The Walking

The Walking

By Bentley Little

A SIGNET BOOK

SIGNET

Published by New American Library, a division of

Penguin Putnam Inc." 375 Hudson Street,

New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Copyright ©Bentley Little, 2000

All rights reserved

For Don Cannon, the only bookseller who matters (better late than never).

John Hawks died and kept walking.

They had not expected it, but neither did it take them totally by surprise. Garden was the first to notice, and he ran breathlessly into the kitchen to tell his father and his uncle. "I think Grampa's dead!" he called.

His father sucked in his breath. "Has he? Is he? "He's still walking." They went outside to see, standing together on the porch, letting the old screen door slam loudly against its frame behind them.

Sure enough, John Hawks was walking purposefully through the desert around the house, maneuvering through the obstacle course of saguaro and cholla and ocotillo just as he had for the past two weeks. From this vantage point, it was impossible to tell whether he was dead or not.

Robert Hawks put his arms protectively around his son's shoulders and turned toward his brother. "Cabe, check it out."

Cabe shook his head. "I ain't--"

"Check it out."

The two brothers looked at each other for a moment, then Cabe glanced away. "All right." He took a few tentative steps down the porch steps as their father disappeared behind the back of the house. He wiped his hands nervously on his jeans, then hurried across the dirt to where a slight groove had been worn into the ground.

Garden watched his uncle plant his feet right in the center of the narrow track and face the direction from which the old man would come.

He was afraid, and he could tell from the way his father's fingers gripped his shoulders that his father was afraid, too.

John Hawks had started walking the night after his fever broke. At first they'd thought that the sickness had passed. When they heard the creak of his bedsprings, heard his footsteps on the hardwood floor, they assumed that he'd gotten up and out of bed because he was all right. But when he strode straight through the kitchen and outside without so much as a word, when they saw the almost complete lack of expression on his skeletal face, the glassy stare of his pale eyes, they knew something was wrong. Robert and Cabe had run out after him, trying to find out what was going on, but the old man had begun circling around the house, bumping into the cottonwood tree, stepping through jojoba bushes, apparently oblivious to his surroundings. They had followed him around the house once, twice, three times, yelling at him, demanding his attention, but it was clear that he was not going to talk to them. They were not even sure he understood the words they screamed. The only thing they were sure of was that he was still sick.

And that, for some reason, he could not stop walking.

They hadn't tried to talk to him since, and they had not tried to stop him. There was something so terrifying about the way he endlessly circled the house, something so utterly wrong and beyond their understanding, that they had thought it best to wait it out. Robert had assigned each of them watches, and for the first couple of days they stuck faithfully to the schedule, although Cabe's nighttime vigil had since been abandoned.

They hadn't expected the old man to last long. He was sick, he was old, he was frail, and he hadn't eaten since before his fever broke.

But he'd continued to walk. Three days.

Five days. A week. Two weeks. They'd expected him to die--had hoped, had prayed, for him to die---but he had not. His condition worsened. He grew thinner, sicklier. But he continued to walk.

Now he had died.

And he continued to walk.

The old man strode back around the corner of the house toward them, and Garden felt his father's grip tighten as Cabe moved forward. His uncle put both hands out in front of him, and Garden saw him reach out and grab the old man's arms, then jump immediately away, uttering a frightened yelp.

John Hawks continued to walk.

"What was it?" Robert demanded.

"His skin's cold," Cabe said. His voice was high and frightened. "It's cold and dry."

"Grampa's dead," Garden repeated.

Cabe hurried back onto the porch and stood next to them. "What're we going to do?" he asked. He sounded as though he was about to cry.

"Exactly what we been doin'. Nuthin'

"But we gotta do something! We gotta tell someone! We can't--"

"We can't what? You got any ideas. Robert glared at his brother.

"Huhg"

Cabe didn't answer.

"Nuthin' we can do." ..... "But he's dead! Daddy's dead["

"Yeah," Robert said quietly. 'hat he is."

Garden went to bed early that night, and he lay awake in the darkness, listening. In the front room, his father and his uncle were sorting through Grampa's stuff. He'd helped them clean out the old man's room earlier, taking out the boxes of dried roots and twigs and branches, the bottles of powder the small stuffed animals, the pages of drawings, every thing. Now he stared up at the open beams of the low bedroom ceiling, at the gossamer layers of cobweb stretching across the black corners, silver white in the refracted moonlight. He could hear his father and uncle arguing, his uncle saying that they should have called on Lizabeth weeks ago to find out what was going on, his father replying that the last thing that would help them out with this problem would be calling in a witch woman

"What is all this stuff? Cabe asked. Garden heard him pick up something heavy wrapped in crinkly paper and drop it on the table.

"You know damn well what it is."

There was a pause. "But we don't know nuthin' about this."

"It's our fault. We should've listened to him."

Garden sat up in bed and pulled aside the blue cloth curtain that covered his window. There was a strong wind outside, and from the look of the sky in the nerth there was a sandstorm coming. Already he could hear the hissing rustle of small grains hitting the glass. He squinted his eyes, trying to see through the dust.

Grampa walked by, his clothes blowing in the wind billowing outward, his head moving neither to the right nor to the left but staring fixedly ahead.

Garden let the curtain fall. He could hear the wind growing stronger, its rhythms more insistent. He didn't know what was happening, but he was scared. He didn't think Grampa was going to kill him or hurt him in any way, didn't think he'd attack him or his father or his uncle, didn't think Grampa was going to do anything except walk forever in endless circles around the house. But somehow that was more frightening "What if he's there for years?" Cabe asked. "what if he

keeps doing this until there's nuthin' left of him and he's just a skeleton or something?"

Garden didn't hear his father's answer. He didn't want to hear. He pulled the blanket over his head. He fell asleep listening to the drone of their voices in. the front room as they discussed what to do.

He dreamed about skeletons walking in sandstorms.

He dreamed about Grampa.

In the morning he was gone.

As simple as that.

He had continued walking purposefully around the house until at least after midnight, when Robert and Cabe finally went to bed, impervious to the sandstorm, his torn clothes whipping around him in ragged tatters, but when the sun came up he was no longer there.

They searched their property, walked through the gullies and washes of the surrounding desert, but found no trace of John Hawks. Cabe had wanted to call it a day before noon, thankful that his dead father had disappeared, and Robert would have been inclined to follow his brother's wishes on this one, but Garden insisted that they keep looking.

Several hours later, they found a torn piece of blue shirt cloth on the spiny arm of a saguaro. The sandstorm had wiped out all traces of footprints, but judging by the direction in which the cactus stood in relation to the house, they assumed that the dead man was walking toward the lake. Cabe went back for the truck while Garden and his father waited in place, in the dubious shade of the cactus, and soon the three of them were speeding across the unpaved road that led to the lake.

They arrived just as John Hawks stepped into the water.

Cabe opened his door and jumped out of the driver's seat, while Robert scrambled out of the passenger side. Garden

followed his father, leaving the door open behind them. They ran to the edge of the lake.

"Daddy!" Robert called.

But the dead man did not turn around. Neck stiff, head unmoving, proceeding forward at the same indefatigable pace in which he had circled the house for so long, he walked into the lake until just his head and then just his hair were above water. And then he was gone.

They stood there for a while, waiting to see if he came out again, waiting to see if perhaps the lake was just another barrier he had to pass through and if he would emerge on the other shore, but he did not reappear. The sun dipped low in the west, and it was almost dark when they finally decided to head for home. Garden was not sure how his father and uncle felt--both of them seemed more sad than scared now, and more relieved than sad--but he himself was still worried.

He did not think it was over yet

After graduating from high school, Garden went on to the junior college in Globe. It was a two-hour-drive from home, but he had purposely scheduled all of his classes for Tuesdays and Thursdays, so it wasn't quite as bad as it could have been. For an elective his second semester, he decided to take a scuba diving course, and he received an A for his pool work, a B for his solo dive in Apache Lake, and got an A-minus out of the course.

That summer he told his father that he wanted to dive in Wolf Canyon.

"The lake?" Robert said, frowning.

"I want to see what happened to Grampa."

They had not talked of John Hawks since the day he had disappeared.

They had not reminisced about either the good times or the bad times, had avoided completely the subject of the walking. Robert d Cabe had not even finished going

through all of his old things. They had thrown away boxes unopened, tossed all loose items without looking at them.

None of them had ever gone back to the lake.

Robert stared at his son. "No," he said flatly.

"I'm going with you or without you." "You can't!" "I will."

Cabe walked into the kitchen from outside. what down tiredly in the chair opposite his brother. "What's all this about?"

"Garden wants to scuba dive in the lake. He wants to look-for Daddy."

Cabe sighed. "We all want to know," he said. "You do, too. Admit it." He looked at Garden. "I'm coming with you."

"Cabe--" "It's time."

'The water's muddy," Robert said. "You won't be able to see nuthin'."

Garden licked his lips. "I'll be able to see."

They went out on a Saturday, borrowing a boat from Jim Holman, Garden bringing equipment from school. They were all nervous, and though the night before they had spent hours going over plans for the dive, discussing each possibility, mapping out a strict timetable, they were now almost silent, talking only to ask for equipment or instructions.

Garden went over the side at ten o'clock sharp.

The orders were strict. Since neither his father nor his uncle knew anything about scuba diving, he was on a line, the line connected to a winch. If he did not check in every five. minutes with the prearranged signals, if he did not surface five minutes before the hour limit of his air supply, they were to haul him up.

The two men waited, silently pacing the deck of the boat. The first signal arrived on time. As did the second and the third.

Then he was up. :

Garden pulled himself onto the boat, flipping over the low side wall of the craft, tearing off his face mask and spit ring water out of his mouth. He was breathing heavily, his face was white, and he appeared to be panicked.

"What is it?" Robert demanded, crouching next to his son. "What did you see?"

Garden caught his breath. He looked from his uncle to his father and back again.

"What's happening?" Cabe asked.

Garden closed his eyes. "He's still down there," he said. "And he's walking."

"I knew it." Sanderson kept repeating the words like a litany. "I knew it."

Miles Huerdeen did not look at his client's face. Instead, he focused his attention on the contents of the folder spread out over the top of the desk: photos of Sanderson's wife walking arm in arm with the purchasing agent of his company, credit card carbons from the hotel, a copy of a dinner bill, a list of phone charges for the past two months.

"I knew it."

This was the part of the job Miles hated the most. The investigation itself was always fun, and as long as he didn't think about the consequences, he enjoyed his work. But he did not like to see the pain that was caused his clients by the information he gathered. He hated even being the messenger of that hurt. It was one of the paradoxes of this job that the work which was most rewarding was that which was most devastating to the people who hired him.

He glanced up at Sanderson. He always felt as though he should say something to comfort his clients, to somehow apologize for the facts he presented to them. But instead, he stood the poker-faced, feigning an objectivity he did not feel. " .

Sanders6n looked at him with eyes that were a memory away from tears.

"I knew it."

Miles said nothing, looked down embarrassedly at the desk.

He was relieved when Sanderson finally left.

The detective business was nothing like the way it was portrayed in movies. Miles hadn't really expected it to be, but he hadn't known what to expect when he made the decision to become a private investigator, when he'd forsaken his business classes and enrolled in his first criminology course. He'd known it wasn't going to be Phillip Marlowe time--glamorously seedy office, shady clientele, fast and loose women--but he'd half expected Jim Rockford. Instead, he'd ended up working in an environment not very far removed from the one in which he would have found himself had he continued to major in business.

Only he now made a bell of a lot less money.

At least he was working for a real detective agency, and not an insurance company, as so many of his fellow graduates were doing. He might be entrenched amid the trappings of a corporate world--desk cubicle in a high-rise office, quotas and timetables he had to meet--but sometimes he was allowed to go out in the field, follow people around, take clandestine photos. Sometimes he could pretend he was Phillip Marlowe.

Phillip Marlowe-with medical insurance and a good dental plan.

He filled out the form for billable hours, and sent it in an interoffice envelope along with a labor distribution time sheet to the bookkeeper. There was nothing more he could do here this afternoon, so he decided to leave a little early. He had to stop by the library tonight anyway, which would make up for any work-hour discrepancy.

He waved to Naomi the receptionist as he waited for the elevator. "I'm out of here," he said.

She smiled at him. "You're dust in the wind?"

"I'm a puff of smoke. I'm history. I'm gone."

The elevator arrived, and he gave her a James Dean low sign as the metal doors closed

Outside, the air was cold, or as cold as it got in Southern California. Miles put his hands in the pockets of his jacket. As he walked next door to the parking lot, his breath blew out in puffs of white steam before dissipating in the breeze. It had rained sometime since lunch. He hadn't noticed it while in the office, but now he saw that the streets were slick and cinematically reflective. The water and rain puddles made it seem more Christmassy to him, made the tinsel trees on the lampposts and the small blinking multicolored lights outlining the doors and windows of the buildings seem not quite so inappropriate, lending the entire street a festive holiday air.

He'd been feeling kind of Scroogy about Christmas this year, though he wasn't sure why. Usually Christmas was his favorite season. He loved everything about it: loved heating the same damn Christmas carols played in each store he went inside, loved the repeats of the old television specials, loved buying presents, loved receiving presents.

Most of all, he loved the decorations. Though he did not contradict his friends when they complained that stores put out their decorations too early, that the whole season was far too commercialized, he secretly would have been happy had decorations gone up before Halloween. He saw nothing wrong with making the Christmas season last even longer.

But this year, for some reason, he'd felt a little out of it. Though he'd seen the decorations, heard the music, even started buying some of his presents, it hadn't seemed like Christmas to him. He'd kept waiting for the feeling to kick

Now it had.

He walked between a Mercedes and a BMW to his old Buick, humming

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" under his breath. : :

His father was sleeping on the couch when he arrived home, lying on his side in a modified fetal position, one arm curled under his head like a pillow, the other hanging loosely

over the edge of the sofa. He was snoring softly, a sound barely audible over the voices of the newscasters on the television. Miles stood there for a moment, looking down at his dad. People were supposed to look younger when they slept. They were supposed to look peaceful, innocent, childlike. But his father looked older. Awake, his features reflected his relatively youthful mental state. But asleep, Bob Huerdeen looked every bit of his seventy-one years. His skin, a leathery cross-hatching of lines and wrinkles, sagged shapelessly over his thin cheeks; his discolored scalp could be seen through the thin back-comb of sparse gray hair. The expression on his face was one of resignation and tired defeat.

This was what his dad would look like when he was dead, Miles thought.

In his mind, he saw his father lying in a casket, eyes closed, arms folded across his chest, the expression on his lifeless face the same unhappy one he wore now.

The image disturbed him, and though he had not intended to wake his father up, he walked across the room and turned on the light, noisily announcing his presence with a series of false coughs.

Rubbing his eyes, coughing himself, Bob sat up. He blinked back the light, then glanced over at his son. "Home already?"

"It's after six."

Bob rubbed his yes. "I had that nightmare again."

"What nightmare?"

'The one I told you about."

"You didn't tell me anything."

"I told you last week. The one about the tidal wave." Miles frowned.

"A recurring dream?" "It is now." "Tell me again." shook his head. "I knew you never listened to me." "B'I lbisten. I just forgot."

"I'm in the kitchen, cooking myself breakfast. Pancakes.

I look out the window and I see a tidal wave coming toward me. It's already crashed, and now it's a wall of white water and it's knocking over buildings and houses and everything in its way. I try to run, but it's like my feet are stuck to the floor. I can't move. Then the wave hits, and I'm thrown against the wall, only the wall's no longer there.

Nothing's there, and I'm struggling underwater, trying to hold my breath until I reach the surface, but there is no surface. The wave keeps moving, and I'm trapped inside it, being carried along, tumbling over and over, and I can feel my lungs and stomach start to hurt, and I open my mouth because I can't keep it shut anymore and I have to breathe, and water floods down my throat, and I can feel myself dying.

And then I wake up."

"Wow."

"It seemed damn real, let me tell you. Both times." "Jesus. You ever have a recurring dream before? ""Not that I remember."

Miles smiled. "Maybe we really are going to have a tidal wave or an earthquake or something."

His father chuckled. "Knock that crap off."

But the old man didn't sound as derisive as Miles would have expected, and for some reason he found that unsettling.

After dinner, Miles did the dishes, then told his dad that he had to go to the library and do some research. "You're not doing it online?"

"Sometimes you need an actual book." His father nodded. "Mind if I tag along? .... "No problem," Miles said, but he was surprised. He couldn't remember the last time his dad had been to the library. Hell, he couldn't remember the last time the old man had read a book all the way through. Ever since they'd gotten cable, his father had given up the paperback westerns that had previously occupied his spare time and had not even

bothered to finish the business magnate biography through which he'd been slogging. Now, when he wasn't out playing poker with his buddies or going to senior citizen meetings, his dad lay on the couch watching old B-movies and reruns of forty-year-old TV shows.

Miles picked up his wallet and keys from the breakfront. 'l'here something you need to get?"

"Just thought I'd look around. Can't tell what I might find." .....

"Let's go."

They walked out to the Buick, and for once his dad didn't put up a fight and demand to drive. Thank God. His father's reflexes and road-handling skills had declined precipitously over the past few years, and if there were some way to contact the DMV and get a man's driver's license revoked, Miles would've turned his father in without a second thought. He could only hope that when his father had to get his license renewed next year, he would fail the test.

The library was surprisingly crowded for a weeknight. Students primarily. Most of them Asian. Aside from the occasional runaway, he seldom came into contact with kids these days, and his perception of the younger generation was formed mostly by movies and television.

Which was why it surprised him to see what looked like normal, happy, welladjusted,teenagers laughing quietly, talking together in low voices, and copying notes while sitting around large round tables piled with books.

Perhaps society wasn't doomed after all.

His father immediately wandered away, and Miles headed over to the bank of monitors and keyboards that had replaced the card catalog. It still felt strange to him to be using a computer in a library, and though the machines were part of both his work and his everyday life, he mourned its intrusion into this world. It seemed incongruous to him. And unnecessary. There'd been an article last week in the Los

Angeles Times about magnetic storage media and the rapid pace of technological change. The gist of the article was that storing information on computer discs or CDs required translating technology--a machine to read the encrypted information and translate it into words--and that things were moving so quickly that a lot of information was being saved in dying formats and would be impossible to retrieve even ten years hence. Written words, however, needed no interpretive mechanism, and information stored in books and printed on acid-free paper would remain easily accessible far longer than those using newer storage methods.

Which made him wonder why the library had ever scrapped its card catalog, a series of beautiful oak cabinets that were not only functional but added immeasurably to the library's ambience.

Sighing, Miles sat down on a stool. He had jotted down several keywords, and he went down the list, typing them in and then writing down each book and periodical reference that appeared. He was working on a case for Graham Donaldson, one of his oldest clients, a lawyer who was currently filing a discrimination suit on behalf of an African American man who'd been fired by Thompson Industries. Miles had already gotten some information from an inside source at the corporation, but he wanted to bolster it with some background. None of the information he'd received from the source was admissible in court, but then Graham was gambling that the case wouldn't even reach that stage. Thompson was extraordinarily concerned about its public image, and Graham was counting on a settlement. Just in case, though, he needed some fallback data.

It was amazing how easy it was to dig up background information. People on the outside always thought he spent his time walking city streets, canvassing neighborhoods, interviewing people, paying bribes for info, using hidden mikes and cameras to listen in on conversations. But sometimes a

short trip to the library and a few hours of reading provided him with everything he needed. That wasn't the case here, but he did find two books and one article in a business journal that would prove useful.

His father was already through, sitting on a bench near the front counter, and the old man stood, silently handing Miles his pile of books. Miles gave the librarian his card and glanced down at the titles his dad had chosen: Past Lives, Future Lives; Perception and Precognition; Witchcraft and Satanism in Early America; and The Prophecies of Nostradamus. He frowned but didn't say anything until the two of them were outside and in the car. Strapping on his shoulder harness, he casually motioned toward the materials between them. "What is this all about?" he asked. "What?" "Your books."

"Do I have to have my reading list approved by you?" "No, but " "Okay then."

"But you've never been interested in the occult."

"I am now." The old man looked at him Stubbornly, but for an instant the defensiveness faltered. A flicker of uncertainty-fear?--crossed his father's features, but it was gone before it really registered.

"What's going oft?" Miles asked.

"Nothing."

"It's not nothing."

"Just drop it, okay?"

There was anger in his father's voice, and Miles held up a hand in surrender. "Okay. God, I wasn't trying to make a federal case out of it."

But he thought of his father's dream and felt uneasy. He was used to working on hunches, following feelings, but it was usually in the pursuit of facts, and it was the nebulous occult aspect of this that troubled him.

He backed out of his parking spot and pulled onto the street, heading toward home.

His father changed the subject. "I know you're not seeing anyone right now, but do you have any prospects?"

"What?" Miles looked at him, surprised. "What brought this on?"

"I'm just curious. It's not natural for a full-grown man not to be interested in sex."

"First of all, I don't even want to talk about this with you, and, second of all, who says I'm not interested. "You don't seem like it."

"I'm going through a dry spell right now."

"Awful long dry spell."

"Why are you suddenly so concerned about my love life?" "A man gets to a certain age, he wants to know that his son will be settled and happy and taken care of when he's gone."

When he's gone.

Maybe his father hadn't changed the subject after all. Miles kept his tone light. "You planning to die on me?" "I'm just asking." Bob grinned. "Besides, no man likes to think that he's been a failure as a father, that he's raised a son who's a pathetic loser and can't even get a date."

"Who can't get a date?"

"When's the last time you went out?"

"Well, there was Janice. That was almost a kind of sort of semi-date.

In a way."

"She was married! And you just went out to lunch!" "She wasn't married. She had a boyfriend."

"Same difference." Bob shook his head. 'Thank God you're on a never seen a man not ball team.

I've strike out as much as you."

"It's not that bad."

"What about Mary?"

Miles' face clouded over. "I haven't seen her in a long time." ' ' l'hat's what I mean. Why don't you call her up, ask her out?"

Miles shook his head. "I can't. I couldn't. Besides, she's probably seeing someone else by now." ,

"Maybe not. Maybe she's in the same boat you are. Who knows? Maybe she's just waiting for you to call."

Miles said nothing. He couldn't tell his dad that Mary was not waiting for him to call, that he had seen her outside a movie theater several months ago, dressed to the hilt, looking gorgeous, laughing happily and intimately touching a tall athletic-looking man wearing an expensive sports coat.

"You can't tell," Bob prodded. "Call her and see. It can't hurt."

It could hurt, though, Miles thought. He turned away. "No, Dad. I'm not calling her."

"You'll be alone until you die."

"I can live with that."

Bob sighed. 'l'hat's the sad part. I think you could." They drove in silence for several blocks, and it was Bob who finally broke the silence. "You'll never do better than

Claire. You know that, don't you?" Miles nodded, staring slraight ahead. "I know that." "You should have never let that girl go."

"I didn't let her go. She wanted out, she wasn't happy, we got a divorce."

"You could've fought a little harder."

Miles didn't reply. He'd thought the same thing himself. Many times.

He'd agreed to the divorce, but he hadn't wanted it. He'd loved her then, and he probably still loved her now, though he told himself that he didn't. It had been five years since the final papers had come through, and not a day went by that he didn't think about her. In small ways usually--a brief second wondering what she'd say about this or that but she'd remained in his life as a ghost, a conscience, a measuring stick in his mind if not a physical presence.

The truth was, they probably did not have to get divorced. No other people were involved, no other lovers on either of their parts. Her sole complaint with him was that he had too little time for her, that he cared more about his job than he did about his marriage. It wasn't true, but he knew why she felt that way, and it would have been easy for him to correct. If he had just been willing to bend a little, to admit his mistakes, to stop bringing work home, to spend more time with her and be a little more demonstrative with his feelings, they would have been able to survive. He'd known that even then, but some small stubborn part of him had kept him from doing so, had insisted that though the fault was his own, it was her responsibility to solve the problem. If she really loved him, she would understand and forgive him, she would put up with anything he did and be grateful. She was already meeting him more than halfway, but he thought she should have gone all the way, and their problems had escalated from there. Divorce had been the ultimate outcome, and though it was not something he had wanted, he had been unwilling to avoid it.

Miles glanced over. His father was still looking at him.

He sighed. "Dad, it's been a long day. Let's just drop it, okay?"

Bob held up his hands in disingenuous innocence. "Okay. Fine."

They pulled into the driveway, and Miles parked the car, pulled the emergency brake. Bob picked up his stack of books before getting out, and once again Miles' gaze was drawn to the volumes.

Witchcraft and Satanism in Early America.

He picked up his own materials and followed his father into the house.

Instead of camping out on the couch as he usually did

and falling asleep to the sounds of sitcoms, Bob retired to his room, bidding his son good night and closing and locking the door.

The Prophecies of Nostradamus.

Miles still felt uneasy, and though he got himself a beer and sat on the couch for a couple of hours, trying to sort through the information he'd gathered, he could not really concentrate, and he gave it up early, going to bed well before his usual time of eleven o'clock.

But he couldn't sleep.

After tossing and turning for what seemed like an eternity, he got up, turned on the small television on his dresser, watched part of an exercise infomercial, then turned it off and walked over to the window, staring out through the crack in the curtains at the cloud-shrouded winter moon.

He thought about Claire, wondered if she was sleeping right now.

Wondered who she was sleeping with.

He glanced back at the empty bed. It had been a long time since he'd had sex. And he missed it. He tried to recall what Claire looked like naked, tried to bring to mind the specifics of her form, but time had blurred her body into the generic. Hell, he could not even recall any details about Mary. He remembered places and positions, but the sensual knowledge ordinarily borne of intimacy was not there.

Perversely, he could see clearly in his mind the nude form of Cherise, a one-night stand from three years ago.

Sighing, he walked back over to the bed. He masturbated joylessly, perfunctorily, and finally fell asleep thinking of tidal waves and witches and dreams that predicted the end of the world.

Miles felt tired the next morning when he went to work, and it was noticeable enough that Hal commented on it when they met in the elevator.

"Looks like you just came back from a long night at the prison orgy."

Miles smiled wryly. '"l'hanks."

"1"o quote the great Dionne Warwick, that's what friends are for."

"You have food in your beard," Miles told him.

The burly detective quickly ran his fingers through his thick facial hair. "Gone?" , .

Miles grinned. "I lied."

"Jackass."

The doors opened on their floor, and Hal stepped out of the elevator first. He waved to Naomi at the front desk. "Honeybunch! How are you this beautiful morning?"

The receptionist was on the phone, and she frowned at him as she put her caller on hold. She put down the handset and looked from Hal to Miles. "I know it's foolish to ask, but did either of you read the memo yesterday?" "What memo?" they said in unison.

Hal looked at Miles, chuckled. "Great minds think alike." Naomi smiled tolerantly. 'fflae memo that was placed in your boxes, the memo stating that the phones will be out of service this morning. They're rewiring for the computers and putting in new fiber-optic lines. They should be finished around eleven or twelve, but until then everything has to go through me. My line and the pay phone are the only two in service."

"Guess I didn't read that one," Miles admitted.

Hal shook his head. "Great. I have about a gazillion calls to make."

"Better break out those quarters," the receptionist said sweetly "I can't tie up my line." 'Thanks." Hal lumbered off toward his cubicle.

Naomi picked up the handset. "Oh," she said to Miles, almost as an afterthought. "You have a client. She's been waiting about ten minutes. Said Phillip Emmons recommended you."

Miles nodded in thanks as she pressed a button on the phone and began talking once again. He strode down the wide central aisle toward his workstation. Phillip Emmons.

Old Phil could always be counted on to throw some work his way. It had been awhile since he'd seen his friend, and he promised himself that he'd give Phil a call later in the week and the two of them would get together.

The woman waiting in the client's chair of his cubicle sat perfectly still, staring out the windows of the office at the Hollywood hills. A pretty brunette; wearing a tight blouse with no bra and a short trendy skirt, she saw him coming and stood at his approach, extending a hand.

Raymond Chandler time.

"My name's Marina Lewis." He shook her hand. "Miles Huerdeen." The first thing he noticed was a wedding ring, and his hopes, faint as they were, faded. He smiled, motioned for her to sit. "What can

I do for you, Ms. Lewis?"

"Call me Marina."

"Marina." '

She waited for him to Settle in behind his desk, then took a deep breath. "Phillip Emmons recommended you. I mentioned to him that I was looking for someone that I needed some help..."

"What's the problem?" Miles said gently.

She cleared her throat. "My father is being stalked, but the police refuse to do anything about it."

Miles nodded calmly, professionally, but inside he was

revved up. Finally a real case. In pulp fiction terms: a gorgeous dame and a targeted old man. What more could he ask for? "Who's after your father?" Miles asked.

"We don't know. That's what we want you to find out." "How do you know he's being stalked?"

"We weren't, at first. I mean, there were little clues. He'd come home and the back door would be unlocked, though he was sure that he had locked it. Stuff like that. Things that could have been imagination or coincidence. But last week, right before we came out here to visit him, he got a phone call from a woman who said he was marked for death. She described the inside of his house perfectly, like she'd been there, and said she was going to kill him in his sleep.

And then, a few days later, she called again and started saying weird stuff about things that no one would know but people in our family.

Then, two days ago, he was nearly run over by. a black car with blacked-out windows that swerved to hit him as he was crossing the street. He only escaped by leaping onto the sidewalk and jumping into the doorway of a jewelry store."

"You told this to the police? She nodded. What did they say?"

She opened her small handbag, drew out a card, and passed it across the desk to him. "I talked to this guy, Detective Madder, and he said there was nothing they could do until something more concrete occurred.

He wrote down the information about the phone call, took a description of the car, and then basically told us that it was going in a file and wasn't going to be acted on. Then he gave me this card and told me to keep him informed. My father didn't even want to go to the police, I convinced him to, and after that he became adamant about handling this by himself. So I'm here on my own. He doesn't know anything about this."

"We can't provide protection," Miles said. "We're an investigative firm, not a security company--"

"I know," she interrupted. "I just want you to find out who's doing this and why. After that we'll either go to the police with what we have or... or figure out something else."

Find out who's doing this and why.

As juvenile and stupid as it was, he felt energized. He was in his own movie now, and this made up for all those boring bureaucratic cases he was ordinarily forced to handle. He took out a pen and notebook.

"Your father lives where?"

"Santa Monica. 211 Eighth Street."

"And you and your husband?"

"Arizona. We're only out here for a few weeks. My husband's a writer, and he's meeting with some movie people about optioning his book."

"So how much longer will you be staying in California?" "Probably another week or so." She paused. "Unless something else happens. I'm a teacher and I'm supposed to be back at work on January second, but if my dad's in danger... "We'll try to clean this up quickly." Miles smiled at her and she smiled back. "Your husband's a writer, huh? I assume that's how you met Phil Emmons."

Her face brightened. "Yes! Phillip's been a godsend. Gordon met him at a horror convention in Phoenix last year, and he's the one who helped him find a movie agent. We're only out here today because of Phillip."

Miles smiled. "Yeah. He's quite a guy."

Marina cleared her throat embarrassedly. "He mentioned something about 'reasonable rates." I don't know how much you charge, but we can't afford too much. If you could give me an... estimate, let me know what we're looking at..."

"Don't worry, about it. We"

Naomi stuck her head around the corner of the cubicle. "Miles, phone."

He raised his hand. "I'm with a client. Get a number and tell them that I'll call them back."

"Miles, it's an emergency. Your father. He's in the hospital."

He was instantly up and out of his chair. "Take care of her!" he shouted to Hal, motioning back toward his cubicle as he ran up the aisle toward the front desk. His heart seemed to have stopped, and his chest hurt by the time he reached Naomi's chair because he'd been holding his breath. He let out a huge exhalation of air, reached over the desk, and grabbed the phone, pressing the blinking light on the console. "Hello?" .... "Mr. Huerdeen

His heart was pumping again. Not just pumping, pounding. He could barely hear over the sound of the blood thumping in his head. "What is it? What's happened?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Huerdeen, but your father has had a stroke."

Stroke.

It was not something he had expected, not anything he had ever thought about or even considered. Miles' mouth felt dry, and for a second he was afraid that he'd forgotten how to speak, but the words finally came out, weak and fearful. "How... how did it happen?"

"He was at a grocery store when he collapsed. The manager immediately called the paramedics, and they rushed him here. We found your name and this contact number in his wallet."

"Oh, God," Miles breathed. "Oh, Jesus." He leaned back against the wall for support, closing his eyes. He had a sudden picture in his mind of his father reaching for a can of soup and failing on the linoleum floor, taking shelves of groceries down with him, dying among strangers who had come

to the store to buy food and were now dispassionately watching an old man take his last breath on their way to the produce department.

"He's stable right now, but he's not conscious, and we're keeping him monitored in the CCU. He's most likely suffered some brain damage, although we won't know the extent of it until--- ..... "What hospital?"

Miles demanded.

"St. Luke's on--' ....... I'll be right there." Miles slammed down the phone just as Naomi reached her desk. "Have Hal take over that client for me." He hit the elevator's Down button. "I'm not sure when I'll be back."

"Is your father all right?"

"He's had a stroke." Miles slammed his palm against the button again, as if trying to hurry the elevator, but when there was no immediate response, he sprinted toward the stairwell door. "I'll call!" he yelled back to Naomi.

And then he was in the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time, leaping the last few to each landing. On the ground floor, he dashed through the building's lobby and out to his car in the 'adjacent lot.

St. Luke's. That was over on Winnetka, close to home. His dad had probably been shopping at Ralph's.

Somehow, knowing where it had happened, knowing the physical layout of the location, brought it home to him, made it more immediate, less abstract, and the panic flared within him. Thankfully, though, it did not seem to impair his judgment or coordination. He did not have to fumble through his key ring to fred the car key, did not have to work with shaking hands to get the car started. If anything, he seemed to be thinking clearer than usual. Everything seemed to be in sharp focus, he had total control over his movements and thought processes, and he sped out of the parking lot, past

a Salvation Army Santa, and onto Wilshire, zooming effortlessly into a convenient hole in the traffic.

His luck did not hold.

All of the streets leading to the Ventura freeway seemed to be under construction, and it was like one of those horrific stress dreams. He'd sit in congestion for two blocks, then finally turn down a side street until he hit another major thoroughfare, only to have the same thing happen all over again. It took him twenty minutes to drive six miles, and by the time he reached the freeway, he was a nervous wreck. His jaw hurt from clenching his muscles, and through his mind ran the dozens of death scenarios he'd imagined while waiting for stoplights to change.

It was clear sailing from then on out, however, and ten minutes later, he was in the hospital elevator, heading up to the Critical Care Unit.

His chest felt tight, and though he knew it was only from stress, he could, not help thinking that if he was having a heart attack, this was the best place for it to happen.

There was a nurses station backed by a wall of monitors just past the elevator, and Miles quickly walked over to the one person who looked up at his entrance, a young Asian man wearing blue scrubs. "I'm lookhg for my father, Bob Huerdeen. He had a stroke and he's supposed to be in the

CCU."

It came out as a single frightened sentence, and he was half expecting to be told the worst, but the man was nodding before he'd even finished speaking, walking quickly around the counter to join Miles. "He's in room twelve. Follow me."

Room twelve was halfway down the hallway and, like seemingly all of the other rooms on this floor, had a big window opening onto the corridor so that the medical personnel passing by could do instant visual checks on the patients inside. Miles saw his father before he even walked

into the room. The old man was hooked up to machines, IV tubes had been inserted into one extended arm, and he lay there, still and unmoving, eyes closed, as though he was dead.

Miles followed the--intern? doctor? nurse? attendant?--through the open doorway into the room. He'd steeled himself for an onslaught of emotion, but none came. There was no sadness, no tears, no anger, only the same fear, dread, and panic that he'd been experiencing since Naomi first told him his father was in the hospital.

Inside, the room was silent, the only sound the persistent beep of heart-monitoring equipment. Miles cleared his throat before speaking, and the noise was deafening in the stillness. When he spoke, his voice was a reverent whisper. "Are you the doctor?"

The other man shook his head, whispering also. "I'm an intern. The doctor is on his rounds. He should be back in fifteen minutes or so, but I could get him if you want."

"So there's nothing.." life-threatening? I mean, my dad doesn't have to have emergency surgery or something?"

"Your father almost died. Could have died. As it is, he may have suffered some serious brain damage. But we have him on a blood thinner, and he's being given medication that will break down any clots."

Miles shook his head. Look I don't understand. Is that what caused the stroke?"

"A stroke usually occurs when blockage in one of the arteries breaks off, travels through the bloodstream, and becomes lodged in one of the blood vessels of the brain. This is what happened to your father.

There's not much we can do about the stroke that already occurred, although the doctor will talk to you more about that when he sees you.

The anticoagulant and blood thinner he's being administered are to prevent additional strokes. They often come in waves, the clots dislgdging sequentially or in pieces, or dislodging other

blockages farther down the line, and this hopefully will prevent that from occurring."

Miles was listening, but he was looking at his father. He turned back toward the intern only when the other man stopped speaking.

"Would you like me to get the doctor?" "Yes," Miles admitted. "Would you?"

The intern smiled. I'll be back in a few minutes." There was a chair against the wall by the foot of the bed, and Miles pulled it to his dad's side, sitting down. Lying there, eyes closed, a tube shoved up his nose, the man on the bed did not even look like his father. Not only did he seem older and thinner, but the features of his face appeared to be altered. His nose looked larger than it did ordinarily, his chin longer and more pointed. The teeth that were exposed between pale, partially open lips were much too big and much too white, out of proportion with the rest of the face. Only the single exposed hand, connected to the arm in which bottled nutrients and medication were being intravenously fed, seemed familiar.

He recognized that hand. The sight of it, for some reason, brought on the tears that previously wouldn't come. Looking at the veined, mottled skin, the bony, excessively lined knuckles, he could conjure up images of the past that were not prompted by the still face, the sheeted body. He saw that hand helping him climb the metal ladder out of the YMCA pool, spanking him when he shot the Werthers' dog in the butt with a BB gun, showing him how to tie knots for his Boy Scouts merit badge, dribbling a basketball.

It was this that made him cry, that triggered the emotional outburst for which he'd been prepared .......... He touched his dad's hand, patted it, held it.

And when the doctor came in, five minutes later, he was still crying.

Then

The girl sat trembling in the darkness, her frightened features only partially illuminated by the flickering orange glow of the fireplace.

Her hands were clasped tightly together, and though her fingers moved nervously, they did not leave her lap.

"There is nothing to be afraid of," William said kindly. He smiled at the girl, trying to calm her nerves, but this only seemed to make her more agitated. "It will not be painful," he told her. "It is a very simple procedure."

The girl's hands clenched and unclenched in her lap. Under any other circumstances she would probably be very pretty. Now she just looked troubled and scared. She took a deep breath, a sound audible even over the crackle of the burning log in the fireplace. "Will" she began. She coughed nervously, cleared her throat. "Will you have to see me?"

William shook his head. "Not if you don't want me to," he said softly.

"But I must warn you that it will come out. I can take care of that for you, but if you do not want me to see you, you will have to get rid of it yourself." He paused for a moment to let his words sink in. "It will be embarrassing for you, but it will be easier if I do it all. I promise I will not look at you as a man. If it makes you feel any better, I have seen many other young women the same way."

"Who?" the girl asked, her fear temporarily overtaken by curiosity'.

William shook his head. "I cannot tell you."

She thought for a moment, then met his eyes for the first time. "You will not tell about me, either?"

"Not upon pain of death." He stood, went to the window, parted the curtain. The land outside was empty, tall grasses swaying in the chill winter wind that blew across the plains. In the distance, the flickering gaslights of town shone like yellow stars at the edge of the horizon. He let the curtain fall and walked across the room to the series of shelves next to the bed. Taking out a match, he struck it against the log wall and lit a candle.

He had a bad feeling about this. As he'd told the girl, he'd done this many times before, but this was different. He could sense it. He'd been run out of towns in the past, had been whipped and beaten. But that was not what was coming here, that was not what he foresaw happening. No, this was something else.

And it frightened him. -The girl's name was Jane, and, like all of them, she was in love. She had given herself to the boy, though her father wanted her betrothed to another--perhaps because her father wanted her betrothed to another--and thanks to that one encounter was now with child. She was not yet showing, but: she had not been visited by the menses twice now, and a, innocent as she was supposed to be, she knew what that meant.

Like many of them, she had en on the verge of kinin herself when a friend of a friend told Jane about him, an

William had received a hurriedly written note the next day a badly misspelled missive begging him to put an end to her condition. As always, he had agreed to do so. And that had led her here, to his hut, in the middle of the night.

He knew that what he was about to do was illegal. And he had been beaten and chased in the past not only for per

forming such an act but for the way in which he performed it.

For using magic.

He looked around his little room. He had been here for over a year. It was the longest time he'd spent anywhere since leaving the East, and he liked the place, liked the people. He'd become a member of this community, and the suspicions that had always seemed to grow up around him elsewhere had failed to materialize here. He had helped some girls, even helped a few men, but this was a strongly Christian town, and those mores had kept people from talking.

That was about to end. He knew it, he sensed it, and that made him sad.

It was also going to end badly.

Violently.

And that scared him.

William forced himself to smile reassuringly at Jane, who was still sitting primly in the small chair, her hands clasping and unclasping nervously on her lap.

"I'd like you to move over to the bed," he suggested. "And you'll have to remove your clothing."

Jane nodded, stood. Her hands were trembling. She took off her coat, took off her dress, took off her undergarments. She was crying as she placed her clothing on the chair, sobbing by the time she lay down on the bed. Her legs and feet were pressed tightly together, and standing to the side of the bed, William cleared his throat to get her attention and motioned with his hand that she was to spread her legs open.

She did so, sobbing loudly now, her hands held over her face so she could not see him, as if, by shielding her face she could shield the rest of her body.

He set the candle on her stomach, carefully placed a rag between her legs. Closing his eyes, he concentrated for a moment, gathering the strength he needed. As always, it started with a tingle deep in his midsection, a fluttering of

the heart that grew into a warm vibration and spread outward through his body, through his limbs, into his head, lighting up the world inside his brain.

He opened his eyes, and the room was tinged with extra color.

Everything had a halo about it, auras of different tint that emanated from the walls, from the floor, from the ceiling, from the furniture, and especially, from the girl.

Her head was bathed in yellow, most of her body in blue, but both the candle on her stomach and her abdomen had auras of gray.

William took a deep breath, then slowly passed his hands over her abdomen, muttering the Words that would terminate her pregnancy. From the hairy cleft between her legs came a small trickle of blood that was immediately soaked up by the rag. Jane was still crying, but from shame and humiliation. It was obvious that she felt no pain.

Once more his hands passed over her, and this time a gloppy mess spilled out from between her legs onto the rag, a bloody mass of undistinguishable flesh that he quickly covered and took away. He tossed the entire rag in the fire, said a few Words, then turned back toward the girl. "It is over," he told her. "You may dress."

She took her hands from her face, and the expression he saw, in the second before he turned away to give the girl her privacy, was one of surprise. She had not known it was over because she had not even known it had started.

He heard from behind him the creak of bed and floorboard, the rustle of clothes. It was not over yet, however. His premonition of lurking disaster had not abated one whit, and though the auras were fading before his eyes, though the tingle in his body had subsided into almost nothing, he still had the sense that something was wrong, that what had transpired here tonight would lead to... to... To what? Death.

Yes, death. Whether his own or Jane's he did not know, but he tried to hurry her up, tried to get the girl out the door and back on the path to town before anything occurred. She tried to pay him, offered to work off her debt to him for his kindness and help, but he told her he would accept no payment. He did this because he wanted to help her, not because he wanted anything for himself. She did not right him but allowed herself to be hurried out.

He watched her through the window as she sprinted back toward town, moonlight illuminating her form until she hit a small dip in the trail and faded into the shadows.

William poured himself some tea from the kettle above the fire and sat in the chair, waiting, but his sense of foreboding did not go away. He was debating whether to saddle up and ride off for a few days, maybe spend a week or so in the hills until whatever this was had passed, when he heard noises from outside.

Someone knocked on the door.

This is it. "

He nearly spilled the tea on his lap, getting up, but he managed to avoid burning himself and placed the cup on the mantel above the fireplace.

The knock came again, louder, stronger, not the friendly sound of a neighbor's tapping hand but the hard, demanding rap of wood on wood.

William walked across the room, pulled back the bolt, and opened the door.

Six or seven men stood on the porch, ax handles and shotguns in hand.

Even backlit by the moon, their forms in silhouette, their faces bathed in darkness, William could see defensiveness in their postures, anger in the way they held their weapons. Beneath everything, he could sense their fear. He had been through all of this before.

"Come in," he said, feigning a camaraderie he did not feel. "We didn't come for no visit," the closest man said.

William recognized the low rough voice of Calhoun Stevens, Jane's father. The big man stepped over the threshold. "We know what you did."

"And we know what you is!" came the jittery voice of an old man at the back.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," William lied.

Stevens raised his ax handle threateningly. "I know my daughter was here tonight. I know what you did to her!"

Jane could not have told, William realized. These men could not have been gathered and ridden out here in that short time. It had to have been her friend, the one who'd given her his name.

The men pushed forward. Stevens slammed his ax handle against the cabin wall. "We're here to make sure you can never do anything like that again."

"We know what you is!" the man in back repeated. There was going to be no easy way out of this, William understood. These men had not come to talk, and they were not prepared to listen. They were obviously afraid of him, and they'd obviously had to build themselves up to this.

As they pressed farther into the room, he could smell whiskey breath, ' He could use their fear against them. It was his last chance to avoid violence.

He stood straight and moved next to the fire, aware of the image the flickering orange flames would produce. "You know what I am?" he said. 'Then, you know what I can do."

He concentrated, caused the flames to leap and grow in a roaring whoosh that sped up the chimney.

The men, all of the men except Stevens, stumbled backward.

"She's my daughter! Stevens said, advancing. "

William stood still, gathering his strength, hoping he wouldn't have to use the magic, knowing he would. "I have

not touched your daughter." He glanced quickly around the room, taking inventory, deciding what he would need to take with him, what he could afford to leave. He would miss this place.

Stevens swung at him.

William ducked, expecting it. The ax handle knocked down the mantel above the fireplace, the objects atop it clattering and breaking on the wooden floor. Before the big man could attack again, William waved his hand and caused the ax handle to fly from Stevens' hand.

"Stop right now," he warned. "Leave my house or I will not be responsible." From the corner of his eye, he saw a couple of the men nearest the door edge their way back outside. No one was rushing forward to help Stevens.

His muscles were shaking. Anger and power coursed through him. When he saw that Stevens had no intention of leaving or backing off, when he saw that the father's rage and pride were running too high, William steeled himself. Stevens rushed him. "Die, witch!"

He'd clearly expected his friends to help, but as William began chanting some of the Words, as the fireplace roared again and a green flame leapt out and struck Stevens full in the face, the other men fled, scrambling to get out the door.

William continued chanting and the green flame grew, spreading down the big man's body, engulfing him, freezing him in place. Beneath the sickly illumination of the unnatural fire, Stevens' body blackened, crumpled, started to melt.

William looked out the open door at the men and horses running away, their forms little more than scrambling shadows in the moonlight.

They'd scurry back to town, and soon they'd be back, with more men, more weapons. The righteous townspeople marching forth to put an end to the evil witch and his black arts

All because a girl had fallen in love with someone other than the boy her father wanted her to marry. And he had helped her. William sighed.

He'd thought this kind of persecution was over, that the haled and horror of the old days had faded.

But it wasn't, it hadn't, it never would.

The green flames were gone, and he stared down at the twisted black lump that had once been a body, thinking of his mother. He remembered the way she had looked at the stake, remembered the panicked expression on her doomed face, remembered the way her eyes had scanned over him without recognition, mistaking him for merely another face in the hostile crowd that was putting her to death. "Run!" the man with the torch had ordered her, and she had run in place as the fire caught, as first the kindling and then the bigger branches had begun to burn. She had continued to run as the sack dress she was wearing ripped open, had continued to run naked as around her the blaze grew.

He touched the twisted form with his foot. In his mind, as clear as if it had been yesterday, he heard the sound of his mother screaming as the flames scorched her skin, as her legs blackened and she started to burn. He'd wanted her to save herself, to use whatever magic she had left and kill however many men she could, and he had not understood at the time why she'd gone down passively, why she hadn't struck back.

But he knew now that she'd done it for him. Any indication that the judge was right, that she really was a witch, would have ensured that he, too, would be put to the stake. But dying this way had kept alive a flicker of doubt in the townspeople's minds, had guaranteed him life.

Men like Stevens and his friends had killed his mother, and though he understood that they feared what they did not understand, it did not excuse their actions. He felt no qualms

about putting an end to Stevens' life. It had been kill or be killed--as it was so often out here in the territories--and he would do the same thing over again if given the chance.

But he had no time to dally. They would be back. He gathered his bag of writings and powders, took whatever food and clothing he could fit onto the horse, and headed out. He considered torching the house, leaving behind no evidence, but then they'd know for sure he'd fled.

This way they'd search the house and the property before giving chase.

It would buy him some time.

He ran the horse at first, but then slowed it to a trot. If the gathering posse really wanted, he knew, they would be able to overtake him. Maybe not the first day. But the second. Or the third. And he thought it better to appear less desperate. Let them know he was leaving, but also let them think that he was not afraid, that he was confident enough of his powers that he did not need to run.

From behind him, he heard the sound of a shotgun, its thunderous blast amplified and echoing in the cold winter night. He told the horse it was nothing and made the animal continue forward at its leisurely pace.

Even if one of the men was shooting at him--which he doubted--none of the bullets would find their mark. The first thing he had done was cloak himself in a protective spell that was strong enough to shield him from all but a direct blow with a handheld weapon. "

Ahead of him was blackness..

Behind him echoed the sound of another shotgun blast. He looked up at the position of the moon. It was after midnight, he realized. It was Christmas. When the sun rose, the men behind him would be opening presents, giving thanks to God, going to church. =

He sighed. It didn't matter.

He continued slowly forward into the darkness.

It wasn't a day he recognized anyway.

The body was torn in half lengthwise. Literally torn. Like a piece of paper. With the entire right side of the connected head, torso and abdomen pulled down so that the man's left half and right halves were touching only at the feet.

He had never seen or heard of anything like this happening before, and Miles stared with revulsion and horror at the spilled guts and broken bits of bone that littered the bloody hardwood floor. He felt like throwing up, and it was only through an effort of sheer will that he managed to keep down his breakfast.

It was the smell that was the worst, the disgusting stench of bile and excrement and bodily fluids. He was forced to hold his hand over his nose, and he wished that the policemen and forensic experts would offer him a surgical mask like the ones they were wearing.

Graham Donaldson had called him find Graham Stood next to him now, watching as the police dusted for fingerprints, collected trace evidence, and photographed the crime scene. Miles didn't know why the lawyer wanted him here-as a witness perhaps, as a nonofficial observermbut Graham was a friend, and he had come automatically.

He had not been prepared for what he'd found.

A criminalist crouched near the shattered left half of the head and gathered a sample of blood from the brain cavity. Miles turned away.

His no irish fantasies had sometimes involved murder cases, but those dreams had crashed to earth

in the first second he'd seen the body---or what was left of it. He realized how lucky he was to be working in a downtown office suite with computers and ergonomic office furniture and nice clean paperwork.

He'd never complain about being a glorified clerk again. Miles turned to Graham. "So why, exactly, am I here?" The lawyer shrugged. "I thought you might be able to help me find out who did this. I figured it'd be better if you were at the scene and could oversee what the cops were doing rather than simply read about it afterward and look at pictures."

At this, two of the nearest policemen turned toward them.

Graham ignored the hostile stares. "I need to know if it was someone from or someone hired by Thompson."

Miles turned back toward the body. Montgomery Jones was supposed to have met Graham at Jerry's Famous Deli in the Valley to go over their strategy before heading over to a deposition session with Thompson's lawyers. Miles had managed to dig up some pretty good statistical dirt on the company's minority hiring practices, as well as a rather incriminating quote from Thompson's CEO, and Graham had been excited about his client's chances for a settlement and was anxious to discuss it with him.. Only Montgomery had never shown.

His body had been found, two hours later, here, in the old carriage house near the Whittier Narrows dam.

"I have no legal status here," Miles pointed out. ]hey told me to stay behind the tape, and I have to---"

"I know that," Graham snapped. "Don't talk to me about 'legal status."

"'

Miles raised an eyebrow.

"I'm sorry," the lawyer apologized. "It's just ... It's a stressful situation. I know you can't go conducting a private investigation of your own. You weren't even hired by him or technically working for him. You're working for me. But

I was hired by him, and I mean to see that his killer is brought to justice."

'he cops seem to be doing a thorough job."

"I just wanted you as a witness in case they weren't. I don't know what I'm going to do or how I'm going to handle this, and I want to make sure all my bases are covered from the begining

It was what he'd figured, d Miles nodded, satisfied. He glanced around the carriage house, at the antique horse carts and livery, at the huge ham like doors. Were the doors open all the time? There didn't seem to be any padlocks or locks of any sort, and the chain-link fence around the Whittier Narrows recreation area had been breached in several places. Anyone could have come in here.

Thompson Industries could be playing hardball, but somehow Miles didn't think so. Ruthless businessmen they might be, but he didn't think they could afford the public relations nightmare of being associated with a criminal act. Particulary not one this heinous.

Besides, even if they were into this stuff, they would've been more discreet. Montgomery would not have been so publicly dispatched. He would have just disappeared.

This wasn't the work of a corporation trying to avoid a lawsuit, this was the work of... of what?

A monster, was his first thought, but that didn't make any sense. There were no such things as monsters. Still, he could not imagine how this could have been done, how a person or even a gang of people could have physically accomplished this act, and the only image that would come to mind when he looked at Montgomery's torn form was that of an overgrown Frankenstein, a huge, grotesque creature angrily grabbing the man and tearing him in two.

Goose bumps cascaded down the skin of his arms.

The two of them stood there for a moment, watching the police at work.

"You don't think it's connected to Thompson," Graham asked, "do you?"

Miles looked at him. "Do you?"

The lawyer shook his head. "I don't know what did this."

Miles parked his car on the street instead of in the lot, pulling into an empty space in a green twenty-minute zone. He just needed to grab some files and addresses, to rush in and rush out, and he didn't want to waste any more time. The trip out to Whittier had cost half the day, and he had to tie up several loose ends on old cases before getting to the stalking of Marina Lewis' father.

He got out of the car, walked into the building. He felt tired, and he understood for the first time how cops and lawyers, psychiatrists and doctors became burned out. Death was draining. Between his father and Montgomery Jones, he'd seen enough of sickness, death, and dying to last a lifetime.

He punched the button for the elevator. The doors slid open immediately, and he rode up to the agency's office. He closed his eyes. He could not get the image of Montgomery's body out of his mind, and he realized that he knew some thing about himself he hadn't known this morning when he woke up: he was not cut out to have a high-stress job. He was not one of those people who rose to a challenge, who thrived under pressure. It was a sobering thought, and as the elevator doors opened, he understood that despite his petty complaints, he was generally content with his lot in life. He didn't want to be a real detective, he didn't want to solve real crimes. He wanted work that was mildly interesting, mildly stimulating.

He nodded to Naomi, Hal, Tran, and Vince, walked straight over to his cubicle, grabbed the folders he needed, and headed back down the elevator and outside.

He'd called Marina Lewis last night and apologized for

the delay, asking if she'd rather have the case transferred to Hal or one of the other investigators, but she'd been understanding and assured him that she'd rather the case remain with him.

He'd talked to her father Liam over the phone, and the old man had been a cipher. He realized Marina was the one pushing the investigation, that her father didn't want to talk about the subject or face it, and Miles wondered why. He had the feeling that the old man knew more than he was telling, and Miles had decided to interview some of Liam's friends to find out whether he'd revealed anything to them.

He got into the car and quickly sorted through the top folder on his pile. The Gonzalez divorce.

It was going to be a long day.

After work, he went to the hospital.

His father's condition had changed little since the first day, and while his dad didn't seem in imminent danger of dying, it was clear that he was not going to recover to the extent that Miles had initially hoped.

As always, the corridor leading to the CCU was crowded with doctors and nurses and interns, but he'd been here so often over the past few days that no one stopped him and several people actually smiled and nodded.

He walked up to his father's open door, took a deep breath to fortify himself, and peeked inside. If his father was asleep, he'd wait in the hallway. He didn't want to disturb him. But Bob was wide awake and staring at the television mounted on the wall. Miles walked into the room. The sound of the monitoring equipment hooked up to his father was louder than the muted noise of the TV. He looked up. Oprah was on. His dad hated Oprah. Miles searched around until he found the remote control, and changed the channel to the local news program Bob ordinarily watched.

He sat down on the chair next to his father's bed. He forced himself to smile. "Hey, Dad, how's it going?"

Bob's hand reached out and grabbed his own with a surprisingly strong grip. He tried to talk. He could speak only in a whisper and only without moving his lips, the words emerging from remembered rhythms of breath. Miles leaned closer to his father, placing his ear next to the old man's mouth. "What is it?"

"Eeeeeee... Eeeeear."

"Ear?" .

"Eeeeeee... Eeeeear."

E Ear? Miles frowned. It didn't make any sense. "Eeeeeee...

Eeeeear."

He patted his father's shoulder. "It's okay, Dad." He felt bone beneath the skin beneath the covers. It was a disconcerting sensation, made even more so by the in comprehensibility of Bob's speech.

"Eeeeeee... Eeeeear," his father repeated.

Miles did not know what to say, and he kept patting his father's bony shoulder and saying, "It's all right, Dad. It's all right." He realized that since Bob probably wasn't going to die from this stroke, he would be coming home at some point. Miles felt horribly out of his depth, unable to deal with the responsibilities that would entail. The only reason he was coping even now was because the hospital was taking care of his dad's physical needs, monitoring him. He had no idea how he would go about taking care of his father on his own.

It would be one thing if Bonnie were here to help him, but his sister had not even bothered to come down and see their dad. That was to be expected, but it still pissed him off. She'd called, of course, but only once, and it hadn't seemed to occur to her that perhaps her father would like to see her or that perhaps Miles himself would like a little moral support. \020As always, she was thinking only of herself, of what was convenient for her. I-uh?" his father whispered, i

Miles

He squeezed Bob's hand. "I'm here, Dad."

His father nodded, almost smiled, and his head sank back onto the pillow. He closed his eyes. Miles found himself thinking of Claire.

His ex-wife and his father had always gotten along great, and he considered calling her. She'd probably want to know what was happening. But he knew he would not be able to bring himself to do it.

Even after all this time the wounds were still raw, and the only reason he had even thought of phoning Claire was because of some harebrained idea in the back of his mind that this would lead to some sort of reconciliation, that this would bring her back and that somehow they'd get together again and live happily ever after. It wasn't for his father's sake that he had considered calling her, it was for his own, and that was why he could not contact her.

That and the fact that he didn't want to discover how she was incredibly happy with her new life and involved with a guy she loved more than anything in the world.

"I- uh".

"Yeah, Dad."

Miles started talking. He gave his father a rundown on his day, keeping out the gruesome details of the morning.

Carrying on a one-way conversation was awkward, and he was not good at it, but his father's firm squeeze told him that the effort was appreciated, and he racked his brain try thing to think of things to keep on talking about. Eventually, he started making things up, and around that time Bob finally drifted off to sleep. Miles slipped carefully out of his chair and made his way across the hall to the monitoring station. "Is Dr. Yee here?" he asked a nurse.

"He's coming back for his rounds later, but I think he's out right now. Do you want me to page him?"

Miles shook his head. "That's okay. I'll wait and catch him when he comes back."

An intern standing behind the nurse looked up. "Maybe I can help you."

"I just have a question about my father I'd like to ask Dr. Yee."

"Which room is your father in?"

"Twelve."

"Oh, yes. Mr. Huerdeen. I'm familiar with the case. What would you like to know?"

"I was just wondering if he's going to be going home. I mean eventually, not right away."

"He'll probably be going home next week. He doesn't require life support or continued treatment, and to be honest, there's not a lot we can do for him at this point. He'll be prescribed anticoagulant medication, and we'll probably enroll him in our stroke-recovery program, which involves informational classes for the family as well as physical therapy for the patient. As you know, your father's right side has been affected by his stroke, and the rehab will be concentrating on retraining his mind and body to adapt to their post-stroke condition.

"But the fact is, he'll need full-time care. He'll need a live-in nurse, someone with professional training. I don't know what type of insurance your father has--"

Miles cut him off. 'that's not a problem."

"Are you sure? I hope so, but I'd suggest you look into the details of your father's plan. A lot of these senior health plans let the HMOs determine the course of treatment rather than the patient's doctor, which means that they have standardized solutions to every problem and a set amount they'll pay for each illness or disability. I'm not saying that's what

your father has, but if it is, you're going to be facing some major, major medical bills."

Miles drove home feeling depressed. He wasn't the happiest guy on the planet even under the best of circumstances, but now he felt as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. His life seemed oppressive, stifling, and instead of going straight home, he drove aimlessly toward the Hollywood hills, Cruising over the narrow winding canyon streets, concentrating on the road, trying not to think about his father, his job, or anything remotely related to his life.

Luckily, his father's insurance covered everything. Bob had worked in the aerospace industry during the boom years and had retired when pension benefits were at their peak, so he wasn't locked into an HMO and could pick his own doctor. As Miles sorted through the documents and policy statements, he learned that not only would the insurance company pay a hundred percent of the hospital bill, it would also cover ninety percent of the rehab costs.

He wished his own insurance coverage was even half this good, and he longed for those bygone days when employers actually took care of their employees rather than giving them the shaft. The shaft. Did anyone even use that phrase anymore?

He sighed. Another sign of encroaching old age.

It was Saturday, and after visiting with his dad, Miles went down, policies in hand, to talk to the hospital's "patient representative."

The representative, Ted, bore more than a slight resemblance to Claire, and like his ex-wife she seemed at once sympathetic and capable. She efficiently sorted through the documents he gave her, made a few phone calls, and within an hour everything was set.

'l'hey'll be sending a nurse--or a 'caregiver," as I think they prefer to be called---out to your house this afternoon

at two. As I'm sure you heard from that last phone call, the hospital no longer provides in-home care to our patients directly. We've contracted with another company for that service. Everything is coordinated through here, however, so if you have any problems, come and see me and we'll get them straightened out."

Miles nodded.

'The caregiver will be dropping by today just to intro duce herself, to explain a little bit about what she does and when she'll be coming over permanently."

"She won't be living with us, will she?"

'That can be arranged if it becomes necessary, but at this time Dr.

Yee does not think your father requires round-the clock professional care. So no. She'll probably come in the morning, stay the day, and you'll be responsible for watch thing your father at night, which shouldn't be too hard since he'll be sleeping then. But the caregiver will explain more about that to you this afternoon. Mostly, she'll be coming by to see the layout of your house, determine if there needs to be any modifications in your father's bed or other furniture. Things like that." She smiled. "As I said, if there are any problems, just give me a call."

Miles left the hospital shortly after speaking with Dr. Yee on his afternoon rounds and hurried home. A pretty, youngish red-haired woman who looked like a country music singer was already waiting for him, leaning against the hood of her

Camry, a brown briefcase at her feet. He parked on the street, got out of the car, and walked toward her. "Hello," he said.

"I'm Miles Huerdeen."

"My name's Audra? Audra Williams? I'm the home health nurse assigned to your father?"

She had a pronounced Southern accent that made statements sound like questions, and though he ordinarily had a prejudice against such a manner of talking--its speakers al ways sounded stupid to him--Audra exuded an air of confidence and competence, and as she began explaining what she did and how she would be assisting his father, he stopped even noticing her accent.

The two of them walked through the house, Audra jotting down notes in a leather-bound organizer. In Bob's room, she stated that she would be ordering a new bed for him, an adjustable hospital bed, and then she added on her list a special mattress and a meal tray. Miles didn't know if any of these accessories were covered by insurance, but he nodded in agreement.

They finished up in the living room, where she gave him a stack of pamphlets as well as a video on home health care. He led her to the door and was about to say good-bye when

Audra turned toward him. "Mr. Huerdeen?"

"Yes ?"

"I just want you to know that I'm a Christian? I'd like to get that straight from the beginning? I'm a God-fearing woman? I am here to provide a service to your family in this, your hour of need, but I am born-again, and I think you should know that up front?"

: That came out of nowhere.

She looked at him expectantly, and Miles maintained the strained smile on his face.

A God-fearing woman.

Why would a woman who defined herself as Cbxistian fear God? Shouldn't she love God? He never had been able to understand the bizarre system of interlocking, overlapping rewards, promises, and prohibitions that born-again Christians used to guide their lives.

He considered replacing Audra, asking for someone else. That was why she'd warned him, and it was a considerate thing to do. Especially in this situation. A born-againer, he knew, would really annoy the hell out of his dad. Of course, he and his dad would annoy the hell out of anyone even remotely religious, and Miles thought that maybe his father

would like that. It might boost his spirits to be involved in a little bloodless battle now and then.

He smiled at the nurse. "Audra?" he said. "I'm glad you'll be here.

The next day was the second Sunday of the month. Miles had learned from Marina Lewis that although her father wasn't going to be there this weekend, he ordinarily sold Amberolas at the Rose Bowl's monthly flea market. He'd worked for forty years as a lathe operator in a machine shop, but after retirement, looking for something to do with his time and in need of a few extra bucks, he'd started buying and restoring antique phonographs. Marina said that most of his friends these days were fellow antique sellers.

She had no specific names to give him, and once again her father was being peculiarly uncooperative, so Miles' barebones plan was to go to the swap meet and ask around until he found someone who knew Liam Connor.

He stopped by the hospital first to see his dad, stayed until he'd had a chance to talk to Dr. Yee, and then headed up the side streets toward Pasadena, avoiding the freeways : that were being earthquake retrofitted.

Wind overnight had blown away most of the smog, and the sky above the Rose Bowl was actually blue. Miles paid an outrageous six dollars to park in a vacant lot next to the Bowl, and when he got out of the climate-controlled car, he found that the outside air was cool and reasonably seasonal.

He walked through the gates toward the gigantic jumble . | of vendors, customers, and browsers that ringed the stadium. He felt like a real detective today, as though he was actually doing some investigating, and that, combined with the clean cool air, gave him a rare feeling of well-being.

He pushed through a wall of morns with strollers and

stopped in front of the first table. "Excuse me," he asked the hunched old man standing behind a display of glass milk ........ bottles. "Do you know Liam Connor?"

The old man looked at him, through him, then tttmed away, not answering.

Miles resisted the temptation to knock one of the milk bottles to the ground and instead looked around the collection of dealers to see if there were any sellers of antique phonographs in this area. He figured vendors were probably grouped by category. Unfortunately, this section seemed to be mostly knickknacks, bottles and china, and he made his way through the crowd, glancing around as he headed down the east side of the Rose Bowl.

The placement of sellers followed no logical order, he discovered almost instantly. It was pure luck that the vendors near the entrance had exhibited similar wares, because as he moved deeper into the flea market, he saw furniture next to jewelry, vintage clothing next to farm implements. And the place was massive. It would probably take all day to fred someone who knew Marina's father.

Still, he thought his idea of finding another seller of phonographs was a good one, and he walked up and down the aisles, looking for Victrolas or Amberolas or other types of old record players.

He passed a lot of tables covered with antique toys--apparently a hot trend among current collectors--and several of the so-called and ques were things he'd had as a child. He saw his old James Bond lunch pail selling for fifty dollars, his Hot Wheel Supercharger for thirty-five.

He wandered past boxes of Life magazines, stacks of old Beatle albums.

Next to an Aurora Wolfman model he saw a Fred Flintstone Pez dispenser.

One of the small candies was pushed halfway out, and Fred's head was tilted slightly back, making it look as though his throat had been slit.

Miles looked away. Montgomery Jones' death the other

day had affected him more than he'd thought. Now he was even ascribing malevolent meaning to Pcz dispensers.

Which reminded him that he should call Graham. He hadn't talked to the lawyer since leaving the crime scene, but the murder had somehow been kept out of the papers and off the TV news, and Miles wanted to know if that was Graham's doing or if Thompson had pulled some strings. He also wanted to know if the lawyer wanted him to pursue his investigation of the company or if everything was now in the hands of the police.

Miles kept walking. Ahead was a blanket spread on the ground atop which were old Victrola speaker horns. A heavily bearded, grossly overweight man with a long, greasy ponytail sat in a metal folding chair behind the blanket, polishing what looked like a miniature speaker horn.

"Excuse me," Miles said. The man looked up. "Do you know Liam Connor?"

"Liam? Sure. You want his card?"

"No, I want to ask you a few questions about him."

The man's expression shut down. What had been willing helpfulness became blank neutrality. "Sorry. Can't help you."

"I'm not a cop," Miles quickly explained. "I'm a private investigator.

I've been hired by Mr. Connor's daughter to investigate a possible stalker. Mr. Connor has apparently been followed and harassed recently, and his daughter is worded. I was wondering if he'd talked to you about any of this or if he'd mentioned any enemies that he might have."

"Liam?" The man let out a loud, gruffly obnoxious laugh that caused most of the browsers nearby to look in his direction. "Liam doesn't have an enemy in this world!"

Miles smiled thinly. "Apparently he does."

The laughter died. "Seriously? Someone's stalking him?" "We think so."

"Why? To... kill him?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out. If you could just tell me whether he's talked to you about--"

"Wait a minute. Why are you asking me what he talked about? Why don't you ask him?" The man looked at Miles suspiciously. "You're investigating him, aren't you?" "No, I assure you, his daughter hired me--"

"His daughter's probably after his money or something." The man shook his head. "Nope. If Liam ain't talking, I ain't talking." He picked up the rag he'd placed on his lap and started polishing the small horn he'd been working on.

Miles knew better than to press the man, and he peeled off a card, dropped it on the blanket. 'ais is legit. Call Mr. Connor and ask him if you want. And if you think of some thing, give me a call."

The man just looked at him. He didn't reach down to pick up Miles' card, but he didn't tear it up either. Miles hoped that the man would keep it and change his mind.

Several other vendors knew Liam, and two of them were more than willing to talk, but neither of them seemed to have heard anything or noticed any unusual behavior on his part recently.

It was nearly three o'clock when Miles made his way dejectedly back out to the car. He knew no more now than he had when he'd first arrived.

The whole day had been a waste, and he wanted to just go home and take a nap. But instead he stopped by the hospital, and he held his father's hand and listened to his unintelligible whispers and lied to the old man that everything was going to be all right.

Derek Baur woke up knowing that he would die today.

He'd dreamed the night before about Wolf Canyon, and in the dream the people in the water had been his family: his parents, his sister, his brothers. He hadn't thought of Wolf

Canyon for year; decades, and that should have tipped him off that there was something amiss, but the premonition was not so logical, was not tied to a story line or a series of images or a specific dream scape. It was not something he had been told, not sOmething he had concluded or deducted. He just knew. And he was ready.

He'd turned eighty-six last March, and his wife, his friends, even his son, had all died years before. He was the last, and he had long since given up all pretense of interest in this life. There was no longer anything he enjoyed, nothing he looked forward to. Death was the only thing left.

How would it comes Derek wondered. Gently, in his sleep? Violently?

Or somewhere in the middle, like a heart attack or stroke?

He had given a lot of thought to the subject, and he had concluded that there was no pleasant way to die. In his midfifties he had almost choked to death on a piece of steak in a restaurant, before Emily had pounded him on the back and dislodged the obstruction in his throat.

Though the entire incident had lasted only a few seconds, to him it had felt interminable. Time was subjective, and he had realized ever since that while a death might be considered "quick" if measured objectively by the clock, to the victim it might seem to take forever.

So while he was ready to die, he did not relish the process. He rolled over, pulled open the drape. Outside, the Michigan landscape was covered with snow. In the rest home's parking lot, the cars looked like a row of igloos more than motor vehicles.

He was still staring out the window when Jimmy, the new attendant, brought in his breakfast. And he had not moved by the time the attendant returned to collect the tray and untouched dishes a half hour later.

"Not hungry, Mr. Baur? I'm gonna have to report you, yOU know."

Derek did not even bother to respond.

Why eat when he was going to die?

He would be glad to put an end to this existence. He was not mistreated here, but he hated the rest home, hated the indignity of it and the cold feeling of having paid caretakers rather than family sun'ounding him.

At least he could still get around---even if it was with the aid of a walker. Plenty of other residents in the home, many younger than himself, could not even get out of bed and were stuck full-time in their rooms.

He would have taken his life long ago if that had beth his situation.

Of course, most of those people didn't have any way to take their own lives.

He spent the morning staring out at the snow. Sometime before noon one of the doctors came in to speak with him-apparently Jimmy had made good on the threat to report him and since Derek was not in the mood for a lecture or lengthy discussion, he agreed with everything the doctor said and promised to eat his lunch. Jimmy returned soon after with a food tray, looking smug, and Derek ignored him. He ate his lunch and was once again silent as the attendant took the tray, leaving him alone. After a short, painful trip to the bathroom, Derek relocated himself to the room's chaff and spent the afternoon looking through magazines. Waiting.

He wondered how it was going to come.

There was no doubt in his mind that he would die today. He was not a religious man, but he knew there were things in this world that he did not understand Wolf Canyon

--that he would never understand, and he trusted the knowledge that had been supplied to him. He waited for death to arrive.

But sleep arrived before death and as the magazine slipped from his fingers, as he felt himself beginning to drop off, he wondered if he was going to wake up again or if this was it.

He did wake up. He awoke from another Wolf Canyon dream, one in which he was trapped in a house as the waters rose, his feet stuck to the floor as if they had been set in cement, resisting his efforts to pull them free and escape. He jerked awake just as he was starting to swallow water and drown.

He opened his eyes to see Joe, the night attendant, standing in front of him with a dinner tray. "Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Baur, but it's suppertime. You want to eat here at your chair today?"

Derek nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He was surprised to be alive, and for the first time he questioned whether his premonition was correct. Maybe he wasn't going to die yet. Maybe his mind was just going.

He picked at his food, then pushed the tray aside and, after another trip to the bathroom, settled back into his bed, staring out at the snowy landscape until he fell asleep.

The room was black when he awoke--pitch-black much darker than he had ever seen it--and he wondered for a moment if he had gone blind. The darkness was uniform, with no light anywhere, and only by reaching over to the nightstand, feeling for his watch, and pressing the button on the timepiece to illuminate the numbers, did he know he still possessed his sight.

He felt for the curtain, pulled it aside. He understood that the lights in the home were all off. But where were the lights outside?

The streetlamps were out and the house across the road was dark. There was no noon. It was as if every possible source of illumination--save for his watch--had been extinguished.

Maybe there'd been a blackout.

A blackout. It made sense, but but it didn't feel right

He didn't understand why, but in the same way that he knew he was destined to die today, he knew that this darkness had been brought about for his benefit.

In fact, the two were related.

Yes, they were. How he didn't know, but he did know that the lights were off because of him, for him, and that his death would take place in the darkness.

For the first time he felt fear. He was afraid to die, he realized. He did not want to die. Not this way.

He pressed the buzzer next to his bed to call an attendant. He waited for what seemed like forever, pressing the buzzer several more times in the interim, but no attendant came. He did not even hear the sound of anyone in the hallway. The entire rest home was silent, and the lack of noise seemed ominous to him. Maybe death had come for them all tonight. Maybe everyone else in the building had been killed, and he was the last one left. Maybe the murderer was playing with him, toying with him, before coming in to slit his throat.

Derek sat up painfully. His muscles always seemed to be at their lowest ebb in the middle of the night. As usual, he'd laid his walker against the side of the bed, and he reached for it, bending awkwardly, trying to grab hold of the cold metal top bar. It took him several moments to find it, and by the time he did he was sweating--not just from exertion but from fear. Something was definitely wrong here, something was fundamentally off. There was no sound in the room, in the building, save his own labored breathing, and there was still no light either inside or outside the rest home.

He'd changed his mind. He was positive he did not want to die. And while there might be no pleasant way to go, some ways were definitely worse than others. Much, much worse.

He could still see nothing, but there was a sense of movement in the blackness, and he knew with a certainty he could

not explain that he was not alone in the room, that there was something in here with him.

Something not human.

There was another sound now besides his breathing--the hiss of piss as he peed his pants in terror. He threw himself out of bed, the walker clutched tightly, and headed toward where he knew the door had to be.

He expected at any moment to feel a clawed hand on his shoulder, but he concentrated on moving, walking, getting out of here, not allowing himself to dwell on the other possible outcomes of this situation. He wanted to cry out for help, but he was not sure there was any help to be had, and he was hoping that this darkness was just as disorienting to whatever was after him.

His walker hit a barrier, the wall, and Derek reached out to touch, feeling to the left and to the right until he found a crack, a hinge, and, finally, a knob. He grasped the knob, turned it. Or tried to.

The door was locked.

From the outside.

Was that something that was done every night? He didn't think so, but he wasn't sure. The only thing he was sure of was that he was now trapped in here with whatever was trying to kill him.

There was a... a slumping sound, the noise of something large moving forward through the room, forcing its weight across the floor toward him.

He wished to God the room had remained silent. He didn't want to think about what kind of form went with that sound. He wanted only to find a way to escape, a way to get out of here before The bathroom!

Yes! If he could make it to the bathroom without being caught, he could lock himself in until morning. Maybe the

monster could break down the door, but his chances were better in there than they were out here.

The monster?

He had no problem with that word.

The bathroom was to the right, and he started toward it. He did not have to face forward as he moved--his walker met obstructions before he did--so he kept swiveling his head around, looking from one section of the room to the other. The darkness was still almost total, but his eyes seemed to be adjusting to the lack of light because there was an area now less black than the room around it, a rounded, shapeless mass that drew ever closer to him and looked somehow as though it was made out of ice.

His heart was pounding loud enough to drown out that horrible slumping sound. He tried to hurry but Damn this walker, was not able to move any faster than he did ordinarily. His old bones and feeble muscles were unwilling to grant him any favors even in this time of crisis.

His walker hit the wall. He looked forward, and was promptly grabbed from behind.

This is it, he thought. The hand that covered his mouth was cold, freezing cold, and hard.

Ice. "

He thought of Wolf Canyon.

Ice, it occurred to him, was made of water. And then the cold hand forced itself into his mouth and down his throat.

Then

These were bad times, especially for his kind.

It was almost as if the old days had returned.

William talked to the wolves as he traveled, and the ravens. They told him of burnings and hangings that were occurring on an almost regular basis in the scattered settlements of the territories. The stories chilled him. He would have been better off having been born into one of the Indian tribes, where his powers and abilities would be, if not understood, at least respected and appreciated. But he was white-skinned, and as such was fated to live within the world of the fair, that irrationally rational culture that believed only in one unseen, uninvolved God and attributed anything, even remotely supernatural to the work of Satan.

He traveled by day, slept at night, and tried to ignore the horrible sounds he heard in the darkness, the moans and wails that came from no man, no animal, no wind but seemed to emanate from the land itself.

There were Bad Places in the territories, places where neither white man nor Indian had settled, where even animals would not live. He passed through these on his way from one temporary home to another, and there was a voice in the Bad Places that spoke to him, a uniform voice that was the same in the Dakotas as it was in Wyoming, a voice he found at once tempting and terrifying, a seductive presence that pleaded with him to give up his sense of self,

to abandon his small meaningless life and become one with the land.

He did not stay long inrie place, not after what he'd done to Jane Stevens' father back in Sycamore. He thought of his mother and remembered how difficult life had been for him as a child, but if anything, settlements in the West were less tolerant than the more sophisticated and civilized cities of the East. The people here were less modern, less educated, filled with the superstitious dread that had afflicted their forefathers, indiscriminately afraid of anything they did not understand.

So he kept moving, living in Deadwood, in Cheyenne, in Colorado Springs, staying just long enough to make some money and load up on supplies, not long enough to arouse suspicion. He tried to stick to trading and trapping and other respectable ways of making a living, but somehow someone would always find out who he was, what he could do, and he'd end up helping them out.

These days he always left immediately after

He was by nature and necessity a solitary man, used to being alone. He was also, like his mother before him, familiar with forces unseen. But often, as he traveled across the great expanses, he was afraid. Moving through this vast country, he realized how small and insignificant he was, how puny and limited was his power, his gift. A heavy, brooding untapped energy lay beneath the surface of this rugged country. It ran in continuous currents beneath his feet, in veins the size of rivers.

It hung thick in the oppressive silence of the windless air. He could sense it in the huge dark mountains that hunkered waiting on the horizon, in the thick stands of ancient trees, which were home to far more than animals. And the Bad Places... They scared him.

He'd been traveling west now for over a month, nearly

losing himself in the mountains, coming through only with the help of the ravens. His supplies were almost gone, but he had some pelts he could trade, and he found a trail through the foothills that connected to a wagon-rutted road on the plain. He followed the setting sun, and on his first night on the plain he could see, maybe one or two days ahead, the small twinkling lights of what looked like a fairly large town.

He felt nothing beneath his feet, heard no voices, and he slept peacefully next to his untethered horse, not waking up until dawn.

The town was neither as far away as it looked nor as big as he'd hoped, and William knew by midmorning that he'd reach it some time in the early afternoon. The knowledge did not excite him as much as it should have, however, and he did not know whether his trepidation came from a legitimate premonition or merely reflected his disappointment at not finding a bigger settlement after all this time alone.

The sun was straight up when he reached the graveyard.

The witch graveyard.

It was several miles away from the town, out of sight of even a rooftop or flagpole, far away from the regular cemetery. It had not been fenced and had no headstones to mark the grave sites--witches did not deserve such amenities--but it was clearly a burial tract. Rectangular indentations in the barren soil, sunken from the packing of weather, identified the individual plots. A rusty pick and broken-handled shovel were embedded in the hard ground next to what was obviously the most recent grave.

William stopped his horse. No weeds grew within the graveyard, he noticed. Nothing grew. The desert bushes and cactus that rimmed the periphery of the spot were all dead and had turned a peculiar orangish brown.

From the branch of a lifeless tree nearby hung the frayed end of a thick rope.

"Bastards," William said to himself.

He dismounted, leaving his horse to graze among the low clumps of pale weeds that grew next to the wagon trail. He could feel the power here.

Not the wild power of the land, but a familiar pleasant tingle in the air that he recognized as the energy of fellow witches.

The energy was dead, though. It was like the lingering smell of a campfire that remained in the air long after the flames had been put out, and he felt an odd sadness settle over him even as he enjoyed the warm, stimulating aura.

He walked slowly past the unmarked graves, the intentionally anonymous resting places of men and women who had once been vibrant individuals, who had been no more good or evil than the general population, but who had been condemned to death because they possessed abilities that most people were too frightened to even try and understand. It was happening all over, this killing of their kind, and if it-continued, soon there would be none of them left. They would be exterminated in America just as they had been exterminated in Europe.

He stared down at a recent grave, one that still retained a slightly raised rectangular outline. Was this to be his fate as well? Did his future lie in an unmarked grave in a cursed and segregated graveyard?

It was what had happened to his mother. He did not even know where she was buried. No one had ever told him.

He took off his hat, wiped the sweat from his forehead. What kind of life was this? He stared up at the cloudless sky.

Why had he been born a witch? It was the same question he always asked himself, and as always, he had no answer.

He put his hat back on and walked over to his horse. Taking the reins, he grabbed the horn and pulled himself onto the saddle.

As if the graveyard had not been enough of a deterrent, there was an explicit warning posted on a leaning sign next to the road leading toward town:

WITCHES WILL BE EXECUTED

William stopped the horse, looked at the sign, then glanced ahead, but the ramshackle huts that marked the outskirts of the settlement several miles down the road were obscured by watery heat waves stretching across the length of the plain.

He wondered how long the sign had been in place, how many had ignored its warning, its promise, and continued on regardless. What they needed, he thought, was someplace of their own, land in which they were in charge and they made the rules, somewhere away from everything else where they could live in peace and be free from persecution.

It sounded like a fantasy, a dream, but he'd heard that the Mormons were making for themselves just such a place, that their prophet had led them across the desert sands to a special spot their God had picked out for-them, a place where they could live among their own kind and be free to practice their own ways. His people could do the same. Such an idea was not inconceivable.

But they were so hard to find these days. The ones who had not been killed had gone into hiding, fleeing like himself into the wilderness or keeping secret their true natures amid the normal residents of their communities. He looked again at the sign-WITCHES WILL BE EXECUTED

--then bade his horse turn around. He was getting no concrete feelings from up ahead, but the graveyard and

the sign were warning enough, and even without a definite reading he could tell that this was one town he did not want to visit.

He would return to the foothills and then travel south through them until he was far enough away from this nameless community to once again head west. He would trade his pelts elsewhere, in a bigger settlement, one where he would be less likely to be noticed.

Just in case, he cloaked himself in a protective spell, then pushed his horse into galloping back toward the hills.

Now

Muzak carols over hard-to-hear speakers. Decorations that were nothing more than products sold inside the stores they adorned. A skinny Hispanic Santa Claus kids could meet only if their parents paid to have their picture taken with him.

Miles stood unmoving in the center of the jostling crowd. Christmas seemed cheap and depressingly pointless to him this year, its practitioners yuppified and smugly materialistic. Ordinarily, he rejoiced in the trappings of the season, but all of the joy had gone out of it for him. It reminded him of Halloween, a grassroots celebration that had been turned into a buying contest by the newly affluent.

He was at the mall to purchase presents, but he realized that he didn't really have any presents to buy. A few small tokens for people at the office, gifts for his sister and her family. That was it. He had no wife, no girlfriend, no significant other, and though he usually celebrated the holiday with his dad, there was a distinct possibility that his father might not even be here come Christmas day.

Happy holidays.

Miles sat down heavily on a bench in front of Sears, feeling as if a great weight had been placed upon his shoulders. He understood now why people buried themselves in their work. It kept them from having to deal with the depressing realities of their lives.

Claire had never been one to look back, to dwell on past

mistakes. She had told him once that life was a ride and all you could do was hold on, face forward, and see it out to the end. It was too painful looking at where you'd been or where you were. The best thing to do was hang on and enjoy the next curve, the next hill the next drop the next any thing. He found himself wondering if she still adhered to that philosophy. Did that mean that she never thought about him, never had any memories, good or bad, of their marriage, of the time they'd spent together?

The thought depressed the hell out of him.

Feeling empty, feeling numb, he stared blankly into the crowd of holiday shoppers. The people he saw were almost indistinguishable in their happiness, and he envied them.

He leaned back on the bench against the brick wall of

Sears, looking at the rush of people. Gradually, one face began to differentiate itself from the rest, a wrinkled old lady's visage that drew his attention because her gaze remained fully, unwaveringly focused on him.

Miles blinked, caught off guard.

The woman broke from the rest of the crowd, heading straight over to his bench.

He shivered involuntarily, a slight chill passing through him as his eyes met hers. There was something wrong here.

As a private investigator, he dealt in facts. He didn't believe in intuition or ESP or anything he couldn't see, hear, or record. But the apprehension he felt was not the result of conscious thought or decision. It was visceral and inst inc The old lady stood before him, dressed in clothes that did not match. "Bob!" she said, grinning broadly.

The effect was unnerving. That huge smile seemed in congruous on the small wrinkled face. It reminded him of something in his childhood, something he could not re member but that he knew had frightened him, and again a chill passed through his body.

"Bob!"

He forced himself to look at the old lady. "I'm sorry," he said. "You have me confused with someone else." "Bob Huerdeen!"

The haft prickled on the back of his neck. This was too weird.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"It's me, Bob! You know me!"

"I don't know you and I'm not Bob." He took a deep breath, decided to admit it. "I'm Bob's son, Miles."

She leaned forward conspiratorily, pressing her ancient face almost against his. He smelled medicine and mouthwash. "She's going after the dam builders, too, Bob. Not just us." She backed away, nodding to herself, still grinning though the edges of the smile were starting to fade.

The old lady was crazy. Either senile or schizo. She had obviously known his father at some point, and she had enough brain cells left to be able to spot the family resemblance, but other than that, she was off the deep end.

He stood, hoping he'd be able to make excuses and just walk away, but prepared to confront her if necessary. "I'm sorry," he said. "I have to go."

She reached out, grabbed the sleeve of his jacket, "It's not just us, Bob! It's the dam builders, too!"

"I know," he said politely. "But I really do have to go." "Don't let her catch you, Bob! Don't let her catch you!" "I won't," he promised, pulling away.

He thought she'd pursue him, badgering him all the way about her crazy concerns, but she let him go, remained standing in front of the Sears bench, and he hurried toward the mall exit, more rattled by the old lady than he wanted to admit.

Darkness.

Low whispers. a..

Miles held his breath, " awakened because he'd drunk too much tonight and desperately had to take a leak. Ordinarily, he slept straight through until morning. He'd even slept through two major earthquakes.

But tonight his bladder had woken him up, and he had heard the sound of breathy, hushed voices in the otherwise silent house.

Again, low whispers. "

He still felt a little light-headed--the effects of the alcohol had not entirely worn off--and at first he thought he'd imagined the sounds.

But when he sat up and concentrated and could still hear them, he started to think that he was not alone.

He could not make out what was being said, but he thought he heard his father's name in the whispers, and for some reason that made him think of the old lady in the mall.

He got quickly out of bed, turned on the light, threw open his bedroom door.

Silence.

He stood there for a moment listening, unmoving. Whatever had been there was now gone, and he waited another minute or two before deciding that he'd been right the first time and had imagined the sounds. God knows, he'd drunk enough last night to induce hallucinations. That and the stress would make anyone start heating voices.

He walked down the hall to the bathroom His father was coming home tomorrow.. today. Audra had prepared the bedroom for him, had helped install the new bed and other medical amenities, and she'd be meeting them both at the hospital, coming home with them to help his dad get settled in. Bob was better. He'd definitely improved since those first few days, and he was actually able to talk now, though his speech was still somewhat unclear.

But he wasn't well, and despite Audra's cheery promises, Miles knew he never would be again. This was the best he was ever going to be. Most likely, he would have a series of increasingly debilitating strokes over the next year or two before all of the shocks to his system finally wore his body out completely.

Miles examined his face in the bathroom mirror as he took a piss. He looked tired and haggard. Granted, it was after midnight, but the toll taken on his appearance was not one of sleep deprivation. It was stress, pure and simple. He found himself wondering if he would have to set his alarm from now on in order to check on his dad in the middle of the night. Maybe he'd even have to wake up and give his father some sort of medication at strange ungodly hours. No matter what, he had the feeling he wouldn't be getting a full night's sleep from now on.

It would have been easier if Bob had died instantly.

He felt guilty for even having such a thought, selfish for putting his own concerns above the well-being of his father, but this late at night he was incapable of lying to himself, and he had to admit that he dreaded the prospect of taking care of an invalid. He flushed the toilet, walked back down the hall to the bedroom.

He figured he'd lay awake all night, tossing and mming unable to stop the flood of negative scenarios in his brain, but he was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.

In the second before he succumbed, he thought he heard the whispers again.

He thought he heard his father's name.

Miles was awakened by the alarm, and he followed his Usual routine: showering and shaving before going out to the kitchen and making his breakfast.

His plan was to work in the morning and take the after noon off. He'd been taking a lot of time off lately, and while the agency was pretty lenient and understanding, he felt guilty. Of course, he had never used a sick day in all the time he'd worked there, so these absences were long overdue; but he felt bad about it nonetheless.

It was cold and foggy out, and as he ate a breakfast of toast and coffee and watched the morning news, the traffic reporter identified accidents and Sig alerts on the 5, 10, and 710 freeways. He decided to take surface streets to the of rice and he ate more quickly than usual, wanting to give himself an extra fifteen minutes.

The car was covered with condensation, and he threw the briefcase in the car and washed the vehicle's windows off with the hose. In Anaheim, where he'd grown up, foggy mornings had always smelled of stewed tomatoes from the Hunt factory in adjacent Fullerton. Although ordinarily there was no odor, fog seemed to draw out the scent and disperse it. Now, even after all these years, every time he saw fog and did not smell tomatoes, he could not help thinking that there was something wrong.

Everyone else must have seen the same traffic report he had because the streets were crowded, and even with the lead time he was nearly twenty minutes late for work.

Hal chided him for showing up at all. "I used to think you were just a workaholic. Now I know you're a souless automaton. What kind of lunatic would come into the office on the day his dad was being released from the hospital after having a major stroke?"

"Me," Miles told him.

'that's sad, bud. That's really sad.

The truth was, he should have stayed home. He had a lot of things to do here, but he got none of them done. He found it nearly impossible to concentrate on anything work related and he ended up staring out the window at the fog.

Hal left the office for an hour or so, and while he was

gone, Naomi came over to tell him that no one would care if he took off.

Miles gave her a grateful smile. "I'm fine."

She shook her head, rushing quickly back to her desk to answer a ringing phone. "Stubborn," she said. "You are so stubborn. When Hal returned, Miles was again staring absently out at the fog.

"You still here. he said. "I thought Naomi was going to tell you to go home."

"She did.

Hal snorted. "Fypical."

Miles examined the pencil he was twirling in his fingers. "Do you believe in the supernatural?"

Though he did not look over at Hal, he could feel the bearded man's scowl. "What are you talking about? You mean, like ghosts and demons and crap?"

"Yeah." He continued to look at the pencil. "You've been in this business a long time. Haven't you ever come across something you didn't understand or couldn't explain?" "Why? What happened?"

"Nothing. I'm just wondering."

"You're not just wondering. What is it?"

Miles put the pencil down, looked over at his friend. "All right, it's my dad. Ever since he had that stroke he's been... different."

"Well, of course--"

"No, it's not that. It's something else. It's like. I don't know.

Sometimes it just seems like he's a different person. He looks like my dad and he sounds like my dad, but every once in a while we'll be talking and something will change. I don't know how to put it any better than that. Something shifts. It's nothing concrete, nothing specific, but I just feel something."

"Sounds like you're the one with the problem, not him."

Miles sighed. "Maybe so. maybe so. Last night I could have sworn I heard voices in the house. Whispering voices. And they were saying my dad's name."

"Voices like what? Like ghosts?

Miles shrugged. "I guess."

"You are going off the deep end."

"I'm probably just afraid of my dad coming home. It was all right, him being in the hospital. That's where you're supposed to be if you're sick. But now he'll be home, where he used to be when he was well, and he'll still be sick. I think I'm just freaked about those two worlds colliding." 'that why you're here today?" "Probably."

"You know, I used to wonder what would happen if my wife got a brain tumor."

Miles smiled wryly. "You've always been a barrel of fun." "I'm serious. What if she lived but it changed her personality, made her into a completely different person? Would I still love her?"

"A shallow barrel of fun."

"No. Because I'm not sure if I love her personality, the person I know, the person she is now, or if I love some nebulous spirit that is her true essence, something unique that would still be there even if her personality did a complete one-eighty. You know what I mean? It's a question of faith, I guess. Do I think she's just a sum of her experiences and genetics and the chemicals that determine her behavior, and it's that surface woman I love, or do I think she has a soul? Is it that soul I love? Do you see what I'm getting at?" Miles nodded, sighed. "I'm afraid I do."

Hal walked over, clapped on the back. "Dont we, bud. You can hack it I just wish I didn't have to."

Hal headed off to the break room, and Miles leaned back in his chair, staring up at the acoustic tiled ceiling. He had

not admitted it to himself until he'd said it; but there was something different about his dad these days, something that try as he might he could not attribute to the stroke.

The phone on his desk rang, and Miles picked it "Hello?"

"Mr. Huerdeen?" It was Marina Lg- was.

"I told you, Miles."

"I need you to come over to my father's house," she said. "Now."

There was an urgency in her voice he hadn't heard before, a tightness that sounded like barely controlled panic. "What is it?" he asked, though he knew she was not going to answer.

"I don't want to talk over the phone."

"I'll be right there."

"Do you need the address?"

"I have it. Give me twenty minutes."

He opened his lower desk drawer, grabbed his mini-tape recorder, threw it into his briefcase along with an extra notebook. He checked the clock. Ten-fifteen. His dad wasn't scheduled to be released until two. He should have plenty of time.

I won't be back," he told Naomi. "Anything important, leave a message."

She smiled softly at him. "Good luck, Miles. I hope your father's okay."

All the way to Santa Monica, he wondered what it was that Marina couldn't tell him over the phone. She'd sounded freaked, as though she'd discovered something she hadn't been prepared for and didn't want to deal with.

Liam Connor lived in an older neighborhood of single family Spanish-style homes with white stucco walls and red tile roofs. The lawns were all neatly mowed and nicely manicured, and the juxtaposition of the elderly residents' boat like Buicks and dusty Pontiacs with their younger neighbors'

well-polished Mercedes Benzes and BMWs made it clear that this was a street on the rise.

Marina and a young man Miles assumed to be her husband walked out as he pulled into the driveway. They'd obviously been waiting for him, and they reached his car before he finished opening the door.

Marina tried to smile. 'thank you for coming out Mr. .... uh, Miles."

He nodded at her, smiled politely at the man. "Gordon," the man said.

"I'm Marina's husband."

Miles glanced toward the house. "Is your father here?" he asked.

Marina and her husband shared a glance.

He caught it, and his antennae immediately went up. "Did something happen to him?"

Marina shook her head. "No. Nothing like that."

"What is it, then? What couldn't you tell me over the phone?"

"It'sit's something he did. Something he wrote. We have to show you."

The two of them started across the lawn toward the house.

Miles followed. "Is your

"He's in his room," Gordon said. "He... he doesn't want to see you."

They walked inside. The interior of the house was hipper than Miles had expected. Instead of framed family photographs and reproductions of generic landscape paintings in the living room, there was an original abstract expressionist painting on one wall, a grouping of antique western memorabilia on another. The furniture was low and modern, and there was an enormous large-screen TV. The hardwood floor gleamed to perfection.

"I still don't understand why your father won't cooperate with this investigation. You said he felt threatened. He even went to the police. How did he go from that point to

being totally uninterested in finding who is harassing him?"

"I don't understand it either," Marina admitted. "But..." she trailed off.

"But what?" he prodded.

"But you have to see what he wrote." She and Gordon led him into what looked like a den or office: a small cramped room filled with overflowing shelves and boxes piled atop a worktable, everything dominated by a massive old-fashioned rolltop desk.

"It's there," Gordon said, pointing. '

Miles walked over to the desk. On top of a manual typewriter was what looked like handwritten notes on a yellow legal pad.

"What do you make of it?"

The note was a list of names Liam had obviously drawn up. Miles picked up the pad and quickly scanned the list.

His gaze locked on a name in the middle, his pulse racing. Montgomery Jones. He turned toward Marina and her husband. "What is this?"

Marina faced him, looking pale. 'that's what we want to know."

"Did you ask your father about it?" ' "He won't talk." She took a deep breath. "I recognized that one guy's name, the one who was killed, and that's why I called you. Gordon and I thought that there might be some connection between the woman or whoever's stalking Dad and the person who killed that man."

"Do you think we should go to the police?" Gordon asked.

"Definitely," Miles said. "But don't get your hopes up. It can't hurt to let them know, put them on alert, but they probably won't do anything. In the meantime, I'll try to track down the names on this list. Obviously, your father knows of some connection between all these people. He seems to

think he knows why this other man was killed and why he's being stalked--"

"But he won't tell."

'then, you need to try and get him to tell. He might not be the only one in danger here. These others might be at risk as well.. Tell him that by not cooperating, he may cost some of these people their lives."

"We'll try," Gordon promised. "But he's stubborn."

Miles looked at the fist again, frowned. He thought Graham had kept all mention of Montgomery Jones' death out of the press. He turned toward Marina. "You said you saw his name in the paper?"

"No. On TV. Extra."

Extra? Graham had kept news of the killing out of the legitimate media, but it had made its way onto tabloid television? "I remembered his name because I couldn't forget the way he died." She shivered.

"Filled up with ice and drowned? What a horrible way to go."

"Filled up with ice and drowned? What are you talking about?"

Something suddenly occurred to him. He cocked his head. "Who are you talking about? Derek Baur." Derek Baur?

There were two of them.

Miles felt his pulse rate accelerate again. "Another man on this list, Montgomery Jones, was also killed recently. Torn in half. Up by the Whittier Narrows dam."

Marina looked at her husband, all of the color draining from her face.

"I don't know what's happening or what this is all about, but I suggest you get your father out here so we can try to talk some sense into him."

She nodded and hurried off down the hall.

"Can I take this to photocopy?" Miles asked Gordon. "I'll give it back to you."

"Take it and keep it"

"You'll need it to show the police."

Gordon nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Okay." He ran a hand through his hair. "Jesus."

"We'll get to the bottom of this," Miles promised. Gordon looked as though he was about to say something, but at that moment Marina pulled Liam into the room. She faced Miles. "Tell him!" she demanded, pointing at her father. "He won't listen to me. Maybe he'll listen to you."

"Two of the men on this list are dead," Miles said. "One, Montgomery Jones, was torn in half over in Whittier. I saw the body. I was there. The other than, Derek Baur

In Michigan, and than he was somehow filled with ice and drowned. If you know anything about either of these deaths, you'd better speak up because you and the other people on that list may be in danger, too."

Liam shook his head.

"Damn it, Dad!"

"Well, you obviously know of something that all of these people have in common. There's some reason you put them on this list. If you could just tell. us--"

"No."

He was surprised by the vehemence of the old man's response. It was impossible, he knew, and it made no sense, but Liam was acting guilty, as though he were in some way responsible for the deaths.

Miles spoke to him as though addressing a small child. "Your daughter hired me to find out who has been harassing you, who has been stalking you. I'll find out with or without your assistance, but your help would be greatly appreciated. It would also be in your own best interest since you are the subject of this harassment. It also appears that

your life is in danger: I have agreed that your daughter and son-in-law should go to the police with this list--"

"No!" He glared at Marina. "You have no right!"

She was practically in tears. "Stop being so stubborn!" she screamed at him. "This is your life we're talking about!" yes. he. shouted back. "My life!"

Miles backed off, staying out of it. Marina and her father yelled at each other for several more minutes before he finally stalked off. A door slammed down the hall.

Marina ran out of the room crying.

"I'll find a copy shop, make a quick Xerox, and bring this back," Miles told Gordon. "After that, I'll try to track these people down. You go to the police."

Gordon nodded.

"I have some personal business to attend to this afternoon, but I'll give you a call later this evening and we'll see where we stand."

'thanks," Gordon said.

Miles offered him a wry smile. 'that's what I get paid for."

He drove off, found a Sav-On Drugstore, made an overpriced 25-cent copy of the list, and brought it back. Marina, who was now settled and sipping coffee in the kitchen, looked at him before he left, her eyes still red. "I'm sorry about my father," she said. "He's just so stubborn. Maybe he'll break down a little later. But she was wrong, Miles thought, driving home. He'd gotten a look at the old man's face when he'd described to him the deaths of the two men. Her father wasn't stubborn. He was scared.

The kids were gone, off to a lunch meeting with Gordon's agent, and Liam made sure there was no one waiting for him outside, made sure the street was free of unknown vehicles and pedestrians, before venturing out of the house. He'd promised Marina he wouldn't leave the yard, but he'd broken a lot of promises lately, and the more he broke the easier it was to do.

There'd been six calls last night. It was the same woman, and though he knew he'd never heard her voice before, he could not shake the feeling that he knew who she was. Or that he should. Her identity bugged him, and he'd lain awake long after he'd finally taken the phone off the hook, trying to figure out where he should know her from and why.

Her last call, at midnight, had been the worst. "I'll pull your cock out through your asshole," she'd said, and for some reason her voice at that moment had reminded him of his mother's.

He'd given up nothing to either that obnoxious private dick---and the word served double duty here--or the police detective who came by later. They'd tried to crack him, and Marina had jumped all over him, yelling, crying, using every piece of emotional artillery at her disposal, but he had refused to cooperate. He didn't know what was happening, but he knew it was connected with the dam, with the town, and what had happened all those years ago in Arizona.

That was why he didn't want any cops or detecti poking their noses into this.

That was why he wanted Marina kept completely out of it.

Liam walked down the treet toward Pacific Coast Highway and the beach.

He desperately needed a smoke, but needed to buy a pack of cigarettes.

For the past twenty years Marina had bought into the lie that he'd quit smoking--just

as her mother had--and he did not want her to find out that he hadn't.

So he'd waited until she was out of the house. The liquor store was only a few blocks away, on PCH, and he'd be able to walk there, have a leisurely smoke, and walk back before Marina and Gordon even reached their restaurant. Hell, he could probably sneak a few backyard puffs after his own lunch and have time to rinse his mouth out with Listerine before they returned.

As usual, the coast highway was crowded. Cars were zooming by almost too quickly to see, and even though it was December and chilly, the beach was crowded with wet suited surfers and narcissistic body builders On this side of the highway, the typical assortment of the drunk and the displaced, the homeless and the unemployed, were sitting on broken benches or lying on dead grass in the unmaintained lot that was supposed to be a park.

Liam walked past the park, past Bunny's Bar, past the alley, to the entrance of the liquor store. He bought a pack of Marlboro Lites, took one of the books of free matches from the open box next to the register, and lit up as soon as he stepped outside.

He breathed deeply, inhaled. The sun on his face, warm smoke in his lungs. it didn't get any better than this. He looked up, exhaled into the air.

And tilted his head down to see a squat dirty woman wearing several layers of filthy ragged clothes standing directly before him.

It was as if she'd appeared out of nowhere, and only the calming influence of the cigarette kept him from visibly reacting. Though he'd never seen the woman before, there was an expression of familiarity on her face, something that made him think she had been looking for him, and he felt the first faint stirrings of fear in his chest.

He looked around, muscles tensing as he tried to spot anyone suspicious on the sidewalk or in the storefronts.

The woman pointed an accusatory finger at him. "How many were there?" she demanded.

He shook his head.

How many were there? I don't know what you're talking about," Liam said, backing away. But he did. She'd come out of the blue, her words apropos of nothing, yet he understood to what she was referring and it frightened him to the bone. He should have listened to his daughter.

He never should have left the house.

He walked around the woman, back the way he'd come. Ahead in the park he could see several raggedy men looking in his direction, waiting for him to approach. There was something threatening in the way they stood, and he turned up the alley, deciding to take a long cut home. He wasn't sure what was happening, but once again he thought of the dam, the town, and he found himself hurrying between the buildings, anxious to get away from these homeless people.

Halfway up the alley, he almost tripped over a bum's legs sticking out from behind a trash dumpster. He stopped short, and the bum looked up at him, smiling with brown tobacco stained teeth. "Wolf Canyon," he rasped.

Liam tossed his cigarette and started running. His heart was pounding, and right now he wanted only to get home. A dark shape lurched at him from the back entrance of an apartment complex, and he had time to register that it was probably female before his feet were carrying him up the alley and past the ill-kept backyard of an old house that had been converted into a beauty salon.

He heard shouts, running footsteps, and he glanced over his shoulder as he ran. Five or six homeless people were following him now, and though his lungs were hurting from lack of breath and it felt as though his heart was going to attack him, he increased his speed. He was embarrassed, ashamed of his fear and cowardice, but he knew his feelings were legitimate. What was going on here made no sense on any rational level, but made perfect sense in the fun house universe in which he'd found himself since receiving that first threatening phone call.

The increasingly loud sounds of footfalls made him speed up yet again.

His muscles were straining, and he knew he could not keep this up for any length of time. He burst out of the alley and onto a residential street, the street next to his own, and that gave him an extra burst of energy.

He did not stop or slow down to see if he was still being followed.

Though he knew how ridiculous he must look, he ran with all his might, wheezing and panting past well-manicured lawns and spotless driveways toward the end of the block. He did not know why he was being chased or how these street people were connected to the dam, to the town, to what had happened, but he accepted that they were. He was not one to dismiss things that weren't supposed to be able to happen--not after all he'd seen.

He reached his street, reached his house. Dashing up the walk, he finally allowed himself a quick look behind him. As he'd half expected, no one was following. They'd either given up, or he'd lost or outrun them. He exhaled deeply, an honest-to-God sigh of relief.

Then an extraordinarily tall man wearing a torn T-shirt and woolen earmuffs rounded the far corner onto the street, and Liam ducked quickly inside the house, heart pounding. Wolf Canyon.

He locked the door leaned against it, trembling. The phone rang a second later, making him jump, but he made no effort to answer it, and though he stopped counting at fifty, the ringing continued on.

Then

Jeb Freeman bedded down for the night in a ravine.

He'd been traveling all day, stopping only for two short rests, heading south as he had been for the past week. His feet hurt. Sam, his mount, had died two days ago, and Jeb had been walking ever since, carrying his own bedroll and saddlebag. He'd been hoping to make it as far as the mountains by nightfall, but the terrain was rougher than he'd expected, and it became clear near sundown that he would not reach his goal today. He would have preferred to remain up top, to not have to waste time hiking down into the ravine and back up again tomorrow morning, but the winds here were fierce at night, and since he no longer had a tent, the only way to stay out of them was to stay below them.

There were a few dead branches on the rocky sandy floor, swept there by the last flash flood, and he gathered them up. He made a circle of stones, then placed half of the branches inside, dumping the other half a few feet away. He laid out his bedroll. A hard piece of almost un chewable salt pork was his supper, and he washed it down with a single.

sip of warm water from his canteen.

Nightfall lingered up on top, but it came swift and sure in the ravines, and his camp was swathed in darkness even as the western sky above remained orange.

There was no sound but the birthing winds above, no scuttle of rats, no cawing of birds, no noise from anything

alive. Not only were there no people in this forsaken country, there were not even any animals. Crouching down, he sprinkled a pinch of bone dust on the branches, dramatically waved his hand over them, and spoke a few words. The fire started.

He sighed. Reduced to performing parlor tricks without an audience.

He made the fire turn blue, then green, but it did not dispel the melancholy that had come over him. He had always been something of a loner, but he had never really been alone before. Not truly alone. If he had not always had living companions, he had always been able to communicate with dead ones, to conjure up the spirits of those who had passed on, to discuss his life with those who had finished theirs.

But here he was too far out. No people had lived here, no people had died here. He could communicate with no one. He was all by himself.

He stared into the rainbow-colored fire, surrounded by silence.

Eventually, he went to sleep.

Above the ravine, the night wind howled.

He met William the next day.

Jeb felt him before he saw him, sensed his presence, and he was filled with a grateful anticipation that was almost joy. He could not remember the last conversation he'd had, and it had been weeks since he'd even seen another human being.

And this man was one of his own.

Jeb continued south, his pace swifter than it had been since Sam's death. The land here was raw and hard and open, not blunted and covered and soft like the land in the East. It was what made the west frightening. And exciting. \020The world here seemed to go on forever, and only the lack of companionship had kept it from being a paradise.

A person was dwarfed by this landscape, but Jeb did not need to see the man to know where he was. He could feel him, and when he sensed that the man had stopped, was waiting for him to catch up, Jeb increased his speed even more, practically running across the flat ground toward the mountains.

He found the man sitting underneath a low tree at the mouth of a canyon, his horse drinking from a muddy pool. The man stood, shook the dust off his clothes, and walked forward, hand extended. "Glad to finally meet you," he said. "I'm William. William Johnson. I'm a witch."

William, it turned out, had been aware of his presence for days, and Jeb chose to think that it was because his own skills were rusty, because he hadn't been using them lately, that he had not been aware of William until he was practically upon him.

He had met other witches before, but in towns, in cities, and there'd always been a sort of implied acknowledgment of their kinship, a tacit understanding that they recognized each other but were not going to consort with each other so that no suspicions would be raised.

But out here they were all alone, with no one else around for hundreds of miles, and he and William were able to speak openly about things that had always before been only hinted about or left unsaid. It was a strange and unsettling experience, and at first Jeb was wary about saying too much, being too explicit, for fear that William was trying to trick him into revealing incriminating details about himself, trap him into giving away secrets. He knew intellectually that that was not the case--William was a witch just like himself--but the emotional prohibitions were still there, and only after his new companion had told his story, had revealed far

more than Jeb would have ever dreamed of sharing with a stranger, did Jeb feel comfortable enough to relax and really talk.

They had a lot in common. William had traveled throughout the territories, living for a time in various settlements, keeping to himself when he could, providing help when asked. He d removed unwanted pregnancies, performed small healings, made the infertile fertile. And he'd been punished for it: harassed, attacked, exiled.

Much as Jeb had himself.

They'd both tried their best to fit in, and had both been found out every time, persecuted for their natures, for who they were and could not help being, by the intolerant men and women who claimed to be speaking for God.

He told William about Carlsville, about Becky, the girl he'd loved who had betrayed him. He had never told this to anyone else, but he already felt closer to William than he had to anyone since.." well, since Becky, and it felt good to talk about it, to clear his chest.

He explained how he'd moved to Carlsville after his father's very public death back in the appropriately named town of Lynchburg. He'd escaped his father's fate for the simple reason that he had not been home when the mob showed up to the door of their house, and he'd lain low and headed west, traveling as far away from rrginia as quickly as possible. He'd finally stopped running in Missouri, deciding to settle in the beautiful town of Carlsville, where he was fortunate enough to find work as an apprentice blacksmith.

He was still in his teens then, and he portrayed himself as a young man with no parents who had escaped from a tyrannical orphanage back East.

The blacksmith, and indeed the entire town, welcomed him with open arms, treating him as one of their own. He was given a room at the stable, took

his meals with the blacksmith's family, and went to Church with everyone on Sundays.

He also fell in love with Becky, Reverend Faron's daughter.

From the beginning, Becky exhibited an interest in him that went beyond the merely solicitous. He found her very attractive as well, and discovered as they talked after church services that he enjoyed being with her. Of course, the fact that she was a minister's daughter meant that he had to be extra careful. He could not exhibit any abilities that were even slightly out of the ordinary, had to pretend not to know things that he knew, not to believe things he believed.

Becky sensed in him something that no one else did, a darkness, she called it, and she confessed quite often that this was what had first attracted her. She said there was an enigma at the core of his being, a mysteriousness to the seeming straightforwardness of his past that no one in town had caught, and she was intrigued by that. The more time they spent together, the closer they became, and a year after he'd first arrived in Carlsville she revealed that she loved him.

He discovered that he loved her too. It was not something he'd been looking for, not even something he'd wanted, but somehow it had happened, and soon after he told her, he proposed to her, and they made plans to get married.

One evening they were lying by the creek that ran through the woods just south of town, talking, touching, looking up at the stars. The conversation faded away, and they lay there for a few moments in silence, listening to the high, clear babble of the creek. Becky seemed more subdued than usual, and he was about to ask her if there was anything the matter when she sat up, facing him. "Do you love me?" she asked

He laughed. "You know I do."

"Can we tell each other anything?

"Anything and everything

She thought for a moment, then took a deep breath. The hand that touched his was trembling. "I'm not pure," she said. The story came out in a torrent, a nonstop jumble of words that flowed over each other and on to the next like the water in the creek: "I wanted to tell you so many times, but I did not know how and it never seemed to be the right time. My father took me against my will. After my mother died.

It was only once and I hated it, and he performed penance afterward and we both prayed, but it happened and I'd change that if I could but I can't. No one else knows and I promised him I would never tell another living soul, but I love you and I can't start off our marriage with a lie, and you'd find out anyway, so I thought I'd better tell you."

By this time she was sobbing on his shoulder. "Don't hate me, she cried, don't want you to hate me."

"Shhh," he hushed her. "Of course I don't hate you."

"I couldn't stand it if you hated me."

"I don't hate you."

"But you don't love me anymore."

"Of course I love you." He tried to smile, though it felt as if his heart had been ripped open. He gave her a quick kiss on the top of the head, smelled the fragrance of her hair. "Anything and everything, remember?"

"It only happened once, and it's over now. He apologized and I pretended to forgive and forget, I tried to forgive and forget, but I didn't, I couldn't, and I've been worried ever since because I knew this day would come. I knew I'd meet a man I loved and he'd find out I wasn't pure. I even thought of what I'd tell him. I had a big story all worked out. A lie."

"Shhh," Jeb said. "Shhhh."

She was silent for a moment, and when she spoke again her voice was low. "I thought of killing him." Her eyes met Jeb's. "He knew what he was doing even while he was doing it, and no matter how much he prays or apologizes, it still

happened, and we both know it, and I know that every time we're alone together, we're both thinking about it. So I've thought of killing him many times, but but somehow can't do it. I still want to kill him, but I know I won't. He's my father.

She exhaled when she if so, as though a great weight had just been taken from her shoulders. She let out a small harsh laugh. "I never thought I'd admit that to any body."

He didn't know what to do, so he just kept holding her, and when she started crying again, sobbing into his shoulder, he held her tighter.

Eventually the crying stopped, and she pulled back, kissed him on the lips. "I love you so much."

"I love you, too."

"Now it's your turn," she said.

"What?"

She touched his face. "Come on. I want to know your big secret.

You've been keeping something from me, and I want to know what it is."

' 1"here is no big secret. My life's Open book." "With some missing pages." She stood up on her knees, pretended to point a gun at him.

"Come on, buster: Adroit it." Her face was still red from crying, her cheeks glistening with the wetness of tears, and she looked so sad and lost and alone that it damn near broke his heart.

So he told her.

He did not tell her everything, did not go into detail, but he told her that he had powers, that his father had had powers, and that they had both used those powers to help people. He explained that others had not understood, had feared and hated them, that his father had been killed and he himself had only narrowly escaped the same fate.

He told her he was a witch, though he did not use the word. \020She seemed subdued, her reaction not what he had expected. In fact, he did not know that she had a reaction. She was neither understanding and supportive nor horrified and angry. Instead she was politely quiet, pensive, and though that worded him at first, when she gave him a quick kiss before llaey parted and said, "I love you," he. knew that all she needed was a little time to get used to the idea.

He felt good that he'd unburdened himself, freer than he had since living with his father, and he fell into a quick and easy sleep.

The blacksmith awakened him. "Get up!" he whispered. "hey're coming after you."

Jeb stirred groggily, blinking against the lamplight. What? Who?"

"Reverend Faron's gathering up a posse, and they're coming to get you.

They're going to string you up."

She'd told her father.

He felt as if his guts had been yanked out of his chest, and only at that moment did he realize how much he truly loved her.

He'd escaped--with the help of the blacksmith, who understood what he was and didn't care--and he'd been on the move ever since.

"Maybe it wasn't her," William offered. "Maybe someone else found out.

Maybe--'

"It was her."

Even now the wounds still hurt. Just talking about those memories had dredged up the emotions that went with them, and Jeb found himself wondering where Becky was now, what she was doing, who she was with, what she was like. "I've never been in love," William said sadly.

They were both walking, William leading his home, and Jeb looked over at him. "Never?"

The other man shook his head, started to say something,

then thought the better of it. Jeb waited for him to say something else, but he did not. '

They continued on in silence.

They came upon the monster in the late afternoon.

The beast was dead, its corpse rotting in the sun, but even in death it was a fearsome sight to behold. They were well up the canyon by this time, fenced in between high rock walls that blocked out half the sky, and they saw the oversize body lying in the dry creek bed well before they reached it. They could both sense the undiluted malevolence of the creature's lingering presence, like the smell of a skunk that remained long after the animal had gone, and the horse seemed to sense it too because William had to talk to the animal to keep it from bolting.

They approached the body warily. It was easily as big as three men, both in height and width, and was vaguely human in form, but there were claws instead of hands at the ends of the excessively long arms, and what remained of the head was unlike anything Jeb had ever seen. Like the rest of its body, the monster's head appeared to have been deflated, like a balloon, black rotting skin hanging loosely off an interior frame of bone, but even in this ruined shape, he could see that there was hair where there should not have been, eyes and nose that should not have been on any living creature, and far, far too many teeth. Long teeth. Pointed teeth.

The very air here felt heavy, and Jeb turned toward William. "What do you think it is?" he asked, his voice hushed.

William shook his head, not taking his eyes off the monster. He bent forward to look more closely.

Jeb shivered. The canyon seemed suddenly far too small, far too narrow, and he looked up at the top of the rock walls

to see if there were any more of these creatures about. He didn't feel the presence of anything else here, but he did not trust his own instincts, and he glanced both up and down the canyon.

"It didn't die naturally," William said. "Something killed it. It looks like its insides were eaten out. Or sucked out through this hole at the top of the back."

"What could kill something like this?"

William looked at him. "I don't think we want to know." Jeb wanted to get out of the mountains immediately, but though it was a small range, there was no way they could make it through before tomorrow or the day after, and they were forced to set up camp on a flattened ridge. At least they were out of the canyon. He would have rather walked through the night and taken his chances with the cliffs and the darkness than sleep in that cursed place.

Whatever could bring down a monster like that could have them for dessert, but they both wove protective spells around the camp and decided to take turns standing watch for the night, prepared to either flee or right at the first sign of anything unusual.

Jeb's watch was first, but he saw nothing, heard nothing, and, though he kept his senses wide open, felt nothing. The horse, too, seemed calm. As far as he could tell, they were alone in this place, and he hoped that it remained that way. At least until morning.

He woke William when the moon was halfway across the sky, and the two of them switched places. He knew he had to rest for the grueling trek tomorrow, but he was not at all tired and was not sure he would be able to sleep.

He was out almost immediately after his head hit the saddlebag.

He dreamed of a town in which all of the houses were identical and where at sunset a dwarf roamed the community, placing metal spoons on the porches of those who would

die before dawn. He was living in one of the houses and was awakened in the middle of the night by a mysterious sound and went outside to investigate. But when he walked onto the porch, he felt something cold and hard touch his toes, heard a clattering noise. He looked down to see that he'd accidentally kicked a rusted metal spoon off the porch.

There was a snickering from the bushes, and when he looked more closely, he saw the face of a dwarf grinning evilly up at him.

He awoke in the morning feeling urtrested. William had already conjured a fire and was making coffee with some muddy water he'd found in a barely trickling creek a little farther along the trail. They drank their breakfast, packed up, and set out, both of them wanting to escape from these mountains as quickly as possible.

They did not speak much that day, or that night when they camped in a narrow ravine between two tall cliffs. It was as if a spell had been cast on them, even though they had carefully protected themselves.

The next day they left the mountains and it felt to Jeb as though he had awakened from a bad dream. The feelings that had been following him faded, and even the memory of the monster seemed not as sharp. He recognized the sensation. It was the exhilaration one felt after averting disaster. He had guiltily experienced a variation of it upon escaping Lynchburg and avoiding his father's fate, and he knew that this sudden lifting of dread was due not to any magic but to simple human emotion.

They'd had two days to think about what they'd come across back in the canyon, and while he himself had not been able to piece together any solutions, William struck him as a more pensive sort, a deep thinker, and he turned toward his newfound friend. "What do you. think killed that monster?" he asked

William shook his head, and Jeb understood that he did not want to talk about it. That was fine with him.

The landscape flattened out, and on this side of the mountains it seemed far less desolate. There were trees here. Bushes and grass.

There were still no signs of people, not even Indians, but other signs of life greeted them--birds circling in the sky, squirrels scampering along the ground, the: far-off roar of bear. Though this was still uncharted territory, they felt as thgugh they were easing back into the known world.

Their self-imposed silence ended as well, and they began to talk again.

They spoke of places they'd been, sights they'd seen along the way. Jeb had no destination, was not heading anywhere in particular, but William seemed to know where he wanted to go; his new friend had some sort of plan or specific intent.

He asked William. "Where are we headed?"

"South."

"I mean, where in particular?"

"Where were you headed when we met?"

Jeb shrugged. "No place."

William nodded. 'l'hat is the trouble with our kind, isn't it? We're never heading to something, we're always heading away from something."

"We have no choice. That's the way things are." William was silent for a moment. "There are other persecuted people," he said finally.

"People who have made a fresh start here in the West, who have built their own communities, away from everyone else, where no one bothers them. I've been thinking for some time that we could do the same. This is a land of opportunity because it is new and " open, ready to be molded into whatever shape its settlers choose. It is not bound by the models of the past. It does

' " not have to conform to any preexisting notion of what society should be. And it is big enough to support all."

Jeb suddenly understood what he was getting at. "A... town?" he said incredulously. "You're talking about a town of witches?"

"Why not? There is going to be an entire Mormon Territory Why not at least a town for us?" Smiling, he sidled next to his horse and withdrew from the saddlebag a letter, imprinted with the seal of the government of the United

States. 'Tve already written to Washington, and Fenton

Barnes, the man to whom I wrote, has talked to the president about my idea." "The president? Of the country?"

'The government is worried that the violence out here will scare people away, worried that Mexico will be able to exploit this country's divisions to its advantage. A lot of that violence is directed at us, at the Mormons, at those who are. different, and if they can keep us separated from the rest of the population by giving us our own lands, and thus retain at least the appearance of national unity..." He shrugged. "Well, they think it's worth it."

"So what does that mean? They're going to give us land in order to start our own town?"

William nodded. "Yes. Our own town, with our own local government and local laws. We'll be a recognized community, sanctioned by the federal government, segregated and protected by presidential order from the type of persecution we have faced in the past." He smiled, passed Jeb the letter. 'here is the authorization for me to take possession of the land in the name of our people."

"Where is it?" Jeb asked. "Where is this place?"

William looked at him. "In Arizona Territory. A place i called Wolf Canyon

He didn't realize until he woke up on Christmas morning that he had forgotten to even buy a tree.

Miles walked out to the kitchen, made coffee. All of the decorations were still in the garage, and he had not bothered to put up lights either. He was tempted to pretend this was just an ordinary day, that there was no Christmas this year, but when he turned on the TV and saw carolers singing in the New York snow as part of a prerecorded Today show celebration, he knew he would not be able to do that.

He had bought his father some presents, and though he had not yet wrapped them, he did so now. Being such a serious Christian, he'd expected Audra to take the day off, but the nurse had promised to come in, informing him that she would merely arrive a few hours later than usual. He'd bought Audra a present, too. Two presents, actually. One from him and one from his father. He wrapped those as well, inexpertly attempting to cover an awkwardly shaped wicker basket filled with various teas and an un boxed faux crystal vase with what was left of last year's festive snowman paper.

Leaving the nurse's gifts on the coffee table, Miles car fled his father's presents back to his room, filling his voice with a false Christmas cheer that was the furthest thing away from what he actually felt: "Merry Christmas, Dad!"

Bob awoke with a blink of his eyes but virtually no movement of his body. He tried to smile, but it looked more like a painful grimace, and when he attempted to adjust himself

and use his one good arm to push himself into a sitting position, the effort only served to list him to the left.

Miles placed the packages at the foot of the bed, then helped shift his father back into position. He placed the bed controls in Bob's good hand and waited while the top haft of the bed rose into an upright position.

"I hate this shit," his father said in the slurred whisper that was now his permanent voice, and the annoyance in his words was so pure that Miles could not help but smile. Whatever else the stroke had done, it had not affected his dad's personality.

"Merry Christmas," Miles said again.

"I don't know how merry it is."

"But it's Christmas, and, look, I've come bearing gifts!" He picked up the first package and placed it on his father's chest, letting him look at it for a moment before picking it up once more and carefully unwrapping it. "What do we have here, huh?" He opened the box, let his father watch. "Boots, Dad. Cowboy boots. You know those ones you saw last summer but were too cheap to buy?"

Bob said nothing, but Miles saw the glint of a tear in his eye, and he suddenly felt a little choked up himself. He quickly moved on to the next present.

"Hey, what's this?" He unwrapped the gift. "A Louis L'Amour book!"

He felt a hand grab his wrist. His father's hand, surprisingly strong.

He looked over at Bob's face and saw tears rolling freely down his cheeks. 'Thank you," his father whispered.

Miles suddenly realized that his dad had not expected them to be celebrating Christmas this year. He probably hadn't expected to even be here for Christmas, and Miles understood how much this meant to him.

He was glad that he'd bought the presents and wished that he'd made an effort to decorate the house. He should have thought more

about his father's feelings and tried to make this year just like every other. "You're a good son," Bob said, relaxing his grip. "I want you to know that. Just because I don't say it all the time doesn't mean I don't think it."

The lump in his throat returned, and Miles' eyes were watering with the threat of tears. "Thanks, Dad." He swallowed hard, maintained his smile and picked up another package. "Let's see what we have here."

There were two more presents to go, far less than they usually had, but a decent number under the circumstances. After Miles cleared the wrapping paper off the covers and scrunched it in the trash, his dad waved him back over.

"Look under the bed," Bob whispered. "I had Audra buy me something for you."

This was a complete surprise, and Miles crouched down, felt under the bed, and brought forth a rather large and heavy gift whose careful wrapping betrayed a female hand.

"Open it," his father said.

Miles ripped the red and green paper to reveal a boxed turntable.

"I found it several months ago and had Audrago get it for me. I know you have a lot old records you can't play because your stereo just has a CD. So I thought you might like this."

It was the best present his father had ever given him, not only because it was something he really wanted and would use but because of the thought put into it and the effort required to get it. His dad's presents usually consisted of items from Sears that he himself wanted, and Miles was impressed that he'd actually been thinking about the turntable for some time, that he'd noticed it and remembered it.

"Thanks," he said. 'this is great."

"Merry Christmas, boy." Bob pressed a button, lowering

the bed, apparently tired already, and Miles decided to let him alone for a while.

"I'll go heat up the coffee," he said.

Bob closed his eyes. "That sounds good."

He was snoring even before Miles left the room.

That, Miles thought, was one of the most disconcerting aftereffects of the stroke: the abrupt changes, the immediate shift from happy to sad, from wide awake to tired, with no cooling-down period, no time allotted for any gradations in between:

He walked out to the kitchen.

Bonnie called around eleven, pretending as though there was nothing wrong. She thanked him for the presents he'd sent, asked perfunctorily how Dad was, then went on to tell him of the morning of gift unwrapping they'd had at her house and the huge turkey dinner she was preparing.

Gil even came on the line for a second with some generic holiday greetings, and Miles responded in kind. He had never much liked his brother-in-law, but he'd always been able to maintain a polite facade, and he did so now as well. After Gil hung up the other phone, Miles asked his sister if she'd like to talk to Dad, and she felt obliged to say yes. When he went back, checked, and told her that their father was still asleep, though, he could tell she was relieved. He said he'd call back later, when Dad was awake, and the two of them hung up, exchanging inanities.

A short time later, he heard the whir of the bed motor from the bedroom, and he went back to let his father know that Bonnie had called.

Bob smiled. "How's our old friend GilT' he whispered. "He can still go from man to wuss in three seconds." Bob laughed. Or tried to. But the laugh became a cough, and the cough got stuck somewhere in his throat and all that came out of his father's grimacing mouth was a hard, harsh wheeze.

The two of them were still talking about Bonnie and Git when Audra showed up with a great Christmas dinner: microwave plates of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and a plastic sack filled with salad. Miles was genuinely touched, and after he gave the nurse her presents and watched her unwrap them, she heated up the food. He sat in a chair next to the bed, eating, while Audra cut up his father's turkey into small easily digestible pieces and carefully fed them to him.

As he'd suspected, Audra and his father had not initially gotten along, although in recent days they seemed to have reached a kind of truce. As he'd hoped, that confrontation seemed to have energized his father, who had been making much better progress than expected--particularly in regard to his speech: Twice a week he still went to the hospital for tests and therapy, and while there was no change in his longterm prognosis, the doctor and the therapists admitted that in the short term, he was making excellent progress.

Miles finished his meal and walked out to the kitchen to put his plate in the sink. When he returned, Audra was just getting up from her chair next to the bed. Her face was red as she strode wordlessly out of the room.

Miles frowned. "What did you say to her, Dad?"

He was too far away to hear the answer, so he sat down in the nurse's chair and asked again. "What did you say?"

"I asked if it was true that in Japan they have vending machines that sell soiled panties," his father whispered. "I heard that they do."

Miles blinked, stunned, then laughed out loud. It had been a long time since he'd laughed, and he was probably overreacting, investing the comment with more humor than it probably warranted, but it felt good to laugh and he seemed to have no control of it anyway, and he just rode the wave and enjoyed the feeling.

His father grinned.

No, the stroke had not changed Bob's personality one bit. Miles grasped his dad's good hand, held it, squeezed. From the kitchen he heard the angry sound of a cupboard slamming.

He smiled. Taking everything into consideration, it wasn't such a bad Christmas after all.

L.A. was once again showing its true colors after its traditional New Year's false front, slumping back into smog as though the maintenance of that perfect-blue-sky ruse for even one day had zapped all its energy. The San Gabriel Mountains were entirely hidden behind a wall of white, and even the Hollywood hills were little more than a faint , outline in the haze. As usual, the weatherman on the early morning newscast had said that it was going to be "a beautiful day."

Miles walked into the break room, where Hal and Tran were comparing holidays. Tran had hosted his wife's massive Catholic family in his tiny little duplex, and the place had gotten so crowded and claustrophobic and Christian that Tran, a lax Buddhist, had spent most of Christmas day smoking in the backyard, trying to avoid his in-laws.

Hal and his wife spent the day together in their Sherman Oaks home, their son and his current girlfriend stopping by later for an uneventful visit. It was Christmas Eve day that Hal's usual series of misadventures had occurred, and Miles and Tran listened and laughed as the detective hilariously recounted how he had driven all over creation, looking for the jewelry box his wife wanted, before finally finding one at an independent discount house that he'd investigated last year for fencing stolen property. He'd bought it, intending to find another once the holidays were over and switch the two without his wife know lO3 thing; turning in the stolen one to the policnd telling them where he'd purchased it.

Tran nodded at how was your Christmas,

Miles?" if

As well as could be expected under the circumstances."

Both Tran and Hal nodded solemnly, understandingly, neither willing to chance a follow-up comment.

Miles felt awkward, and he found himself suddenly inventing a deadline that wasn't there, pretending that he needed to get back to his desk.

He sat down, shuffled through his papers, happy to have something to do, feeling far too comfortable being alone at his desk than he knew he should be.

Although Marina and her husband had gone back to Arizona, and her father refused to speak with him, Miles was still on the case, and for that he was grateful. He sorted through the files until he found theirs, withdrawing the list Liam had made up. He'd been systematically trying to locate all of the men on the list, although so far he'd found none. He'd been hoping to work with the police on this, utilize some of their resources, but to his surprise and consternation, the detective assigned to Liam's case was supremely uninterested. Miles had a few contacts downtown, among the police brass--and the firm itself had many more--and he planned to speak-to them and get the case transferred to another detective.

He spent the morning scanning phone directories and doing Internet searches. He was rewarded just after noon with the address and phone number of Hubert E Lars, now living in Palm Springs. When he attempted to call Hubert, however, a recording informed him: "This number is no longer in service, Please check the number and dial again." Miles called one more time, just to make sure he hadn't

accidentally punched in a wrong digit, but when the same recording came on the line, he hung up, feeling troubled. The image in his mind was of Hubert P. Lars lying dead on the floor of a long, low desert ranch house. He was half tempted to speed down to Palm Springs and check, but it was two hours away, and he knew his time would be much better spent trying to find addresses and phone numbers for the rest of the people on Liam's list.

He stayed late, and the sun was a smog-shrouded orange glow at the edge of the horizon where he finally pulled into his driveway. Miles grabbed the Taco Bell sack from the seat next to him, got out of the car and used his key to unlock the front door. He was greeted by darkness. And silence. No lights were on in the house, and he did not hear the everpresent sound of the television.

"Audra?" he called tentatively. "You here? Audra?"

There was no answer.

He suddenly realized why the house was silent.

His father had died. "Dad!" He dropped the sack on the coffee table and ran through the living room, his heart pounding so hard that it felt as though it was going to burst through his rib cage.

He dashed into the hall. The hall tree had been shoved in front of the door to his father's room as if to barricade it, and a love seat and chair from the back bedroom had been placed next to the hall tree to reinforce the barricade. It made no sense, but he didn't stop and try to analyze it or figure out why it had been done.

From inside the room he heard the sound of rapid footsteps that rapped against the hardwood floor. They seemed unnaturally loud in the silent house.

There was no answering reply, only the footsteps. Boot heels on wood.

Miles pushed the love seat aside, pulled the chair and hall tree away from the door. He saw a paper towel, a bottle and syringe lying between the legs of the hall tree. His father's medication, abandoned.

"Dad!" He pushed open the door.

His father was naked, wearing only cowboy boots, and walking in a circle around the periphery of the room. The nightstand was knocked over, as was a chair. Both the 'bed and the dresser had been shoved away from their usual positions against the wall and were skewed at odd angles against bunched-up sections of throw rug, creating a path next to the wall through which his father could walk. Miles saw bloody bruises on his father's thigh and midsection where he had obviously smacked against the bed and dresser, moving them not intentionally but through sheer stubborn repetition.

"Dad!" he called again.

But he did not rush forward. Something about the scene kept him back.

His father's eyes were closed, he saw. The old man's skin was bluish and pasty.

Bob walked between the dresser and the wall, toward him, past him. This close, Miles could see the utter lack of expression on his dad's face, the complete absence of any sign of life or personality.

His father was dead.

He knew it, felt it, understood it, but Bob continued walking, continued on his circular track around the edge of the room. Miles did not know what was happening or why or what to do. This was like something out of The Twilight Zone, and he stood there, stunned. He knew he should be scared, but for some reason he wasn't, and when his father came around again, Miles grabbed him around the chest, pinning the old man's arms to his sides. His father's skin felt cold and spongy, rubbery. Miles held his dad tightly, trying to keep him in place, but his father

was stronger in death than he had ever been in life, and with only a moment's delay, he broke through his son's restraint and continued his nonstop stride around the periphery of the room.

"Stop!" Miles called, but Bob gave no indication that he had heard.

The dead can't hear, Miles thought.

He hurried out of the room and back down the hall. Audra had to have reported what was happening, an ambulance was probably on its way right now, but he dialed 9-1-1 anyway and was transferred instantly from an emergency operator to a police dispatcher.

He started talking immediately, before the dispatcher had said a word:

"My name's Miles Huerdeen. I'm at 1264 Monterey Street, Los Angeles, and my dad is dead. I just came home and found him. He had a stroke and was incapacitated, but now he's walking around the bedroom, and I need someone to come over and take care of him." He was aware of how ridiculous he sounded, and he knew as soon as he said it that he should have kept that part quiet, let the paramedics find out for themselves when they arrived, but he was obviously more freaked than he'd thought, because he had a need to get the information out, he wanted to explain what was really going on.

He wanted someone else to know.

Besides, the police needed to decide how to handle his father, whether to take him to a hospital or the morgue.

The dispatcher was confused. "Your father had a stroke?

"No, he died!"

"I thought you said he was walking."

"He is!"

The voice took on a stiff authoritarian formality. "Mr. Huerdeen--"

"He's dead, I told you! And he's still walking around the room!"

"Mr. Huerdeen, I suggest you take a walk. We don't have time for these games. Thank you

"This isn't a game, goddammit!"

"Then, I suggest you take advantage of our referral service to find the mental health clinic nearest your home. I will connect you." There was an abrupt click, and then a recorded voice came on the line, informing him that if he was thinking about suicide, he should press the number one. If he was suffering from spousal abuse... He hung up the phone, chastising himself for not taking the dispatcher's name. He could not hear it from here, but in his mind he heard the sound of boot heels on wood, and for the first time the creepiness of it all hit home. Father or not, he was alone in the house with a dead mana zombie

--and his first priority was to find someone to help him do something about it. He thought for a moment, then reached for his personal phone book. He dialed his friend Ralph Barger, who worked at the county coroner's office.. Ralph would know how to handle this.

Luckily for him, Ralph was in, and Miles explained the situation as calmly and rationally as he could. His friend did not interrupt and did not treat him as though he were crazy or drunk but took him seriously and wrote down the address and promised to be there with a wagon and a couple of assistants within the half hour.

After hanging up, Miles called Graham. He might need a lawyer on this.

He had no idea what was happening here, but it was doubtlessly unprecedented, and that always meant tangling with the law. The attorney, for once, did not have to be paged but actually answered his phone,

and as soon as Miles explained the situation, he promised to be right over.

"You're not pulling my leg, are you? This is on the level?"

"On the level."

"Holy shit. I have to see this for myself."

"Then, get your ass over here."

Miles considered calling Hal, getting some of the other detectives in on this, but decided against it. At let for now.

He hung up the phone, looked around the darkened house. Where was Audra? he wondered. Had she just run off?

Or had his father killed her?

It was clear by now that she had not called the police or any authorities if she had, they had treated her information the same way they had treated his. Had she simply abandoned her post and rushed home or to the hospice agency? Or had something happened to her, and was her body still in the house? She must have been the one who had barricaded his father's door, so he most likely hadn't been able to do anything to her, but the truth was that Miles was way out of his depth here. For all he knew, his father was possessed by some malevolent spirit or demon that had also done away with the nurse.

He needed to search the house.

He was a lot more leery about leaving the living room than he had been before. Night had fallen, and though. he'd turned on a few of the lights, most of the house was still in darkness. Logically, he knew that his father had died when it was still light outside. Audra had probably taken off sometime this afternoon.

But the fact that she did not appear to have called anyone indicated the possibility that she had never left at all.

He looked down the pirtially lighted hallway at the moved barricade, feeling a chill creep up his back.

Maybe he should wait until Ralph and the coroner's men arrived.

No. If there was a chance that the nurse was still in the house, that something had happened to her and he could help, he needed to find her.

If

He took a quick peek into the kitchen, flipping on the lights. Nothing.

He went back down the hall, looked into the bathroom, the closet, his office. All empty.

The door to his father's room was still open, and he could not help looking in. Bob was still walking around the room, dead, naked, wearing cowboy boots. His father turned, and Miles saw the unseeing eyes in that unmov thing face, and he looked away, hurrying down the hall to check out the last room, his own bedroom.

He was prepared for the worst--the nurse's body, eviscerated on his bed, torn in half like Montgomery Jonesbut when he turned on the light there was nothing. Thank

God. The master bathroom too was empty, and he at least had the satisfaction of knowing that Audra had escaped the house. Leaving the lights on, walked back to his father's room, standing there for a second, watching. He could still feel the cold sponginess of that skin against his hands, and he realized that though this body was moving, animated, he did not consider it his father. It was a shell, energized but empty, and whatever spark or essence had been Bob, it was gone.

He returned to the living room, turned on the television to provide some noise and give the house some sense of life and waited. Ralph and two other men from the coroner's office arrived first, around twenty minutes later, and Graham arrived soon after. Both of his friends, and the coroner's

e assistants, were visibly shaken by the sight of Bob pacing the periphery of his room. Ralph asked a series of rapid-fire questions as he put on gloves and a surgical mask: When did he have the stroke? What was the extent of the brain damage? Was he sure Bob was dead?

Miles gave a quick rundown of his father's recent medical history, described the way he had come home and found the barricaded door and the abandoned house.

Covered and protected, Ralph and his assistants walked into the bedroom. The two men held his father while Ralph injected the body with some sort of drug, sticking the needle in his upper arm because that portion of his body showed no attempt at movement. The moment he was through, he backed away. The two men continued to hold him, visibly straining against the forward motion of Bob's still moving feet.

A few seconds later, his father slumped forward. Ralph took over from one of the men, a young husky intern named Murdock, and held Bob up until the assistant returned with a gurney. Ralph helped lay the body down, then let the other two men strap it in.

"What was that you gave him?" Miles asked. "It's a very powerful muscle relaxant." "Is he... dead?"

Ralph nodded, the expression on his face one of extreme weariness. "Oh, yes. He's dead."

"What do you think happened?"

His friend shrugged. "I don't know."

"You ever seen anything like this?"

Ralph shook his head. "I have to admit, I haven't."

Miles looked back at Graham. "Keep this out of the Weekly World News."

"Tell it to your doctor friend. If there are any leaks, they'll come from the coroner's office, not me."

He faced Ralph. "Can we keep this quiet?"

"Definitely. At least until we figure out what it is. We don't want people panicking." He took off his gloves. "You know, I should be doing cartwheels over this. Something this rare doesn't come along in... well, it never comes along, to be honest about it. This is a coroner wet dream: something that's never been encountered before, a chance to get in all the journals. And as deputy assistant coroner, hell, this is a career maker."

"But..." Miles prodded.

"But I'm not happy. I'm not excited."

He looked at Miles. "I'm scared."

Miles shivered, looked over at Graham. Ordinarily, this would be the lawyer's cue to make some cynical, wiseass remark. But Graham merely looked pensive.

"What are you going to do?" Miles asked.

"I don't know. We'll take him in, but obviously I'm not going to do an autopsy if he's still moving. I'll call Bill and the chief, let them in on it, see what they come up with. For now, I guess we'll bring your father to the morgue, give him a private room, keep him strapped down and see what happens when the drugs wear off. You want to come along? You're welcome to ride in the wagon." Miles looked back at Graham.

The lawyer tried to smile, only partially pulled it off. "I think we'll follow in my car," he said.

Miles awoke from a nightmare in which he was being chased through a maze by a jogging mummy with the rot ring face of Liam Connor. He sat up, blinked. It was light outside, and one look at the clock told him that he was supposed to have been at work two hours ago. He had not called the office or anyone from it, and he quickly reached across the bed, grabbed the phone, and called Naomi. He explained that his dad died and asked her to patch him through to either Perkins or Miller, but she told him she'd take care of it, just do what he had to do, call in when he could, all their prayers were with him. "Thanks," he said gratefully.

The next call was to the coroner's office. Ralph was still there, sounding dead tired, and he said there'd been no change. His father was still deceased.

And there was still muscle movement in the legs:

Miles asked what he'd been afraid to ask the night before. "So does this mean he's a zombie.

"I don't know what it means," Ralph admitted. "None of us here do."

Miles got up, took a shower, made himself some coffee. He was at loose ends and had no idea what he was supposed to do next. Ordinarily, he'd contact a mortuary, call friends and family, but right now everything was up in the air. He should definitely call his sister, he knew, but he didn't want to worry her, and decided to wait until their father was really and truly dead.

Really and truly dead.

He shook his head. He had the feeling that he was supposed to understand what was happening here. On some level perhaps he did, but any connections between his father's un-death and any related information in his own brain remained stubbornly buffed. He found himself thinking about his dad's recurring dream, about the occult books he'd checked out of the library. Had Bob known what was going to happen? Had he somehow been preparing himself?. And, if so, why hadn't he let Miles in on the secret?

His fathiwas--had been?--nothing if not organized, and a copy of his will, the title to his car, a breakdown of all his assets, and a key to a safety deposit box were in the desk folder marked DEATrt that he had shown Miles long before the stroke.

The safety deposit box, Miles assumed, contained the

original will and assorted other documents, perhaps some family photos or heirlooms. Valuables. Checking it out would at least give him something to do, so he drove down to the bank. He was led into a vault by an elderly female teller who removed a long metal box from its niche in the wall and set it down on a table. Both he and the teller inserted their keys to unlock the box, then he thanked the woman, waiting until she had left the room before pulling up the lid.

Miles blinked in confusion. The box was filled with phials of powders and strange-looking roots floating in small bottles of clear liquid.

There were branches and leaves in sealed plastic bags, a necklace of teeth, what looked like a dried, flattened frog.

He stared, unmoving, thrown off balance by the sheer unanticipated lunacy of it all. Where were the documents he'd been expecting? The insurance policies? The letters? The family heirlooms?

And what the hell was all this crap?

None of the bags or bottles were labeled, but there was about them the aura of the occult, something that under the present circumstances did not exactly fill him with joy. The necklace of teeth was particularly disturbing, and he tried to think of why his father had such a thing, where he could have gotten it.

Gingerly, he took the items out of the box, spreading them out on the fake wood of the table. The teeth rattled in his shaking hand. He dropped the rough dusty frog. The materials looked like magic paraphernalia to him, the sort of stuff that was used to cast spells and concoct potions.