Nightworld

Bill let the Mercedes' diesel engine idle a bit till it was good and warm. He was disappointed and found it difficult to hide his irritation. This whole trip had been for nothing.

"Well," he said, glancing at Glaeken, "that was a fiasco."

The old man was staring out the side window at the house. He did not turn to Bill as he spoke.

"It didn't go quite as I'd hoped, but I wouldn't say it was a fiasco."

"How could it have gone worse? She kicked us out."

"I expect resistance from the people I must recruit. After all, I'm asking them to believe that human civilization, such as it is, is on the brink of annihilation, and to put their trust in me, a perfect stranger. That's a difficult pill to swallow. Mrs. Nash's dose is doubly bitter."

"I gather you think this Dat-tay-vao is in Jeffy."

"I know it is."

"Well, then, I think you've got a real selling job ahead of you. Because it's pretty clear that not only does that woman not believe it, she doesn't want to believe it."

"She will. As the Change progresses she will have no choice but to believe. And then she will bring me the boy."

"Let's hope she doesn't wait too long."

Glaeken nodded, still staring at the house. "Let's hope that the Dat-tay-vao and the other components are enough to make a difference."

Bill fought the despondency as he felt it return.

"In other words, all this—everything you're trying to do—might be for nothing."

"Yes. It might. But even the trying counts for something. And I met the boy today. Contact with him has helped me locate someone I have been searching for. That was a good thing."

"He took to you like I've rarely seen a child take to a strange adult."

"Oh, that wasn't Jeffy himself responding to me. That was the Dat-tay-vao within him." Glaeken turned from the window and smiled at Bill. "We're old friends, you see."

Over his shoulder, in the window next to the mansion's front door, Bill spotted the little boy's face pressed against the glass, staring at them.