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Praise for Jim Butcher'sDresden Files

"Think Buffy the Vampire Slayer starring Philip Marlowe."

— Entertainment Weekly

"What would you get if you crossed Spenser with Merlin? Probably you would come up with someone

very like Harry Dresden."

— TheWashington Times

Praise for Simon R. Green's Nightside Novels

"Sam Spade meets Sirius Black . .. inventively gruesome."

— Entertainment Weekly

"Fast-paced and amusing, as well as packed with inventive details."

— TheDenver Post

Praise for Kat Richardson's Greywalker Novels

"A great heroine." —Charlaine Harris

"A creepy and original addition to the urban-fantasy landscape."

—Tanya Huff

Praise for Thomas E. Sniegoski's RemyChandler Novels

"Tightly focused and deftly handled.. . . Fans of urban fantasy and classic detective stories will enjoy this

smart and playful story."

— Publishers Weekly

"The most inventive novel you'll buy this year ... a hard-boiled noir fantasy by turns funny, unsettling, and

heartbreaking."

—Christopher Golden

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CONTENTS

THE WARRIOR - Jim Butcher

THE DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES – Simon R. Green

THE THIRD DEATH OF THE LITTLECLAY DOG - Kat Richardson

NOAH'S ORPHANS – Thomas E. Sniegoski

THE WARRIOR - Jim

Butcher

I sat down next to Michael and said, "I think you're in danger." Michael Carpenter was a large, brawny

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man, though he was leaner now than in all the time I'd known him. Months in bed and more months in

therapy had left him a shadow of himself, and he had never added all the muscle back on. Even so, he

looked larger and more fit than most, his salt-and-pepper hair and short beard going heavier on the salt

these days.

He smiled at me. That hadn't changed. If anything, the smile had gotten deeper and more steady.

"Danger?" he said. "Heavens."

I leaned back on the old wooden bleachers at the park and scowled at him. "I'm serious."

Michael paused to shout a word of encouragement at the sec-ond baseman (or was that baseperson?)

on his daughter Alicia's softball team. He settled back onto the bleachers. They were cov-ered in old,

peeling green paint, and it clashed with his powder-blue-and-white shirt, which matched the uniform

T-shirts of the girls below. It said "COACH" in big blue letters.

"I brought your sword. It's in the car."

"Harry," he said, unruffled, "I'm retired. You know that."

"Sure," I said, reaching into my coat. "I know that. But the bad guys apparently don't." I drew out an

envelope and passed it to him.

Michael opened it and studied its contents. Then he replaced them, put the envelope back on the bench

beside me, and rose. He started down onto the field, leaning heavily on the wooden cane that went

everywhere with him now. Nerve damage had left one of his legs pretty near perfectly rigid, and his hip

had been damaged as well. It gave him a rolling gait. I knew he couldn't see out of one of his clear,

honest eyes very well anymore, either.

He took charge of the practice in the quiet, confident way he did everything, drawing smiles and laughter

from his daughter and her teammates. They were obviously having fun.

It looked good on him.

I looked down at the envelope and wished I couldn't imagine the photos contained inside it quite so

clearly. They were all professional, clear—Michael, walking up the handicap access ramp to his church.

Michael, opening a door for his wife, Charity. Michael, loading a big bucket of softballs into the back of

the Carpenter family van. Michael at work, wearing a yellow hard hat, pointing up at a half-finished

building as he spoke to a man beside him.

The pictures had come in the mail to my office, with no note, and no explanation. But their implications

were ugly and clear.

My friend, the former Knight of the Cross, was in danger.

It took half anhour for the softball practice to end, and thenMichael rolled back over to me. He stood

staring up at me for a moment before he said, "The sword has passed out of my hands. I can't take it up

again—especially not for the wrong reason. I won't live in fear, Harry."

"Could you maybe settle for living in caution?" I asked. "At least until I know more about what's going

on?"

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"I don't think His plan is for me to die now," he replied calmly. It was never hard to tell when Michael

was talking about the Al-mighty. He could insert capital letters into spoken words. I'm not sure how.

"What happened to 'No man knows the day or the hour'?" I asked.

He gave me a wry smile. "You're taking that out of context."

I shrugged. "Michael. I'd like to believe in a loving, just God who looks out for everyone. But I see a lot

of people get hurt who don't seem to deserve it. I don't want you to become one of them."

"I'm not afraid, Harry."

I grimaced. I'd figured he might react like this, and I'd come prepared to play dirty. "What about your

kids, man? What about Charity? If someone comes for you, they aren't going to be par-ticular about

what happens to the people around you."

I'd seen him display less expression while being shot. His face turned pale and he looked away from me.

"What do you have in mind?" he asked after a moment.

"I'm going to lurk and hover," I told him. "Maybe catch our photographer before things go any further."

"Whether or not I want you to do it," he said.

"Well. Yes."

He shook his head at me and gave me a tight smile. "Thank you, Harry. But no thank you. I'll manage.

“Michael’s home was an anomaly so close to the city proper—a fairly large old colonial house, complete

with a white picket fence and a yard with trees in it. It had a quiet, solid sort of beauty. It was surrounded

by other homes, but they never seemed quite as pleasant, homey, or clean as Michael's house. I knew he

did a lot of work to keep it looking nice. Maybe it was that simple. Maybe it was a side effect of being

visited by archangels and the like.

Or maybe it was all in the eye of the beholder.

I'm pretty sure there won't ever be a place like that for me.

Michael had given a couple of the girls—young women, I suppose—a ride home in his white pickup, so

it had taken us a while to get there, and twilight was heavy on the city. I wasn't making any particular

secret about tailing them, but I wasn't rid-ing his back bumper, either, and I don't think either of them had

noticed my beat-up old VW.

Michael and Alicia got out of the car and went into the house, while I drove a slow lap around their

block, keeping my eyes peeled. When I didn't spot any imminent maniacs or anticipatory fiends about to

pounce, I parked a bit down the street and walked toward Michael's place.

It happened pretty fast. A soccer ball went bouncing by me, a small person came pelting after it, and just

as it happened I heard the crunchy hiss of tires on the street somewhere behind me and very near. I have

long arms, and it was a good thing. I grabbed the kid, who must have been seven or eight, about half a

second before the oncoming car hit the soccer ball and sent it sailing. Her feet went flying out ahead of

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her as I swung her up off the ground, and her toes missed hitting the car's fender by maybe six inches.

The car, one of those fancy new hybrids that run on batteries part of the time, went by in silence, without

the sound of the motor to give any warning. The driver, a young man in a suit, was jabbering into a cell

phone that he held to his ear with one hand. He never noticed. As he reached the end of the block, he

turned on his headlights.

I turned to find the child, a girl with inky black hair and pink skin, staring at me with wide, dark eyes, her

mouth open and uncertain. She had a bruise on her cheek a couple of days old.

"Hi," I said, trying to be as unthreatening as I could. I had limited success. Tall, severe-looking men in

long black coats who need a shave are challenged that way. "Are you all right?"

She nodded her head slowly. "Am I in trouble?"

I put her down. "Not from me. But I heard that moms can get kind of worked up about—"

"Courtney!" gasped a woman's voice, and a woman I presumed to be the child's mother came hurrying

from the nearest house. Like the child, she had black hair and very fair skin. She had the same wary

eyes, too. She extended her hand to the little girl, and then pulled her until Courtney stood behind her

mother. She peeked around at me.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded—or tried to. It came out as a nervous question. "Who

are you?"

"Just trying to keep your little girl from becoming a victim of the Green movement," I said.

She didn't get it. Her expression changed, as she probably wondered something along the lines of, Is this

person a lunatic?

I get that a lot.

"There was a car, ma'am," I clarified. "She didn't see it coming."

"Oh," the woman said. "Oh. Th-thankyou." "Sure." I frowned at the girl. "You okay, sweetheart? I didn't

give you that bruise, did I?"

"No," she said. "I fell off my bike."

"Without hurting your hands," I noted.

She stared at me for a second before her eyes widened and she hid behind her mother a little more.

Mom blinked at me, and then at the child. Then she nodded to me, took the daughter by the shoulders,

and frog-marched her toward the house without another word. I watched them go, and then started back

toward Michael's place. I kicked Courtney's soc-cer ball back into her yard on the way.

Charity answered the door when I knocked. She was of an age with Michael, though her golden hair hid

any strands of silver that might have shown fairly well. She was tall and broad-shouldered, for a woman,

and I'd seen her crush more than one inhuman skull when one of her children was in danger. She looked

tired—a year of seeing your husband undergoing intensely diffi-cult physical therapy can do that, I guess.

But she also looked happy. Our personal cold war had entered a state of detente, of late, and she smiled

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to see me.

"Hello, Harry. Surprise lesson? I think Molly went to bed early."

"Not exactly," I said, smiling. "Thought I'd just stop by to

visit."

Charity's smile didn't exactly vanish, but it got cautious. "Really."

"Harry!" screamed a little voice, and Michael's youngest son, of the same name, flung himself into the air,

trusting me to catch him. Little Harry was around Courtney's age, and generally re-garded me as

something interesting to climb on. I caught him and

gave him a noisy kiss on the head, which elicited a giggle and a protest of, "Yuck!"

Charity shook her head wryly. "Well, come in. Let me get you something to drink. Harry, he's not a

jungle gym. Get down."

Little Harry developed spontaneous deafness and scrambled up onto my shoulders as we walked into

the living room. Michael and his dark-haired, quietly serious daughter Alicia were just coming in from the

garage, after putting away softball gear.

"Papa!" little Harry shouted, and promptly plunged forward, off my shoulders, arms outstretched to

Michael.

He leaned forward and caught him, though I saw him wince and exhale tightly as he did it. My stomach

rolled uncomfortably in sympathy.

"Alicia," Charity said.

Her daughter nodded, hung her ball cap on a wooden peg by the door, and took little Harry from

Michael, tossing him up into the air and catching him, much to the child's protesting laughter. "Come on,

squirt. Time for a bath."

"Leech!" Harry shouted, and immediately started climbing on his sister's shoulders, babbling about

something to do with robots.

Michael watched them exit with a smile. "I asked Harry to dinner tonight," he told Charity, kissing her on

the cheek.

"Did you?" she said, in the exact same tone she'd used on me at the door.

Michael looked at her and sighed. Then he said, "My office."

We went into the study Michael used as his office—more clut-tered than it had been before, now that he

was actually using it all the time—and closed the door behind us. I took out the photos I'd received

without a word and showed them to Charity.

Michael's wife was no dummy. She looked at them one at time, in rapid succession, her eyes blazing

brighter with every new image. When she spoke, her voice was cold. "Who took these?"

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"I don't know yet," I told her. "Though Nicodemus's name does sort of leap to mind."

"No," Michael said quietly. "He can't harm me or my family anymore. We're protected."

"By what?" I asked.

"Faith," he said, simply.

That would be a maddening answer under most circum-stances—but I'd seen the power of faith in

action around my friend, and it was every bit as real as the forces I could manage. Former presidents get

a detail of Secret Service to protect them. Maybe former Knights of the Cross had a similar retirement

package, only with more seraphim. "Oh."

"You're going to get to the bottom of this?" Charity asked.

"That's the idea," I said. "It might mean I intrude on you all a little."

"Harry," Michael said, "there's no need for that."

"Don't be ridiculous," Charity replied, turning to Michael. She took his hand, very gently, though her tone

of voice stayed firm. "And don't be proud."

He smiled at her. "It isn't a question of pride."

"I'm not so sure," she said quietly. "Father Forthill said we were only protected against supernatural

dangers. If there's some-thing else afoot . . . You've made so many enemies. We have to know what's

happening."

"I often don't know what's happening," Michael said. "If I spent all my time trying to find out, there

wouldn't be enough left to live in. This is more than likely being done for the sole purpose of making us

worried and miserable."

"Michael," I said quietly. "One of the best ways I know to counter fear is with knowledge."

He tilted his head, frowning gently at me.

"You say you won't live in fear. Fine. Let me poke around and shine a light on things, so we know

what's going on. If it turns out to be nothing, no harm done."

"And if it isn't?" Charity asked.

I kept a surge of quiet anger out of my voice and expression as I looked at her levelly. "No harm gets

done to you and yours."

Her eyes flashed and she nodded her chin once.

"Honey," Michael sighed.

Charity stared at him.

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Michael might have slain a dragon, but he knew his limits. He lifted a hand in acceptance and said, "Why

don't you make up the guest bedroom."

By a little after nine, the Carpenter household was almost entirely silent. I had been shown into the little

guest room kept at the end of an upstairs hallway. It was really Charity's sewing room, and was all but

filled with colorful stacks of folded fabric, some of them in clear plastic containers, some of them loose.

There was room around a little table with a sewing machine on it, and just barely enough space to get to

the bed. I'd recuperated from inju-ries there before.

One thing was new— there was a very fine layer of dust on the sewing machine.

Huh.

I sat down on the bed and looked around. It was a quiet, warm, cheerful little room—almost manically

so, now that I thought about it. Everything was soft and pleasant and ordered, and it took me maybe six

or seven whole seconds to realize that this room had been Charity's haven. How many days and nights

must she have been worried about Michael, off doing literally God only knew what, against foes so

terrible that no one but him could have been trusted to deal with them? How many times had she

won-dered if it would be a solemn Father Forthill who came to the door, instead of the man she loved?

How many hours had she spent in this well-lit room, working on making warm, soft things for her family,

while her husband carried Amoracchius's cold, bright steel into the darkness?

And now there was dust on the sewing machine.

Michael had nearly been killed, out there on that island. He had been crippled, forced by his injuries to

lay aside the holy sword, along with the nearly invisible, deadly war that went with it. And he was happier

than I'd ever seen him.

Maybe the Almighty worked in mysterious ways, after all.

Another thought occurred to me, as I sat there pondering: Whoever had sent those pictures hadn't sent

them to Michael— he'd sent them to me. What if I'd put Michael and his family into real danger by

showing up? What if I'd somehow reacted in ex-actly the way I'd been meant to react?

I grimaced around the cheerful room. So much for sleep.

I got up and padded back downstairs in my sock feet to raid the fridge, and while I was in the kitchen

munching on an im-promptu cold-cuts sandwich, I saw a shadow move past the back window.

I had several options, but none of them were real appetizing. I settled for the one that might accomplish

the most. I turned and padded as quickly and quietly as I could to the front door, slipped out, and snuck

around the side of the house in the direction that would, I hoped, bring me up behind the intruder. A

quick spat of

rain had made the grass wet, and the night had grown cool enough to make my instantly soaked socks

uncomfortable. I ignored them, and went padding through the grass, keeping to the side of the house and

watching all around me.

The backyard was empty.

I got an itchy feeling on the back of my neck and continued my circle. Had I given myself away

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somehow? Was the intruder even now circling just the way I was, hoping to sneak up on me} I took

longer steps and stayed as quiet as I knew how—which is pretty darn quiet. I've developed my skulking

to professional lev-els, over the years.

And as I rounded the corner, I spotted the intruder, a dark form hurrying down the sidewalk past

Courtney's house. I couldn't follow him without being spotted pretty quickly, unless I cheated, which I

promptly did. My ability to throw up a veil wasn't any-thing to write home about, but it ought to be good

enough to hide me from view on a dark night, on a heavily shadowed street. 1 focused on my

surroundings, on drawing the light and shadow around me in a cloak, and watched my own vision dim

and blur somewhat as I did.

I half wished I'd woken Molly up. The kid is a natural at sub-tle stuff like veils. She can make you as

invisible as Paris Hilton's ethical standards, and you can still see out of it with no more impediment than a

pair of mildly tinted sunglasses. But, since it was me doing the job, I was probably just sort of indistinct

and blurry, and my view of the street was like something seen through dark, thin fabric. I kept track of

the pale concrete of the sidewalk and the movement of the intruder against the background of shadowy

shapes and blurry bits of light, and walked softly.

The intruder crept down the street and then quickly crouched down beside my old Volkswagen, the Blue

Beetle. I t took him maybe five seconds to open the lock, reach into the car, and draw outthe long,

slender shape of a sheathed sword.

He must have come to the house first, and circled it to deter-mine where I was. He could have spotted

my staff, which I'd left resting against the wall by the front door, when he looked into the kitchen window.

And I was pretty sure it was a him I was deal-ing with, too. The movement of his arms and legs was

brusque, choppy, masculine.

I took a few steps to one side and picked up Courtney's soccer ball. Then I approached to within a few

yards and tossed it up in a high arc. It came down with a rattling thump on the Blue Beetle's hood.

Lurky-boy twitched, twisting his upper body toward the sound and freezing, and I hit him in a diving

tackle with my body as rigid as a spear, all of my weight behind one shoulder, trying to drive it right

through his spine and out his chest. He was completely unprepared for it and went down hard, driven to

the sidewalk with a "whuff' of expelled air.

I grabbed him by the hair so that I could introduce his fore-head to the sidewalk, but his hair was cut

nearly military-short, and I didn't have a good grip. He twisted and got me in the float-ing rib with an

elbow, and I wasn't in a good enough position to keep him from getting out from under me and

scrambling away, the sheathed weapon still in hand.

I focused my will, flicked a hand at him and spat, "Forzare!" Unseen force lashed out at the back of his

knees—

—and hit the mystic equivalent of a brick wall. There was a burst of twinkling, shifting lights, and he let

out a croaking sound as he kept running. Something that glowed like a dying ember fell to the sidewalk.

I pushed myself up to pursue him, slipped on the wet grass

next to the sidewalk, and rolled my ankle painfully. By the time I'd gotten to my feet again, he was too

far away for me to catch, even if my ankle had been steady. A second later, he hopped a fence and was

out of sight.

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I was left there, standing beside my car on one foot, while neighborhood dogs sent up a racket. I gimped

forward and looked down at the glowing embers of the thing he'd dropped. It was an amulet, its leather

cord snapped in the middle. It looked like it had been a carving of wood and ivory, but it was scorched

almost completely black, so I couldn't be certain. I picked it up, wrinkling my nose at the smell. Then I

turned back to the car and closed the open door. After that, I untwisted the piece of wire that holds the

trunk closed, picked up a blanket-wrapped bundle, and went back to Michael's place.

Morning on a school day in the Carpenter household is likeSouthampton , just before June 6, 1944.

There's a lot of yelling, running around, and organizing transport, and no one seems to be exactly sure

what's going on. Or maybe that was just me, be-cause by a little before eight, all the kids were trooping

out to their bus stop, led by Alicia, the senior schoolchild.

"So he grabbed the sword and ran?" Molly asked, sipping cof-fee. She apparently had a cold, and her

nose was stuffy and bright pink. My apprentice was her mother's daughter, tall and blond and too

attractive for me ever to be entirely comfortable—even wrapped up in a pink fluffy robe and flannel PJs,

with her hair a mess.

"Give me some credit," I said, unwrapping the blanket-wrapped bundle and producing Amoracchius.

"He thought he took the sword. "Michael frowned at me as he put margarine on his toast. "I thought you

told me that the sword was best hidden in plain sight."

"I've been getting paranoid in my age," I replied, munching on a bit of sausage. I blinked at the odd taste

and looked at him.

"Turkey," Michael said mildly. "It's better for me."

"It's better for everyone," Charity said firmly. "Including you, Harry."

"Gee," I said. "Thanks."

She gave me an arch look. "Can't you just use the amulet to track him down?"

"Nope," I said, putting some salt on the turkey "sausage." "Tell her why not, grasshopper."

Molly spoke through a yawn. "It caught on fire. Fire's a purify-ing force. Wiped out whatever energy

was on the amulet that might link back to the owner." She blinked watery eyes. "Besides, we don't need

it."

Michael frowned at her.

"He took the decoy," I said, smiling. "And I know how to find that."

"Unless he's gotten rid of it, or taken steps to make it untraceable," Michael said in a patient, reasonable

tone. "After all, he was evidently prepared with some sort of defensive measure against your abilities."

"Different situation entirely," I said. "Tracking someone by using one of their personal possessions

depends upon following a frequency of energy that is inherently unstable and transient. I actually have a

piece of the decoy sword, and the link between those two objects is much more concrete. It'd take one

he—uh, heck of a serious countermeasure to stop me from finding it."

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"But you didn't trail him last night?" Charity asked.

I shook my head. "I didn't know where I'd have been going, I wasn't prepared, and since apparently

someone is interested in the swords, I didn't want to go off and leave ..."

You.

". .. the sword ..."

Unprotected.

".. . here," I finished.

"What about the other one?" Michael asked quietly.

Fidelacchius,brother-sword to Michael's former blade, cur-rently rested in a cluttered basket in my

basement—next to the heavy locked gun safe that was warded with a dozen dangerous defensive spells.

Hopefully, anyone looking to take it would open the safe first and get a face full of boom. My lab was

behind a screen of defensive magic, which was in turn behind an outer shell of defensive magic that

protected my apartment. Plus there was my dog, Mouse, two hundred pounds of fur and muscle, who

didn't take kindly to hostile visitors.

"It's safe," I told him. "After breakfast, I'll track buzz-cut guy down, have a little chat with him, and we'll

put this whole thing to bed."

"Sounds simple," Michael said.

"It could happen."

Michael smiled, his eyes twinkling.

Buzz, as it turned out, wasn't a dummy. He'd ditched the decoy sword in a Dumpster behind a fast-food

joint less than four blocks from Michael's place. Michael sat behind the wheel of his truck, watching as I

stood hip-deep in trash and dug for the sword.

"You sure you don't want to do this part?" I asked him sourly. “I would, Harry," he replied, smiling. "But

my leg. You

know."

The bitch of it was, he was being sincere. Michael had never been afraid of work. "Why dump it here,

do you think?"

I gestured at a nearby streetlight. "Dark last night, no moon. This is probably the first place he got a

good look at it. Parked his car here, too, maybe." I found the handle of the cheap replica broadsword I'd

picked up at what had amounted to a martial arts trinkets shop. "Aha," I said, and pulled it out.

There was another manila envelope duct-taped to the blade. I took the sword and the envelope back to

the truck. Michael wrin-kled up his nose at the smell coming up from my garbage-spattered jeans, but

that expression faded when he looked at the envelope taped to the sword. He exhaled slowly.

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"Well," he said. "No use just staring at it."

I nodded and peeled the envelope from around the blade. I opened it and looked in.

There were two more photos.

The first was of Michael, in the uniform shirt he wore when he coached his daughter's softball team. He

was leaning back on the bleachers, as he had been when I'd first walked up to speak to him.

The second picture was of a weapon—a long-barreled rifle with a massive steel snout on the end of it,

and what looked like a telescope for a sight. It lay on what looked like a bed with cheap motel sheets.

"Hell's bells," I muttered. "What is that?"

Michael glanced at the picture. "It's a Barrett," he said quietly. "Fifty-caliber semiautomatic rifle. Snipers

in theMiddle East who use them are claiming kills at two kilometers, sometimes more. It's one of the

deadliest long-range weapons in the world."

He looked up and around him at all the buildings. "Overkill forChicago , really," he said with mild

disapproval.

"You know what I'm thinking?" I said. "I'm thinking we shouldn't be sitting here in your truck right next to

a spot Buzz expected us to go while he and his super-rifle are out there some-where."

Michael looked unperturbed. "If he wanted to simply kill me here, he's had plenty of time to make the

shot."

"Humor me," I said.

He smiled and then nodded. "I can take you to your place. You can get some clean clothes, perhaps."

"That hurts, man," I said, brushing uselessly at my jeans as the truck moved out. "You know what bugs

me about this situa-tion?"

Michael glanced aside at me for a second. "I think I do. But it might be different than what you were

thinking."

I ignored him. "Why? I mean sure, we need to know who this guy is, but why is he doing this?"

"It's a good question."

"He sends the pictures to me, not you," I said. I held up the new photo of the sniper rifle. "I mean, this is

obviously an escala-tion. But if what he wanted was to kill you, why... ? Why docu-ment it for me?"

"It looks to me," Michael said, "as if he wants you to be afraid."

"So he threatens you?" I demanded. "That's stupid."

He smiled. "Do people threaten you very often?"

"Sure. All the time."

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"What happens when they do?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I say something mouthy," I said. "Then I clean their clocks for them at the first opportunity."

"Which is probably why our photographer here—"

"Call him Buzz," I said. "It will make things simpler."

"Why Buzz hasn't bothered threatening you."

I frowned. "So you're saying Buzz knows me."

"It stands to reason. It seems clear that he's trying to push you into some sort of reaction. Something he

thinks you'll do if you're frightened."

"Like what?" I asked.

"What do you think?" he replied.

I put my hand on the hilt of Amoracchius. The sword's tip rested on the floorboards of the truck,

between my feet.

"That would be my guess, too," he said.

I frowned down at the blade, and nodded. "Maybe Buzz fig-ured I'd bring you the sword if you were in

danger. So that. .." I didn't finish.

"So that I'd have some way of defending myself," Michael said gently. "You can say it, Harry. You won't

hurt my feelings."

I nodded at the true sword. "Sure you don't want it?"

Michael shook his head. "I told you, Harry. That part of my life is over."

"And what if Buzz makes good?" I asked quietly. "What if he kills you?"

Michael actually laughed. "I don't think that's going to happen," he said. "But if it does . . ." He shrugged.

"Death isn't exactly a terrifying proposition for me, Harry. If it was, I could hardly have borne the sword

for as long as I did. I know what awaits me, and I know that my family will be taken care of."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure everything will be fine if your younger kids have to grow up without a

father in their lives."

He winced, and then pursed his lips thoughtfully for a few

moments before he replied. "Other children have," he said, finally.

"And that's it?" I asked, incredulous. "You just surrender to whatever is going to happen?"

"It isn't what I'd want—but a lot of things happen that I don't want. I'm just a man."

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"The last thing I would expect from you," I said, "is fatal-ism."

"Not fatalism," he said, his voice suddenly and unexpectedly firm. "Faith, Harry. Faith. This is happening

for a reason."

I didn't answer him. From where I was standing, it looked like it was happening because someone

ruthless and fairly intelligent wanted to get his hands on one of the swords. And worse, it looked like he

was probably a mortal, too. If what Charity had said was accurate, that meant that Michael didn't have a

heavenly insur-ance policy against the threat.

It also meant that I would have to pull my punches—the First Law of Magic prohibited using it to kill a

human being. There was some grey area involved with it, but not much, and it was the sort of thing that

one didn't play around with. The White Coun-cil enforced the laws, and anyone who broke them faced

the very real possibility of a death sentence.

"And that's all I need," I muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Michael pulled the truck into the gravel parking lot of my apartment, in the basement of a big old

boardinghouse. "I need to drop by a site before we go back to get your car. Is that all right?"

I took the sword with me as I got out of the truck. "Well," I said, "as long as it's all happening for a

reason. “Michael’s small company built houses. Years of vanishing at ir-regular intervals to battle the

forces of evil had probably held him back from moving up to building the really expensive, really

prof-itable places. So he built homes for the upper couple of layers of the middle class instead. He

probably would have made more money if he cut corners, but it was Michael. I was betting that never

happened.

This house was a new property, down toward Wolf Lake, and it had the depressing look of all

construction sites—naked earth, trees bulldozed and piled to one side, and the standard detritus of any

such endeavor: mud, wood, garbage discarded by the workers, and big old boot tracks all over the

ground. Half a dozen men were at work, putting up the house's skeleton.

"Shouldn't take me long," Michael said.

"Sure," I said. "Go to it."

Michael hopped down from the truck and gimped his way over to the house, moving with an energy and

purpose I'd seldom seen from him. I frowned after him, and then pulled the first envelope out of my

pocket and started looking at the photos inside.

The photo of Michael at a building site had been taken at this one. Buzz had been here, watching

Michael.

He might still be here now.

I got out of the car and slung the sword's belt over my shoul-der, so that it hung with its hilt sticking up

next to my head. Photo in hand, I started circling the site, trying to determine where Buzz had been

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standing when he'd taken his picture. I got some looks from the men on the job—but like I said before,

I'm used to that kind of thing.

It only took me a couple of minutes to find the spot Buzz had

used—-a shadowed area of weeds and scrub brush behind the pile of felled trees. It was obscured

enough to offer a good hiding spot, if no one was looking particularly hard, but far enough away that he

had to have used a zoom lens of some kind to get those pic-tures. I had heard that digital cameras could

zoom in to truly ri-diculous levels these days.

I found footprints.

Don't read too much into that. I'm not Ranger Rick or any-thing, but I had a teacher who made sure I

spent my share of time hiking and camping in the rugged country of the Ozarks, and he taught me the

basics—where to look, and what to look for. The showers last night had wiped away any subtle signs,

but I wouldn't have trusted my own interpretation of them in any case. I did find one clear footprint, of a

man's left boot, fairly deep, and half a dozen partials and a few broken branches in a line leading away.

He'd come here, hung around for a while, then left.

Which just about anyone could have deduced from the photo, even if he hadn't seen any tracks.

I had this guy practically captured already.

There weren't any bubble-gum wrappers, discarded cigarettes, or fortuitously misplaced business cards

that would reveal Buzz's iden-tity. I hadn't really thought there would be, but you always look.

I slogged across the muddy ground back toward the truck, when the door of one of the contractors'

vans opened, and a pre-maturely balding thin guy with a tool belt and a two-foot reel of electrician's wire

staggered out. He had a shirt with a name tag that read, "Chuck." Chuck wobbled to one side, dragging

the handles of some tools along the side panel of Michael's truck, leaving some marks.

I glanced into the van. There was an empty bottle of Jim Beam inside, with a little still dribbling out the

mouth. "Hey, Chuck," I said. "Give you a hand with that?"

He gave me a bleary glance that didn't seem to pick up on anything out of the ordinary about me or the

big old sword hang-ing over my shoulder. "Nah. I got it."

"It's cool," I said. "I'm going that way anyhow. And those things are heavy." I went over to him and

seized one end of the reel, taking some of the weight.

The electrician's breath was practically explosive. He nodded a couple of times, and shifted his grip on

the reel. "Okay, buddy. Thanks."

We carried the heavy reel of wire over to the house. I had to adjust my steps several times, to keep up

with the occasional drunken lurch from Chuck. We took the wire to the poured-concrete slab that was

going to be the garage at some point, it looked like, and dropped it off.

"Thanks, man," Chuck said, his sibilants all mushy.

"Sure," I said. "Look, uh. Do you really think you should be working with electricity right now, Chuck?"

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He gave me an indignant, drunken glare. "What's that sup-posed to mean?"

"Oh, you just, uh. Look a little sick, that's all."

"I'm just fine," Chuck slurred, scowling. "I got a job to do."

"Yeah," I said. "Kind of a dangerous job. In a big pile of kin-dling."

He peered at me. "What?" It came out more like Wha?

"I've been in some burning buildings, man, and take it from me, this place ..." I looked around at the

wooden framework. "Fwoosh. I'm just saying. Fwoosh."

He worked on that one for a moment, and then his face dark-ened into a scowl again. He turned and

picked up a wrench from a nearby toolbox. "Buzz off, freak. Before I get upset."

I wasn't going to do anyone any favors by getting into half of a drunken brawl with one of Michael's

subcontractors. I looked around to see if anyone had noticed, but they were all at other parts of the

house, I guessed. So I just held up one hand in front of me and said, mildly, "Okay. I'm going."

Chuck watched me as I walked out of the garage. I looked around until I spotted the power lines

running into the house, and then followed the trench they were buried in back to the street, until I got to

the transformer. I looked up at it, glanced around a little guiltily, and sighed. Then I waved my hand at the

thing, exerted my will, and muttered, "Hexus. "

Wizards and technology don't get along. At all. Prolonged exposure to an active wizard has really

detrimental effects on just about anything manufactured after World War II or so, especially anything

involving electricity. My car breaks down every couple of weeks, and that's when I'm not even trying.

When I'm making an effort?

The transformer exploded in a humming shower of blue-white sparks, and the sound of an electric saw,

somewhere on the site, died down to nothing.

I went back to the truck, and sat quietly until Michael returned.

He gave me a steady look.

"It was in the name of good," I said. "Your electrician was snockered. By the time the city gets by to

repair it, he'll have sobered up."

"Ah," Michael said. "Chuck. He's having trouble at home."

"How do you know?"

"He's got a wife, a daughter," Michael said. "And I know the look."

"Maybe if he spent less time with Jim Beam," I said, "it'd gobetter.""The booze is new," Michael said,

looking worriedly at the house. "He's a good man. He's in a bad time." He glanced back at me a moment

later. "Thank you. Though perhaps next time ... you could just come tell me about it?"

Duh, Harry. That probably would have worked, too.I shook myhead calmly. "That's not how I roll."

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"How you roll?" Michael asked, smiling.

"I heard Molly say it once. So it must be cool."

"How you roll." Michael shook his head and started the truck. "Well. You were trying to help. That's the

important thing."

Harry Dresden. Saving the world, one act of random destruc-tion at a time.

"Okay," I said to Molly, as I prepared to get into my car. "Just keep your wits about you."

"I know," she said calmly.

"If there's any trouble, you call the cops," I said. "This guy looks to be operating purely vanilla, but he

can still kill you just fine."

"I know, Harry."

"If you see him, do not approach him—and don't let your dad do it, either."

Molly rolled her eyes in exasperation. Then she muttered a quick word and vanished. Gone. She was

standing within an arm's length of me, but I couldn't see her at all. "Let's see the bozo shoot this," said her

disembodied voice.

"And while we're at it, let's hope he isn't using a heat-sensitive scope," I said drily.

She flickered back into sight, giving me an arch look. "The point is that I'm perfectly capable of keeping

a lookout and yelling

if there's trouble. I'll go with Dad to softball, and you'll be the second person I call if there's a whiff of

peril."

I grunted. "Maybe I should go get Mouse. Let him stay with you, too."

"Maybe you should keep him close to the swords," Molly said quietly. "My dad's just a retired soldier.

The swords are icons of power."

"The swords are bits of sharp metal. The men who hold them make them a threat."

"In case you hadn't noticed, my dad isn't one of those men anymore," Molly said. She tucked a trailing

strand of golden hair behind one ear and frowned up at me worriedly. "Are you sure this isn't about you

blaming yourself for what happened to my dad?"

"I don't blame myself," I said.

My apprentice arched an extremely skeptical eyebrow.

I looked away from her.

"You wanna talk to me about it?"

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"No," I said. I suddenly felt very tired. "Not until I'm sure the swords are safe."

"If he knew where to send the pictures," Molly said, "then he knows where your house is."

"But he can't get inside. Even if he could get the doors or one of the windows to open, the wards would

roast him."

"And your wards are perfect," Molly said. "There's no way anyone could get around them, ever. The

way you told me those necromancers did a few years ago."

"They didn't go around," I said. "They went through. But I see your point. If I have to, I'll take one of the

Ways to Warden's command center atEdinburgh and leave the swords in my locker." Molly's eyes

widened. "Wow. A locker?"

"Technically. I haven't used it. I've got the combination writ-ten down. Somewhere. On a napkin. I

think."

"Does it hurt to be as suave as you, boss?"

"It's agonizing."

"Looks it." Her smile faded. "What are you going to do after you're sure the swords are safe?"

She hadn't thought it through. She didn't know what was going to happen in the next few minutes. So I

gave her my best fake grin and said, "One step at a time, grasshopper. One step at a time."

I began pouring my will into my shield bracelet about half a mile from home. That kind of active magic

wasn't good for the Beetle, but having a headless driver smash it into a building would be even worse. I

fastened closed the buttons on my leather duster, too. The spells that reinforced the coat were fresh, and

they'd once stood up to the power of a Kalashnikov assault rifle—but that was a world of difference

from the power of a fifty-caliber sniper round.

Buzz had missed his shot at the sword at Michael's house. It's really hard to tail someone without being

noticed, unless you've got a team of several cars working together—and this had all the earmarks of a

lone-gunman operation. Buzz hadn't been tailing me today, and unless he'd given up entirely—sure,

right—that could only mean that he was waiting for me somewhere. He'd had plenty of time to set up an

ambush somewhere he knew I'd go.

Home.

The sword was my priority. I wasn't planning on suicide or anything, but at the end of the day, I'm just

one guy. The swords had been a thorn in the side of evildoers for two thousand years.

In the long term, the world needed them a lot more than it needed one battered and somewhat shabby

professional wizard.

As I came down the street toward my apartment, I stomped on the gas. Granted, in an old VW Beetle,

that isn't nearly as dra-matic as it sounds. My car didn't roar as much as it coughed more loudly, but I

picked up speed and hit my driveway as hard as I could while keeping all the wheels on the ground. I

skidded to a stop outside my front door as the engine rattled, pinged, and began pouring out black

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smoke, which would have been totally cool if I'd actually made it happen on purpose.

I flung myself out of the car, the sword in hand, and into the haze of smoke, my shield bracelet running at

maximum power in a dome that covered me on all sides. I rushed toward the steps leading down to the

front door of my basement apartment.

As my foot was heading down toward the first step there was a flash of light and a sledgehammer hit me

in the back. It spun me counterclockwise as it flung me down, and I went into a bad tum-ble down the

seven steps to my front door. I hit my head, my shoulder screamed, and the taste of blood filled my

mouth. My shield bracelet seared my wrist. Gravity stopped working, and I wasn't sure which way I was

supposed to be falling.

"Get up, Harry," I told myself. "He's coming. He's coming for the sword. Get up. "

I'd dropped my keys in the fall. I looked for them.

I saw blood all over the front of my shirt.

The keys lay on the concrete floor of the stairs. I picked them up and stared stupidly at them. It took me

a minute to remember why I needed them. Then another minute to puzzle out which of the five keys on

the ring went to my front door. My head was pounding and I felt sick, and I couldn't get a breath.

I tried to reach up to unlock the door, but my left shoulder wouldn't hold my weight and I almost

slammed my head against the concrete again.

I made it up to a knee. I shoved my key at the door.

He's coming. He's coming.

Blue sparks flew up, and a little shock lit up my arm with pain.

My wards. I'd forgotten about my wards.

I tried to focus my will again, but I couldn't get it to gel. I tried again, and again, and finally I was able to

perform the routine little spell that disarmed them.

I shoved my key into the lock and turned it. Then I leaned against the door.

It didn't open.

My door is a heavy steel security door. I installed it myself, and I'm a terrible carpenter. It doesn't quite

line up with the frame, and it takes a real effort to get it open and closed. I had grown used to the routine

bump and thrust of my shoulders and hips that I needed to open it up—but like the spell that disarmed

my wards, that simple task was, at the moment, beyond me.

Footsteps crunched in the gravel.

He's coming.

I couldn't get it open. I sort of flopped against it as hard as I could.

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The door groaned and squealed as it swung open, pulled from the other side. My huge, shaggy grey

dog, Mouse, dropped his front paws back to the ground, shouldered his way through the door, and

seized my right arm by the biceps. His jaws were like a vise, though his teeth couldn't penetrate the

leather. He dragged me indoors like a giant, groggy chew toy, and as I went across the threshold, I saw

Buzz appear at the top of the stairs, a black shadow against the blue morning sky.

He raised a gun, a military sidearm.

I kicked the door with both legs, as hard as I could.

The gun barked. Real guns don't sound like the guns in the movies. The sound is flatter, more

mechanical. I couldn't see the flash, because I'd moved the door into the way. Bullets pounded the steel

like hailstones on a tin roof.

Mouse slammed his shoulder against the door and rammed it closed.

I fumbled at the wards, babbling in panicked haste, and man-aged to restore them just in time to hear a

loud popping sound, a cry, and a curse from the other side of the door. Then I reached up and snapped

the dead bolt closed for good measure.

Then I fell back onto the floor of my apartment and watched the ceiling spin for a while.

In two or three minutes, maybe, I was feeling a little better. My head and shoulder hurt like hell, but I

could breathe. I tried my arms and legs and three of them worked. I sat up. That worked, too, though it

made my left shoulder hurt like more hell, and it was hard to see straight through the various pains.

I knew several techniques for reducing and ignoring pain, some of them almost too effective—but I

couldn't really seem to line any of them up and get them working. My head hurt too much.

I needed help.

I half crawled to my phone and dialed a number. I mumbled to the other end of the phone, and then lay

back on the floor again and felt terrible. Buzz must have fallen back by now, know-ing that the sound of

the shots could attract attention. Now that the sword was behind the protection of my wards, there was

no reason for him to loiter around outside my apartment. I hoped.

The next thing I knew, Mouse was pawing at the door, making anxious sounds. I dragged myself over to

it, disarmed the wards, and unlocked it.

"Are these shell casings on the ground? Is this blood?" sput-tered a little man in pale blue hospital scrubs

and a black denim jacket. He had a shock of black hair like a startled haystack, and black wire-rimmed

spectacles. "Holy Hannah, Harry, what hap-pened to you?"

I closed the wards and the door behind him. "Hi, Butters. I fell down."

"We've got to get you to a hospital," he said, turning to reach for my phone.

I slapped my hand weakly down onto it, to keep him from picking it up. "Can't. No hospitals."

"Harry, you know that I'm not a doctor."

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"Yes, you are. I saw your business card." The effort of vocal-izing that many syllables hurt.

"I'm a medical examiner. I cut up dead people and tell you things about them. I don't do live patients."

"Hang around," I said. "It's early yet." Still too many sylla-bles.

"Oh, this is a load of crap," he muttered. Then he shook his head and said, "I need some more light."

"Matches," I mumbled. "Mantel." Better.

He found the matches and started lighting candles. "Next, I'll be getting out a big jar of leeches."

He found the first aid kit under my kitchen sink, boiled some water, and came over to check me out. I

sort of checked out for a few minutes. When I came back, he was fumbling with a pair of scissors and

my duster.

"Hey!" I protested. "Lay off the coat!"

"You've dislocated your shoulder," he informed me, frowning without stopping his work with the

scissors. "You don't want to wriggle it around trying to take your shirt off."

"That's not what I—"

The pin that held the two halves of the scissors together popped as Butters exerted more pressure on

their handles, and the two halves fell apart. He blinked at them in shock.

"Told you," I muttered.

"Okay," he said. "I guess we do this the hard way."

I won't bore you with the details. Ten minutes later, my coat was off, my shoulder was back in its

socket, and Butters was pre-tending that my screams during the two failed attempts to put it back hadn't

bothered him. I went away again, and when I came back, Butters was pressing a cold Coke into my

hand.

"Here," he said. "Drink something. Stay awake."

I drank. Actually, I guzzled. Somewhere in the middle, he passed me several ibuprofen tablets, and told

me to take them. I did it.

I blinked blearily at him as he held up my coat. He turned it around to show me the back.

There was a hole in the leather mantle. I flipped it up. Beneath the hole, several ounces of metal were

flattened against the sec-ond layer of spell-toughened leather, about three inches below the collar and a

hair to the right of my spine.

That was chilling. Even through my best defenses, that was how close I'd come to death.

If Buzz had shot me six inches lower, only a single layer of leather would have been between the round

and my hide. A few inches higher, and it would have taken me in the neck, with ab-solutely no

protection. And if he'd waited a quarter of a second longer, until my foot had descended to the first step

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leading down to my door, he would have sprayed my brains all over the siding of the boardinghouse.

"You broke your nose again," Butters said. "That's where some of the blood came from. There was a

laceration on your scalp, too, which accounts for the rest. I stitched it up. You're holding your neck rigid.

Probably whiplash from where the round hit you. There are some minor burns on your left wrist, and I'm

just about certain that you've got a concussion."

"But other than that," I muttered, "I feel great."

"Don't joke, Harry," Butters said. "You should be under observation."

"Already am," I said. "Look where it got me." He grimaced. "Doctors are required to report gunshot

wounds to the police."

"Good thing I don't have any gunshot wounds, eh? I just fell down some stairs."

Butters shook his head again and turned toward the phone. "Give me a reason not to do it, or I call

Murphy right now."

I grunted. Then I said, "I'm protecting something important. Someone else wants it. If the police get

involved, this thing would probably get impounded as evidence. That's an unacceptable out-come, and it

could get a lot of people hurt."

"Something important," Butters said. "Something like a magic sword?"

I scowled at him. "How do you know that?" He nodded at my hand. "Because you won't let go of it." I

looked down to find the burn-scarred fingers of my left hand clutching Amoracchius's hilt in a

white-knuckled grasp. "Oh," I said. "Yeah. Kind of a tip-off, isn't it?"

"Think you can let it go now?" Butters asked quietly.

"I'm trying," I said. "My hand's kind of locked up."

"Okay. Let's just go one finger at a time, then." Butters peeled my fingers off the sword, one at a time,

until he had removed it from my grasp. My hand closed in on itself, tendons creaking, and 1 winced. It

sort of hurt, but at the moment it was a really minor thing.

Butters set the sword aside and immediately took my left hand in his, massaging brusquely. "Murphy's

going to be pissed if you don't call her."

"Murphy and I have disagreed before," I said.

Butters grimaced. "Okay. Can I help?"

"You are helping."

"Besides this," Butters said.

I looked at the little M.E. for a moment. Butters had been my unofficial doctor for a long time, never

asking a thing in return. He'd waded into some serious trouble with me. Once, he'd saved my life. I

trusted his discretion. I trusted him, generally.

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So, as the blood started returning to my hand, I told him more or less everything about Buzz and the

swords.

"So this guy, Buzz," Butters said. "He's just a guy."

"Let's don't forget," I said. "Despite all the nasties running around out there, it's just guys who dominate

most of the planet."

"Yeah, but he's just a guy," Butters said. "How's that?"

I flexed my fingers, wincing a little. "It's good. Thanks."

He nodded and stood up. He went over to the kitchen and filled my dog's water bowl, then did the same

for my cat, Mister. "My point is," he said, "that if this guy isn't a super-magical something, he had to find

out about the swords like any other guy." "Well," I said. "Yeah."

Butters looked at me over his spectacles. "So," he said. "Who knew that you had the swords?"

"Plenty knew I had Shiro's sword," I said. "But this guy tried to get to me through Michael. And the only

ones who knew about Amoracchius were me, a couple of archangels, Michael, Sanya, and . . ."

Butters tilted his head, looking at me, waiting.

"And the Church," I growled.

St. Mary of the Angels is just about as big and impressive as churches get. In a city known for its

architecture, St. Mary's more than holds its own. It takes up most of a city block. It's massive, stone, and

as Gothic as black frosting on a birthday cake.

I'd watched my back all the way there, and was sure no one was following me. I parked behind the

church and marched up to the delivery door. Twenty seconds of pounding brought a tall, rather

befuddled-looking old priest to the door.

"Yes?" he asked.

"I'm here to see Father Forthill," I said.

"Excuse me," he said.

" 'S okay, padre," I told him, clapping his shoulder and moving him aside less than gently. "I'll find him."

"Now, see here, young man—"

He might have said something else, but I didn't pay much at-tention. I walked past him, into the halls of

the church, and headed for Forthill's room. I rapped twice on the door, opened it, and walked in on a

priest in his underwear.

Father Forthill was a stocky man of medium height, with a fringe of white hair around his head, and his

eyes were the color

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of robins' eggs. He wore boxers, a tank top, and black socks. A towel hung around his neck, and what

hair he had left was wet and stuck to his head.

A lot of people would have reacted to my entrance with outrage. Forthill considered me gravely and

said, "Ah. Hello, Harry."

I had come in with phasers set on snark, but even though I'm not particularly religious, I do have some

sense of what is and isn't appropriate. Seeing a priest in his undies just isn't, especially when you've

barged into his private chamber. "Uh," I said, deflating. "Oh."

Forthill shook his head, smiling. "Yes, priests bathe. We eat. We sleep. Occasionally, we even have to

go to the bathroom."

"Yeah," I said. "Urn. Yeah."

"I do rather need to get dressed," he said gently. "I'm giving Mass tonight."

"Mass?"

Forthill actually let out a short belly laugh. "Harry, you didn't think that I just sit around in this old barn

waiting my chance to make you sandwiches, bandage wounds, and offer advice?" He nodded to where a

set of vestments was hung up on the wall. "On weeknights they let the junior varsity have the ball."

"We've got to talk," I said. "It's about the swords."

He nodded and gave me a quick smile. "Perhaps I'll put some pants on first?"

"Yeah," I said. "Sorry." I backed out of the room and shut the door.

The other priest showed up and gave me a gimlet eye a minute later, but Forthill arrived in time to rescue

me, dressed in his usual black attire with a white collar. "It's all right, Paulo," he told the other priest. "I'll

talk to him." Father Paulo harrumphed and gave me another glare, but he turned and left.

"You look terrible," Forthill said. "What happened?"

I gave it to him unvarnished.

"Merciful God," he said, when I'd finished. But it wasn't in an "oh, no!" tone of voice. It was a slower,

wearier inflection.

He knew what was going on.

"I can't protect the swords if I don't know what I'm dealing with," I said. "Talk to me, Anthony."

Forthill shook his head. "I can't."

"Don't give me that," I said with quiet heat. "I need to know."

"I'm sworn not to speak of it. To anyone. For any reason." He faced me, jaw outthrust. "I keep my

promises."

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"So you're just going to stand there," I snapped. "And do nothing."

"I didn't say that," Forthill replied. "I'll do what I can."

"Oh, sure," I said.

"I will," he said. "You have my word. You're going to have to trust me."

"That might come easier if you'd explain yourself."

His eyes narrowed. "Son, I'm not a fool. Don't tell me that you've never been behind this particular eight

ball before."

I looked for something appropriately sarcastic and edgy to say in response, but all I came up with was,

"Touche."

He ran a hand over his mostly bald scalp, and I suddenly saw how much older Forthill looked than he

had when I met him. His hair was even more sparse and brittle-looking, his hands more weathered with

time. "I'm sorry, Harry," he said, and he sounded sincere. "If I could ... is there anything else I could do

for you?"

"You can hurry," I said quietly. "At the rate we're going, some-one is going to get killed."

At the rate we'd been going, probably me.

I approached the park with intense caution. It took me more than half an hour to be reasonably sure that

Buzz wasn't there, some-where, lurking with another fifty-caliber salutation for me. Of course, he could

have been watching from the window of one of the nearby buildings—but none of them were hotels or

apartments, and none of the pictures taken in the park had been shot from elevation. Besides. If I

avoided every place where a maniac with a high-powered rifle might possibly shoot me, I'd live the restof

my life hiding under my bed.

Still, no harm in exercising caution. Rather than walking across the open ground of the park to the

softball field, I took the circu-itous route around the outside of the park—and heard quiet little sobs

coming from the shade beneath the bleachers opposite the oneswhere I'd sat with Michael.

I slowed my steps as I approached, and peered under the bleachers.

A girl in shorts, sneakers, and a powder-blue team jersey was huddled up with her arms wrapped

around her knees, crying quietly. She had stringy red hair and was skinny, even for someone her age. It

took me a minute to recognize her as Alicia's teammate, the second basem—person.

"Hey, there," I said quietly, trying to keep my voice gentle. "You all right?"

The girl looked up, her eyes wide, and immediately began wiping at her eyes and nose. "Oh. Oh, yes.

I'm fine. I'm just fine, sir.""Right, right. Next you'll tell me you've got allergies," I said.

She looked up at me with a shaky little smile, huffed out a breath in the ghost of a laugh—and it

transformed into another sob on her. Her face twisted up into an agonized grimace. She shuddered and

wept harder, bowing her head.

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I can be such a sucker. I ducked down under the bleachers and sat down beside her, a couple of feet

away. The girl cried for a couple more minutes, until it began quieting down.

"I know you," she said a minute later, between sniffles. "You were talking to Coach Carpenter

yesterday. A-Alicia said you were a friend of the family."

"I'd like to think so," I agreed. "I'm Harry."

"Kelly," she said.

I nodded. "Shouldn't you be practicing with the team, Kelly?"

She shrugged her skinny shoulders. "It doesn't help."

"Help?"

"I'm hopeless," she said. "Whatever it is I'm doing, I just screw it up."

"Well, that's not true," I said with assurance. "Nobody can be bad at everything. There's no such thing

as a perfect screwup."

"I am," she said. "We've only lost two games all year, and both of them were because I screwed up. We

go to the finals next week and everyone's counting on me, and I'm just going to let them down."

Hell's bells, what a ridiculously tiny problem. But it was obvi-ous that it was real to Kelly, and that it

meant the world to her. She was just a kid. It probably looked like a much larger issue from where she

was standing.

"Pressure," I said. "Yeah, I get that."

She peered at me. "Do you?"

"Sure," I said. "You feel like people's lives depend on you, and that if you do the wrong thing they're

going to be horribly hurt— and it will be your fault."

"Yes," she said, sniffling. "And I've been trying so hard, but I

just can't."

"Be perfect?" I asked. "No, of course not. But what choice do

you have?"

She looked at me uncertainly.

"Anything you do, you risk screwing up. You could do a bad job of crossing the street one day and get

hit by a car."

"I probably could," she said darkly.

I held up my hand. "My point," I told her, "is that if you want to play it safe, you can stay at home and

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wrap yourself up in bubble wrap and never do anything."

"Maybe I should."

I snorted. "They still make you read Dickens in school? Great

Expectations}"

"Yeah."

"You can stay at home and hide if you want—and wind up like Miss Havisham," I said. "Watching life

through a window and obsessed with how things might have been."

"Dear God," she said. "You've just made Dickens relevant to

my life."

"Weird, right?" I asked her, nodding.

Kelly let out a choking little laugh.

I pushed myself up and nodded to her. "I never saw you hiding over here, okay? I'm just gonna go do

what I gotta do, and leave you to make the choice."

"Choice?"

"Sure. Do you want to put your cap back on and play? Or do you want to wind up an old maid

wandering around your house in the rotting remains of a wedding dress and thirty yards of bub-ble wrap,

plotting heartlessly against some kid named Pip?" I regarded her soberly. "There's really no middle

ground."

"I'm pretty sure that's not right," she said.

"See there? I'm not much good at offering wise counsel, but that didn't stop me from trying." I winked at

her and walked on, around behind the backstop to where Michael sat on the bleach-ers on the far side of

the field.

Molly sat on a blanket underneath a tree maybe ten yards away, with earbuds trailing wires down into

her shirt's front pocket, as if she was listening to a digital music player. It was an effort to blend into the

background, I supposed, since she couldn't have been listening to one of those gizmos any more than I

could have. She was wearing sunglasses, too, so I couldn't tell where her focus was, but I was sure she

was being alert. She gave me the barest trace of a nod as I approached her father.

I sat down next to him and waited for it.

"Harry," Michael said. "You look awful."

"Yes, I do," I said. I told him about the attempted assassination and about my discussion with Forthill.

Michael frowned out at the children practicing, his expression quietly disturbed. "The Church wouldn't

do something like that, Harry. It isn't how they operate."

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"People are people, Michael," I said. "People do things. They make mistakes."

"But it isn't the Church," he said. "If this person is part of the Church, he isn't acting with their blessing or

under their instruc-tions."

I shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. I don't think they were too happy with me when I was a couple of

days late turning over the Shroud."

"But you did return it, safe and sound," Michael said.

"How many people know about the swords? How many knew that I had Amoracchius?"

He shook his head. "I'm not certain. Given the sorts of foes they contend with, the knowledgeable

people within the Church are more than mildly secretive and security-conscious."

I gestured around us. "Ballpark it for me."

He blew out a breath. "Honestly, I just don't know. I've per-sonally met perhaps two hundred priests

who understood our mission, but it wouldn't shock me if there were as many as six or seven hundred,

worldwide. But among them, that kind of important information would be closely kept. Four or five, at

most. Plus the Holy Father."

"I'm going to assume that Il Papa didn't personally attempt to blow me away," I said gravely. "How do I

find out about the others?"

"You might talk to Father For—"

"Been there, did that. He isn't talking."

Michael grimaced. "I see."

"So, other than him—"

He spread his hands. "I don't know, Harry. Forthill was my primary temporal contact."

I blinked. "He never talked to you about your support structure in the Church?"

"He was sworn to secrecy," Michael said. "I just had to trust him. Excuse me." He stood up and called

to the Softball team, "Thank you, ladies! Two laps of the park and we'll call it a day!"

The team began discarding gloves and such, and fell into a line to begin jogging around the exterior of the

park, in no great hurry, talking and laughing as they went. I noticed that Kelly was among them and fell a

little less like a complete incompetent. "I'd really like to keep my brains on the inside of my skull," I told

him when he sat down again. "And if one of the Church's top guys is leaking information or has sprung a

gear, they need to know it."

"Yes."

I stared out at the now-empty softball diamond for a minute. Then I said, "I don't want to kill anybody.

But Buzz is playing for keeps. I'm not going to pull any punches."

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Michael frowned down at his hands. "Harry. You're talking about murder."

"What a shock," I said, "after taking one of those monster rounds in the back."

"There must be some way to end this without bloodsh—"

Over his shoulder, I saw Molly abruptly spring to her feet and whip off her sunglasses, staring across the

park with a puzzled frown on her face. Then the girls from the team appeared from the direction Molly

had been staring. The girls were running as fast as they could, screaming as they came.

"Coach!" screamed Kelly. "Coach! The man took her!"

"Easy, easy," Michael said, rising. He put his hands on Kelly's shoulders as Molly came hurrying over.

"Easy. What are you talk-ing about?"

"He came out of the van with one of those electric stunner things," Kelly babbled, through her panting.

"He zapped her and then he put her in the van and drove away."

Molly drew in a sudden breath and almost seemed to turn green.

Michael stared at the girl for a second, and then glanced at me. His eyes widened in horror. "Alicia!" he

called, stepping past Kelly and looking wildly around the park. "Alicia!"

"He took her!" sobbed Kelly, her tears making her face blotchy. "He took her!"

"Kelly," I said, to get her attention. "What did he look like?"

She shook her head. "I don't, I can't. . . White, not really tall. His hair was cut really short. Like army

haircuts."

Buzz.

He'd threatened Michael to get me to bring a sword out in the open, where it was vulnerable. Then he'd

tried to kill me before I locked it away again. And when that failed, he tried something else.

"Molly," Michael said quietly. "Take the truck. Drive Sandra and Donna home. Call your mother on the

way and tell her what's happened. Stay at the house."

"But—" Molly began.

Michael turned hard eyes to her and said, "Now."

"Yes, sir," Molly said, instantly.

Michael tossed her the keys to the truck. Then he turned to a nearby equipment bag and smoothly

withdrew an aluminum bat. He whipped it around in a flowing rondello motion, nodded as if satisfied, and

turned to me. "Let's go. You're driving."

"Okay," I said. "Where?"

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"St. Mary's," Michael said, his tone positively grim. "I'm going to talk to Forthill."

Forthill had just finished giving evening Mass when we showed up. Father Paulo greeted Michael like a

long-lost son, and how was he doing, and of course we could wait for Forthill in his chambers. I

suspected Paulo held deep reservations in regards to me. But that was okay. I wasn't feeling particularly

trusting to-ward him, either. We'd been waiting in Forthill's quarters for maybe five min-utes when the old

priest came in. He took one look at Michael and got pale.

"Talk to me about the order," Michael said quietly.

"My son," Forthill said. He shook his head. "You know that I—"

"He's taken Alicia, Tony."

Forthill's mouth dropped open. "What?"

"He's taken my daughter," Michael roared, his voice shaking the walls. "I don't care what oaths you've

sworn. I don't care what the Church thinks needs to be kept secret. We have to find this man and find

him now."

I blinked at Michael and found myself leaning a little away from him. The heat of his anger was palpable,

a living thing that brought its own presence, its own gravity, into the room.

Forthill faced that anger like an old rock thrusting up stub-bornly through a turbulent sea—worn and

unmoving. "I will not break my oaths, Michael. Not even for you."

"I'm not asking you to do it for me," Michael said. "I'm asking you to do it for Alicia."

Forthill flinched. "Michael," he said quietly. "The order main-tains security for a reason. Its enemies have

sought to destroy it for two thousand years, and in that time the order has helped hundreds of thousands,

even millions. You know that. A breach could put the entire order at risk—and that means more than my

life, or yours."

"Or an innocent child's, apparently," I said. "I guess you're going to take that 'suffer the little children to

come unto Me' thing kind of literally, eh, padre?"

Forthill looked from Michael to me, and then to the floor. He

took a slow breath, and then smoothed his hands over his vest-ments. "It never gets any easier, does it?

Trying to work out the right thing to do." He answered his own question. "No. I suppose it's often simpler

to determine the proper path than it is to actu-ally walk it."

Forthill rose and walked over to a section of the wood-paneled wall. He put his hands at the top right

and lower left section of the panel, and with a grunt, pushed it in. It slid aside, revealing a space the size

of a closet, filled with file cabinets and a small book-shelf.

I traded a glance with Michael, who raised his eyebrows in surprise. He hadn't known about the

hidey-hole.

Forthill opened a drawer and started thumbing through files. "The Ordo Malleus has existed, in one form

or another, since the founding of the Church. Originally, we were tasked with the cast-ing out of demons

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from the possessed, but as the Church grew, it became clear that we needed to be able to counter the

threats from other enemies as well."

"Other enemies?" I asked.

"Various beings who were masquerading as gods," Forthill said. "Vampires and other supernatural

predators. Wicked faeries who resented the Church's influence." He glanced at me. "Prac-titioners of

witchcraft who turned their hand against the followers of Christ."

"Hell's bells," I muttered. "The Inquisition."

Forthill grimaced. "The Inquisition has become the primary reason Malleus maintains itself in

secrecy—and why we very seldom engage in direct action ourselves. It's all too easy to let power go to

your head when you're certain that God is on your side. The Inquisition, in many ways, attempted to

bring our struggle into the light—and because of the situation it helped create, more innocent men and

women died than centuries of the most savage supernatural depredation.

"We support the Knights of the Cross and do whatever we can to counsel and protect God's children

against supernatural threats—the way we protected the girl you brought to me the year Michael's

youngest was born. Now the order recruits people singly, after years of personal observation, and

maintains the highest levels of personal, ethical integrity humanly possible." He turned to us, with a file

folder in his hands. "But as you pointed out earlier, Harry. We're only human."

I took the folder from him, opened it, and found Buzz's pic-ture. I recognized the short haircut, and the

severe lines of his chin and jaw. His eyes were new to me, though. They were as grey as stone, but less

warm and fuzzy.

"Father Roarke Douglas," I read. "Age forty-three. Five eleven, hundred eighty-five. Sniper for the

Rangers, trained in demoli-tions, U.S. Army Chaplain, parish priest inGuatemala ,Indonesia , andRwanda

."

"Good Lord preserve us," Michael said.

"Yeah. A real holy warrior," I said. I eyed Forthill. "And this guy was brought in?"

"I've met Roarke on several occasions," Forthill said. "I was always impressed with his reserve and calm

in the face of crisis. He repeatedly distinguished himself by acts of courage in protect-ing his parishioners

in some of the most dangerous locations in the world." He shook his head. "But he ... changed, in the last

few years."

"Changed," Michael said. "How?"

"He became a strong advocate for .. . preemptive interven-tion."

"He wanted to hit back first, eh?" I asked.

"You wouldn't say that if you'd seen what life can be like in some of the places Father Douglas has

lived," Forthill said. "It's not so simple."

"It never is," I said.

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"He was, in particular, an admirer of Shiro's," Forthill contin-ued. "When Shiro died, he was devastated.

They had worked together several times."

"The way you worked with Michael," I said.

Forthill nodded. "Roarke was .. . not satisfied with the dispo-sition of Fidelacchius. He made it known

to the rest of Malleus, too. As time went by, he became increasingly frustrated that the sword was not

being put to use."

I could see where this one was going. "And then I got hold ofAmoracchius,too."

Forthill nodded. "He spent the last year trying to convince the senior members of Malleus that we had

been deceived. That you were, in fact," an agent of an enemy power, who had taken the swords so that

they could not be used."

"And no one thought to mention the way those archangels gave orders that I was supposed to hold

them?"

"They never appear to more than one or two people at a time—and you are a wizard, Harry," Forthill

said. "Father Doug-las hypothesized that you had created an illusion to serve your purpose, or else had

tampered directly with our minds."

"And now he's on a crusade," I muttered.

Forthill nodded. "So it would seem."

I kept on reading the file. "He's versed in magic—well enough, at least, to be smart about how he deals

with me. Contacts in various supernatural communities, like the Venatori Umbrorum, which probably

explains that protective amulet." I shook my head. "And he thinks he's saving the world. The guy's a

certifiable nightmare."

"Where is he?" Michael asked quietly.

"He could be anywhere," Forthill replied. "Malleus sets up caches of equipment, money, and so forth.

He could have tapped into any one of them. I tried his cell phone. He's not returning my calls."

"He thinks you've been mindscrambled by the enemy," I mut-tered. "What did you expect to

accomplish?"

"I had hoped," Forthill said gently, "that I might ask him to be patient and have faith."

"I'm pretty sure this guy believes in faith through superior firepower." I closed the file and passed it back

to Forthill. "He tried to kill me. He abducted Alicia. As far as I'm concerned, he's off the reservation."

Forthill's expression became distressed as he looked at me. He turned to Michael, beseeching.

Michael's face was bleak and unyielding, and quiet heat smol-dered in his eyes. "The son of a bitch hurt

my little girl."

I rocked a step backward at the profanity. So did Forthill. The room settled into an oppressive silence.

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The old priest cleared his throat after a moment. He put the file back in the cabinet and closed the door.

"I've told you what I know," he said. "I'm only sorry that I can't do more."

"You can find her, can't you?" Michael asked me. "The way you found Molly?"

"Sure," I said. "But he's bound to be expecting that. Magic isn't a cure-all."

"But you can find her."

I shrugged. "He can't stop me from finding her, but he can damn well make sure that something happens

to her if I do."

Michael frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Maybe he stashes her in a box that's being held fifty feet above the ground with an electromagnet, so

that when I get close with an active spell up and running, it shorts out and she falls. The bastard is smart

and creative."

Michael's knuckles popped as his hands closed into fists.

"Besides," I said. "We don't need to find him."

"No?"

"No," I said. "We've got the swords. He's got the girl." I turned to go. "He's going to find us."

Father Douglas called Michael's house later that night, and asked for me. I took the call in Michael's

office.

"You know what I want," he said, without preamble.

"Obviously," I said. "What do you have in mind?"

"Bring the swords," he said. "Give them to me. If you do so without attempting any tricks or deceptions,

I will release the girl to you unharmed. If you involve the police or attempt anything foolish, she will die."

"How do I know you haven't killed her already?"

The phone rustled, and then Alicia said, "H-Harry? I'm okay. H-he hasn't hurt me."

"Nor do I want to," Father Douglas said, taking the phone back. "Satisfied?"

"Can I ask you something?" I said. "Why are you doing this?"

"I am doing God's work."

"Okay, that doesn't sound too crazy or anything," I said. "If you're so tight with God, can you really

expect me to believe that you'll be willing to murder a teenage girl?" "The world needs the swords," he

replied in a level, calm voice. "They are more important than any one person. And while I would never

forgive myself, yes. I will kill her."

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"I'm just trying to get you to see the fallacious logic you're using here," I said. "See, if I'm such a bad guy

to have stolen the swords, then why would I give a damn whether or not you murder some kid?"

"You don't have to be evil to be ambitious—or wrong. You don't want to see the girl harmed. Give me

the swords and she won't be."

There clearly wasn't going to be any profitable discussion of the situation here. Father Douglas was going

to have his way, regardless of the impediments of trivial things like rationality.

"Where?" I asked.

He gave me an address. "The roof. You come to the east side of the building. You show me the swords.

Then you come up and make the exchange. No staff, no rod. Just you."

"When."

"One hour," he said, and hung up.

I put the phone down, looked at Michael, and said, "We don't have much time."

The building in question stood at the corner ofMonroe andMichigan , overlookingMillenniumPark . I had

to park a couple of blocks away and walk in, with both swords stowed in a big gym bag. Father Douglas

hadn't specified where I was supposed to stand and show him the swords, but the streetlights adjacent to

the building were all inexplicably dark except for one. I ambled over to the pool of light it cast down onto

the sidewalk, opened the bag, and held out both swords.

It was hard to see past the light, but I thought I saw a gleam on the roof. Binoculars?

A few seconds later, a red light flashed twice from the same spot where I'd thought I had seen

something.

This would be the place, then.

I'd brought my extremely illegal picklocks with me, but as it turned out, I didn't need to use them. Father

Douglas had already circumvented the locks and, presumably, the security system. The front door was

open, as was the door to the stairwell. From there, it was just one long, thigh-burning hike up to the roof.

I emerged into cold, strong wind. You get up twenty stories or so and you run into that a lot. It ripped at

my duster, and sent it to flapping like a flag.

I peered around the roof, at spinning heat pumps and AC units and various antennae, but saw no one.

The beam of a handheld floodlight hit me, and I whirled in place. The light was coming from the roof of

the building next to mine. Father Douglas flipped it off, and after blinking a few times, 1 could see him

clearly, standing in the wind in priestly black, his white collar almost luminous in the ambient light of the

city. His grey eyes were shadowed, and he was maybe a day and a half past time to shave. A long plank

lay on the rooftop at his feet, which he must have used to move over.

Alicia sat in a chair next to him, her wrists bound to its arms, blindfolded, with a gag in her mouth.

Father Douglas lifted a megaphone. "That's far enough," he said. I could hear him over the heavy wind.

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"That's detcord she's tied up with. Do you know what that is?"

"Yeah."

He held up his other hand. "This is the detonator. As long as it's sending a signal, she's fine. It's a dead

man switch. If I drop it or let it go, the signal stops and the cord goes off. If the receiver gets damaged

and stops receiving the signal, the cord goes off. If you start using magic and destroy one of the devices,

it goes off."

"That's way better than the electromagnet thing," I muttered to myself. I raised my voice and bellowed,

"So how do you want to do this?"

"Throw them."

"Disarm the explosives first."

"No. The girl stays where she is. Once I'm gone, I'll send the code to disarm the device."

I considered the distance. It was a good fifteen-foot jump to get from one rooftop to the other. An easy

throw.

"Douglas," I shouted. "Think about this for a minute. The swords aren't just sharp and shiny. They're

symbols. If you take one up for the wrong reasons, you could destroy it. Believe me, I know."

"The swords are meant for better things than to molder in a dingy basement," he replied. He held up the

detonator. "Surren-der them now."

I stared at him for a long second. Then I tossed the entire bag over. It landed at his feet with a clatter.

He bent down to open it.

I steeled myself. This was about to get dicey. I hadn't counted on the dead man switch or a

fifteen-foot-long jump.

Father Douglas opened the bag and the smoke grenade Mi-chael had rigged inside it in his workshop

went off with a heavy thud. White smoke billowed back into his face, and I took three quick steps and

hurled myself into the air. For an awful portion of a second, twenty stories of open air yawned beneath

me, and then I hit the edge of the other roof and collided with Father Douglas. We went down together.

I couldn't think about anything but the detonator, and I clamped down on that with my left hand, crushing

his fingers beneath mine so that he couldn't release it. He jabbed his thumb at my right eye, but I ducked

my head and he got nothing but bone. He slammed his head against my nose— again with the nose, Hell's

bells that hurt—and drove a knee into my groin.

I let him, seizing his arm with both hands now, squeezing, try-ing to choke off the blood to his hand, to

weaken it so that I could take the detonator from him. His left fist slammed into my tem-ple, my mouth,

and my neck. I bent my head down and bit sav-agely at his wrist, eliciting a scream of pain from him. I

slammed my weight against him, slipping some fingers into his grasp, and got one of them over the

pressure trigger. Then I wrenched with my whole body, twisting my shoulders and hips for leverage, and

ripped the detonator away from him.

He rolled away from me instantly and seized the bag. Then he was up and running for a doorway leading

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down into the building.

I let him go and rushed over to Alicia. The dark-haired girl was trembling uncontrollably.

Detcord is basically a long rubber tube filled with explosive compound. It's a little thicker than a pencil,

flexible, and generally set off by an electrical charge. Wrap detcord around a concrete column and set it

off, and the explosion will cut through it like a piece of dry bamboo. Alicia was tied to the chair with it. If

it went off, it would cut her to pieces.

The detonator was a simple setup—a black plastic box hooked to a twelve-volt battery, which was in

turn connected to a wire leading to the detcord. A green light on the detonator glowed cheerily. It

matched a cheery green light on the dead man switch transmitter in my hand. If whatDouglas had said

was accurate, then if the light went out, things wouldn't be nearly so cheery.

If I let go of the switch, it would stop the signal to the detona-tor, which would then complete the circuit,

send current to the detcord, and boom. In theory, I should be able to cut the wire leading from the

battery and render it harmless—as long asDoug-las hadn't rigged the device to detonate if that happened.

I didn't have much time. The electronics of the transmitter wouldn't last long around me, even though I

hadn't used any magic around them. I had to get the girl out now.

I made the call based upon what I knew about Father Douglas. He seemed like he might have good

intentions, despite all his shenanigans. So I gambled that he wouldn't want the girl to die by any means

other than a conscious decision from someone— either him letting go of the trigger or me blowing the

transmitter by using magic.

I took out my pocketknife, opened it with my teeth, and slashed at the heavy plastic tubing that held her

tied down. I cut through the tube once, unwound it from first one arm, then the other, and she was free.

She clawed away the blindfold and gag, her fingers still clumsy from being bound.

"Come on!" I said. I grabbed her arm and hauled her out of the chair and away from the explosives. She

staggered, leaning against me, and I ran for the stairs.

As we got to the first landing, my ongoing presence apparently became too much for the transmitter.

Something sparked and crackled inside the plastic case, the cheery green light went out, and there was a

huge and horrible sound from above and behind us. I managed to get between Alicia and the stairwell

wall as the pressure wave caught us and threw us into it. It slammed my al-ready abused head into the

wall.

I staggered under the pain for a minute, and forced my way through it, like a drowning, man clawing for

the surface.

"Come on," I croaked to Alicia. "Come on. We have to go."

She looked at me with dull, stunned eyes, so I just grabbed her hand and started down the stairs with

her, stuffing the heavy transmitter into my duster pocket with the other hand. We only had a few minutes

before the place would be swarming with po-lice and firefighters. I didn't particularly feel like answering

their questions about why my fingerprints were on an expensive trans-mitter and showed trace evidence

of explosive residue.

Going down all those stairs was only slightly less taxing than going up had been, and my legs were going

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to be complaining at me for days. We got to the bottom and I led Alicia out into an alley, then out

toMonroe . I looked wildly up and down the street. Michael's truck was there waiting right where it was

supposed to be, out in front of the original building. I put my fingers to my lips and let out a shrill whistle.

Michael's truck pulled into the street and stopped in front of us. I hurried Alicia forward. The door

swung open, and Molly leaned out, taking Alicia's hand and pulling her in. I went in right behind her,

though it made things awfully cozy in the pickup's cab.

"He's loose with the swords," I said. "Did you do it?"

"Did it," Molly replied, and promptly handed me a dashboard compass with one of her own golden hairs

stuck to it with clear tape. The needle pointed firmly to the east, instead of to the north. The grasshopper

had set up a basic tracking spell, one of the handier tricks I know.

"He's probably moving on foot through the park," I told Mi-chael. "Circle around to Lakeshore, get us in

front of him."

"Are you all right, baby?" Michael asked Alicia fumbled for his hand and squeezed it tight. Then she

leaned against Molly and started crying.

"Hurry," I told Michael. "He's got to know we've bugged the swords somehow. If he finds those hairs

Molly tied onto the hilts, we're done."

"He won't get away," Michael said with perfect confidence, and slammed the accelerator down as we

approached an intersec-tion sporting a bright red light. Maybe it was divine intervention, or fate, or just

good driving, but the truck shot through the inter-section, missing two other cars by inches, and sailed on

forward.

The needle on the compass pointed steadily toward the park as we went, but then abruptly began to

traverse from one side to the other. I looked up ahead of me and saw a dark form sprinting across the

road that separated the park fromLake Michigan .

"There!" I shouted, pointing. "There he is!"

Michael pulled over to the side of the road, and I hit the ground before the truck had stopped moving,

sprinting after Father Douglas. He was in good shape, covering the ground in long, loping strides.

Normally it wouldn't have been a contest to catch him. I run three or four days a week, to train for

situations exactly like this one. Of course, when I practice I'm not generally con-cussed, weary, and

sporting a recently dislocated shoulder.Doug-las was holding his lead as we sprinted down the beach,

and I was tiring more rapidly than I should have.

So I cheated.

I reached into my pocket, drew out the heavy transmitter, and flung it at him as hard as I could. The

black plastic device struck him on the back of the head, shattering, and sending several heavy batteries

flying.

Father Douglas staggered, and couldn't keep his balance at the pace he was moving. He went down in

the sand. I rushed over to

him and seized the bag with the swords, only to have him sweep one leg out in a martial arts move, and

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kick my legs out from beneath me. I went down, too.

Father Douglas ripped at the bag, but I clung grimly, while we fought and kicked at each other—until the

bag tore open under the strain and spilled the swords onto the sand.

He seized the hilt of Fidelacchius, a katana-type sword that was built to look like a simple, heavy

walking stick, until you drew the blade. I seized Amoracchius, scabbard and all, and barely brought the

sheathed broadsword up in time to deflect a sweeping slash from Father Douglas.

He gained his knees and swung again, and I had all I could do to lift the sheathed sword and fend off the

strike. Blow after blow rained down on me, and there was no time to call upon my power, no

opportunity to so much as rise to my knees—

Until a size-fourteen work boot hit Father Douglas in the chest and threw him back.

Michael stood over me, aluminum baseball bat in his right hand. He put out the other one, and I slapped

Amoracchius into it. He gripped it mid-blade, like some kind of giant crucifix, and limped toward Father

Douglas with his bat held in a guard position.

Father Douglas stared at Michael with wide eyes. "Stay back," he said. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Who says you're able to?" Michael rumbled. "Put down the sword, and I'll let you go."

Douglasstared at him with those cold grey eyes. "I can't do that."

"Then I'll put you down and take the sword anyway. It's over, Roarke. You just don't realize it yet."

Father Douglas wasted no more time on talk, but came at Michael, the katana whirling, Michael batted

(no pun intended) the attack aside like a cat swatting down moths, the baseball bat spinning.

"Slow," he said. "Too slow to hit a half-blind cripple. You don't know the first thing about what it means

to bear a sword."

Douglassnarled and came at him again. Michael defeated this attack, too, with contemptuous ease, and

followed it by smackingDouglas across one cheek with the hilt of the sheathed sword.

"It means sacrifice," Michael said asDouglas reeled. "It means forgetting about yourself, and what you

want. It means putting your faith in the Lord God Almighty." He swung a pair of blows, which Douglas

defended against, barely—but the third, a straight thrust with the baseball bat's tip, drove home into his

solar plexus.Douglas staggered to one knee.

"You abandoned your duty,"Douglas gasped. "The world grows darker by the day. People cry out for

our help—and you would have the swords sit with this creature of witchcraft and deceit?"

"You arrogant child," Michael snarled. "The Almighty Him-self has made His will known. If you are a

man of faith, then you must abide by it."

"You have been lied to,"Douglas said. "How could God ig-nore His people when they need his

protection so badly?"

"That is not for us to know!" Michael shouted. "Don't you see, you fool? We are only men. We only see

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in one place at one time. The Lord knows all that might be. Would you presume to say that you know

better than our God what should be done with the swords?"

Douglasstared at Michael.

"Are you stupid enough to believe that He would want you to cast aside your beliefs to impose your will

upon the world? Do you think He wants you to murder decent men and abduct in-nocent children?" The

bat struck Fidelacchius fromDouglas 's

hands, and Michael followed it with a pair of crushing blows, one to the shoulder and one to the

knee.Douglas went down to the sand in a heap.

"Look at yourself," Michael said, his words hard and merciless. "Look at what you have done in God's

name. Look at the bruises on my daughter's arms, at the blood on my friend's face, and then tell me

which of us has been deceived."

Again, the bat swept down, andDouglas fell senseless to the sand.

Michael stood over the man for a moment, his entire body shaking, the bat still upraised.

"Michael," I said quietly.

"He hurt my little girl, Harry." His voice shook with barely repressed rage.

"He isn't going to hurt her now," I said.

"He hurt my little girl."

"Michael," I said, gently. "You can't. If this is how it has to be, I'll do it. But you can't, man."

His eyes shifted back toward me for just a second.

"Easy, easy," I told him. "We're done here. We're done."

He stared for another long, silent moment. Then he lowered the bat, very slowly, and bowed his head.

He stood there for a minute, his chest heaving, and then dropped the bat. He settled down onto the sand

with a wince.

I got up and collected Fidelacchius, returning it to its sheath.

"Thank you," Michael said quietly. He offered me Amoracchius 's hilt.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

He nodded, smiling wearily. "Yes."

I took the sword and looked atDouglas . "What do we do with him?" Michael stared at him silently for a

moment. In the back-ground, we could hear emergency vehicles arriving to attend to the aftermath of the

rooftop explosion. "We'll bring him with us," Michael said. "The Church will deal with its own."

I sat in the chapel balcony at St. Mary's, staring down at the church below me and brooding. Michael

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and Forthill had been seeing to Father Douglas, who wasn't going anywhere under his own locomotion

for a while. They had him in a bed somewhere. It had hurt to watch Michael, moving in what was

obviously great pain, hobble around the room helping to makeDouglas feel bet-ter. I'd have been content

to dump the asshole in an alley some-where and leave him to his fate.

Which might, just possibly, be one reason I was never going to be a Knight.

I had also swiped Forthill's flask of scotch from his room, and it was keeping me company in the

balcony. Two more reasons I was never going to be a Knight.

"Right at the end, there," I said to no one in particular, "those two started speaking a different language. I

mean, I understood all the words, and I understood the passion behind them, but I don't get how they

connect. You know?"

I sipped some more scotch. "Come to think of it, there are a lot of things I don't get about this whole

situation."

"And you want an explanation of some kind?" asked a man seated in the pew beside me.

I just about jumped out of my skin.

He was an older man. He had dark skin and silver-white hair, and he wore a blue workman's jumpsuit,

like you often see on janitors. The name tag read "Jake."

"You," I breathed. "You're the archangel. You're Uriel."

He shrugged. The gesture carried acknowledgment, some-how.

"What are you doing here?" I asked—maybe a bit blearily. I was concussed and half the flask was gone.

"Perhaps I'm a hallucination brought on by head trauma and alcohol," he said.

"Oh," I said. I peered at him, and then offered him the flask. "Want a belt?"

"Very kind," he said, and took a swig from the flask. He passed it back to me. "I don't exactly make it a

habit to do this, but if you've got questions, ask them."

"Okay," I said. "Why did you guys let Michael get so screwed up?"

"We didn't let him do anything," Jake replied calmly. "He chose to hazard himself in battle against the

enemy. The enemy c hose to shoot him, and where to point the gun and when to pull the trigger. He

survived the experience."

"So in other words, God was doing nothing to help."

Jake smiled. "Wouldn't say that. But you got to understand, son. God isn't about making good things

happen to you, or bad things happen to you. He's all about you making choices— exercising the gift of

free will. God wants you to have good things and a good life, but he can't gift wrap them for you. You

have to choose the actions that lead you to that life."

"Free will, huh?"

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"Yes. For example, your free will on that island."

I eyed him and sipped more scotch.

"You saw the Valkyrie staring at Michael. You thought he was in danger. So even though it was your

turn, you sent him up to the helicopter in your place." "No good deed goes unpunished," I said, with one

too many "sh" sounds. "That's where he got hurt."

Jake shrugged. "But if you hadn't, you'd have died in that har-ness, and he'd have died on that island."

I scowled. "What?"

Jake waved a hand. "I won't bore you with details, but suffice to say that your choice in that moment

changed everything."

"But you lost a Knight," I said. "A warrior."

Jake smiled. "Did we?"

"He can barely walk without that cane. Sure, he handledDouglas , but that's a far cry from dealing with a

Denarian."

"Ah," Jake said. "You mean warrior in the literal sense."

"What other kind of warrior is there?" I asked.

"The important kind."

I frowned again.

"Harry," Jake said, sighing. "The conflict between light and darkness rages on so many levels that you

literally could not un-derstand it all. Not yet, anyway. Sometimes that battlefield is a literal one.

Sometimes it's a great deal more nebulous and meta-phorical."

"But Michael and me are literal guys," I said.

Jake actually laughed. "Yeah? Do you think we angled to have you brought into this situation because

we needed you to beat someone up?"

"Well. Generally speaking. Yeah." I gestured with the flask. "Pretty much all we did was beat up this guy

who had good inten-tions and who was desperate to do something to help."

Jake shook his head. "The real war happened when you weren't looking."

"Huh?"

"Courtney," Jake said. "The little girl who almost got hit by

a car."

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"What about her?" I asked.

"You saved her life," he said. "Moreover, you noted the bruise on her cheek—one which she acquired

from her abusive father. Your presence heightened her mother's response to the realiza-tion that her

daughter was being abused. She moved out the next morning." He spread his hands. "In that moment,

you saved the child's life, prevented her mother from alcohol addiction in re-sponse to the loss, and

shattered a generational cycle of abuse more than three hundred years old." "I... um."

"Chuck the electrician," Jake continued. "He was drunk be-cause he's fighting with his wife. Two months

from now, their four-year-old daughter is going to be diagnosed with cancer and require a marrow

transplant. Her father is the only viable donor. You saved his life with what you did—and his daughter's

life, too. and the struggle that family is going to face together is going to leave them stronger and happier

than they've ever been."

I grunted. "That smells an awful lot like predestination to me. What if those people choose something

different?"

"It's a complex issue," Jake admitted. "But think of the course of the future as, oh, flowing water. If you

know the lay of the land, you can make a good guess where it's going. Now, someone can always come

along and dig a ditch and change that flow of water— but honestly, you'd be shocked how seldom

people truly choose to exercise their will within their lives."

I grunted. "What about second baseperson Kelly? I save her

life, too?"

"No. But you made a young woman feel better in a moment where she felt as though she didn't have

anyone she could talk to. Just a few kind words. But it's going to make her think about the difference

those words made. She's got a good chance of winding up as a counselor to her fellow man. The five

minutes of kindness you showed her is going to help thousands of others." He spread his hands. "And

that only takes into account the past day. Despair and pain were averted, loss and tragedy thwarted. Do

you think that you haven't struck a blow for the light, warrior?"

"Urn."

"And last but not least, let's not forget Michael," he said. "He's a good man, but where his children are

involved he can be com-pletely irrational. He was a hairbreadth from losing control when he stood

overDouglas on the beach. Your words, your presence, your will helped him to choose mercy over

vengeance."

I just stared at him for a moment. "But ... I didn't actually mean to do any of that."

He smiled. "But you chose the actions that led to it. No one forced you to do it. And to those people,

what you did saved them from danger as real as any creature of the night." He turned to look down at the

church below, and pursed his lips. "People have far more power than they realize, if they only choose to

use it. Michael might not be cutting demons with a sword anymore, Harry. But don't think for a second

that he isn't still fighting the good fight. It's just harder for you to see the results from down here."

I swigged more scotch, thinking about that.

"He's happier now," I said. "His family, too."

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"Funny how making good choices leads to that."

"What about Father Douglas?" I asked. "What's going to happen?"

"For the most part," Jake said, "that will be up to him. Hope fully, he'll choose to accept his errors and change his life for the better."

I nodded slowly. Then I said, "Let's talk about my bill."

Jake's eyebrows shot up. "What?"

"My bill," I said, enunciating. "You dragged me into this mess. You can pay me, same as any other client.

Where do I send the invoice?"

"You're ... you're trying to bill the Lord God Almighty?" Jake said, as if he couldn't quite believe it.

"Hel—uh, heck no," I said. "I'm billing you."

"That isn't really how we work."

"It is if you want to work with me," I told him, thrusting out my jaw. "Cough up. Otherwise, maybe next

time I'll just stand around whistling when you want me to help you out."

Jake's face broadened into a wide, merry grin, and laughter filled his voice. "No, you won't," he said,

and vanished.

I scowled ferociously at the empty space where he'd been a moment before. "Cheapskate," I muttered.

But I was pretty sure he was right.

THE DIFFERENCE A DAY

MAKES – Simon R. Green

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It isn't that the wages ofsin are so bad;

IT'S THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE . . .

ONE

It was three o'clock in the morning, in the oldest bar in the world, and I was killing time drinking with a

dead man. Dead Boy is an old friend, though he's only seventeen. He's been seventeen for some thirty

years now, ever since he was mugged and murdered for the spare change in his pockets. He made a deal

to come back from the dead and take his revenge on his killers; but he should have read the small print.

He's been (rapped inside his dead body ever since, searching for a way out. He's surprisingly good

company, for a man with so many strikes against him.

I'm John Taylor, private investigator. I don't do divorce work, I don't chase after the Maltese Falcon,

and I am most definitely not on the side of the angels. Either variety. I do, however, wear a white trench

coat, get in over my head more often than not, and get personally involved with my female clients far

more often than is good for me. I have a gift, for finding things and people. I'd just finished a case that

hadn't ended well. A man hired me because his imaginary friend had gone missing, and he wanted me to

find out why. Apparently this man's imaginary friend had been his constant companion since childhood,

and had never gone off on his own before. The client got quite tearful about it, so I gave him my best

professional look, and my most reassuring smile, and promised him I would waste no time in tracking

down his imagi-nary friend. As cases go, it wasn't that difficult. I found the imag-inary bastard in the first

place I looked. He was having an affair with the client's wife. I put the three of them together in the same

hotel room, and left them to it, knowing there was no point in even sending in my bill.

It was all the client's fault, really. Far too imaginative, except when it came to his wife.

And there I was, consoling myself with a large glass of worm-wood brandy, while Dead Boy made

heavy going of something that heaved back and forth, and looked like it was trying to eat its way through

the glass. Being very thoroughly dead, though not in the least departed, Dead Boy doesn't need to eat or

drink, but he likes to pretend. It makes him feel more real. And since his taste buds are quite definitely

damaged, it takes more than the usual hard stuff to hit his spot. Dead Boy knows this appalling old obeah

woman who whips up pills and potions especially for him, potent enough to make a corpse dance and a

ghoul show you her underwear. God alone knows what it would do to the living; cer-tainly I've never

been tempted to find out. For the moment, Dead Boy was drinking a graveyard punch, made with

ingredients from real graveyards. I just hoped it was no one I knew.

For once, Dead Boy was in a better financial state than me, so he was paying for the drinks. He'd just

started a new job, as doorman for Club Dead, the special club for zombies, vampires, mum-mies, and all

the other forms of the mortally challenged. (Club

motto: We Belong Dead.) I didn't see the job lasting. Dead Boy has all the social graces of a lemming in

heat or a sewer rat with bleeding hemorrhoids. But, since he was in the money, I was ordering the best of

everything, in a big glass.

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The oldest bar in the world is called Strangefellows, these days. You get all sorts in here, the living and

the dead and those who haven't made their minds up yet, along with gods and mon-sters, aliens and

shapeshifters, and a whole bunch of things that shouldn't exist but unfortunately do. Something from a

Black La-goon was sitting slumped in one corner, big and green and mossy and stinking of brine,

drinking whiskey sours one after the other and mourning over the one that got away. The Tribe of the

Gay Barbarians, tall muscular fellows resplendent in fringed leather chaps, nipple piercings, and tall

ostrich feather headdresses, were challenging all comers to a game of Twister. A dancing bear was giving

it his best John Travolta moves. He looked pretty silly in the white jacket, but given his size no one felt

like telling him. And a group of rather disreputable-looking dwarves were selling tickets to see The

Incredible Sleeping Woman. (I'd seen her. Forty years of catatonia had not been kind, which was why

the dwarves were no longer allowed to bill her as The Incredible Sleeping Beauty.)

One of Frankenstein's female creations was singing a torch song, the transvestite superheroine Ms. Fate

was reading a gossip tabloid with great concentration, to see if he was in that week, and Harry Fabulous

was doing his rounds, selling chemical adven-tures, knockoff Hyde formula, and short-time psychoses,

for re-ally quite reasonable prices.

Just another night, at Strangefellows.

Hut while the oldest bar in the world has few rules and even fewer standards, we do draw the line at

weeping women. So when the tall slender brunette in the expensive outfit came stumbling into the bar,

crying her eyes out, everyone fell quiet and turned to look. Weeping women always mean trouble, for

someone. She lurched to a halt in the middle of the room and looked about her, and I quickly realized

that she was crying hot angry tears of rage and frustration, rather than sorrow. The tears ran jerkily down

her cheeks, the sheer force of them shaking her whole body. Something about her gave me the feeling

she wasn't a woman who often gave in to tears. She sniffed them back with an effort, and glared about

her as defiantly as her puffy eyes and streaked makeup would allow. And then she looked in my

direction, and my heart sank as she fixed her attention on me. She pushed her way quickly through the

packed tables, and marched right up to me. The bar's normal bedlam resumed, as everyone cele-brated

someone else getting hit by the bullet. I sighed inwardly, and turned unhurriedly on my bar stool to nod

politely to the woman as she crashed to a halt before me and fixed me with dark, haunted eyes.

She was good-looking enough, in an undemanding way, her long lean body positively burning with

thwarted nervous energy. Her clothes were expensive, though somewhat disheveled. She was clutching a

white leather shoulder bag as though she would never let it go, and her whole stance screamed stress and

tension. Her mouth was compressed into a thin dark red line, and she held herself very stiffly, as though

she might fall apart if her control lapsed for just one moment. And yet, behind the clear anger in her eyes,

I could see an awful, unfocused fear.

"Hi," I said, as kindly as I could. "I'm John Taylor." "Yes," she said jerkily, the words coming out

clipped, in sudden bursts. "I know. You were described to me. The man in the white trench coat. The

knight in cold armor. He said you'd help me.

Sorry. I'm not making myself clear ... I've had something of a shock. My name is Liza Barclay. I'm lost. I

don't know what I'm doing here. I've lost all memory of the last twenty-four hours of my life. I want you

to find them for me."

I sighed again, still inwardly, and handed her my glass. "Take a sip of brandy," I said, doing my best to

sound kind and helpful and not at all threatening.

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She grabbed the brandy glass with both hands, took a good gulp, and immediately pulled a face and

thrust the glass back into my hand.

"God, that's awful. You drink that for fun? You're tougher than you look. But then, you'd have to be.

Sorry. I'm rambling."

"It's all right," I said. "Take your time, get your breath back. Then tell me how you got here. This isn't an

easy place to get to."

"I don't know!" she said immediately. "I've lost a day. A whole day!"

I slipped off my bar stool and offered her a seat, but she shook her head quickly. So I just leaned back

against the long wooden bar and studied her openly as she looked around Strangefellows, making it very

clear with her face and body language that not only had she never seen anything like it, but that she was

quite defi-nitely slumming just by being there. I was impressed. The oldest bar in the world isn't for just

anyone. Most people take one look and run away screaming, and we like it that way. Strangefellows is a

place of old magic and all the very latest sins and indulgences. This is not the kind of bar where everyone

knows your name; it's the kind of bar where you can wake up robbed and rolled in some-one else's

body.

Liza Barclay deliberately turned her back on the disturbing sights and the appalling patrons, and fixed her

full attention on me. I did my best to look tall, dark, and handsome, but I couldn't have been that

successful because after only a moment she nod-ded briskly, as though I'd passed some necessary test,

but only just. She switched her gaze to Dead Boy, who smiled vaguely and toasted her with his glass.

The graveyard punch made a valiant attempt to escape, and he had to push the stuff back in with his

fingers.

Dead Boy was tall and adolescent thin, wrapped in a long pur-ple greatcoat spotted with various food

and drink stains, and topped with a fresh black rose on his lapel. Scuffed black leather trousers over

muddy calfskin boots completed the ensemble. He let his coat hang open, to reveal a bare torso covered

with old injuries, bullet holes, and one long Y-shaped autopsy scar. Dead Boy might be deceased, but he

still took damage, even if he couldn't feel it. He was mostly held together with stitches and staples and

superglue, along with a certain amount of black duct tape lashed around his middle. His skin was a pale

gray, and dusty-looking.

He had the face of a debauched and very weary Pre-Raphaelite poet, with dark fever-bright eyes, a

sulky mouth with no colour in it, and long dark curly hair crammed under a large floppy hat. He didn't

smile at Liza Barclay. He didn't care. Her tears hadn't touched him at all.

Liza shuddered, but didn't look away. She was impressing me more and more. Most people can't stand

being around the dead, and that goes double for Dead Boy. Liza glanced around the bar again, at its

various strange and unnatural patrons, and rather than being scared or appalled, she just sniffed loudly

and turned her back on them again. They were no help to her, or her prob-lem, so they didn't matter.

Liza Barclay, it seemed, was a very single-minded lady.

"How can you stand being in a place like this?" she said to me, quite seriously.

"What, Strangefellows?" I said. "There are worse places to drink in. The ambience isn't up to much, I'll

grant you, but..."

"I don't mean just here! I mean ... everywhere! This whole area!" A tinge of hysteria had entered her

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voice. Liza heard it, and clamped down hard on it. She hugged herself suddenly, as though a cold wind

had blown over her grave. "I've been walking back and forth in the streets for ages. This terrible place.

I've seen things . . . awful things. Creatures, walking right out in the open, with normal people, and none

of them batted an eye! Where am I? Am I dead? Is this Hell?"

"No," I said. "Though on a good day you can see Hell from here. As far as I can tell, you are a perfectly

normal woman who has had the misfortune to somehow find her way into the Night-side."

"The Nightside." She grabbed on to the word, considered it, and then looked to me for more

information. And it wasn't a re-quest; it was a demand. I was liking her more and more.

"The Nightside," I said, "the dark secret hidden in the heart ofLondon . The longest night in the world,

where the sun has never shone and never will. Where it's always three o'clock in the morning, and the

hour that tries men's souls. This is where all (he secret people come, in search of forbidden knowledge

and all the pleasures people aren't supposed to want, but still do. You can pursue any dream here, or any

nightmare. Sell your soul or someone else's. Run wild in the streets and satisfy any fantasy you over had.

As long as your credit holds out. This is the Nightside, Liza Barclay, and it is not a place for normal

people like you."

"It's not an easy place to find your way into," said Dead Boy. "I low did you get here?" "I don't know! I

can't remember!" Her shoulders slumped, and her strength seemed to seep out of her. I understood. She

was having to take in a lot at one go. And the Nightside does so love to break people ... I thought for a

moment she might start crying again, but her chin lifted, her eyes flashed, and just like that she was back

in control again. "I live inLondon , have done all my life. And I never heard of the Nightside. I just... came

to, and found myself here. Lost, and alone."

"And now you're among friends," I said. "More or less," said Dead Boy.

"I am John Taylor," I said, ignoring Dead Boy with the ease of long practice. "And I'm a private eye.

Yes, really."

Her mouth twitched in a brief smile. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, to find one more mythical

creature, among so many." "And my appalling friend here is Dead Boy. Yes, really." "Hi," said Dead

Boy, leaning forward and offering a pale dead hand for her to shake. "Yes, that is formaldehyde you're

smelling, so get used to it. I'm dead, I'm wild and exciting and extraordi-narily glamorous, and you're very

pleased to meet me."

"Don't put money on it," said Liza. "What's it like, being

dead?"

"Cold," said Dead Boy, unexpectedly. "It's getting hard for me to even remember what being warm feels

like. Though I think I miss sleep the most. Never being able to just lie down and switch off. No rest, no

dreams ..."

"Don't you get tired?" said Liza, fascinated despite herself. "I'm always tired," Dead Boy said sadly. "Cut

it out," I said firmly. "You think I don't know you main-line that synthetic adrenaline when no one's

looking?" I shrugged apologetically at Liza. "Sorry, but you mustn't encourage him.

He's not really as self-pitying as he likes to make out. He just thinks it makes him more attractive to

women."

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"Never dismiss the pity factor," Dead Boy said easily. "Suicide girls go crazy for dead flesh."

"That's disgusting," said Liza, very firmly.

He leered at her. "You haven't lived till you've rattled a coffin with someone on graveyard Viagra."

"Changing the subject right now," I said loudly. "Tell me about your memory loss, Liza. What's the last

thing you do remember, before waking up here?"

She frowned, concentrating. "The last twenty-four hours are just gone. A whole day. The last thing I'm

sure of, I was inLondon . The realLondon . Down in Tottenham Court Road Underground station . . .

though I can't quite seem to remember why... I think I was looking for someone. The next thing I knew, I

was here. Running through the streets. Crying as though my heart would break. I don't know why. I'm

not the crying kind, usually. I'm just not."

"It's all right," I said. "What happened next?"

"I was attacked! They came out of nowhere ... Tall spindly men in top hats and old-fashioned clothes,

with great smiling faces, and . . . knives for hands."

"Scissormen," I said. "Always looking for someone weaker to prey on. They can home in on guilt and

horror like sharks tasting blood in the water."

"I haven't done anything to feel guilty about," said Liza.

"As far as you know," said Dead Boy, reasonably. "Who knows what you might have done, in the

missing twenty-four hours? It's amazing how much sin a determined person can cram into twenty-lour

hours. I speak from experience, you understand." "Ignore him," I said. "He's just boasting."

"But... Scissormen?" said Liza.

"Everything comes to the Nightside," I said. "Especially all the bad things, with nowhere else to go. Still,

it's always a shame when childhood characters go bad. How did you get away from them?"

"I didn't," said Liza, her eyes and her voice becoming uncer-tain again as she remembered. "They were

all around me, smiling their awful smiles, opening and closing their . . . scissorhands, chanting something in

German in shrill mocking voices. They cut at me, always drawing back at the very last moment, and

laughing as I jumped this way and that to avoid them. Scuttling round and round me, always pressing

closer, smiling and smiling ... And nobody did anything! Most people didn't even stop to watch! I was

screaming by then, but no one helped. Until this ... strange man appeared out of nowhere, and the

Scissormen stopped, just like that. They huddled together, facing him like a pack of dogs at bay. He said

his name, and the Scissormen just turned and ran. I couldn't believe it."

"What was his name?" I said.

"Eddie. He was very sweet, though he looked like some kind of vagrant. And from the smell of him, he'd

been sleeping rough for some time. I tried to give him some money, but he wasn't interested. He listened

to my story, though I don't know how much sense I made, and then he brought me here. Told me to look

for you. John Taylor. That you'd be able to help me. Do you know this man?"

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"Oh, sure," said Dead Boy. "Everyone here knows Razor Eddie. Punk God of the Straight Razor. No

wonder the Scissor-men cut and ran. Most people do."

Liza looked at me, and I nodded. "Eddie's a good man, in his

own disturbing way. And he's right; I can help you. I have a gift for finding things."

"Even missing memories?" Liza managed a real, hopeful smile for the first time.

"Anything," I said. "But I have to ask . . . are you sure you want to remember? A lot of the time, people

forget things for a reason."

She looked at me steadily. "Of course I want to remember. I think I need to. I think . .. something bad

happened."

"In the Nightside? I can practically guarantee it," said Dead Hoy.

"You're really not helping," I said. "Liza, you're sure you've never even heard of the Nightside before?

It's not unheard of for innocents to wander in by accident, but usually you have to want it pretty bad."

"I never knew places like this existed," Liza said stubbornly. "I never knew monsters were real."

"The world is a much bigger place than most people realise," I said. "Magic still exists, though it's grown

strange and crafty and maybe just a bit senile."

"Magic?" she said, raising one perfectly plucked eyebrow.

"Magic, and other things. Time isn't as firmly nailed down in the Nightside as it might be. We get all sorts

turning up here, from the Past and any number of alternate Futures. Not to mention all kinds of rogues,

adventurers, and complete and utter scumbags from other worlds and dimensions, all looking for a little

excitement, or a nice bit of sin that isn't too shop-soiled." I stopped, and considered her thoughtfully.

"You really don't care about any of this, do you? It doesn't interest or attract you in the least."

"No," said Liza. "I don't belong in a madhouse like this. I have no business being here." "I could just take

you home," I said. "Back to the safe and saneLondon you've always known."

"No," she said immediately. "There's a whole day of my life missing. It's mine, and I want it back."

"But what if you've done something really bad?" said Dead Boy. "Most people come to the Nightside to

do something re-ally bad."

"It's always better to know," Liza said firmly.

"No," I said. "Not always. And especially not here. But if that's what you want, then that's what you get.

The client is always right. Now, the odds are you came here looking for something. Or someone. So let's

take a look in that shoulder bag of yours. The way you've been clinging to it since you got here, it must

hold something important."

She looked down at the bag as though she'd honestly forgotten it was there. And when I reached out a

hand to take it, she actually shrank back for a moment. But once again her stern self-control reasserted

itself, and she made herself hand over the bag. But there was a subtle new tension in her that hadn't been

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there be-fore.

I hefted the bag. It wasn't that large, and it didn't feel like there was that much in it. Nothing obviously

special about it. Expen-sive, yes; white leather Gucci without a mark on it. I opened the bag, and spilled

the contents out onto the wooden bar top. All three of us leaned in for a closer look. But it was just the

usual feminine clutter, with nothing out of the ordinary. Apart from a single colour photograph, torn

jaggedly in two. I fitted the pieces together as best I could, and we all studied the image in silence for a

while. The photo showed a somewhat younger Liza Barclay in a stylish white wedding dress, hugging a

handsome young man in a formal suit. They were both laughing at the camera, clearly

caught a little off guard. They looked very happy. As though they belonged together, and always would.

Someone had torn the photo fiercely in two, right down the middle, as though trying to separate the

happy couple.

"That's Frank," said Liza, frowning so hard her brow must have ached. "My husband, Frank. That's our

wedding day, just over seven years now. I was never so happy in my life, the day we got married. Poor

Frank, he must be worried sick by now, won-dering where I am. But.. . this is my favourite photo ever. I

must have worn out half a dozen copies, carrying it around in my bag and showing it to people. Who

could have torn it like this?"

"Maybe you tore it," said Dead Boy. "Been having problems recently, have you?"

"No! No ..." But even as she objected, I could practically see the beginnings of memories resurfacing in

her. She concentrated on the two pieces of the photo, speaking only to them. "We were always so much

in love. He meant everything to me. Everything. But... I followed him. All the way acrossLondon , on the

Un-derground. He never saw me. He'd been so ... preoccupied, the last few months. I could tell

something was wrong. I was worried about him. He'd been keeping things from me, and that wasn't like

him. There were letters and e-mails I wasn't allowed to read, phone calls he wouldn't talk about. He'd

never done that before. I thought he might be in some kind of trouble. Something to do with his business.

I wanted to help. He was my love, my life, my everything. I was so worried ..."

"Sounds like another woman," Dead Boy said wisely, and was genuinely surprised when I glared at him.

"Well, it does."

But Liza was smiling, and shaking her head. "You don't know my Frank. He loves me as much as I love

him. He's never even looked at another woman." "Come on," said Dead Boy. "Every man looks at other

women. When he starts pretending he doesn't, that's when you know he's up to something."

"You followed Frank through the Underground," I said to Liza, ignoring Dead Boy. "What happened

then?"

"I don't know." Liza reached out to touch the photo, but didn't, quite. "The next thing I remember, I'm

here in the Nightside, and there's no sign of Frank anywhere. Could we have been kidnapped, dragged

here against our will, and I somehow escaped?"

"Well," I said diplomatically, "it's possible, I suppose."

"But you don't think so."

"It's not the way I'd bet, no. But at least now we know you're not here alone. If you're here, then the

odds are Frank is too. I can find him with my gift, and see if perhaps he holds the answer to your missing

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memories."

"No!" said Liza. "I don't want my Frank involved in all this ... madness."

"If he's here, he's involved," said Dead Boy. "If only because the Nightside doesn't take kindly to being

ignored."

She shook her head again, still smiling. "You don't know my Frank."

"And you don't know the kind of temptations on offer here," said Dead Boy. "Sex and love and

everything in between, sweet as cyanide and sprinkled with a little extra glamour to help it go down

easier. Sin is always in season in the Nightside."

"And you followed him here," I said.

She glared at me. "How could he know the way to a place like this?"

"Because he'd been here before," said Dead Boy. "Sorry, but it's the only answer that makes sense."

Liza glared at him, and then looked me right in the eye. "Find him. Find my Frank for me. If only so he

can tell us the truth, and throw these lies back in your faces."

"I'll find him," I said. "Anything else ... is up to you, and him."

I picked up the two pieces of the photo, holding them firmly between thumb and forefinger, and held

them up before me. I took a deep breath and concentrated, reaching deep inside myself for my gift, my

special gift, that allowed me to find anyone or anything. I concentrated on the photo until I couldn't see

any-thing else, and then slowly, my inner eye opened; my third eye, my private eye ... from which nothing

can hide. With my inner eye all the way open, I could See the world as it really was, every last bit of it.

All the things that are hidden from Humanity, be-cause if we could all See the true nature of this world,

and the kinds of things we share it with, Humanity would go stark staring mad with horror.

I can only bear to See it for a little while.

I sent my Sight soaring up out of my body, shooting up through the roof of my skull and the roof of

Strangefellows, until I was high in the star-speckled sky, looking down on the Nightside spread out

below me, turning slowly, like the circles of Hell. Hot neon burned everywhere, like balefires in the night.

Sudden bright glares detonated in this place or that; as souls were bartered, great magical workings

rewrote the world, or some awful new thing was born to plague Mankind. There were great Voices

abroad in the night, and terrible rumblings deep in the earth, as Powers and Dominations went about their

unknowable business.

Ghosts howled in the streets, trapped in moments of Time like insects in amber. Demons rode their

human hosts, whispering in their ears. And vast and powerful creatures walked the night in majesty,

wonderful and terrible beyond human ability to bear.

I dropped down from my high vantage point, sending my Sight flashing through the packed narrow

streets, slamming in and out of buildings with the quickness of thought, following a trail only I could See.

The photo of Frank Barclay had let me sink my men-tal hook in his consciousness, if not his soul, and I

could See the ghost of him still striding purposefully through the streets. Semi-transparent and fragile as a

soap bubble, the mark he'd made in the Nightside was still clear, his imprint on Time itself, still walk-ing

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the streets that he had walked not so long ago ... and would do until the last vestiges of it faded away.

Frank Barclay showed no interest in any of the usual pleasure joints or temptations. The open doors of

nightclubs where the music never ends, the heavy-lidded glances from dark-eyed ladies of the twilight,

had no attraction for him. He never hesitated once, or paused to check directions. He knew where he

was going. And from the increasingly intense, almost desperate anticipation in his face, wherever he was

going promised something none of the usual temptations could hope to satisfy. I could See him clearly

now, and he was smiling. And something in the smile chilled me all the way to my soul.

I pulled back, as I realised where he was going. There are some places you just don't go into with your

spirit hanging out. Some parts of the Nightside are hungrier than others. I slowly closed my third eye, my

inner eye, until I was safely back inside my own head again. And then I dropped the two pieces of the

photo back onto the bar top as though they burned my fingers. I looked at Liza.

"Good news and bad news," I said. "I've found him. I've found husband Frank."

"Then what's the bad news?" said Liza, meeting my gaze un-flinchingly.

"He's in the badlands," I said. "Where the really wild things are, and hardly anyone gets out alive. You

only go into the bad-lands in search of the pleasures too sick, too twisted, and too nasty for the rest of

the Nightside."

"If that's where he is," Liza said steadily, "then that's where I have to go."

"You can't go there alone," I said. "They'd eat you up and chew on the bones."

"But I have to know!" said Liza, her chin jutting stubbornly. "I have to know what's wrong with him,

what could possibly bring him to an awful place like this. And I have to know what, if any-thing, this has

to do with my missing memories. I have to go there."

"Then I guess I'll have to take you," I said.

"I ... don't have much money on me, at the moment," said Liza. "Is my credit good?"

"Put the plastic away," I said. "No charge, this time. Razor Eddie owes me a favour, for dumping you on

me, and that's worth more than you could ever pay."

I leaned over and nudged Dead Boy, who'd lost interest in all this long ago. His eyes snapped back into

focus.

"What is it, John? I have some important existential brooding I need to be getting on with."

"I'm taking Liza into the badlands in pursuit of her missing husband, and her missing memories," I said

briskly. "Bound to be some trouble. Interested?" "Oh, sure," said Dead Boy. "You can't get too much

excite-ment, when you're dead. How much are you offering?"

"Tell you what," I said. "You can have half of my fee. But only if we can use your car."

"Done! "said Dead Boy.

"Why do we need his car?" said Liza.

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"Because we have to travel all the way across town," I said. "And the rush hour can be murder."

TWO

She'd never seen the sky before. Preoccupied with so much new sin and strangeness right before her, it

had never even occurred to her to stop and look up. Now, on the rain-slick pavement outside the oldest

bar in the world, LizaBarclay followed my pointing finger and stood very still, held to the spot by awe

and enchantment, quite unaware of all the people, and others, hurrying by on every side. In the Nightside,

the sky is full of stars, thousands and thousands of them, burning bright and sharp in constellations never

seen in the outside world. And the moon ... ah, the moon is big and bright indeed in the Nightside,

unnaturally luminous and a dozen times larger than it should be, hanging over us all like a great mindless

eye, like an ancient guardian that has quite forgotten its duty and purpose. Seeing all, judging nothing.

I often think that it isn't a matter of where the Nightside is, so much as when.

Meanwhile, all kinds and manner of Humanity, and many things not in any way human, pushed past with

brisk impartial haste, intent on their own personal salvations and damnations. No one got too close,

though. They might not give a damn about Liza, clearly just another starstruck tourist, but everyone in the

Nightside knows me. Or knows enough to give me plenty of room. Liza finally tore her gaze away from

the overcrowded heav-ens, and gave her attention to the crowds bustling around us. The street, as

always, positively squirmed with life and energy and all manner of hopes, the pavements packed with

desperate pilgrims come in search of sin and temptation and the kinds of love that might not have a name

but most certainly have a price. Hot neon blazed and burned up and down the street, gaudy as a

hooker's smile, signposts to all the most succulent hells. If you can't find it in the Nightside, it doesn't

exist.

Liza clung to my arm like a drowning woman, but to her credit she never flinched or looked away. She

took it all in, staring grimly about her, refusing to allow the strange sights and tacky glamour to overwhelm

her. She pressed a little more closely to me, as a bunch of eight-foot-tall insect things paused to bow their

devilish heads before me. Bones glowed through their flesh, filmy wings fluttered uncomfortably on their

long chitinous backs, and their iridescent compound eyes didn't blink once. Their absurdly jointed legs

lowered them almost to the ground as they abased themselves, speaking in unison with urgent breathy

children's voices.

"All hail to thee, sweet prince of a sundered line, and remem-ber us when you choose to come into your

kingdom."

"Move on," I said, as kindly as I could.

They waited a while, antennae twitching hopefully, until they realised I wasn't going to say any more, and

then they moved on. Liza watched them go, and then looked at me.

"What the hell was that all about? Who . . . what were they?"

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"They are all that remains of the Brittle Sisters of the Hive," I said. "They were just being polite."

"So you're . . . someone special here?"

"I might have been, once," I said. "But I abdicated."

"So what are you now?"

"I'm a private investigator," I said. "And a bloody good one."

She favoured me with another of her brief smiles, and then looked out at the traffic, thundering

ceaselessly through the Nightside. There was a lot of it to look at. Vehicles of all kinds and natures

flashed past, never slowing, never stopping, jockeying endlessly for position and dominance. Some of

them carried goods and some of them carried people, and many of them car-ried things best not thought

about at all. Most were just passing through, on their way to somewhere more interesting; mysteries and

enigmas, never to be understood.

A horse-drawn diligence from the eighteenth century clattered past, overtaken by a lipstick red Plymouth

Fury with a dead man grinning at the wheel. An articulated rig bore the logo of a local long-pig franchise,

while a motorcycle gang of screaming skele-tons burning forever in hellfire chased something very like a

tank crossed with an armadillo. The Boggart On Stilts, one of the Lesser Atrocities, strode disdainfully

down the middle of the road, while smaller vehicles nipped in and out of its tall bone stilts. A great black

beauty of a car cruised past, driven by an Oriental in black leathers, and the man in the back in the green

face mask and snap-brimmed hat nodded respectfully to me in pass-ing. Liza turned and looked at me

speechlessly, demanding an explanation.

"In the Nightside, the traffic comes and goes, but not every-thing that looks like a car is a car," I

explained patiently. "Here, ambulances run on distilled suffering, motorcycle couriers snort powdered

virgin's blood for that extra kick, and sometimes the bigger vehicles sneak up behind the smaller ones and

eat them. Pretty much everything passes through the Nightside, at one time or another and sometimes

simultaneously, and it's always in a hurry. Foot down, everything forward and trust in the Lord, and Devil

take the hindmost. That isn't traffic out there; that's evolu-tion in action. Which is why we can't get where

we're going by just hopping on the crosstown bus. We are waiting for Dead Boy, and his marvelous car

of the future."

"The sky, the traffic, creatures and demons walking openly in the street..." Liza shook her head just a bit

dazedly. "Where is this place, John?"

"Good question," I said. "Of this world, but not necessarily in it. Halfway between Heaven and Hell, but

beholden to neither. A place of infinite jest and appalling possibilities. But don't let it get to you. The

Nightside is just a place where people go, in search of all the things they're not supposed to want.

Forbidden knowledge, forgotten secrets, and all the nastier kinds of sex. A place where the shadows are

comfortably deep, and the sun never rises because some things can only be done in the dark.

"It's the Nightside."

Liza looked at me. "You do like the sound of your own voice, don't you?"

"You asked," I said.

Perhaps fortunately, Dead Boy arrived at that moment in his fabulous futuristic car, and Liza had

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something else to stare at. Dead Boy's car is always worth a good look. It glided silently to a halt before

us, hovering a few feet above the ground. A car from

the future, so stylish it didn't even bother with wheels anymore. It originally arrived in the Nightside

through a Timeslip, from some future time line, and adopted Dead Boy as its driver. Bright gleaming

silver, long and sleek and streamlined to within an inch of its life, the car hovered arrogantly before us,

looking like it ran on distilled starlight. The long curving windows were polarised so no one could see in,

and the mighty engines didn't so much as deign to murmur.

The driver's door swung open, to reveal Dead Boy lounging languidly behind the steering wheel. He had

a half-empty bottle of vodka in his hand.

"All aboard for the badlands, boys and girls! Feel free to ad-mire my beautiful ride's elegance and style.

This is what every car would be, if they only had the ambition."

"You're late," I said sternly.

"I'm always late. I'm the late Dead Boy." He sniggered at his own joke, and took a healthy pull from his

vodka bottle.

"I am not getting into that!" Liza said firmly. "It hasn't got any wheels. It looks like something from a bad

seventies sci-fi

movie."

"Hush, hush, my beauty!" Dead Boy said soothingly to his car. "She is an uneducated barbarian, and

doesn't mean it." He ap-peared to listen for a moment. "All right, yes, she probably did mean it, but you

mustn't take it personally. She is a mere tourist, and knows nothing of cars. Please let her in. And please

don't activate the ejector seat, no matter how annoying she gets."

There was a pause, and then the other doors opened, slowly enough to express a certain reluctance.

Liza looked at me.

"Does he often have conversations with his car?"

"Oh, yes," I said. "Only he can hear her, though." "I see. And does this car really have an ejector seat?"

"Oh, yes. More than powerful enough to blast you into a whole different dimension."

"I'll be more polite to the car from now on," said Liza.

"I would," I said.

"But I'm still not sitting next to Dead Boy."

So we both got in the back. Liza jumped just a bit as the door shut itself behind us. The seats were

bloodred leather, and very comfortable. There was a faint perfume of crushed roses on the slightly

pressurised air. There were no seat belts, of course. Their very existence would have been an insult to the

car's driving skills. Liza leaned forward and stared openly at the frankly futuristic display screens where

the dashboard dials should have been. In fact, there were enough screens and displays and flashing lights

to suggest anything up to and including warp speed.

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"Can you get warp speed on this thing?" said Liza, proving that great minds think alike.

"Only in emergencies," said Dead Boy. He didn't seem to be kidding.

Liza took in the whiskey, brandy, and gin bottles lined up on top of the monitor screens, all of which

showed signs of extensive sampling, and sniffed loudly. Dead Boy took this as a hint, and gestured

generously at the bottles, and the open dashboard com-partment full of honeyed locusts, spiced potato

wedges, and as-sorted chocolate biscuits.

"Help yourself," he said, around a mouthful of chocolate hob-nob. Liza declined. Dead Boy shrugged,

finished his biscuit, knocked back a handful of glowing green pills, finished off the last of the vodka, and

slung the bottle through the window, which didn't happen to be open. The bottle passed right through the

glass without stopping. They really have thought of everything, in the future.

"Where to, John?" Dead Boy said easily. "My car requires di-rections. She is powerful and lovely and

full of surprises, but she is not actually prescient. Apparently that only came as an optional extra."

"Head for the badlands," I said. "I should be able to provide more specific directions once we get there."

"I love mystery tours," Dead Boy said happily. "Off you go, girl."

The futuristic car moved smoothly out into the vicious traffic, and absolutely everything slammed on the

brakes or changed lanes in a hurry, to give us plenty of room. Everybody knew Dead Boy's car, and the

awful things it could and would do if it got even slightly annoyed.

"I can't help noticing you're not even touching the steering wheel," Liza said to Dead Boy.

"Oh, I wouldn't dare," he said. "My sweetie's a much better driver than I'll ever be. I don't interfere."

Liza leaned back in her seat, watched the traffic for a while, and then looked thoughtfully at me. "Why

are you helping me, John? It's not like I'm even paying you for your services."

"I'm curious," I said honestly. "And ... I don't like to see an innocent caught up and crushed under the

Nightside's wheels. There's enough real evil here, without adding cruel and casual stuff. Good people

shouldn't end up here, but if they do, they need to be protected. Just on general principles."

"If this is such a bad place," she said, "what are you doing here?"

"I belong here," I said. She settled for that, and went back to watching the traffic. I took out the two

pieces of her photo, fitted them together, and concentrated on the image of her husband. My gift barely

stirred, manifesting just enough to keep a firm hold on Frank's location. Husband Frank. He'd better be

worth all this trouble. Liza clearly loved him with all her heart; but women have been known to fall for

complete bastards before now. His face in the photo didn't give anything away. The smile seemed

genuine enough, but I wasn't so sure about the eyes.

Frank hadn't moved since I first sensed his location, and I got the feeling he hadn't moved in some time.

As I concentrated on his image, I began to get a feel for his surroundings, and the first thing I felt was the

presence of technology. Advanced, future tech, not from this time and place. Frank seemed to be

surrounded by it, fascinated by it... and the more I concentrated, the more my images of this future

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technology were tainted by distinctly or-ganic touches.

Sweating steel and cables that curled like intestines; lubricated pis-tons rising and falling, and machines

that murmured like people dis-turbed in their sleep. Strange nightmare devices, performing unnatural

tasks, with hot blood coursing through their systems.

What had Frank got himself into?

I was beginning to get a really bad feeling about this. Espe-cially when Frank's image in the photo

suddenly turned its head to look right at me. His face was drawn, tired, and burning with a strange

delirium. His eyes were dark and fever-bright. . . and he never even glanced at his wife, Liza, sitting right

next to me. He locked his gaze onto mine, and his faraway voice sounded in my head.

Go away. I don't want you here. Don't try and find me. I donV want to be found.

"Your wife's here," I said silently to the photo. "Liza's here, in the Nightside. Looking for you. She's very

worried about you."

/ know. Keep her away. For her sake.

And just like that, the photo was only a photo, and his face was just an image from the past. I didn't tell

Liza what had just oc-curred. It didn't matter to me whether Frank wanted to be found or not; I was

working for his wife. And she wanted to know what her husband was up to, even if she hadn't actually

put it that way. This is why I don't do divorce work. No matter what the client says, they never really

want the truth. Still, the unexpected con-tact with Frank, brief as it was, had given me a more definite fix

on his position.

"I've found Frank," I announced, to Liza and Dead Boy. "He's on Rotten Row."

"Ah," said Dead Boy, sucking noisily on his whiskey bottle. "That is not good."

"Why?" Liza said immediately. "What happens on Rotten Row? What do people do there?"

"Pretty much everything you can think of, and a whole lot of things most people have never even

contemplated," said Dead Boy. "Rotten Row is for the severely sick and disturbed, even by the

Nightside's appalling standards."

Liza turned to me. "What is he talking about?"

"Rotten Row is where people go to have sex with the kind of people, and things, that no sane person

would want to have sex with," I said, just a bit reluctantly. "Sex with angels, or demons. With computers

or robots, slumming gods or other-dimensional monsters; worms from the earth or some of the nastier

versions of the living dead. Rotten Row is where you go when the everyday sins of the flesh just don't do

it for you anymore. Where men and women and all the many things they can do together just don’t

satisfy. Sex isn't a sin or a sacrament on Rotten Row; it's an obses-sion."

Liza looked at me, horrified. "Sex with . . . how is any of thateven possible?"

"Love finds a way," Dead Boy said vaguely.

Liza shook her head stubbornly, as though she could prove me a liar if she was just firm enough. "No.

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You must be wrong, John. My Frank would never .. . never lower himself to ... He just wouldn't! He's

always been very . . . normal. He'd never go to a place like that!"

"We all find love where we can," said Dead Boy.

"You're talking about sex, not love!" snapped Liza.

"Sometimes . . . you have to go a little off the beaten path to get what you really need," said Dead Boy

philosophically. "There's more to life than just boy meets girl, you know."

And that was when all the car's alarms went off at once. Flash-ing red lights, followed by a rising siren,

and the sound of an awful lot of systems arming themselves. Dead Boy sat bolt up-right, tossed his

whiskey bottle onto the passenger seat, and stud-ied his various displays with great interest. Dead Boy

lived for action and adventure.

"All right, car, turn off the alarms, I see them. Proximity alert, people. We are currently being boxed in

by three, no four, vehi-cles. In front and behind, left and right. Look out the windows, see if you can spot

the bastards."

It wasn't difficult; they weren't being exactly furtive about it. Four blackLondon taxicabs were forcing

their way through the crowded lanes of traffic to surround us on every side, positioning themselves to cut

off all possible exits and escapes. The cabs bore no name or logo on their flanks, just flat black metal,

like so many malignant beetles. They all had cyborged drivers, human onlydown to the waist. The head

and torso hung suspended in a com-plex webbing of cables, tubes, and wires that made them a part of

their taxis. The car was just an extension of its tech-augmented driver, so it could manoeuvre as fast as

they could think. Human consciousness given inhuman control and reaction times. By the time I'd finished

peering out of every window, there were black cabs speeding in perfect formation all around us.

And long machine-gun barrels protruded from each and every one of them, covering us.

"Put your foot down," I said to Dead Boy. "Try and lose them."

"You go, girl, go!" said Dead Boy, and the futuristic car surged forward.

The back of the taxicab in front of us loomed up disturbingly fast, and for a moment I thought we were

going to ram it, but the taxi accelerated too, maintaining its distance. The other cabs swiftly increased

their speed too, suggesting the cyborged drivers and the protruding machine guns weren't the taxis' only

special features. These black cabs had been seriously souped up. We were all moving incredibly fast

now, hurtling through the Nightside at insane speed, streets and buildings just gaudy blurs of colour. All

around us, traffic hurried to get out of our way. Vehicles that didn't, or couldn't, move quickly enough

were slammed and shunted aside by the taxis. Cars ran careering off the road, into defenceless

storefronts, or smashed into one another, crying out like living things. Screams and shouts of outrage rang

briefly be-hind us, Dopplering away into the distance.

The cabs decided enough was enough, closed in on us from every side, and slammed on their brakes

simultaneously. We had to slow clown with them or risk a collision, and the futuristic car was clearly

cautious enough not to want to risk direct contact until it had to. Just because they looked like cabs, it

didn't mean they were. Protective camouflage is a way of life in the Night-side.

Why do you think I work so hard to look like a traditionalprivate eye?

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Dead Boy beat on the steering wheel with his pale fists, hoot-ing with the excitement of the chase and

shouting helpful advice that the car mostly ignored. Liza peered out of one window after another, her

small hands unconsciously clenched into fists. I wasn't that worried, yet. The car could look after itself.

One cab pressed in from the left, trying to pressure us into changing lanes. The cyborged driver wasn't

even looking at us. The other cabs gave way a little, to entice us, trying to persuade us away from the

badlands exit, some way up ahead. To keep us away from Frank ... and probably to herd us into a

previously chosen killing zone where they'd have all the advantages. The futuristic car swayed back and

forth, looking for a way out be-tween the cabs, but they constantly manoeuvred with their more than

human reflexes to block our way. And then, without warning, all four sets of machine guns opened fire on

us. The sound was painfully loud, as bullets raked our car from end to end, and slammed viciously into

front and back. Liza cried out, but quickly calmed down again as she realised I wasn't even ducking. The

machine-gun fire roared and stuttered, but none of it could touch us. Whatever Dead Boy's car was

made of, it wasn't just steel. Bullets ricocheted harmlessly away in flurries of sparks and metallic

screeches, but the futuristic car didn't even shudder under the impact. The gunfire continued, as though

the taxis thought they could break through our defences through sheer perseverance.

"Time for Puff the Magic Dragon, I think," Dead Boy saidcheerfully, entirely unmoved by the massed

firepower aimed at him from all sides.

"What?" said Liza. "What did he just say? He's got a bloody dragon in here somewhere?"

"Not as such," I said. "More of a nickname, really. Because it breathes fire and makes problems

disappear. Go for it, Dead Boy."

Lights gleamed brightly all across the display screens, and there was the sound of something large and

heavy moving into position. To be exact, a large gun muzzle was slowly protruding from the car's radiator

grille. Puff the Magic Dragon fired two thousand explosive flechettes a second, pumping them out at

in-human speed and with appalling vigour. Puff is a gun's gun. The futuristic car opened up on the taxicab

in front of us, and the whole back of the cab just exploded, black steel disintegrating under the impact,

throwing ragged shrapnel in all directions. The cab surged wildly back and forth, but Puff moved easily to

follow it, tearing the cab apart with invisible hands. The cab burst into flames, and was thrown this way

and that by a series of explosions, before the endless stream of explosive flechettes picked the cab up

and threw it end over end across several lanes of traffic, leaving a trail of blazing debris and drifting

smoke behind it. I caught a brief glimpse of the cyborged driver, trapped behind his wheel in his ruptured

webbing, screaming horribly as he burned alive in the wreckage.

I couldn't bring myself to care, much. He would have done worse to us, if he could.

The taxi to our left accelerated wildly, forcing its way in front of us to block our escape, machine guns

blazing fiercely from its rear. A brave and determined move, but the driver really shouldn't have taken his

eyes off the main threat. The other traffic. A long dark limousine with dull unreflective black windows

moved effortlessly in beside the cab, having sneaked up in the driver's blind spot while he was

concentrating on us. I winced, despite myself. I'd seen the limousine in action before. It moved in beside

the taxicab, matching speeds perfectly until it was right opposite the driver's window; and then the black

window surface erupted into dozens of long grasping arms with clawed hands. Hooked fingers sank deep

into the steel side of the cab, holding it firmly in place, while powerful black arms smashed through the

window to get at the cyborged driver. The limousines can smell human flesh, and they're always hungry.

The cyborged driver screamed horribly as a dozen clawed hands gripped him fiercely, long barbed

fingers sinking deep into flesh and bone, and then they hauled the driver right out of his webbing, tearing

the human torso free from its rupturing tubes and cables. They dragged the screaming head and torso out

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through the shattered window, and into the interior of the limousine. The driver's mouth stretched wide in

an endless howl of horror, his eyes almost starting from his head at what he saw waiting for him. He

disappeared inside the limousine, there was a brief spurt of blood out the window, and then the black

arms snapped back in, the window re-formed itself, and the dark limousine accelerated smoothly away.

The empty taxicab shot across the lanes, traffic diving every which way to avoid it, until finally it ran off

the road and crashed.

That left just two taxicabs, running now on either side of us, still firing their guns and trying to herd us

away from the bad-lands.

Puff the Magic Dragon had fallen silent. At two thousand rounds a second, it runs out of ammo pretty

fast. The taxi guns fell silent too, either because they'd realised their inventory was getting low as well, or

perhaps because they'd finally realised the guns weren't doing any damage. The taxis pressed in close on

either side, and a dozen long steel blades protruded from the sides of the cabs, aimed right at our

windows. Long blades, with strangely blurred edges, and a chill ran through me as I realised what they

were.

"Dead Boy," I said, doing my best to sound calm and con-cerned and not at all like I was filling my

trousers, "do you see what I see?"

"Of course I see them," he said, entirely unconcerned. "The car's computers are already running analysis

on the blades. Mono-filament edges, one molecule thick. Cut through anything. Some-one really doesn't

want us going wherever it is we're going. Which means .. . they must be protecting something really

interesting, and I want to know what it is more than ever. We're going to have to do something about

those blades, John. The car says her exte-rior is no match for them, and while she does have a force

shield, maintaining it for any length of time will put a serious strain on the engines. I think we're going to

have to do this old school. In their face, up close and personal. Just the way I like it. Sweetie, lower the

window, please."

His window immediately disappeared, and Dead Boy calmly climbed out the window. It took a certain

amount of effort to force his gangling body through the gap, and then he braced himself in the window

frame before throwing himself at the taxi-cab. It jerked away at the last moment, as the cyborged driver

realised what Dead Boy was planning, but the unnatural strength in Dead Boy's dead muscles propelled

him through the air, across the growing gap, until he slammed into the side of the cab, and his dead hands

closed inexorably onto the cab's steel frame. He clung to the side of the cab as it lurched back and forth,

trying desperately to shake him off. His purple greatcoat streamed out behind him, flapping this way and

that in the slipstream. I couldn't hear Dead Boy above the roar of the traffic, but I could see he was

laughing.

He drew back a gray fist, and drove it right through the cab's window. The cyborged driver cried out as

the reinforced glass shattered, showering him with fragments. The cab was all over the place now, trying

to throw Dead Boy off, but he held his bal-ance easily, the fingers of one hand thrust deep into the steel

roof, his feet planted firmly on the wheel arch. He leaned in through the empty window, and punched the

cabdriver repeat-edly in the head with his free hand. Bone shattered and blood flew, and the driver

screamed as the force of the blows slammed him all around the cab's interior. Dead Boy grabbed a

handful of tubes and cables and pulled them free.Sparks flew and hot fluids spurted, and the driver's face

went slack and empty. He collapsed forward across the jerking steering wheel, and Dead Boy threw the

cables aside. He checked to make sure he'd done all the dam-age he could, and then backed out of the

cab window. He turned and braced himself, his back pressed against the empty window frame. The cab

was a good ten feet away now, but he jumped the increasing gap like he did it every day, and landed

easily on the futuristic car's roof. I heard the thud above me, followed by whoops and cheers as Dead

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Boy applauded himself and chal-lenged all comers to come and have a go, if they thought they were hard

enough.

The futuristic car was still driving itself. It didn't need Dead Boy, and it certainly didn't need me, so I

gave my full attention to the one remaining taxicab, closing in really fast from the right. Its vicious steel

blades were now only a few inches away. One good sideswipe and those blades would punch right

through the car's side and gut Liza and me. We'd already retreated as far backas we could, pressed up

against the far door; but those blades looked really long ... Dead Boy came suddenly swinging in through

the driver's window, and dropped back into his seat. He grinned widely, and started to beat a victorious

tattoo on the steering wheel before he realised one hand still had bits of glass sticking out of it. So he

leaned back in his seat, and set about removing them one at a time from his unfeeling flesh.

"Hi!" he said cheerfully. "I'm back! Did you miss me?"

"You're a lunatic!" said Liza.

"Excuse me," Dead Boy said coldly. "But I wasn't talking to you." And he spoke loving baby talk to his

car until I felt like puking.

I did point out the nearness and threat of the remaining taxi, but Dead Boy just shrugged sulkily,

suggesting through very clear body language that he felt he'd done his bit, and it was now very definitely

my turn. So I very politely asked the car to lower the window facing the taxi, and it did. I peered out into

the rushing wind, concentrating on the distance between us as the rushing wind blew tears from my eyes.

We were still both moving at one hell of a speed, but the taxi was having no trouble keeping up. The

blurry-edged blades were almost touching the car. The cyborged driver glared at me, his lips pulled back

in a mirthless grin. His tubes and cables bobbed around him as he stuck close to the futuristic car, despite

all it could do to lose him. I leaned out through the car's window and smashed the driver's window with

the knuckle-duster I'd slipped on my fist while he wasn't looking.

I always make it a point to carry a number of useful objects in my coat pocket. Because you never

know ...

The taxi window shattered, glass flying everywhere, and the cyborged driver ducked, yelling obscenities

at me as I leaned farther through the empty window and grabbed on to his door frame. I hung in midair

between the two vehicles, very much aware that if they pulled apart, I'd very probably be torn in two.

And I would have overbalanced and fallen, if Liza hadn't been clinging desperately to my legs in the back

of the car. I hauled myself inside the cab, and the taxi driver pointed his arm at me. A dull gray metal

nozzle protruded from his wrist, pointing right at my face. I really hadn't expected the driver to have an

energy gun implant, but I still knew one when I saw one, and my mind raced for something to do. Time

seemed to slow right down, to give me plenty of time to consider the possibilities; but since they all

seemed to end with my face being shot off, that didn't help much. I was just about to try a really

desperate lunge, when Liza let go of my legs.

I could feel myself sliding out of the car, only a few moments from falling and almost certainly dying,

when Liza appeared sud-denly beside me, forcing herself into the remaining gap in the car window. The

cyborged driver hesitated, as surprised as I was, and while he tried to decide which of us to shoot first,

Liza surged forward and grabbed his arm, forcing it to one side. She was more than half out of the car

now, and only our two bodies wedged in the car window stopped her from falling.

The cabdriver struggled to bring his gun hand to bear on ei-ther of us, while Liza fought to control his

flailing arm. I tried to reach him with my knuckle-duster, but I was too far away, and I couldn't risk trying

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to wriggle farther out the window. And all the time the taxicab and the futuristic car were hurtling through

the Nightside at terrible speed, the ground rushing by only a few feet below us.

"Whatever you're planning on doing," Liza yelled to me, "now would be a really good time to do it!"

So I gave up trying to reach the driver, and wriggled back through the car window. Liza clung fiercely to

the driver's arm, as she started to fall. He brought his energy gun to bear on her. And I pulled a small blue

sachet from my coat pocket, ripped it open, and threw the contents into the driver's face.

Vicious black pepper filled his eyes, blinding him in a moment, shocked tears streaming down his face.

He was just starting to sneeze explosively as I pulled Liza away from him, and both of us wriggled back

through the window into the backseat of the futur-istic car. We sprawled together on the bloodred

leather seat, breathing harshly as we struggled to get our breath back.

The taxicab swayed away from us, the driver utterly blind and unable to control his cab for the force of

his sneezing. The cab fell away behind us, and a fifty-foot articulated rig ran right over it from behind.

And that was very definitely that.

Liza looked at me speechlessly for a long moment, and then . . .

"Pepper?That was your great idea? Pepper?"

"It worked, didn't it?" I said reasonably. "Condiments are our friends. Never leave home without them."

Liza shook her head slowly, and then sat up straight, pushing herself away from me, and adjusting her

clothes as women do. "Was that ... All that just happened, was that normal for the Nightside?"

"Not really, no," I had to admit. "Most people have the sense to leave Dead Boy's car strictly alone.

And they certainly should have known better than to take on Dead Boy and myself. We have . . .

reputations. Which can only mean it has to do with your Frank. Someone knows we're coming.

Someone who really doesn't want us to know what's happened to Frank. And to justify this kind of open

attack... whatever's going on, it must be some-thing really out of the ordinary."

"Which means," Dead Boy said cheerfully, "it must be some-thing new! And I'm always up for something

new! On, my lovely car, on to Rotten Row!"

"You're weird," said Liza.

THREE

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And so we headed into the badlands. Where the neon gets shoddier and the sins grow shabbier, though

no less dangerous or disturbing. If the Nightside is where you go when no one else will have you, the

badlands is where you go when even the Nightside is sick of the sight of you. The bad-lands, where all

the furtive people end up, pursuing things even the Nightside is ashamed of... because some things are

just too tacky.

The traffic thinned out more and more as we left the major thoroughfares behind, dying away to just the

occasional tattooed unicorn with assorted piercings and aPrince Albert , a stretch hearse with the corpse

half out of its coffin and beating helplessly against the reinforced windows, and a headless bounty hunter

on horseback. The flotsam and jetsam of the Nightside, all hot in pursuit of their own private destinies

and damnations. The streets grew narrower and darker, and not only because maybe half the streetlights

were working. The shadows were darker and deeper, and things moved in them. More and more

buildings had boarded-up windows and broken-in doors, and where lights did sometimes glow in high-up

windows, strange shadows moved behind closed blinds. The neon signs remained as gaudy as ever, like

poisonous flowers in a polluted swamp. A few people still walked the rain-slick streets, heads down,

looking neither left nor right, drawn on by siren calls only they could hear.

Homeless people lurked in the shadows, broken men in tat-tered clothes. Mostly they moved in packs,

because it was safer that way. There are all kinds of predators, in the badlands. And a few good people,

fighting a losing battle and knowing it, but fighting on anyway, because they knew a battle is not a war. I

saw Tamsin MacReady, the rogue vicar, out in her rounds, determined to do good in a bad place. She

recognised Dead Boy's car, and waved cheerfully.

The night grew quieter and more thoughtful, the deeper into the badlands we went, a shining silver

presence in a dark place. Working streetlights grew few and far between, and the car cruised quietly

from one pool of light to another. Dead Boy tried the high beams, but even they couldn't penetrate far

into the gloom, as though there was something in this new darkness that swallowed up light. The roar and

clamour of the Nightside proper seemed far away now, left behind as we moved from one country to

another. The few people we passed ignored us, intent on their own business. This wasn't a place to draw

attention to yourself; unless, of course, you had something to sell.

A tall and willowy succubus, with dead white skin, crimson lingerie, and bloodred eyes, loped along

beside the futuristic car for a while, easily matching its speed. She tapped on our polarised windows with

her clawed fingertips, whispering all the awful things she would let us do. Liza shrank back from the

succubus,her face sick with horror and revulsion. When the succubus re-alised we weren't going to stop,

she increased her speed to get ahead of us and then stepped out into the middle of the road, blocking our

way. Dead Boy told the car to put its foot down, and the car surged forward.

The succubus ghosted out, becoming immaterial, and the fu-turistic car passed right through her. A

spectre, tinted rose red and lily white, the succubus drifted at her own pace through the car, ignoring

Dead Boy, her inhuman gaze fixed on Liza. A suc-cubus always has a taste for fresh meat. She reached

out a ghostly hand to Liza, but I grabbed her wrist and stopped her. It was like holding the memory of an

arm, cold as ice, soft as smoke. The succubus looked at me, and then gently pulled her arm free, the

ghostly trace passing through my mortal flesh in an eerily inti-mate moment. She trailed the fingertips of

one hand along my face, winked one bloodred eye, and then passed on through the car and was gone.

The badlands grew grimly silent, abandoned and forsaken, as we closed in on Rotten Row. We had left

civilisation behind, for something else. Here buildings and businesses pressed tight to-gether in long ugly

tenements, as though believing there was strength, and protection, in numbers. Windows were shuttered,

doors securely locked, and none of these establishments even bothered to look inviting. Either you knew

what you were looking for, or you had no business being here. Enter at your own risk, leave your

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conscience at the door, and absolutely no refunds.

Welcome, sir. What's your pleasure?

Few people walked the gloomy, desolate streets, and they all walked alone, despite the many dangers,

because no one else would walk with them. Or perhaps because the very nature of their needs and

temptations had made them solitary. And though most of the figures we passed looked like people, not

all of them walked or moved in a human way. One figure in a filthy suit turned suddenly to look at the car

as it drifted past, and under the pulled-down hat I briefly glimpsed a face that seemed to be nothing but

mouth, full of shark's teeth stained with fresh blood and ' gristle. It's all about hunger, in the badlands.

Glowing eyes followed the progress of the futuristic car from shadowy alley mouths, rising and falling like

bright burning fire-flies. They didn't normally expect to see such a high-class, high-tech car in their

neighbourhood. They could get a lot of money, ' and other things, for a car like ours. And its contents. In

the quiet of the street, a baby began to cry; a lost, hopeless, despairing sound. Liza leaned forward.

"Stop. Do you hear that? Stop the car. We have to do something!"

"No, we don't," said Dead Boy.

"We keep going," I said, and turned to Liza as she opened her \ mouth to protest. "That isn't a baby. It's

just something that's ' learned to sound like a baby, to lure in the unsuspecting. There's '¦ nothing out there

that you'd want to meet."

Liza looked like she wanted to argue, but something in my voice and in my face must have convinced

her. She slumped back in her seat, arms folded tightly across her chest, staring straight ahead. I felt sorry

for her, even as I admired her courage and her stubbornness. She was having to take an awful lot on

board, most of which would have broken a weaker mind, but she kept going. All for her dearest love,

Frank. Husband Frank. What kind of man was he, to inspire such love and devotion .. . and still end up

here, in Rotten Row? I would see this through to the end,because I had said I would; but there was no

way this was going to end well.

Interesting, that Dead Boy hadn't even slowed the car. Perhaps -his dead ears heard something in the

baby's cry that was hidden from the living.

"This is it, people," he said abruptly, as the car turned a tight corner into a narrow, garbage-cluttered

cul-de-sac. "We have now arrived at Rotten Row. Just breathe in that ambience."

"Are you sure?" Liza said doubtfully, peering through the car window with her face almost pressed to the

glass. "I can't see ... anything. No shops, no businesses, no people. I don't even see a street sign."

"Someone probably stole it," Dead Boy said wisely. "Around here, anything not actually nailed down

and guarded by hellhounds is automatically considered up for grabs. But my car says this is the place,

and my sweetie is never wrong."

Someone in the tattered remains of what had once been a very expensive suit lurched out of a side alley

to throw something at the futuristic car. It bounced back from the car's windscreen, and exploded. The

car didn't even rock. There was a brief scream from the thrower as the blast threw him backwards, his

clothes on fire. He'd barely hit the ground before a dozen dark shapes came swarming out of all the other

alleys to roll his still twitching body back and forth as they robbed him of what little he had that was

worth the taking. They were already stripping the smouldering clothes from his dead body as they

dragged it off into the merciful darkness of the alley shadows. Liza looked at me angrily, more disgusted

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than disturbed.

"What kind of a place have you brought me to, John? My Frank wouldn't be seen dead in an area like

this!" "The photo says he's here," I said. "Look."

I held up the two jaggedly torn pieces, pressed carefully together, and concentrated my gift on them. The

image of Frank jumped right out of the wedding photo, to become a flickering ghost in the street outside.

He was walking hurriedly down Rot-ten Row, a memory of a man repeating his last journey, imprinted

on Time Past. His palely translucent form stalked past the car, his face expectant and troubled at the

same time. As though he was forcing himself on, towards some long-desired, long-denied con-summation

that both excited and terrified him. His pace quick-ened until he was almost running, his arms flailing at his

sides, until at last he came to one particular door, and stopped there, breathing hard. The badly

hand-painted sign above the door said simply Silicon Heaven.

Frank smiled for the first time at the sight of it, and it was not a very nice smile. It was the smile of a man

who wanted something . men are not supposed to want, not supposed to be able to want. This was more

than need, or lust, or desire. This was obsession. He raised a trembling hand to knock, and the door

silently opened itself before him.

The doors of Hell are never bolted or barred, to those who belong there.

Frank hurried inside, the door closed behind him, and our glimpse into Time Past came to an end. I

busied myself putting the torn pieces of photo away, so I wouldn't have to see the disap-pointment and

betrayal of trust in Liza's face. Dead Boy turned around in his seat to look at us, calmly munching on a

chocolate digestive. He didn't care about where we were, or what we were doing here. He was just

along for the ride. Apparently when you're dead you only have so much emotion in you, and he doesn't

like to waste it. He would go along with whatever I decided. But this wasn't my decision; it was Liza's.

"We don't have to do this," I said, as gently as I could. "We can still turn the car around, and go back."

"After coming all this way to find Frank?" said Liza. "Why would I want to leave, when all the answers

are in there waiting for me? I need to know about Frank, and I need to know what happened to my

memories."

"We should leave," I said, "because Frank has come to a really bad place. Trust me; there are no good

answers to be found in Silicon Heaven."

Liza looked from me to Dead Boy and back again. She could see something in our faces, something we

knew and didn't want to say. Typically, she became angry rather than concerned. She wasn't scared and

she wasn't put off; she wanted to know.

"What is this place, this Silicon Heaven? What goes on behind that door? You know, don't you?"

"Liza," I said. "This isn't easy ..."

"It doesn't matter," she said firmly, resolutely. "If Frank's in there, I'm going in after him."

She wrestled with the door handle, but it wouldn't turn, no matter how much strength she used.

"No one's going anywhere, just yet," Dead Boy said calmly. "We are all staying right here, until John has

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worked out a plan of action. This is not your world, Liza Barclay; you don't know the rules, how things

work, in situations like this."

"He's right, Liza," I said. "This is a nasty business, even for the Nightside, with its own special dangers

for the body and the soul."

"But . . . look at it!" said Liza, gesturing at Silicon Heaven, with its boarded-up window and its stained,

paint-peeling door. "It's a mess! This whole street would need an extreme make-over before it could be

upgraded enough to be condemned! And this . . . shop, or whatever it is, looks like it's been deserted

and left empty for months. Probably nobody home but the rats."

"Protective camouflage," I said, when she finally ran out of breath. "Remember the baby that wasn't a

baby? Silicon Heaven set up business here, because only a location like this would tolerate a trade like

theirs; but even so, it doesn't want to draw unwel-come attention to itself. There are a lot of people who

object to the very existence of a place like Silicon Heaven, for all kinds of ethical, religious, and scientific

reasons. We like to say anything goes in the Nightside, but even we draw the line at some things. If only

on aesthetic grounds. Silicon Heaven has serious enemies, and would probably be under attack right now

by a mob with flaming torches, if they weren't afraid to come here."

"Are you afraid?" said Liza, fixing me with her cold, deter-mined eyes.

"I try very hard not to be," I said evenly. "It's bad for the rep-utation. But I have learned to be ...

cautious."

Liza looked at Dead Boy. "I suppose you're going to say you're never afraid, being dead."

"There's nothing here that bothers me," said Dead Boy, "but there are things I fear. Being dead isn't the

worst thing that can happen to you."

"You really do get off on being enigmatic, don't you?" said Liza.

Dead Boy laughed. "You must allow the dead their little pleasures."

"Talking of fates worse than death," I said, and Liza immedi-ately turned back to look at me, "you have

to brace yourself, if

we're going in there. Just by coming to an establishment like this, Frank is telling us things about himself,

and they're things you're not going to want to hear. But you have to know, if we're going in there after

him."

"Tell me," said Liza. "I can take it. Tell me everything."

"Silicon Heaven," I said carefully, "exists to cater to people with extreme desires. For men, and women,

for whom the ordinary pleasures of the flesh aren't enough. And I'm not talk-ing about the usual fetishes

or obsessions. You can find all of that in the Nightside, and more. In Silicon Heaven, science and the

unnatural go hand in hand like lovers, producing new forms of sexuality, new objects of desire. They're

here to provide extreme and unforgivable outlets for love and lust and everything in between. This is the

place where people go to have sex with computers."

Liza looked at me for a long moment. She wanted to laugh, but she could see the seriousness in my face,

hear it in my voice, telling her that there was nothing laughable about Silicon I leaven.

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"Sex . . . with computers?" she said numbly. "I don't believe it. How is that even possible?"

"This is the Nightside," said Dead Boy. "We do ten impossible things before breakfast, just for a cheap

thrill. Abandon all taboos, ye who enter here."

"I won't believe it until I see it," said Liza, and there was enough in her voice beyond mere stubbornness

that I gave the nod to Dead Boy. We were going to have to go all the way with this, and hope there were

still some pieces left to pick up after-wards. Dead Boy spoke nicely to his car, and the doors swung

open.

We stepped out onto Rotten Row, and the ambience hit us like a closed fist. The night air was hot and

sweaty, almost feverish, and it smelled of spilled blood and sparking static. Blue-white moonlight gave the

street a cold, alien look, defiantly hostile and unsafe. I could feel the pressure of unseen watching eyes,

cold and calculating, and casually cruel. And over all, a constant feeling that we didn't belong here, that

we had no business being here, that we were getting into things we could never hope to under-stand or

appreciate. But I have made a business, and a very good living, out of going places where I wasn't

wanted, and finding out things no one wanted me to know. I turned slowly around, letting the whole

street get a good look at me. My hard-earned reputa-tion was normally enough to keep the flies off, but

you never knew what desperate acts a man might be driven to, in a street like Rotten Row.

The futuristic car's doors all closed by themselves, and there was the quiet but definite sound of many

locks closing. Liza looked back at the car, frowning uncertainly.

"Is it safe to just leave it here, on its own?"

"Don't worry," said Dead Boy, patting the bonnet fondly. "My sweetie can look after herself."

Even as they were speaking, a slim gun barrel emerged abruptly from the side of the car, and fired a

brief but devastating bolt of energy at something moving not quite furtively enough in the shadows. There

was an explosion, flames, and a very brief scream. Various shadowy people who'd started to emerge

into the street, and display a certain covetous interest in the futuristic car, had a sudden attack of good

sense and disappeared back into the shad-ows. Dead Boy sniggered loudly.

"My car has extensive self-defence systems, a total lack of scru-ples about using them, and a really quite

appalling sense of humour. She kept one would-be thief locked in the boot for three weeks. He'd

probably still be there, if I hadn't noticed the flies."

In his own way, he was trying to distract Liza and make her laugh, but she only had eyes for Silicon

Heaven. So I took the lead, and strolled over to the door as though I had every right to be there. Liza

and Dead Boy immediately fell in beside me, not wanting to be left out of anything. Up close, the door

didn't look like much; just an everyday old-fashioned wooden door with the paint peeling off it in long

strips . . . but this was Rotten Row, where ordinary and everyday were just lies to hide behind. I sneered

at the tacky brass doorknob, sniffed loudly at the entirely tasteless brass door knocker, and didn't even

try to touch the door itself. I didn't want the people inside thinking I could be taken out of the game that

easily.

I thrust both hands deep into my coat pockets, and surrepti-tiously ran my fingertips over certain useful

items that might come in handy for a little light breaking and entering. A private investigator needs to

know many useful skills. In the end, I de-cided to err on the side of caution, and gave Dead Boy the nod

to start things off, on the grounds that since he was dead, whatever happened next wouldn't affect him as

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much as the rest of us. He grinned widely, and drew back a gray fist. And the door swung slowly open,

all by itself. I gestured quickly for Dead Boy to hold back. A door opening by itself is rarely a good sign.

At the very least, it means you're being watched . . . and, that the people in-side don't think they have

anything to fear from you entering. Or it could just be one big bluff. The Nightside runs on the gentle art

of putting one over on the rubes.

"Are we expecting trouble?" said Liza, as I stood still, consid-ering the open door. “Always," Dead Boy

said cheerfully. "It's only the threat of danger and sudden destruction that makes me feel alive."

"Then by all means, you go in first and soak up the punish-ment," I said generously.

"Right!" said Dead Boy, brightening immediately. He kicked the door wide open and stalked forward

into the impenetrable darkness beyond. His voice drifted back to us: "Come on! Give me your best shot,

you bastards! I can take it!"

Liza looked at me. "Is he always like this?"

"Pretty much," I said. "This is why most people won't work with him. Personally, I've always found him

very useful for hiding behind when the bullets start flying. Shall we go?"

Liza looked at the open doorway, and the darkness beyond, her face completely free of any expression.

"I don't want to do this, John. I just know something really bad will happen in there; but I need to know

the truth. I need to remember what I've forgotten, whether I want to or not."

She stepped determinedly forward, her small hands clenched into fists at her sides, and I moved quickly

to follow her through the doorway. My shoulder brushed against hers, and I could feel the tension in her

rock-hard muscles. I thought it was something simple: fear or anticipation. I should have known better.

The darkness disappeared the moment the door closed behind us, and a bright, almost painful glare

illuminated the room we'd walked into. Solid steel walls surrounded us, a good forty foot a side, and

even the floor and the ceiling were made from the same brightly gleaming metal. Our own distorted

images stared back at us from the shining walls. Dead Boy stood in the middle of the room, glaring

pugnaciously around him, ready to hit anything that moved or even looked at him funny, but we were the

only

ones there. There was no obvious way out, and when I looked back, even the door we'd come through

had disappeared.

"I don't understand," said Liza. "This room is a hell of a lot bigger than the shop front suggested."

"In the Nightside, the interior of a building is often much big-ger than its exterior," I said. "It's the only

way we can fit every-thing in."

There was no obvious source for the sharp, stark light that filled the steel room. The air was dry and

lifeless, and the only sounds were the ones we made ourselves. I moved over to the nearest wall, and

studied it carefully without touching it. Up close, the metal was covered with faint tracings, endless lines in

endless intricate patterns, like . . . painted-on circuitry. The pat-terns moved slowly, changing subtly

under the pressure of my gaze, twisting and turning as they transformed themselves into whole new

permutations. As though the wall was thinking, or dreaming. I gestured for Dead Boy and Liza to join

me, and pointed out the patterns. Dead Boy just shrugged. Liza looked at me.

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"Does this mean something to you?"

"Not ... as such," I said. "Could be some future form of hi-eroglyphics. Could be some form of adaptive

circuitry. But it's definitely not from around here. This is future tech, machine code from a future time line .

. . There are rumours that Silicon Heaven is really just one big machine, holding everything within."

"And we've just walked right into it," said Dead Boy. "Great. Anyone got a can opener?"

He leaned in close to study the wall tracings, and prodded them with a long pale finger. Blue-gray lines

leapt from the wall onto his finger and swarmed all over it. Dead Boy automatically pulled his finger back,

and the circuitry lines stretched away from the wall, clinging to his dead flesh with stubborn strength. They

crawled all over his hand and shot up his arm, growing and mul-tiplying all the time, twisting and curling

and leaping into the air. Dead Boy grabbed a big handful of the stuff, wrenched it away, and then popped

it into his mouth. Dead Boy has always been one for the direct approach. He chewed thoughtfully,

evaluating the flavour. The blue-gray lines slipped back down his arm and leapt back onto the wall,

becoming still and inert again.

"Interesting," said Dead Boy, chewing and swallowing. "Could use a little salt, though."

I offered him some, but he laughed, and declined.

Liza made a sudden pained noise, and her knees started to buckle. I grabbed her by one arm to steady

her, but I don't think she even knew I was there. Her face was pale and sweaty, and her mouth was

trembling. Her eyes weren't tracking; her gaze was fixed on something only she could see. She looked

like she'd just seen her own death, up close and bloody. I held her up, gripping both her arms firmly, and

said her name loudly, right into her face. Her eyes snapped back into focus, and she got her feet back

under her again. I let go of her arms, but she just stood where she was, looking at me miserably.

"Something bad is going to happen," she said, in a small, hope-less voice. "Something really bad . . ."

A dozen robots rose silently up out of the metal floor, almost seeming to form themselves out of the

gleaming steel. More ro-bots stepped out of the four walls, and dropped down from the ceiling. It

seemed Silicon Heaven had a security force after all. The robots surrounded us on every side, silent and

implacable, blocky mechanical constructs with only the most basic humanoid

form. Liza shrank back against me. Dead Boy and I moved quickly to put her between us.

For a long moment the robots stood utterly still, as though taking the measure of us, or perhaps checking

our appearance against their records. They were roughly human in shape, but there was nothing of human

aesthetics about them. They were purely functional, created to serve a purpose and nothing more. Bits

and pieces put together with no covering, their every work-ing open to the eye. There were crystals and

ceramics and other things moving around inside them, while strange lights came and went. Sharp-edged

components stuck out all over them, along with all kinds of weapons, everything from sharp blades and

cir-cular saws to energy weapons and blunt grasping hands. They had no faces, no eyes, but all of them

were orientated on the three of us. They knew where we were.

Many things about them made no sense at all, to human eyes and human perspectives. Because human

science had no part in their making.

They all moved forward at the same moment, suddenly and without warning, metal feet hammering on

the metal floor. They did not move in a human way, their arms and legs bending and stretching in

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unnatural ways, their centres of gravity seeming to slip back and forth as needed. They reached for us

with their blocky hands, all kinds of sharp things sticking out of their fin-gers. Buzz saws rose out of

bulking chests, spinning at impossible speeds. Energy weapons sparked and glowed, humming loudly as

they powered up. The robots came for us. They would kill us if they could, without rage or passion or

even satisfaction, blunt instruments of Silicon Heaven's will.

I've always prided myself on my ability to talk my way out of most unpleasant situations, but they weren't

going to listen. Dead Boy stepped forward, grabbed the nearest robot with brisk directness, picked it up

and threw it at the next nearest robot. They both had to have weighed hundreds of pounds, but that was

nothing to the strength in Dead Boy's unliving muscles. The sheer impact slammed both robots to the steel

floor, denting it perceptibly, the sound almost unbearably loud. But though both robots fell in a heap, they

untangled themselves almost immedi-ately and rose to their feet again, undamaged.

Dead Boy punched a robot in what should have been its head, and the whole assembly broke off and

flew away. The robot kept coming anyway. Another robot grabbed Dead Boy's shoulder from behind

with its crude steel hand, the fingers closing like a mantrap. The purple greatcoat stretched and tore, but

Dead Boy felt no pain. He tried to pull free, and snarled when he found he couldn't. He had to wrench

himself free with brute strength, ruin-ing his coat, and while he was distracted by that, another robot

punched him in the back of the head.

I'm sure I heard bone crack and break. It was a blow that would have killed any ordinary man, but

Dead Boy had left ordinary behind long ago. The blow still sent him staggering forward, off balance, and

straight into the arms of another robot. The uneven arms slammed closed around him immediately, forcing

the breath out of his lungs with brutal strength. But Dead Boy only breathes when he needs to talk. He

broke the hold easily, and yanked one of the robot's arms right out of its socket. He used the arm as a

club, happily hammering the robot about the head and shoulders, smashing pieces off and damaging

others. But even as bits of the robot flew through the air, it kept coming, and Dead Boy had to back

away before it. And while he was concentrating on one robot, the others closed in around him.

They swarmed all over him, clinging to his arms, beating at

his head and shoulders, trying to drag him down. He struggled valiantly, throwing away one robot after

another with dreadful force, but they always came back. He was inhumanly strong, but there were just so

many of them. He disappeared inside a crowd of robots, steel fists rising and falling like jackhammers,

over and over again, driving Dead Boy to his knees. And then they cut at him, with their steel blades and

whirring buzz saws and vicious hands.

While the majority of robots were dealing with Dead Boy, the remainder closed in on me, and Liza.

She'd frozen, her face ut-terly empty, her body twitching and shaking. I gently but firmly pushed her

behind me, out of the way. Our backs were to the nearest wall, but not too close.

I was thinking furiously, trying to find a way out of this. Most of my useful items were magical in nature,

rather than scientific. And while I knew quite a few nasty little tricks to use against the living and the dead

and those unfortunate few stuck in be-tween ... I didn't have a damned thing of any use against robots.

Certainly throwing pepper into their faces wasn't going to work. I don't carry a gun. I don't usually need

them.

I backed up as far as I dared, herding Liza behind me, and fired up my gift. My inner eye snapped open,

and immediately my Sight found just the right places for me to stand, and where and when to dodge, so

that the robots couldn't touch me. Their blocky hands reached for me again and again, but I was never

there, al-ready somewhere else, one step ahead of them. Except the more they closed in, the less room

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there was for me to move in. I man-aged to be in the right place to trip a few and send them crashing into

one another, but all I was doing was buying time.

I knew what was happening to Dead Boy, but there wasn't a damned thing I could do. One robot aimed

an energy weapon at me. I waited till the very last moment, and then sidestepped, and the energy beam

seared past me to take out the robot on my other side. It exploded messily, bits and pieces flying across

the room. They ricocheted off the other robots harmlessly, but one piece of shrapnel passed close

enough to clip off a lock of my hair. Liza didn't react at all.

The robots had discovered they couldn't hurt Dead Boy, so they decided to pull him apart. They

grabbed him by the arms and legs, stretched him helpless in midair between them, and did their best to

tear him limb from limb. He struggled and cursed them vilely, but in the end, they were powerful machines

and he was just a dead man.

Liza darted suddenly forward from behind me, grabbed up the robot arm that Dead Boy had torn off,

and used it like a club against the nearest robot. She swung the arm with both hands, using all her

strength, her eyes wide and staring, lips drawn back in an animal snarl. She wasn't strong enough to

damage the robot, but I admired her spirit. We weren't in her world anymore, but she was still doing her

best to fight back. But she still couldn't hope to win, and neither could Dead Boy, so as usual it was

down to me.

I concentrated, forcing my inner eye all the way open, till I could See the world so clearly it hurt. I

scanned the robots with my augmented vision, struggling to understand through the pain, and it didn't take

me long to find the robots' basic weakness. They had no actual intelligence of their own; they were all

receiving their orders from the same source, through the same mechanism. I moved swiftly among the

robots, dancing in their blind spots, yanking the mechanisms out, one after another. And one by one the

robots froze in place, cut off from their central command,

helpless without orders. They stood around the metal room like so many modern art sculptures ... and I

sat down suddenly and struggled to get my breathing back under control, while my third eye, my inner

eye, slowly and thankfully eased shut.

I have a gift for finding things, but it's never easy.

Dead Boy pulled and wriggled his way free from the robots holding him, looked in outrage at what

they'd done to his purple greatcoat, and kicked some of the robots about for a bit, just to ease his

feelings. Liza looked about her wildly, still clutching her robot arm like a club. I got up from the floor and

said her name a few times, and she finally looked at me, personality and sanity easing slowly back into

her face. She looked at what she was hold-ing, and dropped it to the floor with a moue of distaste. I

went over to her, but she didn't want to be comforted.

A voice spoke to us, out of midair. A calm, cultured voice, with a certain amount of resignation in it.

"All right, enough is enough. We didn't think the security bots would be enough to stop the famous John

Taylor and the infa-mous Dead Boy... or should that be the other way round ... but we owed it to our

patrons to try. You might have been having an off day. It happens. And the bots were nearing the end of

their warranty . . . Anyway, you'd better come on through, and we'll talk about this. I said Liza Barclay

would come back to haunt us if we just let her go, but of course no one ever listens to me."

"I've been here . . . before?" said Liza.

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"You don't remember?" I said quietly.

"No," said Liza. "I've never seen this place before." But she didn't sound as certain as she once had. I

remembered her earlier premonition, just before the robots appeared, when she'd known something bad

was about to happen. Perhaps she'd known be-cause something like it had happened the last time she

was here. Unless she was remembering something else, even worse, still to come . . .

A door appeared in the far wall, where I would have sworn there was no trace of a door just a moment

before. A section of the metal just slid suddenly sideways, disappearing into the rest of the wall, leaving a

brightly lit opening. I started towards it, and once again Dead Boy and Liza fell in beside me. You'd

almost have thought I knew what I was doing. We threaded our way through the motionless robots, and

I held myself ready in case they came alive again; but they just stood there, in their stiff awk-ward poses,

utterly inhuman even in defeat. Dead Boy pulled faces at them. Liza wouldn't even look at the robots, all

her atten-tion focused on the open door, and the answers it promised her.

We passed through the narrow opening into a long steel cor-ridor, comfortably wide and tall, the steel

so brightly polished it was like walking through an endless hall of mirrors. It occurred to me that none of

our reflections looked particularly impressive, or dangerous. Dead Boy had lost his great floppy hat in his

strug-gle with the robots, and his marvellous purple greatcoat was torn and tattered. Some of the stitches

on his bare chest had broken open, revealing pink-gray meat under the torn gray skin. I keep telling him

to use staples. Liza looked scared but determined, her face so pale and taut there was hardly any colour

in it. She was close to getting her answers now; but I think, even then, she knew this wasn't going to end

well. And I ... I looked like someone who should have known better than to come to a place like Rotten

Row, and expect any good to come of it.

The corridor finally took a sharp turn to the left, and ushered us into a large antechamber. More steel

walls, still no furnishings or comforts, but finally a human face. A tall, slender man in the

traditional white lab coat was waiting for us. He had a bland for-gettable face, and a wide welcoming

smile that meant nothing at all. Slick, I thought immediately. That's the word for this man. Nothing would

ever touch him, and nothing would ever stick to him. He'd make sure of that. He strode briskly towards

us, one hand stretched out to shake, still smiling, as though he could do it all day. The smile didn't reach

his eyes. They were cold, certain, the look of a man utterly convinced he knew important things that you

didn't.

Fanatic's eyes. Believer's eyes. Such men are always dan-gerous.

He dropped his hand when he realised none of us had any intention of shaking it, but he didn't seem

especially upset. He was still smiling.

"Hi!" he said brightly. "I'm Barry Kopek. I speak for Silicon Heaven. I'd say it's good to see you, but I

wouldn't want to start our relationship with such an obvious lie. So let's get right down to business, shall

we, and then we can all get back to our own lives again. Won't that be nice?"

He tried offering us his hand again, and then pulled it back with a resigned shrug, as though he was used

to it. And if he was the official greeter for Silicon Heaven, he probably was. Even a ghoul in a graveyard

would look down on a computer pimp like him.

"Come with me," he said, "and many things will be made clear. All your questions will be answered; or at

least, all the ones you're capable of understanding. No offence, no offence. But things are rather . . .

advanced, around here. Tomorrow has come early for the Nightside, and soon there'll be a wake-up call

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for everyone. Slogans are such an important part for any new business, don't you agree? Sorry about the

robots, but we have so many enemies among the ignorant, and our work here is far too important to

allow outside agitators to interfere with it."

"Your work?" I said. "Arranging dates for computers, for peo-ple with a fetish for really heavy metal, is

important work?"

He looked like he wanted to wince at my crudity, but was far too professional. The smile never wavered

for a moment. "We are not a part of the sex industry, Mister Taylor. Perish the thought. Everyone who

finds their way here becomes part of the great work. We are always happy to greet new people, given

the ex-treme turnover in ... participants. But they all understand! They do, really they do! This is the

greatest work of our time, and we are all honoured to be a part of it. Come with me, and you'll see. Only

... do keep Mrs. Barclay under control, please. She did enough damage the last time she was here."

Dead Boy and I both looked at Liza, but she had nothing to say. Her gaze was fixed on the official

greeter, staring at him like she could burn holes through him. She wanted answers, and he was just

slowing her down.

"All right," I said. "Lead the way. Show us this great work."

"Delighted!" said Barry Kopek. I was really starting to get tired of that smile.

He led us through more metal corridors, turning this way and that with complete confidence, even though

there were never any signs or directions on the blank steel walls. He kept up an amiable chatter, talking

smoothly and happily about nothing in particular. The light from nowhere became increasingly stark,

almost un-bearably bright. There was a sound in the distance, like the slow beating of a giant heart, so

slow you could count the moments between each great beat, but they all had something of time and

eternity in them. And there was a smell, faint at first, but gradually growing stronger ... of static and

machine oil, ozone and lubricants, burning meat and rank, fresh sweat.

"You said Liza's been here before," I said finally, after it be-came clear that Kopek wasn't going to raise

the subject again himself.

"Oh, yes," he said, carefully looking at me rather than at Liza. "Mrs. Barclay was here yesterday, and we

let her in, because of course we have nothing to hide. We're all very proud of the work we do here."

"What work?" said Dead Boy, and something in his voice made Kopek miss a step.

"Yes, well, to put it very simply, in layman's terms . . . We are breaking down the barriers between

natural and artificial life."

"If you're so proud, and this work so very great, why did you send those cyborged taxis to attack us?" I

said, in what I thought was really a quite reasonable tone of voice. Kopek's smile wavered for the first

time. He knew me. And my reputation.

"Ah, yes," he said. "That. I said that was a mistake. You must understand, they were some of our first

crude attempts, at meld-ing man with machine. Those men paid a lot of money for it to be done to them,

so they could operate more efficiently and more profitably in Nightside traffic. We were very short of

funds at the beginning . . . When they found out you were coming here, Mis-ter Taylor, well, frankly, they

panicked. You see, they relied on us to keep them functioning."

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"Who told them I was coming?" I said. "Though I'm pretty sure I already know the answer."

"I said it was a mistake," said Barry Kopek. "Are they all . . . ?"

"Yes," I said. He nodded glumly. Still smiling, but you could tell his heart wasn't in it. "I'm not surprised.

Your reputation precedes you, Mister Taylor, like an attack dog on a really long leash. It's a shame,

though. They only wanted to better themselves."

"By having their humanity cut away?" said Dead Boy, just a bit dangerously.

"They gave up so little, to gain so much," said Kopek, just a bit haughtily. "I would have thought you of

all people would ap-preciate ..."

"You don't know me," said Dead Boy. "You don't know any-thing about me. And no one gets away

with attacking my car."

"Being dead hasn't mellowed you at all, has it?" said Kopek.

"Is Frank here?" I said. "Frank Barclay?"

"Well, of course he's here," said Kopek. "It's not like we're holding him prisoner, against his will. He

came to us, pursuing his dreams, and we were only too happy to accommodate him. He is here where he

wanted to be, doing what he's always wanted to do, happy at last."

"He was happy with me!" said Liza. "He loves me! He mar-ried me!"

"A man wants what he wants, and needs what he needs," said Kopek, looking at her directly for the first

time. "And Mister Barclay's needs brought him to us."

"Can we see him? Talk to him?" I said.

"Of course! That's where I'm taking you now. But you must promise me you'll keep Mrs. Barclay under

control. She reacted very badly to seeing her husband last time."

"She's seen him here before?" I said.

"Well, yes," said Kopek, looking from me to Liza and back again, clearly puzzled. "I escorted her to him

myself. Didn't she tell you?"

"No," Liza said quietly, though exactly what she was saying no to, I wasn't entirely sure. She was all

drawn up in herself now, looking straight ahead, her gaze fixed, almost disassociated.

The corridor finally ended in a flat featureless wall, in which another door appeared. Kopek led us

through, and we all stopped dead to look around, impressed and overwhelmed despite our-selves by the

sheer size of the glass-and-crystal auditorium spread out before us. It takes a lot to impress a native of

the Nightside, but the sheer scope and scale of the place we'd been brought to took even my breath

away. Bigger than any enclosed space had a right to be, with walls like frozen waterfalls of gleaming

crystal, set so far apart the details were just distant blurs, under tinted glass ceilings so high above us

clouds drifted between us and them. Like some vast cathedral dedicated to Science, the audito-rium was

so enormous it had generated its own weather systems. Kopek's smile was openly triumphant now, as he

gestured grandly with outstretched arms.

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"Lady and gentlemen, welcome to Silicon Heaven!"

He led the way forward, between massive machines that had shape and form, but no clear meaning or

significance. So com-plex, so advanced, as to be incomprehensible to merely human eyes. There were

components that moved, and revolved, and be-came other things even as I watched; strange lights that

burned in unfamiliar colours; and noises that were almost, or beyond, voices. Things the size of buildings

walked in circles, and intricate mechanisms came together in complex interactions, like a living thing

assembling itself. Gleaming metal spheres the size of sheepdogs rolled back and forth across the crystal

floor, sprouting tools and equipment as needed to service the needs of larger machines. Dead Boy

kicked at one of the spheres, in an experimental way, but it dodged him easily. Kopek led the way, and

we all followed close behind. This wasn't a place you wanted to get lost in. It felt . . . like walking through

the belly of Leviathan, or like flies crawling across the stained-glass window of some unnatural

cathedral... So of course I strolled along with my hands in my coat pockets, like I'd seen it all before and

hadn't been impressed then. Never let them think they've got the advantage, or they'll walk all over you.

Dead Boy seemed genuinely uninterested in any of it, but then he died and brought himself back to life,

and that's a hard act to follow. Liza didn't seem to see any of it. She had a hole in her mind, a gap in her

memories, and all she cared about was finding out what had happened the last time she was here. Did

she care at all about husband Frank, anymore? Or was she remembering just enough to sense that her

quest wasn't for him, and never had been, but only to find the truth about him and her, and this place ...

There was a definite sense of purpose to everything happening around us, even if I couldn't quite grasp

it, but I was pretty sure there was nothing human in that purpose. Nothing here gave a damn about

anything so small as Humanity.

"I was here before," Liza said slowly. "There's something bad up ahead. Something awful."

I looked sharply at Kopek. "Is that right, Barry? Is there some-thing dangerous up ahead, that you

haven't been meaning to tell us about?"

"There's nothing awful here," he said huffily. "You're here to see something wonderful."

And finally, we came face-to-face with what we'd come so far to see. A single beam of light stabbed

down, shimmering and scintillating, like a spotlight from Heaven, as though God himself was taking an

interest. The illumination picked out one particular machine, surrounded by ranks and ranks of robots.

They were

dancing around the machine, in wide interlocking circles, their every movement impossibly smooth and

graceful and utterly in-human. They moved to music only they could hear, perhaps to music only they

could hope to understand, but there was nothing of human emotion or sensibility in their dance. It could

have been a dance of reverence, or triumph, or elation, or something only a robot could know or feel.

The robots danced, and the sound of their metal feet slamming on the crystal floor was almost

unbear-ably ugly.

Kopek led us carefully through the ranks of robots, and at once they began to sing, in high chiming

voices like a choir of metal birds, in perfect harmonies and cadences that bordered on melody without

ever actually achieving it. Like machines pretending to be human, doing things that people do without

ever understand-ing why people do them. We passed through the last of the robots and finally ... there

was Frank, beloved husband of Liza, having sex with a computer.

The computer was the size of a house, covered with all kinds of monitor screens and readouts but no

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obvious controls, with great pieces constantly turning and sliding across each other. It was made of metal

and crystal and other things I didn't even recognise. At the foot of it was an extended hollow section, like

a large upright coffin, and suspended within this hollow was Frank Barclay, hanging in a slowly pulsing

web of tubes and wires and cables, naked, ecstatic, transported. Liza made a low, painful sound, as

though she'd been hit.

Frank's groin was hidden behind a cluster of machine parts, always moving, sliding over and around him

like a swarm of me-tallic bees, clambering over themselves in their eagerness to get to him. Like metal

maggots, in a self-inflicted wound. Thick translucent tubes had been plugged into his abdomen, and

strange liquids surged in and out of him. Up and down his naked body, parts of him had been dissected

away, to show bones and organs being slowly replaced by new mechanical equivalents. There was no

bleeding, no trauma. One thigh bone had been revealed from top to bottom, one end bone and the other

metal, and already it was impossible to tell where the one began and the other ended. Metal rods plunged

in and out of Frank's flesh, sliding back and forth, never stopping. Lights blinked on and off inside him,

briefly rendering parts of his skin transparent; and in that skin I could see as many wires as blood vessels.

The computer was heaving and groaning, in rhythm to the things going in and out of Frank's naked body,

and the machine's steel exterior was flushed and beaded with sweat. It made ... orgasmic sounds. Frank's

face was drawn, shrunken, the skin stretched taut across the bone, but his eyes were bright and happy,

and his smile held a terrible pleasure. Cables penetrated his skin, and metal parts penetrated his body,

and he loved it. One cable had buried itself in his left eye socket, replacing the eyeball, dig-ging its way in

a fraction of an inch at a time. Frank didn't care. He shuddered and convulsed as things slid in and out of

him, changing him forever, and he loved every last-bit of it.

Liza stood before him, tears rolling silently and unheeded down her devastated face.

I turned to Barry Kopek. "Is he dying?"

"Yes, and no," said Kopek. "He's becoming something else. Something wonderful. We are making him

over, transforming him, into a living component capable of being host to machine consciousness. A living

and an unliving body, for an Artificial Intelligence from a future time line. It came to the Nightside through

a Timeslip, fleeing powerful enemies. It wants to experi-ence sin, and in particular the hot and sweaty

sensations of the

flesh. It wants to know what we humans know, and take for granted; all the many joys of sex. Together,

Frank and the com-puter are teaching each other whole new forms of pleasure. He is teaching the

machine all the colours of emotion and sensuality, and the very subtle joys of degradation. In return, the

machine is teaching him whole new areas of perception and conception. Man becomes machine,

becomes more than machine, becomes im-mortal living computer. A metal messiah for a new Age ..."

Kopek's face was full of vision now, a zealot in his cause. "Why should men be limited to being just men,

and machines just ma-chines? Human and inhuman shall combine together, to become something far

superior to either. But like all new life, it begins with sex."

"How many others have there been?" said Dead Boy. "Before Frank?"

"One hundred and seventeen," said Kopek. "But Frank is dif-ferent. He doesn't just believe. He wants

this."

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"Oh, yeah," said Dead Boy. "Looks like he's coming his brains

out."

Liza collapsed, her knees slamming painfully onto the crystal floor. Her face was twisted, ugly, filled with

a horrid knowledge, as all her repressed memories came flooding back at once. She pounded on the

floor with her fist, again and again and again.

"No! No, no, no!I remember... I remember it all! I came here, following Frank. Following my husband,

into the Nightside, and through its awful streets, all the way here . . . Because I thought he was cheating

on me. I thought he had a lover here. He hadn't touched me in months. I thought he was having an affair,

but I never suspected this . . . Never thought he wanted . . . this.'"

"She talked her way in, yesterday," said Kopek. "Determined to see her husband. But when we brought

her here, and showed her, she went berserk. Attacked the computer. Did some little damage, before the

robots drove her off. We wouldn't let her hurt Frank, or herself, and after a while she left."

"And she blocked out the memories herself," I said. "Because they were unbearable."

"How could you?"Liza screamed at Frank. "How could you want this} It doesn't love you! It can't love

you!"

Frank stirred for the first time, his one remaining eye slowly turning to look down at her. His face

showed no emotion, no compassion for the woman he'd loved and married, not so long ago. When he

spoke, his voice already contained a faint machine

buzz.

"This is what I want. What I've always wanted. What I need ... And what you could never give me. I've

dreamed of this for years ... of flesh and metal coming together, moving together. Thought it was just a

fetish, never told anyone ... Knew they could never understand. Until someone told me about the

Night-side, the one place in the world where anything is possible; and I knew I had to come here. This is

the place where dreams come

true."

"Including all the bad ones," murmured Dead Boy.

"What about us, Frank?" said Liza, tears streaming down her

face.

"What about us?" said Frank.

"You selfish piece of shit!"

Suddenly she was back on her feet again, heading for Frank with her hands stretched out like claws,

moving so fast even the robots couldn't react fast enough to stop her. She jumped up and into the coffin,

punched her fist into a hole in Frank's side, and thrust her hand deep inside him. His whole body

convulsed, the machines going crazy, and then Liza laughed triumphantly as she

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jerked her hand back out again. She dropped back down onto the crystal floor, brandishing her prize in

all our faces. Blood dripped thickly from the dark red muscle in her hand. I grabbed her arms from

behind as she shouted hysterically at her husband.

"You see, Frank? I have your heart! I have your cheating heart!"

"Keep it," said Frank, growing still and content again, in the metal arms of his lover. "I don't need it

anymore."

And already the machines were moving over him, mopping up the blood and sealing off his wound,

working to replace the heart with something more efficient. While the computer heaved and groaned and

sweated, Frank sighed and smiled.

It was too much for Liza. She sank to her knees again, sobbing violently. Her hand opened, and the

crushed heart muscle fell to the crystal floor, smearing it with blood. She laughed as she cried, the horrid

sound of a woman losing her mind, retreating deep inside herself because reality had become too awful to

bear. I gave her something to breathe in, from my coat pocket, and in a mo-ment she was asleep. I eased

her down until she was lying full length on the floor. Her face was empty as a doll's.

"I don't get it," said Dead Boy, honestly puzzled. "It's just sex. I've seen worse."

"Not for her," I said. "She loved him, and he loved this. To be betrayed and abandoned by a husband

for another woman or even a man is one thing, but for a machine? A thing? A computer that meant more

to him than all her love, that could do things for him that she never could? Because for him, simple human

flesh wasn't enough. He threw aside their love and their marriage and all their life together, to have sex

with a computer."

"Can you do anything for her?" said Dead Boy. "We've got to do something, John. We can't leave her

like this." "You always were a sentimental sort," I said. "I know a few things. I'm pretty sure I can find a

way to put her back the way she was, when she came to us, and this time make sure the mem-ories stay

repressed. No memory at all, of the Nightside or Sili-con Heaven. I'll take her back intoLondon proper,

wake her up, and leave her there. She'll never find her way back in on her own. And in time, she'll get

over the mysterious loss of her husband, and move on. It's the kindest thing to do."

"And the metal messiah?" said Dead Boy, curling his colourless lip at Frank in the computer. "We just

turn our back on it?"

"Why not?" I said. "There's never been any shortage of gods and monsters in the Nightside; what's one

more would-be messiah? I doubt this one will do any better than the others. In the end, he's just a tech

fetishist, and it's just a mucky machine with ideas above its station. Everything to do with sex, and nothing

at all to do with love."

You can find absolutely anything in the Nightside; and every sin-ner finds their own level of Hell, or

Heaven.

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THE THIRD DEATH OF

THE LITTLE

CLAY DOG - Kat

Richardson

TeamSeattle and theDenver Mob

Trouble radiated from the black figurine like some kind of dark neon at the Devil's own fairground. Not

that I could actually see any such thing even in the Grey, but an electric prickling sensation zipped up my

arms and down my spine when I touched it and that was close enough; I know human hair can't literally

stand on end like a dog's, but I would have sworn mine was trying to.

Nanette Grover was still standing at the side of her desk, look-ing at me and the little statue. Her

fanatically neat office flickered silver, smudged with red and orange and sad shades of green she would

never see—the emotional and energetic leftovers of her cli-ents still hanging in the Grey like smoke. A

ghost or two lingered in the corners with sour, accusing faces and the odor of misery, muttering their

cycles of frustration. They weren't interested in me, so I ignored them and put my attention back onNan .

She was impeccable as always: her straightened, java-brown hair was smoothed into a perfect French

twist, her stylish tweed skirt suit was unwrinkled even after she'd been behind her desk since five a.m.,

and her smooth, dark skin was highlighted by delicate makeup that didn't show a single crease. Even her

energy corona was cool and constrained to a narrow bright line, except when she stepped onto the stage

of the courtroom floor, where it alternated between hypnotic pall and legal scalpel. In spite of her beauty

she had all the warmth of a copper pipe in the snow— which was part of her appeal as a litigator, but not

as a human being. One of her opponents in court had referred to her as "the Queen of Nubia," and it

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wasn't hard imaginingNan on a war elephant chasing off Alexander the Great—even her allies found her

intimidating. "Well?" she asked, the word leaving amber rip-ples in the air.

"Well what?" I responded, shrugging off the commanding ef-fect of her voice.

"You're supposed to accept or reject the conditions." "What happens if I say no?"

Her energy closed back down to an icy line. "Then I have instructions regarding the disposition of the

item." "What are those?"

"None of your business. Yes, or no, Harper." "What was it the client wants done with this, again?" Nan

sat down on the other side of the desk, the mistiness of the settling Grey giving her a deceptively soft

appearance, and blinked once, long and slow—like some kind of reset—and explained again, with no

heat or change of inflection from the first time. "A colleague of mine inMexico City forwarded this item to

me upon the death of his client. His client, Maria-Luz Arbildo, left you a bequest in her will, with

conditions. Namely, to person-ally hand-carry the statuette—this little dog figurine—to Oaxaca City in

Oaxaca state in Mexico, and place it on the grave of Hector Purecete on the night of November first and

attend the grave as local tradition dictates until daybreak of November second. Additional specific

instructions for the preparation of the grave will be provided. All this to be done in the first occurrence of

November first following his client's death. Ms. Arbildo died ear-lier this month."

"The twentieth of October," I added. "A week ago."

Nannodded.

"November first is the day after Halloween. Doesn't that seem strange to you?" I asked.

Nan's ice-smooth expression didn't change. "No."

"And I never met this woman, never heard of her, but she sends this thing all the way toSeattle so I can

take it all the way back toMexico —the far end ofMexico , I might add. Still not sounding kind of

weird?"

"I don't question the conditions of clients."

"Is this sort of thing even legal?"

"Perfectly. If it flew in the face of public interest, then it would be illegal, but this does not. The conditions

also do not require you to do anything illegal either here or there, nor to violate your professional ethics,

nor take on unreasonable expenses—every-thing will be paid for by Ms. Arbildo's estate. If you choose

to follow the conditions of Ms. Arbildo's bequest, you will receive the thirty thousand dollars, once the

conditions have been com-pletely and correctly met. Sum to be paid through this office."

I was raised inLos Angeles County,California , so I'm not totally ignorant of Mexican culture—just

mostly. I knew the first of November was the Mexican equivalent of Halloween, but I didn't know the

details. My experience as a Greywalker, however, makes me wary of any date on which the dead are

said to go abroad among the living. I know that ghosts—and plenty of other creepy things—are around

us all the time, it's just that most peo-ple don't see them. I do more than just see them; I live with them

and I've discovered that days associated with the dead are usually worse than most people

imagine—they're veritable Carnivales of the incorporeal, boiling pools of magical potential. So being

asked to take a folk sculpture to a Mexican graveyard on the Day of the Dead sounded like a dangerous

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idea to me. Especially when the client is deceased.

On the other hand, I can at least see what's going on. As some-one who lives half in and half out of the

realm of ghosts, mon-sters, and magic, I stand a chance against whatever strange thing may rear its head

in such a situation. And the money was attrac-tive. The work I regularly did forNan , investigating

witnesses and filling in the details of her cases prior to trial, paid the major-ity of my bills, but it wasn't an

extravagant living. Even with all the rest of my work added in, thirty thousand dollars was a major chunk

of what I usually made in a year and it would only take about four days.

I looked back down at the statuette. It was a hollow clay figure of a dog, about a foot tall and

long—give or take—and about four inches wide. The shape was simplified, not realistic, with stumpy legs

and tail, a cone-shaped muzzle, and a couple of pinched clay points for ears. It had been painted with a

gritty black paint and decorated with dots and lines of red and white that made rings around the limbs

and a lightning bolt on the dog's side. It also had two white dots for eyes, but no sign of a mouth.

Peering at it, I could see the little clay dog had been cracked and repaired at some point, the casting hole

in its belly covered up with an extra bit of clay and painted over with more of the black paint. A hint of

Grey energy gleamed around the repair

seam, but beyond that, I couldn't tell anything about what might be inside the dog. The statue itself had

only a thin sheen of Grey clinging to its surface like old dirt, as if whatever magical thing it came from had

withered long ago. There wasn't any indicative cloud of color or angry sparks around it as I'd seen with

other magical objects, yet I was sure there was something more to it than met the eye.

I looked back up atNan , who hadn't moved so much as an eyebrow. The silence in her office would

have unnerved some people, but I found it pleasant in contrast to the incessant mutter and hum of the

living Grey and its ghosts.

"What about the lawyer?" I asked.

"What about him?"

"Is he legit?"

Nandidn't crack either a smile or a frown. "Yes. His name is Guillermo Banda. He does a lot of maritime

and international work."

I admit I had some reservations, but I was also a little intrigued by the mystery of it—I'm a sucker for

mysteries—and the money was pretty good, so I shrugged and said, "All right, I'll take the thing to

Mexico."

Nanwaved to the small shipping carton from which she'd originally removed the dog at the start of our

conversation. "You can put it back in its box while I get the papers ready. I'll need your signature on a

receipt to prove that you picked it up and I have a copy of the instructions for you as well."

I nodded and wiggled the little clay dog back into the snowstorm of paper shred that had sprung from

the box whenNan had opened it. We finished up quickly and I left with the papers in my pocket and the

box full of probable trouble under my arm. The aluminum and glass tower that housesNan 's office has

lousy cell reception, so I had to wait until I was just outside the lobby doors to make a call.

"King County Medical Examiner's office. May I help you?" "I'd like to speak to Reuben Fishkiller,

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please," I replied. I was put on hold for a few moments while someone located the forensic lab technician

for me. I'd met him during an inves-tigation into the deaths of homeless people inPioneer Square and

Fish's connections to the local Salish Indians had certainly come in handy. But he'd been a bit upset when

one of his ancestral legends tried to kill us and I hoped he wasn't still too freaked out to talk to me.

"This is Fish, what can I do for you?" "Hi, Fish, it's Harper Blaine."

He paused. "Oh. Hi, Harper. You, uh ... need something?" "I do, if you're willing to do it for me." "Does

it have anything to do with monsters in the sewer this time? Or Salish holy ground? Because I really didn't

enjoy the last

time."

"No monsters, no Salish, no sewers. I promise. I just need an

X-ray."

"We only X-ray the dead."

"This thing is inanimate, is that close enough?"

"What is it?" he asked. I could almost see him narrowing his eyes with suspicion.

"It's a clay statue of a dog."

"You're sure it's inanimate? Things act weird around

you. . .."

"I promise it's just a hollow lump of baked clay, totally inca-pable of movement or pretty much anything

else. I just want to know if there's anything inside it."

Fish sighed. "Okay. ... I can take a look, but it'll have to be quick. Get here at lunchtime and I'll see what

I can do."

I agreed to come while most of the staff was occupied with food, and thanked Fish before hanging up.

It would be just my luck to spark off an international incident and get arrested for drug smuggling if the

dog had anything sig-nificant in its hollow innards. I hoped Fish and his X-ray machine would tell me if

there was anything to fear. The easy-money as-pect of the situation bothered me; I don't believe in

harmless, eccentric benefactors. There was a sting of some kind in the little dog's tail—or belly—and I

wanted to figure it out before I got hit by it.

I killed some time at the library before heading down to Pill Hill, where the major hospitals cluster like

concrete trees. Fish met me at the front desk of the morgue and we walked back through the chilly

chambers in the basement of Harborview to the X-ray room. His shaggy dark hair with premature

streaks of white, hanging over his square face, still reminded me of a badger, but a more wary and

grumpy badger than he'd been before. He'd become a bit nervous since our run-in with living myths,' as if

he, too, could now see the steam-billow shapes of the dead that wan-dered through the old hospital, or

sense the tingling power that thrummed in the neon-bright lines of magical power that shot through the

Grey.

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"What have you got?" he asked as we pushed through the door to the X-ray machine and other lab

paraphernalia.

I put the white cardboard box down on the machine's table and carefully removed the little dog statue.

He started to reach for it, then stopped.

"You—um . . . it's OK to touch it without gloves, isn't it?"

"I think so. I've been handling it bare-handed all morning." I had supposed I'd know if there was

anything toxic on the figure's surface, but there really wasn't any way that I would. I looked at the small

black dog as I clutched it by its middle and hoped it wasn't dusted with anthrax or the like.

Fish paused to pull on a pair of purple gloves before he took the figurine from me. Then he scraped a bit

of the black paint into a glass tube and repeated the scraping on the bottom of the dog's foot, where the

mellow orange clay was bare of glaze or paint. The sheen of Grey on the sculpture's surface rippled and

squirmed as he scraped, but it didn't flare or change color—either of which would have been bad signs.

He added some chemicals to the tubes and put them aside in a large white machine.

"I'll run a couple of tests on those while we're at it," he said. He poked some buttons on the machine.

Then he turned back to the X-ray table. "Now, let's look at this little guy. ..."

Altogether, Fish took three views of the dog. Since the morgue had updated to digital X-ray, we didn't

have to wait for the pic-tures to be developed, but just viewed them on the computer screen behind the

radiation barrier. There was indeed something

inside the clay dog.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing to a bundle of faint lines that showed on every picture. It was in a

different spot each time.

"Something loose in the hollow interior. Let's crank up the

resolution...."

Fish poked a few keys and the image of the bundle got larger

and more clear.

"Looks like hair or threads knotted together. Whatever it is, there's not much of it," Fish observed. "I

could pull it out and examine it if you didn't mind reopening that hole in the dog's

belly."

One condition of the bequest was that the dog statue be put

on the grave intact by me and only me. I didn't think it would qualify as "intact" if part of its secret bundle

were missing, not to mention the plug of clay in the figure's belly. And I didn't have much time to sit

around inSeattle : it was already October twenty-eighth, the trip was going to be a long one, even by air,

and I didn't know where in Oaxaca City Hector Purecete was buried. I wasn't fool enough to think there

was only one cemetery in town, so I'd have to do some investigating inOaxaca before I could complete

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the conditions of the bequest, asNan insisted on calling them.

"I don't think it should be removed, unless you suppose it's something illegal," I said, frowning at the

picture.

"That small? Nah, not likely to be anything drug-related, or human remains. Unless it's hair, like I said, in

which case it prob-ably got in there while the dog was being painted. It's too fine to be plant matter and

there's not enough of it to be worth much if it's any other fiber. It's not dense enough to be metal strands,

ei-ther. Without actually seeing it with my own eyes and running tests, my best guess is still human hair."

Then he shrugged and added, "Or a few strands of some really long-haired animal's fur or tail. Maybe

horse tail..."

Noises in the hallway and a sudden agitation among the ghosts indicated the post-lunch return of Fish's

coworkers. We packed up the figurine and Fish led me back out, promising to call when he had the

result of the tests on the clay and paint. I headed back to my office to clear off my schedule and check on

the flightsNan had promised to book for me on behalf of the estate.

OnlyNan 's work had any specific deadlines on it, so it wasn't difficult to rearrange my meetings and

appointments—I don't make that many anyhow. The biggest hurdle was finding some-one to look alter

my pet ferret while I was gone, and that was taken care of by tracking down Quinton and depositing the

tube rat with him. I suspect Chaos prefers him over me, since he will happily carry her around with him all

day in one deep pocket or another, while I usually have to leave her at home. Anyhow, she didn't look

grieved to see me go, even if Quinton did.

We sat in the glass picnic shelter beside Ivar's Acres of Clams on the waterfront and talked while we ate

our fish and chips. Chaos helped us with the chips and ignored the gulls screaming outside, even in the

late-October chill, for their tithe of greasy fast food. Ivar Haglund may have loved those damned birds,

but to me they were a nuisance worse than persistent spooks: ghosts don't poop on you.

"Oaxaca?" Quinton questioned. "Why?"

"Some nonsense with a bequest. There's a set of instructions— sorry: conditions—that have to be

fulfilled."

"Like in one of those movies where you have to stay in the haunted house overnight or change your

name to Gaggleplox?" he asked. "Those usually don't work out well—most of the cast ends up dead or

the inheritance turns out to be a stash of coun-terfeit bills."

I made a face. "That's in the movies. This is just a job. Find the right grave, put the dog on it, and wait

for daybreak."

"And in between is when all hell could break loose. Which seems pretty likely considering your talents."

"It's possible," I conceded, "but the money is pretty attractive and I don't get a sense of danger from the

statue—just trouble."

He snorted. "Just trouble . . . And why did this woman pick you? Did you know her?"

I shook my head and pinched off a bit of fried potato for the ferret. "No. I didn't know her and I don't

know why she picked

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me for this job. I assume she somehow knew what I can do, but how she knew, that's the big mystery.

And why I agreed to go. Maybe there's some clue to be found about why this happened to me and not

to every person who's ever had a near-death experience. There must be someone who knows more

about all of this than I do, or the Danzigers do, or every vampire from here toVancouver seems to." I felt

a flush on my face that didn't come from the space heater overhead and realized I was getting angry. Not

at Quinton, but at the shifty fate that had yanked the rug out from under me when I'd died only long

enough to have my life wrenched into a shape beyond my control.

"But if it was this Arbildo woman, she's already dead," Quinton said.

"Then I'll hunt her down in the Grey." At least my change of life had come with useful skills. I was still

figuring them out more than a year later, but I no longer hated and resented them.

My flight was set for 11:40 that evening with a five-hour layover in Dallas before I could fly on to

Mexico City and from there to Oaxaca, but even with the delay, I'd still have a few hours once I got to

Oaxaca City to find the records office and start looking for the grave of Hector Purecete.

I finished up my food and gave Chaos a final scratch around the ears. Quinton got a lot more than an ear

scratch, which annoyed the ferret, judging by the way she kept pushing herself in between us and

snagging our kisses for herself. Jealous little furball.

The trip was smooth. Right up toMexico City , where they broke the dog. The customs agent was going

through my bag when it hap-pened. There was the box with the little clay dog inside. He held

it up.

"Is this a gift?" he demanded in a crabby, tired voice. I'd have guessed he was near the end of his shift if

it wasn't quite noon, but maybe he was aware in his own way of the cranky, dispirited, overexcited

motion of the Grey as much as I was. The customs area was aroil in the flashes and clouds of hundreds

of passengers' emotional energy giving shape and color to the loose power of the magical grid. It chafed

and roared and twisted through the space around us like angry lions in a too-small cage. The sound of the

Grey was a strong, steady hum with a sharp edge, like barbed wire under silk.

That sharpness was probably why my response was inappro-priately flippant: "No. It's a dog," I said.

One really shouldn't joke with security people of any kind while they are on the job; most have had to

leave their sense of humor in their locker with their civilian clothes. He raised his eyebrow and opened the

box, rooting inside with his blue-gloved hand—every employee at airport security looks like they're

about to play doctor in some very unpleasant way these days. He snorted in surprise and jerked his hand

out with the figurine not quite gripped in his sweat-sticky glove. You'd have thought the little dog had

bitten him from the way he moved. His hand yanked back, jerking upward a little as the statuette cleared

the edge of the box. The black object moved up, popping out of his loose grip, and arced into the air,

ripping a slice of glove with one pointed ear as it went. It was like slow-motion film, watching it rise from

safety and crash to the hard linoleum beneath our feet.

As it hit the floor, it flashed a panic-bolt of silver white into the Grey. The little clay dog shattered, a tiny

bundle of dark fibers bouncing onto the floor amid the terra-cotta shards. With a sil-very gasp, the flash

rushed back toward the broken figurine and coalesced into the ghost of a dog.

The ghost dog looked around, then looked at me, and whined piteously. It was a rangy, mongrel beast

with the shape of a stunted greyhound and the coat of a shaggy pony. It sidled up to me and leaned

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against my legs and I felt its cold Grey shape press against me with its memory of weight.

The customs agent looked at the smashed figurine and bent to pick the tiny knot from the wreckage.

"Eh?" he mumbled. "What is this?"

I shrugged. "Hair?" I guessed.

He looked at it, rubbed it between his fingers, sniffed it. Then he motioned to one of his coworkers, who

walked over and rubbed a small cloth swab over the little bundle. He put the swab into a machine while

the first man moved me and my bags to another table deeper inside the security zone. Someone else

swept up the bits of clay and put them in a plastic bag. The dog stuck to me like a shy toddler.

"Nada," said the man with the machine. "Este es pelo. "

They put a little of the clay dust from the broken figurine into the machine, but that also yielded "nada."

The customs agent looked sad as he finished inspecting my bag and closed it up, handing it and the bag

of shards back to me with what almost looked like a contrite bow, and an apology for breaking my dog.

"De nada," I replied. Then I asked for the knot of fluff back, which he thought was odd, but he dug into

the trash and retrieved it for me anyhow. I dropped it into the bag of broken ceramic—it wasn’t intact

anymore, but better to keep it all together, just in

case, I thought.

He handed me a claim form to fill out if the dog had been in-sured, and I took it, even though I doubted

the figurine was valu-able. I was sure it was the ghost that was the important thing.

The spirits ofMexico hummed and roared. The ghost dog pasted itself to my heels and shadowed me

around the halls of theMexico City airport as I tried to find a place to put down my bags and make a

phone call. Of course, the place I found was a bar.

I threw myself and my bags down and ordered a beer while I calledNan on my cell phone.Seattle being

close to the other border, I'd had international calling added to my service long ago. Sometimes I

wondered how I'd managed without a cell phone so long. Other times I wished I still had my pager. It

took a few minutes to get connected toNan . "Hello, Harper." "Hello,Nan . Mexican customs broke the

dog."

"Is it reparable?"

"No. But I have a major part of it," I added, looking at the

cowering ghost at my ankles. "Where are you?" "Mexico Cityairport." "Banda is located there. He may

have instructions for that

contingency."

She gave me his number. I wrote it on my cocktail napkin, as is traditional in that sort of situation. "If I

call this guy, I may miss my connection toOaxaca ," I warned her. "I'm already running tight because of

the mess at customs."

"I'll have Cathy reschedule you to a later flight and call you back with the information. Is there anything

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else?"

"No. I'll let Cathy know if anything is still out of whack when she calls."

"Good. Stay in touch." And she was off the phone as fast as that.

I finished my Negra Modelo and called the number on the napkin. I felt itchy from annoyance and lack

of sleep—I don't get more than a fitful doze on planes, since my long legs end up cramped and headrests

are never in the right place for me. I al-ways longed to upgrade to first class, but the PI business usually

comes with a tourist-class budget.

Guillermo Banda answered his own phone. He spoke English like a New Yorker as soon as he heard

how bad my Spanish was.

"Miss Blaine! You're here! This is excellent! How is the perrito? The little dog?"

"Customs broke it."

"Fuck! Pardon me. My client would be very upset to hear it. If she weren't dead."

"Which is why I'm here at all." Talking to this guy was like talking to Lou Costello, and I was afraid I

might start laughing. "I do have part of the dog and I could take that up toOaxaca , if you think that

would be in the spirit intended."

"I don't know. ..." There were noises in the background and he muttered away from the receiver

something aboutPuerto Vallarta , which was rejoined by a feminine giggle.

I tried to keep him on track. "Well, if you could tell me what it was your client had in mind with this

condition, I'm sure we can figure out a way to satisfy the spirit, if not the letter, of her request."

"That I also don't know. Miss Arbildo wasn't very . . . forthcoming." "How long had she been your

client, Mr. Banda?" "Oh, years! Years and years! But we never spoke. She came in to update her will

last year and before that we'd only seen each other twice. I inherited her account from my partner, who

died a few years back in a plane crash. Horrible."

"Did your firm do any work for her aside from the will?" "Well, the specifics are confidential, but yes.

We did a little background investigative work for her and for her father—mostly routine checks. We

managed her estate—her father's estate—and of course we'd been doing work for his company for many

years. We work primarily with international and maritime law and his company was involved in quite a bit

of international shipping. Handling Miss Arbildo's will and so on was more in line of a ...

courtesy."

"I see. Do you have any idea what her relationship was to Hec-tor Purecete? The guy on whose grave

the dog was supposed to be put."

"None at all."

"Damn. I wish I knew what she expected. This is kind of a pain in the butt. You don't have any idea

what her intentions were in the will instruction?"

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"No. Like I said, the woman was very strange."

I sighed. "Maybe if I could see the will itself we could figure this out. May I come to your office?"

"Oh, no," he said. "You'd never get here and back before your flight."

"I've already calledNan to change it."

"No, no ... you don't understand—the traffic. Here's what I'll do. I'll bring it to you at the airport, if you

have time."

"I'll make the time." I told him where I was and that he-should bring as much of the paperwork as he

bad. He said it would take

him an hour to get to the bar and I said that was fine. After all, I was still waiting forNan 's secretary to

call me back.

I was thinking about ordering food when the phone went off, showing meNan 's office number on the

ID. It was Cathy with my flight change and some additional information.

"Nan's booked you into a guesthouse inOaxacaCity —it's one she's used before. The owner speaks

English and can help you with the records search if you need it."

"Thanks. I only hope I'll get there before the offices close." "I think you're going to have to rearrange

your schedule. The earliest flight I could get you was five fifty. I'm sorry. But the provincial offices should

be open Friday."

Terrific. My two days for research was now down to one. I'd have to hope I got what I wanted the first

time or could work up some local contacts very fast. "I'll make it work," I said, then continued, "Umm ...

I talked to Banda. ...Nan said he was reputable, but he seems a little . . . skittish. Is there anything I

should know about him?"

"About Guillermo? I don't know much except that he's the biggest New York Yankees fan inMexico .

And I'm not even sure that's unusual." "Baseball?"

"Yup. Baseball is big inMexico City . A few years ago he had season tickets and flew up to watch the

games—I swear that's why he took his international courses at Columbia; so he could go to Yankees

games—he even tried to take Nan out to one, but she's not a sports fan. Don't get him started on any

conversation about baseball or you'll miss your plane."

I said my good-byes and started thinking while I waited for Banda. It was after one o'clock already. I'd

have to get lunch at the airport and see what I could do by phone. I'd miss the open hours in person

today at whatever government office might have the burial records and I'd only have Friday to do

records searches before the holiday weekend hit—if they didn't close early or not open at all. I'd have to

get to that office first thing on the thirtieth if I was going to stand much chance of finding the right grave. I

only hoped that whatever I could turn up about Hector Purecete in that time would help me get

information from Maria-Luz Arbildo. If she showed up at his grave. Definitely no time for "Who's on

First" discussions with Guillermo Banda that afternoon—I hoped he didn't look as much like Lou

Costello as he sounded or I might lose it.

Fish called me before I could get anything done with directory assistance, saying there was not much to

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report on the scrapings he'd taken from the clay dog, except that the black paint was colored with

crushed charcoal and volcanic sand, with just a touch of human blood. Not your average pottery glaze.

No sign of dread diseases or drug residue. No unusual clay substrate, just plain terra-cotta. I mentioned

that the dog had broken and dropped the bundle of hair out.

"So it is hair?" he asked.

"It looks like it. My Spanish is lousy, but I heard the inspector call it pelo —which I recognize from my

shampoo bottle as the Spanish word for 'hair,' " I replied, gazing into the plastic bag of shards. "Five or

six strands here, dark brown and black, with a red thread holding them together."

"Two different kinds of hair?"

"Two different colors, but they have the same look and texture."

"Interesting. I wonder if the DNA matches the blood in the paint.... I'd love to take a look at it when you

get back—if you're game."

"I don't know if I'll be able to bring it back. It might have to stay here," I added, glancing down again at

the phantom hound. Once the knot of hair had come free, so had the dog, and I wasn't sure if it was the

hair or the sculpture that had held the spirit in the clay shell, but I wanted to know more before I let any

of the parts out of my hands.

The ghost dog leaned against me and seemed to doze. I envied it; the beer had made me feel more tired

than ever. Resigned, I stuffed the bag of pottery bits into my purse and went back to fruitless phone calls

for the next hour. Outside ofMexico City directory assistance, most of the people I talked to had no

better English than I had Spanish—and my Spanish was embarrassingly poor. The dog stirred and I

could feel its low growl as it pressed against my leg.

A man of medium height with short black hair stopped beside me and looked me over as I tried to make

myself clear—without much success—to a clerk in a provincial office somewhere inOaxaca . The man

carried a leather briefcase. He wore a gray suit, had a bland, oval face made interesting only by a boxer's

crooked nose and basset-hound eyes. He smelled of laundry starch. The aura around him jittered and

jumped in flickers of vibrant orange and blue as his eyes moved over everything, evaluating, catalog-ing. .

. . He seemed to have a hot-sauce stain on his tie, but it could have been part of the pattern.

His eyes flicked down toward my feet and he blinked, but I wasn't sure if he saw the ghost dog or if he

just didn't like my boots. He turned his restless gaze back to me, waited until I hung up in frustration, and

said, "You gotta be Harper Blaine."

He didn't look at all like Lou Costello, not even a Hispanic version. He didn't look like an international

law practitioner with an advanced degree fromColumbia , either. He looked like a guy who worked in an

office eight to five, like an insurance adjuster or a midlevel manager in a very expensive suit.

"You must be Guillermo Banda," I replied.

"Willy. You can call me Willy." He hoisted himself onto the bar stool next to mine, keeping his feet away,

as if I might kick him without warning.

Considering my ex-boyfriend was named Will, that particular first name didn't sound like a good idea.

"I'd rather not," I said and wondered if he could see the ghost dog—he seemed a little

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wound up.

He shrugged. "I'm sorry if I offended you, Miss Blaine." He put the briefcase on the bar and snapped it

open. It held a single manila folder and a business-size envelope. Banda picked up the folder. "These are

the last three versions of Miss Arbildo's will. I don't have to show them to you, but since a will in probate

is a public record here, just as it is in theU.S. , you could get most of this information by searching the

district probate records—"

I cut him off. "Mr. Banda, I'm not offended with you and I'm not trying to put your back up. I'm just at a

loss to understand this. I don't know why I was named in your client's will—I've never met her or heard

of her. I just want to understand what I'm doing. I don't want to be stuck with some creepy mystery for

the rest of my life." I did not look at the dog, but I could feel it still rumbling and pressing to me. "The

conditions say I'm to put the dog on the grave intact. What am I supposed to do, now that the

statue is broken?"

He put the folder down in the case and picked up the envelope, offering it to me. "That's easy. You take

the money and run. I'm sure Miss Arbildo won't even know. She inherited a truckload. Thirty

thousandU.S. is a drop in the bucket."

I was sure she would mind. Very much. I shook my head and

didn't touch the envelope. "I can't do that. Maybe if I knew why she wanted the dog put on Purecete's

grave, I could agree, but I don't. What is with the dog?"

Banda laughed—a tired laugh but genuinely amused. "It's a tradition. A really old one. You don't see it

around here much anymore—up in the mountains around Michoacan and Yunuen, maybe inOaxaca , but

even there it's dying out. It's from the Az-tecs. They used to sacrifice a dog and burn the body on the

fu-neral pyres because they believed the dog could lead the spirit of the dead to Mictlan. Now we just

use a statue.

"See, theMexicanLand of the Dead is kind of like Dante's geography of Hell—it's got rings, only nicer.

In the middle is Mictlan—where the dead live just like we do and from which they can someday be

reborn. But it's a long way for a soul to go and there's a river you have to cross as well, so you need a

guide: the dog, because tradition says dogs can always find the way home. Every year, the dead come

back to visit us during elDiade los Muertos. The really traditional people put a statue of a dog on the

ofrenda —the offerings on the family altar—so their dead rela-tives don't get lost coming and going."

"OK, I get the dog, but why me? Why would your client want a perfect stranger from two thousand

miles away to take the dog to Purecete's grave?"

Banda shrugged again and dropped the envelope back into the briefcase, glancing down. "I don't know.

Before you ask, I don't know who Purecete was or what his connection was to Miss Ar-bildo, either.

You want to see the will for yourself?" he asked, looking back up at me.

I nodded. He pulled a draft copy of the will from the folder and handed the long pages to me. He

pointed as he talked.

"Sec how she left her money to all these charities? That was pretty much unchanged from the first

version I ever saw—one Jimenez, my partner, drew up for her. You can tell she was kind of an oddball

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when you look at the list." He pulled out another version of the document. "In an earlier draft of this will,

she'd designated Jimenez's grave as the recipient of the dog, as you can see. She did it right after he died

and she was very upset with him. Then she changed her mind—out of the blue—and named Purecete.

Just a few months ago, she marched into the office and she handed me this."

He fished a creased scrap of paper out of the file. It was the hard white of a cheap notepad, torn along

one side to make a ragged square from a longer piece of paper. The handwriting was similar to the

signature on the will, but more crabbed and wan-dering:

HarperBlaine

SeattleWashUSA

The letters were cramped up against the left edge, but became more expansive and arched as they

moved to the right, as if she hadn't thought she'd have enough space when she started and tried to stretch

the words out to fill the page as she finished each line. It looked odd.

"She just held it out to me and said 'this is the one' and I knew better than to argue with Maria-Luz. So I

wrote you in." He of-fered me the collection of drafts. "Take a look, you can see she had pretty

definite—if crazy—ideas about her money. The woman was kind of loopy."

I glanced at the will again, making mental notes of the recipi-ents of her bequests. They were mostly

church charities for the unfortunate, the homeless, the poor, the dispossessed. There were a few odd

animal charities as well, such as support for retired racing greyhounds, a rabbit shelter, llama farms, and

cure for retired

circus elephants. None of them had conditions. And there were no individuals named other than me and

Purecete.

"Didn't she have any family, or friends . . . employees even?" I asked.

Banda laughed and pretended he was coughing. "Miss Arbildo? No. She was the last of a literally dying

breed—the Arbildo fam-ily died with her. And as I said, she was pretty strange and she wandered

around a lot, didn't settle down much after a certain age, didn't make a lot of friends. She was kind of

fond of Jimenez once—like I said, she put him in the will at one point—but about the time he died she

was furious with him. She stormed into the office screaming about it: 'Why did he do it? Why, why?' I

almost thought that she would have dragged him back out of his grave and killed him if she could." "What

was she so mad about?"

"Well... his dying on her. She worked Jimenez pretty hard— he used to say if he died suddenly it would

be her fault. His death shook her up. She was irrational. You know how some people get mad instead of

grieving. ..."

I nodded; I was familiar with that phenomenon. Arbildo sounded like a difficult client, and I could

understand not wanting to argue with—or console—one like her. But there was some-thing incredibly

strange about both the wills and Banda himself. I just couldn't pin down what was bugging me. ...

As I pondered the problem, under cover of checking the wills, the ghostly dog at my feet began

whimpering and moving res-tively, then it got up and walked a few feet away from the bar, toward a

column of thick mist that was forming in the Grey be-tween the bar and the doorway. I adjusted my

position on the bar stool so I could watch the dog and still seem to be reading the documents. The dog

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stopped near the smoky mass, then looked back at me with that pleading look dogs have. It looked at

the ill-defined shape, whimpered, then glanced back to me.

The form that interested the dog was vaguely human in size and shape, but it had no features. There was

no face, and after a few moments the dog turned and trotted back to me, whimpering and scratching at

my legs with its cold, incorporeal paws. The specter drifted out the door. I didn't know what it was or

where it was going, but the dog seemed to be urging me to follow it—or at least humor the dog's desire

to do so. Banda would still be inMexico City in a day or an hour, but whatever the ghost dog was after

might not last another five minutes.

I wanted to ask him more about Arbildo, but I excused myself from Banda and said I'd be right back.

Let him assume I needed the washroom, if he liked. I stood up and the dog darted out of the bar and into

the main concourse. I hoped my luggage would be all right with the lawyer for the time it would take to

chase

the dog.

And it was fine, since the dog only got a few feet farther into the concourse before the shape seemed to

fall apart and drift into the clutter of thousands of passengers' energy coronas moving through the silvery

space of the air terminal. A few shapes had no living person within them, but most of those were simple

repeat-ing ghosts or fogs of happenstance and emotion left over from some altogether human interaction.

The shadowy dog trotted back to me and pushed against my legs again.

Banda was looking impatiently at his watch when I returned

to the bar.

"I can't stay longer. Have some clients to meet in twenty min-utes and the traffic is getting bad. I have to

go." He took a card from his inner jacket pocket and offered it to me. "If you have any more questions,

call me. My cell phone number is on here. Good

luck, Miss Blaine," he added, picking up his briefcase and heading for the door.

"Hey," I called. "Aren't there any other documents? And what am I supposed to do about the dog?"

"Any other documents in Miss Arbildo's file are none of your business, Miss Blaine. As to the dog, the

check is right here—you could just turn right around with it in your hand and call this thing done, as far as

I'm concerned. But if you feel you have to, take the broken bits up toOaxaca and leave 'em. Stick 'em

back together with superglue if you want." "What about the grave? Where is it?" "Damned if I know," he

called back. "Pick one!" He waved and ducked out before I could ask him anything more. It appeared

that Guillermo Banda just wanted shut of Marie-Luz Arbildo and her nutty will and I was as convenient a

way as any. I followed him a few paces out the door, saw him duck past the customs area, waving to the

guards on the other side as he went past—old friends? Something odd was going on with Banda, but I

wasn't entirely sure what. I did pause to wonder if the breaking of the dog was entirely an accident. ... I

shook off that thought and went back to my seat, the Grey dog scampering along in my wake.

I ordered some food and ate in a hurry before heading to the Mexicana Airlines desk to pick up my new

boarding passes and check my luggage for the flight toOaxaca . The phantom dog stuck to my side the

whole time, casting glances around the room and sniffing for signs—of what I didn't know.

For just a moment as I boarded the little prop plane I won-dered what to do with the dog before I

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remembered that no one hill me would even be aware of it. It huddled under my feet the whole hour we

were in the air and again on the ride from the airport, which reminded me of the regional airports I'd

grown up near inLos AngelesCounty with their pushcart stairs and windblown tarmac. A white van was

standing at the curb outside, of-fering rides to downtownOaxacaCity , and the ghost dog and I shared

the vehicle with a family of six and two couples who all seemed excited beyond my ability.

The van driver dropped each group off, leaving me at a tall, Spanish colonial building on the edge of the

downtown core. As far as I could tell, the whole area was late Spanish colonial, though at that elevation,

darkness had already fallen and it was hard to see details beyond the streetlamps. The road was layered

thickly with silvery ghosts and loops of memory, playing like old movies in a two-dollar theater. I saw a

discreet sign on the buttercup-colored plaster wall that indicated the carved wooden door before me led

to my guesthouse. I pulled the bell handle as instructed and was greeted with a flood of light and the

odors of spicy cook-ing as the door was opened wide. "Soy Harper Blaine—" I started.

"Oh! Miss Blaine! Si! Come in! You were bumped to a later flight?" the dark-haired woman in the

doorway asked, snatching my bag indoors with one hand as she waved me in with the other. "We have

dinner for you if you like it."

She turned her head and called for "Miguelito!" who proved to be a teenager as tall as a professional

basketball player and as dramatically emo as a Cure album cover. "You are in manos deleon " she

continued to me while pointing at my suitcase without shifting her gaze from my face. "My nephew will

take your bag. You can wash and come back down to the sala for some food."

I was almost dizzy with exhaustion by then, but I know better than to argue with whirlwind women. I

followed "little Miguel" up the tiled stairs and around an open gallery to a door with a

painting of a magenta coxcomb flower on it. Miguelito unlocked the door for me and put the suitcase just

inside before handing me my key and slouching off with an insouciant nod.

I glanced down over the railing before I went into the room. In the courtyard below I could see people

gathered around a ce-ramic firepit that gleamed with heat, serving themselves from a nearby table laden

with food. The cool mountain air settled gen-tly from above through the open center of the building's

roof, drifting down to meet the swirl of sparks and heat that rose from the gathering below.

I was so tired I didn't make it back down that night. I woke up in the morning on October thirtieth with

one boot on and one off and the ghost dog running in and out through the closed door, whining. Someone

was tapping on my door. Groggily, I stumbled to it and opened up.

Miguel-the-not-so-small was slouching there—clad in black jeans, black T-shirt, and black boots with

his naturally dark hair hanging over his eyes—probably hoping I hadn't heard his timid tapping and he

could lope off to whatever he'd rather do than wait on me. The energy around him was a dun-colored

cloud shot with red lightning bolts of annoyance—or something short-tempered and pissy—while thin

gold lines trailed off his fingertips in a way I'd never seen before. In the face of his determined gloom, I

smiled at him with perverse malice, in spite of being still half asleep.

"Buenos dias,Miguel!" I chirped—fairy-tale princesses had nothing on me for chipper.

"Yeah, yeah . . . good morning to you, too." His accent was still pretty strong, but his English was clear.

And abrasive. I could almost see the expletive deleted from that sentence still hanging in the air in all its F

bomb glory. "Tia Mercedes said I'm sup-posed to show you around the city 'cause you have some kind

of business thing. ..."

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"Yup! Busy-ness. Busy, busy! Gotta find a grave."

He frowned at me. "Grave?" he asked, as if I surely didn't know what I'd just said.

"Yup. I have a mission to do something with a grave and I don't know where it is."

"Today?"

"No. On Sunday, November first."

"Oh." Was that disappointment? "Dia de los Muertos. Yeah."

"Is today special or something?" I asked as he started to turn

away.

"Yeah. There's, like, a whole series of Days of the Dead. Todos Santos—November first—is just the

big one the tourists are all crazy for. Today's, like, the day for the spirits that died by vio-lence. Tia

Mercedes doesn't celebrate that in the house—we have to go outside so the mad ghosts don't come in

and mess stuff up." He shrugged and started to turn away, having lost all interest in me, now that I was no

more interesting than the average tourist.

I grabbed his arm. "Hey, where y'going, Miguel?"

He huffed his hair out of his face and glared at me. "Call me Mickey."

"Not Mike?"

"No." Like, duuuuh, I thought facetiously. Was I this snotty

as a teenager?

"Mickey Mouse fan, then? Mickey Mantle?"

He snorted, and pulled his arm out of my grasp. "Tia Mer-cedes has breakfast downstairs in twenty

minutes. Then we can go look for your grave. OK?"

I didn't miss the implication of whose grave, but I did ignore it. "OK. Be right down. Thank your aunt for

me."

He skulked away as I retreated into my room. I took a very fast shower and threw on clean clothes.

I'd been given a room with its own bath, which I suspected was an unusual luxury in an antique house.

And there was no denying the building—some wealthy man's town home originally, I'd have bet—was

exactly as old as its style indicated. It didn't mimic Span-ish colonial, it was Spanish colonial.

Downstairs the food was endless and lush: eggs scrambled with corn tortillas, green salsa, and cheese;

fried plantains; grilled to-matoes; bread and sweet pastries only distantly related to the greasy churros

found in American malls. Coffee, chocolate, and milk were all available as well as horchata and fruit

juice. My hosts, the Villaflores family, felt that their guests during the hol-iday should be well fed before

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they faced a day of hiking up and down the mountainous elevations ofOaxacaCity and its environs.

Midday meal would be on our own, but dinner with the family was open to all, Mercedes informed

me—she was the proprietress I'd met the previous night. I thought I'd have to find an excuse to dodge it

or I stood a good chance of gaining five pounds before November second, hiking or no.

Miguel-call-me-Mickey was not so enthusiastic, picking at his food and jumping up the moment I was

finished, telling his aunt we had to leave and get to the "palacio de gobiemo" that morning or we'd never

get in before they closed. He sloped off to wait for me outside while I thanked Mercedes for breakfast.

She smiled. "Gracias. I hope you won't mind Miguelito too much—he is bored here. I don't know why

he came at all—such an odd boy—but at least he can be some help to you. If he doesn't make you

scream and leave him in a ditch by the road."

"Oh ... I think we'll be OK," I replied, thinking there would be ample opportunities to knock a hole in

Mickey's attitude if I wanted to. Angsty teens aren't much of a challenge after vampires and vengeful

ghosts and monsters in the sewer.

Stepping through the door, the sound of the Grey really hit me. WhereMexico City had been a strong,

steady song of steel and silk,Oaxaca was a wild roar. It sounded like theBattle of the Bands in which

someone had forgotten to tell the musicians not to play all at once. Layers of contrasting melody and

meter, song and noise flooded the mist-world and made the lines of energy around me spark and throb.

Strata of time and memory seemed to juggle and flow, like Einstein's river. It was tiring just to stand

in it.

in it.

Mickey lounged against the wall outside, smoking a noxious-smelling cigarillo and shifting his fake-sleepy

gaze around the street like a hoodlum looking for a chump in a black-and-white film. I stood on the

doorstep for a minute while he ignored me. Then I tapped his foot with mine to get his attention—OK,

maybe a little more insistent than a tap, but not a full-on kick. He jerked upright and muttered a phrase

under his breath even I knew was an insult.

"Hey, I thought you were in a hurry," I said. He grunted and threw down his smoke, grinding it out under

his toe with more malice than the horrid thing deserved. "Yeah, right." A sentence that seemed to mean

nothing when he said it. He gathered himself after a final glance around and turned his back to me,

heading out into the street. "This way."

I wondered if his shoulders got tired carrying the weight of

that chip.

I was there because of the holiday, yet I hadn't thought of some of the implications of its presence

beyond the possibility of office closures and an increased presence of the dead. Once out on the street

with Mickey, it became obvious that el Dia de losMuertos

was a much bigger thing than Halloween and there was more to contend with, both living and dead, than

bureaucrats on holiday. We walked down the wide, gray-bricked road, hemmed in by a mix of adobe

and buildings of pale green stone, none newer than the late 1920s, many painted, like the Villaflores

house, in rich shades of red, yellow, orange, or the native pale green. The bricked street boiled with

ghostly traffic on foot, in cars, on horse-and donkey-back, even a group of ancient Spanish soldiers

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march-ing with pikes pointing at the sky.

I was startled to note that unlike the ghosts ofSeattle , most of these looked like skeletons in clothing and

not like the remem-bered shapes of live people. Skulls grinned and empty eye sockets gleamed with only

the memory of eyes. They were completely aware of us, too, watching us as we went and seeming

amused. It was unsettling to be observed through eyeless, unblinking sock-ets, and so much more closely

than I was used to.

We scuffed through the legions of phantoms without talking for a while, to a huge central plaza. Miguel

paused and pointed into it, saying in a bored voice, "That's our famous zocalo. Where the Federales shot

all those teachers a couple of years ago. That was in front of the old palacio de gobierno, but it's a

museum now. We'll have to go through the market to get to the new one—I hope you don't want to stop

and go shopping," he added with a sneer. He didn't know me very well. . . .

I rolled my eyes and ignored the jab—for now. "I'm not much of a shopper. I just need to find this guy's

grave by November first."

"You know which cemetery?"

"Nope, just have a name and a date of death."

"Yeah, right. We'll go to the Registrar of Deaths." He said it with such relish I had to stifle a giggle. "We

have to move it, though, 'cause they'll close early. Dia de los Muertos is a major holiday. It's like your

Christmas, only with dead guys. The mar-ket's crazy full with old ladies like Tia Mercedes and all their

kids doing the shopping for the ofrendas and all that. And tourists. And you want to get inside before the

ghosts of the violently dead return." He gave me a sly glance from the corner of his eye to see if I'd bite,

but I didn't.

"Then we'd better get going," was all I said.

We continued down the street to the market with the ghost dog tagging at our heels and the gold threads

that dragged from Mickey's fingertips spinning out through the crowds of spirits that thronged the streets

already crowded with the living. He seemed unaware of the vibrant threads spooling from his hands. I

wished I knew what that shiny energy strand was all about, but I'd have to wait and see.

We threaded our way through the periphery of the market crowd and cut across the corner of the zocalo

—partially "opened" by the ruthless removal of towering trees, the memories of which still threw phantom

shade over the raised, central "kiosk" where the state band played on Tuesdays, according to a notice

nearby.

I could see the memory of the original plaza like a projection over the new design, with huge,

thick-trunked trees and Victorian iron benches set along the narrower, shadier paths, and the

not-so-long-ago stench of tear gas floating on the warm breeze and an echo of screams. Shadows of the

dead protesters glimmered over the memory of blood on the stones in front of the old gov-ernment

building. I could hear the shouts and the shots mingled with the scent of flowers and fresh, spiced bread

from the market nearby. The combination made me queasy. No one in their right mind would want to

linger there that night.

We turned from the market, the shops, and the cafes that lined

the sun-baked zocalo and headed down to the government offices a few blocks away. We entered the

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usual bureaucratic maze of once-grand rooms chopped into offices and cubicles with flimsy, movable

walls, repulsively out of place in the building that pre-dated World War I.

The man behind the registrar's desk, however, fit in perfectly. He had a small mustache with waxed

points and wore his shirt collar buttoned up tight under his conservative tie.

"Hi," I started, hoping I could manage to make myself under-stood in English. "I need to locate a grave.

.. ."

The clerk's nostrils pinched in annoyance and he shook hishead. "No habla ingles, Senora. "

I cast a glance at Mickey, who was leaning against a wall again. He shot me back a snotty look. This

was going to be fun. . . .

"Mickey, would you translate for me?" I asked.

With a sigh, the teenager heaved himself upright and ambled to the desk.

He made a gesture at the clerk, who gave him a look nearly as disdainful as the one Mickey had given

me.

"La gringa busca un sepulcro," he said.

"La gringa" . . .well, at least I wasn't "puta" this time.

The clerk heaved a shrug and spat back something that I imag-ined was, "Yeah, aren't they all?"

There was a bit more wiseass chitchat before I put a restrain-ing hand on Mickey's arm.

"Mickey. Just translate. Commentary isn't required."

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right." Then he gave me a blank look.

"What?" I asked, feeling the ghost dog brush past me to lie down on the floor near the door. I didn't

look down, just stared at Mickey. “So ... ? What am I supposed to translate?" Maybe I should have

kicked him harder.... "Ask him if there's a form I need to fill out and what it will cost for him to find the

information right now."

Mickey made with the rolling eyes again and looked back to the clerk, who was glaring at us, even

though there was no one else waiting in his cubbyhole. Mickey seemed to be repeating my request, but

this time in a slightly singsong, high-pitched voice. The man frowned at him. "Forma?Para que?" "He

says, 'A form for what?'"

"Yeah ... I figured that part out, Mickey. I need to know if there is a form I am required to fill out in

order to find out where a certain person is buried here inOaxaca . If so, I need that form and I wish to

know what fee I have to pay to get that information immediately—while I stand here and wait. Now, you

think you can be that specific with him, Mickey?"

He huffed and turned back to the clerk, parroting my request in his mocking voice.

The clerk was annoyed by it, too, but he grunted an affirmative and handed over a form and said

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something about pesos. "He says it'll cost a hundred dollars to do it right now." "No, he didn't, Mickey.

He said 'cinco cientos pesos. ' That's about fifty bucks. My Spanish sucks, not my math."

"Yeah, right." And the eye roll. I was getting too familiar with the routine already.

I filled in the form as best I could with Mickey's non-help and fished a thousand pesos from my wallet. I

put it down with the form, saying, "Apesadumbrado," and jerking my head toward Mickey. Even as bad

as it is, I can manage a few important words in Spanish: please, thank you, beer, toilet, keys, and sorry.

A smile almost cracked the man's wooden face as he accepted

the form and the overpayment, with an amused snort. "Momentito, " he said, taking the form away

behind a screen.

I sat down on one of his two cracked green vinyl-covered chairs to wait.

"He only goes back to the computer," Mickey groused. "He just wants to make it look important."

I shot him a quelling glance, but said nothing.

The phantom dog got up to chase a phantom cat around the room. I ignored their antics and so did

almost everyone else, ex-cept a skeletal clerk, who tried to give the dog one of his finger bones to

dissuade it from barking. The dog wasn't having any-thing to do with the clerk's finger and backed away,

bristling, leaving the ghost cat free to dash out of the room to the relative safety of the hall.

The flesh-and-blood clerk, who looked nothing like his bony predecessor, returned with a sheet of

paper. "Hmph," he coughed, then launched into a rattling discourse aimed somewhere in be-tween me

and Mickey, as if he couldn't decide which of us he was supposed to talk to—Mickey the brat or the

illiterate gringa.

Finally the clerk let out an impressively heavy sigh, shrugged, and shoved the paper forward for one of

us to take. "Buenos dias, " he added, turning his back and stomping off to his sanctum in the hack.

Mickey grabbed the sheet and held it out to me after a second's perusal. "You're fucked. There are

three graves for your guy."

"Three? Not for the same date."

"Yeah. Look."

I took the page and looked it over. And there were three grave sites given for Hector Purecete, all with

the same death date in 1996. "That's gotta be wrong—it's not a common name, is it?"

"No.""Great," I muttered. "I guess I'll have to go look at all of them and see what shakes loose."

I stood up and walked out of the government offices with Mickey and the dog trailing me.

We'd started back across the zocalo, passing closer to the site of the teachers' fatal protest than I liked,

when Mickey finally decided to talk again.

"What do you want to find this guy's grave for anyway?" Mickey asked. "Some kind of creepy ritual or

something?"

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My turn to sigh. "No. I told you before, I just need to find it and leave something on it. On November

first."

"Yeah, right."

I stopped, burning in the high-altitude sun and the hot Grey energy of the massacre. "Mickey, is it just for

me, or do you al-ways have a bad attitude?"

He turned his head and muttered under his breath, starting to walk on. I snatched his arm and dragged

him back to me, through a red blotch of remembered blood and pain. He flinched a little and tried to

wrench himself out of my grip, spitting nasty Spanish words.

"Damn, that's a lot of endearing little nicknames you have for me. How 'bout we make this easier on

both of us. You can just call me the GP—"

"Huh? The what?"

"The gringa puta. And I'll just call you brat-boy. It'll be so much easier, don't you think?"

He glowered at me and pulled against my hold. I let him go and sighed.

"Mickey, look: I appreciate the offer of help, but your attitude is just not flying with me. You can

straighten up and stop acting

like a punk, or I can do without you. What's it going to be?" My ghostly dog companion circled around

us, growling as if to keep something unpleasant at bay.

Mickey seemed to consider my statement seriously, sidling into the sun and away from the crying red

energy of the teachers' deaths. "OK . .. GP. We'll have to get to the panteones soon. It'll be a lot busier

tomorrow. And you really don't want to be out tonight."

"You're serious about that ghosts of the violent dead thing?" He nodded. "You norteamericanos think el

Dia de los Muertos is just a funny tradition—not real—but we don't. Not up here. This is the ghost

country. We're not afraid of death—not like you. We live with it."

"You might be surprised. ..."

He ignored me. "But we don't do foolish things like stand where people were murdered on their day to

return from Mictlan. That's just fucking stupid."

I nodded. "All right. Let's get someplace better then. Like the panteon—a panteon is a cemetery, right?"

"Yeah. It's actually pretty safe right now. But we should get the car. Those three aren't close to each

other."

I was surprised at his change of attitude. He was still kind of surly, but at least he seemed to be helping

me instead of making more work. We walked back to the house and Mickey borrowed his aunt's car—a

dusty silver Chevy, which amused me.

I took the passenger seat and held the door open for a mo-ment. The ghost dog stopped at the car's

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doorsill and sat on the ground, looking pathetic and thumping its stumpy tail, but wouldn't step up into the

car.

Mickey looked at me. "Something wrong?" "No ... no, I'm fine." I closed the door and the dog vanished

from view. We drove away without any sign of the phantom ca-nine until we got out at the first panteon

on the list.

The first stop was the municipalcemeteryofSan Miguel . We drove around a small carnival that was

setting up in a courtyard in front and walked across drifts of flowers and greenery that had escaped from

the bundles carried by a stream of people entering the panteon ahead of us. The dog trotted up,

materializing out of the road dust and Grey mist to rub against my legs and bump its head against me

impatiently until we walked through the ceme-tery gates. The dog ran ahead, into the crowd of animate

skele-tons and live humans who filled the graveyard.

Everyone was busy, the living and the dead, and I paused to stare. "There are ... a lot of people here ...,"

I said.

"Yeah. The graves have to be cleaned and decorated, the fam-ily ofrendas made, and the cooking has to

be done before Todos Santos on November first. It's a Sunday this year, so they gotta be done today

and tomorrow—or the Church might be offended. Most of these guys won't bring their feasts until after

sundown on

Sunday."

I glanced at him with a curious frown. "Feasts? In a grave-yard?"

He snorted something that was almost a laugh. His tone still left a bit to be desired, however. "Yeah. I

keep trying to tell you: it's like a party. El Dia de los Muertos is a cycle-of-life thing. We have all this stuff

at home—the ofrendas and stuff—but we come to the panteon in the evening to party with the family

ghosts. We know death, but we don't worship it or freak out about it. It's just... part of life. We aren't

afraid of the old bony woman. Just look at the skeletons," Mickey added, pointing at a pair of children

waving paper skeleton puppets at each other in an elaborate pantomime punctuated with much chattering

and laughing.

The puppets had jointed legs and arms controlled with strings the children pulled with their fingers while

clutching the sticks to which the paper skeletons were mounted. One was a musician with a guitar and a

top hat, while the other was a girl singer with a fur stole and long skirt. The kids pranced ahead with their

pup-pets. The ghosts of several other children tagged behind, gig-gling, as the impromptu cabaret act

headed for the family plot. The group was herded along by an aging man carrying an elabo-rate ironwork

cross under his arm and followed by a cold boil of silver and red energy—the imminence of those who

died by vio-lence, perhaps.

"Those guys are gonna clean the graves of their family and put that new cross up," Mickey lectured me;

he was almost spitting. "They're not sad—they're happy. They work hard today. They remember the

dead. 'Cause they know we're all gonna die. That's the big deal you norteamericanos don't get. You can't

'cheat' death. You just have to know it's there and remember. We all got a skeleton inside us."

The skeletons. As I looked around the panteon, I saw few ghosts of the type I was most familiar

with—the memory mani-festations of the dead. Nearly all the ghosts in this cemetery were skeletal with

only the barest hint of faces or flesh, a few were purely bones, while a smaller handful had the shape of

the living people they had once been. These were the only ghosts I saw that seemed distressed or

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confused, wandering among the raised graves as if desperate to find something they'd misplaced, blind to

the throngs of living and dead around them.

I got it: the manifestations of the Grey depended upon the minds of those who shaped it. Here, where

skeletons were the symbol of the dead, embraced, even beloved in all their bony glory as just another

part of the cycle of life, most of the spirits of the dead looked like skeletons. In theU.S. , where death

was the end of life, most ghosts manifested with the memory-shape of their formerly living bodies. But

they could have been anything, like the discorporate entities I'd met once or twice, manifesting as

changing shapes, or inconclusive features on a mutable column of fog, or the roiling anger of the

slaughtered.

The ghost dog trotted back from its peregrinations through the crowd and sat at my feet, tongue lolling,

looking happy for . the first time since it had appeared. I almost reached to pat its head before I

remembered that most people don't see ghosts. Even as comfortable with death as the Oaxaquenos

were, I doubted they would understand my stooping to pet a spectral hound. Mickey would probably

think I was crazy and say so. I didn't believe he'd suddenly decided to respect me; he just didn't want me

to kick his ass. But he wasn't above a few more needling comments.

I cleared my throat. "Where do you think we'll find the grave? This is a big place...."

"Caretaker will have a list of the plots and tombs." He was pretty savvy about graveyards, but I

supposed that wasn't unusual for the goth-inclined.

We pushed through the crowds to a large stone building with colonnades filled with niches on one side

and open to a large courtyard on the other. The patio of the mausoleum was full of people walking or

crawling on the paving stones to lay out pictures in mounds of colored sand: cavorting skeletons, Virgins

of Guadalupe, flowers and crosses and skulls. Mickey called these "sand carpets." We found one of the

caretakers assisting a sand

painter, laying out a border of small bricks to keep the moist, colored sand from dribbling into the

walkways. We picked our way closer, careful not to disturb the developing sand carpets. Mickey called

out to the caretaker as we got near.

The woman looked up from her bricks and said something I couldn't follow. The caretaker was

darker-skinned and had a more pronounced nose and cheekbones than Mickey—probably related to

some local Indian group. Mickey replied in a language I knew wasn't Spanish. The kneeling woman

stood and began to talk very fast. Mickey pointed to the paper we'd gotten from the Registrar of Births

and Deaths. The woman frowned and pointed off across the cemetery, making motions with her hands to

indicate turns. Mickey nodded and seemed to be thanking her, then turned and tugged me back into the

mausoleum's colonnade.

"She says it's out in the edge, near the back fence, but she thinks this is wrong. The grave's been around

a long time. You sure 1996 is right?" he added with a touch of sneering doubt at my brainpower.

"Yup."

Mickey shrugged so hard his eyes rolled. "All right. Let's go look at it."

We set out through the graveyard, trailed by the dog. Distract-ing myself from Mickey's volatility, I tried

to imagine the scruffy mongrel as a skeleton. I didn't succeed, to my relief.

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We found the grave under a pile of people who were busily scrubbing the headstone and stone fence

clean of dirt with stiff-bristled brushes. As we watched the inscription came clear: Hec-tor Purecete, died

1888. Not even close.

Mickey grunted and shot me a smug look. Oh, yeah . .. that showed me, all right.

He started to turn back , but before he could move away I waved to the oldest woman in the

grave-cleaning group. She peered up at me and I tried to ask her if she knew of Maria-Luz's Hector

Purecete, but her English was nonexistent. Groaning in disgust, Mickey stepped in.

After a rapid exchange, he held her off with a gesture and glanced back at me, his face creased with

curiosity. "This is Senora Acoa. She says this is the only Hector Purecete she knows about. But she says

a man came asking the same question a few years back. Senora Acoa couldn't help him, either. She says

Hec-tor, here, was a soldier. Sounds like a real pendajo. She's his, like, great-, great-, great-niece. She

doesn't live here anymore and is going back to Coyoacan tomorrow, but she figured they should come

and clean up Hector's grave every year. She didn't even know where he was buried until that guy

showed up."

"Does she remember the man's name?" I asked, looking at the elderly woman who stood by her

ancestor's grave.

Mickey translated for me and this time he was dead serious.

The elderly Senora Acoa replied in a streak of words I couldn't begin to follow, her voice wavering.

Then she swayed, putting her hand to her chest. The energy around her shut down to a thin, white line

that grew more and more translucent, then began to shift and rise away from her as a messy skein of gold

and white light.

I started to jump between them, knowing that the old woman was dying right in front of us, overcome by

heat and excitement, her mortality rising off her corporeal form. But Mickey kept talk-ing, his tone going

gentle and cajoling, as the gold strands at his fingertips waved and stroked at the old woman, calming her

down, smoothing the rising knot of her soul back into its body, easing her back into herself. It was an

eerie effect coming from such a determined jerk, and he didn't know he was doing it. Finally the

old woman plumped herself down on the edge of the grave with a huff of breath, and fanned herself with

her hands until one of her staring family handed her a paper fan shaped like a grinning skull. She cooled

herself, catching her breath and settling her life back into her oblivious body as my reluctant assistant

returned his attention to me. Nothing in his demeanor showed he knew what had just happened, any

more than her family did. He didn't know he'd saved her life, or that he seemed to have some kind of

power. He was just Mickey the jerk again.

"She wants to know why you want to know, but I told her you're doing a family a favor. I think she said

the other guy's name was Jimenez. A lawyer maybe? She's kinda confused. And a little loco—she

thought she had seen this Jimenez guy just today."

I gazed at the tired old woman who was still living in spite of everything. I blinked slowly, getting my

thoughts back to the case. "Maybe she did. He died a few years ago in a plane crash," I said. "And yes,

he was a lawyer." Hadn't Banda said he knew nothing about Purecete? But his partner had been to this

grave.. ..

Mickey's eyes flashed wider. The word that dropped from his mouth was unknown to me, but it was

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inflected just like "Cool!" He had no idea what was really cool here.

I wondered if Senora Acoa had actually seen Jimenez; maybe her proximity to death had made it

possible—this was the day for the violently dead to return, and I couldn't imagine a death much more

violent than his. "What else did she have to say?" I asked, trying not to stare too much at the old woman.

"Not much. She said Hector didn't have any kids, so there's only her and her family to look after his

grave. She's worn out, but she's afraid her family will forget him after she dies. So she makes them come

here every year so he doesn't die the third death." "Excuse me. What's the third death?"

The lecturing tone was back as he explained. "The first death is the death of the body. The second is

when they put us in the ground. Then we can go to Mictlan—the Land of the Dead—and, y'know, live

among the dead. But we can come back for the Dia de los Muertos feast with our families, so long as

they remember us. That's the third death—being forgotten. That's the real end, when we don't come

back 'cause there's no one here for us. But we can be reborn once everyone forgets, so it's not so bad.

That's the three deaths."

"How do you know all this stuff?" I asked. He shrugged. "It's tradition around here. I'm kind of into the

death-magic thing. And my, like, great-uncle was supposed to be a black sorcerer or something. It's

cool."

Typical goth fascination, though I suspected his went a little deeper and from a more personal angle,

whether he understood that or not. To me, the life-magic "thing" he'd just done was a lot cooler.

We both looked at the family, who had returned to sprucing up the grave of Hector number one. We

watched in silence a while. Then we turned away, letting them get on with their task as we headed back

to the car with the ghostly dog in tow.

"You said Mexicans were not afraid of death," I said. I didn't want to ask him about what he'd done yet,

that would only get us off our track, but I hadn't forgotten it.

"We aren't. But no one wants to be forgotten. That's why we have all these parties in the graveyard. We

bring the dead all the stuff they loved in life so they can party with us, and that way we remember them

like they really were. Not like a body in a casket. Or some saint. It's kind of funny: you're keeping the

third death away, but you didn't even know Hector Pureccte."

"I'm not sure Maria-Luz did, either."

"Who's Maria-Luz?"

"She's the woman who wanted a dog laid on Hector Purecete's grave."

We were nearly back to the cemetery gates, deep in the twin-ing, boiling mess of the carnival and the

confluence of the living and the dead. Mickey wheeled and stared at me. "Not that dog!" he asked,

pointing right at the canine phantom panting at my heels.

Startled, I turned and looked for another, corporeal dog, just in case. But there was no animal near

enough to be the one he meant. I pointed at the ghost. "This one?"

Mickey nodded. "Yeah."

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"Umm ... this dog's already dead."

He peered at it and the ghost dog let its tongue loll out in a huge yawn. I could see right through its

transparent, silver-mist skull to the ground below. Apparently Mickey could, too, because he jumped a

little and then looked back to me.

"Fuck me! Where did it come from?"

"I'll tell you in the car on the way to the next cemetery."

We climbed back into the Chevy and again the dog refused to come in. We drove away, the dog

vanishing into the misty Grey as we pulled out of the lot.

"How is it that you can see the dog?" I asked as he started the car.

"I just—I just can." He looked a little uncomfortable and hunched his shoulders. "Why are you taking it

to this guy's grave?"

I told him about the dog statue—after all, there was no seal of secrecy or confidentiality on the

bequest—how it had come to me and what had befallen it at customs. I told him about Maria-Luz

Arbildo's odd last request that the statue containing the dog's spirit was to be placed on the grave for

which we were searching on November first.

"Weird," he said as we wound onto a narrow road. "Why did she wait so long to give him the dog? He's

been dead since

1996."

"She didn't seem to know where he was buried."

Mickey shook his head. "Weird," he repeated. "Hey, at least we've narrowed the search to just two

graves. That Jimenez guy must have done the same thing ... so why didn't he put the dog on Hector's

grave?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. Miss Arbildo was still alive then, so I assume she wanted to do it, but

didn't get around to it for some reason." But if she had known which grave to put it on, wouldn't she have

given that information in the will? I guessed that Jimenez hadn't told her. But why not?

Mickey scowled. "That's messed up." But he didn't say any more and we reached the next panteon in

silence. The dog greeted us at the gate to thecemeteryofSan Antonio and ran ahead, bark-ing like a

puppy chasing butterflies. Mickey watched it dash into the bustling crowds in the graveyard and shook

his head.

"Maybe the dog knows where the grave is," he suggested, "but

it runs so fast. ..."

"I'm not even going to try to follow it," I said. "If the grave is here, maybe we'll find the dog nearby when

we get there."

"Yeah, right."

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The courtyard of Panteon San Antonio was filled with people building elaborate table displays.

"Competition ofrendas," Mickey explained. His sneer wasn't quite as pronounced now. "Each group

makes an offering in a traditional style and they compete to see whose is the most

authentic, or whatever. Home ofrendas are more plain, they usually have more food and personal stuff.

This is mostly for the tourists." He pointed at one table where a pair of men were lashing tall, dusty green

plants into a seven-foot-tall arch attached to the front legs. "That's sugarcane—it's traditional. Those guys

are Purepeche Indians. See the little clay dog? That's re-ally old school." He stared at me. "Hey .. . was

your statue like that one?"

I glanced at the table and saw a small black figurine, much like the one I'd started off with. I walked

closer and the men stopped work and stared at me. One of them said something I couldn't translate.

"He says, 'Can I help you?'" Mickey supplied.

"Ask him about the dog," I replied, pointing to the small clay figure sitting on the table with a pile of other

items waiting for its place. "Where did it come from? Are all the little dog statues the same?"

Mickey asked and translated his reply. "It's from Mita—that's a village near here. It's a traditional

design."

"May I look at it?"

The man listened to Mickey, then shrugged and picked up the clay dog. He offered it to me with a half

smile.

I smiled back and took the dog, turning it over and studying the rough shape and paint. It was the same

shape, but the black glaze was very ordinary—I'd bet there was no blood or volcanic sand in this one's

finish. The lines around the legs were the same, but there was no lightning bolt on this one. The hole in its

belly was unpatched, open, and had a fine lip where the glaze had tried to drip around the rim. I handed

the dog back to the man, who grinned at me, showing gapped teeth stained by tobacco and coffee.

“Could you ask him if he ever met Maria-Luz or Hector Purecete?"

Both men frowned and shook their heads, apparently telling Mickey they'd never heard of either. We

thanked them and headed off to find the caretaker and look for grave number two.

"That statue is almost identical to the one I had that broke," I said as we walked away. "But mine had a

white lightning bolt on the side."

"A glyph to keep the spirit inside the dog. Someone worked magic on it."

"I guessed that, but how do you know?"

Mickey shrugged. "Like I said, magic is kind of interest-ing. ..."

Mickey seemed to have been studying more than he admitted. I decided to fish a bit. "I was thinking that

the bit of hair that fell out was part of the magic, too."

Mickey shot a startled glance at me. "Hair? There was hair inside the dog?"

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"Yeah, a little bundle of five or six strands tied with red thread. It looked like human hair, not animal."

"Tied with red thread? Inside the dog? With the lightning bolt?" He looked both excited and scared.

"That's witchcraft."

I frowned at him. The only witch I knew was good, but Mickey was plainly not acquainted with the

same sort of witch—and like a lot of young morons, he seemed to think it was kind of sexy.

"It's death magic," he explained. "The dark-side stuff."

"I thought you guys weren't into that death-worship thing."

"Not normal death, the cycle-of-life stuff. Death-cult stuff. It's black magic from the colonial days—half

native magic, half Chris-tian mysticism stuff. It's all about Santisima Muerte —Most Holy Death, the

reaper of souls, Death triumphant overMan. " Frightened reverence resounded in his tone and set his aura

sparking red and gold. "Your Maria-Luz used black magic to hold the dog's spirit inside the statue. Trust

me: I know this shit."

"It didn't feel like evil magic when it broke," I said.

He shrugged, pretending sudden disinterest he then undermined by saying, "I wonder why she wanted to

put that thing on this guy's grave."

I didn't know, but I wanted to. If I knew who Hector Purecete was to Arbildo, maybe I could figure it

out. But we'd have to find his grave first.

Once again we were directed to a grave and picked our way through the people who were cleaning and

decorating through-out the cemetery. Here, the families and friends of the dead were making sandcastle

coffins over the graves, mounding the wet sand up into caskets and even the archetypal long pentagon.

Some were bordered with cement block or brick to retain the wet sand, others were freestanding. Other

groups were just beginning the process of clearing off the weeds and grasses that had invaded the

cemetery during the year, attacking the plants with hoes and hands and, in one case, a big knife, to get

down to raw earth.

Panteon San Antonio bore no resemblance to the carefully manicured cemeteries ofSeattle , with their

endless lawns, or Vic-torian markers. This was a place of gritty brown earth, punctu-ated with riots of

gold and purple flowers and green foliage. The plants and flowers were being arranged into patterns or

pictures on the sand coffins, or lashed into little huts and ofrendas that would straddle the graves when

finished. The scent of marigolds was thick and spicy on the air along with the smell of turned earth and

green sap.

Once we had cut a path through the crowd, we found a short stone obelisk with a list of names carved

on it. Hector Purecete's was there, but listed as one of a dozen men lost at sea in 1982. No grave, wrong

date, wrong Hector. The Grey was thick as oatmeal and the ghost dog gamboled around the base of the

stone, snap-ping at the marigold petals floating on the breeze. It glanced up at me and seemed to laugh,

giving me a doggy smile.

Mickey glowered and the energy around him pinwheeled or-ange sparks that looked just like the flower

petals. "That guy at the registrar's office just took the money and gave us a list of all the Hector Purecete

graves he had," he groused. "He didn't even try to get the right one!"

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"Yeah, because your attitude was just so endearing," I reminded him, but I was looking at the dog,

which was now pawing around the base of the obelisk with incorporeal paws.

I crouched down to get a look at whatever had caught the dog's attention and saw a loop of blue energy

protruding from the ground. Warily, I caught it on my fingers and pulled it up. It came like a long-rooted

weed from a flower bed and popped out of the ground with a small crackle of electricity.

A skeletal man wearing a yellow fisherman's coat appeared where the blue bit of energy had left a hole

in the ground. I had the impression that he was blinking, even though he had no eye-lids or eyes to cover

with them.

Mickey stared and jerked back half a step, but the skeleton man didn't notice. He let out a glad

exclamation I heard in my head and bent down to ruffle the ghost dog's fur. "Iko! Look how big you

got!" He wasn't really speaking English, but the words seemed to come clearly into my head.

The dog frisked around and whined in glee, taking slobbery licks at the skull in between joyous wiggles.

"Is that your dog?" I asked.

The skeleton in the slicker glanced at me. "He was the cook's

dog, but we all liked him. He was just a puppy when the old Dulcia went down."

"So ... was Hector Purecete the cook?"

"Hector? No. Hector was a deckhand. I suppose he must have saved Iko. Neither of them drowned."

"His name's on the memorial," I said.

The skeleton looked at the obelisk and laughed, clacking his teeth. "It's wrong. Martin Ramirez got off

inBermuda and was replaced by an American named Lofland. And see, there I am, but they spelled my

name wrong," he added, pointing to the name Ernesto Sanchez. "It should say Santara, but my writ-ing

on the contract was so bad, they had to guess. No, they must have just taken the crew list from Senor

Arbildo and assumed we all died."

"Arbildo?" I asked, surprised.

"Si,he owned the boat."

So there was a connection, but not a clear one. . . . "What became of Hector, then?"

The bony shoulders under the slicker shrugged. "I don't know. He must have been picked up by

someone. He came and looked at the memorial once or twice and used to clean it up for us every year,

but then he stopped and people began to forget about us. Most of the crew are gone now, since no one

comes to remember us. I have a sister who is building the ofrenda right now at home. I can feel her

thinking about me and I can go soon and see all my nieces and nephews. ..." He trailed off, his empty eye

sockets directed just over my shoulder, as if he could really see them, just there, in the field of graves

behind me.

"Ernesto," I said, hoping to recapture his attention just a little longer. "Hey, did Hector have a family?

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Was he married? Had kids?" "Eh? Oh, Hector? No. He was our Don Juan—always charm-ing the

ladies—he couldn't make himself get married and settle down, he said. His family here was all gone. He

said. I don't know. We were shipmates, and you know how sailors are with stories. ..." Now he was

pulled away, drifting into the air like a dandelion puff and wafting toward the cemetery gates. "Goodbye,

Iko," he called, without looking back. "Be a good dog...."

He vanished into the crowd of living and dead, heading for home, I supposed. I stood up, dusting off my

knees and butt, thinking that the memorial must have been raised before anyone realized Hector wasn't

dead, so it wasn't really wrong, just pre-mature. I wondered how long he'd been "lost at sea" before he'd

shown up again inOaxaca . . . .

Mickey was gaping at me, but I'm used to that. Most people give me strange looks when they catch me

talking to ghosts. But Mickey had seen Ernesto, also, as well as the dog, Iko. "How long have you been

seeing ghosts?" I asked.

He was too shaken to lie. "Me? I've always seen them, but only during Dia de los Muertos. You too?"

"No. I see them all the time. They aren't usually so helpful, though."

"He didn't seem very helpful...."

"He identified the dog and it seems like a safe bet Iko was rescued and raised by Purecete. But that

doesn't really answer how Arbildo had the dog's spirit or why she put it in the statue."

"Yeah, maybe. . . ."

I agreed and started for the car.

Mickey caught my arm. "Hey . . . how come you see ghosts? Mi madre says it's because my birthday is

Todos Santos. Are

you ...?"

I shook my head, slipped his grasp, and kept walking for the car. I wasn't sure this was a good

conversation. Or that I liked the sudden avid expression in Mickey's eyes. "C'mon! Tell me!" he yelled.

"Please!"

"I'll tell you in the car. This isn't a good place for it," I con-ceded.

Mickey nearly dragged me back to the parking lot, flinging open the doors for both of us and sliding

behind the wheel clum-sily in his frenzy.

As soon as the doors were closed he turned to me again, but I shut him down with a look. "Start the car

and drive. It's getting dark and I want to get inside before it's full night."

"But—"

"I'll tell you as you drive. If you don't kill us."

He ground the car to life and drove like Mario Andretti to get us out of the parking lot.

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"OK," I started. "I died. That's why I see ghosts."

"Died? No way!"

"Yeah, way. Don't ask why, 'cause I don't know. It just is what

it is."

He muttered, prayers or curses, I didn't know. "You don't look

dead."

"It was only two minutes. But it was enough. Trust me." "But you didn't just talk to him. What were you

doing?

Magic?"

"No. I just ... pull them out. If they want to talk, they do.

Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they try to kill me. Most of

them are useless."

"Yeah. I see those, too! They don't really know we're here." I nodded. "Somehow she must have

known. . . .""Who? Knew what?"

"Maria-Luz Arbildo. She never met me, but she put me in her will to do this job. She must have known

about me, but I don't know why or how or what she expected me to do. I hope I can figure it out before

Todos Santos."

"She must have been a bruja" Mickey muttered. "Doing black magic and stuff. I'll bet she scryed you

out somehow because of the ghost thing."

"Maybe," I conceded. "How would I know?"

"Umm . . . the Santisima Muerte magic goes backward. Y'know: right to left and down to up.

Counterclockwise and stuff like that."

"But I never saw the woman do any magic," I reminded him. "I didn't know her."

Big-eyed, Mickey nodded and drove. But I could see his thoughts grinding and the gold strands from his

fingertips wrapped the steering wheel like a frantic vine.

We approached the last grave on the list as the sun was begin-ning to paint its farewell on the slice of

sky aboveOaxaca 's moun-tains. We'd taken a long drive into the hilly countryside to find the small

panteon of San Felipe del Agua and then trudged through the crowds and the boiling Grey to discover an

aban-doned burial plot far in the back, under a stunted tree. Grass and weeds had grown over it

undisturbed for years and no one was making an effort to clear it. I heaved a sigh of annoyance and got

down on my knees to rip up the corn stalk-like growths obscuring the memorial stone. Mickey knelt

down and helped brush the dirt aside, scraping the carving clear enough to read in the dimming light.

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This time the list was right: Hector Purecete, born 1929, died 1996. Sixty-seven years old.

Mickey sat back on his heels and studied the filth-crusted me-morial stone. "He's been forgotten here."

"Maria-Luz remembered him," I said. I didn't know with what emotion she recalled Hector, however, or

what she'd been up to with the dog and its black-magic spirit bundle. I'd have to take a look and see if

the red thread wound counterclockwise around it.

"That's an irony," I said, looking at the stone and thinking aloud. "The only person who seems to

remember this guy is al-ready dead and has been for years."

"You mean that other ghost? Ernesto? Yeah. And Iko."

I nodded. "Yeah, that's a problem. Iko seems like a nice dog, but who knows what will happen—if

there really is black magic involved here? I was hoping to find Hector's family or someone who knew him

or Maria-Luz. But the registrar will be closed tomorrow and it's not likely I'll find anyone who knew what

their relationship was at this point."

"The ghosts know."

I rubbed my face, breathing in the scent of the broken grasses, the turned earth, and the spicy odor of

the marigolds that had already been placed onto the grave decorations and ofrendas pro-liferating

throughout the burial ground. I didn't enjoy interview-ing ghosts, even when I knew where to find them.

Obstinate, limited beings—when they qualified as beings at all—with axes to grind and personal quirks

more annoying and unhelpful than a ward full of recovering heroin addicts. "Yeah, but how would I find

the right ghosts?" I asked, tired and, I admit, disappointed. "This is going to suck. Purecete's grave wasn't

even inOaxaca proper but way out in this little mountain village."

Mickey jumped up, beaming in the sudden magenta flare of mountain sunset. "You can call them here!

You know how and the ghosts will find you if you make the right offerings—it's the Day of the Dead! The

living have forgotten this guy, but the dead

haven't!"

I stared at him. "I'm not sure I'm following you. . . . The in-structions just said to clean the grave and put

the dog on it."

"Yeah, yeah. Clean the grave, but you should do the whole thing. Decorate, make an ofrenda. Put out

food and drink and stuff—throw a party for old Hector Purecete, and the ghosts of his friends will show

up for it! It's not just the living who come visiting the graveyard, you know. Tomorrow is for the angetitos

—the little kids. We can make an ofrenda and bring it here for them. If he ever had any kids, or if his

family ever had any that haven't died the third death, they'll come. Then on Sun-day we can make the

party for the rest of 'em—and Hector. I'll have to hang out with Tia Mercedes, but I can help you first

and come back later. Tia's big on this stuff, she'll understand—she'll probably even cook extra food for

you if we go shopping early enough."

I tried not to groan at the thought. "What about the dog?" I

asked.

He frowned. "I'm not sure. Maybe if you don't bring the clay bits and hair, it won't matter, even if his

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ghost comes along."

The ghost dog had come back from a nose-guided tour of the graveyard to sit down beside me and pant

through his doggy grin. He looked increasingly like a real dog and less like the remnant of one. I

wondered what he'd be like come Sunday night.

I looked around and saw the deepening colors of the sky. Shad-ows writhed with the spirits of the

violently dead waiting to emerge once darkness fell. I shuddered and hoped we wouldn't have to go past

the zocalo tonight and its slaughtered teachers.

"Let's get out of here," I suggested.

Mickey jumped up and we nearly ran back to the car. Once in it, he chattered half in excitement and half

in relief of terror, try-ing to persuade me his plan was solid. I would never have thought of throwing a

party for ghosts. Mickey waxing enthusiastic over it was downright creepy to watch. He dodged silvery

clots of hor-ror as we barreled through the falling twilight.

Back in the guesthouse, normalcy reigned and most people would have no idea of the gruesome sights

and sounds playing out in the night beyond the doors. Over dinner Mickey wheedled his aunt into

agreeing to cook extra food for my ghost party. He fi-nally let me go at the door of my room with a

warning to be up early for our shopping trip. I hate shopping . . . especially in the morning. The surreal

quality of the whole day left me dizzy and grateful to crawl into bed.

Bundled up against the chilly morning, we had to shed our coats by the time we were carrying home the

third load of the stuff on which Mickey had insisted: colored paper and strings of paper banners; armfuls

of flowers; incense cones; food; sweets; candles; tiny toys; papier-mache skeletons going about their

daily business, including one lady called Catrina in an elaborate hat; and a set of combs and brushes for

the dead to tidy themselves with, once they arrived for the party. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought

he was enjoying himself, but of course Mickey man-aged to drag me thither and yon with disgusting

amounts of en-ergy, while still slouching, glowering, and shooting barbed comments, though almost none

of them were now directed at me. I bought him a sugar skull with his name on it as a birthday pres-ent,

getting a twisted, uncertain smile in return.

Iko followed us back and forth, barking and running through the stalls, playing with skeleton children and

chasing skeleton rats. The odors of food an d flowers and cones of copal incense waiting to be burned

mingled with the odor of wet streets and warm bodies. Color rose in dust devils from the power grid of

the Grey and spun off Mickey's shape like the golden spines of a re-ligious icon. I felt light-headed and

found it difficult to tell the Grey from the real, if not for the hard shapes of skulls and bones where I

would normally expect flesh. More than once I excused myself to a specter after stepping on it and each

time they nodded to me as any living person would. Mickey stared at me with a strange yearning

expression that disappeared under the glower as soon as he noticed my attention.

I wasn't sure this crazy plan was going to work, but it was the best thing either of us had come up with.

And frankly, it was nice to get out of the guesthouse before the smells of food over-whelmed me.

Mercedes Villaflores and her daughters had been cooking since before dawn, starting with the pan de

muerto — traditional loaves of bread that smelled of orange and spices and had dough bones crossed

on top. By the time I'd gotten up, there'd already been half a dozen of them set on the patio counter to

cool; excess seemed to run in the family.

After our shopping, Mickey dropped me off at the cemetery in San Felipe del Agua to clean the grave

site, promising to come back with the ofrenda supplies later. Then he dashed back down the hill to join

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his family for their own work party. As I crossed the cemetery gate, Iko the ghost dog appeared and

followed me to Hector Purecete's plot, making scent-led loops and discursions across the path as we

went.

The morning was giving way to afternoon and in the thin air at fifty-five hundred feet, the sun warmed the

graveyard and set the odors of earth and work, flowers and food toward the blue crown of the heavens

above. Iko performed an inspection of the site and gave it his doggy approval as I rolled up my sleeves

and

began clearing weeds, hearing the chatter of others working at family plots, or setting up vendor booths

in the square and street nearby. Some musicians started practicing in the distance, sere-nading our labors

in fits and starts. After a while, the ghost dog hied off to hunt ghost rodents, leaving me alone with the

weeds.

A while later, I paused to wipe the sweat off my face and found an old man in a wide-brimmed hat

squatting at the edge of my efforts, grinning at me. I had to look hard through the thickened and colorful

Grey to be sure he was no ghost, for he looked more like a vision than a man. But that might have been

the elevation and my own sleep-deprived brain talking.

He held out a clear glass bottle. "Agua?"

I took the bottle gratefully, muttering my "gracias," and sipped the warm water. It tasted of deep rock

wells.

"I never see a gringa working out here before," he said, watch-ing me drink.

"Never been here before," I replied, pushing my clinging hair back and returning the bottle to him.

He put the bottle down, digging its bottom into the dirt I'd softened with my weeding at the edge of the

grave. "You come for this man's angelitos?"

"I don't know if he had any. Did you know him?"

The dark-tanned old man shook his head. "No. I live here all my life and I never hear of him until they

bury him here. And no one comes to this grave for a long time. Until you. Why?"

"A woman named Maria-Luz Arbildo died last week and she wanted me to come here and take care of

the grave."

"Huh. But she never come here. I never see any woman here before."

"No. She didn't know where the grave was. I had to find it. You ever heard of her?” He narrowed his

eyes and searched the ground for his memory, brushing pebbles and bits of weed away from the

headstone. "No. Antonio Arbildo lived here, long time ago, but he moved away. Old man, then. He get

rich, the whole family go to the D.F.—Distrito Federal,Mexico City," he explained with a nod. "I'm a little

boy, then—so tall," he added, holding his hand up about two feet from the ground, and cackling. He shot

an amused glance at me from the corner of his yellowed eyes. The ghost of Iko trotted back from his

hunting and threw himself down in the dirt about two feet from the old man with a contented dog sigh.

The old man made no comment.

I nodded. Another interesting connection, but not complete. "Are there Arbildos buried in this panteon?

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Maybe Maria-Luz?"

Again he shook his head, his gnarled stick fingers digging into the ground to pull a weed. "Not her. Some

a long time ago, si. Not now." He pointed to a group of equally abandoned graves

nearby. "There."

Hector Purecete had been buried within sight of the Arbildos of San Felipe, yet it seemed Maria-Luz

had never found him on her trips toOaxaca . But with the two false graves Mickey and I had found,

maybe that wasn't so strange. Of course the Arbildos of San Felipe and those ofMexico City weren't

necessarily the same family, but I doubted it.

I nodded to the old man and got up, unkinking my work-stiff knees and back, to go look at the graves

of the Arbildos. The most recent had been buried in 1943. When I got back to Purecete's grave, the old

man was gone, but his water bottle still stood in the soft earth between the gravestone and Iko's napping

form sprawled in the dirt. I looked around for the man. A dozen hats identical to his bobbed in the field

of graves, but I couldn't spot the old

man under one. I took another sip of the water and went back to work, thinking Iko had it good.

By two o'clock I'd gotten the weeds cleaned up and the plot squared away. Some helpful live children

helped me find stones to replace the missing border around the grave, begging, in return, for "mi

calavera," which confused me until Mickey showed up.

He made a face at them and started digging into one of the boxes of ofrenda decorations. "They want

these," he explained, dragging out a box of small sugar skulls, coffins, and lambs we'd purchased in the

market that morning. "Like your trick or treat, but with skulls."

He handed me the box and snapped at the kids to go away as soon as they had their "calavera" in their

sticky fists.

"Need to work, here!" he added to me, unfolding a small card table he'd snatched from the guesthouse.

"Usually the ofrenda's at home, but yours will have to be here."

The ghost dog sat up and watched us work. We got a few odd looks from the humans, too, as we put

up the decorations, but no one came to ask what we were doing. Mickey helped me bend long, slender

poles into arches over the table and attach them to the legs. Then we put colored paper over it all and

hung up the paper banners, which were decorated with punched silhouettes of skeletons dancing, riding

bicycles, eating, and generally carrying on. We made patterns on the grave with the marigolds, magenta

cockscomb flowers, and greenery, edging it all with white candles in tiny glass jars.

Mickey looked around. "You should go wash while I put out the food—and bring back water in the big

bowl for the spirits to wash in, too.” I shrugged, not minding a pause to clean the dirt and sweat off my

face and hands while Mickey took over—he had managed to avoid the really filthy work of weeding,

edging, and shoring up the grave, after all. Iko dogged me to a standpipe where a few other people were

washing up and filling containers with water for flowers or washing. The old man was standing near the

water spigot and grinned at me as I approached.

"It is going well, your ofrenda?"

"I think so. Does it look OK?"

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He glanced toward Purecete's grave. "Si. Is very nice for the

angelitos—white is good." "Mickey picked the color." "Really?" the old guy said, raising his eyebrows.

"Surely for

him, red is more likely."

I turned to glance back at Mickey. He did have a lot of red in

his aura. ...

"You mean Mickey?" I asked.

"Your amigo joven, si. So very angry ..." He shook his head. I stared at the old man. "What is it

aboutOaxaca ? Is everyone around here tuned in to the freaky frequency?" I asked.

His laugh was like sandpaper. "Only you, pequena faisan. But, you are staying to see the angelitos?"

"Si," I answered, turning back to the immediate task, putting

my hands under the cold water that streamed from the pipe, and

then throwing several handfuls onto my sticky face. Iko stuck his

muzzle into the water and tried to drink it, but I wasn't sure any

was making it down his ghostly throat, no matter how fast his

spectral tongue was going. "Maybe it's not so bad that Mickey's

supposed to be home with his family tonight."

"Maybe." The old man nodded. "I also must go tonight, so I

bid you buenas noches. Dress warm—the night takes the heat away. And give your amigo good wishes

from Tio Munoz, eh?"

"I will, gracias" I replied, filling the washbowl for the spirits of dead children. My hands full, I nodded

again to him and turned to head back to the plot, wondering what Mickey was up to.

"Buena suerte," the man said with a chuckle as I started off.

I turned my head to look back at him over my shoulder and saw him scratch Iko's head, smiling. I guess

I wasn't even sur-prised. Then he turned and walked away, vanishing into the crowd with a golden glitter

in his wake. I stood a moment staring after him, not sure what he was; nothing about him seemed ghostly,

yet in the mess of the active Grey of Oaxaca, I hadn't noticed he had no aura. What was he? I frowned,

holding the heavy bowl of water. Iko pawed at my knee and barked, prancing impatiently on the path.

I shook off my surprise and walked to rejoin Mickey.

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While I'd been gone, Mickey had laid out a small feast of sweets, soda pop, and pan de muerto as well

as some more sub-stantial food—all provided by his aunt. Small plastic toys were scattered among the

cockscomb flowers that we'd piled up around a stack of empty boxes at the back of the table and an arc

of small teacups and saucers surrounded a dish for the copal incense. A dozen more white candles now

stood on the boxes. It looked like an album cover for something gothic and creepy.

"Nice, huh?"

"Umm ... yeah. These ghosts eat a lot...."

Mickey shrugged. "They eat the spirit of the food. My cousins say the food they leave behind has no

calories." He barked a de-risive laugh. He pointed to the end of the table. "Put the water, comb, and

towel where the hot bottle is.” I saw a large vacuum flask where he pointed.

"Tia Mercedes made hot chocolate. You can put it on the ground till you need it," he said. "Pour some

for the angelitos after you light the candles and the incense—they should come when they smell it. And

there's a box under the ofrenda with some food and a blanket and stuff for you. Think you can make it?"

"It's not as cold as a stakeout during aSeattle winter."

He snorted. "Gonna be empty up here. Most people do this at home." Mickey gave me an assessing

look that clearly found me a bit wanting.

"I think I can handle it," I said.

Yet another shrug as he started gathering up the excess sup-plies. "The angelitos come at four and stay

until the morning. You'll have to do it all again tomorrow for the adults, too. I'll pick you up when the sun

comes up."

"Hey, Mickey, Tio Munoz says Happy Birthday."

He jumped back from me. "What?"

"An old man near the water said I should tell you he sends his

good wishes."

He stared at me. "Tio Munoz? Mierda! He's a legend in my

family. He's a ... a ..."

"Ghost? Didn't look like a ghost___"

Mickey was shaking his head and gathering the excess stuff in a hurry. "No, no. ... He's the one—you

know: I said about my great-uncle? What's the word ... a bad wizard."

"Warlock?"

He shook his head. "No.... Not a brujo. He's ... a black sor-cerer. Undead." He threw the last of the

materials into a box and snatched it up against his chest, eyes wild—which was not what I'd have

expected. "I'm going back to Tia Mercedes. You'll be fine, yeah?"

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"Yeah . . .," I said, not sure why he was freaking so thoroughly, since his Tio Munoz wasn't any kind of

undead I knew.

"Yeah, right. OK. I'll be back for you in the morning. Don't go talking to Tio Munoz! Don't believe what

he says!"

Iko and I followed him with the rest of the boxes and loaded them into the Chevy under the weight of

Mickey's red-and-orange brooding. Then we watched him drive away, leaving the ghost dog and me in

the emptying panteon as the hour of dead children approached.

The last of the homeward-bound walked out of the gate—two small children in slightly rumpled

clothes—strewing a path of marigold petals for the dead. I watched them lay the deep orange line down

the road until they disappeared around a bend in a mood of strange solemnity. I walked back to the

grave, Iko danc-ing before me all the way.

The ghost dog seemed more real than ever, if still a bit trans-lucent. As the long shadow of the mountain

began to steal the light, that became less apparent, but a new oddity began to show around him: a blue

glow like marshlight that flickered over the dog shape and cast it into strange silhouette against the

pockets of twilight forming in the cemetery as night crept forward.

I unfolded a camp stool from the box and set it aside, paused to put on my coat, and dug deeper for a

box of kitchen matches. As the church bell began pealing four, I lit the candles and the copal, sending the

sweet, musky scent into the cooling air. The breeze stirred the grasses near the fence to rattling. Smoke

and Grey mingled, sparking with gold and white lights, and I could hear the Grey humming, the shapes of

the mountains glowing in the silvery mist as great bulks of power.

Something splashed into the water bowl and I turned with a jerk to see nothing, no small shape lurking

near the table end, as I’d half expected. I shivered as my skin prickled with a premoni-tion of movement

nearby. The darkness was still only a threat, but a presence seemed to gather with it, though nothing

stepped

forth. Yet.

forth. Yet.

I poured hot chocolate into one of the teacups and sat down to wait while afternoon advanced toward

evening. The ghost dog lay down beside me and smiled with secret thoughts. We waited, swirled in the

dizzying odors of the night and the sound of distant music from houses just out of sight, alone in the hush

of sacred anticipation in the doorway to the Land of the Dead.

Something brushed past me, giggling. Iko barked and chased the formless whisper of laughter across the

burial ground toward the iron gates. Then nothing. The ghost dog returned and threw himself down on the

ground with a dog sigh. Candles smoked and the stream of incense swayed upward like a charmed

cobra. The muttering emptiness of the cemetery held sway long past sunset, past the eight o'clock peal

from the church tower.

I renewed the hot chocolate in the cup and sipped a little my-self, finding it more bitter and spicy than

American chocolate. It went better with the sandwich Mickey's aunt had packed for me than the coffee

did, but I thought I'd better save it in case of tiny haunts. Maybe it was because I was thinking of it, but

that was when a little cup of chocolate on the table rattled and I looked

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again at the ofrenda.

One of the cups was moving in its saucer, tilting forward and back. Tiny silver-mist hands clutched for it

and missed again and again. I stood up and picked up the cup, saying, "Here, let me

help you."

I held the cup low and filled it to the brim. Then I offered it down around my knees, holding it still until I

felt something tug

on it. I let myself slip all the way into the Grey, looking for what-ever was pulling on the cup.

A skeleton child, barely as tall as the table, reached for the cup. Its bony, incorporeal hands met the

porcelain, but couldn't grip. I tipped the cup and watched the steaming chocolate dribble onto the ground

while the foggy skeleton seemed to nibble at the edge of the cup. It pushed the cup away and clacked its

teeth in satisfac-tion.

The toys on the table moved. Smears of color hovered around the ofrenda, lined up in front of the other,

empty, cups. I poured chocolate into all of them and watched shadows of the cups tilt and rise as

spectral hands reached for the sweets. There was a burst of chatter—like radio static—and a dozen

small skeletons dressed in the memories of their best clothes appeared around the table. They weren't as

well formed as the adult ghosts I'd seen— as if they hadn't had time to get the knack of being alive before

they were dead. None of the chatter was quite understandable to me—unlike the adult ghosts I'd talked

to—coming through to my mind only in Spanish.

Iko jumped to his feet again and began trotting around the little ghosts, sniffing them, but he returned

disgruntled and disap-pointed to my side and sat down with a huff of breath. Apparently none of the

skeletal kids was familiar.

I felt small hands on my knees and plucking at my sleeves. I looked down and found two small skeletons

dressed in cloudy white dresses looking back up at me with empty eye sockets.

I'm not much of a kid person, so I never know what to say or do when faced with children. I had no

idea if the ghosts of chil-dren knew any more than they had when alive, but even children have

information. I squatted down, feeling my bad knee pop. “No hablo espanol muy bien, " I said, probably

mangling what little I remembered from years living inLos Angeles . With my luck they didn't speak

anything else, but sometimes ideas came through with ghosts, even when the language was foreign, as

they had with the ghost of Ernesto Santara. "Ustedes habla ingles?"

They turned their skulls on their slender spines in unison: no. They didn't bother to talk at all, but, with a

shiver, I knew they were twins then, and they wanted to know why I was in their graveyard. No one had

come for them in a long time and they were lonely—was I a relative of theirs? How I knew these

thoughts I couldn't begin to tell you.

I shook my head and pointed to Purecete's memorial stone. "I'm looking for him. And for Maria-Luz

Carmen Arbildo. Maria-Lucy Hector."

Two skulls tilted in curiosity as if to say, "Why those two?" while a toy truck pushed its way across the

dirt nearby guided by a misty skeletal boy.

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"Umm ...," I started, not sure how to explain. "Como Maria-Luz ... umm ... knows?" I stumbled through

the language, tap-ping the side of my head and hoping the sign translated somehow.

"Hector?"

The skulls consulted each other with a glance of unseen eyes. They turned back to me and spoke as

one. The words pushed the concept into my head, naked and complete, but not in English.

"El es su padre. "

Her father. Whose burial place she did not seem to know, whose name she did not have. "Oh," I

breathed, the situation both more clear and less. Why the black-magic present, then? What was the

nature of that paternity that she sent such a dubious

gift?

The twin ghosts beckoned me to follow and they drifted to ward the Arbildo plot. Leaving the chocolate and the ofrenda behind, I followed them and Iko followed

me.

The graves of the Arbildos were crowded with tiny skeletons and strange, half-formed shapes of silvery

energy thick as clay moving in some somber dance. The two skeletal girls floated through the weird party

and stopped before a grave with an un-usual double cross of gilded iron from which the gold had flaked

until only shreds remained. "Nuestra madre nosotros. "

This was the grave of Dulcia Maria-Carmen Ochoa Arbildo, wife of Antonio, and her two daughters,

Carmen and Lucia, who had all died in April of 1936. The girls had been four years old. Dulcia had been

twenty-five.

"Por que—" I started, but the ghosts of Carmen and Lucia pointed their bony fingers at the crowd of

small spirits.

uVea: nuestros hermanos y hermanas."

I looked. Beside the grave huddled a knot of unformed shapes, the features of lives they never lived

flickered and changed, fluid as water, over half faces the size of my fist. I'd seen this before; they were

transient souls, in flux between one life and the next. Grave upon grave across the plot was littered with

the reminders of children who had never been born, or died while still infants and toddlers. They were

everywhere, generation after generation of the family's bad genetic luck and horrific accident. It seemed

as if the Arbildos of San Felipe had been cursed.

Maybe, against all tradition, this was something the family preferred to forget. Hardly a wonder, then, if

Antonio Arbildo had removed his family from this place as soon as he had the money to do so. Not too

surprising if he had named a boat for his ill-fated wife, or that the boat had been lost with everyone

aboard, except a single man and a dog.

A dark shape started to push the grid into some new form, struggling against the strength of the Grey's

energy lines. Iko barked suddenly and the deep humming of the Grey hit a sour note. The ghosts

flickered out with a collective gasp. The shape collapsed back into darkness and I was alone again in the

grave-yard.

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I still didn't have all the pieces, but an idea was forming in my head. Dead children and a daughter by the

wrong father ... I returned to my camp stool and sat again beside Purecete's grave, pouring out the last of

the chocolate and wondering if the ghosts would return. They didn't.

Dawn came up slowly in cold shades of blue, while I huddled, expectant and ultimately disappointed, in

the empty panteon. It was still lit only by candles and drifted with copal smoke when Mickey arrived.

He avoided my glance and packed up the food and chocolate, the toys and gewgaws, in glowering

silence. I let him. My body was too tired and my brain too full of strange threads weaving slowly and

incompletely into a tapestry I didn't yet understand to want to add the frustration of cross-examining my

volatile escort to the mix. I followed him back to the Chevy, hardly noticing that Iko had disappeared

with the dawn and didn't follow us to the car

this time.

Back at the guesthouse, I fell into bed and slept six hard hours. I was still a bit groggy when I turtled out

of my bedroom and down to the empty sala about noon. The visitors had all gone out, most of the family

was at church or in the kitchen. Mercedes Villaflores glanced out of the kitchen window and waved to

me to come inside.

"Buenos dias!Did you enjoy your evening?" she asked, immediately putting a cup of coffee and a plate of

food on the counter for me.

"Yes," I replied, not sure if "enjoy" was the right word, but certain I'd learned something, if I could shake

it into clarity. "Where's Mickey—Miguel?" I sipped the coffee and felt it kick my system back up to

speed. I looked for Iko, but didn't see him, and was just wondering about that when Mercedes replied.

"Oh, he's still asleep." She shrugged and returned to her stove, chatting over her shoulder. "Teenagers . .

. You know."

Thinking about the missing ghost dog and Mickey made me think of the cemetery. "Mercedes .. . who's

Tio Munoz?" "Tio Munoz? Where did you hear of him?" "Mickey mentioned him."

"Ah! That boy... he's such a trouble. Munoz is ... the family bogeyman. You know: the crazy uncle your

mama tells you will take you away in the night if you don't finish your supper. Totalmente loco en la

cabeza, " she added, knocking a knuckle against her temple, as if sounding a melon for ripeness. "He

was accused of working black magic long ago, but he run up into the hills and disappeared. I think, if he

is alive, he is no trouble to anyone, just a crazy old man. If not. .. maybe he'll come to dinner tonight, eh?"

She laughed; clearly she didn't feel the same horror as her nephew, but then .. . she wasn't fascinated

with black magic, as Mickey was.

"Do you know anything about the Arbildo family that used to live in San Felipe del Agua?" I asked. She

just shook her head.

I poked at my food and thought. I was seeing a picture that was not at all pretty. I wished I was sure

what had turned Maria-Luz from sweet on Jimenez to sour. Why hadn't Jimenez told her where Purecete

was buried? Was that the key? Or had she discovered something else?

I fished the little baggie of statue shards from my jacket pocket and stared at the bundle of hairs, tied

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with red thread, wound counterclockwise. The magic goes backward.... Like the writing on the paper. I

could see the slip of notepaper clearly in my mind: the letters cramped on the left, expansive on the right,

as if it had been written backward, running out of space.... She'd scryed me out through the Grey, talking

to ghosts through a blackmagic connection, as Mickey had described. Death magic, blood magic ... Had

Maria-Luz sacrificed the dog... ? No, Iko was dead long before she knew about me—possibly before I

was a Greywalker—back when Jimenez died in a plane crash. Just how long had she had the statue

waiting for the right grave? Why had she wanted to put Iko's spirit, wound in black magic, on Jimenez's

grave?

Tio Munoz seemed more interested in Mickey than in me. But if he was—or had been—a black

sorcerer, maybe he was interested in the black magic I was carrying in my pocket as well as his

great-nephew. You can't count on much about black magic or bogeymen, though he didn't seem to

approve of Mickey's personal darkness.

I needed to talk to Maria-Luz or Hector Purecete. I hoped one or both would show up once darkness

fell at San Felipe del

Agua.

Mickey scuffed into the kitchen looking morose and wan.

"We still on for tonight, Mickey?" I asked.

"Huh? Tonight?"

"Yeah. My little ghost party at the panteon, remember? You're going to help me with the setup, right?"

He looked relieved I hadn't said anything about Tio Munoz. "Yeah, right. Setup. Sure."

"What time do we need to head up the mountain? Four?"

"Dusk. Whatever. Tia Mercedes won't mind if I'm back late for the party here."

She said something in Spanish that sounded like she'd be hap-pier the later he was.

"OK," he replied. "We can leave at four with the food and stuff."

"Cool. See you down here, then," I agreed, carrying my empty coffee cup to the sink and allowing

Mickey to escape.

I walked down to the zocalo and found a cafe table to occupy while I made a phone call. The layers of

spirits and magic were thicker and brighter than ever, surging like an ocean in the plaza and spilling into

the streets leading to it. I dialed Quinton's pager and waited for him to call me back. Quinton was still

paranoid about the possibility of being rediscovered by his ex-boss, so the easily tracked technology of

cell phones was one he chose to do without.

About half an hour later, as I was working on a sunburn, he returned my call.

"Hey."

"Hey, yourself. Need a favor."

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"Shoot."

"I don't have Internet access here, so can you run some searches for me and get back with information

before four p.m. here?"

"That's . .. two here. Yeah, I can do that. What are the search terms?"

"I need everything you can find on the death and bio of aMexico City lawyer named Jimenez. Sorry I

don't know the first name, but he was the partner of a guy named Guillermo Banda. Jimenez died in a

plane crash a few years ago. Also anything on the Arbildo family that owned a ship or boat called the

Dulcia that sunk in 1982, based out ofMexico . And look for any connections between Jimenez's firm

and Arbildo—especially anything shady or questionable."

"Arbildo. That's the woman who left you the dog." "Her family and her lawyer, yeah. There's something

strange going on between them and, so far, death hasn't proved to be much of a barrier. I'm also

wondering if Maria-Luz was adopted, but it's doubtful there'd be any record of that on the Internet."

"You never know. I'll see what I can get and call you back." I thanked Quinton and hung up before going

out to walk around the zocalo and take a closer look at the Grey grid ofOaxaca . There were a lot of

things about the way energy flowed here that were different fromSeattle 's grid and I didn't want to be

surprised that night. I needed a little local practice with the power lines before I felt comfortable about my

ability to deal with the potential conflicts that might be in store. I tried a variation of the ghost-pull that had

brought up Ernesto Santara and got Iko, as I'd hoped. I was pretty sure I'd be able to banish him again,

if I had to. I still had no idea what part he had been intended to play at Hector's grave.

Quinton called back and I took notes about the perfidy of law-yers; hard financial times; an unhappy

schoolgirl with bad, black habits; and the sinking of insured boats, while leaning against an old church

wall, cooled by the shade of the stones and the ice-water feeling of the rising tide of ghosts. The ghost

dog panted at my feet, tongue lolling onto the bricks of the plaza.

A silvery skeleton dressed in a dark vest and trousers paused to pet the dog and raised his head to me.

"Este ex tu perro?"

"Hang on," I told Quinton. "My dog? No," I replied to the skeleton man. "You know this dog? Uh . ..

listed ... uh ..." I stumbled through the language as badly as ever, but the ghost seemed to know what I

meant.

He shook his skull and clacked something I didn't catch, but the meaning seemed clear enough. It wasn't

his dog, but it might have been Estancio Rivera's dog. I pointed at Iko. "Esta perro?"

The skeleton nodded his skull vigorously. "Si! Es Iko!" Iko rolled over in the spectral dust and offered

his belly for rubbing.

I returned to my phone call while the skeleton man gave Iko some attention. "Is there any mention in

those files of an Estancio Rivera?" I asked Quinton.

"Not that I've seen, but Rivera is about the most common name inMexico after Garcia. This is inOaxaca

, right.. . ?" I could hear his fingers speeding on a keyboard. "Yeah." "Huh. This is kind of weird. A guy

named Estancio Rivera disappeared from aMexico City hotel room in 1981, presumed dead. Wallet, ID,

and clothes were found, but not his money or the man. ID was fromOaxaca . He worked in a mezcal

distillery and guess who owned it." "Arbildo?"

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"Give the little lady a cigar!"

"Damn," I muttered. Did I have it? Was it that easy? Hector was the missing Estancio as well as

Maria-Luz's real father. He'd vanished inMexico City , where the Arbildos lived. Then changed his name

and taken a post on an Arbildo ship that sunk.... He'd been "dead" twice before he died for good.

The skeleton ghost stood up, tipped his hat, and walked off after wishing me a "Buenas noches." I

nodded at him and noticed the shadow of the church was nearly across the plaza now. The tower bells

began tolling four.

"I have to run. Thanks for the help."

"No problem, but I would like to hear the story. ..."

"I'll take you to dinner when I get back and tell you the whole thing. Right now I have an appointment in

a graveyard."

I shut off the phone and ran back toward the Villaflores guesthouse. Iko barked and ran along beside

me. We skittered into the doorway together and straight into a glowering Mickey.

"Thought you'd ditched me."

"No," I panted. "Just lost track of time. You ready to go?"

He frowned at me, clearly teetering on a decision.

"Come on, Mickey. You didn't come up here just for the fam-ily celebration." I leaned in close to him

and breathed my words into his ear. "You want the magic."

He bit his lip.

I wanted all the help I could get, and even if Mickey didn't know what he could do, he could still be

useful if things went bad. And a plain "please" was not going to work with him.

He gave a sudden, hard nod. "I'm coming."

We grabbed our coats and boxes and bundled into the car as fast as possible. Iko sat and waited

patiently, then vanished to meet us at the graveyard.

The sun was already gone by the time we reached the panteon at San Felipe del Agua. A procession by

candlelight was wending to the cemetery, carried on a wave of music. We parked and joined the crowd

that surged into the cemetery, Iko reappearing as be-fore, just inside the gates.

The ofrenda and decorations were untouched and it took only a few minutes to put out the food and

drink, trinkets, cigarettes, mezcal, and wash water, to light the candles and the copal. We

both sat down to wait while the ghost dog circled the graves, sniffing.

The odors of food, flowers, incense, and alcohol floated into the air on mariachi music and the chatter of

living humans while the Grey hummed like a generator nearing overload. The thin silver mist-world

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seemed to quake as the ghosts flooded out, eager, hungry, happy. They rushed into the gap between the

worlds with a roar. I gasped at the explosive upheaval of the Grey and Mickey stared, crouching on his

stool like an angular gar-goyle.

"How many do you see?" I asked.

"Thousand. .. . More than ever. And there's ... stuff. Like worms. Everywhere."

Everyone who can see it sees it differently, I guess. "Where's our man?" Mickey looked around,

shivering. "Maybe ... the dog?"

"Yeah, maybe it's time. Iko," I called, reaching down to pat the ground on top of the grave, sending up a

sudden gust of marigold scent and the odor of earth. Iko ran onto the grave and sat down. Nothing

changed.

Remembering the children and their chocolate, I put out my hand. "Hand me that mezcal, Mickey."

Quivering, Mickey picked up the bottle and slapped it into my outstretched hand. "You want a drink?"

"No. But I think Senor Purecete might—or Estancio Rivera, if he prefers." I twisted the bottle open and

spilled an ounce or two onto the grave next to Iko. The ground seemed to swallow it, groaning and

heaving a cloud of yellow and gold sparks into the air.

Someone crawled up from the grave.

He was probably a slim man in life, judging by the narrow-cut clothes his skeletal form wore in death.

He had a jaunty hat on his skull and a scarf tied around the absent circumference of his neck. A shadow

of flesh clung over the skeleton, giving it a blurry, out-of-focus look. Iko whined and wriggled at the

ghost's feet, rolling in the dirt and showing his belly.

"Oh ... Iko," the shade breathed, the words coming clear into my head. "Where is your mistress?" He

scratched the dog as it quivered in delight.

"Not here yet," I offered. "But I think she'll show up soon."

Mickey glanced around and I followed his lead, but no one was paying us any particular attention. They

were all busy and the sounds of the fiesta ramping up to last the whole night through drowned the

oddness of any conversation we might have.

I held out the bottle and the ghost took it. "Gracias, Senora. It is a long time since I had a drink with a

lovely lady." A spectral twin of the mezcal bottle rose to his mouth and he poured a long shot down his

transparent throat.

"Ernesto said you were a lady's man," I said.

The ghost of Hector Perecete belched and lowered the bottle. "Ernesto? From the Dulcia? Poor fellow.

Good-hearted, not so good-headed. I'm sorry about the crew. It was only me Arbildo wanted

drowned."

"So it wasn't an accident that the boat sank when you were on it. Jimenez found a way to sink it for

Arbildo. The insurance company wasn't sure, but they suspected it. You know they paid off, eventually,

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right?"

"Oh, si. It was an old boat. Kill two birds with one stone—heh. Or two problems with one hole in the

hull. He didn't want her to know, or he'd have just had me cut to pieces in an alley in the Distrito."

"Leon Arbildo, you mean."

"Si," Hector replied, taking another gulp of ghostly mezcal. "Leonhad a head for business." "What was

her name?" "Who?"

"Leon Arbildo's wife. You met her at the mezcal distillery, didn't you?"

"Ohhhh ... Consuela. No, we met at a party. She was very bored. So was I. But of different things."

Hector drew closer to the table and looked it over, pausing to scratch Iko behind the ears and pat his

sides roughly. "I imagined I was so very suave she fell at my feet, but I suppose it was truly that I was

new and not likeLeon ." He laughed and his yellow teeth snapped together with a sound like castanets.

"Youth is arrogant and full of folly." He put out a skeleton claw for the towel and water. Mickey and I

watched him in silence as the ghost washed his nonexistent face and combed his memory of hair. Then

the specter straight-ened his scarf and resettled the hat on his head before surveying the spread of food.

Mickey's eyes couldn't stretch any wider without the orbs fall-ing out, I thought. "They never speak," he

whispered. "I never hear them speak. ..."

"Get used to it," I muttered back. "Once they know you can hear them, they don't shut up."

The boy jerked his head toward me, drawing a breath that shook in his throat. He was more excited

than the dog.

Hector—I couldn't think of him as Estancio after all this time—had torn off a hunk of phantom bread

and sat on the edge of his grave, munching it. His teeth clicked and ground together. "I thought I would

never taste pan de muerto again. It's very good."

"Mi—mi tin lo huzo," Mickey stammered, replying in Spanish, since he heard Hector in that language,

just as I heard him in

English.

Hector looked at him for the first time and the boy flinched back at the uncanny gaze from the ghost's

empty eye sockets.

"Your aunt? You must thank her for me. My Carmencita—my little girl Leon called Maria-Luz—could

not bring me food and drink for these many years. She was afraid the lawyers would discover her

knowledge of me and of what they would do if she came here. I left my home to be with Consuela—her

mother— and I hid myself as a long-dead man, Hector Purecete, who would not mind. At first I did it to

be near Consuela and later, when they thought they'd killed me, to watch over my daughter."

Bones and wings rustled in the darkness and a sigh of unearthly wind brought another ghost to the party.

"Papa."

We all turned to look at the smaller spirit that had walked up to Hector Purecete's grave. She wouldn't

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have been very tall in life, but she had probably had her father's build. A gleaming, oil-black nimbus

surrounded her, shivering off the white surface of her dress. The memory of her face was still strong,

creating a translucent veil of phantom flesh and expression over the visible bones of her skull. So this was

Maria-Luz Carmen Arbildo.

The dog jumped into the air and barked in joy, running to tangle under her feet.

The ghost woman laughed and patted the dog. Then she looked sharply at me. "You brought him. But

what happened? He should not be loose already."

"The statue was broken at customs," I answered. "I think Guillermo Banda paid someone to do it."

"That bastard ... I hate him. More than I ever hated Jimenez for what he did."

I opened my mouth to ask her how she'd known what Jimenez had done—though I thought I

knew—but was cut off by a shriek of eldritch wind.

"Don't dare!"

"Dare what? To tell the truth?" Maria-Luz screamed, turning to the latest arrival.

This skeleton ghost was dressed in a suit—possibly the one he'd died in—much like Banda's suit. I

guessed this must be Ji-menez since he'd come when named, and he was royally pissed about it.

"Bruja.Your father knew what you were up to. We followed you for your own good!"

"Liar!" she shouted, smacking him across his grinning, naked jaw with her bone-claw hand. "Leon

Arbildo was not my father. That's why you followed me. That's why you spied on me and my real father.

You said you were looking for him, but you weren't. You tried to hide him from me—you tried to take

him from me when I was still a child. That's why you wrecked the boat, why you killed all those people.

To get rid of my father!" So she had known about Jimenez, about Arbildo's sinking of the boat, and

about the graves Jimenez had not reported to her. No wonder she'd been mad when he died.

"You don't know the truth, Luzita. The Dulcia sank because it was old."

Still more ghosts flooded toward our little huddle of misery, perhaps a dozen, all drenched in seawater. I

spotted Ernesto Santara, but he didn't look at me. He kept his empty gaze on the ghost of Jimenez. He

was no longer a pleasant haunt, but an angry one. The drowned crew moved toward the dead lawyer

and Iko stalked along with them, hackles raised, teeth bared.

"My dog!" Maria luiz screamed at me. "Give me my dog!" I held up the bundle of hair and pot shards.

"This?" I asked.

Maria-Luz lunged at me. Mickey leapt to his feet but I'd al-ready pulled a bit of the Grey between us

and the furious woman's shade recoiled with a screech.

"Mickey, keep her back," I said, in the calmest voice I could muster.

"Me? How?"

"Just like you kept Senora Acoa from dying. Just put out your hands and send that feeling toward

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Maria-Luz."

Jimenez was backing away, starting to fade, but I grabbed him, sinking my fingers into the stinging

electrical fire of his ghostly

form.

"No, no. You have to face the music, Counselor," I said.

Mickey was talking as fast as he could, crooning, and holding his hands between himself and Maria-Luz.

The gold strings spun out from his fingertips, stroking over her, making her more solid, more

alive-seeming. She began to cry.

Jimenez struggled in my grip. "Let me go, puta local"

I waved the bundle of Iko's figurine at him. "You want me to give this to her? You dodged this bullet

before, but I can make sure it hits you this time." I was guessing, but I knew Maria-Luz had not meant

any comfort for Jimenez when she'd tried to have Iko sent to him before. Iko jumped and snapped at

him,

snarling.

Jimenez froze and the crew gathered tight around him. I let him go so they could hold him prisoner

themselves. They mut-tered to him and the sound raised the hair on my arms.

Mickey shot me a panicked look over his shoulder and I stepped closer to him. Maria-Luz was still

standing in front of him, look-ing almost solid, while Hector hovered just behind her, clucking

and making the soothing noises people murmur to upset chil-dren.

"It's all right, Mickey. You can stop." "But—I—what—?" "Ask Tio Munoz."

Mickey jerked his gaze back and forth, searching for the bo-geyman. We were creating a ruckus. The

other partiers in the cemetery were beginning to look our way with curiosity.

I sat down on my stool and tried to act like there was nothing at all strange at our feast of souls. I

bobbed my head and let my feet tap in time with the brass and strings of the mariachis nearby. I motioned

to Maria-Luz, who wafted closer. Jimenez was still petrified in the circle of dead sailors.

"All right," I started. "You tried to give the dog to Jimenez before, then you decided to give it to Hector,

and then you gave it to me to give to Hector. Why?"

She hung her head. "At first, I was angry. Iko never liked those lawyers—"

"A good judge of character," Hector injected. "Iko was all I had after Papa—went away. And when Iko

died, that was all I knew how to do, all I could think of to keep him for a little longer—to take me to

Mictlan someday."

"Some people think this is a very bad kind of magic." "It's not. It's just. .. the dark kind. The death

magic. What is death but part of life? And my dog was dead. I had done bad things with the magic when

I was angry at that ... man who called himself my father," she spat, "but I never meant harm with keeping

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Iko. But I found out Jimenez had lied to me. He had never tried to find out what happened to my father.

He spied on me and he took the information toLeon and they tried to kill my father a third time so he had

to run here and hide. I was so angrywhen I found out what he had done, I wanted to punish him! Ithought

Iko would keep him from Mictlan. Keep him in limboand torment, forgotten but never released to the

third death,wandering the way he had done to the sailors on the Dulcia."

"Tell the rest, pequena" Hector urged.

She sobbed for a moment. Mickey sat next to me, wide-eyedand still, watching the ghostly woman

weep until she raised herhead and looked at him. "You understand the magic, you knowhow hard it is ...

to be good. It was so hard, but I thought Ishould do a better thing. I changed my will so Iko would go to

my father, to help him find the road, and I gave all the money forthe families of the sailors. Leon and the

insurance company gavethem nothing. I thought I could repair the wrong, even if themagic was a little ...

dark."

"But the will I saw doesn't give the money to the families of the Dulcia's crew."

"No." She hung her head, ashamed. "Banda changed it. I don't know why I thought he was different than

Jimenez. They were both charming liars. ..." "Banda forged your will."

She nodded. "He is my father's man, even after death. Just like that pig," she added, spitting in Jimenez's

direction. Her spittle hissed and raised a red spark on the ground where it hit. Jimenez recoiled, but kept

silent. Hector tapped her again and motioned her on. Maria-Luz sighed the smell of earth and copal. "The

spirits told me of you. I was sick with the cancer that killed me, but they came when I called and they

said you could fix the horrible mess of this. I believed them. I told Banda to give the dog to you. 1

thought you could solve my puzzle of the graves, find out what

had happened and make it right. And my papa and Iko could be together again."

"So . . . this bit of junk controls Iko's soul. .. ."

Maria-Luz and Hector nodded together.

I studied the bit of hair and thread. I glanced at Mickey.

"What do you think? Eternal torment for Jimenez? Or can we do something else with this?"

The boy was trembling. "Why are you asking me?" he de-manded.

"Because you have the magic. And Maria-Luz doesn't any-more. She's dead, Mickey. She can't change

the things she did."

"I don't have any magic! Just the ghosts! That's why I read up on the Santisima Muerte—so I could use

the ghosts for magic," he finished in a harsh whisper.

"You already have the magic. You do. Look at your hands."

"They're just hands!"

"Look at them the way you look at the ghosts—sideways, through the worms and lights and crazy mist.

Look softly."

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He stared down at his gangling, oversized paws, flexing them slowly in and out of fists and turning his

head side to side. Tears began to well and fall over his lower lids as he stared without blinking.

"It's—there's something on my fingers. ..."

"Yeah. That's it. That glowy stuff. Real magic, brat-boy. Live magic."

He stared at me. "Do you—?"

I shook my head. "No. I don't have anything like that. I just see ghosts." That wasn't strictly true, but that

wasn't the time for messy little details. "But I can tell you that's life magic, not death magic. If you die, it

goes away. That's what's happened to Maria-Luz."

He glanced all around the panteon, taking note of the ghosts, the living, the dead . .. and Tio Munoz,

who sat on the ground among the tombs of the Arbildos and smiled at us, glimmering with a golden

sheen.

"What do you think?" I asked again. "Should we sic Iko on Jimenez for eternity? Poor old Iko, faithful

unto death and be-yond. I'm not sure he deserves an eternity spent snapping at the heels of this scum."

"No," the lawyer agreed, and was silenced again by the drowned crew that surrounded him.

Maria-Luz and Hector hung on the moment, watching Mickey.

"What... what about the other one? The guy who faked the will?"

"Banda," I supplied. "Yeah, he's a piece of work."

"Can you—?"

"You, Mickey. I can deliver the bomb, but only you can build it. Iko hates him. All you have to do is

make the magic go the right way so it's alive. If the magic is tuned for Banda, Iko will seem to be alive to

him, but he'll still be a ghost dog to everyone else."

I cut a glance at Maria-Luz. "Then all we have to do is tether Iko to Banda. . . ."

She nodded. "I think ... it can be done. If you rewind the thread just right."

"But what will happen to the dog? Will it... be ..."

"Doomed to eat lawyer in hell?" I added.

Mickey nodded, but he was looking at Maria-Luz now.

"Wind the thread the other way, wind it to the life of the man," Maria-Luz whispered, beginning to fade.

"Iko will come to me when his job is done. Or when you break your binding."

Was it so late ... or so early that the night was ending already?

No, I could see it was still dark. But she was tiring, her energy fad-ing after such an evening—her first

and probably last return from the Land of the Dead. Only the sailors and Jimenez were as pres-ent as

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ever. Hector and his daughter had started to slide away.

"You'd better start before Maria-Luz is all gone, or you might lose the chance," I prompted Mickey.

"But..."

"Try it. What's the worst that can happen? You let the dog go. Right?"

"Yeah. Right."

I handed Mickey the bag of Iko's shards. He took the bundle of hair out and began picking the red

thread loose. He concen-trated, pulling the thread loose, unwinding it with care.

Iko began to fade with a whimper.

"No, Iko," Hector called to the dog in a singsong voice, thin as steam. "No, perrito, stay. Good dog. ..."

"Think of the man," Maria-Luz whispered. "Think of him, Jimenez's partner, Banda, the lawyer, the thief,

the fraud...." She pointed toward the thread, a stream of her knowledge flowing out of her skeletal

fingertips, touching the boy and the bundle of hair.

Mickey rewound the red strand the other way, muttering under his breath. The gold threads from his

fingers caught on the hairs in the bundle, caught in the twist of the thread and bound up, muttering with

Mickey, singing magic, alive and golden and hot as the sun.

Hector and Maria-Luz stepped backward, back, back, fading as they went, until they were only a

whisper and a shred of smoke on the air. Iko stopped whining.

A hush fell, as if all the spirits of San Felipe del Agua held their breath.Mickey tied off the string. "There.

OK? You think?" he asked, holding it out. But there was no one left to see it but me and Tio

Munoz.

The old man had come up on us without any warning or ap-parent movement.

"Muy bien!"he cackled.

Mickey started with surprise, jumping to his feet. The old man backed away, chuckling.

"Where did they all go?" Mickey asked, bewildered.

"Back where they came from, I'd guess. The sailors took Jimenez—I think he may be in for some

trouble in the afterlife," I said.

"Good!" Mickey spat.

"And Maria-Luz and her father went... wherever."

"To Mictlan," Mickey corrected. "I think."

"Not so sure now?"

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"I—I'm not sure about much. ..."

Well, that was a change. But I didn't comment. Instead I said, "I think we can go now, if you want to."

"I guess. We can leave the ofrenda. No one will steal from

ghosts."

We started back through the crowds, the music and laughter jarring against the strangeness of the night.

Mickey handed me the bag of clay pieces and the knotted bit of hair, magic, and string as we

approached the gate.

"Where's Iko?"

I pointed at the gate, where the dog had appeared again, look-ing more like a real dog than ever.

Mickey grinned and went to pat the little mongrel, carefully, as if he wasn't sure his hand could really

touch it.

"Gracias, Senorita Blaine."

I turned, not at all surprised to find Tio Munoz behind me.

"For what?" I asked.

"For helping him find a better path. He was headed for bad things."

"I just do what the choreographer tells me. What are you going to do now?"

He laughed. "I think that is up to Miguel. What about you? You are finished here."

I nodded. "Yeah. Here. But there's one thing left inMexico City ."

Munoz shook his head. "Justice may be hard to serve with only the word of ghosts."

"That depends on which sort of justice you're talking about."

He seemed pleased by that and nodded his head. Then he turned and walked away into the night.

Mickey and Iko ran up to me, the dog grinning a satisfied doggy smile, not nearly as tentative as

Mickey's.

We walked back to the Chevy and got in. This time, Iko jumped in and curled on the floorboards at my

feet.

As we drove back down the hill, Mickey cleared his throat and glanced at me.

"What?"

"Uh... so. What now?"

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"Now, I'm done. I get to go home. By way ofMexico City . And Mr. Banda's office. Maria-Luz and

Hector still have a little pay-back coming."

"And the guys from the Dukia."

I nodded. "I think I have a way to set things up as Maria-Luz wanted them. And I won't mind giving

Banda a good scare."

"I low's it going In work?"

"I'll give the bundle to Banda, so he becomes the vessel—I can figure out how. Then he'll be stuck with

Iko until he dies, or you let Iko go."

"Can I do that?"

"Yeah. You'll figure it out." I had.

He made a thoughtful frown and was silent for a while. Then he said, "I think I must have missed

something. Why did they kill the sailors?"

"That was an accident, but it didn't matter to Arbildo and Ji-menez that they died. The boat was old and

the company was in a temporary financial crisis. So Arbildo decided to sink it—have a little accident at

sea—and collect the insurance. The sailors were just in the way. Except for Hector. Who'd been having

an affair with Arbildo's wife."

"Yeah, I got that. Maria-Luz was Hector's daughter, really."

"That's right. He followed her mother toMexico City . I think Arbildo must have caught on and so

Hector did his first disap-pearing act. He abandoned his real identity as Estancio Rivera and took on the

name Hector Purecete, Senora Acoa's long-lost relative. Estancio was fromOaxaca —he worked in the

mezcal distillery down the mountain—and he'd seen the name on the headstone in the Panteon San

Miguel just like we did. He got a job with the Arbildo shipping company as Hector so he could still be

near Consuela and their daughter. While he was at sea, Consuela died and she probably let his new

identity slip as she was dying. So Arbildo decided to get rid of his wife's lover once and for all."

"But... Hector called his daughter Carmencita...." "That was Maria-Luz's middle name: Carmen. They

probably called her that so it was less likely they'd trip up in front of Leon Arbildo—but he knew."

Mickey continued to frown. "I'm still not sure I get it. . . ."

"Arbildo sank his ship with the help of his trusty henchman Jimenez, and he didn't let on to anyone that

Maria-Luz was not his daughter."

"Why didn't he just... have another kid?"

"Last night, I saw hundreds of dead kids in the cemetery. They were all Arbildo children. I'm not sure

what the problem is, ge-netics, bad luck, a curse . . . but whatever it is, the Arbildos don't have healthy

kids. They die young. Only one or two make it to carry on the family name. Consuela had four children,

but only Maria-Luz made it past the age of three. Leon Arbildo didn't have any surviving brothers or

sisters, or any other kids. He had to have Maria-Luz and she had to be his daughter, unequivocally.

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"He was a very proud man—a jealous man, too," I continued. "And Catholic. The illegitimacy thing was

not acceptable. He had Maria-Luz watched, the same way he'd had Consuela watched. She must have

known she was watched and been resentful. She started doing black magic to hurt him—she got thrown

out of school for it a couple of times. When she finally met Hector and found out he was her real father,

that's when the hate started. But Arbildo got even: he died and he left the estate in the hands of the

lawyers who'd helped him in the past."

"And they kept on watching her and manipulating her, right?"

"Yeah. And they kept right on doing all the same things they'd done for her father and not telling her they

did it. They drove Hector into hiding, and when he died, Maria-Luz had nothing left but the dog and her

hate. She started trying to find out about her real father, so she went toOaxaca a lot, looking for his

family or his grave or whatever she could get. She laid that false trail for us with the Registrar of Deaths

to confuse her lawyers in case they were keeping track of her. We know Jimenez had tracked the

graves, but so long as she didn't show up there, he'd never know she'd discovered the truth and he'd

never be able to stop her plans for revenge."

"But she changed her mind!"

"Yeah, she did. Because she found out about the Dulcia. She decided justice was better than vengeance

and, again, she left a puzzle for someone—me—to solve that would reveal the truth."

"She was devious, that Maria-Luz."

I smiled. "Yeah."

We pulled into the tiny covered carriageway of the guesthouse and I stumbled out of the car, suddenly

exhausted.

Mickey caught my arm. "Hey ... uh ... you leaving soon? 'Cause I still got a lot of questions."

"Sorry, Mickey. I have to go tomorrow."

"Oh."

The church bells from the zocalo rang the quarter hour. I checked my watch; it was still early forOaxaca

on el Dia de los Muertos—only ten fifteen. But it felt like two a.m.

We walked up the stairs to my room, the house still quiet while everyone was at the cemetery. I stopped

and studied Mickey as he waited for me to unlock my door. He was tired, but standing straighten His

sullen look had changed into a thoughtful frown as he tried to understand what had happened and what

might happen next.

"Hey," he said again. "Is Iko . .. going to ... chew on the lawyer in hell?"

"I don't think so. When Banda dies, the dog gets to go free."

Mickey grinned. It was really a nice grin. I smiled back.

Then I stumbled into my room and fell onto the bed and into sleep.

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In the morning, I returned toMexico City with only a short pause to lay some plans and then say

good-bye to Mickey and his aunt. Mickey was grinning again, though this time there may have been more

malice in it than the night before.

It was pretty early, but I managed to call Banda's office and get an appointment through his secretary. If

he skipped out on me, I would hunt him down.

But he didn't. He was there when I arrived, even if he seemed a little puzzled about my appearance in his

office. With a dog.

He looked at the strange dog and frowned. "Did you pick up a stray inOaxaca ?"

"No. Don't you recognize this dog, Mr. Banda? A former cli-ent of yours was sure you would."

Iko began to growl like he had at the airport and stalked to-ward the desk. Banda stood up, looking

nervous. "I think you should call off your dog."

"He's really not mine," I said, closing the door behind me. "If you take a good look at him, I think you

might recognize him. He's Maria-Luz's dog. And Hector Purecete's. Who used to be Estancio Rivera.

You know: the guy your partner tried to kill by sinking the Dulcia."

"I think you should be more careful what you say, Miss Blaine. That's slander." He didn't look at me, just

at the dog. The dog his secretary hadn't noticed. Nor anyone else we passed on the street or at the

airport.

"Truth is a complete defense, I'm told. And the insurance company was never that convinced it was an

accident," I replied. "But you know that. Because you helped cover it up. And still are. Which is how a

guy in a two-man office can afford to fly toNew York to watch the Yankees all season, every season.

Because you steal, and you blackmail, and you pay people off. Like you paid off the guy at customs to

break the dog so I'd go home. Didn't you?"

He was backing up as Iko kept coming, inexorable as death.

"Don't know what you're talking about. ..."

"Oh, yeah, you do. And so do the federal investigators who drop in to chat with you once in a while, and

the petty officials, and everyone else you pay off so they won't pull your license and throw you in jail to

rot. There's a long list of your transgressions if you know where to look. Like I do."

"What the hell do you want, Miss Blaine? I'm sure we can settle up and go our ways. You and your

dog," he added, as if he'd like to spit, but didn't dare. He was sweating and turning pale. "Will you be

happy if I admit I paid to have the dog broken? Is that it?"

"No. I do like hearing you say so, but it's not enough. What will make me happy is if you were to

suddenly remember Miss Arbildo's amended will. The one where she leaves everything to the families of

the sailors who died on the Dulcia."

"There's no such will!"

"There was."

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"No, there wasn't! Just the ones I showed you. Whose word are you taking? Mine or some ... informant

living in the hills?"

I walked closer to him. Iko had backed him to the wall. "I am taking Maria-Luz's word for it. And in a

few minutes, I'll take yours, because I think you'll want to make a clean breast of the whole thing."

"You're crazy! Just as crazy as she was."

I gave him a cold look. "Iko, rip his throat out."

The little dog let out a banshee howl and leapt for Banda's chest.

Banda screamed, and tried to cover his face and neck with his hands, falling over his desk chair as he

flailed at the ghost dog.

The secretary pounded on the door, yelling.

I stuck my head out. "He fell. He's OK," I added, pointing to the thrashing man on the floor. "Or not." I

shrugged.

The secretary stared at her boss, shrieking and writhing on the floor, and backed away muttering about

the police and the doctors. I wasn't too worried. They wouldn't find a scratch on him.

Iko was biting savagely at Banda, who seemed to be feeling every snap of the little dog's incorporeal

jaws. I have to hand it to Mickey and Maria-Luz: they did fine work. Iko was only "alive" to the man

whose life he was tied to: Banda.

"Iko," I called. "Get off that piece of trash." I clapped my hands for the ghost dog's attention. "Iko!"

Reluctantly, the dog jumped to the ground and stood on stiff legs in front of the lawyer, growling. Banda

dragged himself up the wall, panting and shaking. He stared at the apparition with horror.

"Wha—what... is that?"

"It's retribution, Mr. Banda. That is Iko. He was on board the Dulcia when it sank. But Hector Purecete

saved him. I don't think there's ever been a dog in this world—or the next—who hates you the way this

one does. And he's all yours."

I elbowed him sharply in the gut and he gasped. I pushed the bundle of hair into his mouth and shoved

his jaw shut. Convul-sively, he swallowed.

Then he gagged for a moment, staring at me, until he caught his breath again.

"Jesus. What wasthat?"

"It's Iko. It's the little bit of magic that was in the dog you were so scared of. And now it's yours. For the

rest of your life. And maybe a little longer."

He ran for his washroom and tried to throw up, but there was nothing to toss. He shook and prayed and

babbled for a moment as Iko circled him, hackles raised and teeth bared.

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"Payback's a bitch, isn't it?"

He glared at me as a renewed pounding started on the door. I backed up and leaned against it. "You

want to talk to these guys or do you want to get out of this mess?" I asked.

"I want to get the hell rid of you. And your damned dog!"

"Your damned dog, now, Banda. But I can tell you how to get rid of him. If you do what I want."

"I'll have you arrested," he growled, rubbing his throat as he staggered out of the washroom.

"Oh, come on. You know my lawyer. You think that's going to fly? And if you think you can arrange an

accident for me like Ji-menez did for Purecete, consider that you currently have a dead dog waiting for a

word from me to start biting the living hell out of you. It won't kill you. But I'd bet you'll wish it would.

Whoever is on the other side of this door is going to think you've gone insane when they see you rolling

on the floor with an invisible dog. Because only you and I can see Iko."

If hate were a living thing it would have leapt for my throat from his eyes. "Saiga!" he shouted at the

door. "Salga! Estoy bien!"

The knocking died away.

"What. Do you want?"

"Ms. Arbildo's real will. I want it registered and entered for probate, or whatever you need to do to

execute it. Today."

"I don't have it," he spat. "It's gone. I burned it!"

"Then forge it. Like you forged the ones you showed me be fore. The estate is to be divided among the families of the crewof the Dulcia."

"There is no estate to divide! Don't you get it, estupida gringa? It's all gone. The estate is bankrupt. The

money is gone!"

"You told me Maria-Luz was loaded. That thirty thousandU.S. was a 'drop in the bucket.' And it didn't

disappear until you were the sole controller. So you can un-bankrupt it the same way you broke it in the

first place, Banda. And if you don't, you won't just have an angry ghost dog on your ass. Because even

you and your dead partner and your cheap secretary can't possibly have blown that much money, and

certainly not without leaving a trail wide enough to march the Mexican army down. So, you still have it.

Which means it can be returned to its rightful owners."

He glowered.

"Iko," I said.

He threw himself into his chair, saying, "No, no! Please." He snatched his keyboard and began to type.

I came and stood over his shoulder, watching, while Iko growled nonstop. I looked the finished

document over.

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"That's pretty good, Banda. I see you'll still be able to feather your own nest, if less regally than before,"

I added, glancing around his very nice office.

He muttered under his breath.

"Knock it off. You lost. Man up and live with it."

I hung around while he finished up, printed the forms, forged the signatures, and got warily to his feet,

eyeing the threatening little hound that dogged him unceasingly. Stifling his fury, he led me on a long

damned walk around downtownMexico City to register the will and rescind the previous one.

Just outside of the courts building he stopped and turned back tome.“Satisfied?"

"Mostly. But I know you can walk right back in there and pull that paperwork by saying you were

coerced. But this is the thing you need to remember, Banda: the dog is forever. And once I'm gone,

you're not off the hook, because there is someone inOaxaca who knows all about the will, the Dulcia, the

dog, and all the

rest."

"Another of your ghosts?"

I laughed. "Oh, no. A very real, solid, living person. I know you can find out who it is, but don't be

hasty. Remember I said there was a way to get rid of the dog?"

"Yes," he snapped.

"That person knows how to set you free. But they won't if you screw over the survivors of the Dulcia's

crew. And they can't if you decide to kill them. That person—and powerful friends—will be keeping an

eye on you. If that person dies, or if that person chooses not to help you, you and Iko get to spend this

life to-gether, and the next one and the next one, until there is no one left on the planet who remembers

you, or the dog. Until the third death."

He howled and threw himself at me. I just stepped back as Iko lunged.

I walked to the edge of the plaza and flagged a cab, ignoring the crowd that had gathered around the

convulsing, screaming man on the ground. "Airport," I said, turning on my cell phone.

I waited for an answer to my call and finally someone picked up. "Villaflores . . ."

"Hey, brat-boy. It's the GP. It's done."

He laughed. "I'll be on the next flight. Don't want Iko to have to chew on that lawyer for too long."

"Yeah, poor, faithful Iko."

It's rare for Justice and Vengeance to stand in the same place, but I thought this time, maybe they would.

At least for a while. Until the will was executed and Banda's embezzlements were re-stored to the proper

owners. I hadn't told Banda the truth, but that wasn't bothering me too much. Whether he lived with Iko

for a day or a lifetime, whether anyone remembered Banda or gave a damn in a year's time or thirty,

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there was at least one thing that made me smile: it would be a long time before the third death of the little

clay dog.

NOAH'S ORPHANS –

Thomas E. Sniegoski

ONE

Remy knew it wasn't real, the product of some strange, dreamlike state, but he didn't mind in the least.

See-ing her this way—it was almost as if she were still with him.

Almost as if she were still alive.

She had called to him from inside theirMaine summer home, and he'd gone to her, climbing up the stairs

to the second floor. Standing in the doorway to one of the spare rooms, he watched her.

Her back was to him as she looked out one of the open windows onto the expanse of backyard,

verdant with grass that would need a lawn mower's attention sooner rather than later. She was wearing a

white cotton dress that billowed and moved in the warm summer breeze coming in through the window.

And as he silently stared from the doorway, he was re-minded of how much he loved her, and how

incomplete he would be without her, “Remy, " she called out again. He answered, startling her. She

laughed that amazing laugh, and turned to face him.

"There you are," she said, eyes twinkling brighter than the high-est spires of Heaven.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." He stepped into the

room.

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"No fear," she said with a slight shake of her head as she reached

out to take his hand.

Deep down he knew that this was all wrong, that Madeline had passed away three long weeks ago from

cancer, but he couldn't help it, eagerly wrapping himself in the warmth of a lie.

Her hand was cold and wet and he was about to ask if every-thing was all right, when he realized how

dark it had become in

the room.

Black, like the inside of a cave.

And from outside he heard the sound of heavy rain.

A dog barking pulled Remy from his fantasy, and he left his wife, the darkness, and the rain to find

himself sitting on the porch of the summer home, now in the grip of winter.

It was snowing, and the wind had carried the fluffy white stuff up onto the porch. It had even collected

on him as he had sat unmoving. Remy brushed the snow from his arms and the top of his head and

Marlowe barked again for his attention.

"Hey," Remy said. "Sorry about that, must've dozed off." "No sleep, " the black Labrador retriever said,

reminding him that angels did not sleep.

Angels of the heavenly host Seraphim were not supposed to have human wives, summer cottages

inMaine , or work as private investigators, either. But he did.

"I know, but I was dreaming," he said, remembering his wife's beautiful face and how the sudden

darkness had tried to claim it.

"Rabbits?"the dog asked.

"No rabbits," Remy said. Snow had accumulated on the dog's shiny black coat and Remy started to

brush it away. "Madeline."

Marlowe lowered his gaze. "Miss, " he grumbled in his canine tongue.

As a member of God's heavenly host, Remy was able to under-stand the myriad languages of every

living thing on Earth. But even if he could not, there was no mistaking how the animal was feeling, for

Remy felt the very same way.

"I miss her, too," he said, reaching down to rub behind one of Marlowe's velvety-soft ears.

Since Madeline's passing, Remy and Marlowe had felt more than a bit lost. Remy had hoped a trip to

the house inMaine might have been good for them both, a change of scenery. A needed distraction.

He took a deep breath and gazed out over the porch rail at the falling snow. "I'm not sure how great this

idea was," he said and sighed.

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It had been spring the last time they'd come, before everything had been thrown on its ear.

Before the cancer.

They'd had a wonderful weekend, taking the day off from the office and driving up early Thursday

afternoon. He'd felt some-thing special even then, remembering how he'd experienced a weird kind of

euphoria as he'd gotten out of the car and hauled their bags from the trunk.

Madeline had already gone inside, leaving the door to their getaway wideopen. And as he had climbed

the stairs to the front porch, watching his wife move about, pulling up shades and open-ing windows to

air away the winter staleness, Remy had experi-enced a moment of perfect contentment.

This was what he had been waiting over a millennium for.

It wasn't as though he hadn't been happy until then. He'd been on the earth for hundreds of thousands of

years, and there had certainly been moments of happiness, but right then and there, at that specific

moment, Remy Chandler was fulfilled.

Since leaving Heaven after the Great War against the Morningstar, he'd been searching for something.

He'd always known he would find it on the Almighty's greatest experiment, among His most complex

creations.

And he did—it had just taken a little while.

It had all started to fall into place when he'd made the decision to live as a human. Suppressing his

angelic nature, Remy had walked among them—learning from them—trying so desperately to be one of

them.

But it had taken a purpose, a job, to finally set him on the right path. Choosing the name Remy

Chandler, the angel Remiel now worked as a private investigator, and had at last found what he had been

searching for. The job allowed him to see every facet of humanity, the depravity, the cruelty, the

kindness, the passion. It allowed him to observe and to learn from them, and for three hundred dollars a

day plus expenses, he helped them.

He'd been around humans for what seemed like forever, but they still had so much to teach him. And

that was never more obvious than when he had first met the woman who would even-tually become his

wife.

Madeline.

She'd shown him what it truly meant to be human. She be came the anchor that allowed him to keep the nature of the di-vine being he truly was at bay. After all he

had lost in the Great War, Madeline had become his island. She had become his Heaven.

Now she was gone, and he feared that the skin of his humanity would begin to slip away, to slough off

like that of a reptile, re-vealing what he had always been beneath.

"We could have stayed inBoston and been just as miserable," he said to his companion while rubbing the

top of the dog's blocky head.

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And as if in response, the wind picked up, blowing snow across the porch, showing that the harshNew

England season still had plenty of bite left.

Marlowe turned his nose into the breeze. "Cold, " he said softly, but loud enough for Remy to hear.

"Is it?" Remy answered, not having allowed himself to feel much of anything since his wife had died.

TheLabrador placed his face in Remy's lap.

Marlowe's pack was now incomplete, and Remy could only imagine how difficult it was for him to

understand that Madeline wasn't coming home. It was like attempting to explain the concept of death to a

very young child.

"Sad," the dog said, and it just about broke Remy's heart.

"I know, I'm sad, too." He bent forward to whisper softly, lov-ingly, into the animal's ear. "What would

make you happy?"

"Madeline come back?"Marlowe lifted his head excitedly. His ears perked up, and his thick tail wagged

so hard that Remy thought for sure the dog would topple over.

"No, Madeline can't come back."

He remembered the strange experience he'd just had, and the feeling of his wife's hand in his. It was

almost as if she had been with him again.

He kissed the bony top of the dog's hard head. "I wish she could, but she can't. Is there anything else

that would make you happy?" Remy asked his four-legged friend.

Marlowe thought for a moment. "Pig's ear, " he said, an excited little tremor in his voice.

"A pig's ear?" Remy asked, pretending to be surprised. "That's just gross."

"Pig's ear good," the dog answered. His muscular tail continued to wag.

"Y'think?" Remy wrinkled his nose in an expression of dis-taste.

"Yes!"Marlowe barked, stepping back, at full attention now.

"All right, then." Remy pushed himself up from the chair. "Let's go get you a ..."

He sensed it at pretty much the same time that Marlowe did, and the promise of a pig's ear was

momentarily forgotten.

Marlowe started to growl, low and rumbling, the thick black fur around his neck and above his tail rising

in caution.

Remy walked across the porch to the top of the stairs. He looked out at the woods surrounding the

property, the cold wind causing the little vegetation that was able to survive the winter to sway and rustle.

In spite of how it looked, he knew that they were no longer alone.

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There was a disturbance in the air near the driveway and Remy watched as a human figure gradually

materialized in a walk to-ward them.

The male figure was tall, dressed in a finely tailored gray suit, but wasn't a man.

Marlowe was by Remy's side now, barking crazily.

"Quiet," he ordered. "It's all right."

"Greetings, Remiel," the angel Sariel said with the slightest hint of a bow. The angel was tall, his features

pale and perfect, as if sculpted by a master from the finest Italian marble. He adjusted the sleeves of his

suit jacket as he looked around him.

Sariel was the leader of a host of angels called the Grigori, messengers sent by Heaven in the earliest

days of humanity to guide God's latest creations. They had became corrupted by the early decadence of

man, and soon found themselves on the receiv-ing end of the Lord's wrath.

The Grigori had been robbed of their wings and banished to Earth, there to await the Almighty's

forgiveness before being al-lowed to once more pass through the gates of Heaven.

Sariel and his brothers had been waiting for a very long time.

"What can I do for you?" Remy asked the angel.

Marlowe continued to growl, his eyes locked upon the im-maculately dressed angel standing in the

snow-covered pathway leading up to the house.

"Is this where you've come to mourn?" Sariel asked.

"Excuse me?" Remy felt his anger begin to rise.

"I heard about your mate's passing," the Grigori leader stated flatly. "And I wonder if this is where you've

come to mourn your loss?"

The dog was becoming extremely upset, and Remy reached over to place a calming hand atop his head.

"Shhhhhhhhh, now," Remy said, hoping to quiet his own growing anger as well.

"This is a private place," Remy told the angel. "Which poses the question of how you've come to find me

here." "Forgive the intrusion," Sariel said without an ounce of sin-cerity.

It was very difficult for Sariel to even pretend to understand what it was like to be human. The Grigori,

and many of the other angelic beings that had come to walk the Earth, viewed the human race as just one

more example of the myriad animal species that existed upon the surface of the world, refusing to

acknowledge how special they truly were.

Refusing to acknowledge that they had been touched by God.

Remy was a rarity among heavenly beings, one who actually embraced humanity and strived to be a part

of it.

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"I do not wish to intrude upon your bereavement, but a matter of grave importance has arisen since last

we saw one another," Sariel continued.

Just three weeks ago, the Grigori had helped Remy to avert the Apocalypse. Although their motive was

selfish—for their fate if the world should die was uncertain at best—Sariel had gathered his Grigori

brothers to help Remy prevent the release of the Four Horsemen.

"A matter of grave importance," Remy repeated. "Seems to be quite a bit of that going around these

days."

Sariel stared, not understanding Remy's sarcasm.

"Why are you here, Sariel?" Remy asked, not even trying to hide his exasperation.

"The old man is dead," he replied.

"The old man ... who ... what old man?" Remy was confused, but then it dawned on him, the connection

with the Grigori.

The old man.

"Noah?" Remy asked. "Noah is dead? How?"

Sariel adjusted his suit jacket, again tugging on his sleeves.

The cruel winter wind blew again, and with the chilling breeze came a taint of change in the air. A taint of

something menacing. "He was murdered, Remiel," Sariel said. "The ark builder was

murdered.“Before the Flood

Unbeknownst to them, Remiel watched as they toiled, building the great wooden craft. Day after day he

observed the old man, Noah, and his sons work on what gradually took the form of an enor-mous,

roofed ship.

An ark.

Remiel had not been on the world of man for long, and he knew there was much still to explore, but he

found that he could not leave.

The angel was fascinated, that fascination becoming even more pronounced when, in the early hours

before dawn, he watched the old man approach the enormous vessel and begin to paint the magickal

sigils upon its hull.

Unable to contain his curiosity, Remiel drew closer. He al-lowed himself to be seen, approaching the old

man as he wrote with crimson fingers upon the hull of the great wooden craft.

"What are you doing?" Remiel asked, studying the marks, feeling the arcane energies radiating from the

strange symbols of power.

"You startled me," Noah said, and Remiel felt the man's an-cient eyes scrutinizing him, peeling away the

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deception that he was but a nomad from the desert.

That he was but a man.

Noah dropped to his knees, and immediately averted his eyes.

"Messenger of Heaven, I have done as He has asked of me. All nears readiness," the old man

professed. "As soon as I have com-pleted the symbols, we will be ready to accept the beasts of the

land."

"You mistake me for someone else, old father," Remiel said, reaching down to take the man's hand and

pull him to his feet.

"Are you not one of His winged children?" Noah asked.

Remiel's suspicions were correct, the old man could see through his disguise.

"You can see me?" he asked.

Noah slowly nodded.

Truly this human has been touched by God,the angel thought.

Remiel's attention returned to the ark and the sigils that the old man was painting on its surface.

"These are powerful magicks you play with," he said as he brought his hand close to one, feeling the

energy emanating from it. "And did the Almighty bestow this knowledge upon you, as well, as the gift of

sight?"

The old man dipped his fingers into the wooden bowl of bloodred paint and began to draw upon the ark

again.

"As your brethren have brought me this most holy mission, they have also delivered unto me the means

to achieve this enor-mous task," Noah went on, the symbols of power leaving his fin-gers in strange

patterns of scarlet.

TWO

"My brethren," Remiel repeated thoughtfully. "Why do you do this?" he asked. He walked around to

what would be the bow of the great ship. "Why have you built such a craft?"

"You test me, angel," the old man said, furiously painting. "A great storm is coming."

"A storm?" Remiel asked. He spread his wings, and floated gracefully into the air to inspect the great

ship further. The magick had begun to work upon the craft. The angel flew closer to an open passage

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leading deep into the bowels of the ship. The darkness was limitless—the space within the belly of the

ark endless.

"It is a storm to wash away that which offends Him," Noah said as the angel returned to his side.

"And the ship?" Remiel questioned, folding his powerful wings behind him.

"It is needed to hold all life that has been deemed worthy to survive," Noah said. "The beasts of the land,

no matter how large or small; it is my task to be certain that they live. As they are the Lord's children, so

are they mine."

Remiel was fascinated. Had this old man actually received a message from the Lord of Lords, telling him

of an approaching cataclysm? Did the Almighty truly intend to wash away His own creations?

He had known his Creator as a being of intense emotions. But he questioned the notion that the Almighty

could be capable of destroying what He had once been so proud of, what had been the primary reason

for the Great War against the forces of the Morningstar.

Remiel pondered this quandary for many days and nights, all the while watching Noah as he and his

family performed the tasks supposedly assigned by God.

Eventually, the skies grew dark and pregnant with storm.

Remiel observed the beasts, deemed worthy, herded aboard the great ark. It was the magick that called

to them, drawing them to the place that would be their sanctuary against the coming doom. It seemed not

to matter how many there were, the belly of Noah's craft welcomed them all and gave them safety.

It took seven days for Noah and his sons to complete their miraculous task, and when the last of the

animals was finally herded aboard, there was the most awesome of sounds from the sky, a clap of

thunder like nothing Remiel had ever heard before.

A sound that signaled the beginning of the end.

And then the rains began.

It was a terrible rain, the water falling so quickly, the wind blowing so fiercely, that it soon began to

obscure the land. A great and terrible hand in the form of a storm had descended upon the world, to

wipe away its imperfections.

Remiel stood at the foot of the gangplank used by the beasts to climb to safety aboard Noah's ark, and

looked out into the storm. From the corner of his eye, he thought he'd seen some-thing. Peering intently

through the torrential downpour, he scanned what little was left of the land until he found them. Hooded

shapes, their skin the color of dusk, standing perfectly still in front of the caves that spotted the hills, as

the rain fell around them and the waters rose.

Within moments they were gone, swallowed up by the deluge.

Remiel turned to board the craft, and came face-to-face with one of his own.

The angel Sariel stood with his Grigori brethren. One by one they climbed the ramp to board the ark.

Remiel was surprised to see that they had been found worthy. Soon only he and the Grigori leader stood

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upon the gangplank.

"Did you see them?" Remiel asked above the howling storm.

Sariel did not answer. Instead he turned and began the climb to board the ark.

Remiel grabbed hold of the departing Grigori's arm.

"I asked you a question," he said sternly turning his gaze to-ward the now-empty hills.

"His will be done," Sariel said, pulling his arm away.

And the rain continued to fall. Ancient teachings said it lasted for forty days and forty nights, but the

angel Remiel recalled that it took far less time than that to drown the world.

THREE

Remy left the ancient memories behind, returning to the here and now. "Murdered?" he asked. "How do

you know?"

"I saw it," Sariel said, stepping closer to the porch.

Marlowe started to growl again. The Grigori leader stared at theLabrador with cold, unfeeling eyes.

"I know murder when I see it."

Remy was about to ask more questions, but stopped. No, hetold himself. This time I will have nothing

to do with their affairs.

The affairs of angels.

"I'm sorry," he said, slowly turning his back and walking to-ward the door. "C'mon, Marlowe."

"Where are you going?" Sariel asked from the foot of the porch steps.

"I'm going inside," Remy replied. "To get away from you."

"I don't understand," the Grigori leader stated.

"I'm through with this." Remy stood in front of the door, but turned slightly to address Sariel again. "I'm

done with all of it... with murder, floods, apocalypses and angels. Just leave me

alone."

He opened the screen door and then the door behind it, letting

Marlowe inside first.

"You're not human," Sariel called out after him. "No matter how hard you try or how much you pretend,

you will never be anything more or less than what you are.

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"One of the patriarchs of humanity has been slain," Sariel con-tinued when Remy didn't respond. "I

thought this is what you do, Remy Chandler," the Grigori leader taunted. "I thought this is what you play

at while living among them."

Remy remained silent, stepping into the cottage and closing

the door behind him.

Marlowe waited on the rug just inside the door, square head

cocked inquisitively.

"Okay?"theLabrador asked.

"Fine," Remy answered. "Why don't we see about getting you

some supper?"

The dog bounded toward the kitchen, and Remy chanced a quick look through the sheer curtain over

the window in the

door.

Sariel was gone.

Remy decided that he'd had more than enough distrac-tion. Marlowe didn't mind; it was pretty much all

the same to him. As long as he was fed and got his regular walks, he could have been on the surface of

the moon for all he cared.

It didn't take him long to pack into a shopping bag what little he had brought up with him. Deep down

Remy had always known that he wouldn't be staying long. This was a special place he had shared with

Madeline, their place to get away from it all and enjoy each other, and now it only served to remind him

that that life was over. Madeline was gone.

Remy stood in the entry with Marlowe beside him, nose pressed to the front door. He took a long look

around. He wasn't sure when he'd be back, and for a moment he just wanted to savor the mem-ories of

her. When he did return, would they still be so strong?

He could see her washing their dinner dishes at the sink in the kitchen down the hall. He'd often used that

time to take the car to the tiny general store five miles down the road to buy ice cream for dessert.

"Going?"Marlowe interrupted.

"Yeah, we're going." Remy turned away from the memory and opened the door to the winter night.

The snow had slowed, leaving behind two inches or so of the fluffy stuff.

Except for the patch of ground where Sariel had been standing.

Marlowe bounded down the steps, happily frolicking in the snow, snapping at the featherlike flakes that

still drifted in the air.

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Remy stood over the barren spot. He reached out, passing his hand through the air above it. There was

most certainly a distur-bance there, the residual effects of angel magick.

He started to think of Sariel, and the disturbing news that he had delivered, but quickly pushed it from

his mind. This time, he wasn't going to get involved.

Continuing on to the car, he called out for Marlowe, who had gone into the woods to relieve himself.

"Let's go," he said, brush-ing the snow from his windshield.

Marlowe came frantically running.

"Leave me?"the dog asked, standing by the rear driver's-side door.

"I'd never leave you," Remy reassured him as he opened the door, allowing the dog to hop inside.

"Never leave," the dog repeated, settling into his place in the backseat.

The ride back toBoston was uneventful; the snow eventually turned to rain as Marlowe's snores wafted

up from the backseat

of the Corolla, and the talk radio hosts, enamored with the sounds of their own voices, rambled on

about the topics of the day.

It was after midnight by the time they returned to Beacon Hill, but the gods of parking had decided to

smile on Remy, blessing him with a parking space near the State House, only a couple of blocks from

home.

"Home?"Marlowe asked, suddenly awake and sitting up, his black nose twitching in the air.

"Home," Remy affirmed. He got out of the car and opened the back door for the dog on his way to the

trunk.

"Get on the sidewalk," Remy ordered, as he removed their one bag.

The dog trotted over to a light post and lifted his leg.

Remy waited until he had finished. "Empty?" he asked.

"Empty," the dog repeated, joining his master as they began their trek to Remy's brownstone onPinckney

Street .

It was quiet on the Hill, the rain and damp cold keeping any-one with an ounce of common sense inside.

Marlowe darted from lamppost to lamppost, lifting his leg and proving that he was a liar.

They reached the brownstone and Remy used his key to open the front door. The dog bounded into the

foyer, and pressed his nose to the bottom of the inner door. Remy barely managed to get the door open

as Marlowe pushed his way inside, nose to the floor, on the trail of a particular scent.

Remy walked down the small hall to the kitchen and set the bag down atop the counter. He saw that the

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mail had been left on the table and he wondered when Ashley, Marlowe's frequent babysitter, had been

by.

"She's not here," Remy called out, knowing who Marlowe was searching for. He removed his leather

jacket and hung it in the hall closet. "She probably stopped in just long enough to drop off the mail and ..

." He stopped and turned.

Sariel was sitting in the living room; Marlowe, standing per-fectly still and silent before him, had his eyes

fixed upon the in-truder.

The angel held one of Remy's favorite pictures. It was of Mad-eline when she was a little girl. She sat

atop a pony, wearing a cowboy hat, and smiling that same stunning smile he had fallen in love with.

Her secret weapon, he used to call it.

"So full of life and promise," the angel said, tapping the photo with his manicured fingertips. "But it's all so

fleeting for them."

"How dare you," Remy began, feeling his anger surge and the angelic nature he worked so hard to

contain setting his blood afire.

"Bite him," Marlowe growled, his jowls twitching and revealing his yellowed canine teeth.

"No," Remy ordered, managing to get his own fury in check. He snatched the frame from the Grigori

leader's hand. "You have no right to be here." He returned the picture to its place on the television stand,

then turned to confront the angel. "I want you to leave," Remy told him, speaking in the language of their

kind ... the language of the Messengers.

Sariel stood, adjusting his suit coat. "I'm not leaving with-out you."

Remy glared, feeling an unnatural heat start to burn behind his eyes.

"I don't think you understand," he said, stepping menacingly toward the Grigori.

Sariel shook his head. "No, it is you who does not under-stand."

The angel suddenly reached out and grabbed hold of Remy's arm. He could feel the power in the grip,

the angel magick flow-ing from Sariel into him.

Marlowe began to bark wildly as a pool of shadow expanded beneath them and the two angels

dropped.

Swallowed by the darkness.

FIVE

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They emerged in the middle of a storm. The wind roared like some angry beast as it tried to rip them

from their purchase on the hard, con-crete surface. And if it could not succeed with its bestial strength, it

would try to destroy them with the ferocity of its tears, as each drop of rain struck their exposed flesh like

the sting of a wasp.

Remy raised a hand to shield his eyes from the savagery of the cold, whipping rain, and quickly looked

about. From the comfort-ing warmth of hisBeacon Hill home to this; where had Sariel brought him?

It didn't take him long to realize that they weren't on land at all. They were in the middle of the ocean; an

undulating mass of white-capped gray swirled all around. His eyes darted about, tak-ing it all in: heavy

machinery and equipment, and a familiar cor-porate symbol, faded on the side of a forklift chained to the

concrete so as not to be picked up by the wind and carried away.

An oil rig; they were on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean.

Remy looked at Sariel, who stood silently beside him. The rain pelted the angel's pale features, leaving

traces of red on his face where it stung him.

The Grigori leader turned away from Remy, fighting the wind as he began to move toward a large boxy

structure rising up from the platform.

Remy had no choice but to follow, struggling against the storm that seemed to grow even more agitated

now that they were mov-ing, as if it were angry that they would even think they could escape it. He

followed Sariel toward the square building, and up multiple flights of rain-slicked metal steps to a heavy

metal door with the words "Level One" stenciled on it in white paint.

The Grigori leader pulled open the door, fighting the wind as it attempted to tear it from his grasp. Remy

reached out, helping to hold it open as the two of them beat the fury of the ocean storm and made their

way inside.

"I should kill you for this," Remy snarled as he caught his breath in the shelter of the dark corridor. He

could still hear the storm outside. Its rage was muffled by the shelter of their new surroundings, but it was

still out there and still very angry.

"Perhaps you should," Sariel said, disregarding Remy's threat and heading down the corridor, past large

glass windows that looked into empty office space. "Then again, you may want to wait and see why it is

that I felt the need to resort to such desper-ate measures to bring you here."

Remy remained quiet, the anger inside him churning like the storm outside. He followed the Grigori to

another flight of metal stairs and the two began to climb.

"What is this place?" he asked.

"Besides an abandoned oil rig in the middle of theSouth China Sea ?" Sariel asked. "This is his home.

Noah's home." "He traded in his ark for an oil rig?" Remy said, still climbing and starting to wonder how

many floors the structure had.

They reached what seemed to be the final level; the floor was lit in the sickly yellow of emergency lights,

and shadow.

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"Crammed on a ship with your entire family and almost every conceivable animal for an extended period

of time can have a lasting effect," the Grigori said, before proceeding down the cor-ridor.

Remy noticed that up here he could barely hear the storm. He doubted that it had subsided, and

considered then that this level had been considerably soundproofed.

Sariel had reached the end of the dimly lit length of hall and now stood before a closed door. "In here,"

he said, not even both-ering to knock as he opened it and walked inside.

Strains of classical music wafted out into the hall. It was Ber-lioz, his Symphonie Fantastique. It had

been one of Madeline's fa-vorite pieces. Remy flashed back to lazy summer mornings, windows open

wide in their kitchen as they drank cup after cup of coffee while reading the Sunday Globe, the

Symphonie Fantastique the morning's soundtrack.

Remy couldn't have been further from that moment.

"In here," he heard Sariel call out.

It was dark inside the room, except for a beam of light flashing on a screen that hung from the ceiling. A

slide projector whirred at the opposite end of the room, its fan humming to cool its inner workings as the

next slide in the carousel dropped into place.

Remy stood in darkness as the image of a bird appeared on the screen. There was nothing special about

it; it was only a bird. That slide was then replaced by the image of a frog with beautiful blue skin.

Shielding his eyes from the harshness of the projector beam, Remy searched for Sariel and found him in

the far corner of the room. He was standing beside the desk. The slide projector rested on it.

"Sariel?" Remy asked quietly, crossing the room toward him.

The room itself was in a shambles. Papers and books were scattered about as if the storm outside had

touched down in the cramped confines of the office.

Sariel remained silent, unmoving, his gaze fixed to something on the floor behind the desk.

Another slide fell into place as Remy approached. Stacks of the plastic carousels littered the top of the

desk, all of them loaded with slides. Remy peered over the clutter to find what he had expected.

Noah lay on the floor on his back, his ancient eyes swollen to slits, gazing up, unseeing, at the ceiling.

The old man's face was badly bruised, as was his neck. Twin trails of blood from his dam-aged lips dried

in the silver-gray hairs of his beard.

He didn't look much different than he had that day so long ago when Remy had watched him paint the

mystic sigils on the ark. The only difference was that he was dressed in brown corduroy trousers and a

heavy fisherman's sweater.

And he was dead.

It had been quite a few centuries since Remy had come face-to-face with the old man who had come to

use the name Noah Driscoll. He'd read about him from time to time, about how he'd made his fortune as

a shipping magnate before turning to oil. How the family business had been handed down through the

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gen-erations, father to son. But in truth, it was Noah, assuming a new identity every few decades. God's

touch had a tendency to considerably increase the life-span of a human, and for Noah, that had most

certainly been the case.

"He was afraid that this might happen," Sariel said.

Another slide was projected onto the screen. Remy glanced in that direction to see a photo of some kind

of worm, writhing in a patch of overturned earth.

"Maybe you should tell me what you know," Remy said, the words leaving his mouth before he had the

opportunity to catch them. It was happening again, as it always did; he was inexorably pulled into the

matters of the divine.

"Over the centuries he'd become obsessed," Sariel started to explain, his eyes still locked upon the

battered corpse. "Fixated on the mission that God had given to him."

Another slide was projected onto the screen, and they both looked toward it—a bear in a tree, looking

as though it had actu-ally posed for the shot.

"They say he had millions of these," Sariel stated.

The bear was replaced by some kind of bright green insect.

"Photos of all the beasts that he was responsible for saving, as well as those that evolved from them."

A monkey with a strange, beaklike nose.

"But his obsession eventually took a turn down a truly disturb-ing path," the Grigori continued.

Remy looked away from a dolphin leaping happily in the ocean waves.

"Disturbing how?"

"He became obsessed with the things he was not able to save," Sariel explained. "The things that God

had deemed unworthy; the things that were destined to die beneath the waters of the Great Flood."

Remy had never really understood why the Lord God had decided to wipe clean the slate and start

again. It was almost as if He'd realized He'd made some sort of mistake, and had wanted it done away

with before anyone could notice.

Whatever the reason, the Almighty had seen fit to destroy the planet, and use the beasts chosen to

survive as the seeds of a sec-ond generation of life in the world.

"What kinds of things?" Remy asked, his curiosity piqued.

The slide carousel clicked past the image of a female tiger and her cubs, and the room suddenly

brightened as the light of the projector reflected off of the whiteness of the screen. It continued to click

away, though the remainder of the tray was empty.

"He called them his orphans," Sariel said with a sad laugh.

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"Noah's orphans."

SIX

Sariel was about to continue when he suddenly turned toward the door. "We're not alone," he snarled,

and before Remy could react, Sariel had traversed half the room with one powerful leap.

Shadows shifted in the doorway, someone fleeing now that they had been discovered.

Remy followed the Grigori in a run, catching a glimpse of the fallen angel as he darted around a corner in

pursuit of his prey.

The rig was a maze of winding corridors, eventually coming to a stop at a set of swinging doors.

Cautiously, Remy pushed one open.

Inside was a large storage space the size of a warehouse. Ordi-narily it probably housed the supplies

needed to keep a rig this size in working order, but now the space was nearly empty. A few crates and

pallets of machine parts were stacked about the poorly

lit room. But by the looks of them, they had sat there, unused, for quite some time.

Remy listened for a sign as to where Sariel had gone, but all he could hear was the wailing of the storm

outside, eager to come in.

"Remy," a voice suddenly whispered from somewhere in the shadows.

His heart fluttered as he looked around. He knew that voice, and had to wonder if he'd somehow

slipped into another of the bizarre, dreamlike states he'd experienced while at the house inMaine .

He blinked his eyes and shook his head. Had the chamber become darker? A damp chill seemed to be

emanating from the encroaching shadows.

"Remy, I have something to show you," said the voice of his wife,and he found that he couldn't move,

standing perfectly still, wait-ing for her to come to him.

And she did, slowly emerging from the sea of black, still wearing her flowing summer dress. She smiled

as she reached for him.

Remy closed his eyes and did the unthinkable. He wished the vision of her away.

Madeline's hand was deathly cold as it snaked into his, and he started at her chilling touch. Opening his

eyes, he stared into hers, feeling himself drawn into their depths.

But there was something wrong. How many times had he looked into Madeline's eyes, lost in the love

that he found there? These were not those eyes, and Remy fought to be free of them.

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As much as it pained him, he spoke the words as he tried to pull his hand from hers. "You're not her.”

But the woman that appeared as his wife held fast, refusing to let him go.

"No," she said plaintively. "Please, don't pull away. I have some-thing to show you. "

The desperate look on her familiar features rendered him powerless and he allowed her to pull his hand

closer.

"A gift of our union,"she said, and placed his hand upon the warmth of her stomach.

Remy stumbled back with a gasp, dispelling the eerily real vi-sion. The palm of his hand tingled strangely,

and he flexed his fingers.

"A gift of our union," he heard the vision's voice say again.

But the mystery of the words was quickly dispelled by a blood-curdling cry that echoed through the

storage space.

"Sariel?" Remy called out, running in the direction of the scream.

As he grew closer, he could hear the unmistakable sounds of a struggle, and the Grigori leader's voice

raised in anger. He came around a pallet, stacked high with wooden boxes, to see that Sariel had caught

his prey, and had driven him to the ground. The man struggled weakly as Sariel's fists rained down on his

face.

"What are you doing?" Remy yelled.

Sariel raised his fist to bring it down again upon the man's swollen and bloody features, but Remy caught

his wrist. The Grigori's head spun toward him, insane fury burning in his cold gray eyes.

"Enough," Remy commanded.

Sariel tried to pull free of his grasp, but Remy held fast, pulling the Grigori off of his victim.

The mysterious man moaned, bubbles of blood forming upon his lips.

"Who is he?" Remy asked, letting go of Sariel's wrist and kneeling beside the man.

"The one responsible for killing Noah, I would assume," the fallen angel answered with a snarl. He was

rubbing his wrist where Remy had gripped it.

"Could he be one of Noah's employees?" Remy asked, patting the man down, looking for some form of

identification.

"As far as I know, Noah had no employees," Sariel answered. "The old man enjoyed his isolation. He

shut this rig down years ago."

"Who are you?" Remy asked the man, gently slapping his cheek to rouse him, but Sariel had done an

exceptional job in beating him unconscious.

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Some of the man's blood got on Remy's hand and he felt the divine power of the Seraphim, locked away

deep inside him, stir with familiarity.

"He's one of us," Remy stated, wiping the blood on the leg of his pants. "He's an angel." He turned to

look up at Sariel.

But the Grigori wasn't paying any attention. He was instead staring into the shadows around them.

"What's wrong?" Remy asked.

Sariel raised a hand to silence him, head tilted. Listening.

At first, all Remy could hear was the raging storm outside the rig, but then he, too, heard the sounds.

Something rustling in the shadows.

Sariel immediately stiffened.

"We need to go," he said, his hands already moving through the air as he began to weave a magickal

passage, a means for them to escape.

Remy stood, attempting to see what was there in the darkness, half expecting his dead wife to step from

the shadows. “What is it?" he asked, as what little light they had within the warehouse space was

suddenly extinguished.

Sariel didn't answer, continuing to focus on conjuring the magicks to take them away.

Remy was about to demand an answer when the passage began to open, a swirling vortex even blacker

than the darkness that surrounded them.

Sariel bent down, hauled the unconscious angel up, and dove through the doorway to safety.

Remy paused. His curiosity got the better of him. He allowed the divine power within him to emerge,

channeling the angel fire just enough to illuminate his hand and dispel the encompassing gloom.

Something squealed as if in pain, fleeing into a pool of shadows.

It appeared almost human.

Almost.

SEVEN

Remy exited the magickal passage into the safety of an ornate ballroom. He knew this place, the grand

room where Sariel and his Grigori held their count-less parties. From the outside, the building located in

the area of downtownBoston known lovingly as the Combat Zone appeared abandoned, run-down and

decrepit. But in actuality, it hid one of the more opulent nests that the Grigori had scattered around the

world.

"What the hell was that?" he asked, stepping back from the gradually diminishing supernatural doorway,

eyeing the bubbling darkness in case whatever it was he had seen on the other side decided to follow.

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"Your true nature is showing," Sariel spoke. At first Remy had no idea what the fallen angel was talking

about, but then remembered his hand. Its golden flesh still burned with the power of the Seraphim.

his fist, he pulled the fire back. It didn't want to go, but Remy was persistent, and the divine power

finally bent to his will. It was becoming harder to suppress his true nature since the near Apocalypse, but

as of now, he was still its master.

Humanity reasserted, Remy flexed his fingers. The flesh of his hand was bright red, like the shell of a

cooked lobster, but already it was beginning to heal.

"It appears what I feared most has become a reality," Sariel said ominously, wiping liquid darkness from

the front of his suit jacket. His gaze was also fixed on the dissipating magickal passageway.

The unconscious angel moaned on the floor.

Remy approached him. "As soon as he comes to, we'll see what our mysterious stranger here can tell us

about what Noah was up to on that rig."

The other Grigori suddenly entered the ballroom in a line, as if responding to a silent command from their

leader. They pushed past Remy and swarmed around the unconscious angel.

"There you are," Remy said. "I didn't think you were home."

"We're always home," one of them growled, as they picked up the stranger from the floor and began to

carry him away.

The Grigori didn't care much for Remy, and truth be told, the feeling was mutual.

He started to follow the parade, but Sariel blocked his path, placing a hand against his chest to stop him.

Remy looked down at the offending hand, and the Grigori leader quickly removed it.

"They will see to him," Sariel said. "But we must talk."

Remy watched the Grigori pass through a doorway with their burden.

"Then let's talk," he said.

At the end of the ballroom was a large wooden door leading into Sariel's sanctum.

Remy followed the fallen angel inside, the Grigori leader clos-ing the door behind them. He gestured for

Remy to take a seat in one of the high-backed leather chairs on either side of the unlit fireplace.

Remy sat, eyeing Sariel as he removed a diamond-shaped stop-per from a crystal decanter.

"Scotch?" he offered.

"Sure." Remy didn't feel much like drinking with the angel, but the Grigori always had very good scotch.

Sariel poured one glass and then another, replaced the stopper, and carried the two tumblers of golden

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fluid to the chairs.

"Thanks," Remy said, accepting his drink.

The Grigori took the chair across from him, casually crossing his legs. He took a long sip from his

scotch, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Remy sipped his drink. He hadn't been wrong. The Grigori still had some of the best scotch he'd ever

tasted. It made him think of Steven Mulvehill, his closest friend, and how jealous he would be right then.

But Remy doubted the homicide cop would have appreciated the company. The poor guy tried to steer

clear of the weird shit, as he liked to call it.

"You said you wanted to talk," Remy said, breaking the eerie quiet.

"I was just appreciating the silence," Sariel said, swirling the golden liquid in his glass. "Before the

impending chaos."

"Now that makes me think you know more about what's going on than you've shared," Remy said

before taking another drink of scotch.

"I wasn't sure before," Sariel said apprehensively. "But now, there can be little doubt.” The angel gulped

the rest of his drink, then stared into the empty glass.

"Why don't you start at the beginning," Remy suggested. Sariel chuckled. "Yes, the beginning."

EIGHT

S

o these orphans that Noah obsessed about, we're talking about the figures I saw standing in front of the

mountain caves when the rains started?" Remy asked.

He stood at the liquor cart, pouring two more drinks. He thought another might help Sariel get through

what he had to say, and he hated the thought of the Grigori drinking alone.

"Noah referred to any life that he was unable to bring aboard the ark as his orphans," Sariel explained.

"No matter how small, or seemingly insignificant, but yes, those figures . . . they are the cause for my

concern."

Remy returned with the drinks.

"Go on," he said, handing Sariel his glass before sitting. "I'm listening."

"When the Earth was still young, the Lord God hadn't quite decided what would be the final model for

humanity. He experimented first with a species the Grigori came to know as the Chimerian.

"They were different from the two He eventually created in the Garden, more primitive, and far more

cunning." The fallen angel paused for a drink from his glass.

Remy was surprised by the Grigori's words. He had never heard of this prototype for humanity. "So

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you're saying that there were two designs for what would eventually become the human race?"

Sariel chuckled. "He wanted to see which one worked the best."

"Why didn't I know any of this?" Remy asked in disbelief.

"There was no need for you to know," Sariel said. "It didn't concern you. As Seraphim, yours was a

more militaristic purpose. It was the Grigori who were assigned to the fledgling world, and thus we were

privy to all its imperfections."

"So these . . . Chimerian were His first attempts at hu-manity?"

"They were, and unfortunately, they lost the contest," Sariel said flatly. "The two in the Garden, though

disobedient, captured His curiosity."

Remy drank deeply from his glass. It was all a bit overwhelm-ing as he tried to fit the pieces of the

picture together inside his head.

"So God brought the rains to destroy this earlier try at human-kind," he stated, part of him hoping that he

was wrong.

"Yes," Sariel agreed. "But somehow the Chimerian learned of their fate and were determined to survive

... in any way they could."

There was a soft knock at the door.

"Come," the Grigori said.

The door swung open and a blind man entered. He was el-derly, his back slightly hunched, and he was

dressed in a butler's garb. The Grigori used the sightless as servants. Remy wasn't sure exactly why, but

the blind seemed to be drawn to these fallen angels, as if the Grigori somehow satisfied their deep

yearnings to see.

"Would you and your guest enjoy a fire, sir?" the old servant inquired.

"Perhaps a fire would be just the thing to take away the chill that has settled in my bones," Sariel replied.

"Very good, sir," the servant said as he carefully crossed the room. Gripping the marble mantel, he

slowly lowered himself to his knees before the open hearth.

"We believe that the Chimerian, abandoned by their Creator, found something new to worship," Sariel

continued, ignoring his servant.

"A false god?" Remy asked, running his finger along the rim of his glass.

"Of a sort," Sariel said. He leaned his head back against his chair, eyes closed. "We've surmised that

they somehow managed to communicate with the nameless things that thrived in the dark-ness before our

Lord God brought the light of creation. Things that were old before even us."

Sariel drank more.

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"And in exchange the Chimerian received knowledge," he said, eyes still shut. "An understanding of

dark, arcane arts. But it didn't help them."

Remy watched the servant work on the fire. Slowly, methodi-cally, the blind man felt for the cords of

dry wood that were stacked alongside the fireplace, selecting each piece carefully and laying it within the

cold hearth.

"They should have all been destroyed when the rains came," Remy said. "That was the point of the flood,

wasn't it?"

Sariel finished his scotch and straightened in his chair. He let the empty tumbler fall to the floor.

"It certainly was the point," he said. "And for countless mil-lennia, we believed it successful. Then Noah

brought to my at-tention the fact that the deluge might have failed."

Remy finished his own drink and seriously contemplated an-other. "How did he know?" he asked.

"The old man was a tortured soul," Sariel said. "The longer he lived, the more obsessed he became with

the things he had left to die. The guilt ate at him."

"You kept in touch?" Remy asked, curious as to the Grigori's relationship with Noah.

"We saw each other from time to time," Sariel said, waving his hand vaguely. "We survivors of the

deluge shared a kind of bond." The Grigori leader smile but there was little warmth in the expression.

"When we spoke, he told me of the expeditions that he'd un-dertaken, traversing the globe, sparing no

expense, searching for signs of those that had been left behind . . . signs that they—his orphans—may

have somehow survived."

The servant appeared to have finished preparing the wood, and leaned back as if to admire what he had

accomplished.

"He said he could remember them all," Sariel said, tapping the side of his skull. "Each and every species

that was deemed unwor-thy to board the ark. He could see them in his head. Awake or asleep, they

were always with him."

"I can see how that might drive you a little . . . crazy," Remy acknowledged.

"The last time we communicated, Noah told me that of all the doomed species, he believed they might

have survived."

"They, meaning the Chimerian."

"I tried to explain the danger if this was true, but he couldn't see it," Sariel explained. "All he cared about

was the alleviation of his guilt."

The servant had found the tin of fireplace matches and was attempting to ignite the fire.

"So you think Noah found the Chimerian . . . and that they are responsible for his death."

"You saw his body," Sariel snarled. "You saw that thing scut-tling away in the shadows."

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"Yes." Remy nodded slowly. "I did see something, although I have no idea what it was."

Sariel's thin, bloodless lips pulled back in another attempt at a smile.

"What you saw was potential doom for humanity," the Grigori said.

Remy was surprised by the intensity of the words.

"Don't you think you're being overly dramatic?"

The servant struck the match on the rough stone surface on the side of the fireplace. It ignited with a hiss,

the flame growing so large that it consumed the matchstick in an instant, leaping down to the old man's

fingers, and then to his clothes. A cry of surprise and pain escaped him, as he fell backward, the sleeve of

his jacket afire. Remy reacted immediately, dropping to the floor and leaning across the thrashing old man

to suffocate the flames with his hands. And all the while, Sariel sat, calmly watching it all unfold.

"Thatwas dramatic," he stated. "What will happen to hu-manity if the Chimerian are allowed to thrive ...

that will betragic."

The servant seemed to shrug off the pain of his burns, and returned to the fireplace, taking another match

from the tin.

Remy couldn't believe it.

"That will be enough," Sariel ordered.

The old man stopped. "Sorry for the delay, my master, but—"

"I said that will be enough," the Grigori leader interrupted.

Without another word, the servant hauled himself to his feet using the marble mantel, and clutching his

injured hand to his chest, shuffled from the room.

Remy had had just about enough of the fallen angel's com-pany.

"Perhaps you should tell me exactly why you've decided to involve me in this," he said as he got to his

feet.

"You care for them a great deal," Sariel stated. "Those outside these walls." He gestured with his chin to

the world beyond his lair. "I thought you would want to save them."

"What can I do?" Remy asked. "This is much bigger than I—"

"What can I do, asks the soldier of Heaven," the Grigori mocked. "You sell yourself short, my brother."

"No," Remy stated with a definitive shake of his head. "That's not me anymore. I'm not going to allow

you to drag me—"

Sariel had closed his eyes again, clearly not interested in Remy's rant.

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"We must hunt and destroy them," the Grigori proclaimed. His eyes opened and held Remy in an icy

stare. "We must find where they nest and finish what the deluge should have."

"You can't be serious," Remy said.

Sariel glared at him. "They were never supposed to survive. They should have died when the Earth was

young and the flood

waters rose."

"But you're talking about exterminating a species we know nothing about," Remy said. "We can't just..."

"If the current kings and queens of the world are to survive, we must."

"You don't know that."

"Do you wish to take that chance?" Sariel asked.

Remy should have known better. It always came to this— passing judgment, and death.

"I won't kill for you," he said, moving toward the door.

"But the humans . . . will you kill for them?" the Grigori leader asked.

Remy stopped and turned. "Why did you drag me into this?" he asked. "You know how I feel about you

and your brethren. You know I want nothing more than to live my life peacefully and to not be bothered

with ..."

"You are the powerful Remiel," Sariel said. "A Seraphim war-rior that, as much as you are loath to

admit, still retains the full extent of its heavenly might."

Remy shook his head. "I told you, that's not me anymore."

Sariel smiled. "I could have sworn I saw your old self driving back the Four Horsemen of the

Apocalypse a few short weeks ago, but I must have been mistaken."

Remy pulled open the door. He'd heard enough.

"This isn't just for us, Remiel," Sariel called after him. "The Chimerian will hate humankind as much as

they hate us. We'll need your strength if we are to succeed."

Remy didn't even turn around, allowing the door to slam shut behind him as he strode across the

ballroom. Just outside the grand room, he saw a gathered crowd of Grigori, and remem-bered the angel

they had brought with them from the rig.

"The angel," he said to one of the Grigori. "Has he regained consciousness?" He craned his neck, trying

to catch a glimpse of where they had taken him.

"He's resting," the Grigori said.

Remy tried to move past and felt a hand suddenly pressed to his chest. He glanced down at the hand.

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"I said he's resting," the Grigori repeated more forcefully.

"I know your kind despises me for one reason or another, but I strongly suggest that you remove your

hand from my person or I'll be more than happy to provide you with something to really hate me for."

The hand stayed there a moment longer before it was with-drawn.

He considered pushing past the Grigori lackey to find the angel and ask him what he knew, but right

then, he didn't have the energy.

He gave the fallen angel a final, nasty look, then quickly turned and left.

It was cold outside on the early-morning streets ofBoston , but Remy didn't feel a thing.

NINE

Remy wandered upTremont Street , ontoArlington , ending up in the lobby of the old Ritz-Carlton Hotel,

now the Taj.

He glanced at his watch and figured that Ashley would prob-ably be up by now, getting ready for

school. Finding a phone, he dialed the number and got Ashley's mom. He explained that he was working

on a case, and would she or Ashley mind zipping over to the apartment to give Marlowe his breakfast

and take him out.

The woman said that there would be no problem, and Remy thanked her and hung up.

Now what to do? All the way up from the Zone he'd thought about what Sariel had proposed, and how

freaked he was by what the Grigori had believed he'd do.

The sad thing was that no matter how disturbed he was, he couldn't really see much of a choice. If these

creatures . . . these Chimerian were as dangerous as Sariel said, there could very well be human lives at

stake.

Remy headed into the Club Lounge and bought a large coffee. The scotch had worn off a while ago and

he needed something more stimulating to get his brain functioning the way it should.

He took the coffee and returned to the bank of phones in the lobby, digging through his pockets for

change. In this particular instance, he didn't worry about waking anybody up—this person never slept,

and was almost always home.

Wishing for his cell phone, he fed the machine with change and dialed the number, listening as it rang.

On the third ring the phone was picked up, but only silence greeted Remy.

"It's me," he said.

"Hey, me," replied a voice on the other end. "What's up?"

"I've got a bit of a problem, and I want to run it by you."

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"This doesn't have anything to do with the Apocalypse, does it?" the voice asked.

"Not exactly," Remy responded.

"Good, I've pretty much had my fill of the Apocalypse."

"Meet me at the Taj for breakfast. My treat," Remy told him.

"Sounds yummy, give me about a half hour and I'll be there."

"Half hour?" Remy asked. The voice on the other end lived less than ten minutes away.

"Finishing up Once Upon a Time in the West? he said.

"Didn't you watch that last month?" Remy remembered their conversation about Henry Fonda's

performance in the Leone masterpiece.

"New month," was the answer.

It made perfect sense.

"See you in a half hour, then," Remy said, and hung up.

The former Guardian angel said nothing as he strolled into the lobby of the Taj Hotel. With his balding

head, horn-rimmed glasses, and usual gray suit, white shirt, and maroon tie, Francis looked like any other

white-collar business type employed in the city ofBoston .

"How was the movie?" Remy asked, getting up from the sofa where he had been awaiting his friend's

arrival.

"Better with every viewing," Francis said.

Remy nodded, even though The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was his own personal favorite of the

Leone westerns.

"Are we going to eat?" Francis asked, looking toward the cafe.

"Let's go," Remy said as the two walked toward the entrance. "I could use a pot of coffee."

"Waffles," Francis said, and Remy turned his head to look at him.

"What was that?"

"Waffles," he repeated. "I could really go for some waffles."

Knowing what Remy did about the being called Francis, state-ments like that only made him smile.

Francis was once the angel Fraciel of the Guardian angel host Virtues. A bad choice on his part had left

him on the outs with the Lord God after the rebellion. Realizing the error of his ways, Fraciel had thrown

himself at the mercy of the Almighty, begging , for forgiveness. Surprisingly, the Almighty did not banish

the Guardian to the Hell prison, Tartarus, but instead made him watchman over one of the gates between

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the earthly realm and the Hellish, a gate that just so happened to be in the basement of theNewbury

Street brownstone that Francis now owned. When he wasn't taking care of his duties to the doorway to

Tartarus, the former Guardian angel worked as one of the world's most sought-after assassins. If you

could afford his fee, and he decided, after careful review, that the victim did in fact deserve to be taken

down, there was little that could be done to prevent the inevitable.

But this morning, the inevitable was that Francis was going to have waffles.

They were seated at a table by the window, overlooking the lower end ofNewbury Street , and while

the hostess went off to get coffee for Remy and tea for Francis, they quietly perused the menu.

Remy really didn't have to eat, although he often did so to maintain his guise of humanity. This morning,

however, he real-ized he had no desire for food. Francis had already closed his menu and placed it on

the table beside him, so Remy did the same.

"First off, how are you doing?" the former Guardian asked, as he straightened his silverware. Francis had

always been fascinated by Remy's relationship with Madeline, observing the many facets of their marriage

like a scientist watching some new kind of germ beneath a microscope.

"I'm doing," Remy replied, concerned by the bizarre visions he'd been having, but not yet ready to share.

Francis already thought he was nuts to live the way he did.

"And the mutt?"

"He's doing, too."

Francis accepted that with a pause and a nod.

"So what seems to be the problem?" he asked, changing the subject.

The waitress appeared then, bringing Remy a carafe of coffee and Francis a metal pot of hot water and

a small wooden box filled with flavored teas. She took their order: bagel with cream cheese for Remy,

and waffles topped with strawberries and whipped cream for Francis.

"So?" Francis prodded, after she'd gone. He was dunking an English Breakfast tea bag in a cup of hot

water he'd just poured.

Remy took a long drink from his coffee cup before replying. "It's getting weird again."

"Again?" Francis questioned with a laugh. He removed the tea bag and placed it on the side of his

saucer. Then he added two heaping teaspoons of sugar and a splash of milk. "Has it ever stopped?

Especially since the whole Apocalypse business, the crazy train has been running flat-out."

Remy didn't like to hear that. He had hoped that once they'd driven back the Four Horsemen, the world

would have settled back into some semblance of normalcy, but it really hadn't. He wondered how much

that had to do with his current dilemma.

"First off, Noah's dead," he began.

Francis was stirring his tea. He removed the spoon and set it down on the white tablecloth, where it left

a brownish stain.

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The former Guardian took a slurping sip from the rim of his cup as he digested Remy's statement. "Why

am I already guessing that he didn't die peacefully in his sleep?"

"He was murdered," Remy confirmed, remembering what he had seen aboard the oil rig, the horrible

condition of the old man's body, as if he'd been beaten to death.

"Color me surprised," Francis said sarcastically.

Remy drank his coffee, allowing the caffeine to work its magic upon him." Sariel was the one who

showed me," Remy continued.

"That one is such a creep," the former Guardian said with a nod. "But he does have some damn fine

scotch."

"It seems that Noah was trying to make contact with a species called the Chimerian . . . the Lord's first

attempt at creating man that were supposed to be wiped out during the Great Flood, but somehow

weren't."

Francis was silent as their breakfasts were delivered.

"Is there anything else I can get you?" the waitress asked.

Remy shook his head with a smile.

"Just some syrup and I'll be good to go," Francis said.

She quickly darted away and returned with the syrup, placing it on the table in front of Francis. "Let me

know if you need any-thing else," she offered as she moved on to her other tables.

"There was a first attempt at humanity?" Francis asked as he poured syrup on the waffles, careful not to

get any on the whipped cream.

"That's what Sariel said." Remy was relieved to know that he wasn't the only one unaware of the early

prototype. "Think I might've caught a glimpse of one on Noah's oil rig."

"So that's true, then?" Francis asked, breaking off a piece of waffle with his fork. "I'd heard he was living

alone in the middle of the ocean."

The former Guardian took a bite of his breakfast.

"So these . .. ," he began with a mouthful.

"Chimerian."

"Chimerian. You think they offed the old man?" Francis asked.

Remy paused to think about the question, and realized, at this stage of the game, he didn't really know.

"Possibly," he an-swered.

"No wonder our fair-haired boy sounded like he was in such a tizzy," Francis commented, eating more

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of his breakfast.

Remy set his bagel down and wiped at his mouth, wanting to be sure he wasn't mistaken about what

he'd just heard.

"Who, Sariel? You talked with him?"

Francis nodded as he chewed. "Called about ten minutes be-fore you did, said he was going to need my

skills for a matter of grave importance."

"Did you already know what I just told you?"

Francis shook his head. "No, when I asked him what was up, he said it was a hunting expedition."

"And you agreed to this?"

He shrugged. "Business has been sort of slow, and there are these Bavarian Warhammers coming onto

the market that I'm really jonesing for. . . ."

Francis had a thing for weaponry. He collected it obsessively, like a nerdy kid and comic books.

"You agreed to this," Remy repeated, resigning himself from question to statement.

"Yeah," Francis said, breaking off another piece of waffle and shoveling it into his mouth.

"Do you understand what he wants you to do?" Remy asked. "He wants you to help them kill these

creatures ... these survivors."

"He said that you were on board, too," Francis told him, reach-ing for his teacup.

"Of course he did." Remy had picked up the other half of his bagel, but placed it back on his plate. He

couldn't even pretend to be hungry anymore. "I just can't wrap my brain around the idea of wiping them

out," he said.

"Think of it this way: they're murderers," Francis said flatly. “And they shouldn't even be alive. The flood

should've erased them from the world."

Remy poured himself another cup of coffee, not buying the Guardian's justification.

"Think of it as tidying up," Francis stressed. "We'd be setting things right."

"We'd be committing murder."

"Is it murder when you put a rabid animal down?" Francis asked. "These things are likely dangerous.

Can we take a risk on them maybe breeding and getting around?"

Remy knew that his friend's points were accurate, but some-thing nagged at him, something that he

couldn't quite put his finger on.

"We don't know anything about them, other than what Sariel has told us."

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"And?" Francis asked.

"When have we ever trusted anything Sariel has said?"

"Good point." Francis took a sip of his tea.

"I'm not comfortable with this," Remy said, removing the cloth napkin from his lap and placing it on the

table.

"So does that mean you're not in?" Francis asked.

Remy fished fifty dollars out of his wallet and put it on the table.

"I don't know what it means."

"Do you want a lift?" Francis asked. "Let me finish here and—"

"Think I'll walk," Remy told him. "It'll give me a chance to think this through. I'll call you later."

"Sounds like a plan," Francis said, as he continued to eat. "And thanks for breakfast."

"Everything all right?" the hostess asked as Remy passed her on his way out.

He smiled, tempted to tell her the truth. No, things weren't all right. Not in the least.

It was a nice day, not that Remy noticed at all.

He walked acrossArlington Street and through thePublicGarden , heading toward the Boston Common.

People were just starting to hit the streets on their way to work, flowing up from the Park Street T

Station and trickling down from the many small streets that made upBeacon Hill .

Remy wandered against the tide heading to Downtown Cross-ing, the financial district and Government

Center, making his own way home up through the Common to Joy Street.

As he walked, the same thoughts bounced around inside his head. He didn't want to be like them ... like

the Grigori, and even Francis. He would have been perfectly content to live like those bustling along to

work around him.

Ignorant to the matters of the preternatural.

But he wasn't, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't ignore what he knew.

Especially when lives—human as well as angelic—might be at risk.

To say that Marlowe was happy to see him was an understate-ment. But that was one of the most

glorious things about dogs, they were always happy to see you. The black Lab met Remy at the door,

panting like a freight train, tail wagging so fast that Remy thought he was going to take off for sure.

"Remy!"the dog barked. "Remy! Remy! Remy!"

"Hello, hello," Remy said with a laugh, pushing the dog aside so that he could get in and close the door.

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"Thought gone,"the dog said, eagerly licking Remy's hand.

"Yep, I was gone but now I'm back," he reassured the animal.

Remy walked down the hallway, excited dog by his side.

"Did Ashley stop by to feed you?" he asked, already knowing that she had.

"No," the dog said, standing at attention in the kitchen.

The dog's answer took him by surprise.

"No?" he asked.

"No feed,” hegrowled. "Hungry."

Remy glanced around the room, noticing the empty food bowl and the full water dish. He also saw the

note on the counter near the coffeepot and Ashley's unmistakable scrawl telling him that Marlowe had

been fed and taken out. She'd even drawn a smiley face at the bottom of the note.

"Then what's this?" Remy asked, picking up the note and showing the dog.

"Paper," the dog answered, tail wagging. "Rip?"

"No, you can't rip it. It's a note from Ashley telling me that you already ate," Remy said. "You've been

nabbed, good sir."

"Nabbed, good sir," Marlowe repeated sadly.

Remy laughed. The Lab had a bottomless pit for a stomach and often tried this trick to get an extra meal.

It had worked a few times with Madeline, but never with Remy.

His wife had been too trusting.

He flashed back to the last vision he'd had of her aboard the

rig, the sensation of warmth on his hand as it was placed upon her stomach.

"A gift of our union," she had said.

What does it mean?he wondered. At first he'd believed it all part of the process of grieving, but now he

was beginning to sus-pect otherwise. There was some kind of connection between the visions and

Noah's murder, but what, he hadn't a clue.

And that was what he was going to have to find out.

He'd planned on returning home, cleaning up a bit, and head-ing to the office to catch up on paperwork.

But not now.

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There was little chance of turning this boat around. He might as well throw himself head-on into the

madness. The quicker he dealt with this business, the quicker he could return to the life he'd worked so

hard to build, but now that seemed to be crum-bling at the foundation.

Noah's office would be the place to start. It had been in a shambles, and he hadn't had a chance to really

go through it. There might be something still lying about waiting to be uncov-ered.

"Shit," he muttered beneath his breath.

That meant returning to the rig, and the only way he would be able to do that would be with the help of

certain skills that he had used far too freely lately. He knew that there wasn't much of a choice, but it still

pissed him off.

He walked into the living room to explain to the dog that he was leaving again. Marlowe lay in the middle

of the floor, Sphinx-like, tail thumping. Remy knew what that particular look meant and felt bad.

"Sorry, buddy," he said. "But I can't take you for a walk right now, 1 have to go to work for a while.”

The dog looked as though he'd just been told that he was going to the pound. Guilt almost got the best of

Remy, but then he remembered something that was even better than a walk to the park.

"Would you like a pig's ear instead?" he asked.

Marlowe jumped to his feet and bolted toward the kitchen. By the time Remy caught up to him, he was

standing in front of a lower cabinet door, staring intensely as his tail wagged in antici-pation.

"I guess that's a yes," Remy said as he pulled open the cabinet and reached for the bag that contained

the disgusting treats. "You work on this and I'll take you for a walk when I get back," he told the dog,

who wasn't even listening. Marlowe's dark brown gaze was transfixed on the bag.

Remy removed one of the greasy treats and held it out. Mar-lowe carefully plucked it from his hand,

then darted from the kitchen to his room—his lair, as Madeline used to call it—to con-sume his prize.

That taken care of, Remy walked into the living room and stood on the spot where Sariel had used his

unique skills to take him from his home. He closed his eyes. Carefully he stirred the angelic essence lying

inside him. It didn't take more than a gentle prod to awaken it.

The divine power surged through him, coursing through his blood. His senses at once awakened, coming

alive with a ven-geance. His hearing became preternaturally acute, and the voices of millions in prayer

assaulted his ears, as though they were all in this very room with him. And the smell.

The smell was strong, nauseating—the smell of magick.

Opening his eyes, he looked down at the spot where the pas sage had opened. He could see the residue of Sariel's traveling spell, wafting up from the rug on his living

room floor.

Rolling his shoulder blades, he allowed his wings to emerge. He could feel the appendages moving

beneath his flesh, growing in size as they worked their way toward the surface. There was a brief flash of

pain, and then enormous relief as his golden wings unfurled. Gently he fanned the air as he prepared for

his journey.

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Now is as good a time as any,Remy thought as he pulled his wings about him, wrapping himself within

the tight embrace of the golden feathers. The scent of Sariel's magick was still fresh in his nostrils, and by

closing his eyes he could see the path he would need to travel.

He thought of his destination, and then he was gone.

TEN

Like electricity moving through a wire, he was there. The heavy smell of salt in the air was the first thing

he became aware of. Remy opened his wings and ex-posed himself to the new environment.

He had appeared exactly where Sariel's magick had dropped them before. The weather this time was

far more hospitable, al-though the wind still whipped across the broad expanse of con-crete, trying

desperately to catch his golden wings.

It was pitch black on the ocean, but security lights drove back the darkness of night from the vast deck

of the oil rig.

Remy pulled his wings back, then headed for the metal stair-case, head bowed against the humid breeze.

Once inside, it didn't take him long to find Noah's quarters.

The slide projector still hummed from the desk, but the bulb had burnt out, and the room was immersed

in shadow. Allowing his eyes a moment to adjust, Remy carefully approached the desk,

mapping out in his mind where he remembered most of the mess to be, as well as the old man's body.

He recalled a banker's lamp, and leaned over across the desk-top until his fingers found the dangling

chain and pulled it, dis-pelling the darkness.

The office was still in chaos, but Noah's body was gone.

Remy moved around the desk to study the spot where the body had lain; telltale spatters of dried blood

proved that it had been there. He recalled the vague image of the pale-skinned thing, skittering back into

the darkness of the warehouse, and wondered if that had anything to do with the body's disappearance.

Turning his attention to the desk, Remy pulled out the chair, rolling it over stray pieces of paper and

slides that covered the floor.

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"Where do I start?" he asked himself, staring at the disheveled surface of the desktop. Deciding that the

journey of a million miles begins with the first step, Remy dove right in, selecting the first random piece of

paper and giving it a once-over. It was noth-ing special, a bill for food supplies for the months of January

and February.

There were more bills and receipts, and an amazing number of charitable mailers, all of them from animal

organizations, many of which Remy had never heard of.

He found a recent fax from a shipping company confirming the pickup of four transport containers from

the rig in two days' time. What in the world would an old man, alone in the middle of the ocean, have

been shipping? Remy made a mental note to find them before leaving.

As the surface of the desk became organized, the paperwork he found beneath became more

interesting. It appeared that Noah Driscoll had been looking into real estate in theBoston area, and had

found something he liked by the looks of a recent purchase and sale agreement. The property was inLynn

, north of the city. Remy jotted down the address to check out later.

Transport containers, purchased property—the old man had certainly been up to something before his

untimely demise.

Remy left the office, heading back outside to find the transport containers. He could not help but be

impressed by the view from the rig, undulating gray waters in every direction as far as the eye could see.

If one wanted peace and quiet, total isolation, this was certainly the place.

But if that was the case, why had Noah bought property in aNorthShore city?

Curiouser, and curiouser,Remy thought.

He found the transport containers at the back of the rig, stacked one on top of the other and secured to

the deck by wovensteel cords. These babies aren't going anywhere, Remy observed ashe approached

one of the powder blue steel containers.

It wasn't locked. He placed his hands on the cold metal latch and pulled it up and into place so he could

open the first of the two doors. The chemical smell of new wafted out, as the dim outside light flooded

into the carrier, illuminating its contents.

The container was filled with all manner of things that would be needed to set up a living space. Remy

couldn't help but think of the furnishing of a college dormitory as his eyes moved across the

plastic-wrapped mattresses, chairs, and thick blankets, still wrapped in their clear packaging, stacked in

the corners.

In the corner with the blankets were boxes, and as Remy moved closer he saw that they were filled with

toys, picture books, and brightly colored blocks. Stuffed animals stared out at him from inside a large,

clear plastic bag. In one box there was even a toy Noah'sArk. He reached down and took it from the

container.

Not even close,he thought, looking at the toy mock-up of the great craft. The plastic toy rattled loudly as

he moved it, and he discovered that the top of the boat could be removed to reveal plastic animals inside.

Remy put the top back on the boat and placed it with the other toys. He looked about the transport

container until something caught his eye. In the far corner of the container he found an unwrapped blanket

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and a stuffed animal. There was also an opened package of crackers, and crumbs on the floor.

Somebody.. .

The image of what he had seen running from the light again appeared in his head.

. . . or something, has taken up residence here, he thought, lookingaround with a more cautious eye.

Certain that he was alone, Remy decided that he'd seen enough. He left the container and returned to the

spot on the deck where he'd arrived.

Again he found the residue of Sariel's magick, opened his wings, and prepared to go home. Thinking of

the place he wanted to be, Remy let the wings close, wrapping him in their natural magick.

And as he felt himself slip away, drifting between time and space, he realized that he was leaving with

more questions than answers.

Remy returned with little more than a whisper. One second he was on board an abandoned oil rig in the

middle of the ocean, the next, in the living room of hisBeacon Hill home.

It was something he could get used to, and something that would gradually leach away his humanity, until

all that remained was a cold, unfeeling instrument of violence forged in Heaven. He had escaped being

that a very long time ago, and would do everything in his power to never be that way again.

The wings wanted to stay, to be part of his everyday attire, but Remy told them no. This was how the

divine nature that he kept locked away worked, reminding him of what he had once been, trying to tempt

him with memories of a glorious time when he soared above the spires of Heaven.

But those times were gone, sullied by the violence of war.

Remembering what he did, could any of them—these so-called creatures of Heaven—even remotely be

considered divine?

Remy didn't think so, and exerting his will upon the wings, he forced them away, burying the nature he

had come to abhor, and assuming the guise of humanity.

"Marlowe, I'm back," he announced, glancing at the clock on the DVD player. He'd been gone for close

to two hours.

Odd,he thought, as the normally curious beast did not come to see him.

"Hey, Marlowe?" Remy called out again, leaving the living room and heading down the hallway to the

dog's lair.

"Do you want to go out?" Remy asked, then stopped as he saw that Marlowe was not alone.

The creature appeared human, almost childlike, its body pale, hairless, and incredibly thin. It was

dressed in swaths of filthy cloth that hung in tatters from its scarecrowlike frame.

Remy had no idea what it was. It bore no resemblance to the indigo-skinned figures he'd seen perched

on the rocks so long ago. It squatted on its haunches in front of Marlowe. Toys were scattered about the

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floor, and the two were staring at each other intensely, eyes locked as if playing a game, victory going to

the one who managed not to blink first.

The tension in the air was palpable, like an elastic bandjust about stretched to capacity before ...

Marlowe barked, slapping his paws on the hardwood floor, and all hell broke loose.

The trancelike state between the two beasts suddenlybroken, the creature reacted, pulling its pale lips

back in a catlike hiss.

Remy was afraid, and as if suddenly catching the scent ofhis fear, the white-skinned being turned its

gaze to him.

Its eyes were black, like shiny pools of oil, and Remy felt him-self drawn toward their inky depths.

"Marlowe ... run," he managed, looking away before the in-truder sprang.

It moved incredibly fast, and collided with Remy, knocking him back against the wall as it tried to

escape down the hall.

The dog was barking like crazy now.

Remy dove, wrapping his arms around the creature's thin waist, driving them both to the floor.

The invader let out an unpleasant squeal, a strange mixture of a baby's cry and the screech of brakes, as

it struggled in his grasp.

"Stay back," Remy commanded the dog, as theLabrador started to slink from the room. Marlowe

retreated.

The strange beast was much stronger than it appeared, easily breaking Remy's grip and scrabbling to its

bare feet in a frantic run. It skidded around the corner into the living room, and Remy was right behind it.

But it was waiting for him. The creature charged, slashing at him with razor-sharp claws. Remy leapt

back, feeling the claws snag the front of his shirt and graze the smooth flesh beneath.

The beast had retreated deeper into the living room and crouched there, watching him. Remy was about

to charge after it, but something stopped him. Something in the monster's gaze.

Is that fear?

Still crouched on the living room rug, the creature let out another of its disturbing cries, and Remy

watched in surprise as it began to convulse, hunching its back as if bending over to vomit. But instead, the

pale flesh on its bony back tore with a wet, ripping sound, and two leathery batlike wings popped from

be-neath the skin.

Remy watched, dumbfounded, as the creature cloaked itself in its new leathern appendages, then

squeezed itself smaller and smaller, until it was no longer there, leaving behind only the telltale scent of

magick.

Angel magick.

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Remy was still staring at the spot where the intruder had been, trying to understand what was going on,

when he heard a soft whimper behind him. He turned to see a trembling Marlowe standing in the hallway,

clutching a filthy stuffed monkey in his mouth.

"Hey," Remy said, going to the shaking animal. "Are you all right?" he asked, running his hands over the

blackLabrador 's body, searching for injuries. "Did he hurt you?"

Marlowe let the toy drop to the floor, licking the side of Remy's face affectionately.

"No hurt," Marlowe said. "Nice. "

Remy stopped inspecting the dog and looked into Marlowe's dark brown eyes. "What do you mean,

nice?"

"Nice, no hurt," Marlowe explained. "Give toy. " The dog pawed the filthy stuffed monkey. "Nice. Give

toy. "

Remy reached down to pick up the monkey.

"This isn't yours?" he asked the dog.

"Mine now," the dog said, playfully snatching it from Remy's hands and giving it a savage shake.

Images filled Remy's head as things became more clear, like jagged rocks suddenly visible through

wafting holes in thick, ocean fog.

Terribly clear.

He remembered the contents of the transport containers on the oil rig, furnishings for a home, blankets

and toys.

Stuffed animals peering out at him from their clear plastic packaging.

"Nice," Marlowe said again, happily tossing the new toy into the air. "No hurt.

"Friend."

ELEVEN

Remy called Francis on the way toLynn . The former Guardian angel turned assassin wasn't home, so he

left a message.

"Hey, it's me. Heading to Lynn on the North Shore to check out a piece of property that the old man

purchased a few weeks ago," he told his friend, debating if he should explain further or wait until things

had crystallized a little bit more.

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"Give me a call when you get this. There are some things I need to run by you before you accept the

Grigori's offer. Later." Remy ended the call and slipped the phone into the pocket of his leather jacket.

He'd reached the rotary inRevere , and veered right onto theLynn Marsh Road . It was a straight shot

from there, across the long stretch of causeway that connectedRevere toLynn .

His thoughts were wandering again to the pale-skinned crea-ture sprouting wings in his living room. He

remembered its eyes,

moist, dark, and shiny, like the cold ocean water of the marsh-lands he was passing by now.

But there had been something else in the blackness of its stare, ferocity, fear....

Intelligence.

He passed over theFoxhillBridge into the city ofLynn .

The sprawling General Electric jet engine plant was to his right, the city's major employer since it lost the

shoe industry to foreign shores back in the 1920s.

Remy fished the piece of paper he'd written the address on from his pocket and gave it another glance.

According to Map-Quest, he wasn't too far away.

He continued on downWestern Avenue , thinking of the silly little rhyme that just about everybody on

theNorthShore seemed to know.

Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin, you never go out the way you came in.

It wasn't long before he foundRiver Street . It wasn't one of the city's better neighborhoods. Most of the

buildings were boarded up and empty, many blackened and charred as if by fire.

He parked his car beneath the dim light thrown by the single working streetlight, and stepped out onto

the street. He could still catch the musty smell of smoke in the air.

Most of the buildings were missing numbers, and it took a little while to figure out where he needed to be

looking and on what side, but as he walked the lonely stretch ofRiver Street , it soon became obvious

where he was heading.

He could see it ahead of him, the tall spire reaching up into the dingy night sky, the abandoned remains

of Saint Mathias Church. She appeared to have been let go quite some time ago, the cruel years having

their way with her. Remy always felt a tinge of sadness when he saw buildings like this, places of worship

no longer carrying the prayers of the de-voted faithful up to the heavens. It was a sign of the times, he

told himself, but it didn't make it any less sad to see.

Saint Mathias was more than just a church; it was a sort of compound. An alley separated the church

from a run-down rec-tory and an old brick elementary school.

It seemed that Noah had bought it all.

At the back of the church, a frame from one of the elaborate stained-glass windows depicting the

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Stations of the Cross had fallen away, allowing Remy to look inside.

The building was empty. Anything that would have made it recognizable as a place of worship had pretty

much been removed; the only things serving as a slight reminder were wooden pews, stacked in a far,

dark corner, as if waiting to be used as kindling.

He saw nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to pique his cu-riosity, so he turned his attention to the

rectory, directly across from the church. Remy climbed the three chipped and broken concrete steps to

the side door. It appeared that new locks had been recently installed.

Remy knew how to do the whole lock-picking thing, but sel-dom remembered to bring his tools.

Looking around—as if there'd be anyone around here to raise an alarm—he placed his hand against the

door. He utilized a little bit of his divine strength to force it open, and went inside.

He pulled a small flashlight from his jacket pocket and turned it on, the thin beam of light cutting through

the murk. He was in a small hallway that led to a kitchen.

The room appeared clean—too clean. It had been used re-cently, not like the rest of what was around

him. Covered in thick

dust, the place looked to have been abandoned more than a few years ago.

Across the kitchen was a swinging door, and he went through into a corridor. There was a flight of stairs

leading up to the next level on his right, and a short hallway that led to the rectory's main office. He

checked out the office next. All he found was an old grime-covered desk and a broken wooden chair.

Remy returned to the stairs and climbed to the next floor. He stood on the landing, shining his light

across closed doors to rooms that would have once housed the priests of the Saint Ma-thias parish.

There was a strong, musty smell of dampness on the second floor—and something else.

As Remy approached the first door, he tried to convince him-self that in a building this old, and in such

disrepair, the offending smell could have come from a number of sources: a dead mouse or rat, maybe

even a pigeon.

He turned the old-fashioned metal knob. The first door swung open. A rusty box spring lay on the floor

in the room's center. There was a clean spot on the yellowed wallpaper where a cruci-fix had once hung.

At the next door, the smell was stronger, and Remy prepared himself. He opened the door and found a

rat, its withered carcass caught in a trap. He let the beam of light linger on the desiccated rodent corpse,

surprised at the amount of stink that still emanated from the remains.

The third room proved to be the charm. This knob was warm to the touch, but he barely noticed as he

swung the creaking door wide, moving the beam of his light around the nearly empty room.

Nearly empty. At first he thought it was a sleeping bag, the encampment of some vagrant who found

shelter from the harshNew England cold. But then he realized otherwise.

Remy entered the room, his light trained upon the unmoving shape on the bedroom floor. It took him a

moment to process what it was that he was looking at. It was a body, wrapped up in strips of heavy

cloth like a mummy. Only the face was left ex-posed.

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A face that Remy knew.

He held the light on Noah's face. Somebody had cleaned him up, washing the dried blood from his

battered face and white beard.

Preparing him for burial.

Around the old man's body, somebody had dropped slides, as if in some sort of tribute, pictures of all

the animal species the old man had saved escorting him on his way to the afterlife.

The sudden sound of a floorboard creaking behind him caused him to spin around, his flashlight beam

searching out the source. But he found only an empty doorway, the door slowly closing on its own.

The ringing of his cell nearly gave him a heart attack.

He lowered his flashlight and fished the phone from his pocket. It was Francis.

That was when the creatures chose to make their move. There were three of them. Their pale flesh

glowed translucently in the ' darkness of the room as they emerged from the shadows. They were

lightning quick, swatting his cell from his hand. Remy could hear the faint voice of Francis, calling out his

name as the phone slid across the floor.

Remy opened his mouth to try and communicate, to experi-ment with the theory that perhaps these

creatures—these Chimerian, which he was pretty convinced they were—were not as threatening as

Sariel had painted them to be.

But he didn't get the chance. Their strikes against him were savage, relentless, driving him to the floor

beside the wrapped corpse of Noah. Just as he was about to call on the destructive forces that resided

within him, he felt a taloned hand grip his hair. Savagely, the creature slammed his head back against the

hardwood floor.

And as the flood of darkness rushed in to drag Remy down, he heard a voice cry out.

"No, do not harm this one," it said. "He isn't one of them."

A mysterious voice that saved his life.

TWELVE

I have something to show you,said the whispering voice, sound-ing very much like his Madeline, but he

knew that it wasn't.

Something . .. someone was attempting to communicate with him, to show him something of great

importance. All he had to do was accept the offer.

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"Show me," Remy said aloud, suddenly finding himself awake.

At once he realized that he was no longer in the dusty old room of the Saint Mathias rectory.

There was cold stone beneath him, numbing his human flesh with its freezing temperature. Remy climbed

to his feet, squinting in the darkness. He did not want to do it, but no longer in pos-session of his

flashlight, he had no real alternative. Carefully he called upon the power of the divine once more, igniting

his hand with the fires of Heaven.

In the illumination of its golden flame, he found that he was in some sort of vast underground chamber, its

walls covered in thick glacial ice.

"Are you cold?" asked a voice from somewhere close by.

Remy directed the light of his hand toward an outcropping of jagged rock. A figure wrapped in a blanket

sat on the ground, leaning back against a wall of ancient stone.

"You're welcome to share my blanket," he offered.

Remy walked toward the man, and the light thrown from his hand revealed a somewhat familiar face. "I

know you," he said as the identity of the stranger came to him. "You're the angel we brought from the

rig."

"Were you there?" the angel asked. "I thought Sariel had re-turned alone." The angel was a mess,

looking worse even than he had after Sariel's beating.

"Did he do that to you?" Remy asked.

The angel brought broken and scabbed fingers to his horribly bruised and swollen face. "He did," the

angel said. "For not tell-ing him what he wanted to know."

"Who are you?" Remy asked. "And what's your part in all of this?"

"I am Armaros," the angel said, pushing himself up, using the stone wall for support. "And I was

supposed to be Sariel's spy."

The angel stepped closer, and the light from Remy's hand showed him the extent of how badly he'd been

beaten. Remy hadn't seen injuries this savage since . . .

Noah.

"When Noah started talking about how the Chimerian had survived, Sariel became worried. He assigned

me to be the old man's assistant, to help him with the search." Armaros pulled the blanket tighter around

his shoulders.

"But I was really there to keep tabs on Noah's expeditions, and to alert Sariel and my brothers if

anything was ever found."

"Which it was," Remy stated.

A strange, almost beatific expression came over the fallen an-gel's bruised face. "Yes," he said. "Yes, we

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found a small number of them, but I couldn't bring myself to tell Sariel. I knew why he wanted to know if

the Chimerian had survived."

Remy stared, already guessing the answer.

"He wanted to destroy them," Armaros stated, his voice trem-bling with emotion. "He wanted to

complete what the deluge had failed to."

Something moved in the darkness behind them and Remy turned toward the sound, pushing back the

darkness with the light of the divine.

Three of the Chimerian hissed angrily, scurrying back to the protection of the shadows.

"They don't mean you any harm," Armaros reassured him, moving around Remy to get to the creatures.

"They're just afraid."

Armaros knelt down, calling them to him.

Remy had lowered his hand, the light thrown now at a mini-mum. He watched as they emerged,

cautiously moving toward Armaros at his urgings.

They came to the Grigori, and he put his arms around the pale-skinned creatures. They clung to him with

their clawed hands, nuzzling in the crook of his neck.

Remy's suspicions had been right; these weren't savage beasts to be put down.'

"How could I tell Sariel about them?" Armaros asked, kissing one of them atop its bald, veiny head.

"They're only children."

Armaros hugged the children lovingly, and they hugged him back.

"We were going to try to save them—Noah and I," he ex-plained. "Transporting them to a place in the

modern world where they could learn, and adapt."

Remy recalled the transport containers, and the abandoned church property inLynn .

"Noah had it all worked out," the angel continued. As soon as he spoke the old man's name, the

Chimerian children immedi-ately reacted. They became very still, throwing back their overly large heads,

their mouths emitting a strange ululating howl that echoed through the vast chamber.

"I know, I know," Armaros said, pulling them closer to him.

"They miss him," the angel explained. "They loved their Noah very much."

It was the most heartbreaking sound Remy had ever heard, triggering some bizarre paternal instinct. He

wanted to go to them, to hold them in his arms as Armaros did, and comfort them from the pain of the

world.

"He had returned to the rig for some final preparations when Sariel found him," the angel explained,

drawing the Chimerian children closer to him.

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The scene of the crime flashed before Remy's eyes, Noah's beaten and battered body lying on his office

floor.

"And for what he was going to do, Sariel killed him," Remy said.

Armaros nodded. "I'm not sure if that was his intention... but he was so enraged that Noah could even

consider what he was doing..."

The angel looked at Remy. "But how could we not?" he asked. “Somehow they had survived the deluge

. . . survived all the years following .. . doesn't it mean that they'd earned their right to live?"

Remy stepped closer, keeping his burning hand at his side.

The children grew nervous at his approach.

"Shhhhh," Armaros comforted. "He means you no harm."

One of the Chimerian looked at him with deep, cautious eyes, and Remy knew that this was the one that

had found its way to his home.

Remy knelt down near Armaros, reaching out with the hand that did not burn with the fire of Heaven.

The child at first stud-ied what was offered, and then cautiously reached for it, gripping one of Remy's

fingers in his.

"That's it," Armaros said. "He's our friend."

With the child's touch the images flowed through his brain, and his suspicions were confirmed. He knew

these children of the flood, and why the Grigori were so desperate for them to be gone.

"The bastards," Remy whispered. "The miserable, coldhearted bastards."

Seeing that he wasn't a threat, the two other children became interested in him, leaving Armaros's arms

to come to him. And with each touch of their clawed hands, or the feel of their warm breath on his cheek,

Remy knew them more, and what they had gone through to live.

"I couldn't let Noah's death be in vain," Armaros went on. "I was going to try and accomplish our goals

alone ..." The Grigori laughed. "But I was sloppy and Sariel caught me. I tried to tell him that they meant

us no harm, that they only wanted to live, but he would hear nothing of it. I'm surprised that I didn't share

Noah's fate right then and there, but that must be where you came in."

The Chimerian children were crawling all over Remy now, completely unafraid.

Armaros chuckled. "They know you," the fallen angel said. "They know what you are."

Remy laughed, the first real laugh that he'd had since his wife had died.

With the thought of Madeline, the Chimerian children stopped. They stared at him with their intense dark

eyes. And one by one, they drew back their heads and sang their sad, sad song for him.

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"Sariel tried to make me talk," Armaros explained defiantly. "But I wouldn't tell him." He shook his head

from side to side. "I thought I would die, but still I kept their secret. He wanted to know about this place,

but I held my tongue."

Remy was holding the children now, each of them completely comfortable with the other.

"How did you escape?" he asked.

"There are some among them—the Grigori—that feel as I do. They let me go so that I could try and get

the children to safety before ..."

Remy felt it inside his head, like fingers gently running across the surface of his brain. It wasn't an entirely

unpleasant sensa-tion.

Angel of Heaven,said the voice like a gentle summer breezetickling inside his ear. I have something to

show you.

Armaros must have heard it as well, because he smiled.

"She wants to talk with you," the fallen angel said. He opened his arms, calling the children to him. "Go

to her." "Who?" Remy asked, feeling a psychic tug upon him, turning in the darkness like the needle of a

compass, pointed toward where he needed to go.

"The Mother," Armaros said.

There wasn't a moment's hesitation; this was what he had been waiting for. Remy headed off into the

vast underground cave system.

She was calling to him.

The Mother was calling, and he had no choice but to answer.

THIRTEEN

It felt as though he'd been walking for days, but he knew that wasn't the case. The chamber went on,

and on, up and over hills of ice older than recorded history, the only source of illumination being the

divine fire that burned around his hand.

Dripping stalactites, like the teeth of a giant beast, hung over his head as he slid down from the other side

of a black rock wall and onto a path that seemed to be taking him even deeper into the cavernous

surroundings.

At first he had not the slightest idea what it was that loomed out of the darkness in front of them,

believing it to be another enormous wall of rock and ice, an obstruction that could very well prevent him

from going any farther.

Remy lifted his burning hand, staring at the obstruction, and realized that he was looking at something

else altogether.

That he had reached his destination.

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Remy nodded in satisfaction, taking it all in, absorbing the sight of the ancient craft that appeared to have

become part of its rocky underground surroundings.

It must've been swallowed up by changes in the Earth's surface. Pulled farther and farther beneath the

ground as time passed,hethought as he looked upon what was left of the ark.

The remains of Noah's ark.

Over the passage of time the wood had ossified, becoming like stone, blending with its geological

surroundings. The front of the once gigantic ship protruded from the stone as if sailing through a

monstrous ocean swell that had been frozen in time.

It made sense that this was where they'd be, Remy thought as he was drawn toward the ancient

transport. Denied passage on the great craft, but now ...

Wedging his fingers deep into cracks between the rock and ice, Remy started to climb, the gentle voice

of the Mother driving him on.

The answers are inside,Remy told himself, the all-too-human flesh of his fingers feeling the rigors of the

harsh elements.

And Remy needed answers.

From the beginning, when Sariel had first come to him, he had sensed that something wasn't right, that he

wasn't getting the entire picture.

It was all so much bigger than what the Grigori leader had cared to share.

Remy reached the top of the ark, jumping from an icy ledge to the side of the craft, and climbing over

onto what had once been the deck. Countless millennia of shifting, geological change had done its job on

the ship, holding the vessel in its cold, rocky clutches like a prized toy in the mouth of a playful dog.

There were gaping holes in the surface of the deck, and Remy

could feel the tingle of something ancient and magickal wafting up from the darkness below.

Moving toward one of the holes, he peered down into the ship's hold. Memories from days long past

exploded inside his head, of the ship's bowels filled to bursting with life of every con-ceivable size and

shape.

Life that had been deemed worthy to survive the coming storm.

No real thought went into his next action. The Mother was waiting for him, and he simply lowered

himself through the hole and into the waiting darkness below. Using protrusions of rock and ancient,

ossified wood, Remy climbed down into the ship's limitless hold.

Touching bottom was like being on the ocean floor, not a lick of light to be found. He let the fire of

divinity burn brighter from his hand to light the way.

He walked where they had kept the animals, remembering how it had looked then: the pens, primitive

tanks, corrals and stalls, as far as the eye could see, built to hold the myriad varieties of life that the old

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man and his family had been instructed to save.

Remiel,whispered the voice of the Mother.

"Yes," he said aloud, walking farther into the cavernous belly of the ark.

Remember the days long past, when the Maker's world was young.

As he trudged along, images flooded his mind, rapid-fire pictures across the surface of his brain as the

Mother began to show him.

He saw the world as it had been, young and vibrant, fertile with life. A dark, indigo-skinned people—

the Chimerian—made their homes among the rocky hills of the primordial world. They were a beautiful

people, their skin the bluish color of dusk.

Somehow they knew that the Maker did not favor their continued survival, and they begged Him to have

mercy on them, but the All Powerful had already made up His mind, already created something to

replace them.

But the Chimerian did not give up hope, continuing to pray, and to make sacrifices in hopes that their

Maker would not for-sake them, that He would see that they were worthy to live.

And they believed themselves saved when the emissaries came, living among them. Living like them.

Teaching them.

But the emissaries had come only for their own selfish reasons, immersing themselves in the earthly

pleasures of food, drink and carnal acts, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the Chimerian

were extinct.

Remy saw the emissaries inside his mind, saw their leader in the midst of revelry as he and his brethren

partook of all mortal excesses.

He saw Sariel and his Grigori.

And then he saw a Chimerian woman, her belly swollen with life.

The fallen angel became enraged.

It cannot be,the Grigori leader ranted, and the woman cow-ered. Your kind were supposed to be

barren.

And she looked to him with hope in her eyes, hope for her and all her kind, as well as the children to be

born of Chimerian women and fallen angels.

A gift of our union,the beautiful woman with the night-colored skin said to Sariel.

She reached out, took Sariel's hand, and placed it onher stomach.

A gift to show the Maker we are worthy to live.

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A final image was burnt into Remy's mind: it was of the Chi-merian women, clad in hooded cloaks

stitched from animalskins, clutching bellies swollen with life.

They stood upon the rocky hills as the rain fell in torrents, and the waters rose, watching as those

deemed worthy to livefiled aboard the ark.

Unworthy to exist.

Forsaken.

Remy came away from the sad vision in an area of theark darker than even the light of the divine could

illuminate.

He knew that she was here, somewhere in the ocean ofnight, hiding herself away.

"How?" he asked the darkness. "How did you survive?"

The feeling inside his head was immediate, like a long, sharp finger slowly pushing into the soft gray

matter of his brain, but he did not fight it. Remy let the answers come.

It was like looking out through dirt-covered windows, the scenes unfolding, desperate to find a place

inside his already crowded skull.

Remy stumbled and fell to the ground, fighting to stay con-scious.

The Chimerian people bobbed upon the waters, one byone taken by the merciless sea. But some

survived, the women of the tribe, those who had been touched by the Grigori. Somehow they had been

changed by their experiences with the fallen ones, their bodies evolving, making them able to endure the

catastrophe.

The impregnated women clung to the side of the great ark, their bodies enshrouded— protected—by

thick cocoons made from magick and sorrow.

And they survived like that, hiding from those who wished them gone, sleeping through the passage of

ages, waiting for a time—a safe time—to emerge.

Through a thick gauze of webbing Remy watched as a man clad in heavy winter garb, protected from

the harshness of the elements, moved toward them.

Noah.

Sensing changes in the world, and in him, they had reached out, drawing him to their hiding place. And

begging their forgive-ness, he pulled them from their womb of shadow.

Noah at last finding his Chimerian orphans.

Remy felt the hold on him released, and he peered again into the limitless depths of the darkness,

searching for the one who had called to him.

He got to his feet and moved farther into the nebulous em-brace, the light of his hand nearly useless in

the supernatural en-vironment.

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"Are you here?" he asked. "Show yourself to me."

The Mother responded to Remy's request; her form, as well as the forms of the other Chimerian

survivors, gradually moved into focus.

It was as if they were lying in a great nest crafted from the stygian gloom, six of them, several still

pregnant with the fruit of their union with the emissaries. They appeared to be asleep, but their minds

were active.

Remy could feel them all reaching out to him, attempting to communicate, but one voice remained the

loudest.

The Mother.

Remiel,she spoke inside his mind.

He looked down into the nest, and for a moment he saw the love of his life as he had watched her so

many times, fast asleep.

The picture of a sleeping Madeline quickly changed to that of the Chimerian Mother. She appeared

smaller than the others, having already borne her young.

The children that he'd encountered.

I felt you out there,the Mother whispered wearily. A compassion-ate consciousness to hear our plea.

"What would you have me do?" Remy asked, kneeling down beside the nest.

Will you speak for us, warrior of Heaven?she asked. When we are at last gone, driven from

existence, will you remember us?

"I'll help Armaros," Remy told her. "We'll continue what Noah began and—"

Too late for that,she said resignedly. Our time draws near. Tell me that you will remember us for

what we were, and not as some blight upon the early land.

"I'll help you," he said, the words leaving his mouth just as the Mother began to scream.

Remy didn't know what to do. Reaching down, he took her hand in his. "What's happening?" he asked.

It has begun. The end of us . . .

"What can I do?" he demanded. There had to be something.

The other women began to moan and writhe, as if held in the grip of some terrible nightmare. The smell

of magick was sud-denly in his nostrils, and Remy turned in the darkness.

Something was appearing behind him, a jagged, lightning-bolt tear was ripped in the shroud of shadow

that had protected the Chimerian women. Remy sensed the danger at once, rising to his feet and allowing

the warrior side of him to bubble to the surface. The Grigori spilled from the open wound into the

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chamber, their eyes gleaming with bloodlust.

"No!" Remy screamed in the voice of the Messengers, his wings of feathered gold spreading from his

back, forming a bar-rier between them and the Chimerian women.

And then he felt her touch again, pulling him back. Drawing him down.

The Mother had brought him into a vision.

They were at theMaine cottage, standing inside the extra room. Wearing the image of his wife, she

attempted to console him.

"There's nothing that you can do," she said, standing before theopen window, the wind pulling at her

clothes. It had become like night outside, the air electric with the coming storm.

"Don't let them do this," Remy said, unable to keep the tremor of emotion from his voice.

"We always suspected that it could end this way,"the Mother,wearing the guise of Madeline, said. She

reached out and cupped the side of his face.

"Remember."

Then the storm was upon them, and the rain began to fall.

Remy awoke to the smell of blood. He could still feel the Moth-er's touch, restraining him from the

inevitable.

There is nothing you can do.

But Remy did not want to believe it, fighting the grip that held him. In the womb of darkness, he heard

the sounds of their ex-citement, and looked to see the Grigori attackers, their fine Ital-ian suits spattered

black with blood as they murdered the defenseless survivors of the Great Deluge.

Something snapped inside Remy, and the power of I leaven

rushed forward with a terrible fury. He let it come, letting it tram-ple his humanity in its excitement to

emerge.

The light thrown from his body burned like the heart of the sun, and he heard the Grigori squeal like

frightened animals as they were driven back, away from their murderous acts.

But it appeared he was too late. The Chimerian women were dead, their defenseless bodies bearing the

bloody wounds of the fallen angels' shame.

"Remiel," a voice called from behind him.

He turned to see Sariel coming toward him through the dark-ness, a pale hand raised to shield his eyes

from the heavenly light.

"We feared for your safety."

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In his other hand the Grigori held a sword, an ancient blade that had been forged in the fires of the Lord

God's love, and had once glowed like a star, but now was only a thing of metal, tar-nished and stained

by needless violence.

"What have you done, Sariel?" Remy asked, barely able to contain his emotion as he looked upon the

women savagely bru-talized by the Grigori.

"We suspected you might be in danger," Sariel spoke. "And came at once to your aid."

The Seraphim laughed, a low, rumbling sound more like a growl.

"Your concern for my well-being ... is touching," Remy said.

And then he turned his cold gaze upon the Grigori leader.

"You used me, Sariel," he said, repressed fury dripping from every word.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," the Grigori leader responded indignantly. “You made me part

of this," Remy hissed. The glow from his body had dwindled, the darkness of what had transpired

draining away the intensity of his light.

"Don't you see, Remiel?" Sariel asked. "You were part of our

test."

All Remy could do was stare at the sight of something once holy, now but a twisted reflection.

"The Almighty provided you for us to complete our penance," the Grigori leader went on. His brothers

stepped cautiously into the light to join their leader. "You were a tool of our redemp-tion."

"Redemption," Remy said, the word like poison on his lips. "You actually believe that after all you've

done ..."

His eyes were pulled to the Chimerian bodies and he stopped.

"The Lord God provided us with a way to consummate a task that had remained incomplete for

countless millennia," Sariel continued to explain. "How could we not respond?"

"And Noah?" Remy asked.

"He has been avenged," Sariel proclaimed, raising his sword as if in victory.

"You murdered him," Remy raged. He turned his gaze back to the Grigori master; the fire of Heaven

burned in his stare.

Sariel started to speak, but Remy did not want to hear it. He charged at the fallen angel, grabbing the

lapel of his suit jacket and pulling him closer.

"You killed him in a fit of rage," Remy accused, his teeth clenched in anger. "You beat a defenseless old

man to death with your fists."

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"I lost my temper," the Grigori admitted, followed by a sigh

of exasperation. "He was just so damned stubborn. Wracked with guilt over what he believed he had

done . .. you should have seen how excited he was when he thought that he'd found them."

Remy felt himself becoming sick as the fallen angel attempted to justify his twisted actions.

"He didn't see the danger no matter how hard I tried to explain it," the Grigori said, his words fervent.

"He told me that he was going to beg God to let them live ... that because they had sur-vived the flood

He should allow them to exist. That they had earned the right to life."

Sariel actually seemed to believe what he was saying, and that Remy found even more disturbing.

"Here was our chance, Remiel," the Grigori leader empha-sized. "Something to bring us that much closer

to going home ... to be allowed back to Heaven."

"But you killed him," Remy reminded the Grigori leader with a shake.

"Yes, I did," Sariel admitted. "Not sure exactly how that will be received, but at least we're finishing

what the flood began. That has to count for something. I wasn't about to allow anything to prevent me

from completing what should have been finished ages ago."

Sariel glanced at the hand still holding his lapel.

"It's done, Remiel," Sariel said. "This is how it was supposed to be. For us to finish what had already

been put in motion; it was a test for us, penance for one of our greatest... misjudgments."

"Misjudgments?" Remy asked, scorn in his words. "But the children ..."

Sariel looked to the corpses, distaste upon his pale, perfect face. “An error better left forgotten," he

snarled, removing Remy's hand from his suit coat. "They were twisted things, Remiel, nei-ther of Heaven

nor Earth."

"They were yours."

He searched the fallen angel's eyes, looking for even a small sign of mercy or compassion. It was like

staring into a deep, dark hole. There was nothing there, and Remy knew that Sariel and his Grigori

brothers were lost.

What they believed of the Chimerian was true of them—there was no place for the Grigori in Heaven, or

on Earth.

Remy heard a sound, a howl of mourning from the throats of children born of Grigori and Chimerian

women. He turned to-ward the song to see them, squatting at the edge of darkness, clinging to one

another as they ached over the fate that had be-fallen their Mother.

The Chimerian lament filled the shadows, becoming louder, and their sadness became palpable. One by

one, the Grigori dropped to their knees, supremely affected by the woeful song.

Perhaps I am wrong about them,Remy thought.

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All were affected except for Sariel.

The Grigori leader looked upon his brothers with horror. "Get up!" he screamed, but either they did not

hear him over the sad song or they chose to ignore his words, for they continued to kneel upon the

ground soaked with the blood of innocents.

"Listen to it," Remy yelled over the forlorn sound. "Listen to the pain you've caused."

Blood started to seep from Sariel's ears. His body grew stiff, and began to tremble. Slowly his knees

began to bend, bringing him closer and closer to the ground.

"I... ," Sariel grunted, stabbing the blade of his sword into the ground to halt his progress.

"Hear ..." He fought the gravity of sorrow pushing down upon him, to struggle to his feet.

"Nothing!" And he sprang across the floor, murder in his gaze as he raised his tarnished blade to strike at

those who would keep him from achieving that which he most desired.

That which would keep him from the gates of Heaven.

Remy sprang into Sariel's path, grappling with the fallen angel and driving him to the cold, hard ground.

The Grigori flailed, lashing out with the pommel of his sword, striking Remy across the temple with a

savage blow.

There was a searing flash of pain and color as Remy felt the Grigori squirm out from beneath him. He

fought back the de-scending curtain of oblivion, flapping his powerful wings to rise to his feet.

The Chimerian babes had ceased their song as they watched the scene unfold with wide, frightened

eyes. They hissed, baring razor-sharp teeth as Sariel loomed, sword raised above his head, ready to fall.

The Seraphim emerged with a roar, pushing aside the fragile shell of humanity Remy wore, burning it

with the fire of Heaven. And Remy let it. He was tired of all the pain and death, tired of being

manipulated in others' pursuits of Heaven.

With hands burning white with divine heat, he grabbed the Grigori leader, pulling him back away from his

objectives.

Away from his children.

Sariel struggled in the grasp of the Seraphim, and his fine suit and the flesh beneath it burned with the

supernatural fire. He spun on Remy, swinging his sword with a cry of fury and pain.

But the Seraphim was not impressed, capturing the blade in midswing, causing the weapon to warp and

bend, and finally to melt. Sariel's screams were entirely of pain now as his immortal flesh blackened and

smoldered, but the Seraphim held him tight, refus-ing to set him free.

Allowing the power of God that seethed at his core to flow through him and into the fallen angel.

"You wanted to see Heaven again, brother?" the Seraphim spoke in the language of God's first

creations. "See it now."

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The Grigori leader still lived, but his body had begun to crum-ble, pieces of charred angel flesh breaking

away to drift on the air like black snow.

"See it and burn."

And soon the angel Sariel was no more, as the last of him was consumed by the voraciousness of

Heaven's fire.

The Seraphim flapped his powerful wings, dispersing his fallen enemy's ashen remains, and turned his

attention to the others. They had risen to their feet, weapons in hand, staring at him with intense hatred.

And the Seraphim's mouth twisted in a cruel smile that told he was ready to share their master's fate with

them. None moved.

Having no fear of them,-the Seraphim Remiel turned his back on the Grigori to face the children of the

deluge. They looked away from him with a hiss, the intensity of his light searing their sensitive eyes.

Diminishing his holy glow, he knelt upon the ground, opening his arms to them. Without hesitation they

came to him, the three orphans crawling into the safety of the angel's embrace.

Its penchant for violence more than satisfied, Remy was able to usurp control from the Seraphim, putting

the genie back into the bottle for another time.

He didn't know how much longer he could continue to do this, for the essence of the divine grew more

powerful each time it was called upon. But that was a worry for another time.

He had the safety of the children to concern himself with now.

Walking through darkness in the bowels of the ark, he held the quivering offspring tight, consoling them

with words that every-thing would be all right, having no idea if he was lying to them or not.

Stopping, he allowed the fire to burn from his hand again to see how far they'd come. To say that he was

shocked by the sight of dead Grigori bodies strewn about the ground was an under-statement.

Even more shocking was the sight of Francis, and Armaros.

"Hey," the former Guardian angel said. He clutched what looked to be a Bavarian Warhammer in one

hand, while support-ing Armaros with the other. "Sorry I'm late, didn't think they'd start the party without

me."

Armaros pulled away from Francis and opened his arms to the Chimerian orphans.

"You saved them," he said as the three children leapt from Remy's arms to go to the Grigori.

"But they're the only ones," Remy said sadly.

Francis was staring at the Chimerian children, and by the look on his face, he clearly was not sure what

to think.

"How does Sariel feel about that?" he asked.

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"Sariel's dead," Remy said coldly.

Francis nodded, then reached out a tentative hand to pat one of the bald Chimerian heads. The child

growled, swatting at the offending hand with its razor-sharp claws.

"Cute," Francis said as he quickly pulled his hand back. "He has his daddy's charming disposition." "He

was going to kill them," Remy said, speaking of Sariel. "Because they had the audacity to survive."

Francis nudged one of the Grigori corpses with the toe of his shoe.

"And he wasn't the only one with that bad attitude."

The wayward Guardian then sighed, and slung the medieval weapon over his shoulder. "So what now?"

he asked. "Anything else that needs to be killed?"

Remy looked to Armaros for an answer.

"Sariel is dead, but the Grigori still live," he said, holding the Chimerian children. They were falling

asleep, their large heads bobbing. "They won't give up that easily. We're going to need a safe place until

some of this dies down."

"Troublemaker," Francis said from the side of his mouth, his comment directed at Remy.

"You know me," Remy responded with a shrug.

Francis nodded, rolling his eyes.

"Where will you go?" Remy asked Armaros, who had already started to turn away from them.

"Perhaps it is better that you don't know," the fallen angel said, carrying the sleeping orphans farther into

the darkness. "Perhaps it's time for the Chimerian to again become lost to the world."

To be swallowed up by the gloom.

FOURTEEN

Remy returned to the cottage inMaine , not really sure why; it seemed as good a place as any at the

moment. He wasn't ready to resume his life, to pick up where it had left off with Madeline's passing.

It was all too fresh. He didn't know if there would ever come a time when it wouldn't still be too fresh.

There had been a few inches more of snow, the winter's flailing last attempts to hold on before the

inevitable.

He knew the feeling.

Sitting in the wicker chair on the front porch, Marlowe lying beside him, he tried to imagine life without

her. She had been his hold on the world, the thing that kept him from becoming like the Grigori, and the

others of his heavenly ilk.

She was his soul. And now, with her gone ...

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Remy tried to think of something else—anything else.

A few days past, as much as he was loath to admit it, the fallen angel Sariel had provided him with

something he desperately needed. Something that took him away from his thoughts and pain.

Distraction.

If there was one thing for which he owed the Grigori leader, it was that. He had temporarily taken Remy

from his sadness, and he had liked how it felt.

He crossed his legs, pulling the cuff of his jeans down below his ankle, covering the top of his work

boot. From the porch he stared out over the driveway, into the dark woods at the snow-covered trees,

and beyond.

Staring into the future.

"What?"Marlowe asked, suddenly alerted, following Remy's gaze, probably hoping that his master had

seen some food at-tempting to escape.

The dog scrambled to his feet with a bark, walking to the edge of the porch and sniffing the cool air, just

in case.

"Do you see it?" Remy asked, feeling the darkness calling to him.

Wo, "Marlowe grumbled, turning back to him, his thick black tail starting to wag nervously.

Remy smiled, placing both feet on the floor and leaning for-ward in the chair, hands open to Marlowe.

Marlowe came to him happily, eating up the affection.

"It must've been nothing," he told the dog, allowing the ani-mal to lick his face.

But Remy knew it was there, waiting to take him away.

A diversion from the heartache.

A distraction found in the affairs of angels.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

A martial arts enthusiast whose resume includes a long list of skills rendered obsolete at least two

hundred years ago, Jim Butcher turned to writing as a career because anything else probably would

have driven him insane. He lives inIndependence,Missouri , with his wife, his son, and a ferocious guard

dog. You can visit his Web site at www.Jim-Butcher.com.

Simon R. Greenis a New York Times bestselling author. He lives inEngland .

Kat Richardsonlives on a sailboat inSeattle with her husband and two ferrets. She rides a motorcycle,

doesn't own a car or a TV, shoots target pistol, and has been known to swing dance, sing, and spend

insufficient time at the gym. You can visit her on the Web at www.katrichardson.com.

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Thomas E. Sniegoskiis a full-time writer of novels and comics. He was born and raised inMassachusetts

, where he still lives with his wife, LeeAnne, and their Labrador retriever, Mulder.

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