Down These Strange Streets

NO MYSTERY, NO MIRACLE by Melinda M. Snodgrass

The problem with opening a crack in the world is that you never know what’s going to crawl through it. Which can be dangerous if it’s your job to close that crack back up again . . .

A writer whose work crosses several mediums and genres, Melinda M. Snodgrass has written scripts for multiple television shows, including Star Trek: The Next Generation (for which she was also a story editor for several years). She was a writer/ producer on Profiler. She has written a number of popular science fiction novels, and was one of the cocreators of the long-running Wild Cards series, for which she has also written and edited. Her novels include Circuit, Circuit Breaker, Final Circuit, The Edge of Reason, Runespear (with Victor Milán), High Stakes, Santa Fe, and Queen’s Gambit Declined. Her most recent novel is The Edge of Ruin, the sequel to The Edge of Reason. Her media novels include the Wild Cards novel Double Solitaire and the Star Trek novel The Tears of the Singers. She’s also the editor of the anthology A Very Large Array. She lives in New Mexico.

THE RACKET OF THE WHEELS OVER THE TRACKS WAS HYPNOTIC. MOONLIGHT trickled through the slats of the boxcar, and, inside, a kerosene lantern lit the faces of the men reclining on their bindles. The warm golden light gave the illusion of health to sallow, stubbled skin. The lantern’s presence would have raised the ire and the fists of any passing bull, but fortunately none of the railroad police had checked the train at the past two stations. Cross leaned against the back of the car and listened to the basso drone of male voices, and watched the magic that sang in their blood coruscate around them.

He had left New York City three months ago, looking for the origin point of a mysterious hobo symbol. Usually such symbols were simple affairs—a code that hobos left for other ’bos to guide them as they crissed and crossed a desperate country. An empty circle meant there was nothing for you here. A triangle with two lines thrust out like arms, and four smaller lines like fingers meant that a man with a gun lived there. A cat meant a kind old lady, and a cross meant if you listened to some religious talk you’d get a free meal. This one had a cross, but it also had a serpent. The head of the snake nestled in the angle between the upright and the cross’s arms; its mouth was open, showing fangs, and there was something about the eyes that Cross found eerily familiar and disturbing.

His boss, owner of Unique Investigations, suspected that it marked the place of an incursion from another universe, and after loading up the money belt with cash, Conoscenza had sent Cross out to find it. Cross had spent weeks in hobo jungles, walking the roads, riding the rails, talking with hobos and being attacked, but he thought he saw an end to the journey. What the old man had told him in St. Louis sounded promising.

The old man had seen the mark in Buford Fork, a small town near Tulsa, Oklahoma. They would be coming up on it soon, and Cross would jump and go in search of the tear in reality and the creature that had made it. It was a warm June night, but still Cross shivered and pulled his suit jacket closer around him. He had come up against one of his own kind in West Virginia and it had shattered him. He’d lost days piecing himself back together, and he was still fragile as hell. He sensed that he could shatter at any moment, so he feared the coming confrontation.

Cross unlimbered his hip flask and gulped down a mouthful of brandy. Prohibition added to the woes of a desperate country, but Conoscenza had it smuggled in from Canada, and it was quality. After it was gone, Cross would have to find a speakeasy and buy whatever crap they were selling. Unlike a human, Cross wouldn’t go blind from bad bootleg.

“It wasn’t my fault.” The adenoidal tones of Ed Bloom came drifting back to Cross. “My management principles were fine . . . no, better than fine, they were great. But the owner couldn’t see that, and he closed the store. The employees had no cause to blame me.”

It was the nineteenth time Bloom had told this story since Cross had jumped aboard the side-door Pullman back in St. Louis. It made Cross wish he’d dipped into his supply of cash and bought a seat in a passenger car, but after what had happened in West Virginia, he feared to try. If he were to splinter in a freight car among a gang of hobos, no one would listen to them. No authority figure would heed a wild story from lost and forgotten men about a man who had shattered into hundreds of slivers of multicolored light and flown away in all directions. But if it happened in front of respectable citizens—no, he couldn’t risk it.

The train slowed. Cross gathered up his bindle, stuffed his fedora into the pocket of his suit coat, moved to the door, and slid it open a few feet. The spikes at the ends of the railroad ties flashed like a code. The train slowed again, the wheels giving a metallic squeal, and Cross jumped. He lost his footing but managed to get his shoulder down to take the brunt of the fall. The cinders next to the track crackled and sent up the smell of coal soot. Regaining his feet, Cross walked away.

NIGHT HAD FLUNG ITSELF OVER THE SMALL OKLAHOMA TOWN OF BUFORD Fork in a way that reminded Cross of a vast maw snapping shut. It also reminded him why he hated rural towns. He loved the glow of big cities, with electricity to hold the darkness at bay. He looked longingly at the glow of Tulsa on the horizon, but turned his back and continued down the main drag of Buford Fork. Up ahead he saw an oasis of public lighting, four gas lamps that lit the front of City Hall.

Across the street was a diner, but it was closed up tight, probably because there wasn’t enough custom to make it worth the effort of opening. A handwritten menu in the window touted chicken fried steak with cream gravy and hush puppies. Cross realized the flesh he wore was hungry. He pressed a hand against his belly and felt the bulge of the money belt. Did he continue to play the hobo or offer some homeowner money for food?

He passed a movie theater. Ironically, the marquee read City Lights, Starring Charlie Chaplin. There was a Ford Model A truck, the black cab coated with dust, parked out front. The whitewall tires were like the flash of a smile in the dark. There were two ancient Model Ts, and several bicycles leaned up against the wall. Cross considered going inside. He liked movies, but there was no ticket seller in the kiosk.

He moved on and saw the black silhouette of a cross against the sky. It perched incongruously on the roof of a house. A mission, then. He walked up to the gate in the faded white picket fence. A hand-lettered sign read The Blood of the Lamb Mission. Shadows near the bottom of the gate’s upright caught his attention. He bent, flicked on his lighter, and froze. The old man in St. Louis had been right. The symbol he’d been following across the depression-wracked country was carved deep into the wood. The drawing had been disturbing; the original was terrifying.

Now he regretted that he had been flippant in Conoscenza’s Harlem office. The big man had skated the drawing across the polished surface of the desk. Cross had studied the cross and the snake, met the dark gaze of the man who offered him a chance for oblivion, and asked, “I’m guessing this doesn’t mean there’s a doctor in the joint.”

Conoscenza stood, an impressive sight, because he was at least six foot six and three-hundred-plus pounds. He paced to the window and clasped his hands behind his back. The sunlight shone on his ebony skin. Cross joined him and they looked down on the throngs of humans bustling along the sidewalk. “It’s a bad time,” Conoscenza said. “Could be there’s enough desperation out there to finally allow them to tear open the membranes between the dimensions and return.”

The them referred to Cross’s kind, creatures that masqueraded as gods and preyed on the inhabitants of this world. Just as Cross now masqueraded as human, though he no longer fed on the hapless monkeys of Earth.

“We’ve seen worse,” was Cross’s laconic reply. “Economic depression and drought can’t really stack up against the Black Death, Genghis Khan, or the Albigensian Crusade. If this generation of humans is going to embrace the Old Ones over this, then they’re pussies.”

Now, confronted by the symbol, he was scared. Their opponents had found enough death, violence, and pain to shatter Cross. It was only because of hundreds of tiny acts of kindness that he had been able to paste himself back together. Despite being devastated by economic collapse, many people were actually worshiping the loving version of God embodied by the mythical Jesus. They were applying the principles that Conoscenza had grafted onto the previously murderous cult of a war god.

Some of this kindness was intrinsic to man—evolution tended to cultivate empathy—but some of it was due to Conoscenza’s meddling. The Old Ones might have afflicted humankind with religion, but Conoscenza had tried to guide it and shape it into something that could potentially do good. And Cross had joined him in this effort because, in the distant past, Eolas, as Conoscenza had then been called, had found Cross, created by human compassion and weakened by human cruelty, and Eolas/Conoscenza had offered Cross a bargain. Cross would help against the alien creatures, and, in exchange, Eolas/Conoscenza would help Cross die. They just never seemed to get around to the dying part. For an instant, existence lay on Cross’s shoulders like a crushing weight.

He lifted his head and faced the building. There was a flutter in his gut that had nothing to do with hunger. If this was a point of contact between the Old Ones and this world, Cross would have to handle the situation, and he was weak, so weak. Once again, he wished that they had a paladin, a human who could use the ancient weapon and kill an Old One. Instead, he had to match his strength against his own kind. He sucked in a steadying breath and pushed through the gate. Dead grass, blasted by years of drought, crackled beneath his feet. He walked up the stairs onto the wide, screened porch, complete with a swing, and knocked on the front door. He hoped the obligatory service would be over, and that no one currently in residence was actually religious. When people started praying and testifying and calling on Jesus, it made it damn hard for him to keep his hair short and his face beardless. His physical form tended to reflect the vision of the believers.

A woman answered. Thirties, pretty, brown hair piled on her head, and built like a brick shithouse. She wore a skirt and white blouse and a pair of perky open-toed red shoes. She stared at Cross for a long moment, and then a smile clicked on. He allowed a sliver of his power to flick out and touch her. Magic flared around her, and there was something very wrong with the large amber ring on her right hand. He studied the band formed of braided hair, and the undulating black shadows that flowed into it. Something was trapped and he feared it might be her.

“Evening, ma’am,” Cross said. “Am I right in thinking this is a mission?”

“Yes . . . yes, it is. Welcome, do come in. I’m Sister Sharon.” She stepped back and Cross stepped across the threshold. The oily taint of his kind permeated the walls and hung in the curtains. Cross’s muscles tensed in preparation for an assault, but then he realized that it was faint and muted; the Old One was clearly no longer present.

“You’re our only guest tonight. Most people seem to be riding on through.” She had a good voice, clear and vibrant. She took his bindle and set it by the door. “If you’re hungry, there’s stew on the stove and I baked bread this morning.”

“Yes, ma’am, I could eat.”

She led him into the living room, which had been transformed into a mess hall with trestle tables and benches. Cross settled onto a bench; she disappeared through a door. Cross jumped up and hurried back to the entryway. He had the power to see magic, and the tear between the dimensions should be like a flare. He swung his head from side to side, trying to locate it, but the ring was a constant buzz, interfering with his ability. He moved toward a set of double doors and had his hand on the knob when he was startled by a sharp voice.

“Here, now, what are you doing snoopin’ around?”

Cross turned and met the irate gaze of a short, rotund man. Standing behind the bristling fat man was a heavyset youth in his twenties. The flat facial features betrayed his mongolism. He smiled at Cross and bobbed his head happily.

“Sorry, just getting my bearings,” Cross said.

“Looking to rob us, no doubt,” the man huffed. He reached up and grabbed Cross by the ear, and tugged. “We’ll see what Sister Sharon has to say.” Now the idiot was looking concerned, catching the anger in the fat man’s words.

“If you don’t let go, you’re going to lose that hand,” Cross said in a conversational tone. The man met his gaze and yanked his hand back. Cross walked into the mess hall. Sharon was just emerging from another door with a bowl of stew in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other.

“Sister, I found him slinkin’ around.” The words were infused with the kind of self-importance only heard in palace eunuchs or majordomos. The mongoloid hung back at the door, shifted nervously from foot to foot, and cast glances at Sharon.

“I’m sure he meant no harm,” Sharon said soothingly.

Cross sat down on a bench, and Sharon deposited the food in front of him. He gave the stew an experimental stir. It was thick with chunks of meat, and even held a few green beans among the carrots and potatoes. This was far better fare than was found at most missions. Sharon sat across from him. The little man stood behind her and glared.

“My husband, Marshall, and stepson are on a crusade,” Sharon said. “They do the preaching, so I haven’t been encouraging folks to come since there aren’t services right now.”

“You’re just as fine a preacher as Brother Hanlin,” the man said. “The spirit fills you, Sister Sharon.” She smiled up at him, and he puffed out his chest. Cross stared at the darkness circling the ring and wondered what else might fill her.

“You’re too kind, Stanley.”

“The lack of a parson is probably an attraction for most people,” Cross said as he slurped up a spoonful of stew.

“I take it you’re not a godly man, Mr. . . .”

The irony nearly made him choke. He gave a short laugh. “Cross,” he said, supplying the name. “And I’m more godly than you can imagine. I just know it’s all snake oil and wishful thinking.”

“You don’t think people need the comfort? Especially in hard times?” Sharon asked.

“I’m all for comfort. If they would just leave it at that, but they never do. People always decide that everybody else has to get some comfort too, and it better be their version of comfort. And if it’s not, they generally make their point on the sharp end of a sword or the business end of a gun.”

Sharon jumped to her feet, her agitation evident in her writhing fingers as she clasped and unclasped her hands. “Perhaps we could take a walk in the night air and continue our talk, Mr. Cross.”

“All right.”

Cross tore off a hunk of bread and carried it with him as he escorted her to the front door. The retarded man scuttled out of the way. Behind him, the majordomo emitted gargling sounds that never fully resolved into words.

SHE LED HIM BEHIND THE HOUSE AND DOWN A PATH THAT FOLLOWED THE barbed-wire fence. The warm night air was filled with the soft lowing of cattle, and the smell of cow shit and dust. He began to mind where he stepped. Fireflies danced through the brown blades of grass like lost stars. The half moon had nearly set behind the hills.

Ahead, a sinuous line of trees marked a stream’s meandering path. They broke through into a clearing where a wooden footbridge crossed the slowflowing water. The wind shifted and Cross smelled the smoke of a campfire. There was a hobo jungle nearby. Sharon stared in that direction for a long time, then sank down on the edge of the bridge, legs swinging free, and stared down at the silver-tipped ripples passing beneath her.

Finally, she asked, “What do you do, sir? What’s your business?”

“I’m currently a private detective, ma’am,” he said.

She studied him for a long time. “So that means you help people.” Her voice was so soft he had to lean in to hear her. Her breath puffed softly against his cheek.

“Do you need help?”

She didn’t answer but turned her face away to contemplate the sky. “My husband is on his way to Chicago for the convention.”

Cross didn’t need to ask which convention. The Democrats had gathered to select a presidential candidate. The Republicans were sticking with the hapless Hoover, so it was critical that the Democrats pick wisely. Not fucking likely was Cross’s estimation.

“Marshall’s an alternate delegate, and he took Sean so he could see his government in action,” she continued. That gave Cross a twinge of unease. A preacher with an official position and the taint of an Old One could be a toxic brew.

“I stayed behind to mind the mission.” Sharon continued. She gave the ring a nervous twist. The shadow tentacles writhed. She sat silent for a moment, then turned to face him. “The Lord has given me the gift of Sight, and I can see that you are a good man. I think you were sent here to help me.”

“I couldn’t speak to the first part, ma’am, but if you’re in trouble I could probably help,” Cross said.

She presented him with her profile. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“Why’s that?”

She thrust out her hand. “This ring,” she whispered. “My husband gave it to me, but I can’t take it off.”

“Let me see.” He extended his hand, and she laid her hand in his.

Power throbbed through the ring like a heartbeat. He gathered his own power, took a grip on the ring, and gave an experimental tug. There was a flare of violet light, something seemed to kick him in the chest, and the world went black.

The first impression was that he was wet. Then Sharon was there, pulling his head into her lap and stroking his forehead.

“Mr. Cross. Mr. Cross. Are you all right?”

He forced apart his eyelids. Even the faint moonlight felt like a spike being driven into his head. He was lying with the lower half of his body in the creek. The assault from the ring had knocked him clean off the footbridge.

The bonds that supported his human form were vibrating like a struck tuning fork. He swallowed bile, closed his eyes, and took slow, deep breaths. Don’t shatter. Don’t shatter. Not here. Not now. Not so soon after the last time. Slowly, he gained control over the body.

“Do you think you can walk?”

He nodded. A mistake, so he settled for a moan and hoped it sounded enough like yes to get across his meaning. He struggled, trying to regain his feet. Sharon helped, supporting him under one arm.

They limped back to the mission. “I’m going to put you to bed in Sean’s room. And get out of those wet clothes. If I hang them now they’ll be dry by morning.”

She took him upstairs to a narrow room with an equally narrow bed against one wall. There was a bookcase with schoolbooks and religious tracts. On top of the case was a collection of rocks, a crawfish in a tank, a football. A typical boy’s room. She left. Cross emptied his pockets and took off the gun rig. He stripped out of his clothes, and, half-opening the door, handed out the soggy bundle.

He had the presence of mind to remove the money belt and shove it beneath the pillow. He then eyed the bed and fell naked on top of the covers.

IT WAS THE WESTERING SUN, HOT ON HIS EYELIDS, THAT BROUGHT HIM awake. Cross found his clothes in a neatly folded stack on the foot of the bed. The incongruity puzzled him. Little Miss Goody Two Shoes had entered the bedroom of a naked man not her husband. He checked his wristwatch. The dark power in that ring had knocked him out for twenty-one hours. Cross shuddered; something had come through the veils between the dimensions here, and it appeared to be a shitload more powerful than he was.

None of his possessions had been molested, not even the Webley. Dressed, he took a moment to quickly open the doors of the two other rooms on the upper floor. One was a study, the other a bedroom with a double bed covered with a patchwork quilt and redolent with the smell of perfume. And he found what he’d sought. Not the actual opening between the dimensions, but proof that an Old One had been resident in this house. The mirror on the dresser was gray and occluded, the result of contact with an Old One.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and considered. One of his kind had entered the world here. Which meant that there was a hole in reality. He couldn’t deal with the tear; only a paladin using the weapon could close it. He needed to inform his boss and warn him it had moved on, probably to Chicago. He should head for Chicago too. Fight the Old One and maybe win. Even considering the coming battle had him shaking. On the other hand, Conoscenza had only told him to locate the source. Cross had done that. He could use the money in his belt, buy a ticket on the first train heading east, and make his report in person.

Cross went to the top of the stairs and heard the rumble of male voices from the mess hall. This evening, the Blood of the Lamb Mission had customers. Entering the converted living room, he studied the situation. Stubble adorned all the faces because razors and soap were expensive. Most of the men wore coveralls. A few, like Cross, sported suits, the material worn down to a poverty shine. The room smelled of hash, scrambled eggs, freshly baked bread, and coffee cut heavily with chicory. Beneath the good smells was the stink of body odor, halitosis, and stale cigarette smoke.

Sharon moved through the crowd doling out plates. The mongoloid staggered along behind her, carrying the plate-stacked tray. Usually the people afflicted with the condition were happy, loving people. This one was working his mouth and kept casting nervous glances at Sharon. And he’d nearly run the night before when Sharon had approached him. Maybe he sensed the dark presence lurking in the heart of her ring. Something clearly had him spooked. The strutting buffoon was at her shoulder. Cross wondered, why did such a beautiful woman keep such men on a string?

Cross settled onto the end of a bench. The man next to him grunted a greeting. “Big crowd,” Cross remarked.

“Yeah, we were camped down by the grain elevator. The twist came over and rounded us up.” The man gave Cross a grin that revealed too much gum and too few teeth. “Guess she was lonely.”

Sharon reached his table. She gave him her flashing smile and deposited a plate in front of him. “How are you feeling? Better?” she asked.

“Yeah. How do you afford a spread like this?”

She gave him a pouting smile and placed a finger against her lips. “The Lord doth provide.”

“Not in my experience.”

She patted him on the shoulder. She then plucked a strand of her long brown hair off his shoulder and wrapped it around her finger. “Well, perhaps I’ll make a believer of you yet.”

“Oh, I believe,” Cross said. “Never doubt that I believe.”

She moved on, and he ate. The texture and flavors of food was one human experience he really enjoyed. He mopped up the dregs of the hash with a piece of bread, slurped down the last of the coffee, gusted a sigh, and pulled out a package of Lucky Strikes. The men at the table with him gazed at the green box with the name in its red bull’s-eye with avaricious eyes. Cross had barely gotten the fag between his lips when the self-important little man rushed over, wagging a forefinger.

“Sister Sharon don’t hold with smoking. Take it outside.”

It wasn’t worth a fight; Cross shrugged and headed out onto the screened porch. Wood bees, as big as the end of his thumb, droned around the eaves, and the breathless heat of the dying day had his shirt clinging wetly to his back. That was a human experience he didn’t enjoy. He adjusted the body and the sweat vanished. As he watched, the sun, bloated and red, sank beneath the horizon.

Behind him, the screen door slammed shut. Cross glanced around. A group of men, led by a hard-faced man with a knife scar across the back of his hand, had joined him. One man took a battered, partially smoked cigarette from his pocket, lit it with a match, and passed it from hand to hand.

“Harry says you had a pack of cigs.” There was an angry buzz on the edge of the words.

The man with the knife scar was right behind him. Cross studied him; the light in the man’s eyes screamed out his desire for a fight. Cross decided to try appeasement. He took out the pack of Lucky Strikes and offered it around. The scarred man put his cigarette in his shirt pocket. Cross pulled out his Unique lighter and lit his smoke. The men stared at the silver Dunhill lighter in amazement.

“So, who the hell are you? Daddy Warbucks?” Knife Scar asked. “And what else you got, friend, that you might be willing to share?” His eyes held all the warmth of a chip of flint.

Cross leaned his shoulders against a support post. Around him mosquitoes whined like an angry wife. He took a slow drag, blew smoke, and said softly, “You don’t want to be going there, friend. It’ll turn out badly for you.”

The other men, sensing a fight, formed a circle. Their excitement and barely suppressed violence licked at the edges of Cross’s consciousness. He pushed away the intoxicating brew, studied his opponent, and considered how best to handle the situation. He was still weak from being shattered and what had happened on the bridge last night. There had also been an Old One in this locale very recently. Cross didn’t want to be playing with his powers, lest it draw the attention of one of his brethren.

His opponent shifted his weight from foot to foot and brought up his fists. Cross continued to lean while he finished his cigarette. He then dropped it and ground it out under his toe. The man rightly read Cross’s casualness as contempt, and his anger flared. It showed as jagged lines of red and sickening yellow erupting from his body. The watchers’ excitement flared in answer.

The man telegraphed the coming swing. Cross had lived a long time, much of it in human form, and he’d acquired a wide variety of fighting skills. He opted for one he’d learned in China fifty years before. He stepped into the roundhouse, blocked the punch with his forearm, then spun and delivered a kick to the side of the man’s knee. The man went down screaming.

Cross bent down and twitched the cigarette out of the man’s pocket. “And that’s the problem with going for more, friend. You can end up with nothing.” He straightened and scanned the crowd. The circle of spectators dissolved like ink floating away on a current.

The screen door flew open, crashing against the wall, and Sharon rushed out with her factotum right behind her. Planting her hands on her hips she said, “There is no fighting in this place of peace.” She pointed at Cross. “You! Just get out! Go on, get!”

Cross shrugged and headed down the porch steps while the other men filed back into the mission. Sharon got her shoulder under Knife Scar’s shoulder and supported him through the door.

“I’m going to put you to bed in Sean’s room,” he heard her say to the limping man. “You’ll be right as rain by morning.” The screen door fell shut, and then the heavy wooden front door was firmly closed.

Cross stood in the deepening twilight looking at that closed door and reflecting on what he had seen as the fight started. Sharon, shielded by the screen, watching with hunger in her eyes.

HE NEEDED A PHONE. NEEDED TO CALL CONOSCENZA. THIS COULDN’T WAIT for Cross to return to New York. Once his boss heard his report, Conoscenza would head for Chicago. Which meant that Cross had to go there too. Which was the last thing he wanted to do. The power in that ring had him spooked.

It was nearly eight at night. The post office had closed hours before. So he needed a house with a kind homeowner and the wherewithal to own a telephone. He moved off the main street and into a residential area, scanning the fences and gates for the bird symbol that indicated free phone. It took a while, but he found one. The name on the mailbox was Dr. Adam Grossman. It made sense a doctor would have a telephone.

There was a Ford Model A parked out front, and it had been carefully washed and waxed. Cross paused behind it and took money from his belt. He then pushed open the gate and walked up to the front door. His knock was answered by a sharp-featured young man with slicked-back black hair. The distinctive scent of Murray’s Superior Pomade floated to Cross’s nostrils. He wore the smart new style of cuffed trousers and plucked at the pants crease with nicotine-stained fingers, while with the other hand he pushed his wire-rim glasses higher onto the bridge of his nose. Cross’s image of the white-haired, heavyset country doctor went up in a pop.

“Dr. Grossman?”

“Yes? Is somebody sick?”

“No. I need to use your telephone,” Cross said, and he offered a folded double sawbuck, which he had pinched between his fingers.

The doctor’s eyes widened at the sight of twenty dollars. “I generally let people use the phone for free.”

“I know.”

Grossman frowned. “How?”

“There’s a sign on your gate.” The doctor peered out the door toward the white picket fence and gate. Cross laughed. “Hobo symbol.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Grossman opened the door wide. “Come on in. That explains a lot.”

Cross stepped across the threshold into a ruthlessly neat front room. Books were squared up on a small table next to an armchair. Throw pillows on the sofa were lined up like portly soldiers. There was no hint of a softening female presence. The room cried out ex-military, and a package of Army Club The Front-Line Cigarette cemented the impression into certainty. Returning doughboys had smoked the English cigarette during the Great War. Memory flickered and touched the senses. For an instant, Cross smelled rank water, unwashed bodies, and cordite, remembered the slip of mud beneath his boot soles.

“The phone’s in the hall,” Grossman said, breaking the hold of the past. Cross held out the bill. Grossman held up a negating hand. “Keep your money.”

“I don’t need it, really. Take it. Use it to buy medicine or pay yourself for treating someone for free,” Cross said. Grossman hesitated, then shrugged and took the bill.

The telephone was nestled in a niche in the wall, and a wooden chair was placed in front. Cross lifted the receiver. A few seconds later, the operator came on the line. He gave her the telephone exchange for Conoscenza’s penthouse. It took a while for the call to route through, but eventually it started ringing and his boss’s familiar basso rumble filled his ear.

“Conoscenza.”

“Hey, it’s me. I found it. It originated in Oklahoma. And you were right, it was an incursion, an Old One came through.”

“Can you deal with it?”

“Nope, because it blew out of town, heading for Chicago and riding on a bush-league Bible thumper who happens to be an alternate delegate to the convention.”

“What’s his name?” Conoscenza asked.

“Hanlin.”

There was silence for a few minutes and Cross heard the soft shush of turning pages. “He’s not getting any national ink. What do you know about him? Is he a rabble-rouser stoking populist anger?”

“Couldn’t say.” Cross paused, then asked, “Do you think this is aimed at you? A way to block your plans for FDR?”

“Perhaps, but whether it is or not we can’t take the risk. I’d best head to Chicago.”

“Not that you’re going to get on the floor,” Cross said sourly.

“There are a few Negro alternates,” Conoscenza said. The great raftershaking laugh filled Cross’s ear and seemed to echo in the hall. “And as far as the Democrat party bosses are concerned, my skin is green. I’ll get into the smoke-filled rooms, at least. You’re going to have to be my eyes on the floor.”

Cold coiled down Cross’s back. Then the other one will see me, and I have no strength to withstand an attack. It was absurd, but he found himself remembering the advertising for Army Club. This is the cigarette for the fellow with a full-sized man’s job to do. When you’re feeling all “hit up,” it steadies the nerves. Cross wondered if he could hit up the doctor for a few.

“Cross? Are you still there?”

He shook off the exhaustion. “Yeah, I’m here. The Old One and the preacher laid some kind of powerful whammy on a ring and left it on his wife’s finger. I need to get it off before I blow town. I’ll see you in Chicago.”

Cross hung up the phone and found the doctor standing quietly in the hall. “What the hell was that about? Are you an anarchist?”

“No, quite the opposite,” Cross said.

“And what’s this Old One, and a ring—”

Standing, Cross held up a hand. “I really don’t have time to explain, and, with some things, it’s just better to live in ignorance.”

Grossman followed him to the front door. “You seem to be making accusations against Marshall Hanlin,” Grossman said. “Let me tell you, even though I’m a member of a different tribe, Marshall Hanlin is a good man.”

“I’ll have to take your word on that, Doc. I just know there’s been some bad shit going on in his mission.” Cross pulled open the door. “Thanks for the phone.” Cross opened a button on his shirt, reached into the money belt and extracted a fifty.

Grossman stared at it. “I can’t . . .”

“Yeah. You can.” He pressed the bill into the doctor’s hand and pulled open the screen door. The fireflies were back, darting through the grass.

“Who are you? Really?” The man’s voice followed him into the darkness.

Cross looked back. “That goes back to your earlier question, and like that one, it’s complicated. Too complicated in the time we have.” Cross touched fingers to brow in a brief salute. “Take care, Doc.”

He was walking down the road when a wave of terror and pain washed over him. It was so unexpected that it shattered his control and he gorged on the torrent of raw emotions. He sensed another feeder also sucking at the feast. He regained control, stopped feeding, and lost all sense of the other. He kicked into a run, dust from the road spiraling up around him, came around a final turn in the road, and saw the mission on fire. There were desperate cries from the men trapped inside.

Heavy storm shutters had been closed across the windows. A large board barred the front door. Cross lifted it out of the brackets and flung it aside. He threw open the door, and a blast of heat scorched his face, singeing his mustache and hair. In the distance, he heard the hectic ringing of the bell on the fire truck. They’ll be too late, he thought. Power pulsed through him. He tried never to use it, so as not to fray and bend this world’s reality. But someone or something was feeding on this conflagration. If he could save the men trapped inside, he would deny his enemy power.

He stretched out his power, and now he sensed the tear in the world, felt the call and pull of the other multiverse. Cross ignored the siren call and instead summoned the fire. It rushed to him like an obedient dog. It filled the hall, and he formed it into a ball, keeping its heat and destructive power from the wooden walls. He walked into the charred hallway, stepping over a burned body. Not everyone would be saved. The fire followed him, a glowing balloon. Cross pushed open the set of double doors to reveal a makeshift chapel. Rows of chairs, a raised stage that held a podium and an old upright piano, a wooden cross hung high on the wall.

The rip was on the back wall. It was small; the Old One was no longer holding it fully open. Cross pushed his fingers into the wood of the wall, opened the gap a bit wider, and thrust the fire into the other dimension. Eat that, he thought, with some satisfaction.

THE BUTCHER’S BILL WASN’T TOO BAD. THERE HAD BEEN THIRTY MEN IN THE mission. Four had died; two more would not survive their burns. The rest would recover. Cross spent a tense six hours at the jail telling and retelling his carefully edited story. His New York PI license was no help, and probably a detriment, but eventually the cops decided that he couldn’t be charged with arson.

Cross hung around after he was released and managed to talk to a few of the ambulatory survivors. All had been sleeping and only a few had wakened when the fire took hold. Drugged, Cross thought, and was glad his inhuman metabolism didn’t respond to most earthly agents.

It was clearly arson. The building reeked of gasoline, and the closed storm shutters and the bar on the back door and the one Cross had removed from the front left no doubt. Now the police just needed a suspect. With Cross alibied by the doctor, the bulls cast about, and another suspect came easily to hand—the mongoloid who worked at the mission and was found sleeping in the tool shed, surrounded by empty gas cans. Of Sister Sharon and her strutting factotum, there was no sign.

Cross tried to point out that this seemed very convenient. What kind of arsonist set a fire and then went to sleep at the site of his crime? But the bulls dismissed his arguments. The suspect was retarded. Of course he’d behave stupidly. Besides, this was easy and clean. The idiot was going to fry.

Cross tried to just shrug, find a train schedule, and head to Chicago, but the prayers, beliefs, and actions that had split him off from the creature that had become Jaweh and Allah, and the Jesus of the Crusades and the Inquisition, left him unable to walk away. Do-gooding was a damn nuisance, but it was burned into his deepest fibers, and it couldn’t be resisted.

He went back to the smoking ruins of the mission and searched the shed. The gas cans had been removed, and the dirt floor was scuffed with the prints of the cops’ shoes, and drag marks where they had rousted the mongoloid. Various tools were suspended from hooks set into the gray wood walls. There was a small table with smaller hand tools and jars filled with nails, screws, and nuts.

On a bench beneath the table, Cross discovered a mug still half-filled with a dark liquid capped with a lighter skein. He sniffed. Cocoa. It looked like the idiot had been saving half for later. He searched further and found another footprint that hadn’t been obliterated by the bulls. Squatting down, he studied the toe print, and the divot left by a high heel.

He pulled out the bench, sat down, and contemplated the situation. Sharon had encouraged him to touch the ring. She had gone to the hobo jungle and brought the men back to the mission. Needing bodies for the sacrifice? She had sent Cross away even though she knew full well he hadn’t started that fight. And she had been in the tool shed. To deliver the cocoa? And the men sleeping in the mission had been drugged. Why not the mongoloid too?

Cross had assumed that Sharon was a victim of her husband’s sorcery. Now a new, darker theory arose—that Sharon had summoned the Old One. To prove that, Cross needed to find the woman, and he had a pretty good idea where she was headed. But first he had to clear the idiot. Only one question remained; had the cocoa also been laced? He knew a doctor who could provide the answer.

Dr. Grossman came through. The cocoa had been doctored with a sedative. Enough to “put down a horse,” in Grossman’s words. The word of the doctor was enough to get the mongoloid released. Knowing that the mansized child would starve without care, Cross gave the doctor a couple of hundred dollars and asked him to “hire” the man. Then he bought a train ticket in Tulsa and headed for Chicago. He had considered finding an airfield and chartering a plane, but the train took longer, giving him more time to rest and prepare for the coming battle.

The blasted fields of Kansas rolled past the train’s windows. They should have been high with wheat, but years of drought had reduced once-verdant farmland to a desert. Cross watched windblown dust heading east, as dark as storm clouds. The dust engulfed the train, turning the sun into a red cinder and day into eerie twilight.

It was a good thing he didn’t believe in omens.

CHICAGO WAS FILLED WITH POLITICIANS, WHICH MEANT IT WAS FILLED with hookers. Barely disguised speakeasies did a riotous business, and jazz and dance music filled the night. Cross walked down Madison Street toward the Chicago Stadium. It was the largest indoor arena in the world, and the massive redbrick structure reminded Cross of a glowering toad squatting on the landscape. Delegates streamed toward the doors, ready to hear another round of speeches in support of the three leading candidates—Al Smith, John Garner, and Franklin Roosevelt.

The people glittered from the magic that flowed in their veins, but he had yet to spot the Roman fountain that marked Sharon Hanlin. He had come straight from the station to the stadium, thinking that he might just spot her in the crowd and do . . .

What?

Remove the ring, for starters. Figure out what it trapped, because it sure as hell wasn’t her.

And how are you gonna do that? It knocked you on your ass the one time you tried.

He decided to abandon the haphazard search and report to Conoscenza. Cross waved down a taxi and told the driver to take him to the Palmer House. He wasn’t sure how Conoscenza had managed it, but he had booked a room in the ritzy hotel. The lobby was cavernous and dominated by a ceiling mural depicting scenes from Greek mythology. Cross glanced up and found himself staring at Zeus. A real son of a bitch, that one. It wasn’t until he had met Conoscenza that Cross discovered what had happened to the Old One. A paladin recruited by Prometheus (yet another of Conoscenza’s identities) had taken down the god.

A self-effacing Negro porter asked if he had luggage. Cross shook his head. The elevator operator was an elderly Negro with grizzled hair. As Cross stepped off the elevator, a Negro maid pushing a cleaning cart quickly effaced herself against the wall, trying to become invisible.

Cross lifted a hand to knock, but the door opened to reveal Conoscenza and the heavy-jowled face and bald pate of Jim Farley, Roosevelt’s campaign manager. Conoscenza grinned, deepening the hint of the epicanthic fold around his dark eyes, and said, “Ah, my man Cross, with impeccable timing as always. Jim, will you see to it he gets onto the floor?”

“Glad to oblige. And thanks again.” The man patted his breast pocket and headed for the elevators. Conoscenza beckoned Cross into the suite.

Gold cufflinks flashed at his wrists, and a gold watch chain stretched across his powerful chest. The little maid stared in shock. Conoscenza gave her a wide smile and held out a ten-dollar bill.

“Thank you for taking such care with my room.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” She gave a bobbing little curtsy. Conoscenza closed the door.

“Don’t you feel strange?” Cross asked.

The massive shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “It wouldn’t be any different in a hotel on the South Side. The staff would still be Negro. This way I both make a statement and offer the possibility of a different future.”

“You just like to make trouble,” Cross said. He moved to the sofa and sat down.

“That too.”

“Gimme that room service menu.”

“There wasn’t a dining car on the train?” Conoscenza asked.

“Yeah, but that was hours ago, and there was grit in my food.” Cross perused the menu and ordered a porterhouse steak with all the trimmings. “So, what have you learned about Hanlin?”

“Well, he’s no longer an alternate. An Oklahoma delegate became ill, and he’s replaced him,” Conoscenza said.

“Well, isn’t that convenient.” Cross stood and paced. “The wife arranged for a little auto-da-fé in Oklahoma. Maybe to provide the power to sicken the delegate. I think they’re working as a team.”

“When he’s not on the floor, he spends his time preaching to everincreasing crowds. I attended once, and he is very charismatic. Now that his wife has joined him, the crowd last night doubled, and today there were murmurs about drafting Mr. Hanlin as a potential vice presidential candidate.”

“Well, that’s fucking scary, because you know if this guy gets on the ticket in the second slot, he won’t stay there. He’ll end up president.”

“Then you’ll have to see to it that doesn’t happen,” Conoscenza said.

There was a knock at the door. Once the bellman was tipped, Cross settled at the coffee table and tucked in. Mouth full, he asked, “How is the convention going?”

“Roosevelt hasn’t gotten enough ballots. Some of us are working on Garner, trying to get him to drop out.”

“In exchange for what?” Cross asked.

“So cynical.” Conoscenza sighed and studied his buffed and manicured fingertips. “You must find a way to neutralize Hanlin.”

“That doesn’t involve murder?” He tried to make it a joke, but Conoscenza gave him an implacable look. “You never make this easy for me,” Cross mumbled, and finished his dinner.

THE PROBLEM, CROSS REFLECTED AS HE MADE HIS WAY TOWARD THE BANKRUPT theater that Hanlin had appropriated, was that the kind of people who actually worshiped the loving God didn’t tend to lead crusades against unbelievers, start wars, stone whores, or behead adulterers. Which put Cross at a decided disadvantage, because what fed Old Ones was a frisson of both hate and fear. His brethren fed off the murderer and the victim, the torturer and the tortured, while Cross could only sup on charity and love and there just weren’t that many good people in the world. It wasn’t the humans’ fault. They hadn’t been out of the trees for all that long.

All of which was an interesting mental exercise, but it didn’t solve Cross’s problem of what to do about Hanlin and Sharon. His vague plan was to show up, see if somebody made a mistake, and hope that somebody wasn’t him. He supposed that he could embrace the full-on Jesus, but that wasn’t a trick he liked to use too often, and it had worked better back in 1300. Edison’s little invention had images moving on a white screen. The Wright Brothers had ensured that humans could fly, not just birds and angels, and scientists were starting to unlock the secrets of matter itself. Humanity had become less credulous, but still filled with enough irrational beliefs and reactions to be dangerous.

He joined the throng heading into the building. People clutched Bibles and crosses. If I had actually been crucified on one of those things, do they actually think I’d ever want to see one again? He quashed the errant and foolish thought. He was coming up against one of his own kind, and he was in no shape to face it. He needed all his focus and concentration.

The set up was similar to Oklahoma. Upright piano, the fat factotum playing a hymn. A podium. Sharon wearing a white choir robe and those incongruous red shoes, seated in a chair by the podium. An older man in a black robe pacing the stage in a manner that reminded Cross of big cats in the zoo. The predator physicality was completely at odds with his looks, since he was balding, a bit stoop-shouldered, and starting to grow a paunch. People stood just inside the doors, handing out pamphlets. The flyers appeared to have been hurriedly mimeographed, as the ink was smudged in places. The title declared:

A CHRISTIAN LEADER FOR AMERICA

Cross studied this Christian leader, and what Cross read was baffling. The flesh held little trace of magical ability, yet power shimmered all around the man. Cross looked to Sharon. The ring flashed under the lights; Sharon glittered with power, and the shadows circled. Things clicked into place. It was a team effort. As a woman, Sharon couldn’t be the candidate, but she could use her power to propel her husband to high office. There was the oilslick taste of Old One on his tongue, but Cross couldn’t pinpoint its location. He shivered.

There was a gentle touch at Cross’s elbow. “Sir, you need to sit down. The service is about to begin.”

Cross turned and looked down at a boy on the cusp of manhood. The boy’s eyes were rimmed with white, and tension hunched his shoulders. Cross also saw the physical similarity with the man on the stage.

“You must be Sean,” Cross said, and was taken aback when the boy gasped, fell back a step, and dropped to his knees.

“God be praised! You’ve come! My prayers—”

Cross grabbed him roughly under the arm and pulled him to his feet. “Jesus, kid, cut it the hell out,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. The boy looked confused.

“But . . . Aren’t—”

“No . . .”

“But you knew my name . . .”

“Yeah . . . because . . . never mind. Ankle it.” He pulled the teenager toward the doors. The music stopped.

Cross glanced back at the stage and saw Sharon frowning out over the congregation. She spotted him and stiffened. Hanlin froze, looked directly at Cross, and then Cross realized that the human skin didn’t contain a human. An Old One had crawled inside. Terror choked him. He hustled the boy out of the theater.

Outside, he spotted his reflection in the glass doors and quickly made adjustments. He hated going into churches. With the beard removed and the hair shortened, he turned back to Sean. “Okay, kid, what were you praying about?”

“Shouldn’t you know—”

“Pretend I don’t.” Dropping an arm over the teen’s shoulder, Cross hustled him down the street. Behind him the door banged open and the fat man came rushing out.

Cross hurriedly flagged down a cab and thrust the kid inside. “Step on it,” he ordered the driver. Cross glanced out the back window at the receding figure of the factotum.

“Where to?” the cabbie asked.

Cross looked over at the kid. “You hungry? Of course you’re hungry. Kids your age are always hungry.”

SILVERWARE CLATTERED AGAINST PLATES; THE WAITRESS AND THE COOK sang out a call-and-response Blue plate, Order up. Cross indulged in a piece of cherry pie à la mode, a slice of devil’s-food cake, and a cup of coffee while the kid wolfed down the pot roast, slurped a Coca-Cola, and poured out his story.

“Ma died two years ago. Pa was really sad. Then Sharon came to the mission, and they started walking out together. They got married seven months ago.”

Cross’s attention drifted. He was focused on that damn thing wearing the people suit. Wondering how to fight it. Wondering if he could win. Wondering if it would end with him splintered and weakened yet again.

“. . . make me brush her hair.” Cross’s focus snapped back to the boy, who was red-faced and looking embarrassed, which made the smattering of pimples on his cheeks stand out all the brighter. “In their bedroom, when Pa would be downstairs reading.”

“Were you really brushing her hair, or is that a euphemism?”

“Pardon?”

“Another way to say fuck,” Cross said.

The boy went white, then red again, and took a large gulp of pop. “N . . . no,” he stammered. “I only touched her hair.”

“Tell me about that ring.”

“She had the stone in that silver setting when she showed up . . .”

My husband gave it to me. Cross flashed back to the conversation on the footbridge. No, not a twofer. Hanlin’s a dupe. It was Sharon and the Old One just finding a convenient meat puppet, he thought.

“And she made the band out of her and Pa’s hair.” The boy’s words seemed etched in the air.

Another memory surfaced—Sharon carefully removing her hair from his shoulder. “What did she do with the hair in the brush?”

Sean looked startled by both the question and the intensity with which it was asked. “She’d take it all out, and roll it up and keep it in this little box. She even made me pick up any hairs that fell on the floor.”

“Has she got the box with her?” Sean nodded. Cross leaned back and lit a cigarette. It was classic hair-and-skin magic. Cross was pretty sure he knew what was trapped in that ring. He tossed a few bills down on the table.

“You’re using money?”

“I got a news flash for you, kid; that whole loaves and fishes thing . . . complete bullshit. And another thing. I knew your name because your stepmother told me. No mystery. No miracle.”

Sean stopped dead and stared at Cross suspiciously. “You’re not my savior.”

“Actually, kid, I probably am. Look, I know that thing on stage is not your dad. It’s something else wearing his skin.”

The boy let out an explosive sob and dissolved. No longer on the cusp of manhood, Sean was a child again. Cross handed him his handkerchief. After a few minutes, the boy regained control. He mopped at his streaming eyes.

“I couldn’t tell anybody. They would have thought I was crazy, and she . . . she was my stepmom.”

“Yeah, kid, I know. It’s a bitch when a cliché turns out to be true. Now take me to where you’re staying.”

SEAN DIDN’T HAVE A KEY. “KEEP A LOOK OUT,” CROSS ORDERED AS HE PULLED out a lock-pick kit and knelt down in front of the door. The hotel was a modest affair a few blocks from the lake.

“You’re going to break in?”

“No, I’m going to pick the lock. Breaking in would be noisy.”

Sean tittered, betraying his nervousness. “You’re not nothin’ like what I expected.”

“Anything,” Cross corrected automatically as the delicate tools caught the mechanism and the lock clicked open. “You sound like a hick, you’re going to end up a hick, and I think you’re brighter than that.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I do.” Cross slipped the tools back into their case, returned the case to his pocket, and stood up. He pushed open the door, and he and the kid entered the room.

A carpetbag sat on the floor beneath a luggage stand that held an open suitcase. An iron bedstead was against one wall, and a flimsy chest of drawers against another. There was a mirror over the dresser, and the glass was occluded because of the Old One. A folded trundle bed filled the remaining space in the small room.

The top of the dresser held the various mysterious potions that constituted a woman’s war paint. Cross didn’t see a box. Maybe she kept it with her. That would make things harder.

“What does the box look like?” Cross asked.

“Metal, but it had holes, kind of like a net.”

Cross searched through the drawers. No box. Cross turned to face the room and studied the sparse furnishings. Cross checked under the mattress, inside the carpetbag, and in the suitcase. Sean watched him intently. Finally Cross moved to the trundle bed and thrust a hand into the folded mattress. Felt metal. He pulled out the box. Opened it and inspected the chocolatecolored hair inside.

He snapped shut the box and held it tightly in his hand. Considered what he knew. The Old One had inhabited a human body. Interesting that it hadn’t just built one the way Cross had. But that might indicate that it had limited power, which was one small bright spot in a giant shitstorm. At the mission, Cross had sensed that something was trapped. He had thought, mistakenly, that it was Sharon, but now he guessed that it was the electrical impulses that formed the essence of Marshall Hanlin.

So, all he had to do was force out the Old One. Restore the husband to his body. And deal with the Old One and Sharon.

Easy as pie.

Yeah, right.

“So, what do we do now?” Sean asked.

Cross swallowed the cold lump that had invaded his throat. “We go find your wicked stepmother.”

The theater was empty. A few pamphlets flapped sadly in the gutter as a breeze off the lake kicked down the street. Cross cursed. Having brought himself to the sticking point, he wanted to get it over with. Match his strength against the other Old One. End this nightmare for the boy at his side.

Sean looked at him with a combination of awe and trepidation. “Are those all cuss words?”

“Yeah, now forget you ever heard them. Where would they have gone?”

“Probably to the convention. Sharon wanted to see all the famous, rich people,” Sean replied.

“Okay. You want to see some famous, rich people?”

The kid shrugged. “Pa took me the first day we got here. They just looked like regular people, only in fancier clothes.”

Cross reached out and ruffled the boy’s hair. “You’ll do, kid.”

FARLEY HAD DONE AS PROMISED. CROSS WAS ON THE LIST TO ENTER THE stadium. He told them Sean was his son. The statement had the kid turning red, then white, then red again.

“What the hell’s wrong?”

“I can’t be your son! It’s sacrilege.”

“No, it’s just lying.”

“You still shouldn’t say it. And lying is wrong.”

Cross gave up. “You’re right. Now can we please go find them?”

It was hot in the stadium, the air heavy with competing scents—sweat, aftershave, and hair pomade. Men huddled in clumps speaking in low, urgent tones. Ties had been loosened, shirt collars were limp. Up in the bleachers sat the women, fanning themselves, their white gloves flashing like signal flags. They looked like a flock of birds in their feather-adorned hats.

Cross scanned them, searching for Sharon. Sean tugged on his sleeve. “There’s my pa,” he said, and pointed. The Old One in a people suit was talking with Farley.

“Sharon’s the key. Help me find her. Try the other side of the stadium.” The boy headed off with one last look of longing at his father’s carcass.

Cross hoped that extracting the Old One wouldn’t kill the human vessel. Sean was a nice kid and deserved a happy ending. Pity they came along so rarely. Because in truth, no universe gave a shit about the lives of the creatures crawling around inside it.

Cross headed off in the opposite direction, and then he saw her. Or rather, he recognized the swaying hips and the shapely calves, and those perky red shoes climbing the stairs. Cross vaulted the railing and climbed. She turned, speaking to the women to either side of her, and started to sit down. Then she spotted Cross, stiffened, and remained standing.

Cross reached into his pocket and took out the box. Fury and alarm warred across her features. Slowly he reached into his other pocket, pulled out his Unique lighter, and slid his thumb across the roll bar. The horizontal flint struck and a steady flame burned. Panic washed across her face. Awkward in her haste, Sharon started to run down the stairs toward him.

“No! No. Don’t!”

He had the box open. Even though she was still ten feet away her hands stretched out to him as if she could somehow snatch back the box. Cross laid the flame against the hair. He had witnessed many battles and many autos-da-fé in his long existence. It wasn’t so much the smell of roasting human meat that he remembered as the sweet/harsh scent of burning hair. The smell killed any chance that he would feel pity for her. She had made compacts with creatures bent on causing human suffering and death.

Sharon let out a scream of terror and pain. The glove on her right hand was charring. The material fell away, and Cross saw flames licking up around the amber ring as the braided band burned like the hair in the box. Sharon ripped off the ring and threw it to the floor. The last of the hair turned to ash. The metal box was hot in Cross’s hand, and the cheap metal had softened. He crushed it and dropped it.

Sharon let out a keening cry, knelt on a step, and gathered the amber piece in its silver setting in her hand. Cross reached out with his power. The shadows that had swirled around the ring and around her were gone. The inside of the ring glittered as if it held captured fireflies.

There was a stir on the floor of the stadium. He heard Sean’s voice, shrill with fear, crying, “Pa! Pa!”

Cross leaped up the stairs and snatched the gem away from Sharon. He then ran for Sean and the man who lay on the floor, choking in his son’s arms. The Old One was exacting revenge and feeding off the son’s grief and fear, and growing stronger with each psychic gulp.

In the face of such power, Cross felt helpless. He couldn’t fight the other. He would fail and be shattered. It would be a disaster for Conoscenza if that happened in such a public venue. And he didn’t think that he could face the pain. He started to back away. The boy looked up at him, tears clouding his eyes, but his expression showed total trust and confidence.

Cross stopped his retreat, reached out, and touched the boy’s feelings about his father. He drank deeply of those more complicated emotions—respect, love, admiration. He delved into the ring and sensed the electrical impulses that made up the man. Felt his emotions—worry for the son, sorrow that he wouldn’t see him grow to manhood.

Cross summoned every ounce of power. He gripped the other Old One, and it felt like icy talons gripped back. But the boy’s father began to breathe again as the Old One turned its attention to Cross. Next, Cross reached into the ring and secured the man. Cross felt the bonds that held his body together weakening as he struggled to make the switch. The Old One was fighting wildly. It was going to be a near thing.

Then Cross staggered as he was struck by a bolt of power. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Sharon, swaying drunkenly, coming onto the floor. It was taking all his energy to hold both the Old One and Marshall Hanlin, and keep himself together. He had nothing left for speech. Cross rolled an eye at Sean, who knelt on the floor holding his father in his arms. The boy looked from Cross to Sharon and down at his father.

He gently laid his father down and stood. Hurry! Cross said mentally. Sean ran at Sharon and slapped her hard. Her assault on Cross frayed and died. He took a tighter hold, gathered his strength, and made the switch. To his eyes, which could see beyond the normal dimensions, it looked as if Marshall Hanlin’s body was washed with a net of electricity. And the inside of the amber was no longer clear. It roiled with shadows.

Slowly, Hanlin sat up and placed a hand against his forehead. “Sean?” he said weakly.

“Pa!” The boy was fighting back tears, trying to be a man. He ran to his father and embraced him.

Cross sank down on one knee and panted. Sharon! He forced himself back to his feet and looked for her. But like any grifter, she had good survival instincts. During the confusion, she had slipped away.

TWO DAYS LATER, FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT SECURED THE DEMOCRATIC nomination for president, but he did it without the vote of the alternate from Oklahoma. The original delegate had recovered and returned to the convention. Hanlin hadn’t seemed too upset to learn that the mission had burned. He and Sean had decided to head for California and a new life. “Preferably one with no preaching,” Cross had told Sean.

Late that night, Cross and Conoscenza stood at the edge of Lake Michigan, watching wavelets run up onto the rock beach. Cigar smoke wreathed them like gray halos.

“Are you pleased?” Cross asked.

“I’ll be pleased when he wins the election,” was the reply. “So, what are you going to do with that thing?” Conoscenza added, with a nod at the amber.

“Damned if I know.” Cross regarded the sullen gem. “Drop it in the lake?”

“Things have a way of getting fished up. I’ll take it, put it in a safedeposit box.”

“And banks don’t fail?” Cross asked.

“Not my banks. And once you locate a new paladin, it’ll be destroyed.”

“You need to add that tear in Oklahoma to the to-do list,” Cross said.

“Noted, but its priority is low. The news out of Germany is . . . disturbing. I’m sending you to Europe.”

“Unh-unh, not right now.”

“Why? You have something more pressing?”

“I’ve gotta find Sharon.”

“And do what?” Conoscenza asked. “Without a paladin, we can’t remove her ability for magic. And you’re not going to kill her.”

“I could.”

“But you won’t, or our deal is off.”

Cross sighed, took a final drag on his cigar, and tossed it into the water. “Guess I better go pack my lederhosen.”