phantom touched the sore. It was warm and wet. The only warm thing on his phantom body. He looked down at the real man, sprawled under the bushes. The sore on his head was glowing too. Using his hands like fins, the phantom moved down closer to himself, reached out to touch the body. He put a phantom forefinger on the spot. It was al-
   
29
most glowing silver. The other Lucas had taken a fragment of shrapnel there.
  He tried to sigh. There was no sound. What did it matter any more? He was dead. He thought briefly of his parents and wondered if he would see them soon, now that they were all in the same condition: Dead.
  He looked around curiously. Everything was very curious. Like Alice in Wonderland. Should there be angels? It occurred to him that he might hang about indefinitely, watching his shell rot away into the jungle soil. The idea didn't appeal to him. But feelings were so ... distant. How vain and silly life seemed now, as he floated in a gentle mist.
   The mist. He hadn't noticed it before, it was like water, only it was very light and airy. And growing thicker. The real world was very still. There was no breeze blowing. Even the animals were silent. Nothing stirred.
   And the green mist was getting thicker, like a London fog, closing in tightly, obliterating the jungle. He tried to swim. Was there a better word for it? Swim? Float? What? Get away from that green mist... and then he realized that it was carrying him very gently. But not in the real-world sense of carrying from one place to another. It was as if he were sliding from one place in space and time into another that existed on top of the first, co-existing in one space. Very odd. And he felt so calm.
  Time meant nothing here, in this land of green mist. There was no sound, no feeling.
  At first he barely noticed the change. It seemed so normal, so real to him. The green mist was thinning; the air grew clearer. Shapes were forming, seizing their essence from the mists, transforming themselves into reality.
   Very gently, the mists were parting, opening, clearing. He blinked. If this was heaven, and he had never been sure there was a heaven, it looked like Disney had turned his architects loose. He smiled a silent smile.
He was standing on a terrace of some sort, looking out

30
over a city. Wherever, or whatever I am, he thought, it's surely strange.
   And somehow familiar, but where and when, he could not remember. So he looked before him. A city spread across the landscape, slanting down to a blue harbor. A sun, more pink than gold, shone down on blue green water, catching the diamond sparkles of waves that lapped at the piers and docks. Boats with bright colored sails filled the harbor, but they were of no build that Luke, a waterman's son could identify. They were almost galleys, perhaps. Old Roman galleys, but more graceful in their lines, and moving under more than mere sail, though there was no noise of engines.
  People were on the quay, going about their business, but they were blurred and indistinct, like phantoms.
   His eyes followed the curve of the land as it rose from the water. The buildings were strange, exotic, brightly colored. Pinks and greens and yellows dotted the tile roofing. Spires and towers and turrets rose against the almost lavender sky, infinitely graceful, delicate and beautiful. He suddenly knew that they were hewn from marble, from giant slabs of sardonyx and agate and lapis lazuli, turned and carved, their blank smooth surfaces filled with reliefs and carvings of some ancient and powerful gods, caught in the spinning of their myths.
   Everywhere strange and exotic-looking plants and trees sprang from the earth. Every bare patch was cultivated, planted and fertile with multi-colored bloom. Green, pink, fuschia, yellow plants and trees pushed their way out of the soil, yearning towards the lavender sky.
   It should have been a beautiful place, but it wasn't. The stillness that hung in the humid air was oppressive. The thick, cloying smell of the flowers was corrupt; musky and too sweet. Everything seemed somehow over-civilized, overbred to a pinnacle of decadence.
   In the purple blossomed tree that hung low over his head a large fat bird looked down at him with unspeakably hating eyes. Without shifting its gaze, the enormous
   
31
creature leaned on one taloned claw, then the other, preening the yellow plumage of his wings with a long, sharply curved red beak. It's tail, a waterfall of greens and purples opened and closed slowly, threateningly. It was an evil looking monster; an unnatural parody of beauty.
   Somewhere, sounds issued from a flute. The shrill, eerie notes rose and fell in a sluggish rhythm, as if the musician were under the influence of a narcotic. The harsh sound grated against his nerves, every note just enough of a quarter tone off to be truly annoying.
   It was the music of a Hell no man had ever seen. The shrill whining notes rose and fell in the still air, twisting and turning in agony. Ominous and threatening. And ugly.
   The phantom man turned his head slowly from side to side, as if to shake off the sound.
Then he looked down at his feet.
   A plaza was spread out below the terrace, bordered by heavy trees filled with sickish yellow blossoms. The floor of the plaza was done in a mosaic that caught the sunlight, a twisting, turning sprawl of stylized beasts, gods and man-beasts, stars and suns and moons. He recognized some of the zodiac signs laid into the tiles. In the direct center of the plaza, the mosaics widened to a circle. Inlaid on its circumference were vague hieroglyphs and symbols. They were somehow familiar, and unaccountably, he felt a physical loathing for them.
   In the direct center of the circle a heavily carved stone rectangle stood like an altar or a ... what else could it be but an altar?
   He watched, transfixed. From five points of the circle, hooded figures began to take shape from the very air. It was as if they were the -materializations of ghosts, shadowy and indistinct.
   The terrible music increased its tempo, whining across his nerves.
Slowly, the five figures converged on the circle, bending

32
together until his view was obscured, then fanning backwards until he could again see the center.
   A terrible object was taking shape, as if it drew its essence from the air. It was ancient and incredibly evil, he sensed, though he wasn't sure why it seemed so. Its existence was the apotheosis of evil wrung from the foulest, most wretched sewers of human misery.
   It was something out of the black stench of hell; a bootleg deity that fed on the greed of its followers, a hundred times worse than many-armed Kali, for whom men kill; worse than Samdei, black lord of the chamel house, who is redeemed by an ironic sense of humor and the willingness to turn to good on whim; fouler than the Lord of the Flies, the Satan of medieval times; more vile than Mou, devourer of the flesh of dead and living infants, A thousand times more evil was this creature: half spider, half man, lusting not for blood but for pleasure in human misery, drawing its life from the darkest heart of its twisted followers. It sucked greedily its perverse half-life from the ravages of the spirit trampled and cast down.
   Horribly, the spider-god manifested itself, whole and perfect unto itself, with a misshapen ebon head, glittering yellow eyes, a mandible open and hungry to be filled, long spider-like multi-jointed arms and legs, waiting; scratching and waiting. Infinite and unending, without life yet alive, it stood in all its glory, a demon god beyond mortal nightmares of darkness and evil.
Manifest, it sat, waiting to be served.
And then, as always, it began to happen.
   Something appeared on the attar. At first it was just a small cloud, but as the five figures' arms rose to the sky and fell to the earth, the pinkish cloud began to take on shape and form. Human.
   As Luke watched, the pinkness solidified, became real and material. It formed a woman, nude except for some sort of gold disk suspended from a chain about her neck.
   
33
She lay still, eyes closed, arms resting on the stone surface, legs stretched out.
   He knew this woman was a sacrifice, and the thought filled him with loathing. Deep in the recesses of his mind, he felt the dark knife of terror. And yet in this place between two worlds, he could not move, nor cry aloud, nor even push that vague terror forward into reality.
   Very slowly, the five hooded figures joined hands together. The whining of the invisible flute grew stronger and stronger, more and more strident as the figures joined hands and began to move slowly around the altar. A chant, felt rather than heard, rose up on the stifling air.
And then, as always, it began to happen.
   The five hooded figures gave up a wailing supplication, and the spider-thing, suspended by nothing that could be seen, moved slowly through the air toward the sacrifice on the altar. The giant, suckling mandible began to move greedily as the thing reached down to suck up the woman's soul. ..
Her eyes flickered. She looked up.
   As their eyes met, he felt the burning pain in his forehead. He knew her. Straining against the heaviness he leaned forward against the balcony railing, pushing against some oppressive and invisible force.
   He was between two worlds and of neither, yet Ms manhood forced him to fight, to strain with all Ms will. Slowly, the hooded figures moved closer to the woman, almost enclosing her. He knew when the circle closed that he would love her forever unless—
  From the back of his mind he pushed with all his strength.
"Diana!" He screamed.
   The blackness and the green mists slowly rose from the corners of his vision. But even as he screamed, he knew he had been successful, for the hooded figures spread back, began to fade away ... and the green mists were reaching up to swallow him and he was drowning, smothering, floating, dying...
   
34
  Very slowly, he opened his eyes, expecting to see doctors standing above him once again. Strong arms pressed down his wrists, pinning him against the bed.
He was awake.
  Diana, pale in the night, her dark hair rumpled across her head stared down at him, fear in her eyes.
  Payne relaxed. She pulled her arms away, moving to the corner of the bed, as if waiting for him to attack her. There was fear in her eyes.
  He tried to smile. "It was just the dreams," he said weakly.
  She looked at him. The fear in her eyes was raw. Slowly, she drew a blanket around herself. "I'll sleep on the couch," she said as she grasped a pillow and went from the bed.
  Luke sat up. He was drenched with sweat. "No, please, Di," he said sleepily. "It was just the dream, that's all."
  But she was backing out of the alcove, shaking her head. "You tried to strangle me in your sleep," she said. "You know I'm afraid of anyone touching my throat."
"Di—"
  "We'll talk about it in the morning, okay?" she said quickly. There was a slight, hysterical edge to her voice.
  He lay awake, staring at the ceiling. She thinks I'm crazy, he thought. They all think I'm crazy. And maybe I am.
  In the darkness he cried, silently, alone. Because he now knew.
Nothing would ever be the same.

Three
  The coffee was still hot. And the morning was real enough. A genuine New York City morning with the sound of trucks rolling through SoHo, and the comfortably real sound of the Rolling Stones on the radio.
  Diana sat in the studio at the front of her loft in her old overalls and a tee shirt, slashing angrily at the canvas on the easel before her, a slight frown of concentration between her eyebrows as she worked.
  He stood in the doorway and looked at the stiff angry lines of her back, knowing that something was wrong.
  "Good morning," Luke offered. The coffee was the thick, strong espresso she bought in Little Italy. It tasted good on his tongue.
  Diana barely turned. "Morning," she muttered, spreading a thick, angry slash of carmine across the canvas.
  Luke sighed. "Look, Di, can we just talk about it?" he ventured, moving closer to her.
  Slowly she turned, wiping the brush on the paint rag. "What's to talk about?" she replied automatically. Then she sat down on the floor tailor-fashion, looking at the
35

36	
brash in her hand. The sunlight glinted on the red highlights of her hair, caught the round curve of her cheekbone. She looked up at him with confused and angry eyes.
  "You know I didn't mean—" he said slowly. "It's these dreams, I had one last night .. . and I guess I just didn't know what I was doing, Di. I know about your thing about being strangled. I don't know why the hell I did it. In fact I don't even remember it."
  "Uh-huh," she replied. She pushed a hand through her hair. "I know, and you know, and it's gonna take time to adjust, Luke. It just really freaked me out, you understand? I haven't slept with anyone in so long, and you were tossing and yelling, and it was just bad news. I mean, well . . ." she looked sullenly at her feet.
  "We've got time, Di. We can work it out. It's just gonna be a while before I can put it all together again."
  She nodded. "I understand that, Luke." She laid a hand on his knee. "You've been through a lot, yeah. And the doctor said that it would take some time for you to get used to being back ... I understand all that." She reached out, took his cigarette and dragged on it.
  "It's other things," she said, standing up, moving about the room, touching things in her nervous way. She fondled a stuffed bird on top of a bookcase. "A lot of stuff has happened to me, too, Luke. Stuff I've got to make up my mind about. My work, for one thing." She turned, her back to the light, her face in shadow.
  Small universes of dust swirled in the sunlight around her as she stuffed her hands into her pockets, looking down at her bare feet, shifting uneasily back and forth on the painted floor. "I've become rather—well, successful as a painter. Well known; eollectable and saleable. I'm in the Janistelli Gallery, now. The Modern has a couple of my paintings."
  "I'm glad for you, Di," he said gently. Lucas looked about the empty space, at the walls where her work hung, waiting.
   
37
			"I—"
  "No, wait. There'll be time later to talk about my painting and your work." She sat in front of him, putting her hands on his knees, looking up into his eyes. "Luke, I've found something marvelous, something so wonderful . . . It's called the Ancient Peace Movement . . ."
  She sighed. "I shouldn't even tell you about it, really, because I've only gotten to the second degree, but it's a wonderful thing. It's like T.M. and Yoga and the best highs of our life ... I've found a meaning in my life, something more important than anything else—well, almost anything else in my life." Her fingers pushed through her hair. "Kawalski introduced me to it. It's very exclusive, you see. They only want people who are open. And they make you successful. I don't know how they do it, but after I started going, all sorts of good things happened to me. I got into Janistelli, and you came home, and I was flat broke, and all of a sudden my work is selling, and well, it's really something. Symrna—she's the leader, is really fantastic."
"Simena?"
"No, Simm-erna. It's Slavic, I think."
  Luke smiled, half to himself. Diana was an orphan. Very early in her life she had been adopted by a nice middle class family in Yonkers. Ever since he had known her she had been a compulsive joiner. Women's groups, artists' cooperatives, flirtations with T.M., with Guru Maharaj Ji, spiritualism, political movements, charity benefits. She could easily fill a week with her meetings of this or that. It was as if she were looking for the real parents she had lost, in some group or other. Her enthusiasms were usually brief, and often ended in bitter disappointments when her ideals exceeded the results. So, he was inclined to think very little of this new thing. But as always, he allowed her to go on about it, knowing full well he would never join her in her search.
  "The thing is, I shouldn't even tell you about it. Not that's such a secret or anything, but they like to choose
  
38
their members. You have to know someone who will introduce you to get in. And there are lots of very important people who belong. And lots of very unimportant people, too, I suppose, in the eyes of the world."
"What do you do?"
  "Oh, I can't tell you. I know it's silly, but Symrna does insist on secrecy. She feels that you have to be trained by someone who's already adept, or it will ruin you. She's wonderful, Luke. She's been like a real mother to me."
  "When do I get to meet this paragon of virtue?" Lucas asked gently.
  Diana shook her head. "Symrna wants to meet you very much. But she says to wait until the time is right. Listen, I shouldn't even be talking about it. But look what it's done for my art."
  Luke looked at the painting on the canvas. In contrast to her earlier work, typified by starkly real city-scapes, it was a dark, closed room. Attention had been given to the furnishings of the room, oppressive, heavy pieces in somber colors. In the center of the painting, an old woman sat in a chair, rather like a throne. The expression Diana had sketched into her face was utterly barren of hope, as if the life force had been drained from her. It was eerie and disturbing. He glanced around the studio. Many of the other paintings were on the same theme, the stark realism she had used previously to mirror the world now seemed twisted and distorted by a brooding, hopeless view.
"Very interesting." Luke said noncommitally.
  Diana smiled. "I shouldn't tell you this, but Jim's in the movement, too. And we put your name up for membership." She tightened her grasp on his hands, looking into Ms face. "I wish I could tell you about it. But I can't. But it's so wonderful. You feel so alive, so new . . ."
  Luke looked at her in the morning light. There were smudged purplish lines under her dark eyes; beneath the darkness of her olive skin there was an unhealthy greenish
   
39
tinge. Strain, he told himself. This isn't easy for her either.
  She smiled, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. "I'll bring you to a meeting, just as soon as Symrna says it's all right. And then you can find out all about it for yourself."
  The clock on the table chimed. "Oh, I almost forgot. You've got to see the doctor, honey. You've got just enough time to get dressed and grab a cab."
  Luke frowned. "Look, Di. I've been through it and I am all right, now." Luke gazed deep into her tired eyes and saw the unease that rested there. "Then again," he added, "a New York shrink would give me a different perspective on things."
  "Well, if you're going to keep having dreams like that, you'd better go, Luke," Diana said flatly. "Anyway, she's good, I hear. Really good." She stood on tiptoe and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Time, honey," she said. "I know you're tired of doctors and hospitals and being poked and pried at, but—it's only for a little while. Soon they'll all go away and we can have things just the way they used to be. And that's a promise..."
  It is always a strange feeling to go away from the city and return. At first, one is appalled by the filth and the dirt that is taken for granted in the day to day activities of life. The people, pressing in closely, one's own neighbors are alien and strange. The light and the noise are assailants in the concrete canyons, and one feels suddenly and terrifyingly alone.
  In time, the feeling goes away. But as Lucas stood at the corner of Houston Street, watching the trucks and cars thunder by, he felt a sense of awe. The city had changed. Well, why shouldn't it? After all, he had been gone for five years. And the only constant was change.
Payne glanced at the card in his hand.
Marian Lescault, M.D. 25 West 72 Street

40
New York, N.Y. 10023. 697-5683
  He had his doubts. Slowly, he raised his hand into the air and flagged down a cab. As he climbed in, he realized that he had all but forgotten the subway routes he used to know so well.
  He gave the driver the address and leaned back in the seat as the cab rolled through the traffic. When he first came to New York, he had loved to take cabs.
  It was a large building off Central Park. As he gave his name to the suspicious doorman, he looked about the sterile old marble lobby. Lucas smiled sardonically to himself. In a very few moments, he would be giving up his freedom, he was almost sure. After all, who wanted a man running loose who tried to strangle his own girlfriend?
  He was slowly realizing just how much he still had to readjust. A thousand things that he had once taken for granted and ignored now became objects of wonder. Fresh coffee with real milk, soft clothes, elevators ... silently the doors slid open and he stopped onto plush carpet.
  Stepping from the elevator, he saw the do6r of the doctor's office in front of him. It was plain and simple, yet for Payne, it was like the mouth of the dragon's den. He was determined to tell the truth, for he was an honest man, but he still felt reluctant to expose certain facts.
  His hands was moist as he turned the knob and entered the office.
  The first thing he noted was the smell. It was rather like homemade bread baking and flowers and old books, the smell of his grandmother's house in Easton, Maryland. He looked about the waiting room curiously. It was bright, well-lit and filled with paintings. Some of the artists he recognized or knew through Diana. Others, like the Delacroix—a very small Delacroix—were familiar. He looked closely at the Delacroix for it had struck some
   
41
note in him. It was no more than six or seven inches long, and less than a foot high. Yet the exotic scene the artist had depicted was hauntingly familiar. The terraces, the spires, contorted graceful buildings—where had he seen them before?
  "Good morning?" A small, thin woman, who might have been anywhere from forty to seventy years old, was standing in the doorway of the inner office. She was wearing a very simple, tailored pantsuit that displayed her trim body well. Her face was serene, almost madonna-like. And she was smiling.
  Lucas turned from the painting. "Dr. Lescault?" he asked.
  The woman nodded brightly. "And you are Lucas Payne," she guessed. "Won't you come in? I'm sorry, my secretary isn't here yet So, I've made the coffee this morning. Viennese."
  She was, he thought, very much like his grandmother, as she bustled about with a samovar and two cups.
  Her office was windowed on three sides, looking out over Central Park. It gave the comfortable illusion of the country. The furniture was old and well-worn, with the look of good things that are loved.
  Luke looked at the couch apprehensively, shifting from foot to foot in the middle of the room, as she moved about behind the desk, laying out coffee and creamer and spoons on a tray.
  "It was such a nice morning," Dr. Lescault was saying, "that I decided to bicycle to work." She had a slight inflection, some rise and fall in her voice that was vaguely foreign. He couldn't quite place it.
  She turned from the wall with the tray, smiling brightly. "Ah. You're afraid of the couch?" she asked, seeing his stare.
  Luke smiled for the first time since he had been home. "Yeah, I am."
  "Well, we can sit in the chairs ... or we can sit on the floor." She sparkled like a small child. "My secretary
   
42
doesn't like me to sit on the floor with my patients. She feels it isn't dignified. But I like to sit on the floor. Sometimes it helps us both. You see, I am a little anxious about meeting new people, too. Particularly a man whose work I have admired in Newsmakers magazine."
  It took Luke back a bit, and at the same time eased something in his mind. He grinned. "Let's sit on the floor then," he said.
  "Good. I'll get some cushions. And an ashtray." As she handed Luke the tray, the long sleeves of her jacket slipped back and he saw the row of small blue numbers tattooed on the inside of her left wrist.
  There was a bright Persian rug on the floor. Very gently, he put the coffee down in the middle of the pattern, and then sat down. Dr. Lescault pulled cushions from the chair and tossed them carelessly on the rug.
  "Good," she said settling down and crossing her legs under her. She poured him a cup of steaming coffee, smelling of cinnamon and heavy cream. He tasted it, and it was good.
  Dr. Lescault leaned back against the leg of the sofa and sipped from the china mug. Her bright blue eyes regarded him easily.
"Where shall I start?" Luke asked at last.
  "Start where it pleases you," she replied, and held up one small hand. "But first I must tell you that I have your file from the doctors in Guam."
  Luke sighed with relief, leaned back against the heavy oak desk. "Then you know," he said slowly.
  She nodded. "I know what the doctors say. But that has nothing to do with how you feel. And that's why you're here. So we can explore how you feel. Have you seen your file?" she asked.
  He nodded. "They just wouldn't believe it. And they couldn't accept it—and I can't accept it either." The anguish, pent up in his voice for so long, crept around the barricades of his rationality. "It's not something that normal people do." He could not look at her. It was as if he
   
43
were confessing to having molested children, or having sniffed glue for kicks. He looked at Dr. Lescault. Her expression hadn't changed. For all the world she might have been listening to a lecture on medical theory. "And it isn't natural."
  His father's phrase. He remembered being out on the bay with his dad, hauling up crab pots. A crab, or rather two crabs, somehow grown together like Siamese twins, joined at the apron. His father, a deeply religious man, looking at this freak of nature as if it were the invention of the devil. "It isn't natural," his father said, his face turning a mottled red as he pulled the twin-shelled creatures from the pot.
  "These ain't no good, son. You got no need for devil-born things." Young Luke's eyes widened at the grotesque sight, as his father drew his fishing knife from his belt.
  "It's evil!" With a vicious stroke the older man brought down the butt of the knife on the pulpy mass. Again and again the blade flashed as he pounded the crabs into a sickening yellow mulch.
  Luke couldn't bear the sight, and turned away. His father stopped his pummelling and gripped the boy's arm with a slimy hand.
"Watch, boy," he commanded.
  Luke stared at his father. The old man's entire frame was tight with emotion. As their eyes locked there were intimations of hidden, dark mysteries that would later haunt Luke Payne. Suddenly, the elder Payne broke the spell and with a grunt, heaved the crushed crabs back into the sea.
  Dr. Lescault sipped her coffee and looked at him. "What are you thinking?" she asked gently.
  He told her about that whole scene, the small workout floating in the blue waters of the bay, his father's disgust and anger.
  "Like my mother," he finished, allowing the words to trail off.
"Your mother?" she prodded, but so gently.

44	
  Luke nodded, looking into the pale mocha of his coffee cup. "My mother got sort of ... of crazy after my sister was born. She'd talk to people who weren't there. Once she. tried to kill my father with a butcher knife. And he would try to say everything was all right, normal. And she'd sit in the kitchen and stare at the picture of Jesus on the wail, just sit there for hours, like that. And my father would pretend it was normal, with my sister upstairs howling in her crib—and she told me I was going to go to heaven. That my sister and I were going to go to heaven ... and she ...
  "One day I came home from school and she just wasn't there. My aunt was there, my father's sister, Mildred. She was there and my mother wasn't. I was nine. I was fourteen when I found out that the doctor had suggested my mother would be better off—better off!—in the State Institution." The words tripped and fell over each other as he talked, gesturing, groping in his fear. "And I always saw my father looking at my sister and me as if he were waiting, waiting for one of us to go crazy."
"And? So you are crazy?"
  "Yes, goddam it! I'm crazy! Because I'm half Hogao, and all the Hogans in Santimoke County are crazy. Or so my father used to say. The Paynes of course were all as sane as the good Dr. Freud himself, according to them . . ."
  Dr. Lescault made a small face. "The, as you put it, good Doctor Freud was, I think, a little afraid for his own sanity," she said softly. "I cannot be sure, but it seems to me from your account that your mother's problems were of a post-prandial nature rather than being due to any hereditary insanity. Besides, how are we to define what is normal and what is not? You won several college scholarships, did you not?"
  He nodded. "A waterman doesn't make all that much money. Oysters in the winter, if your fingers don't turn black and fall off from frostbite, and crabbing in the summer, if you don't die of sunstroke," he said slowly, sur-
   
45
prised at his own anger. It seemed to bubble up from within him like a fountain.
  "And I wasn't normal because I studied in school. I wanted to get to hell out of there. I didn't want to be like my father or my father's people, or my mother's people. I wanted to write. It was the only thing I really loved to do."
  "So, you have a degree from the University of Maryland and a Masters in Journalism, summa cum laude, from Columbia," she said quietly. "All on scholarships and grants. It seems to me that many people must have believed in you."
  Luke nodded. "I just never really believed in myself. There was something unnatural about being a writer, Something ... well, to them, you know, homosexual. Not male." He looked at her, grinning ruefully. "You're really making me talk, Doctor," he observed.
  She nodded. "Talk is good, Lucas. There is a saying that confession is good for the soul. Sometimes when we talk, we are able to exorcise the demons—not literal demons, but the demons in our minds that keep us from understanding ourselves or our world. Talk is very good."
  He nodded. Slowly, he pulled himself into a ball, his knees up against his chest, his back resting against the front of the desk. He looked at his hands. "I had a lot of time to think, over there. A lot of time. Sometimes, I would think crazy things. I would get very paranoid. That's what prison does for you. It makes you very paranoid, you know? And I knew it was the prison but I couldn't quite connect, because there was so much fear imposed into the regimentation. You become a machine, because if you step out of line, you are punished. It's the same in any prison system. Whether its a high school or a prison camp in North Viet Nam. It's the same thing. Damned fear, with no hope."
  "And how do you feel about being back?" she asked. "You haven't been home twenty-four hours as I understand, from Mr. Dawson."
  
46
  Luke sighed. "Lost. I've felt lost ever since I woke up and was in a field hospital. I knew I was safe, but there was always the feeling of ..." he struggled for words ". . . How can they understand? I've been through hell, how can they just go on living as if nothing has happened, as if these things don't happen? And then the other thing."
  "Yes. The other thing. How do you feel it happened? Had it ever happened before?"
  Luke shook his head vehemently. "No. Nothing. You don't understand how hard I struggled to get away from all that superstitious crap I grew up with. My father considered it divine punishment that my mother died in a mental hospital. In my senior year in high school, I had a biology teacher who believed that a ring around the moon meant rain the next day. You see where I was coming from? Half my classmates were garage mechanics, or they died in Nam. I had to go. I couldn't fight, but I wanted to tell people what it was like over there. And, maybe at first, I really believed we were in there for some good reason. Even if I felt that I couldn't kill another human being—I was brought up as a Quaker—and I would see guys I'd drank with, played poker with, screwed around with in Saigon whorehouses—I'd see them get blown to bits." His voice was shaking with the memory. "And I'd see other guys, the VC, getting blown to bits, too. And women and children, burned like pieces of steak on a Saturday barbecue—" He glared at her angrily. "And none of you will ever understand that, not back here where everything is safe and secure and sound—"
  She was shaking her head. "No," she said softly. Her eyes were pained. And then he remembered the blue tattoo on the inside of her wrist.
  "I'm sorry," he said, not looking at her. "I guess you do know, don't you?"
  She nodded slowly. "Yes, I know. And the hate, the bitterness, the anger—how can they sleep in their beds, knowing this was happening? It goes on for a long time. Perhaps you never really get over it. But you see, that
   
47
was one of the things that made me want to try and help you. Perhaps I believe that I may understand myself better if we work together. I am human, too, you see."
  Luke nodded miserably. "I—oh, hell." He looked at her. "I can never see the world in the same way again. I've killed, and I've almost been killed. I've seen stuff that—" He stopped. Slowly, he got to his feet, and began pacing the room. He looked out the window into the park.
  Tiny specks, of people, were enjoying their spring day. "I'm a rational man, Doctor. At least I've always tried to be. But now, what I've seen is almost enough to make me believe that there is a satan... and there is no God."
  "Yes." she said softly. "And you will feel that way for some time, I suppose. I cannot attempt to speak for you ... only from my own experience. Do you want to talk about the wound and the operation?"
  Luke found himself shaking. "I want to and I can't. I don't know! I just don't know! They tell me these things, I don't know if they're true or not." He turned, his face red and blotched, toward her. The flesh of his countenance was drawn and tight with strain. He looked haggard and old beyond his twenty-odd years. Suspicion dawned on him. "Does Dawson know these . .. things happen?" He spoke the word with loathing, as if mouthing an obscenity.
  She shook her head. "No one knows but the two doctors in Guam and myself. As a matter of act, it was Dr. Jackson who recommended that I see you, knowing my interest and research in this field."
  "But it's all crap!" Luke exclaimed. "It's crazy looney crap!"
  The woman sipped her coffee. "Perhaps it is nonsense, as you say. But I have seen stranger things than what you describe, or what is described for you by Dr. Jackson. He believes that the shrapnel sliver the Vietnamese surgeon removed from your forehead disturbed the very delicate balance of the various nerves and glands of the brain ...
   
48
particularly the thalamus and pituitary structures ... or, if you prefer to use the spiritual terms of the East, the third eye.
  "Physically, there seems to be very little change, or at least it is very subtle, the tiniest nick out of a small piece of tissue in the thalamus area. . . Yet we know so little about the brain in terms of its total operation in relationship to intelligence and perception that it would be hard to guess exactly what has been done ..."
  She stopped, searching for words, then started again. "You see, we only use—or knowingly, consciously use about one tenth of a brain, in day-to-day functioning. And you are not a freak, Mr. Payne ... Dr. Rhine has been carrying on experiments with what he calls the psi factor at his lab in Chapel Hill, and very lately, there has been much publicity given to a young Israeli psychic, if you will, named Uri Geller, who seems to be able to bend material objects, stop and start watches, exert some control over his environment simply by the use of his mind. You are by no means unique or crazy with your particular talent. Mr. Payne. The fact that the doctors were not quite prepared for your feats may have damaged your self-confidence, and perhaps, in an already psychoso-matically weak condition, they have severely damaged your ego ... you must not view yourself as a freak, or question your sanity. Rather, if you can, it would be better to try and work with these things."
  "I don't want to be a lab rat," Payne muttered angrily. "Look. I'm having problems with my girl, I'm having problems just getting across the street. . ."
  "... And you think that I will try to use you as the doctors in Guam used you. Like a guinea pig," she finished.
  Dr. Lescault shook her head. "I know what it feels like to be a guinea pig, Mr. Payne. Believe me, that's the last thing I would wish to do to anyone. I believe if you had been in the army, they wouldn't have let you come home. As it was, Mr. Dawson had to pull considerable weight to
   
49
get you out of that hospital. And I had to do some playing to get your records ... fortunately you are a civilian, and your secret is quite quite safe with me. I am like a priest. There is no violation of the confessional in this office." She stopped, smiled. "Would you like to try hypnosis?"
  "Hypnosis?" Luke heard the edge in his voice. "What are you going to do? Make me dance like a chicken?"
  "No. But perhaps hypnosis will enable you to relax. To adjust. I am a curious woman. I would like to know exactly what we are dealing with here. And apparently you have no conscious control of your abilities. According to the records, you were able to do some incredible things under sodium pentathol, and again during a malarial relapse and a coma. Consciously, you repress your, shall we say, psi abilities, because they make no sense to you in the rational world. You are even afraid to confide them to your friends. For which I do not blame you."
  "It's all crap!" Luke exclaimed angrily. "If you can make it go away, Doctor, that's enough for me. That, and the dreams..."
  "The dreams," she repeated thoughtfully. "Yes, you have had several nightmares ... by no means an unusual reaction in your type of experience. I had them too, for several years. Sometimes they still come back to haunt me." She faced him. "I do know how you feel, you see. That's why I want to help you." She held out her hands. "Will you try to trust me? It won't happen overnight, of course. We must get to know each other as human beings. And then, perhaps in time you will be able to adjust, to live comfortably with yourself again."
  The infinite sadness that had flooded Luke's soul in the past months was about to break. All the fears, named and unnamed, real and phantom were pushing at his mind like floodwaters against a dam. Very slowly, he crumpled into the window seat, crying as if his heart would break. He felt no macho shame at his tears. Somewhere in his mind, this surprised him; somewhere else, he recognized it for
   
50
what it was, and allowed the fear, anger and frustration to flood forth. It was as if she had drawn a cork from his bottled-up emotions. He had been shaken to the very core of his soul, and there was nothing left. Whoever—and whatever—Luke Payne was before, he did not know. Where he was going—and how—were monstrous unknowns of the future.
  He cried. For himself, for Diana, for his mother, for Ms father, for all the wounds and sins of an uncaring world, for the loss of innocence, for the fear of the dark that lurks in the soul of every human.
  She sat by him quietly, without touching him, allowing him to sob, saying nothing, waiting patiently.
  And when he subsided, when the waters of his life were drained, flowing again as peacefully as they ever could in that time and space, she offered him tissues from a box and a piece of chocolate from a bright red tin. He blew his nose, wiped his eyes, and ate the chocolate greedily.
  "You must never be afraid to feel," Dr. Lescault said softly. He glanced up at her, feeling squirrelish with Ms mouth full, and saw tiny diamond points of tears in the comers of her ageless eyes.
  Luke sighed. "My father never cried," he said softly. And then he thought of his father and all the other men he knew, hiding their faces behind crude, ugly jests. He was remembering how good it felt to be drunk, to be able to use alcohol for an excuse to vent the fear and anger that men, because they were men, were never allowed to express when they were sober. Somehow it saddened him for his sex, and for the world. "Okay," he said at last. "Okay, Doctor, you've won. This time. Just make me relax. Make the dreams stop—and maybe the other things, too?"
  She nodded. "We will just try to relax. If you would just lie on the couch, now. Just to relax, we will start. . ."
"Lucas."
  It was a familiar voice, coming from very far away. He felt as if he were being pulled—no, impelled—to rise up
  
51
from a very long distance. Like Alice reversing in the rabbit's hole.
  He yawned and blinked. Marian Lescault's handsome face floated above him. It smiled, exposing a row of gold-capped teeth. Slowly, she became twins, than triplet Marians, smiling, then simply one Marian Lescault, a human being, kneeling on the floor beside the couch.
"How do you feel?" she asked softly.
  Luke stopped for a second to check himself out. He smiled. "I feel great!" he exclaimed in surprise. And it was true. The tiredness had dropped away from his body and his mind was sharp, reacting, clear, as if a gauze veiling had been removed. "I feel like I've been through mental plastic surgery," he said.
  She smiled. "Good." Very slowly, she stood up, as if the movement in her joints pained her. He lay on the couch blinking. "God," he said, more in praise than profanity, "I feel so serene ... so peaceful." He pushed himself up on his elbows and looked around the room. "Jes like bein' born stoned," he quoted from some forgotten source. "Even the sun seems brighter. What did you do?"
  Dr. Lescault pushed a button on a tape recorder he had noticed before. "We talked ... and you gave me a most interesting demonstration of your abilities."
"How?" Luke demanded.
  Dr. Lescault did not look at him. "Well, they were mostly pretty incredible ... you transported several small objects from one place to another in the room, and told me several things about my past that you couldn't possibly have known about. I took the liberty of recording our conversations." She patted the recorder.
"Could I—" Luke began.
  Dr. Lescault shook her head. "Not right now. We're still working, Lucas. You don't mind if I call you Lucas, do you? You were calling me Marian."
  "Not at all, Marian," Luke laughed. "See, my conscious is calling you Marian, too."
The woman smiled. "I gave you the post-hypnotic sug-

52
gestion that, while you would not suppress your fears and anxieties, you would not allow them to best you, either. This treatment has sometimes been effective with people who have readjustment problems, be it divorce, terminal illness or a radical change in lifestyle." She smiled. "Frankly, Lucas, I think the best thing for you would be to go back to work as soon as possible. You need work to fill your time and release your energies in an outward, productive direction." She held out her hands, spreading her fingers. "And I hope you will continue to see me. With patience, perhaps we can work together to make the transitions less painful."

Four
  Luke went to see Marian for two hours each day, usually early in the morning. They began to develop a ritual or sorts, at first sitting on the carpet drinking her thick, creamy coffee, talking abstractly of his childhood on the eastern shore, of his sister's marriage and children, of his father and mother, of his fears. Sometimes, Luke felt weird, for he was not much used to talking of himself, and even in his writing had long ago trained himself to have the journalist's cold eye for experience.
  They talked of Diana, of the adjustments she was struggling with, of the changes they were both undergoing. Once or twice, Diana went with him, resentfully at first, for she was jealous of Marian Lescault, and then with a gradual enthusiasm, though grudging, that seemed to help them to co-exist. He rather enjoyed seeing Diana sitting on the rug in her jeans, talking to Marian with all of her intensity, spilling out the fears and anxieties that she couldn't admit even to him.
  He took it slowly, once describing it as learning to walk all over again, this period of readjustment. The dreams of
53

54
that strange place were rarer now, and when they did come, he was able to pull away from them before the hooded figures converged on Diana.
  But the hypnosis was a shared secret between Marian Lescault and Luke Payne. And even Luke was never quite sure what went on. Indeed, he perferred not to think of it, for it disturbed him. He trusted Marian Lescault with her small, contained gestures and her lively humor. And he simply didn't want to think about it. After spending years of his life struggling against the superstition and provinciality of his rural beginnings, he simply pushed it all away from himself. Rationality had enabled him to survive a season in hell; having long ago given up God, he had no plans of ever sacrificing what he considered to be his foothold of sanity.
  Normalcy, he began to discover, is whatever environment one is placed in for any length of time. And gradually, normalcy became living on Greene Street with Diana, slipping back into the old world he had left.
But it had changed.
   Luke was surprised to find that his old friends seemed to see him in the role of returning hero. Even Dawson, with whom he had drunk too many nights under the table, fought too many editorial battles, and who he knew better than any other man alive, seemed to look askance at him. There was something subtle in the way power had changed Jim. He seemed older, more burdened with cares, and disturbingly more conservative than he had been when he was simply managing editor of his uncle's magazine, Newsmakers.
  The old days when Jim and Luke could laugh and kid each other about their relationship to Citizen Kane's Welles and Cotten seemed to be over. In the three weeks since his return, Luke had several times proposed a night on the town with Jim, and several times he'd been put off with excuses. Too busy. At the same time, Luke's agent was gently nudging him to take up one of the many offers for a book about his POW experiences.
   
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Something he was doing right now.
  "... fifty thousand up front, and they'll give you all the time you need," Gerry Harris was saying.
  Very slowly, Luke pulled his gaze away from Diana's exquisitely bare back draped in pink crepe and looked at the little red-faced man.
  "Uh-huh," he said. "Well, look, let me think about it, will you, Gerry? I may have forgotten how to type."
  Harris frowned, rattling the ice in his glass. He looked around the sumptuous apartment. "Dawson really takes this movement thing seriously, doesn't he?" the agent said bluntly. "This party's supposed to be for you and all these people are his friends from that crazy cult."
  Luke took a deep swallow from his scotch. In the old days, Jim had lived in a cheesy walk-up in the Village. The only time the apartment was clean would have been the two hours after the cleaning lady left on Tuesdays and Jim would breeze in from the magazine, throwing off his clothes, flipping on the music, making some phone calls, pulling out books, records, papers, leaving them where he set them down to go on to the next thing.
  This apartment, like this party, was cold and sterile. Everything was immaculately white, very chic and obviously decorated by someone who had expensive tastes. A uniformed maid circulated among the guests with a tray of drinks, and a butler-houseboy stood behind the bar, faint amusement on his face.
  And except for the handful of people that Luke and Diana had invited, there were a lot of strange faces. In the old days, you might have run into practically anyone from Mick Jagger to the mailroom boy's cousin at one of Jim's parties. But this one was definitely out of the money drawer. All money everywhere you looked. And it made Luke uncomfortable. People tended to walk up to him, mutter a few words about what a hero he was and slide away, as if he were made of ice. And though the party was supposed to introduce him to the movement, he was damned if he liked it at all.
   
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  Diana of course knew these people; they were members of the movement together. But she, too was uncomfortable, he could tell, watching the rigidity of her spine as she strained to make conversation with the sister-in-law of an ex-president.
  Luke suddenly had an urge to leave and get a plate of cheap spaghetti in Little Italy.
  He turned to say something to Harris, but his agent had already drifted into a conversation with a film producer. Another stranger. Taking the remains of his drink, he strolled out to the balcony, reminding himself that this Park Avenue glass and steel highrise at least had a nice view of the city.
  A young woman, rather tall and thin, stood at the edge of the railing, looking out over urban lights. As she heard Luke approach she turned to him. She was the color of coffee and cream, an exquisite blending of several races— African, Caucasian, Amerindian. Her black, curly hair was cut close to her small head, her enormous green eyes were rimmed in kohl, her eyebrows plucked thin to the point of non-existence. But the smile she gave him was genuine.
"Maya Perez," he said.
"Lucas Payne," she replied.
  Neither one knew what to say to the other for a while. Luke looked down over the sparkling, infinitely tiny lights of the cityscape.
  "I just saw your last picture," Luke finally ventured. "You were very good."
  She shuffled her thin frame awkwardly, as if praise embarrassed her. "I used to follow your articles in Newsmakers. I'm glad you're home."
  She offered a slender hand. "How do you do? My name is Maya Perez. I'm an actress. And I've always wanted to tell you how much I appreciated your work."
  Luke shook her hand solemnly. "My name is Luke Payne. I'm a journalist. The first time I saw you, you had a walk-on part in an off-Broadway play. I've
   
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been following your career ever since . . . with a regrettable interruption these last five years."
  She laughed, richly. "Maybe we should autograph each other's hands, huh?" She took a deep hit off the joint in her hand and offered Luke a toke. "I never know what to say to people I've always wanted to meet when I meet them."
  Luke, laughing, refused the joint. "Can't do it. At least not right now. Gives me a bad head."
  She threw the butt over the balcony and laughed. "That's okay. It just makes me eat and get fat. And David hates it when I gain weight. So does the camera. That's the trouble with film. You gain five pounds and you photograph twenty pounds heavier."
  They stood silently for a while, and Luke realized that she was too stoned. And very angry about something. Suddenly, a large tear trickled down the corner of her eye, trailing a line of mascara. "Do you have a handkerchief?" she asked.
  Luke handed her a cocktail napkin. She dabbed carefully around her eye make-up. "Dammit. Here I am trying to make a good impression on you and I'm crying my eyes out," she said, strangely matter-of-fact.
  "Since we seem to have established a mutual admiration society, maybe you'd like to tell me what it's all about," Luke ventured.
  "David," she said shortly. "It's all about David. My husband?" She gestured to the air.
  "I've been out of circulation. Not be be insulting, but have I missed something in the gossip columns about Hollywood and New York's most talented actress?"
  She managed a smile. "Oh. I'm sorry." She turned and pointed into the room. "Can you pick the tall blonde guy out of the crowd? The one with the bowling shirt? Very chi chi, huh? That's David, David Holt, the rock singer, and my husband."
"David Holt?" Luke asked. He spotted the man in

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question, who was indeed very tall, very thin and wearing a Watney's bowling shirt.
  "I'm going to sound very crazy, since I don't even know you," Luke remarked, trying to sound cheerful. "But you married David Holt from the Gothic?"
  She nodded. "The very same. And right now, I wish I'd turned tail and run the first time I saw him." She glared into the room, tapping her fingers against the balcony rail. "I don't know if it's him or me. But he's changed. When we were first going together, he never really cared about money, about all these—I'm sorry if they're your friends—beautiful rich, empty people. He was happy hanging around with plain folks. He was real. And where I moved around, there aren't that many real people. Everyone's always trying to get a little piece out of you, or talking about playing Hamlet when they wouldn't know how to act their way through a bad Hong Kong quickie. But David was real, and he'd struggled like I'd struggled, and we both worked very hard at what we were doing, and we believed we were decent people. We returned phone calls, we talked to people. Do you think I forget that I was raised about a mile from here in the Barrio? That I'm Puerto Rican and proud of it? And he was proud that his father worked in a factory ... oh, I'm sorry. Look, I shouldn't be boring you with my problems. It's just that ever since his manager died, he's been getting more and more—well, into this Ancient Peace Movement." She sighed. "I don't know. He's just different, that's all. Strange. He's not the same guy any more, and I—it all gives me the creeps. I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole."
  "Luke! Honey, I wanted you to meet some people." Diana stepped into the darkness. As she caught sight of Maya Perez, her expression changed slightly. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said a bit too thickly. "I didn't know you were . . ."
"Diana, this is Maya Perez," Luke said quickly.
Diana loosened. "Hello. I'm sorry. I hope you didn't

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think I meant you . . . you're really an incredible actress. Luke and I used to watch the worst shows on TV just to see you do a bit."
  Maya smiled. "Thanks. And believe me, doing some of that stuff was even worse than looking at it." She studied Diana for a second. "Wait, I know who you are, we met at a party at Kawalski's ... you're D. Donofrio."
  Diana nodded. "Artist and spy upon Lucas Payne. You wanna trade? I'd rather have David Holt any time."
  Maya laughed. "No, thank you. He may not be a hero, but at least he's mine .. ."
  Luke stood wondering about undercurrents between the two women. They seemed to be sizing each other up, and yet...
  "There you are, Luke." Dawson, slightly flushed with his own liquor appeared in the door. "Look, I want you to meet David Holt. I want to get you back to work for Newsmakers as soon as I can, before you start writing some book, and I lose you forever. David's the biggest thing in music right now, and I want you to do a cover feature on him . . ." Dawson smiled triumphantly. "I've got this idea that I think will sell magazines ... and make you editor-in-chief of Newsmakers. I want you to do a series of interviews with people in the movement—people who have been influencing lots of people." Dawson patted David's shoulder. David smiled thinly.
  "This lad has been turning on his fans to the potential of the true serenity that comes from the Ancient Peace Movement. He's not only making millions of people happy with his songs, he's bringing them spiritual peace. And there's Abu-an Sarid, the oil shiek, who's brought his spiritual followers to the inner peace—"
  Dawson, Luke realized suddenly, had been drinking too much of his own brew. He was drunk. Both Diana and David Holt were looking at him with something akin to anger on their faces.
 - "Jim," Holt said evenly in his thick British accent, "I don't think Symrna would approve of your telling tales
 
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out of school, m'boy." He smiled apologetically at Luke. "Sorry about that, but you see how it is, right?"
  "I've explained to Luke that certain inner workings of the movement aren't for everyone," Diana said sharply.
  Holt nodded. His thin smile played over his lips. "Anyway, you'll meet Symrna tonight. And she'll explain it all to you. I understand she's quite interested in you."
  Dawson looked sulky. "Didn't mean anything, after all. But you've gotta admit that this would be a great thing."
  "We'll let Symrna decide that," Diana said quietly. There was a note of tension in her voice.
"Let Symrna decide what?"
  Everyone turned, and the gathering was suddenly still. "Symrna," Dawson said slowly, his face darkening.
  "Hello, all," she said, the words sliding off her tongue. She walked among the group, stopping to plant a kiss on the cheek of each of her followers. Luke Payne studied her as she completed her rounds.
  He saw a woman of regal carriage, whose dark mane and violet eyes enhanced her commanding presence. As she walked, the folds of her purple gown folded and gathered to alternately reveal and conceal a voluptuous figure. On her hand precious stones flashed as she stroked the cat perched serenely on her shoulder.
  Luke's eyes were held on the cat, a fat grey predator with hungry yellow eyes. The animal was a hostile creature, obscenely fat, like a furry blanc mange. The answer was obvious. Symrna was its mistress, and a powerful, demanding ruler.
  As he looked up Symrna's gaze stopped his own. Her cordial smile had disappeared, replaced by a firm resolute gaze that stiffened her face to a harsh, cold mask. The cat hissed at Lucas from its eyelevel perch.
  Luke started at the sound, and when he looked again to Symrna she smiled indulgently, leaving Lucas with a feeling of unease. Diana had come near, and Symrna turned to her. "You are very strong tonight, my dear. I can feel your power."
   
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  Diana was pleased. "Thank you," she replied. She took Luke's hand in her own. "This is my friend, Lucas Payne. Luke, this is Symrna." Her violet eyes were expressionless.
  "How do you do," murmured Symrna, "I've heard much about you."
  "And I of you," Luke said guardedly. He shook the long, firm-fleshed hand that was held out to him. It was cold like something dead.
  "Good." This seemed to satisfy her. "I hope you will attend one of our meetings soon. I should very much like to investigate your sources."
  "My news sources?" Luke laughed. " 'Fraid I don't have any. I've been out of circulation for five years."
  "Not your news sources," she made a gesture, as if to say that anyone could have news sources. "Your sources. You have much ... power." The slight emphasis she placed on the word was vaguely esoteric. And it flew over Luke's head.
  "I don't understand," he said. "What is a source of power?" She looked at him. "Ah, that is something you and I will discuss sometime." She turned back to the group. "I can only stay for a minute. I have much to do. The house I bought in Pennsylvania seems to require constant attention. All old houses are so ... so difficult to keep up. But, my dear Diana, it is you I wish to talk to. I have decided that no one else will do but you. My drawingroom shall become the meditation room. And it must have murals. Your murals."
  Diana smiled, obviously flattered. "Oh, but of course, I understand ... but me?" she asked.
  Symrna nodded. "Can you take the month of June for me?"
"Well, I—"
  "Never mind. We shall discuss it later, at greater length.
  "All right, Symrna. I really don't know what to say. Your offer is very flattering."
Symrna smiled her thin smile. "Of course my dear. But

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you shall see. Indeed, you shall see." She looked to Luke. "And I hope to see more of you."
  With a swish of silk, she turned and disappeared into the crowd. Diana heaved a sigh. "She likes you Luke!"
"You're very lucky," David Holt remarked.
  Luke looked about. They were all staring at him, their eyes suddenly as predatory and calculating as the obese grey cat's.
  He took a slug from his scotch. One by one, they turned away, with sounds like rustling wind.
  
Five
  The dream reappeared that night, with brutal intensity. As the acolytes were about to sacrifice Diana, one of them turned. It was Symrna. She was grinning horribly, flesh pulled back from her lips, like a skull.
  He didn't like the woman, and had less faith in her ability. And yet, she seemed to have swept his friends into her power. Dawson talked freely of the way she had cured his arthritis simply by laying her hands against his back. Diana believed that her own success was due to Symrna's divine intervention.
  Dr. Lescault was more cynical. "These things only prove that the woman is very popular with bored people. She gives them a focus for their anxieties, a Christ-figure to believe in. And she is canny. She sees the chance to perhaps make a little money by her strong personality. It's a very interesting phenomenon."
  Luke nodded, vaguely disturbed. "But I don't like her. And I wish Diana wouldn't hang around her. Everything has been 'Symrna says,' lately. That's rather frightening."
Dr. Lescault nodded. "But you see, Diana is still adrift.
63

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She's still trying to find the real mother she lost so long ago. Symrna is merely a substitute."
  And Diana herself: "Symrna studied in India for years with yogis. She spent six months in a Tibetan monastary, and the head lama told her there was nothing more he could teach her."
"But where does she get her money?" Luke asked.
  Diana shrugged. "I think she married a wealthy old man at some point, and he left his fortune to her. He believed that she was holy. And she is holy. Can't you tell, Luke?"
  "I don't like her," he replied doggedly. "There's something not right about her."
  Diana looked down at her plate. They had been eating dinner, listening to music. "But you don't understand. All you ever talk about is Dr. Lescault. And you're always in the house. When are you going to get back to work?" She pushed her plate away. "Symrna says—"
  "Symrna says!" Luke exploded. "Symrna says! Jesus H. Christ! I'm sick and tired of what she says!"
  He slammed out of the loft and walked through the dark narrow streets of lower Manhattan until after midnight. His mind was turning and returning. Why didn't he like Symrna? After all, Diana was having problems adjusting to him too.
   He'd changed, been through a lot of things. And she had changed, too. They'd been apart. She was moving forward and he wasn't. Every time he asked Dawson for work, he was put off for just a while longer. The whole situation was unsatisfying. He knew it was up to him to do something about it.
  When he looked up from his reverie, he was standing at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. The darkness was cut by the lights of the cars as they travelled like so many ants into the bowels of Brooklyn. He lit a cigarette. Maybe the best thing was simply to forget it. Work up a resume and get a job on the Maryland paper he'd started out with. Just forget this whole thing...
   
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  It wasn't that easy to give up. He had to keep trying with Diana. He could get her to go with him. A change of scene would help them both . . . The anger cleared from his mind, like a storm cloud parting. Slowly, he began to walk under the bridge, down the dark, deserted corridors between empty building and rubble-covered lots.
  Broken windows stared at him like blind eyes. He tossed his butt and lit a second cigarette, turning over the problem in his mind.
  If they just went away for a week or so, rented a car and drove upstate, maybe they could patch things up, start over ...
  It was so dark that he could barely see his hand in front of his face. Here and there, a rat scuttled out from a pile of garbage, foraging for the night's meal. He walked toward the river, hoping that watching the water flow by would clear up his mind. "Diana," he would say, "I was wrong. I haven't given Symrna a chance. Or you, or anyone ... look, we've got too much going for us to let anyone else come between us—"
  It happened so suddenly that he was barely aware of the weight against his back. The glitter of steel knife flashed under his throat, an arm jerked his head back.
  The too familiar, foul stench of an unwashed body pressed against his, pulling his weight backwards, so he was helpless.
  "Gimme you money, man," a voice said huskily. The point of the knife slashed at his throat.
  Luke felt the irony of the situation. Here he was, being jumped in an alley.
  "Gimme the money, man." Fingers searched his pockets, seeking his wallet. With a sulking feeling he remembered that it was home on the bureau. The knife dug into his throat. A junkie, hysterical, looking for money. And mean. Is this the way it ends? he asked himself.
  "Where you money?" the voice rasped. "You don' got no money, I gonna cut you face, you moth'focker."
The unseen mugger had taken too much time. In a

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quick, snakelike movement, Luke reached up and jerked downward on his assailant's knife hand, trying to loosen his grip. The man held tight to his weapon. Luke rolled forward, pitching the attacker into a row of half-filled garbage cans. The jarring noise echoed through empty streets.
  Now they faced one another. Luke could sense fear rising in the throat of the short, swarthy man with the six-inch blade. Silently he cursed his failure to dislodge the knife, even as he thanked his stars for his martial arts training while on the beat in Da Nang.
  The man lunged to his left. Luke followed the movement and caught it, but inactivity had slowed his reactions, and he was thrown off-balance. The stocky man slipped from his grasp and turned, thrusting the cold blade at Luke's belly, missing by inches.
  Luke moved swiftly, shooting his left arm toward the man for a lightning fast blow which sent the knife clattering to the ground. Before his dismayed opponent could regain position, Luke was on his feet with the knife. He lunged to stab his opponent's chest.
  But not fast enough. His prey recovered in time to grab Luke's hand. They began a deadly slow-motion struggle for life and death. Locked together, the two watched the knife as its path swung slowly toward Luke's throat. He was losing, his strength ebbing away. The point bit into his windpipe and yet he held on, but he was fading, fading ...
  Suddenly he felt the scar on his forehead grow hot, and the trickle of blood from his neck awakened his senses.
  No! I won't! Rage kindled in him like a flame. Not a victim!
  In his being, ancient memory stirred; something asleep for centuries, dreamed of lost battles and awoke. Luke felt the taste of first blood one more time. Something awaking after eons, and, was moving instinctively.
  Fire! Suddenly the image appeared before him. Fury burned inside him. His blood raced madly, and he felt a
   
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fantastic sensation engulf his body; a searing heat that threatened to consume him.
  The knife no longer dug into his throat. And his shirt was burning. He broke free to pull off his flaming garment. The buttons ripped away from the cloth as he tore the flaming cloth off his back, casting it aside, gasping' in pain.
And then he saw.
  The mugger lay crumpled on the ground. He was writhing in agony as fire bit, into his flesh. Luke stared open-mouthed, hearing as the man screamed in agony. Great orange and yellow tongues of flame shot up from the twisting body, illuminating the dark street. Clothing was eaten away from flesh, flesh from muscle, muscle from bone, and the air filled with the thickly rancid stench of burning flesh.
  The man was no longer screaming. The fire tore into Ms organs, sizzling against blood and water, leaping higher and higher in a purifying blaze. It burned with a bluish light that was not real, yet left real results. Horribly real.
  As suddenly as it had flared, the fire died down. Part of Luke's horrified mind was seeing it over and over again; feeling the incredible heat, smelling the horrid fumes.
  The light died away, flickering here and there, as it found yet another morsel to consume. The blackened, charred mess was no longer recognizably human. It was simply a lump of debris, glowing red, filling the air with rancid smoke.
  Luke backed away, breathing heavily. It had all happened in but a few seconds. His back was seared, his throat trickling droplets of blood. Yet he was alive.
  "My God," he breathed. "My God." And then he was sick, vomiting wretchedly against the cold brick wall of a building. As he retreated from the hideous scene, he realized that he felt utterly spent. And slowly, another realization dawned on him: Whatever it was it had finally broken through.
   
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  After a long, long time, Luke stopped shaking. The thin white scar on his forehead was still warm against the coldness of his scalp as he walked slowly west. Spontaneous incineration, he thought. Some adrenal force, a tremendous rush and, whammo! One dead junkie. I wonder how I did it.
  He rolled a cigarette as he dodged the cars and trucks rolling through the dimness of Canal Street. Inhaling the thick smoke gratefully, he began to feel calm. There was no sense to it, and yet he had seen it work. Against someone who was trying to kill him. But what triggered it? And how? Was it his acceptance of his will to survive? He felt suddenly more able, and more confident. As if some-part of him had been restored. He vainly felt good, though at the same time he was not anxious to see more of this new—Luke's mouth twisted grimly—talent. That's what it was, a talent. Quite definitely a talent. He flexed his fingers. He felt a sense of peace within himself, tinged with guilt—he had killed a man. He had fought back. He touched the bloody bruise at his throat. It was either kill or be killed. There had never been a more clear-cut situation. He had killed men before, in war, and the city was like a war ... a jungle full of enemies.
  He started to turn up Greene Street, then stopped. Diana would be upset when she saw the blood; she would want to call the police. And this was no matter for the police. But his wounds needed dressing.
  He searched his pockets for change, found a quarter. There was a phone booth at the corner of the street. He dropped the coin into the slot and dialed the number of the only person he thought he could trust.
  She was home. Her clear, precise voice spoke into the receiver on the fourth ring. "Hello?"
  "Marian," Luke said quite calmly. "It's Lucas. I've come out," he laughed at his own joke. "And I'm in trouble. Can you come and pick me up? I can't go home. I can't explain, but I'm at Canal and Greene and I don't have any money."
   
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  "Stay there," she commanded. "I'll get a cab and be right down. Are you all right?"
"Just a little scratched up, that's all," Luke replied,
  A few seconds passed in silence. "All right. I'll be there as soon as I can."
  They hung up. Luke was aware that he looked like a bum, with his face dirty and his shirt bearing a huge scorched hole in the back. He leaned against a building and looked up at the murky New York sky, the color of faded denim. Whatever happened next did not matter. At this point he was glad to just be alive.
  When a big yellow cab finally drew up to the curb revealing Marian's placid, ageless face, he felt vastly relieved. She opened the door quickly, beckoning him in.
  As he half-crawled into the cab, he saw the driver's face screw up in disgust, and Luke smile to himself.
  "You sure you wanna pick up this bum, lady?" he heard the man say.
  "Absolutely," Marian replied tightly. "Lucas, are you all—my God, you're bleeding!" She searched in her bag for Kleenex.
  "Takes all kinds," the driver muttered to himself as he gunned the engine and snaked the cab out into traffic.
  Luke had a strange moment where he almost told the dude to watch it or he'd be a charbroiled steak, but he repressed it swiftly, turning to Marian Lescault.
  "It happened," he said, and quickly related the scene, without directly mentioning his new-found ... talent. Her face was troubled as she dabbed at his neck with the Kleenex. "I was afraid of that," she said quietly. "Well, the important thing right now is how to treat you. You need a bandage, and I think you should call Diana to tell her that you're with me. We'll go to my house."
  "But why?" Luke asked. "You know, you must know. What did I do? And why did I do it? How?" He threw himself back against the seat. "I've got to know."
She shook her head. "1 don't know yet. But I suppose

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we shall have to find out, won't we? The important thing is your condition . . ." Her face was dark with trouble.
  Bathed and dressed in a white cotton robe, Luke drank the hot Viennese coffee and began to pull himself together. Dr. Lescault's apartment was like her office: Warm and secure. He liked it. It felt right and good to him. But Dr. Lescault was visibly hiding her agitation.
  "Just like that? The man went up in flames?" she asked.
  Luke nodded. "It was like something inside Mm had set fire to him. Spontaneous combustion. Hell, maybe it wasn't even my fault . . ."
  "You mustn't think of it as your fault, Luke," she said quietly. "You have , . . well, very special powers. And you must allow yourself tune to learn to control them."
  "But how?" he demanded. "How do I control them, when I don't even know what the hell they are?"
  Dr. Lescault shook her head. "You must learn. It will be like learning to walk, perhaps. And it won't be easy ... but you must do it." She stood up and stalked to the window. Suddenly she turned; Pointing her finger, she frowned and concentrated. A small cloisone vase on the table slowly moved upwards about two inches, held suspended and then fell. It cracked against the marble into a thousand pieces.
  "Jesus," Luke said. A week ago, he would not have believed his own eyes. Yet the vase moved.
  "You see?" she said quietly. "You are not alone. But that is the extent of my powers. It seems to run in my family. And we've always guarded the secret very carefully. As a child, I was forbidden to do it. It was dangerous, we were Jews, was that not bad enough in. Hitler's Germany?" She shook her head slowly. "Only once in a great while can I do that. And then I am drained for a week. Exhausted. You understand. There are others in the world who have the same abilities. Mind over matter,
   
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so to speak. Some of them have been tested by scientists. Some of them are proclaimed saints of the Church. But always, it is a secret. This is not an age of witch burning, but neither is it an age for such things to be uncovered or used by the public. Although I understand the Russians are very interested in things like that. . ." She rubbed her hand over her forehead. "Do you see now, why I am worried?" Her eyes burned into his. "Even for one second, that is about the best I can do. Lift small objects, by sheer force of mind, of will. But you Lucas. My power is like a bb shot compared to an atom bomb. And you are the atom bomb."
  "And this is the Manhattan Project," Luke said bitterly. "But why?"
  "I do not know. But you must learn to develop, to control your power. Shakespeare said, you know, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' "
  Luke was silent. "I don't want it," he said at last. "I don't want to believe it, and I don't want to do it."
  "Ah, but it is very very old. Merlin, Appolonius, Faust—these men made use of that power. And they call them magicians." She shook her head. "They were not scorcerers, but telepaths, people with a special talent. Like you and I. And who knows how many other people? Ah, Lucas, if you could but learn to work with this, to control it, then you would perhaps be able to do all the world a vast good."
  Luke was about to reply when the sharp sound of the door buzzer cut across the conversation.
  "That will be Diana, come to take her prodigal home," Marian predicted, rising from the floor.
  She was entirely correct. Flushed and wildeyed, the artist burst into the room. "Luke!" she exclaimed. "Are you all right? I'm so sorry, Luke, it's all my fault. If I hadn't picked a fight, you wouldn't have gotten mugged and..." She bent over him, her red coat swirling, pulling him into


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her embrace. Luke put his arms about her and comforted her.
"I'm okay, it's all right." And he knew he was lying.
  "C'mon. I'll take you home." She straightened up, looking at him. "God, I'll never forgive myself. Symrna said this would happen."
  Marian Lescault jerked as if she had been hit. Luke wondered why.
But he knew the world had gone mad.
  They walked down Central Park West together, savouring the deceptive calm of the June evening. Diana, her hands jammed into her coat pockets, looked down at the ground. Luke walked silently, occupied with his own thoughts.
  "This isn't working, Luke," Diana said at last. He glanced up. They were at the corner of Fifty-ninth Street where it crosses the park. A cool breeze was gently swirling around them lifting bits of debris into the air—as Marian had lifted the vase from the table.
Luke shuddered.
  "Anyway, I think that maybe we'd better separate—at least for awhile." The wind blew her hair across her face. "I've decided to take Symrna up on her offer and go to her country house."
  "But—" Luke began and then stopped. They crossed the street, under the curious eyes of a bored doorman.
  Diana gestured. "Look, you're having problems and I'm having problems, and we need money. Symrna's offering me a fantastic sum of money just to do a few murals. And it would only be for a couple of months. Maybe after a while you could come down and be with me ... y'know? I'm sure Symrna wouldn't mind."
  Suddenly Luke put his arms around Diana. "Look," he said tightly, searching her dark eyes. "I wish you wouldn't go. Let's just get the hell out of here. I'll get an advance on the book and we can go to Colorado, or Oregon or someplace far away from all this madness. You can paint
   
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and I'll write and we'll just lay back and get mellow. Maybe there's something left we can salvage, maybe we both just need to quit listening to other people and breathe. Diana, I want you. I need you very badly. And you need me, you know you do. We've got something going that . . ."
  "Luke," she said slowly. Hope lit her face. "Oh, let's go, let's- do it! Just get out get away and keep running. There's something wrong, and I don't know what's happen—"
  "Di-ana!" They jerked apart guiltily. A tall thin man with an enormous dog was walking towards them. He was dark haired and handsome, his bones too delicate for a man. His dark shirt and pants were french-tailored and expensive, molded tightly to his body. As he approached them, he smiled, exposing a row of too-white, too-perfect teeth. "And Lucas. The returning hero. Whatever are you doing in this neighborhood?" he asked.
    "Hullo,  Kawalski,"  Luke  replied  tonelessly.   "Come
 from a party."	
  "How divine!" the artist said. The large dog sniffed at Luke's legs and growled. His master brought up short on the leash with a cruel jerk. The dog whined and lay down.
  His eyes studied them with interest.  "My, my. You never know who you're going to run into on the street, do you? I was just saying to Symrna the other day that it's so strange how one can just be walking along and run into     the oddest people . . ."
  Diana was rigid. Her hand found Luke's and squeezed it tightly. Kawalski leaned over and kissed her lightly on the cheek. He gave Luke a severe look. "It's a great shame you had to come back, Payne," he said slowly and deliberately. "In your absence, I ... did a great deal to help her career. Didn't I, dear?"
"Yes," Diana said softly.
  Kawalski smiled again. As he looked at Luke hate slit-tered in the blue depths of his eyes. And Luke realized how much he in turn disliked the snake-like Kawalski! He
  
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had beaten the man out for Diana, and had never been forgiven, Kawalski, the socialite artist had always surrounded himself with the artist's models and actors who could never quite make it. Kawalski seemed to take pleasure in playing these weak and pathetic people against one another. There was something magnetic about the man, Luke suddenly realized, something powerful and dangerous and evil. He wondered why he had never noticed it before, always considered him rather a vicious, but harmless man.
  Kawalski smiled at Diana. "Symrna and I were just talking about you. As a matter of fact—" he gestured towards Central Park South, "—I just came from her place. She was talking about how much she wanted you to do some murals for her this summer." He leaned close. "You know, Symrna has lots of friends. And all her friends buy paintings. Great collectors. Janistelli is a good friend of hers. Isn't it his gallery you're supposed to show in, my dear? This could be a leap forward in your career. Why I am positively jealous!"
  "Yes," Diana said flatly, "but I'm wondering if I should go. After all, Luke and I were just talking about how easy it would be for both of us to get away this summer, go somewhere."
Kawalski's eyes narrowed. "Oh, and throw away your career?" He looked at Luke. His eyes were very light blue, almost hypnotic. "I'm sure you wouldn't want Diana to throw away this great chance for success. Would you, Mr. Payne? You know how important her career is to her." Luke was fighting back an urge to level the man. No, he wanted to say. No, I don't. She'll make it on her own. She doesn't need you or your people. Instead, he answered, "No, I don't want her to throw away her career."
  Kawalski smiled. "Anyway, I hear Dawson has big plans for you. He wants a big media spread on the five most important people in our culture. And he wants you to do it. And I know how distracting Diana can be . . ." the words snapped off like the lash of a whip.
   
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  Luke felt paralyzed, drained, tired. Diana was speaking: "Yes, yes. I will do Symrna's murals."
  "Divine, my dear! Simply divine. Listen, I'm motoring down tomorrow afternoon. Would you like to come with me? We'll be bringing Symrna home in state so to speak. She's so tired of the city. Shall I pick you up, my dear? Just throw a few brushes in a suitcase and come. It will be such fun."
"Yes," Diana said listlessly.
  Kawalski's eyes hooded. His long thin hand twirled on the dog's leash. "Wonderful, darling. I'll pick you up at noon. Now don't be late. We'll have such fun. Backgammon and the country life!" He kissed Diana full on the lips. She closed her eyes.
"Kawalski?"
  Luke turned to see a thin, waiflike creature that might have been male or female, with an aureole of pale blonde hair, standing at the edge of the curb. It (he or she?) was wearing a thin Indian cotton shirt and white pants, shivering in the cold. "I've found you a cab. Can we go home now?" the creature asked timidly.
  Kawalski turned slightly. "In a minute!" he snapped. Turning back to Diana, his smile was narrow.
  "But the cab won't wait . . ." the creature said pathetically.
  Kawalski turned his head. "Make it wait, you silly little bitch!" he snarled.
  The creature stared at him as if tears were about to well up in her eyes. Slowly, she turned the corner, and disappeared. Kawalski shrugged. "What can you do? Some can take it and some can't," he laughed nastily. "See you tomorrow? Oh, we will have so much fun."
  He kissed Diana once again, and looked at Luke. "You really should watch those conflagrations, old man," he said smoothly over his shoulder.
Luke repressed his anger.
  "I'm sorry," Diana said to the air. "Oh, Luke, I've got to go."
   
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He sighed, and they started to walk again.
  She was shivering in her thin red jacket. He put his arm about her, disturbed and still angry. "Who was that girl?"
"That was Frannie Harrington," she said slowly.
  "Frannie Harrington? She's a feminist writer. She once ran for a city council seat."
  "She didn't look like she could run for the cab, how . . ."
  Diana shrugged. "She fell in love with Kawalski, I guess. She follows him around like a dog now."
  "I don't understand how anyone could sink so low," Luke said.
  Diana shrugged. "Just sort of burned out. She'll do anything to be with him, and he treats her like a slave ... like a piece of—" she gestured at the street.
  "Do you really want to go?" Luke asked desperately. "We can get away." He felt the fool. She stopped, turning brown eyes on him. "I have no choice," she said sadly.
"Of course you do," he snapped. "
  "Luke, don't ask me to make it Not that way, to choose between you and my work. We promised that would never happen."
He remembered and was silent.
  That night, a second hooded figure was revealed in the terrible dream. Kawalski's snakelike handsome face looked up at him and laughed mockingly.
  Anger and fear fought in his mind. Lying awake in the darkness, he watched Diana's even breathing. I am going mad, he thought. I am going mad and there is nothing to stop me. Believing that I can burn people up, that Marian Lescault can levitate things ... that Kawalski is some sort, of evil Svengalf . . . that Di is in terrible danger and torments mock me in my dreams . ..
   I am going mad. And the craziest thing is that I know, deep in my being, where reason lurks, that I am perfectly sane.
   
Six
He slept late. And he had dreams.
  But they were good dreams. He dreamt that he wandered tired and exhausted in the wilderness, and there was a fountain. He drank deeply from that fountain, falling on his knees, cupping the water in his hands. The water was good and pure and nourishing.
  When he awoke, the sun shone bright across the polished floor. Sleepily he glanced at the clock. It was after one.
  Slowly, he got up, knowing she was gone and he was alone. He looked for a note, but there was none. Perhaps she felt there was nothing to say.
  He made coffee, and sat in the great easy chair in the middle of the floor, drinking slowly. She was a big girl. She was twenty-six years old. She was tough and independent, and she would be all right. He closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair. She would be all right. When she got tired of all this mumbo jumbo, she would come home. Only when he ran his hands over his bristle and felt the bandage, did he remember last night's events.
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   He considered. Suppose that it were real, that he did have this—power.
   Suppose that? It was not outside the realm of possibility.
   Stranger things had been known to happen. He thought of Charles Fort, that odd little man in the Bronx who had taken great delight in chronicling all the things that science could not explain, and therefore chose to ignore. Rains of blood, of frogs or stones, on obscure villages. He remembered as a cynical young reporter in the Time-Life bureau, covering a poltergeist in New Jersey. A perfectly normal family, terrified by strange objects whizzing about hi the house, thrown by invisible hands. Things that disappeared and turned up later in strange places, with absolutely no reason or human agency for being there. He thought of the Burmuda Triangle. UFOs. Things did happen that no one could explain.
   So why not to him? He sipped at his coffee, lit his last cigarette.
   He remembered a professor in college, a philosophy teacher, telling his class, "Chaos is simply a "higher order than we can comprehend with our puny mortal minds." Spinoza's theory of the universe.
   Man in his arrogance was no further from the caves of his ancestors than he had been a million years ago. Mysticism persists in many forms. Yoga mystics who could slow down their heartbeats to the point of catalepsy. Faith healers who could really work miracles. His thoughts rolled over him like a propaganda speech. But it added up.
   He picked up the phone, dialed Dr. Lescault's number. It rang twice, then clicked. He listened. "Hello, this is Marian Lescault. I am not in the office, but if you will leave your name and number I will call you back as soon as I tan." A recording. He gave his name, asked her to call and hung up. He felt better. Too little knowledge and too closed a mind is a dangerous thing, he thought.
He got up and took a long, hot shower. He would find

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a way to get Diana back. He'd learn, slowly, how to use his powers. And if need be, he would use them to get Diana back.
  The hot water, as hot water will do, suddenly ran cold. Annoyed, he turned off the faucets, shivering. Then it occurred to him, just for fun, what if I . . . he looked at the towel hanging on the rack, a good five feet away.
"Come here, towel."
  It did not budge. He felt foolish, stopped himself short, reminded himself of the lecture he had just administered, and concentrated. The white scar felt warm. Very slowly, the green terrycloth towel swayed on the bar. He pushed with his mind. It rose a few inches from the rack, fell back. He pushed a little harder. The towel rose again, almost three feet from the rack.
  "Wow." He was impressed. The towel crumpled to the floor.
  He had broken his concentration, blocked off his mind. Very gently, and with great effort, he stared at the towel. It rose again, moved across the bathroom very slowly towards him, its ends dragging wetly along the tiles, as if it were being carried.
  He pushed his mind harder, willing the towel towards him. And it came, dropping in a pile at his feet as if exhausted by its journey.
  He picked up the towel and looked at it with a sense of wonder. Five hundred years ago, I could have been burned at the stake for that, he thought. He was exhausted, as if some of his life essence had drained out of his body. Slowly, he dried himself off and dressed.
  The world was a strange place indeed. He looked at his shoe, lying on the floor where he had tossed it, tried to concentrate, but it was no good. His energy was spent. And it was giving him a headache.
  "Enough for one day," he thought. He was beginning to feel like a child with a new toy. A new toy that could beat anything those mock mystics like Symrna could put
   
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out with whatever cheap spiel she was running ... he laughed and it felt good.
  He was still feeling good when the phone rang. Marian, he thought. That must be Marian.
  He picked up the phone. "Luke, m'lad." It was Daw-son.
Luke felt inexplicably cold. "Yeah, Jim," he replied.
  Dawson laughed. "Listen, lad. Do you remember David Holt?"
  For some reason, Luke thought of Maya Perez, dark and beautiful, and angry. He tried to pull his mind away, to her husband the thin blonde musician in his bowling-shirt rock-star chic. "Uh-huh," he said carefully.
  "Right," Dawson replied. "Now what I want you to do is interview him tonight at the concert. I've got backstage passes. You just sit tight. I'm sending it all down by messenger. Heard Di left for the country today."
"Yeah," Luke said resentfully.
  "Good. Best thing for her in the world. Lots of rest and relaxation down there. That's where I'm going tonight. Taking a little break m'self. Holt's coming down tomorrow. Really clear out the old spiritual centers, you understand. I want you to get an hour or so on tape with him. I'm sending down some press kits and a couple of his latest releases. Look 'em over this afternoon, then show up at the Garden tonight, ready to go. Should be quite a show."
  "Yeah, I guess so," Luke said. "Just the usual stuff? Lots of human interest and so forth?"
  "That's right." Dawson's voice dropped a note. "Look, I want a nice piece on this kid. He's doing a lot for "the Movement, and I want to give that a good spread."
  Luke held the receiver, stunned. Never before had Dawson asked him to do a puff piece. To slant an article in any way as a favor would be sacrilege. In fact, Dawson used to get on his case because he felt that Luke was at times too kind to his subjects.
   
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  "Luke?" Dawson's voice filtered through the receiver. "Are you there?"
  "Yeah. But Jim, a puff piece. What are you doing? Turning Newsmakers into a teeny fanzine?"
  Dawson laughed nervously. "Be easy on my ulcer, Luke, and don't give me any fits, okay?" He spoke to someone in the background for a second. "Look, I want a whole series. Abu's next, Lady Ellen Major—"
"Who?"
   "She's ... a Detroit heiress. Just made a deal with the „ Russians for tankers. Incredible woman. And last, Symrna. The way I look at it, we're all going to be together down at Symrna's place in Pennsylvania, so you can come down and do the whole thing, ending up with a fantastic piece on Symrna."
  "David Holt, Abu, Lady Ellen, Major, Symrna," Dawson said, "and I think, modestly, that it would be good to do a piece on me, too. Communications, you see. Holt, in addition to being a major rock and roller inherited his uncle's food-chain corporation. Wants to feed the hungry of the world, spiritually and physically. Lady Ellen, since she's been with Symrna, has devoted a lot of her time to making sure that there can be cheap and efficient transport of goods as well as people. Abu—well, I don't have to tell you that the rich old Arab's got the whole energy market cornered ... the man's covered in oil wells and he's expanding into nuclear power. Why, without Symrna's enlightened guidance, we might just be another money-rich bunch of bored millionaires." Dawson laughed. "Symrna's a goddess, she's not mortal."
"She's a fraud."
  "Now, Luke, just because she's not ready to accept you into the organization, that's no reason to get all nasty," Dawson said thickly. "It takes time."
  "Yeah. More than I've got. You rich people can play with it all you want to."
  "Ah, well, then. Listen, I've been meaning to talk with you about something else. The position of Editor in Chief
   
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is open, Luke. Not just for my magazines, but for my publishing house, too. You could ran the whole show." Dawson's voice was seductive. "The whole show, boy. What you say, literally thousands of people will read in at least fifteen languages. You'd be the best known writer anywhere. Look, we've been friends for a long time, Luke. Do this as a favor to me and in the fall, you can start out at one-fifty a year—that's with three more zeroes ... a lot of money just for a few editorial decisions."
  For a few minutes, Luke turned it over in his mind. Editorship. Power. Unlimited power. A chance to give a lot of young writers a chance to do something besides write hack work, wait on tables. A chance to revive fiction, to improve the condition of the world by informing all of its people about events everywhere. A Pulitzer Prize ...Nobel...
  It was too much at once. "Okay, Jim," he said. "Let me think on it, okay?"
  "That's reasonable," Dawson said, relieved. "The messenger will be down in about an hour. Oh, and Luke, I hope your burns are better."
"Thanks," Luke said thoughtlessly. As he hung up the phone he collapsed back into the chair. Lucas Payne, Nobel prize winner. Lucas Payne, at the top of the magazine heap. He knew he could do it. Not to have to worry about money, to be able to write what he wanted to write—to even start that novel. Send his sister's kids through college, marry Diana. "God," he said quietly.
  The high of the power fantasy began to rapidly deflate. He stared at his feet, wondering. Just one prostitution, just one puff job and he could be on top of the world. It was an incredible offer. Almost an offer that was too good.
  And it stank. It stank of corruption and dishonesty and decay. To propagate the faith of one woman, a sham, a charlatan who was making a lot of money from some cheap spiritualistic pseudo religion . . .
  
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  But for what rewards? He had written hack pieces before, when he was still struggling as a reporter and needed the money. He needed that work desperately then, just to eat. Did he need it now? There was a fifty thousand dollar advance on a book about his Viet Nam experiences.
  He made a decision. Quickly, he picked up the phone and dialed his agent.
"Hiya, Luke," Gerry's breezy voice said.
  "Gerry," Luke said. "When can I start that Viet Nam book?"
  There was a long silence. Luke could almost see the short Irishman sucking on his lower teeth.
  "Uh, listen, Lucas," lie said slowly. "I don't think it will seal. Maybe you could do it in paper, get you five off the bat, four and six royalties . . ."
  "Look, you told me Saturday night that three different publishers were hot for that book. That I would get fifty just on a word of mouth, no outline . . ." Luke said unbelievingly.
  "Well, uh, Viet Nam isn't selling, people are tired of it. They don't want to hear about it. People just want to have a good time. Now if you wanted to write a book about this big alligator that terrorizes a whole town full of people in the Everglades, you know, I could get you on that with movie rights. Very big in multijep right now. If you were a woman novelist and angry and sexy, I could make a good deal for you too. But Nam? No, no one wants to read about it. I guess I just miscalculated, that's all."
  "I see," Luke lied. He replaced the phone in the cradle. He felt trapped and helpless. Paranoid.
  He wondered briefly and half mischievously, if he could use his new-found toy—for that was how he thought of it—to convince some publisher to pick up on the book. "Naw," he said aloud.
  He tried Marian Lescault's number again. No answer. He dialed her home. Nobody there.
  
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  And then he simply sat and stared at the dusty floor, missing Diana very much.
  He turned the names over and over in his mind like a nursery rhyme. David Holt. Jim Dawson. Abu Al-Ahmid. Lady Ellen Major ... and Symrna. Sort of an inner circle, that hideous hawklike woman. Something stirred in the back of his mind, but he could tack nothing to it.
  He sighed, discouraged and puzzled. It wasn't quite right, somehow. Puff jobs on millionaires. Millionaires! They were all millionaires ... like drones buzzing around Symrna. It would almost be worth running a check on Symrna .. . possibly questioning David Holt in the course of an interview. If he knew his rock-and-roll stars, he knew that Holt was undoubtedly more than willing to propagandize for this particular guru.
  He picked up the phone, dialed Marian Lescault again. The same thing. Funny how anxious you could get. . . He tried some deep breathing. It seemed to relax him somewhat.
  Almost out of boredom, he looked at the bed. He focused both eyes on the white unmade sheets, pushing for the loose topsheet to rise. It did nothing. His glance fell on a small clock on the nightstand. He focused on it, concentrating very hard.
  It may have been his imagination, but he thought that it wobbled slightly, but it could have been his imagination. He tried more deep breathing, drawing the air into his lungs very slowly, pushing it out even more slowly. He tried to focus all his attention on the small clock.
  Very slowly, almost resentfully, it shifted about, moved toward him across the wooden stand about a quarter of an inch.
  He was about to attempt to move the hands about the face when the doorbell rang three sharp buzzes.
  The messenger, he thought, pushing himself out of the chair. He pressed the return buzzer and opened the security door on the elevator. The ancient machine heaved and creaked its way up through the floors, protesting at
   
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every landing. Luke leaned against the wall and watched it warily.
  With a final protesting groan, the elevator opened. Luke had been expecting some ancient half wrecked derelict with a smeared brown paper envelope. Instead, as the doors parted, a smartly dressed woman with a lioness' streaked blonde hair stepped off.
"Package, sir?" she asked, handed him the envelope.
  Luke took it from her hands. She stepped out into the room, looking curiously about.
  "Very quaint," she remarked. "Jimmy told me that loft living was something else entirely, but this is too precious for words. Love that exposed brick. Do you have a match, darling?"
  Luke simply stared at her. She raised one plucked eyebrow. "You are Luke Payne aren't you?" she asked.
  He nodded, rumbling for a match, lit her cigarette. She inhaled deeply, looking him over through deep green eyes. "I just had to come and see you. It's not every day that a good looking war hero comes along ..." she smiled slightly, haughtily, as if the whole experience was amusing. "I'm Lady Ellen Major."
  "Major Motors," Luke said. Suddenly he felt calmer. Rich ladies playing games, he thought. "Although why they insist on calling you Lady is beyond me."
  She laughed in a burst of smoke. "Touche and point," she said. "You're absolutely right. Fm no lady—something my last two husbands never failed to ignore. Which is why they're both previous. I'm in the market again and ... well, I heard through the grapevine that you were available."
Luke smiled. "Hardly. Besides, I'm not your type."
  She crossed the room and sat gracefully in the chair he had just vacated. Crossing her long, deeply tanned legs, she smiled. "Oh? And why not?"
  "I don't play polo or dance. And I don't like women to give me expensive presents," Luke replied.
She thought about this for a second, her head cocked

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to one side. "I see," she said, nodding as she pondered her next move. "Do you think I could have a drink? A double vodka, with a twist, if you have it."
  "Sure," Luke said. "That much I can give you." He crossed to the kitchen, and poured himself a large scotch in the bargain.
  "You're very sexy, though. I thought you'd look rather academic. The grey temples add a touch of interest."
  "Yes. And you have nice legs, Lady Ellen. May I call you Lady Ellen?"
  "Lady Ellen, my friends say. Like Mary Jane," she accepted the glass, draining off a good portion of it. "Well, when Jim told me there was a package to be dropped off, I just couldn't resist. I've always been a sucker for heroes."
"I'm no hero," Luke said drily.
  "Oh. Well, that's the word all over town. You're a hero, kid, and there's not much you can do about it."
  "Um," Luke muttered. He took a hit from his scotch. It tasted good.
  " 'So,' I says to myself, as they say in Detroit, 'I think I'll bop on down and have a look at this guy ...' you know?"
  "Sort of," Luke replied. She shifted in the chair so the sun caught her hair.
  "Mmmmm. Very nice. Diana certainly threw a good thing away when she left you for Kawalski."
  Luke felt as if an ice cold hand were pounding his heart. "What do you mean?" he asked slowly.
  The green eyes narrowed; a small satisfied smile played around the corners of the wide mouth. "I guess everyone but you knows that Diana's been seeing Kawalski for about a year now. And they say the wife is always the last to know . . ." she laughed deeply. "I was always the first to know. Wanna fix me another?" She handed him her glass.
  Luke got up and refilled it. "How do you know that Diana and Kawalski aren't just friends."
   
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  She smirked. Slowly she pulled herself out of the chair and walked across the space toward him. "No woman is just friends with Kawalski, you dig? So, I said to myself, 'Lady, you deserve a little revenge ...' on Kawalski. You see, I was rather interested in him myself." She touched Luke's cheek very lightly with one long red fingernail.
  Her perfect face was close to his, upturned, eyes half closed, lips parted with a small, bitter smile. "You see, don't you?" she said casually.
  Her arms snaked around his shoulders, pulling him towards her. The smell of her perfume was intoxicating; it was French salons, winter nights, summers on the Med, and something else, something more female than he had ever known before.
  He kissed her, pressing his lips into hers, inhaling deeply of her essence. Just one kiss, long and deep, to remember for all time . ..
  She parted from him gently, but not too far. Her eyes flickered. "Mmmm," she smiled. "Why don't we do it in the road?"
  Luke pushed her away, reluctantly. "I don't believe you," he said.
  She frowned slightly, like a spoiled child denied its pleasure. "You don't believe me. Everybody in New York is talking about it, dearie. Mmmm, I love the smell of clean shirts and maleness." She burrowed her face against his chest, moving her body against his.
  "Look, uh, Ellen . . ." Luke said. He was sweating. "I don't think this is too cool."
  "Sure you do. You're just too uptight to admit it. C'mon sailor . . ." She was breathing hard. Her chest rose and fell against the fabric of her suit.
  Luke gave her a gentle slap against the seat of her skirt. "Why don't you clean up your act, huh?" he asked.
  She regarded him for a moment. Then realizing that he was serious, she pouted. "Can't have everything, can you?" she muttered. Her hands went to her hair. "Where can I fix myself up?"
   
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  Luke pointed to the bathroom. While she was gone he glanced over the goods in the envelope. Holt was definitely a very hot property to someone. And on top of it, there was a sort of piquancy about a rock-and-roller becoming the heir to a food chain. It was just a little too much ... but his father left it to him. What could you do? Doubtless he was surrounded by minions who made the really important decisions. Holt had an MBA from the London School of Economics, too. That showed some sort of promise... but for what?
  Lady Ellen emerged from the bathroom. She slung her heavy leather pocketbook over one shoulder. "Well, dear, I suppose well meet again. I do wish you'd believe me though ... I like making it with heroes."
  "Don't fall in the elevator shaft. It's a long way down," Luke said shortly.
  "Okay. Have it your way, sailor," she said as the doors closed about her.
   
Seven
Something woke her in the night.
  Diana lay quite still in the narrow bed, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, half listening to the sounds of the enormous house.
  The small room she had been assigned was in the west wing of the old house, an upstairs section used mostly by , weekend guests. Symrna had put her there rather than in a larger room in the east wing where the others were quartered with an airy, "Oh, so much more privacy over there, and artists do need their privacy."
  Diana, like many artists, a most communal being when not directly working, felt that indeed she did need her privacy, even while being vaguely aware that she was being manipulated to make room for what she thought of as the inner circle.
  Kawalski had a room there, as well as Dawson. Lady Ellen Major, Dave Holt . .. the inner circle, as it were. The hard core. She tried to allow these thoughts to entertain her, lull her back to sleep, but they did not. They
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were like small children, wakened from a sound sleep and unwilling to go back to sleep.
  So, the woman lay awake in the dark and listened to the sounds that she tried to tell herself all old houses made. Floorboards creaked, houses settled on their foundations, bats lived in attics and ... oh hell, what was the use.
  She sat up in bed, looking out the window. A sour yellow moon cast a dimming haze over the lawn beneath her window.
  Distractedly, Diana pushed a hand through her tousled hair and reached on the nighttable for one last cigarette. The original enthusiasm she had brought to this project of murals was beginning to wane. She lit her cigarette and inhaled deeply, frowning as she stared at nothingness. In fact, the whole damn thing was beginning to fade on her like a waning moon. Mythos, a god who had promised everything that bad old Christian-Judeo deity of her childhood had withheld seemed very small in the darkness of night.
  The rituals were silly, she thought. Obscure as a mass in Latin, they lacked somehow that familiar comfort religion had offered when she was a child.
  Diana leaned back against the headboard thinking. It all seemed such mumbo-jumbo, in retrospect, this business of lying about half clothed on an altar while Symrna and the rest of them muttered some arcane garbage, always promising that soon they would teach her the true meaning of this and that.
  She had sought out the spider god as a different way, a way of finding self-fulfillment. For a while she believed that she had found that fufilhnent in belonging to something, but it was only an illusion. An illusion! It splashed over her like cold water, and she knew that just as soon as she finished those murals she would be back in the city, gradually and politely bowing out of the organization.
  She thought of Luke and hugged herself gently. Just as soon as she got the whole thing finished she'd go back. By
   
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then he would have had the time to readjust himself to civvy life, and she would be able to ... well, it would be easier. And she did love him, she now knew.
  She dragged on her cigarette again, wishing she had brought a radio, a record player, maybe some tapes, just to have a little company in this godforsaken place.
  Looking out at the yellowing lawn, she thought briefly of how much fun it would be to take a walk in her nightgown, running over that smooth grass in her bare feet. Leaning out of the open window she contented herself with smoking her cigarette and watching the night instead, hoping something would happen.
  Far off in the woods, an owl hooted, skimming over the meadow, looking for mice.
  Otherwise it Was deadly still. Nothing was moving, everything seemed to her artist's mind to be laminated in plastic, like a paperweight. A rather nasty paperweight at that. Like one you could buy on the boardwalk in Atlantic City.
  She proped herself up with her elbows, supporting her chin in her hands. The sky was a grey, brackish color, without a star in sight.
  As she watched, rather curiously, she began to realize that someone else had had her idea, for she saw a figure emerging from the dark shadows about the shrubbery of the house.
  A second, smaller shadow followed. The cat! Symrna , was up and about rather late for a woman who professed to like to rise early.
  She too wore a ceremonial hooded cloak, Diana thought idly, as the woman emerged from shadow and crossed the lawn.
  There was an awkward lump about her cloak that distorted her body. She walked slowly, as if carrying a great weight. As Diana watched, Symrna stopped in the middle of the green and bent over. As the woman stepped back, Diana saw that she had been carrying the small black statue of the god, Mythos.
   
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  As she set it down tenderly, backing away, Diana watched as the others, easily distinguishable in their cloaks emerged from the shadows.
  Joining hands they moved slowly about the statue in a counterclockwise circle, mumbling a chant.
  Diana was very still, an unwilling witness to the next step of this new ritual.
  They began to move faster and faster, turning grotesquely in their cloaks, chanting ever faster. Diana strained to hear the words, but could not catch even the barest syllables, only a ripple of sound.
  She sifted herself gently, keeping in the shadows of the night. And then froze, cold.
  The small hairs in the back of her neck seemed to stiffen as she listened and was able to distinguish that which she heard.
  Over and over again, the hooded figures were bowing to their obscene god, chanting a single word.
"Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill."
  Faster and faster they swirled, until they were like blurs of horses on a merry-go-round, and the word had lost all meaning.
  Diana's hands clutched at the window frame. She felt sick and dizzy, unbelieving, as she watched the small black statue.
  It was moving, growing, life sucking into the lifeless stone, the long hairy spider arms growing, the terrible mandibles sucking for air, the legs pumping up and down in a life rhythm.
  She felt as if she were going to faint. Her hands loosened their grip on the window sill, her body tumbled back on the bed. And while she lay there, sweating desperately, she listened to the wild cries on the lawn, dun shrieks, of passion and ecstasy.
  "We live again! Through Mythos, we live again! Smote this, our enemy and provide us with the life!" It howled like the wind.
   
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  She began to float off into an unwilling sleep of uneasy dreams.
  But the last thought she had was to get out. And even as she lay powerless against the sheets, the terrible sounds fading into oblivion, she knew that there was no one to trust, and she was playing a very deep game indeed. If only she could call Luke ... but there were no phones.
  The flickering fire of strobe lights played over the audience. Thousands of people rose to their feet as one, screaming, cheering, applauding.
  The noise was deafening, the sound of overhead thunder. Luke, leaning against a disused set, watched with a journalist's eye as David Holt propelled his lean body across the stage, swinging the mike cord tantalizing just over the heads in the front row. Hands went up towards him as if he were a savior, and Luke could see the red open mouths, the hysterical screaming as Holt nimbly danced away from the edge of the stage, back against the wall. The sequins on his jumpsuit glittered in the lights. He grinned, his feet hardly stopping to touch ground as he went through a song.
  The band behind him was more subdued. They were musicians; Holt was a performer.
  And the audience was eating out of the palm of his hand. The more he pranced and roared, postured and gestured, the more they screamed for him.
  The lead guitarist went into a long and complex solo. Holt danced his way behind the amps, into the wings.
  "Whatya think?" he called to Luke. A stagehand gave him a can of beer. He slugged half of it down, in two gulps. The singer was dripping with sweat. His hair clung to his skull, his clothes pressed against his long thin body, darkened and straining against the muscle.
"Good," Luke said. "They really dig you."
  Holt nodded, grinning. "It's the best high in the world, you know?" A girl handed him a towel, and the singer
   
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wiped his face and shoulders. He looked around. "Where's Maya?" he asked.
"She split. She'll be back," someone told him.
  David Holt nodded. "That's Maya," he muttered. "Look, you wanna come out on the stage? You can stand behind the amps. It's a little noisy there but what the hell, you can really dig the act..."
  The guitarist ended with a long wailing chord, and before Luke could answer, Holt was off again, dancing across the stage. The crowd rose again to its feet, shrieking in mass frenzy as Holt came across the stage and lashed into a song.
"Lots of fun, huh?" Maya said.
  Luke turned to look at her. She was wearing dark slacks and a sweater. Long silver earrings, dangled from her lobes.
  She was drinking soda from a can. With a smile, she handed it to Luke. He sipped a bit of it. The coldness felt good.
  She leaned against the amplifier, looking out into the crowd. "This is something. A really big house. Big houses are hard to play," she said, as if she were discussing a performance of Shakespeare. "But Dave can bring it off." There was a certain pride in her voice that he had not heard before.
"It's a good show."
  "It should be. They work pretty hard getting it all together," she said softly. "One more encore and then we can go and eat."
  "Good. I'm starving," Luke said. "I must say, though, this is damn good."
  "You better believe it. If there's one thing my man can do, it's rock on."
  She spoke with fierce pride, Luke noticed, the possessive love of a tigress. Her man. David Holt belonged to her and no one was going to alter that fact. He wondered how she fared against the groupies that clustered about
   
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superstars like Holt. Watching her firm, determined profile, he was sure that she brooked no interference.
  "This is the last encore," Maya shouted above the noise. "When they come off, you get ready to run—and hold on tight to that tape recorder."
  Luke touched the machine briefly, nodding. The drummer flipped out with a long solo, then the bass guitarist threw in a chord. David Holt eased off the stage like Nijinsky, seeming to float down to earth again.
  "Thank you!" His voice echoed in the giant speakers about the Garden. The stage shook as the audience rose to its feet, roaring for more. Holt threw out his arms in a strange Christ-like gesture, a kiss of love, and dashed for the wings.
  Maya handed him a coat. "C'mon," she said briefly, and the three of them hustled through the catacombs beneath the Garden. Overhead the roar of the crowd shook the floors, thundered against the cement like a wall of sound. Luke thought he would go deaf; that surely the walls would cave in, but the noise seemed to disturb neither Holt nor Maya. They were almost running, like fugitives, Holt blotting at the torrents of sweat that poured away from his body with the jacket. He was breathing hard, excited and nervous as a horse that has just won a race. Indeed, Luke thought, there was something rather equine about the man, with his long face and sinewy body.
  A car was waiting for them, a long, low Mercedes with darkened windows. It sat in the tunnel, engine running, a young man in a tee-shirt poised to open the door, another at the wheel.
  "Break it!" Maya shouted. They looked back. Twenty-five, perhaps thirty girls were thundering down on them from yet another tunnel. For a second, Luke knew v/hat true panic was. A Dionysian panic, of being ripped apart by people who could love you or what you represented, too much. Orpheus, torn apart by his fan club. He stopped, watching as fate bore down on him.
   
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  Maya grabbed his arm, breaking the spell. "Jesus, come on," she muttered pushing him into the cab. "Ya wanna get killed or something?"
  They piled into the back seat one on top of the other. The roadie slammed the door, and barely made it into the front seat before fans were all over the car. Luke looked out the window, watching a young woman pounding against the glass an inch from his face. She might have been pretty were her face not contorted into a monstrosity of hate.
  "I hope you die, you motherfucker!" she screamed at Luke, beating her fists against the glass. He noted without feeling that the sides of her palms were bloody with the force of her blows.
  The car streaked through the dark tunnel, out onto the streets of New York and reality. Luke checked his tape recorder almost automatically. Someday he would be able to summon up that scene, those bloody fists, pounding against the glass. But not for a long time.
  "Some day," Holt said very quietly, leaning back against the seat. "Someday, somewhere, sometime, someone will kill me on that stage. They will stand up and shoot me." He closed his eyes, breathing heavily.
Maya clutched his hand tightly, her dark eyes narrow.
Luke wondered what she was thinking.
  It was nearly one in the morning by the time they sat down to dinner, lukewarm food on a room service cart in an expensive hotel that should have done better.
   First, Holt had to have a shower, then a massage, tenderly administered by Maya as Luke sat by the bed, talking with them. People of al sorts drifted in and out of the room; Maya and David more or less ignored them unless they were what they called friends. Members of the band, Maya's friends, the manager of the group. While he was being rubbed down, Holt drank huge glasses of water, gasping like a drowning man. Once or twice he apologized distantly to Luke.
"It takes a lot out of you. They want your soul and you

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have to give it to them. Or your whole show is a bust, no good. They can tell when it's bad."
  When the food cart finally arrived, they all threw themselves on it as if they had not eaten in years. Holt ate a great thick steak, blood rare and oozing with juice. Luke watched in fascination as the long sharp teeth tore into the meat. He washed everything down with lots of beer.
  Having accumulated most of Holt's views on music and performing, Luke subtly turned the conversation to the food business.
  Holt bit off an enormous chunk of steak, tilted the can against his lips. He leaned forward. "Well. I don't like it generally known, you see. It's bad for my career. I try to ask people to play it down. But I'm working very hard at the business. You know, my uncle always wanted me to go into it and all, but I wasn't much interested. For all I cared, he could take the whole damn capitalistic business and shove it." He gestured with a fork. "But then I came into it, like it or not, and there you have it. I suddenly realized that I was not going to get any younger. And you only have a certain life expectancy in the pop business. Look at the Stones. They've been on the charts for about ten years now, and they're ... well, it won't last forever. So, it's something to fall back into. Food. Everyone needs it. I just had one of m'men make a good deal with the Russians for grain. Buy it up from the American farmers in the west, then sell it to Russia. Symrna, she advised me to do it." He smiled. "I'll clear a fortune on that one alone. And there's lots more."
  Maya laid her "fork against the side of her plate. "You said that food was going to Africa," she said flatly. "You told me when you inherited, that you were going to use it to help people. That there were millions of people starving to death in Africa and Asia and you were going to do at least one human thing in your life; you were going to practice what you preached and feed those people. Find a way of cutting out the middle man and distributing that
   
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grain, the way you distribute records. Right to the people ..."
  Holt gave her a long look. Slowly he smiled. And it was not a pleasant smile. "That was before I met Symrna. She turned me on to the idea that strong people survive, and weak people—well, they just have to take what they can get. Besides, don't you see? If they get hungry enough there'll be revolution, and aren't you always screaming about revolution?"
  "Through social change!" Maya said. "Through social change! What do you mean, anyway, survival of the fittest? What the hell kind of talk is that?"
  Holt lifted one eyebrow and looked at his wife. "Why don't you go back to Hollywood and be the cheap little starlet you really are?" he asked her.
  Luke reached under the table and pressed the "off" switch on the tape recorder. Slowly he got to his feet. He wanted to hear about Symrna, not a fight between a man and his wife.
  Maya pushed him down into the chair. "No, Luke. I want you see what the great all liberal idol of all those idealistic kids is really like. A fascist!" She snarled.
  Holt abruptly pushed the table away from himself, overturning it. Silver dishes scattered across the floor. He lifted his hand, face contorted with fury and brought it down against Maya's cheek.
  The sharp sound of flesh against flesh. Maya reeled back in her chair. Then slowly, and with great deliberation, she rose from the chair, picked up a silver platter, and hurled it at Holt. It clipped him on the side of the head, leaving a long gash. Standing up majestically, she loosed a torrent of gutter Spanish.
  Holt held his hand against the gash on his forehead, his face livid as he looked at his wife. Luke didn't know what to say. Maybe they did this all the time.
  Slowly Holt's hands dropped to his sides. Luke noted curiously that while the gash in Holt's forehead was deep, it did not bleed.
   
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  "Symrna is the closest thing to God this world will ever see,
   "She is perfect, and she speaks the truth. The strongest will survive, and weakest will be trampled underfoot That is the way of the world, Maya, and you'd better get used to it ... money," he almost caressed the word. "Money is the only thing that survives. Money can buy anything I want it to buy, including you."
   Maya turned. "Money may be just great for you— you've always had it, David. Had everything you ever wanted, including your lousy British class system that ensures you'll have everything you ever wanted. You're not the man I married. This Symrna has changed you into a living monster, a bloody Frankenstein monster. All you care about is those horrible people that hang around that predatory woman. What the hell do you all do over there and your lousy meetings? Count your goddam money and figure out ways to make more? You make me sick. And the one thing you can't buy is me, baby. I'm not for sale. I've never sold out for my work and I'll never sell out, even if I still love you."
  Holt smiled thinly. "You may love me all you want to, my dear, but as far as I'm concerned, it's over. Your petty little political ideas have been getting on my nerves for a long time ..."
  "Which matters more to you, David ..." Maya asked slowly. Her hands were like claws, opening and closing against her fists. "Which means more to you ... me or money?"
   "Power, my dear. Power means more to me than anything." He turned to Luke, who stood by embarrassed and shocked. "I hope you will excuse this. You have just witnessed the final breakup of a marriage that's been on the rocks for quite a while. I always like to have a witness." He took a deep draught off his beer, and tossed the can into the wreckage of the dinner. Walking across the room, he picked up the phone. "3-0-9." He looked at Maya. "Yeah. Jerry? I want the car. I'm leaving for
   
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Pennsylvania tonight." He frowned. "Don't argue with me. Just bring the car around. Right now, goddam it. What do you think I pay you for?" He slammed the phone back into the cradle. "Could I give you a ride somewhere, Payne?"
  Luke shook his head, shifted his tape recorder under Ms arm. "No, no. I'll just take the train."
  He exited swiftly, into the street. At the 53rd Street station, he stopped at the newsstand to buy a paper. It was not untill he was on the tram that he glanced at the headlines.
  The News had, of course done it up in their usual screaming 72 points.
LADY DOC SLAIN BY MYSTERY KILLER
  The Times carried it on the front page, but they were considerably more sedate. And it was bad. Luke sat in the empty train, staring at the newsprint as he hurtled through the darkness toward Canal Street.
 PROMINENT PSYCHIATRIST FOUND DEAD IN HOME; POLICE SUSPECT HOMICIDE
  Luke read the News first. His hands were shaking so badly that he could barely focus on the printed page.
Dr. Marian Lescault, prominent New York psychiatrist, was found dead today in her Upper West Side home. A secretary made the discovery at eleven this evening after the doctor failed to respond to several calls. Mrs. Margaret Ashford, police said, became worried after several attempts to locate Dr. Lescault, known for her pioneer work in psychosis in concentration camp victims, proved useless. The woman became worried, according to police, after the doctor failed to keep appointments with several patients. Eventually she persuaded her husband to drive her from their home in Queens, and with the assistance of

Rites of the Demon  .	101
the doorman, forced an entry to Dr. Lescaulfs residence. Mrs. Ashford and the doorman, John X. Dunn, discovered Dr. Lescault's body draped across a chair. According to Detective Richard Rigotti, summoned to the scene, the doctor had been severely burned. There was no evidence of forced entry, but there was evidence of a violent struggle, according to Detective Rigotti. Further reports will be made pending police investigation and a coroner's report. "This is one of the worst murders I've ever seen," Rigotti said. "The expression on the doctor's face was one of what I can only describe as genuine terror. This death matches the death of a derelict investigated last week."
  Dr. Marian Lescault studied with Rank. During most of World War II, she was incarcerated at Auschwitz. She came to this country in 1947 and established the Lang-ford Clinic for the treatment of autistic children . . . her husband, Arnold Lescault, a prominent Viennese surgeon did not survive Auschwitz, She had no children . . .
  The paper crumpled out of Luke's hands. He stared at his reflection in the window of the train. He did not know what to think.
But the white scar burned sharply.
  ".. . matches the death of a derelict investigated last week." The words thundered in his ears. Disbelief and shock echoed through his mind. "Oh, no," he said quietly.
  As Luke was putting his key into the lock, a small dark man in a rumpled business suit approached him. Luke looked at him warily.
"You Lucas Payne?" he asked.
  Luke nodded. The small dark man pulled a shield. "Lt. Rigotti. NYPD. Homicide."
  Luke felt a sinking in his stomach. He leaned against the door. "Look, officer, it's been a hard night ... what can I do for you?"
  Rigotti pulled an unfiltered cigarette from his pocket. "You got a light? My feet are killing me. I've been hanging out here for two hours. Nobody's seen you come or go."
   
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  Luke produced a book of matches from his pocket and handed them to Rigotti. "I've been out on assignment," he said shortly.
  Rigotti signed. He held up one foot under the streetlight. "You know how you tell a cop?" he asked.
  Luke, who knew the joke very well, nodded. Rigotti sighed. "Cheap black shoes," he said. "You can always tell 'em by their cheap black shoes."
  He snickered at his own joke, pulled on his cigarette. "So you're a big hero, huh?"
  Luke shook his head. "No. No big hero. Just a survivor, that's all. I'm just a survivor."
  The cop nodded. "Lots of artists live down here, huh? They buy up these old lofts and fix 'em all up to live in."
  "That's right," Luke said. He lit a cigarette, too. "Fix 'em all up and live in 'em. They need a lot of room to paint."
  "But you're not an artist." Rigotti seemed to feel he had made a point.
  Luke smiled, shaking his head. "Uh-uh. But my girlfriend is."
"Yah. Diana Donofrio. Nice Italian girl."
"A very nice Italian girl," Luke said formally.
"She's not here?"
  "She's gone to the country," wishing she were with him now.
  Rigotti nodded as if it were all clear. He glanced at the crumpled papers under Luke's arm. "So you read all about it."
  "Rigotti ..." Luke said slowly, and then it dawned on him.
"You're investigating—" Luke began.
  "Right. Mind if we step inside? I'd like to ask a few questions."
"I think we can talk here," Luke answered.
  "Have your way. I don't have a warrant. So, you were one of Marian Lescault's patients." -
"That's right," Luke said.

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  "And you—you're a little shaky? Having some trouble adjusting to be being back?"
"Some readjustment problems. Yeah," Luke answered.
"And you, when you last saw Dr. Lescault?"
"A couple of nights ago."   .
"What was that all about?"
  "I'd had a problem. I was .. . mugged," Luke said slowly.
  Rigotti shook his head. "Big problem down here with crime."
  "Yeah," Luke answered shortly. "Look, whatya want to know?"
  Rigotti sighed. "You visit Dr. Lescault a lot?" he asked.
  Luke shook his head. "About a month. That was the first time I'd had to have an emergency appointment."
  "Uh-huh," Rigotti said wisely. "You get pretty freaky over there?"
  "It was bad, yeah. Real bad. But some guys went through worse."
  "You get kinda crazy, huh? Maybe crazy enough to kill your doctor?"
"What?" Luke asked, cold.
"I say, you get crazy enough to kill your doctor?"
  "Good God, no!" Luke said. The funny thing about telling the truth, he reflected, is that it always sounds like you're telling a lie.
  "Strange thing, you know," Rigotti said. "A couple days ago, we had this junkie—a real bum, a record as long as the arm on a giraffe, see? And we found him, down under the Brooklyn Bridge, where all those deserted old houses are, burned so bad, we didn't know who he was until we matched a print on a knife found next to the body. Looked like somebody'd poured gas on him and set him on fire. But the funny thing about fire is, that it spreads. Not this one. Nothing burned except that guy. And there was lot of junk and stuff down there. A lot of garbage. Stuff that would burn, you know, if somebody
   
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poured gas on a junkie and set fire to Mm. Kids do stuff like that. Don't ask me why, I just find 'em out. When I can. This one's real weird. The thing is, Dr. Lescault— real nice lady, she never hurt anybody, had some hard times herself—lived in a nice building, good security, Upper West Side ... she's like this bum. Burned to a crisp. No mark on anything else. But she's done to a crisp. You tell me what it all means."
  Luke felt sick. "I don't know what you mean," he said. That's crazy. I don't understand. If somebody got in there and robbed her whatever, I mean, how can you burn a body and not set fire to a whole apartment?"
  Rigotti shrugged. "I dunno, but there's gotta be some explanation. I thought maybe you would have it."
  Luke forced a smile. "Search me," he said. "I never did know much about chemistry. Look," he said seriously. "This woman was working with me, and I really cared a lot about her. She was helping me. Why should you ask me? Doesn't she have other patients?"
  Rigotti sighed. "It was you she took an interest in," he said. "The secretary said she made a lot of tapes on you. That you were very hush-hush. And that those tapes are gone."
"Gone?" Luke asked, feeling cold.
  "Yeah, gone. Although nobody's been in the office all day, the tapes were gone. I figure she took 'em somewhere and then somebody took 'em. And there could only be one person interested in those tapes ..."
"Me," Luke said thickly.
  "Right. So you see where the evidence points, don't you?"
  Luke nodded, feeling sick. "But I was away all night. About fifty people can tell you I was covering the Holt concert... why would anyone want those tapes?"
  "Nobody but you .. . unless there was something really good on them, y'know?"
"Like?" Luke asked.
"Like something you didn't want anyone else to know.

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Or something about you someone didn't want anyone else to know.. . and I'd like to know what the hell it was."
  "I have no idea. I was under hypnosis at the time," Luke replied honestly.
  Rigotti gave him a hard look. "It's a good thing for you that your alibi checks out, Payne. Lots of you guys get real weird, coming back from Nam."
  "And lots of us settle down and lead normal lives," Luke replied evenly.
  The lieutenant shrugged. "Yeah. But listen, if I ever figure out that you did it—just remember, you're my number one suspect right now. One fake move and I'll be watching you."
  "I'll remember that, Lieutenant Rigotti. But I didn't do it."
  The small man shrugged. "You say you didn't. Maybe you did when you weren't in your right mind, huh?" He smiled. "Good night, Mr. Payne."
  
Eight
The air was still above the opal city. The pinkish sun moved slowly across the sky; gross, misshapen trees weighted down with fruit hung heavily, their sweet smell foul in his nose. The sweetness of decay rankled in his nose. The huge bird leered down at him from the tree above his head, And the hooded figures looked up at him, laughing, their hoods thrown back. Symrna, her sharp hawklike face contorted with a sneering laughter . . . Ellen Major, smiling thinly, David Holfs long horse-like face . . and Jim Dawson, holding a bloody head. Marian Lescaulfs bloody head, the features contorted in horror. And they were all laughing at him, jeering ... except for one dark figure, still hooded, who stood in the corner, watching.
   Diana lay upon the table, unconscious. Slowly, the "single hooded figure advanced on her, the silver knife poised over her chest...
  He woke up, sweating. The dawn light was just breaking over the skyline, a low trickle of pink across the blackness of night. Luke swung his legs off the bed, lit a
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cigarette. The questions burned across his mind. Had he killed Marian Lescault?
  Had her hypnosis unleashed something so terrible that he had to kill her? He looked at his hands, shaking. Was it possible that some monster lurked below his consciousness, waiting to strike anything that got into its way—including its creator? Would he kill Marian Lescault? And why? What was on, those tapes? And what had he—or his strange power—done with them?
  None of it made any sense. And yet, Marian had demonstrated that same extraordinary power that he had. The ability to lift objects by force of mind ... to literally incinerate a thing? A human being. Could he do it by long distance? And without knowing it?
  No. It was too crazy. Too impossible. He dragged on his cigarette and looked out the window at the dawn. Slowly he pushed himself off the bed and paced the floor, wondering, thinking ...
  The phone rang. The sound cut across his thoughts like a razor blade. He glanced at his watch. It was a few minutes after five. The phone shrieked for attention.
  Cautiously, he picked it up, held it against his ear. "Hello?"
  "Luke." It was Diana's voice, strained and tense. "I tried to call yesterday. I just read the papers . .. Lukey, we're in trouble .. . none of this is what it seems ... you've got to ... Dawson has the—oh, Luke, I love you, please help, I'm frightened—"
  "Diana," Luke replied swiftly. "Are you—what's happened?"
  "I can't talk ... they listen to everything. I had to sneak this call. They—oh—"
  There was silence and the line went dead. He replaced the receiver and waited. Perhaps they had been cut off. When nothing happened, he did not know what to do.
  His mind was spinning in confusion. Suddenly, he rose, and started to search through Diana's drawers, looking
   
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for her phone book. No one listed themselves simply as Symrna. There must be a number to call.
  Abu-Ahmid. The oil shiek. When he was in New York, he stayed at the Plaza. Abu-Ahmid would have the number and the address. Luke sat down in the chair, wondering what time one called an oil shiek, and how one possibly wormed information out of them. Abu-Ahmid, was, as the world knew, not only the biggest energy magnate in: the world, he was notoriously fond of good looking women, fast cars and—publicity.
  Maya Perez. A film star. Beautiful. She had a stake in this too. In what? said the rational voice in his head. He had no answer. But he knew that she had a stake in this.
  A sleepy night operator connected him. Maya's voice was thick with sleep.
  "Luke?" she mumbled. "It's five-thirty in the morning. I was just about to go to sleep."
  "Listen to me. When did David start to change?" Luke demanded.
"... right after his uncle died ..."
"Was his uncle involved with Symrna?"
  "Oh, was he ever. You know, there was a rumor that they were lovers, a long time ago, during the war ..." Maya yawned loudly. "Look, it's five in the morning, Luke. And I've got enough problems."
  "I know. And I think that I've found the key. Can you meet me here for breakfast?"
  "Look, my husband just left last night. I've heard of fast movers but this is ridiculous."
  "No, wait." Luke's head was throbbing. "No, listen. It's not that. Look, it's too complicated to explain, but I think your husband isn't your husband. And my girlfriend is in a lot of danger."
"Are you drunk?"
  "I've never been more sober in my life. And I'm not crazy, either, although I'm under suspicion of murder."
"Luke, this is not a very funny joke."

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  "It is, I swear to you, no joke. Look, can you get dressed and come down here about seven?"
  "Sure. All right. To humor you." She was annoyed, talking as a mother would to a spoiled child. "But so help me, if you pull anything funny, I'll—"
"I know. Just be here at seven."
  He replaced the receiver in the cradle. The light sweat of his nightmares had been replaced by a coldness that he could not fathom. He got a pencil and tablet of yellow paper.
As he wrote, the scar on his forehead burned brightly.
  SYMRNA. No known occupation. Spiritual leader who advocates social Darwinism; fascism. Only interested in people with lots of money.
  DAVID HOLT. Until the death of his uncle, a liberal, politically involved man. With the death of his uncle, be~ comes almost a duplicate of Sir Gerald's personality; Total reversal of personality.
  LADY ELLEN MAJOR. Detroifs Major Motors heiress. Until the death of her father, knew as little of business. In fact about all she knew was buying men with Daddy's money. Now the wealthiest and shrewdest woman in the world.
  JIM DAWSON. Editor, Newsmakers magazine. This one was the most painful. Yet, it fit the pattern perfectly. Until the death of his uncle, communications magnate, and easygoing guy who was willing to give anyone a break. After the death of his uncle, becomes involved with Symrna. Even his ulcers like his uncle.
  In fact, assumes the identity of his uncle almost completely.
   Alexi Kawalski, artist; Diana Donofrio, artist: Both become involved with Symrna's cult.
   Known facts about the cult: Only very wealthy people admitted. In fact, leading proponents are all magnates in some field or other. Major Motors. Gramercy Foods. Dawson Communications. Abu-Ahmid. Must have seventy or eighty hangers on. Must be about seventy or
   
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eighty. Ready to die ... and head of the biggest energy conglomerate in the world.
Wait.
He scribbled furiously.
Transport.
Communications,
Food.
Energy.
  FACT: Over the past ten years, conglomerates have been building up near-monopolies, under different umbrella companies.
  THEORY: It would be possible for a handful of individuals with almost unlimited money at their control, to completely and legally take over every single commodity in the world. And with the right public relations allow the entire world to swallow it hook, line, and sinker.
  IF: These individuals banded together, with economic power, and total control of every necessity to life, they could almost topple governments. (He crossed out the word almost.) Economics, starvation. Deprive this or that part of the world of food and it would be possible to start a revolution. Topple a government. Set up the media so that a new government could be instituted. Control energy and food, resources, raw materials. One by one, the countries of the world could go under. Some sort of leadership that promised the masses everything. Wasn't it Leary who had once remarked that religion was the opiate of the masses? Of course. Keep the people under your thumb, educated to just what you wanted them to be educated to ... and you could rule the entire world. On a little capital alone. But it would demand total cooperation from all parties involved.
   But suppose you couldn't get the cooperation of all parties? Suppose that the old guard, the moneyed ones were too old to reign. There's one thing money can't buy:
YOUTH.
   Dawson was twenty-nine. Lady Ellen was probably somewhere in her early thirties. David Holt, by his own
  
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account twenty-seven, probably closer to thirty. And all of them were heirs to empires. That left Symrna, who could be anywhere between fifty and seventy and Abu-Ahmid, who was seventy,
KAWALSKI.
   "Diana!" he screamed aloud. No doubt Kawalski was studying to take over Abu's role when this whole thing was over, and Diana was going to be trained to become Symrna's successor. In who knew what ghastly little game. A game that masked something deadly.
  And evil. Whole countries brought to their knees by starvation, by famine and hunger and death. Ready to bargain, to believe in something brand new.
  And as old as time itself. Suppose, now just suppose. Dawson had recommended that he visit Dr. Lescault. A good cover, that. Make him look crazy to the outside world. But Dawson had not recognized that Marian Lescault was paranormal. Just as he, Luke Payne, was a paranormal. And who knew who else in the world? Suppose, just suppose that Dawson had checked in with Dr. Lescault, just to see how Luke was doing, and somehow discovered the truth.
  And what was the truth? That Luke could not be duped into making a puff of this regime? That he had odd supernatural powers that even Luke himself did not understand? What else?
  If he, Luke had these powers, suppose, just suppose that these people had them? These five people who wanted to use his Diana for some sort of terrible sacrifice?
  And the damnedest thing about it was that he did not even know the extent of his powers. He had seen something of what he could do, but it was like a drop in the bucket, a drip of water in the ocean.
  In those tapes there was some clue. Suppose he had not destroyed them, but someone like Dawson had? Someone like Symrna who could incinerate a human being, just as he had incinerated that junkie who tried to kill him? Someone who had allowed those powers full rein?
   
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  The dream. The hooded figures. Diana screaming for help. The hooded figures revealed one by one. Just suppose that it was not a nightmare, but a true sort of thing?
  He looked down at the scrawls on the pad. He bit his lip, then wrote, PROOF? and had to leave it blank. It seemed like just a wild guess. But was it any more incomprehensible than anything else that had happened to him? The old secure realities that he had always known had been challenged by many things of late. No matter what, he knew that he c5uld never go back to the security and sanity that he had once known. There was simply no way out of it.
   Kill or be killed! something said in his head. He looked over at the bed, for no particular reason.
  What he saw turned him cold. The sheet that had been lying on the bed was slowly rising toward the ceiling as if drawn by invisible fingers. As he watched, a human form took shape beneath the covering. A head-like shape, arms and even vague legs were taking shape. It rose, fully ten feet from the bed, turning this way and that, stretching its limbs. And then, as if it sensed his presence, it drifted inexorably towards him.
  Luke was at first fascinated; was this perhaps something he had created from his unconscious? Or was it some projection independent of him?
  It drifted slowly across the floor, for all the world like a ghost, slowly slowly, towards him. It was almost on top of him, a full five feet above his head when it descended slowly, and wrapped itself lovingly about his shoulders.
   At first it draped itself over him lightly, gently, lovingly. Luke sat immobilized, fascinated, as by a snake. And then, slowly and without warning, it tightened its grip on his neck, twisting slowly, the thick muslin fabric turning horrifically of its own volition, choking the air away from his neck. Luke could not move. It was if his physical body were paralyzed, held tight under the weight of some deadly force. Slowly, the life trickled out of his
   
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body, as the sheet-thing turned, tighter and tighter and tighter about his neck; twisting slowly...
  He thought he must die. Panic seized him. His life blood was being choked away from him. The world seemed to twist with the sheet and darkness set in upon him, like a blood red blindness. And he could not move.
  But the scar on his forehead burned, as if touched by some red-hot metal. It seemed to turn to white heat, growing and squirming away from his body.
  It was that simple. It was too easy. He was looking down at his body sitting in the chair while the sheet twisted and turned about Ms neck, and he knew that he must save himself if he possibly could.
  It was like shifting gears on a hill. He stood away from his body and concentrated upon the sheet. He saw it burning, burning in the white hot flame of his mind.
  Then, it happened. The smell of singed material filled the room. Luke watching above his body, saw the sheet start to smolder, then smoke, and ultimately burst into flame. A dark fire that burned nothing—not the delicate tissues of his own real body, or the chair in which he sat, but a black and all-consuming astral flame that licked and devoured hungrily the sheet-thing, destroying it utterly.
  It burned away, slowly and reluctantly withdrawing its grip, turning into a white powder that fell as gently as snow at his feet.
  And very slowly, Luke felt the white scar begin to fade away, to lose its heat, to shrink and disappear.
  And then he was sitting in the chair again, staring at the white ash that covered the floor, looking at his trembling hands.
  So. He thought, and the word carried a revelation with it
   
Nine
  Maya looked as if she had not slept in several days. There were dark circles under her huge eyes, and the mouth turned down bitterly, as if it were all too much to take.
  Luke made coffee, scrambled eggs that neither one had the appetite to eat, and then he began, carefully, to explain the situation.
  Maya Perez slumped in her chair, staring off into the ceiling through most of it, her mouth working slightly here and there. She looked over his notes, nodding once in a while.
  A small crease appeared between her eyebrows as she read. She asked for a cigarette once, but did not interrupt him further than that When he had unraveled the entire theory, she leaned back in the chair and blew a long stream of bluish smoke. "Roll it again," she commanded, as if he were reading her a script
  Luke started from the beginning, going over every single detail, supplying the coincidences, the theories and
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the plots, until he felt as if he were indeed working out a screenplay.
  "Okay," she said at last. "Now show me what you can do." From her pocketbook, she took out a paperback book and placed it on the table between them.
  "Lift that. Without touching it, just lift it," she commanded in a flat, dull voice.
  Luke concentrated. The small silver scar felt warm. Gradually, the book moved, first a few millimeters toward her, then reluctantly, it lifted off the table, moved across the room and nestled gently in her lap. She picked it up gingerly as if afraid it were red-hot, but she looked up at him and he knew that she believed.
  "Now," she said, as if she were winding down contract negotiations. "How do we find out where in Pennsylvania these people are, and how do I get my David back?"
  "That's just it. I want you to come with me to the Plaza—we're going to try and get in to see Abu-Ahmid. I have a feeling that a pretty girl, a movie actress, will be much more welcome to his sight than another reporter. So ... hopefully he'll talk to us, and we can find out where Symrna's summer palace is. Since David's your husband, you can probably string him along, let him know that you know the inside straight... and maybe it will work."
  "Maybe," she said doubtfully. "But where, and what about the missing tapes?"
  "If my theory is correct and they're able to incinerate someone at long distance, they're quite capable of transporting some tapes. We'll just have to see..."
  She walked over to the phone. "Leave it all to me." she said grimly. "But Mr. Payne, if you're wrong, and this whole thing, is crazy, then I'm going to look a fool—and you're going to jail on murder one."
"I know," he said impatiently. "Just trust me."
  She was already dialing the number. "Good morning. This is Maya Perez. Yes. Oh, thank you. I'm glad you saw Noise. Yes, I am hoping I can get an Academy Award too. Thank you. Listen, I'd like to be connected to
  
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Abu-Ahmid's room. Yes, I know he doesn't want to speak to anyone, but I'm not just anyone . . ." She made a face at Luke and giggled into the receiver. "Oh, well, yes, he gave me his unlisted number last night, but I lost it. And I promised I'd call him ... oh, thank you. Yes, I'll hold on."
  She put her hand over the mouthpiece. "You see how easy it is?" she asked. "Hold on ... What? Yes? Oh, really. Yes, I see. Well, where is his nephew .. . Kawalski? But he's ... did he leave a number? Uh-uh. I see. Right." She hung up the phone and sat down on the floor, her long legs seeming to buckle under her. She pressed a slender hand against her head. Slowly she looked up.
  "I take it all back. You are right The old man died at three-ten this morning. It seems his nephew was—is— Alexi Kawalski. An Arabian Pole! Can you imagine? And Kawalski inherited the whole fortune. I got it all from the switchboard operator who happens to be a big fan of mine. But—the place we want to be is an old estate in southeastern Pennsylvania called Smallwood. If you can dig that. Smallwood. Seems Alexi Kawalski left for there with your Diana a couple of days ago with orders he wasn't to be disturbed. And the old man just sort of ... well, he's been sick and he just died this morning. The doctor can't figure out why. And the hotel can't figure out how to notify Kawalski. So the lawyers are—" she broke off describing an arc in the air with her hands. "Back and forth, back and forth ... this is entirely too crazy." She looked at him. "Y'know, when I was little, my aunt used to take me to macumba meetings—that's a kind of Brazilian voodoo, if you will... and people used to be able to do stuff like what you did. So, I can believe anything, anything at all. And I don't care. But if that woman's done something to my David, I'll kill her. I will kill her with my bare hands. I don't care what kind of weird little game they have going. I'll kill her."
"Smallwood," Luke repeated.  "An  estate in  south-

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eastern Pennsylvania. That shouldn't be too hard to get to."
  "But what are we gonna do when we get there?" Maya asked bitterly.
  "We just walk up to the gate and say 'Hello, could I have my husband back please, in his original, lovable condition?' Wow. And I wondered what had happened to him. What do you suppose they do?"
  Luke shrugged. "I don't know. But whatever it is, it can't be too good. A group of people who can materialize thought forms into hedsheets, kill people with fire, tele-port objects through solid walls ..."
  "Crazy. Absolutely crazy. Some kind of weird magick," Maya said quietly. "But it works. I've seen that sort of thing work. Don't you see?"
  "Yeah. I see. I see all too well. All this mysticism is just a front of some kind. It's a big bunko game for some scientific developments ... it's like they knew exactly what is happening ... with all that money you could buy anything."
  "Almost anything," Maya said slowly. "Almost anything you wanted you could buy with that sort of thing ... it's crazy." She looked up at him hopefully. "But you've got all these powers, this paranormal ability— couldn't you just sort of scorch them or something?"
  Luke shook his head. "I don't know. I really don't know how they work, even. It's just something that happened ..." He stood up. "How can we get a car?"
  "No problem," she said. "I have one. It runs at least I've got it garaged up on Seventy-first Street."
  "Well, then, go up and get it. Don't tell anyone where you're going. Just say you're going out of town, or something. Then pick me up here. We'll try to figure out what we're doing on the way."
  "Right," she said. "Bring some dark clothes. I have a feeling we're going to be doing a lot of sneaking around tonight." She stopped at the elevator. "And it's a full moon, too, you know."
   
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  He listened to the protests of the elevator as it rolled on down through the floors, and then, slowly, began to pack a few clothes in a valise. Dark turtlenecks, dungarees, hiking boots. Somewhere, someplace in this house there must be a road atlas. Diana always kept things like that around ... she always wanted to know exactly where she was going.
  He found a tattered Rand-McNally under a bookcase, and flipped quickly to Pennsylvania. The state spread out before him, he looked over it swiftly, trying to remember. Smallwood, an historical estate in southeastern Pennsylvania ... would place it somewhere outside of Philadelphia ...
  He found it without too much difficulty, near a tiny hamlet. It was marked as an historical site, a particularly beautiful and venerable old estate with extensive gardens. Not open to the public. Privately owned.
  He checked out the routes, memorized them and closed the book, putting it away where he had found it. His hands were trembling and his heart thundered in his chest.
  He knew that he must go out and face unknown terrors, danger from which he might never return. They could easily kill him and bury his body on the grounds, if they wanted to.
  But the memory of Diana's voice, the urgency in her tone quickened his courage.
The doorbell rang.
  Believing it to be Maya, he returned the buzz, allowing the security gate to open. As the elevator creaked and groaned its way up the floor, he pushed his bag along with him to the door, hoping to make a quick start. He was taking positive action, and besides, the loft had its share of horrors, which seemed to close in on him with every breath.
  The elevator doors slid open. Lieutenant Rigotti stepped out, an unlit cigarette in his hand. He looked at the suitcase in Luke's hand.
  
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  He raised one eyebrow. "You going on a trip, Mr. Payne?" the man asked, stepping into the loft. He looked around curiously.
  "I'm going to join my girlfriend," Luke said evenly. He put the suitcase down, watching as the lieutenant wandered about the place, looking at the pictures on the wall, the shabby and worn furniture, the plants wilting without Diana's care.
  Luke held his breath as the man stooped and scraped at the fine ash on the floor where the sheet had burned in the dark fire only a few hours before.
  Rubbing the fine white powder between thumb and forefinger, he stood up. "This is what a loft looks like, huh?" he asked, curious. "You've got the place fixed up pretty nicely."
  "Diana, my girlfriend did it," Luke said. "She put in all the plumbing and everything."
  "Izzat so?" Rigotti asked. He stopped and studied a painting. "Your girlfriend is pretty successful, huh?"
Luke nodded.
"She's in the Janistelli gallery, right?"
  "Yeah," Luke said. He rolled a cigarette and lit it, leaning against the wall.
  Rigotti turned, waving his unlit cigarette. "Hold the light, willya?" he asked.
  Luke gave him a light. The lieutenant bent over the flame, sucked and puffed out. "Trying to give up smoking," he announced, slowing out a blue stream. "But it's hard. My wife smokes, I smoke and now my daughter's started to smoke. So, it's hard to quit."
  "Where do you live, Lieutenant,?" Luke asked curiously.
  The little man studied a particularly dreary painting on the wall. "Queens. Kissena Boulevard. You know it?" He looked at Luke sharply.
  Luke nodded. "Yeah. I used to go out with a girl who lived out there . .. near the World's Fair."
"Oh yeah?" Rigotti asked.

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  "Yeah," Luke replied, trying to keep his voice steady. "She was a real looker, too. But she didn't want anything to do with a stringer."
  The man shrugged. It could have meant anything. Too bad, she's smart, anything. But his tone was kindly. "Well, you know, you get shot down a lot, right?
   "Hell, when I was a young guy, I couldn't get a girl to take a second look. Marry a cop? Not on your life. Lookit, the girl I went out with four or five years, she pushed me over for a guy in sanitation. Ya know what sanitation is? Garbage," he laughed. "The guy works out in Astoria. He makes forty-five, fifty a year." Rigotti sighed, "Can you believe that? Forty-five thousand a year just to haul garbage around? Of course, he doesn't haul garbage—he's a plant man now—works in some plant they got out there, some landfill project. Maybe the skirt made the right choice. I dunno. Don't .ask me. My father was a cab driver." The policeman paced the length of the studio, and then turned. "Does your girlfriend make a lot of money with these pictures?" He gestured to an evil-looking landscape.
  Luke shrugged. "I guess she does all right. She supports herself."
  "So, she left town, huh. Anyway, she's with those ..." the man gestured, looking for the word. "Those hari krishnas, gurus, that Symrna person? A big guru?"
"Yeah," Luke said. "She's into that."
  The lieutenant shrugged. "I saw that skirt one night on Johnny Carson. A real wacko, if you ask me, with all the magic stuff. Hocus pocus and meditation. I tried yoga once. It didn't work too well. I usta fall asleep."
  "Look, Lieutenant Rigotti, what did you want?" Luke
finally asked.	
  The man's heavy eyebrows shot up in the air. "What do I want?" he asked, as if he had forgotten. "I wanna ask you a few questions. We've doing a little digging down at homicide, and what I got from the CIA on you is pretty weird."
   
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  "I've never been involved with the CIA," Luke said flatly; He could feel the sweat dripping from his hands.
  The policeman pushed a hand into his hair. "No. No. I didn't say that, did I?"
  The question seemed to demand an answer. "No," Luke said. "You didn't."
  "So. Relax. We're gonna have a little talk you and me," the man said firmly. "I wanna know what a paranormal is, first of all. Do you know?"
  Luke's sweat was running cold. "No," he said flatly. "What is a paranormal."
  The lieutenant shrugged. "Apparently, it's someone who can do things most people can't. Move stuff without touching it. Bend keys. That sort of thing. There's an Israeli guy who can do all these things, you know. A psychic, they call him."
  The lieutenant held up his hand. "Now I know all this stuff is crazy, right? But, you know, I used to work the bunko squad rounding up all the storefront gypsies and stuff. It's illegal to tell fortunes in this state. For money. But we had this one old lady .. ." He paused, waiting for this to sink in. In spite of himself, Luke was fascinated. "We had this one old lady who was terrific. She could tell me the age of my kids, their names, where my mother lives, what a prisoner had said to me the week before. She told me one or two things right, that really come true. I mean, now, somehow or the other this old skirt could really tell you what was going to happen to you. I mean, ya can't bust someone on a fraud if it's not a fraud, right? This woman was really good. So, maybe I can question a few things. Hell, science doesn't know it all. In my line of work you got to keep an open mind. Because you could pin the rap on the wrong guy, right?"
"I suppose so," Luke said thickly.
  "Now suppose that you had these psychic powers. And suppose you decided that you didn't want anyone to know about it. And someone knew. It would be a job to off
   
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them, but, it could be done. Of course, I don't believe that stuff for one minute."
  Luke heaved a sigh. Fortunately, the lieutenant did not hear him. The man was staring into space. "Now, I have my own theory. That somebody in this town has gotten a hold of some chemical or another, something that only burns a certain molecular structure. Like human flesh, you see? Like napalm. And maybe, just maybe it's real easy to make this stuff from everyday household ingredients, like oil paint and turpentine . . . stuff like that really goes up fast. Now maybe somebody in Red China discovers this stuff ..."
"That's pretty farfetched, Lieutenant," Luke laughed.
  "Maybe so. But suppose I'm right? Suppose—let's take you as an example, that a guy wants to test this stuff out on a dog or something before he used it on the real thing? Well, what would you do? You'd take a long walk in a dangerous area. Let a bum jump you and try it out on him, right? You see, we got a call—hi that a woman resembling Marian Lescault picked up a guy who looked a lot like you in a cab on Houston Street. The hack was suspicious. The guy was all messed up and his shirt was burned real bad."
"So?" Luke asked.
  "So, wouldn't it be easy to get an old woman to let you in once? and then twice? After all, you were her patient. And she knew too much about you. And something. I dunno. Maybe you have one of those Jekyll and Hyde personalities?"
  "That's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard in my life," Luke said flatly.
  "Look," Rigotti's tone was kind. "Why don't you come clean and maybe I can help you. I know a lot of you guys come back from Nam and you're . . . well, a little odd, maybe. Stuff happens in war. Believe me, I know. I was stationed in the Pacific in '43. Pure hell."
"There's nothing to come clean about," Luke insisted.
"Look. This Symrna person your girlfriend is hanging

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around with, she's got a lot of half-baked ideas. But she's also got a lot of friends, y'know? Rich friends. Your girlfriend could get you into a good place, nice and quiet and you could recuperate maybe in time, it would even all come back to you. How you did it, I mean. Maybe even why."
  "If there's someone who's crazy in this room," Luke said evenly, "I don't think it's me."
  "Whataya know about this Symrna person, anyway? She's got this half cracked theory that rich people got there because they're the fittest. Because they're the ones that ought to rule the world. Under her spiritual guidance, of course. But I mean, what kind of stuff do they really do? Are they really into all this occult stuff? This hocus pocus? I thought that stuff was just something college kids played around with. Harmless pranks. What do you know about this whole outfit?"
"Nothing," Luke said, quite honestly. "It's a big secret."
  "Then answer me this. At nine o'clock this morning, Maya Perez was seen coming out of here. Isn't she married to David Holt, the singer?"
"Yes."
"And isn't he involved in this sort of thing?"
"Like with Symrna?"
"Yeah. Like with Symrna."
"I suppose so."
  "Could it be that you murdered Marian Lescault?!* Rigotti asked suddenly.
  The question caught Luke off balance. Too late, he understood what Rigotti's tactics were. Slowly, he shook his head. "Uh-uh?" Rigotti asked, disappointed.
  "Listen, Lieutenant," Luke said. "I think you've got it all wrong ..."
  The diminutive policeman leaned foreward. "Look. I think you murdered George Lewis. That's the name of that bum who got burned to death down under the bridge. And I think you did it as a try-out on Marian Lescault, because she knew how looney tune you are and wanted to
   
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have you committed. And you can't stand the idea of being committed."
  "Most, many—practically all of the guys who came back from Nam were sane," Luke said swiftly and fiercely. "About five per cent needed treatment for mental disorders. That's lower than World War II, Lieutenant. So why does everyone think we're crazy? What the hell is it? Do you people have to wipe your consciences clean by blaming it all on us? The dirty little war people like you paid for?"
  Luke was on his feet shouting. Again, too late, he realized his position.
  "I think you'd better come downtown with me, Mr. Payne," Lt. Rigotti said quietly.
  The doorbell cut across the tension. Quickly, Luke pressed the return, listened to the elevator craking up the stairs.
"Do you have a warrant?" he asked.
  "Don't you want to cooperate with the police?" the little man replied, reaching into his inside pocket.
  The doors opened and Maya stepped out dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt. "Well, I got the car, and believe me it was a hassle lying to all of David's people who get paid to take care of stuff like this. I mean, they're supposed to drive me around, right? But I got th—" she stopped in mid-word, and looked at Rigotti questioningly.
  "Maya Perez, meet Lieutenant Rigotti. He wants to take me downtown for questioning."
  "For what?" Maya asked evenly. "Have you been . . . oh, no! She turned quickly to the policeman. "Look, officer, it was my grass, honest. I left it here last night ... you understand? Oh, if this gets out, my marriage will be ruined!" She clutched Luke's arm, suddenly a long thin giraffe in gentle panic. "My career and Luke's career and my marriage and his relationship with his girlfriend. Oh, please don't arrest him. Look, you can arrest me."
  Rigotti looked puzzled for a moment. But Maya stepped into the breech.
   
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  She crossed the room, pleading. "If my husband finds out that Lucas and I are—well, friends, he'll be very upset. Please. I'd rather let him know in my own way. You can say you found the grass in my car, can't you? Lucas had nothing to do with it... we were just going away for a little weekend in the Catskills, up near Woodstock, you see. No one would have to know about it..."
  She was actually batting her eyelashes. Luke, speechless with admiration, watched Maya Perez give the performance of her career. She flung herself into the chair, buried her magnificent head in her hands and began to sob. "I don't mind getting busted for dope, but my marriage. Oh, if David hears about this, it'll be all over." She looked up at the policeman, her eyes sparkling with tears. "Oh, officer. I've been such a fool! To drag a good man into this terrible situation!"
  "Uh . . . uh . . ." Rigotti muttered, suddenly confused. Luke held his breath as the little man slowly rose to his feet. "I guess I made a mistake," he said reluctantly.
"Oh thank you," Maya said in a gush.
  Rigotti walked slowly to the elevator. He pushed the button. "We all make mistakes ..." he muttered.
  Maya stood up slowly, as if she were exhausted. "Thank YOU!" she called to his departing back. The doors slid silently closed as the elevator clanked down through the shaft.
  Maya leaned against the wall, holding her breath. When she was absolutely sure Rigotti was out of the building she began to laugh.
  "And they say I don't deserve an Academy Award. C'm'on, let's get out of here before he comes back."
   
Ten
  Maya was still laughing at her own cleverness when they hit the New Jersey Turnpike. "Oh, I fooled that dude but good," she said. "He thinks we're having an affair and that's what you're trying to cover up for."
  Somewhere near Bayonne she fell silent, twisting the bracelets on her arm. She looked at Luke out of the corner of her eye. "You didn't murder your analyst, did you?" she asked.
  Luke frowned. "My God, no!" he exclaimed. "Why would I do a thing like that?"
  "I've seen people do worse for nothing. Once when I was really little, and we lived on 105th Street, I was hanging out the window, you know the way you do when it's about ninety-thousand degrees and you're bored?"
"Mmmm," Luke replied.
  "And I saw this guy—he was a big neighborhood turkey, owed everybody money—the storekeepers, the numbers runner, the bookies. He fell in with the sharks. Mafia-type people. And he couldn't or wouldn't pay. So this guy came from nowhere one night, and sliced the hell
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out of Jesus. The guy who wouldn't pay. His bloody face was something terrible. And the guy he hit—this guy was his godmother's son. Can you imagine?
  "And someone said, 'Well, why did you do that?' And the guy—he was very flashy, you see, he just shrugged and said, 'Hell, man, that's my job.'" She stared out the window.
  "Hard life?" Luke asked, blinking in the sunlight of the afternoon.
  "Yeah. You better believe it. We were really poor. My father had two factory jobs and seven kids. I swore I was gonna get the hell outta there, you know? A three-room apartment with seven kids ... and I was the oldest. I might have gotten into the street, but my mother was very religious. She would go to Church twice a week. And my father was doing the best he could, just like a lot of young guys who came up from Puerto Rico after the war. They were honest people. Good people. And they sent us to parochial school. I was in about first or second grade, and I figured out how I could sneak out to the movies . . . every nickel I got, I spent on the movies. And then, I had this nun in class, you know, and she took a bunch of us to see a play—and then I knew, that was what I wanted to do. So, I wangled my way into Performing Arts . . . lots of crappy little rich kids and I was very into my ghetto look, which wasn't fashionable in the early sixties, not at all. You had to look a certain way. And I looked like a string bean, all these other girls with big boobs ... and I was flat and had frizzy hair . . ." She laughed quietly and without bitterness. "They're all married now. And I'm still working. You know what I did, with my first run-of-the-play contract? I put a down payment on a house in Queens for my parents, a real nice place with a garden. And I told my brother—look man, I worked for this, now it's your turn. You've gotta pull some weight around here too. We just all sort of kept ourselves in line, off the streets.
"See, I could make it, so they could too. But wow, I still

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get so hungry sometimes ... I go into a restaurant and I'll eat a whole steak. One of those big ones, a pound of meat. And I love it. Because I was thirteen before I tasted steak, at a girlfriend's house in Great Neck . . ." Her voice was dropping off ".. . and they had a maid. Like my mother, you know, she used to clean house for rich people . . . and the maid was Spanish, like me. Boy, did she hate my guts, I mean here I was, maybe from the same neighborhood eating with the people who paid her ... it really kicked her . .. 's funny. When I first moved away from home, there were four girls in a two bedroom apartment. I only had to share a bedroom with one other person! That was so incredible to me."
Luke glanced at her. Her eyes were closing slowly.
  He smiled grimly. Let her sleep. Whatever lay ahead for them would be indeed a terrible thing. And she would need all of her strength to get through it.
  The journey took longer than he had thought it might. The turnpike seemed interminable and monotonous. And as he drove he felt a sense of foreboding so strong that the air felt saturated with it. He pushed on relentlessly, however, determined to see this course through.
  Whatever lay ahead would not, could not possibly be as bad as anything he could allow himself to fashion from the fabric of his fears. He forced his full attention to the road.
  Maya slept on, her head against the car door, her mouth slightly open and her hands clenched into small tight fists in her lap. She was waiting, he knew, and gathering up her strength for that final test.
  Finally the New Jersey Turnpike turned into the Pennsylvania Turnpike; and following the road map he had memorized, Luke drove through first four-lane and then two-lane highways. '
  The houses grew further apart; here and there farm fields dotted the countryside. He drove through a large town and then a smaller one, and a village. The roads
   
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grew narrower, the countryside wilder and more rolling. Farms were replaced by forests. Finally the road narrowed down to a tiny strip of asphalt traveling along a wooded creek.
  There was a road sign ahead, in the fork of the road. Very gently, he rolled to a stop and looked at it. Small-wood Village, it said.
  With a grim smile, Luke pushed his foot down on the gas and pulled onto the road once again.
  It was not much more than a village and not a very good one at that. A few clapboard houses scattered around an ancient Mussolini gas station. Many of the small stores seemed to have been long closed up. Here and there an ancient car stood in a driveway. As he pulled into the gas station, a small child playing by the pumps looked up curiously, and then resumed the game she was playing.
  Maya stirred against the metal of the door. She yawned. "Where are we?" she asked sullenly. She sat up and looked about her at the desolate, dusty little town.
  "Five o'clock in the afternoon in a real dump, to paraphrase Bette Davis," she muttered. She swung out of the car. "You want a soda?"
  "Yeah," Luke said tiredly. "I could use one. And a rest room, if they've got one."
  But she had disappeared around the side of the building.
  A young boy in cut-off jeans and a mechanic's hat shuffled slowly out of the office. He stood looking at the car and at Luke for several seconds.
"Evening," Luke said noncommittally.
  "Yeah," the kid replied in a flat drawl. He scratched his bare chest. "Fill her up?"
  "Thanks," Luke said. He walked over to the soda machine and dropped a pile of change into the slot. The five o'clock heat was oppressive. Luke pushed the Nehi button and watched as the can rolled down the chute. The kid was pumping gas into th& roadster, humming a rock
   
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and roll song under his breath. Uneasily, Luke recognized it as a hit of David Holt's.
"Small town," Luke remarked.
  "Well, you know, not much to do," the kid replied. He gave Luke a sidelong glance." We don't get many of these cars down in this neck of the woods. You must be going to Smallwood."
  "As a matter of fact we are," Luke said casually. He leaned against the machine and sipped at the bitter orange soda. "Lost our way . .." he finished.
  The kid laughed. "Yeah. It's pretty hard to find," he said sourly. The gas pump tingled merrily in the still close air.
"You know how to get there?"
  The kid smiled. "Yeah. Yew take the Old Red Lion Road—that's the branch about a mile down, and travel towards Gap for about twenty minutes, and there's a big iron gate, with lions. That's the place." He sniffed contemptuously. "I hope they're expecting you," he added.
"Why?" Luke asked.
  " 'Cause of they don't like strangers over there," the kid chuckled to himself. "Crazy religious fanatics," he added insolently.
  "Yeah," Luke said tightly. He went to find the men's room.
  When he came back, Maya was leaning against the car talking to the kid, who seemed enthralled. As she caught sight of Luke, she smiled and got into the car.
  The boy ambled over to her and handed her a piece of paper. "You forgot to give me your autograph," he said. "I really dug Dark Red."
  She scribbled her name on a piece of paper and handed it back to him. "Thanks, honey," she said giving him a devastating smile.
  As they drove away, Luke repeated the directions to her. Maya nodded.
  "I know. And I know something else," she said. "The fence surrounding the place is electric. And they've got a
   
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guard at the gate who looks like 'something out of an old Boris Karloff movie!' " Her mimicry of the boy's accent was uncannily perfect. "So, what you do is this: you sneak in,"
"How?" Luke asked.
  Maya chuckled. "Some spy you are! You go all the way around to the back of the grounds, about a mile back, and there's a hole in the fence, near a perfectly wonderful pond, just right for swimming. After all, I think it would be so much fun to surprise them, don't you?"
"Um," Luke replied noncommittally.
  "Well, after all, you have to do something when you're rich, famous and bored, right?"
He glanced at her. Her face was bitter and set.
  Luke steered the car swiftly down the road, following the instructions he had been given. The trees closed overhead, and only here and there did any sunlight break through. Posted signs in the wood read loud and clear: NO TRESPASSING.
  "This must be the place. Sure is a lot of ground," he said after they had been driving nearly twenty minutes without seeing a house.
  "They own a lot of land. Nearly three hundred acres. The next biggest thing is the King Ranch." Maya propped her feet up on the dashboard and swigged her soda. "When I get my hands on David, I'll kill him," she said softly. "There!"
  Luke looked to the right of the road, where just around the corner, a huge stone gate was jutting up from the trees. He slowed down curiously.
"Jesus," said Maya simply. "Do you believe it?"
  It was the biggest gateway Luke had ever seen in his life. Huge blocks of fieldstone had been carved into pillars of lions, standing on their hind feet, forepaws stretching across the archway. Their faces were distorted by the erosion of time and weather into grotesque parodies of lions. The effect was unmistakably evil.
The iron gate that hung between the two lions was

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bolted shut with a heavy length of chain. A neatly lettered sign faced them:
SMALLWOOD
TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW
"Well," Luke said softly. "Does that mean us?"
  "I guess so," Maya said uncertainly. "What do you think? Shall we just walk up and ring the bell? Or shall we slip in the back way?"
  "The back way," Luke said grimly. "I have a feeling we're not going to be welcome visitors."
  "Uh-uh." Maya agreed. "Look, there's a turn-off down there you can pull into, and then we'll start walking."
  They pulled the car off the road into an ancient abandoned lane in the forest. As Maya got out of the car, she looked at the tangled growth over her head. "Jeez. This place looks like something out of the trilogy," she said softly.
"The trilogy?"
  "Yeah. Lord of the Rings. You know. Frodo and Bilbo." She shivered. "I always wanted to name my kids Frodo and Bilbo you know."
  The joke landed flatly between them. She tied a dark sweater about her waist despite the heat and advised Luke to take a jacket. Then they turned and walked slowly back across the road. Evening shadows spread evil distortions through the darkened woods. Overhanging vines and ground creepers seemed to be reaching out for them as they passed down the narrow dirt lane, past the veil gate, tracing their path by means of the heavy chain-link fence set five or six feet back into the woods, heavily overgrown with Virginia creeper and foul looking tendrils of vines.
  It was quiet; almost too quiet. Now and then they would hear the call of a bird in the trees, or the rustle of some animal, early in his nocturnal prowling. The evening
   
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sunlight was weak and shallow; even its narrow yellowness did not penetrate this tangled jungle, and the darkness seemed to close in about them like a cloak.
  They walked perhaps a quarter-mile back up the road they had come down, when Maya suddenly tugged at Luke's sleeve, pointing into the woods.
  A large, exotic bird sat on the twisted branch of a tree staring down at them sullenly. Its bright yellow and purple feathered plumage was alien, and somehow frightening.
  Suddenly, with one final glare, it spread huge purplish wings and disappeared into the forest.
"Must be the butler," Maya said.
  Luke had stopped, staring after the bird. Why did it seem so familiar? he wondered. Somewhere in a dream . ..
  They trudged on, like two small animals in the night. Wary. Afraid. Like rabbits.
  After a very long time, the fence slowly turned back into the forest. They followed it back away from the safety of the road, reluctantly and without much enthusiasm. At one point, Maya stumbled over a thick vine, scraping her arm. "If you're so full of supernatural powers, why don't you teleport us back there?" she demanded bitterly.
  Luke could only shrug. The woods got thicker and deeper as they moved further away from the road. It was now almost completely dark. Vague and eerie shapes loomed out of the near gloom at them, threatening and evil, deformed.
  It was stiller than ever. Nothing seemed to move. Even their feet made no noise as they scouted along the edge of the fence. There were no birdcalls, no rustlings. It was totally timeless. He glanced at his watch. It had stopped at three-thirty. He wound it. Nothing happened. It was dead ... as if all time had stopped.
  The air was heavy and oppressive, almost too thick to breathe.
  "Talk about evil vibes," he muttered under his breath. Maya made no reply. He glanced at her.
   
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  Her face was pale in the bluish gloom, and her eyes were tight and frightened.
Courage, he thought admiringly. She's got courage.
  Nothing stirred. The silence began to ring in his ears, barely below his consciousness. He became aware of the endless night, and eternity.
They walked; It seemed like miles.
  It was probably only two or three miles, he kept telling himself, if that much at all. And yet it was like walking on a treadmill, going and going with no return, no end in sight. His breath came in short heavy gasps and he tried to think of other things. Yet the sense of timelessness had overpowered him until at last he was only conscious of the beating of his heart and the terrible sweet smell of decay.
It was hauntingly familiar.
  It came as a very slow shock when Maya stopped him, grabbing his wrist and pointing ahead. "There," she whispered. Or did she shout? There seemed to be no volume, no distance in the stillness.
  He looked in the direction she pointed. Before them, a small clearing stretched out, and beyond its short grassy slope, a pond opened over the landscape. A creek fed it from a hill above, and it in turn had been dammed to run into a small creek that wound its way under the fence. The water flowed but it made no noise.
He felt as if he were stalking haunted ground, some aborted, twisted place where no living thing should tread. But Maya had run ahead, up through the clearing to the creek bed. She walked into the water, following the course of the stream up to the fence.
  She turned and beckoned. Luke reluctantly followed. "Look," she said quietly, her voice echoing through the stillness. "You can just barely crawl under the wire. But if that kid was right and they've got an electric fence, we'd better be damn careful." She looked at Luke's body specu-latively. "I know I can make it ..." she said, "but what about you?"
   
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  Luke looked at the small opening where the narrow creek turned into a spring, that flowed under the fence.
  The water had eaten away the soil until there was a reasonably large pocket of free space. If one were careful, it would not be hard to crawl under the fence. And into the den of lions.
  "Okay. Let me go first. And If I hit the wire, don't you touch me. There's probably fifty thousand volts of electricity in that wire."
  She nodded. Slowly, Luke lowered himself into the water. There was perhaps a foot and a half of clearance. Very slowly, he crawled under the wire, his legs sinking into the cold water. The bottom was thick with mud and slime, a precarious and slippery surface. He felt his way, head first under the wire, barely an inch from his nose.
  Luke pushed his head down into the water, feeling the sharp stones in the creek bed catch at his clothes. He held his breath and slowly allowed himself to come to the surface again, pulling his feet along with him. He was in!
  Triumphantly, he stood up on the other side and looked around him. It was no different, yet ... the air was thicker, sweeter and more foul.
  As if some monster lurked somewhere nearby, waiting, watching.
  Maya followed, easing her long body under the wire with half the trouble he had taken. A dancer's grace, he thought absently, ridiculously.
  She stood up, wet and sopping, looking about. "Okay," she said. "Now what?"
"The house?" he suggested.
  "Where?" she asked. "There's three hundred acres of ground here."
  Luke stood silently for a moment, feeling the rush of the forest all around him. The deadly silence, the awful sense of waiting seemed to close in on him. And yet ... and yet .. .
  The small white scar on his forehead began to warm. He allowed himself stillness, inside.
   
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  And with a great sadness, he knew in that minute that all that he had been before was gone. The power was upon him and could not be revoked. In the infinity of a flashing second he knew himself. He knew, and knew only too well where they were going. Images of the future rose up before him and he started to walk slowly through the tangled undergrowth.
"This way," he said. "To childhood's end."
  Maya gave him a sharp glance but said nothing, merely followed as he picked his way through the trees in the direction he knew the house would be.
  Once again they saw that unnatural plumed bird, as it rustled off through the trees, and Luke felt a vague sense of foreboding.
  Gradually the trees began to grow further apart, and a sickly silver moon shone down between the leaves.
  Luke sniffed the air. The sweetness was stronger now and less rancid. The shapes of the trees were exotic, foreign, almost tropical. They hung heavy with strange fruit, and the sky had an almost purplish tinge tonight as if it too were permeated with evil. Gradually the trees gave way to low shrubs, an then a long well-groomed lawn spread out before them, leading up towards an old manse.
  It had no right to be in the rolling Pennsylvania countryside, and yet there it sat, brooding in the moonlight, ancient and terrible.
  Its black, turreted spires were unlike anything Luke had ever seen before—or had he? The wide windows were rimmed by gold frames, the roof rose and sloped as if twisted by strange hands.
  It had no right to be, and yet it stood. A hellish creation, twisted from some ancient ruin.
  Beside him, Luke felt Maya stiffen. "So this is it, huh?" she asked sharply. "This is the big bad place? What now?"
  Luke glanced up at the moon. From the ground floor of the house, a dim light shone. Somewhere there was hell-
   
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ish piping, a flutist gone mad. It rose and fell on the still air, infinitely perverse and evil.
  "Gawd," Maya whispered, hugging her wet body. "This is something else. Okay. What now?"
  Luke sighed. "We go forward, as we have always done." Something ancient and eldritch stirred in him, some memory of things gone past, how long ago? How long? Very far away, like a ... dream .. .
  He moved toward the house, keeping in the shadows. Maya followed him, breathing heavily. "This place is creepy," she said. "What in hell does David see in it?" -
  "Shh," Luke pressed her arm, moving like a guerrilla toward the house. His heart was pounding in his chest and something more powerful than fear rose up within him.
The frenzied music rose and fell with insistent urgency.
  Luke and Maya moved swiftly through the shadows, ever toward the house.
  Now they could see light falling across the terraces, figures moving in the open French windows. The music was louder now and more weird, accompanied by a slow chanting.
  Maya's fingers on his back almost made him scream. He turned. She pointed up toward the house.
  A solitary figure stood on the terrace surveying the evening. As it threw back a hand, pushing at its hair, the pale moonlight caught the shape of the features.
Diana!
  His heart leapt in his chest and he moved forward. "Stay here," he whispered to Maya. "No matter what happens, stay here. If you need help, run for it, right?"
  She nodded. "If you see David—" she said quickly. "—tell him I love him, that I want him back." The words were rushed together in one final jumble.
  He nodded grimly. Staying in the shadows, he moved quietly toward the terrace, with as much stealth as possible.
The moon outlined her beloved features to him, as she

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raised her face toward its silver face. A familiar longing filled him and he moved forward, until he was beneath the terrace where she stood.
  She looked so lost, so sad standing there that he wanted to reach up and touch her hand. Instead he called her name, very softly.
"Diana!"
  She looked down at him. Shock spread across her face, then changed into relief.
  "Luke!" she whispered, looking quickly back into the house.
"Are you all right?" he asked swiftly.
  She shook her head quickly, glanced back into the house again. "They'll kill you if they find you here! Oh, Luke! They're not at all what they seem ... they're evil! Oh, Luke! They do terrible things!"
  The chanting rose and fell to the rhythm of the piper, strange music to their meetings. She gestured to him, and he came over the terrace.
  He reached out to embrace her but she drew away, putting a cold hand against his arm. "Come," she whispered, moving into the house.
He followed her without hesitation.
  It was dimly lit and foreboding. Vague shapes of furniture, huge massive pieces loomed in the hallway as she led him up the stairs.
  They passed a room off the landing where a body lay stretched out on a table surrounded by candles. Symrna!
"She's dead?" Luke asked.
  Diana turned on the step, glanced at the small room and nodded. She put a finger to her lips and led him up through the winding darkness, down a long hall. Taking a key from around her wrist, she unlocked a door at the end.
  She closed the door quietly and turned the key. Using a match she lit a small kerosene lamp, filling the room with soft fight.
It was a bedroom. Her dear familiar articles were scat-

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tered about the room, her jeans and her paints. She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at him. Her eyes were listless.
  "Listen, you cannot stay," she said. "In a little while this will all be over and I can come home, but you should never have come, Luke. It isn't good."
  "But you called for help," he reminded her sharply. "Look, there's big trouble here, Diana . .."
  She was shaking. "They do terrible things, Luke! Mythos is no figment of anyone's imagination, he's a real god! A thing, I don't know if you could call him a god, but he—it—does terrible things! It lives in that terrible black statue and it comes alive, and it feeds on people's souls!" She blinked. "Mythos killed someone. I heard the whole ritual."
  Luke shook his head. "I know. Now I know." He made a grab for her arm. "But I don't care what they're all about. I just want to get you away from here. Right now!"
  She sidestepped him swiftly, bracing herself against the wall. "I can't!" she breathed. "Oh, Luke, you don't understand! I just can't, now," she laughed unpleasantly. "Don't you see? I'm one of—uh!"
  He grasped her arm, forcing her body toward him. "Do I have to prove I love you?" Luke grunted angrily, wrapping his arms around her.
  Suddenly he drew back as if he had been stung. Her skin was as cold as ice.
  He looked at Diana, shocked. Her face was a mask. As she faced him, the obese grey cat sprang from the shadows, landing neatly on her shoulder, where it regarded Luke cynically, licking its paws.
  "Well," Diana said softly. A thin smile played over her features in the half light, giving her face a demonic cast. The cat regarded him watchfully.
  Luke stood immobile, as the woman laughed mirthlessly at him. "So," she repeated.
   
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  Like a tumbling puzzle, the pieces began to settle into place.
  "It wouldn't be so bad, if you wanted to come along," Diana said calmly. "We could certainly use you on our side."
  "You're Symrna ... in Diana's body," Luke said slowly, unbelieving. "How?"
  "Oh, quite correct. Bravo for you," Diana said. Only it was not Diana. It was a horrible sham, as if Diana were doing eerie imitations of her erstwhile mentor. The woman sat down on the bed, still watching Luke with a still, narrow smile.
  "Very simple. What you knew as Diana lies downstairs in my old body. I was glad to be rid of it. It was getting cumbersome; I needed a new one. In two years, that body would have been riddled with cancer. Much easier just to get a new one, don't you agree?" she asked softly, touching her hair.
  Luke felt as if he had been frozen. He tried to lift an arm? and realized with a sickening wrench of fear that he could not move. Somehow she had him immobilized.
  "Oh, no, you won't be able to move. That's an elemen-try thing. So simple, my cat can do it. Just a matter of elementary metaphysics. If you were to live so long, you would no doubt be able to accomplish it by yourself. But, since I don't think you'll want to join the party, as it were. I doubt that you'll live that long."
"Wh—" Luke said, croaking.
  The woman shrugged. "Easily explained. Since I've been kept up to date on your movements, simply by tuning in on you, I can tell you that you are exactly right. But, like most mortals, too late."
  She stretched out on the bed, spreading her arms. "Oh, I shall love this new body." The cat, never taking its eyes off Payne, stretched out lazily beside its mistress. "I'm just trying it on for size, right now. Tonight we shall complete the ceremony. And you shall watch," she promised.
   
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  "So, it was you, all of you, and you're nothing better than body snatchers."
  "Tsk, tsk," she chided, "simply discarnates. We've been borrowing bodies for years. Thousands of years. Millions of years—well, not millions precisely, but you couldn't understand how it is. Mythos is kind to his worshippers. We need him, he needs us; it's that simple. And for his greater glory, we shall soon completely dominate the world ... just as we did twenty thousand years ago in dead Atlantis. So sad, you know, to spend twenty-five thousand years slipping in and out of bodies, always having to meet on the dark side of the street, outlawed everywhere, masquerading as Satanists . . ." She made a distasteful face. "Very tacky, Satanists. A pale imitation ... you see, we're all immortal... as the good servitors of the will of Mythos deserve to be. Over eons we have built his power on death and destruction. You see theologically, Mythos feeds on death and agony. And he is always hungry . . . and always willing to reward those who will serve him. And, you see, the time is ripe now, at last, for us to come out into the open and declare our power."
"That simple?" Luke demanded.
  The woman fluttered her eyelashes. "Oh, no, it's not that simple, not at all. But you're a mortal, and if I were to try and give you a more complex explanation you would not understand it. Let us simply say, that in exchange for worship and belief, we receive immortality and—power. And power is sweeter than life itself ... no?"
"No," Luke said swiftly.
  She looked surprised but merely shrugged again. "We are of a different breed, you and us, Lucas Payne. Over the years one develops a craving for power that exceeds hunger and thirst; being immortal, one does not die; one simply moves to a new body when an old one is worn. If I told you who and what I have been you simply would not believe me. Oh, the amazing gullibility of people who need to believe in something, anything, that will give them
   
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hope in a world that is ultimately nasty, brutish and short, as the poet said."
"Good God," Luke said quietly.
  The woman laughed. "Be that as it may. I shall never taste the dust of the grave or the kiss of the worm. And that I fear above all things. Even so, I will leave you to your fate. The time, I am afraid, draws too near."
  Very slowly, as if she were rising from a bath, the woman stood away from the bed. The cat lay where it was watching Luke with evil yellow eyes.
  "Incidentally," the woman said as she walked toward the door. "It might interest you to know that Symrna was Diana's mother. I thought that was a nice touch, don't you?"
  She closed the door softly behind her, leaving him to stand rooted to the spot, contemplating his own fate.
   
Eleven
  He still couldn't move. It felt as if some tremendous force were pressing down on his chest, holding his arms to his sides. Like being caught in a vortex, he thought. And he knew that would have killed a less paranormal person.
  He searched out the force field, for that was the source of Symrna's magic, whether she knew it or not. The scar on his forehead that had been warm in anticipation now burned with a white-hot intensity. He knew he could not move his body; it had been bound by some supernatural restraint but he knew too that he could throw out his astral body—and it was there that his power lay. His mind rebelled against the shoddiness of the woman's trick, and the horror of her action.
  To take over a child's body. To devour, so to speak your own child! It sickened him, to think that his Diana lay trapped in her mother's dying body.
  Doubt assailed him. They were powerful. They had won. A single tear trickled down his cheek.
  The door opened silently. Although Luke was powerless to rum, he knew it was Kawalski, in his new form.
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  The man stood behind him, laughing. "So," he said quietly, "you thought you could toy with us." The man walked slowly around the room until he was facing Luke. His eyes were hollow and danced with an unnatural light. Kawalski, always the outrageous dresser, was now clothed in a heavily embroidered robe, the hood thrown away from his dark, handsome face. As he studied Luke, his lips twisted. "At last we meet," he said softly. "A great regret to me that you would not listen to reason. We could use people like you on our side. Anyway, you die for a noble cause." The man's smile was evil. He sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at Luke hungrily.
  "We killed your good doctor Lescault. It was not hard. One simply has to utter a few of the right words, apply the proper concentration. You see, our powers are unlimited. We may have anything we want simply by thinking of it."
  He thought upon this for a moment, then smiled. "Almost anything. I wanted your Diana badly, but she resisted me." The dark man shrugged. "Anyway, soon she will be forever my consort, Symrna of Atlantis. It will be Symrna—wonderful, eternal Symrna of course, in your Diana's body." He leaned back, still regarding Luke. "How you puny mortals squirm, like the dust of the earth you are! Can you not be happy that you are free?"
  Petulantly, the man twisted a heavy red ring around one long finger. "I talk to stone," he pouted sullenly, like a child. "You can hear me, but you cannot speak. There is little fun in this game. Anyway, soon you'll be a babbling idiot."
  He shrugged again and left the room. At the door, he turned and looked at Luke's back. "In a very few minutes, you shall see the end of your world. And it will be an end so subtle, so gentle that none shall ever know how total and complete it was."
The door closed quietly behind him.
  Luke was sweating. His rage was chained, his power mute. He strained to free himself, but nothing happened.
   
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  The house was very silent now, almost dead. He thought of Maya crouched in the bushes. The scar was hot, burning at his forehead, fighting with all his strength against their awesome power.
  But his bonds, invisible and powerful, held fast, no matter how he struggled. They were stronger than he was. They had won.
  And then, he began to move. That is, against his will, some force animated his body, pushing him towards the window. He tried to resist, and failed. Some will stronger than his own forced him to move toward the window. He stepped out onto the terrace, walked to the edge of the railing and no further. He stood; helpless, waiting.
  And slowly and horribly the dream, the terrible jungle dream began to unfold in deadly reality before him.
  The moon cast a noxious light over the terrace below, where the familiar mosaic pattern had been worked into the rile. The ancient and terrible gods, long forgotten in the waking world seemed to be afoot tonight. The carved stone altar seemed to plead to the sky for a victim, a sacrifice.
  The air was ghastly still, oppressively heavy. He was only vaguely aware of the huge and evil bird eyeing him from its perch on the rail. His guard, he thought.
  The flute again began to play, slowly at first, wailing like a soul in the ninth circle. As he looked below, a single figure moved out into the terrace. Hooded in its dark robe, it bowed to the latter and saluted the moon, then moved to the north corner, where it stood waiting.
  And then a second figure emerged, bowed to the altar and saluted the moon in a terrible gesture, moving to the south corner. The hellish piping continued as some invisible force played upon its flute. And a third figure emerged, repeated the pattern, more obscene and more lewd than ever, moving toward the east, where it stood waiting.
  There was brief silence. The very sky seemed to hold its breath waiting.
   
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  And then the four figures began to sing an errie ancient chant. As their voices rose and fell, spinning some terrible magic, the small hackles on Luke's back crawled. This was no child's plaything, this was a force ancient and powerful, and infinitely terrible, like an atom bomb compared to a cap gun in the waking world. Their voices rose and fell, weaving their ancient song, of lost and yearning homelessness, each rising note pitching some malevolent dream into the waking world.
  The invisible flutist began to play again, adding its terrible music to the night. And slowly, very slowly, two figures, both hooded, emerged from the house, singing another song, one even more sinister and powerful. The heavier figure supported the smaller, who moved hesitatingly, as if in a trance. The fifth figure saluted the moon, and gently pushed the smaller one.
  With fumbling fingers, the smaller figure dropped the robe, revealing Diana, her body glittering with silver dust in the moonlight. She allowed herself to be laid upon the altar and stretched out, passively, as if awaiting the knife.
  Of the terrible spider god, there was no sign, yet invisible as his presence was, the aura and essence of his being saturated the air.
  And slowly, the hooded figures converged upon the circle, like a flock of vultures about a carrion corpse. One by one they moved their hoods and Luke stared at their faces with hatred and impotent rage. Lady Ellen Major; Jim Dawson; Symrna; Kawalski; David Holt.
  They were in ecstasy as they sang, moving slowly counterclockwise about the altar, raising their powers to a terrifying level. He could feel the force in the air, electric and overwhelming.
  The chant rose and twisted like a tortured snake, filling the air with horror. And then slowly they broke their dance, spinning off one by one into the moonlit corners of the terrace, each singing his own song.
  Except for Symrna, who stood over Diana's body, staring down as if he could rain away the shallow breathing.
   
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Very slowly she raised the terrible silver knife over Diana's heart and plunged it downward.
  There was a gasp. Just as Luke thought all was lost, and living no longer had a reason, he saw the lanky figure darting out of the shadows.
  The   spell  was   broken.   "David!"   Maya  screamed, scrambling over the terrace toward the south hooded figure. She grasped him firmly in her arms, laughing and crying.
  It wavered for only an instant, but in that instant Luke found his body again. He was over the balcony and upon the terrace in seconds, down among devils.
  The huge bird flapped its wings and shrieked overhead. Maya was clutching at David. "Damn you!" she was screaming, "Give me back my man, do you hear? Give me back my David!"
  Her fingers tore at the man's robes, her eyes were wild and white. A mother tigress defending her child could have no more fury than this woman, nor could all their combined power, Luke suddenly realized, stand against the undying force of love.
  Love! That strange emotion ... his feet hit the terrace, and the figures turned. He looked at their faces in the moonlight, distorted by hate.
  The force of that hate nearly knocked him over, for it was like a strong gust of wind. His scar was white-hot, like a brand on his forehead.
  Force surged up through his body, the force of a man fighting for his Me. It met their force in a huge spiral of fireworks. Everywhere the power struck at hurt, he created and threw out of his mind a powerful counter-force. It created small sparks in the air. Like steel against steel.
  No one moved. The entire terrace was suffused with a bluish light that came from no identifiable source. Luke began to realize as he circled that he was at least their equal. He could create, he knew, a force that would stand
   
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against them, while Holt was distracted by Maya's shrieking.
  And yet it was a Mexican standoff. They would wear him down, tearing away at his will until they had triumphed. They would then incinerate him, just as they had caused Marian Lescault to be incinerated, through the force of their obscene spider-god.
  He felt himself becoming dizzy, as if they were weakening his concentration by use of their force. Maya had Holt's arms pinned. "They won't have you!" she sobbed, "they won't have you! You're mine! Give me back my David, you devils!" She fell at his feet, while Holt stood still as stone.
  Luke bent his mind harder, forced more and more. Force met force, and yellowish sparks flew the hazy bluish glow, growing larger and larger.
  Nothing stirred, yet there was such force that green sparks began to appear in the air, smoldering on the ground wherever they fell.
  Every muscle in his body strained, every pore of his being pushed against the wall of power that encased him.
And then, like a dam straining against the flood, it broke.
  The terrible spider thing seemed to appear from nowhere and everywhere, its mandible working up and down and it converged around him, seeking to digest his very soul into its foul presence.
  Then he knew how Marian Lescault had died, and what terrible things she had seen in the last seconds of her life.
  Mythos incarnate was ten thousand tunes more terrible than anything Luke could have ever imagined. Its essence sought to strike down every sense. An osmotic, bluish light cast an unholy glow over the battlefield, distorting and lengthening shapes and sounds as it danced without source. The sickening stench of the graveyard filled his nostrils, almost overpowering him with nausea. A cold beyond freezing whipped through his body; his ears stung
   
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with the high whining cry of the beast that stood before and about him, real and unreal, of this world and of another, more ancient time and place.
  Every muscle in his body was wracked with pain, until it seemed as if his soul were torn and twisted away from him, something to be devoured by this thing's hunger.
  He felt as if there were no longer firm ground under him, and the cold burned like the very fires of hell, shaking Mm away from the earth, from life itself.
  And he knew that he was doomed, that he was nothing more than the food that fed this terrible, mindless hunger for thing, sucked away and digested into something beyond a mere physical death, something a thousand times more terrible than anything he could have imagined, something that rocked every foundation upon which the pillars of earth stood.
  And in that terrible moment of a death beyond death, he felt the white scar on his forehead burning, and some power, the very essence of the life instinct surging upwards from the burial grounds of his unconscious.
  The blue fire engulfed him, cold flame burning beyond pain, charring at his flesh.
  And slowly, even as the teeth of Mythos would crush him, the color of the flame turned from azure to turquoise, from turquoise to jade, and from jade to emerald, where it burned, drawing forth the essence of Mythos, feeding its own power from that of the adversary.
  Luke's soul sang in his mind. Warrior ancestors, Picts and Gauls and Goths and Angles, buried in his blood, rose from their long sleep through generations and leaped into the battle singing the ancient war cries.
  Luke fought back, using the enemy's strength against him. The more the monster god fought and struggled to devour, the brighter burned the encasing, protective flame that burned about Luke's body, protecting him, securing him against the thing, now fully materialized and nearly
   
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two stories tall, an awesome primeval deformity, a thing of man and spider.
  It jumped back from the green fire, roaring in surprise and pain,
  Luke circled, watching the small eyes like glittering diamonds in the distorted black head, the maw working hungrily against its jaws, the thing dancing back and forth, on its great long, disjointed hairy legs, bellowing like a great wounded dog in surprised pain.
  Cautiously, Luke feinted with one flaming hand. The green fire shot from his fingertips, casting no light as it seared into the great beasts' midsection.
  Where the blue flame of the monster met the green flame of the man, great yellow sparks like explosions dangled in the air.
  The stench of burning something filled Luke's nose. His eyes were watering from the flashing lights, blocking his vision.
  The thing's howl turned to a whine of pain, and it reared back on its great crooked spindly legs, hanging for an eternity of a second suspended in midair, illuminated by the blue aura of its body, clawing for its strength from the ak.
  Nothing mattered but the man and the monster. Luke struck again, pushing both hands in front of him, using every ounce of strength to push the green fire from his body.
  But the thing was too crafty for such a move, easily sidestepping the green tongues of flame that shot from Luke's fingertips and fell to the blackened earth like dead sparklers.
  It came at him from his left, a streak of glowing azure, upon him with such force, and such swiftness that the blue seemed to smother the green.
  Luke reeled back under the weight of the monster, nearly sitting upon his chest, bringing its terrible teeth down against his throat, obliterating every ounce of power just as he had sucked his from it.
   
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   He could not see or breathe for the pressure and the weight of the thing. A high pitched whining like the shrieks of a thousand souls in torment filled his ears, ringing in his head until he could feel nothing with his ordinary five senses except the essence of Mythos.
  He was near defeat; his consciousness flickered toward the black abyss. Drained, beyond fear, beyond caring, he felt Death, the somber and silent bearer of release reach toward him, offering peace, surcease. As Luke heaved a last shuddering breath, his eyes blearily surveyed the scene. Five white faces stared down at him impassively.
   Through the haze he recognized Kawalski's long face. For an instant he saw the pale eyes focused on his own. From afar he recalled his father's voice calling, "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link . . ."
   If I'm going, that sonofabitch is going with me, he thought with the recklessness of a dying man. Anger surged through Luke. As if he were watching someone else, he saw-his arm reach out toward Kawalski. His fingers closed in an iron grip about Kawalski's exposed ankle.
  A thrill ran through his body; an electric charge from his arm carried power from Kawalski's body, surging through his drained soul, bringing clarity to his head and energy to his aching muscles. As he felt this he could see the pale hands linked around the circle, and saw now the source of the spider-god's power. The pressure on his chest was unabated, as the spider threw its crushing weight down upon him.
  Now he had to act. His eyes met those of his tormentors. Their power was great. . . and it was the same power he felt surge through his veins. He gripped Kawalski's ankle harder, and saw all of them wince. His scar burned searing hot. His grip on Kawalski had broken the circle; Luke was diverting power, from Mythos to himself.
  He read fear in their eyes, as he worked his will upon these mortal humans of flesh, even as himself. Humanity
   
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touched humanity. As his strength grew, he felt the weight on his chest grow lighter, felt the awful paralysis lessen.
  And then he saw in the corner of his eye Maya, who had stood immobile during this time, come to life. A scream contorted her face and finally burst from her lips in bloodcurdling sound.
  He was shocked, but held fast to Kawalski. Mythos, the terrible spider-god was becoming smaller. He watched in numbed fascination as the great legs seemed to cave in on themselves; the hairy obscene body dwindled, as the green glow slackened, faded as the dying embers of a malevolent fire.
  Luke struggled free; there was no strength in Mythos; the spider-god's power was shrinking fast. Bereft of its power, it contracted with incredible speed until it crawled frantically on his chest, no bigger than his thumb. As the spider scurried to the ground Luke glanced about. In the half-light of dusk, the five figures seemed somehow smaller, shadows of their former selves. Kawalski was staring at him, held in thrall by Luke's viselike grip. Luke jerked at his ankle, and his nemesis collapsed as if the wind had been knocked out of him. He lay in a lifeless heap, whimpering softly.
  Struggling to his feet, Luke looked to the altar. Diana was stirring, and as he approached, she moaned. From behind Luke came Symrna, springing like a cat, her jeweled silver dagger drawn and clutched in her hand.
  "Fool," she hissed at Luke, "you shall not win—not this time!"
  Before he could react, she lifted the knife against the sky and brought it down, plunging it into the soft flesh above Diana's heart. Her laughter echoed hollowly through the night as her daughter's lifeblood flooded to the earth.
  Luke's mind rebelled against the awful sight. Pain, anger and frustration gripped him in a fury that blotted out
   
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all else. Blindly he sprang toward Symrna, murder in his heart. Yet before he reached her something stopped him, something deep within himself that had lingered unseen, ready to act at the proper moment. Instead of springing toward Symrna, his body became rigidly still and his head throbbed with tremendous pressure.
  He stood in silent struggle, while the five robed figures too felt that awesome pressure. As one, they clutched their ears as if to stop a sound unheard. They writhed in pain, slowly sinking to their knees, and finally collapsing to the ground, spent and unconscious.
  Their bodies lay scattered around the altar, suddenly still and lifeless, drained of power. The eerie stillness was deafening.
  Luke was oblivious to the amazing scene around him. But Maya saw the entire miracle, and as Luke began to regain his senses she walked to him and led him away.
  "Luke," she said softly as they walked, "they're all dead."
  "No," he replied sadly, "they're not dead, only stunned." I couldn't kill them, I don't know what stopped me, but I just couldn't do it to them as they did to so many."
   "You're really something, you know. You've been there and back .. . with the dead. That scared them. You've got a knowledge and a power that no man has ever had, and you'll never be the same. It's as if you tread a line between life and death, belonging to neither, with feet in both worlds, and trapped there, to walk that line until you can no longer endure it."
  "What you say," Luke said slowly, "is too true. What happened tonight defied my own concepts of life and death, of myself, and of the world. I've got nothing to live for except ... except now I know that I'll not rest until I've blotted out the evil that put Mythos on this earth. What's that make me?"
"You walk with death. Wherever you go you'll seek out

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the evil and try to end it, before it destroys you. You're a guardsman, only you've just begun, and your weapons are inside you."
"Not an easy life."
  "When was life easy? You're all we've got against them. If you don't do it, who will?"
  Luke looked up at the thin pink mouth of dawn above the trees. He heard the first songs of the birds, calling down the morning. A slight wind brushed his wet face, reminding him of the sleeping oblivion of a world that had narrowly avoided a terrible destiny. Slowly, he began to walk away.
  "I guess I'm it," Luke said softly. He felt old, suddenly, too old. He turned to Maya, held out his hand to support her.
"C'mon," he said quietly. "Let's go home."