Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Prologue

There were sounds in the stairwell. Something soft and broken, moving with slow persistence. Shambling and clumsy. Jim heard the liquid splats as pieces sloughed away and were dropped on the steps or smeared across the walls. Darkness nuzzled against the windowpanes of the loft as the soft thing on the stairs kept climbing. Squelching wetly. Jim could hear other things too. Because he was the Sentinel, right? And that meant he could hear everything, everything. Sirens screaming all over the city, the sickeningly elastic sound of the tendon in Sandburg's right ankle.

And in the stairwell, the burbles and squeaks of air moving through a spongy, rotten windpipe, rattling across vocal chords that were as brittle as autumn leaves. Something was trying its damnedest to say something. Maybe it was even trying to say something to him

"Jim!" Blair was trying to say something too. He was dragging himself across the floor, fighting to reach him. "Jim, don't listen to it! Whatever you do man, just don't listen!"

Be nice if he could just turn things and off like that, Jim thought, three-quarters past sanity. Wire those old sentinel senses to a light switch and click, welcome back Jim Ellison, Ordinary Cop, Everyman. We've missed you. And by the way, there's nothing slithering up the stairs for YOU, man. Nothing obscene whispering YOUR name in the darkness. Or if there was you couldn't hear it, so what's the difference? Do yourself just one little favor, though, and don't open that front door. Not tonight. Probably not every again. Don't know what you'd find sitting on the doorstep if you did, but dollars to doughnuts, you wouldn't ask it in for a beer and a round of poker. Probably clean you out anyway. Hell of a poker face, right?

Jim snorted, almost laughing out loud. Blair had pulled himself to his feet, groaning and cursing as he tried to put weight on his bad ankle, but when Jim laughed, his face went dead white, and he stared at Jim with wide, wild eyes. He looked as though something inside him had just died.

Blair, I'm sorry, Jim thought, and shoved the side of his hand into his own mouth and bit down hard, so that no more of those half hysterical sounds that hurt Blair so badly could get out. The pain helped him, but not enough, not nearly enough. He heard a muffled, soggy thump as something heavy bumped against the wall of the stairwell, slid wetly around, and then kept shambling onwards. The thing on the steps was blind, Jim realized joylessly.

It didn't matter. It would find its way to their doorstep all the same.

"This is one of the safest campuses in the northwest."
Suzanne Tamaki, head of campus security for Rainier University,
Smart Alec

Chapter 1

You'd think a big university like Rainier could afford a few extra light bulbs, Jim thought, shifting on the bench's vinyl upholstery. Especially in a library. It was mid-April and dusk was still early, a clear, starry darkness falling across the canopy of the sky while a ruddy haze lingered at the horizon. A beautiful night. Jim had watched the sunset through the three-story window in the lobby of the main research library, so lulled by the peaceful sunset he practically forgot his annoyance at Blair for being late, even though this little routine was starting to turn into a habit. Blair had drawn a high number in the parking lottery this quarter, meaning he didn't have a campus parking permit. Public transportation was fine, but on nights when Blair was at school and Jim was going home right past Rainier anyway, he could stop and give him a lift, right? It wouldn't be any problem, man. He'd be at the curb outside the library.

Except, of course, when Blair got involved in his work and lost track of the time, which was not exactly an infrequent occurrence. He'd been spending all his time garrisoned in Special Collections, too, so it was no simple matter for Jim to go in and drag him out by his ear, like it would be if Blair were upstairs in the stacks. Come to think of it, it would serve Blair right if Jim did go marching down to Special Collections, flashing his badge instead of a student ID. Maybe next time Blair would remember to check the clock occasionally, or heaven forbid, even wear a watch.

Nah. It wouldn't do any good. Sandburg wouldn't even notice the commotion. He'd just grin up at Jim like he'd been waiting to see him all day, then ask if they had anything in the fridge for dinner, or if Jim would rather stop somewhere on the way home. Besides, this really wasn't so bad. Stopping and just sitting still for a little while, letting the day wind away from him. It really was a beautiful night. Lights were coming on one by one across campus, softly illuminating the gray stonework of the old physics building across the way. Students were pouring into the library in a steady stream, their arms or their backpacks weighted with books. They brought the scent of the night in with them, clinging to their clothes and hair. The evening smelled cold and clean and sharp, and the library was warm, the air a little close from the overwhelming proximity of so much paper and so many books, the heat of all the computers in Reference and the constantly-running copy machines.

But it was still strange how dark it was inside. There were some kids curled up on the other benches in the lobby, apparently waiting for companions like Jim was, or actually choosing to study here in the noisiest, busiest part of the library for whatever inscrutable reasons of their own. Blair claimed some people were really like that, that they worked best when surrounded by chaos. Sandburg, Jim could believe it of, but the rest of these students? Jim didn't buy it for a minute. He thought it was more likely they were studying here because if they went someplace quiet to work, they were afraid they might actually learn something.

Still, he didn't understand how they could even pretend to themselves that they were studying down in the lobby. All the noise and people aside, it was simply too dark. Jim wouldn't have been comfortable reading even with sentinel senses. Had some of the fluorescents gone out? He glanced up at the light fixtures far overhead, hazy bars of luminescence flickering through the gloom. He could hear the fixtures buzzing, but they shed no light, and Jim suddenly sat bolt upright.

It wasn't really dark in here at all, was it?

Oh, damn. Oh dammit to hell. And he'd been doing so well for months, feeling like at last he was really handling things, that maybe, maybe at last he was finally the one controlling his senses instead of the other way around. He was dimly aware of the girl on the bench next to him looking at him curiously, and he felt the old combination of anger and helplessness, driving him to his feet.

(Blair, I need you.)

He would find Blair himself, even though it was so dark by now the face of the woman beside him looked like a white balloon nodding in a black mist. He could find Blair by scent alone if he had to.

He took one step, shuffling across the carpet, and suddenly realized the darkness which enfolded him wasn't empty. There were angles and sharp corners all around him, an entire geometry of nonexistence. He blinked, trying to focus, and saw crooked corridors marching away from him into the night. They opened into streets that wound under broken, windowless towers of unfathomable antiquity, and overhead were terrible stars that shed no light, glittering blackly in a sky that had never known a sunrise.

Jim froze. One step into that nightmare landscape, one single step, and he would never find his way back again. A voice near at hand was talking to him, making meaningless sounds.

"Hey, are you all right?"

No, of course he wasn't all right, anyone with an ounce of sense could have been able to tell that, BLAIR would have been able to tell in a heartbeat. God, Chief, where are you?

And then it was all over. The landscape of darkness dissolved. Shadows were only shadows, and there were fewer and fewer of them. A blazing path of light stretched before him, the elevator doors were opening, and Blair was standing there, resplendent in a canvas windbreaker and an Hawaiian shirt in colors so bright they hurt Jim's eyes. A riot of red and yellow hyacinths, blooming impossibly on palmettos in a field of cream. Blair's eyes were brighter still, blue as the lagoon beside which those flowers would grow. He was talking a mile a minute, his hands punctuating every word. Jim let the wash of his voice and the sparkle in his eyes and even the vibrancy of that appalling shirt wash over him. This was the real world, gaudy, loud and alive. He was all right. Blair was right here, and everything was all right.

"So Nagle's having you dig up primary sources? That's really cool in an undergrad class. Man, I don't even have time to do that for my own classes, much as I'd like to. You got a copy of your syllabus I could look at? I'd really be interested in seeing how he's got his lesson plan set up."

Blair stepped out of the elevator with the kid he was talking to, a tall, white-faced boy in a black turtleneck and jeans, not a speck of color on him from his white lips to the soles of his Doc Martins. Blair looked like a walking carnival next to him. The kid muttered something in response, shrugging to indicate helplessness, or, more likely, that he just wanted to be left alone. It was the sort of nonverbal hint Blair was a master at ignoring under most circumstances, but just then he raised his eyes and saw Jim. His face split into a broad grin, and he gave Jim a little half wave across the lobby. "Looks like my ride's here," he said to the kid in black. "Tell you what, I'll just catch you later, or maybe go see Professor Nagle myself."

Another shrug from the kid, and he and Blair parted, the kid heading for the door while Blair went to the checkout desk. He grinned at Jim again, tilting his head to the side to indicate the weight of books in his backpack. Sorry, Jim, his gesture said. Just a second here while I check out half the library, OK?

OK. Jim felt himself smile back. His moment of disorientation was already beginning to feel as unreal and distant as a dream. He probably needed to tell Blair about this, but it could wait. Maybe until after they got home. Maybe after dinner.

An alarm buzzer suddenly went off, a flat, harsh sound, shocking in even the merely relative quiet of the lobby. Every head jerked up. The kid in black was standing bewildered at a security gate which had locked when he tried to pass through. He kept pushing at the bar with mulish determination, and the work study student manning the desk called, "Oh, hey, wait a minute. I need to check your bag."

The kid looked around, a dazed expression on his face. Alarms were going off in Jim's head too. He didn't stop to analyze them, he just began to move toward the gate from the other side.

"Hang on, you can't go through there." The work study student reached across for the backpack slung over the kid's shoulder, and the white-faced kid jerked away violently.

"Don't touch me."

"Come on, Ross, take it easy." Blair came around to his side, hands extended in a calming gesture. "You don't have to let them search your bag if you don't want. Just look yourself, man. You just forgot to check out a book is all. It's no big deal."

The kid relaxed, at least enough to shrug the backpack off his shoulders with a grunt and set it on the floor between his feet. Unzipping the top, he rooted around for a moment. All an act, apparently, since the book he finally hauled out of his pack was a tremendous, leather-bound tome that must have weighed twenty pounds. He handed it up to Blair, muttering, "Yeah, I guess you were right, Mr. Sandburg."

Blair held the book two-handed, gaping down at it. "Are you nuts? What are you doing with this?"

Ross half-knelt on the floor, still groping deep in his backpack. All at once, Jim knew what was about to happen, and he also knew he was too far away to do anything about it. He took a step, almost running, trying to reach the student anyway. Ross must have seen the movement out of the corner of his eye, because he suddenly made a decision, pulling a .38 out of his bag and aiming it squarely up at Sandburg. "Oh man," Blair said softly. His eyes darted to Jim, less than three yards away. It might as well have been three football fields for all the good Jim could do that moment, but when Blair spoke again, his voice was louder and steadier. "Ross, this is really stupid."

The work study student backed away fast, and a woman somewhere behind Jim blurted out, half-screaming, "Oh my god, he's got a gun." A chaos of movement erupted on all sides. The people behind Jim who could reach the outside doors broke and ran. Those who couldn't escape milled frantically backward, seeking the relative safety of the stairwell and reference lab. Ross stood up, keeping the gun trained on Blair the whole time. The whites of his eyes rolled like a panicky horse. "C'mon, let's go," he told Blair in a shaking voice. "You carry the book."

Blair only shook his head. "That isn't going to work," he quietly. "The police are already here."

It was all the distraction Jim needed. When Ross's head whipped around, Jim pulled his gun and trained it on the student. "Drop it, son," he said. "Let's not make this any worse."

Ross stared at him, then down at Jim's gun, an expression of bewildered disbelief contorting his white features. He was practically snorting in terror. Typical, Jim thought angrily, heartsick all the same. Not as much fun to be on the other end, was it? "Put the gun down, Ross. Do it now."

The kid wasn't gonna do it. Jim saw the brutal moment of decision in the stupid child's frantic eyes, and Jim made his own decision just as quickly. He was too close to miss.

Until Blair stepped forward to shield Ross with his own body. He met Jim's eyes in mute apology, blinking a little before the naked rage he must have seen on Jim's face. Ross had no idea that Blair had just saved his life, or if he knew, he didn't care. Hissing in fear, he knotted his hand in Sandburg's hair and dragged his head down and to the side, staggering him, and put the gun to the back of his head. The book fell from Blair's hands to hit the floor with a crack like a gunshot, and Ross screamed, "Pick it up! Pick it up!"

Blair swallowed. Pulled off balance, one hand on the security gate to keep from falling, his eyes once more found Jim's. He was afraid, but his voice was calm and low. "Just take a deep breath, Ross, and think about this for half a second here, all right? I can't reach it unless you let go."

Ross gave a wild, senseless cry and yanked again, pulling Blair's head back hard. "Stop talking to me like I'm an idiot! I know you set me up."

Blair was watching Jim's face the whole time. "No, I didn't," he told Ross quietly. "You did this all on your own."

"Do you want to die?" Ross demanded. "Is that what you're really doing here?" He lowered the gun and jabbed it hard between Blair's shoulderblades.

Blair blinked in pain. "No, I don't want to die," he said. "And neither do you."

"You don't know shit. You give all these big lectures and you talk about knowing so much, but it's all a crock. If you knew anything, you wouldn't have brought your cop friend here to try and kill me."

Blair's eyes went wide as he realized just how badly he had misjudged Ross and the entire situation. "Take it easy, man. Nobody wants to kill you."

"You're such a liar, but I don't give a damn about that, and you know why not? Because you can't hurt me, that cop can't hurt me, nobody can."

"I'm not lying to you." Blair swallowed. "And nobody wants to hurt you, least of all me."

"Yes, you do. How stupid do you think I am? But it won't work, Mr. Sandburg, I can't die. Too bad you can't say the same, huh?"

Sorrow and regret were written plain across Blair's face. There was no reaching Ross. He would do what he threatened, probably right here in front of Jim, and Blair regretted that most of all.

"Now pick up that book, goddamn you," Ross moaned furiously. He yanked hard, pulling Blair's head down, forcing them to kneel together. Blair reached for the book, and as his fingers touched it, Ross gave an obscene, bubbling cry of relief. He let go of Blair and reached around, straining to touch the book as well. Half a dozen strands of Sandburg's hair hung from his fingers, snagged on the setting of Ross's high school ring. They caught the light, brighter than the dull gold of the ring. Blair raised his eyes and found Jim's face.

Please, Jim thought desperately. Please, Chief, for the love of God.

Blair heard him. He closed his eyes and deliberately bowed his head.

Ross's gray eyes dilated wide, and Jim looked into the madman's left pupil as he pulled the trigger. He saw a geometry of darkness within, a black corridor leading away into endless night just for an instant before the bullet tore its way through, dragging in light and air and heat in a violent, permanent dawn. Ross sat down hard, then flopped backward. The back of his head hit the carpet with a thud. Blair scrambled away on his hands and knees, but he turned back at once, finding Ross's gun lying on the floor and shoving it away from them both with the heel of his hand. He knelt, reaching automatically for the pulse in Ross's throat before he saw the hole where the student's left eye had been. Blair groaned and bowed low over the dead student, shuddering like he was about to be sick.

Ross's arm jerked up suddenly, and his hand knotted in the front of Blair's shirt.

Jim felt the crazy tilt of reality like a storm at sea. He cleared the security gate in a single long-legged stride to grab the shoulders of Blair's canvas jacket and drag him violently from the dead man's grip. Ross was dead. No respiration, no pulse. The sea of reality calmed. The muscle spasm was freakish, but wholly mortal, Jim knew that. Blair did too. He was silent, save for his panting gasps for breath. He kicked out, stumbling awkwardly to his feet as Jim pulled him up and turned him around, supporting him until Blair could stand on his own. He was white with shock, and the center of his Hawaiian shirt was crumpled from Ross's grasp. "You hurt, Chief?"

Blair stared at him, then shook his head carefully. He didn't try to speak yet. "I need to call it in," Jim said, not letting go until Blair nodded again. Ross lay behind him on the floor, his left arm still bent at the elbow, his clutching fingers frozen, grasping nothing, as they would for all eternity now. Blair looked over his shoulder, his nostrils flared, his upper lip curled and trembling. A woman crouched behind the reference desk was crying softly and Jim heard faint and far off, the first wail of a siren.

Blair finally spoke. "He's dead."

"Yeah," Jim said.

"You know," Blair said in a weak voice, "I wondered what the heck he was doing in Special Collections."

"I mean, he was a Junior in a European history seminar." Blair was leaning heavily on the break room table outside Major Crime, holding a cold paper cup of vending machine coffee between his hands. He was telling the story again; Jim had lost track of how many times it was by that point. It didn't make any more sense as Blair launched into another bewildered rendition. "It's more rigorous than a 200 level survey, sure, but it's still not the sort of class where you would have your students go out and read original works in Middle High German. I knew there was something screwy about that. I knew it." He balled one hand into a fist and stared down at it. The blue eyes that had looked bright as a tropical lagoon to Jim six hours before were muddy and dull with exhaustion now.

"That's what he told you?" Simon had heard the story over and over again too, and it wasn't making any more sense to him than it did to Blair. He had the book Ross had died for in front of him on the table, and from time to time he put his hand on the black cover, as though all the answers were contained within, if only he could figure out how to get at them.

"Yeah, that it was for Nagle's seminar. That's what he told the librarian who pulled the book for him too."

"So he knew what he wanted. He didn't just grab the first thing he saw that looked old and valuable."

"Right, right. Special collections houses non-circulating books. You have to request the book, explain why you need it, do a whole little song and dance before they'll even pull a book for you in the first place. Then you can only look at it right there in the room. There's a librarian there the whole time."

"If they're so careful with their books, how did he get as far as he did with it?"

"I've been thinking about that." Blair shoved his hands through his hair, fruitlessly trying to push it out of his eyes. It was looking lank and unwashed, and probably felt that way as well, because he dug a tie out of the pocket of his jeans and pulled it back into in a sloppy pony tail as he talked to Simon. "Just when I was packing up my stuff to go meet Jim, there was all this commotion across the room because some girl had smuggled in a puppy in an outside pocket of her backpack. Some tiny little long-haired mutt. I didn't get a good look at it. Anyway something set it off. It starts barking, and the librarians freak, hustling the girl out of there, and nobody noticed what Ross was doing."

"You think she was in on it?" Simon asked.

"I don't know." Blair shrugged and looked across the table at Jim. "I don't think so, though. Ross had a gun. I think he was probably planning on using that to get out, and the thing with the dog was just a lucky break for him."

"Do you know who she was?"

"No."

"Would you recognize her again?"

'I don't know. Maybe, but I just don't know. I wasn't really paying attention."

"Sandburg not paying attention to a woman," Simon said, exasperated. It was probably supposed to be a joke, but they were all tired, and he ended up simply sounding brutal. "You really weren't good for anything tonight, were you?"

Blair let his hands drop to the table again where they lay empty and open, palms up in a blank sort of surrender. "Guess not."

Simon abruptly pushed himself back from the table. "It's late," he announced angrily, sounding ashamed of himself. "Go home, gentlemen. And, Jim, I want you on campus tomorrow with Sandburg. Find out how Ross Malitz got such a fatal bug in his ear about this old book."

"Yes, sir."

Simon leaned over the table, his hand on the book once more, this time as though he intended to push it across the table toward Blair. Jim had been leaning against the wall, but he straightened up fast, irrationally feeling he didn't want that damned book anywhere near Blair tonight. In the end, though, Simon simply made a gesture of dismissal and stalked out of the break room. Blair continued to sit where he was, looking at nothing in particular.

"It's after two," Jim said quietly. "I don't know about you, but I'm about ready to get home."

Blair nodded. "Yeah. Me too." He finally lifted his head, stretching from side to side as though trying to stretch a crick out of his neck. "We should leave this in Evidence on our way out. Ms. Jerome in Special Collections will be freaking out about it being out of the library bad enough as it is."

Jim was abruptly tired of hearing about it, and he reached across the table and lifted the book himself, mostly to keep Blair from picking it up. It was heavy and reeked of antiquity. "She'll just have to hold her horses on this like everybody else. This a is police investigation."

Finally, a crooked little almost-smile from Sandburg. Oh, his look said. Is THAT what this is?

Somehow heartened, Jim glanced down at the book. There was no lettering on the front, just a circle of seven stars stamped into the leather. The title was written on the spine, black on black in ornate lettering Jim couldn't have read even if it hadn't been in German. "What's the name of this again?"

"Unaussprechlichen Kulten."

"Right," Jim said, smiling.

"I don't know enough German -- and I can't read the old Gothic typeface print even if I could to know what it's about. I mean, 'Unspeakable Cults,' though, you assume it's probably about the witch trials. Germany got into that in a big way. Something like a hundred thousand people were executed. There's a famous account of so many stakes on the execution grounds in Cologne that it looked like a whole forest on fire." Blair's expression darkened, a terrible sadness coming over his face. "Sometimes it seems like there just isn't a whole lot of hope for the species, doesn't it?"

"Come on, Sandburg." Jim regretted the book in his hands that kept him from reaching out and putting his arm around Blair's slumped shoulders. "Let's go home."

Chapter 2

Blair realized he had been waiting ever since Jim fired. Even before that. In one tiny, screwed up corner of his mind he had been waiting from the moment he decided to step in front of Jim's gun. Sure, he had been mostly concerned with trying to get him and Ross both out of the mess alive, but in case he didn't, his consolation on the way to eternity would have been that at least he was missing the lecture.

OK, now that was seriously messed up. Blair grinned out at the empty night streets, but seeing his own wan reflection smile back, dropped the grin fast. He looked like a corpse. Poor Ross lying dead on the library carpet had had more color in his face. He glanced miserably back at Jim, wondering if it would come now, on the drive home. Jim's eyes were fixed on the road, though, and he hardly said a word except to ask, as they were passing the garish orange lights of an all-night coffee shop on Fifth, if Blair would like to stop for dinner. Breakfast. Whatever you called the meal you ate at 2:30 in the morning.

"No," Blair said. "Let's just get home," not thinking until the orange diner lights were only a reflection in the rear view mirror that Jim was probably the one who had really wanted to eat.

Their building looked abandoned and bleak, the bright, unpeopled storefronts on the ground level only seeming to emphasize how dark and still the upper stories were. Of course, somebody was obviously home since there was no street parking left on the whole block. Blair's Volvo was hogging a prime spot right across from the stairway door, for all the good it did them. For all the good it did him He didn't know if he really saw the parking ticket under the windshield wiper as Jim drove by, or if it was just knowing it had to be there that made him imagine a flash of yellow paper. "Oh shit. It's Wednesday night."

"Thursday morning by now," Jim corrected, not without sympathy.

"And I wasn't here to move the car. Goddamnit. Another twenty-eight bucks down the tube."

Jim shrugged, one hand coming up in a 'don't blame me' gesture, and turned onto Lincoln toward the waterfront.

"Come on, Jim, you can let me in on your big cop secret by now, don't you think? This weekly 'street cleaning' business -- it's all just a scam to raise revenue, isn't it?"

"Looks like you're onto us, Chief. Parking tickets on your car alone paid my salary last year."

"I can just about believe it," Blair pretended to grumble. He was smiling. A ribbing from Jim made him feel safe for the first time since Ross had pulled his gun. The fragile crust of order and reason might have fractured around him, but Jim was still here, they were both safe, and eventually most of the pieces would get picked up again. Just not Ross.

Jim swung an enthusiastic U turn in the middle of Lincoln and pulled the truck into a space Blair would have sworn was too small for it. They were right across from the dry cleaners, which reminded Blair he had dropped off a coat to be cleaned a month -- two months? -- ago, and he really should go claim it before they donated it to Goodwill. Then he dropped his head and fumbled for his seatbelt in exasperation, wondering what the hell was wrong with him anyway. His ideas and emotions were jumping around like drops of water on a hot skillet, everything in the universe apparently of equal import in his messed up head. How could he be thinking about his dry-cleaning when only a few hours ago he allowed Jim to kill one of his own students? How could he be joking about parking tickets?

"Sandburg," Jim said quietly, but Blair flinched anyway. The yellow glare of the streetlights fell on Jim's brow and hid his eyes. "Just a minute."

NOW? Blair thought. You don't say a peep to me whole way home and you bring it up NOW? "Yeah, Jim?" he said.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Jim's voice wasn't angry at all. He only sounded genuinely puzzled, and a little sad.

"Oh come on, Jim, I don't know," Blair snapped. He hadn't meant to sound like an jerk, and made a gesture of apology, not able to say more.

Jim stayed maddeningly cool. "You're telling me you don't know what you were thinking when you blocked my shot? Sandburg, three years you've been riding with me now. I count on you, you understand that? I've got to know you'll be backing me up."

"Jim, I am. I mean, of course you can count on me. I'm your partner."

"Then you wanna explain to me what happened?" The words themselves were brusque, but Jim's voice was still gentle.

"OK, so I was thinking you were about to shoot Ross, and I didn't want you to. What else can I say, man? I just wanted him to get a second chance, and I guess it was stupid of me, but I don't think I can apologize for that. I mean, he's a student of mine. Was a student of mine. God, the poor guy. I never even liked him. One of those bored with the whole world assholes that I can never reach, but he didn't deserve to die for that."

"I didn't draw on him because he was an asshole," Jim said. "He had a weapon and he was obviously dangerous."

"Yeah, I know, I know."

"I just want to be sure you do. It's bad enough that you were putting yourself at risk, but you were endangering me and every other person there by allowing Ross to hang on to that gun. I know you're carrying a heavy load right now. But if Ross had taken anybody else with him, it'd be a hell of a lot worse."

Blair stared out the front windshield of the truck. The yellow lights made everything so ugly at street level. Artificial, flat and washed out. Daylight turned inside out, showing you what you were better off not seeing in the first place.

"And if he'd taken you out, Chief, it would have left me knowing I let you ride with me all this time, and never taught you to handle yourself." Blair looked back at Jim. He was staring out the front too, his hands wrapped hard around the steering wheel like he expected someone to try and take it away from him. "And I'm not real sure what I could do with that, you understand me?"

Blair understood. Probably too well. "I know," he said, swallowing hard. He made a fist and bounced the side of his hand off Jim's solid shoulder a couple of times. Unable to meet Jim's eyes just yet, he groped under his feet for his backpack, then swung himself out of the truck. Before he had gone five steps, Jim caught the shoulder of his canvas jacket, and when Blair stopped, he slung his arm around Blair's shoulders without a word. They walked the long block together, the weight of Jim's arm keeping Blair tucked possessively close all the way to the stairway door. There was a parking ticket on the windshield of the Volvo, all right, but it didn't seem to matter very much anymore.

That night Jim dreamed of Emily, and in his dream it seemed to him that things had worked out between them after all. They shared a house in the suburbs, he and Em, and though it was small and cramped, with low ceilings and no view of the bay, Emily was happy. Midafternoon sun shone through red gingham curtains on the kitchen window, and Emily jogged a smiling baby boy in her arms, cooing at him. Jim glanced down at his own hand and saw a wedding ring. The child must be his son. "Can I hold him?" Jim asked, feeling a contented sense of wonder.

Emily smiled with that toothy little overbite of hers Jim especially liked. Jack had always been pestering her to see an orthodontist -- hell, honey, I'll pay for it, and I won't even run around on you while you've got a mouthful of metal, ha ha -- and Jim was glad she had refused.

"Jim, of course," she said, and shifted the child carefully into his arms. He gathered his son to his chest, marveling a little at his solid weight, at the way his fuzzy, oversized head bobbled forward against his chest and then rested there, one tiny fist curled in contentment against his shirt front. Emily was smiling at him, and the sunlight spilled through the kitchen window to make an elongated square of light on the linoleum at their feet. This was the way things were supposed to turn out, Jim thought to himself. It didn't matter that the ceilings were too low and the neighbors too close. This was the ordinary life he had always wanted, wasn't it? He'd found it at last.

And then a shadow crossed the square of sunlight. It was shaped something like a man, although the head was terribly misshapen. Jim looked up fast, but whatever had cast the shadow was already gone.

"What is it?" Emily asked, and before Jim could answer, both of them heard the rattle at the front door, and a voice Jim had never expected to hear again calling, "Emily, let me in."

Emily's eyes widened in horror. "Jim," she breathed, "You told me he wouldn't be back."

"Emily, don't do this," called the voice from the front of the house. "I know I'm an old dog, but I can change."

"Jim," Emily said again, "Jim, how could you?" She took the baby from Jim's arms and both of them melted away like a morning fog, leaving Jim alone in the claustrophobic house with Jack Pendergrast banging at the front door.

Jack was shouting for him now. "Slick? Are you in there?" Jack, who had spent the last four years in an unmarked grave, his face full of shotgun pellets, the soft places in his throat and belly eaten by the fishes nine miles down the river. "Come on, they killed me while you were at home screwing my old lady, and now you won't even let me in the front door? Have a heart, Slick."

*NO,* Jim shouted in his mind and sat bolt upright in bed. His bedroom was drenched in sunlight. He curled over his bent knees, breathing hard. It was only a dream. Jack hadn't come back. Emily was another man's wife, and she deserved every happiness. He was still breathing hard though, soaked in a cold, uncomfortable sweat.

And it was the middle of the day. Good lord, no wonder he was having nightmares. He should have been on campus with Sandburg hours ago.

He crashed his way out of bed and went thundering down the steps bellowing for Blair. "Sandburg, get your lazy ass in gear. We're late."

There was no answer from Blair's bedroom. Jim pushed open the French doors, and saw the bed was empty. "Blair!" Jim shouted, and nothing answered him. He was alone in the loft.

Oh, this was crazy. No way Sandburg would have gone off and left him. Just to be sure, though, he stepped out again and checked. The chain was still on the front door, and Jim felt something very cold trickle down the back of his spine. Blair wasn't in the loft, but wherever he had gone, he hadn't left by the front door. Jim turned around slowly, trying to reach out with his senses, but they seemed blocked and sluggish somehow. He moved back into Blair's bedroom, trying to be calm, forcing himself to concentrate. There was a draft in here. How had he not noticed it before? The window that overlooked the fire escape was open.

This wasn't possible. This couldn't be possible. Moving like a sleepwalker he walked to the side of Blair's bed and looked down at the bedclothes. Sandburg wasn't big on making the bed every day. Or every week. But even he didn't sleep in a bed with the sheets yanked up from under the futon and spilled halfway across the floor. It looked as though Blair had grabbed them and tried to hang on while someone pulled him out of bed.

Madness. Jim could never have slept through something like that. It just wasn't possible. Nevertheless, he walked slowly around and looked at the floor between the bed and the window. The geometry of the room seemed all wrong. The angles had never been square, but now they tilted and verged on the edge of insanity. Jim had to shut his eyes against a wave of vertigo, and when he could open them again, he saw the line of muddy, bare footprints leading away to the window. There was an indescribably foul smell in the room, and as Jim clapped his hand over his nose and mouth, trying to block it out, he saw that little toe on the left foot was missing.

"Jack," Simon was laughing sadly in his head. "So vain of that damned toe he even showered with his socks on."

Jim woke himself screaming for Blair. He heard the last shout dying away as he awoke to the darkness of his bedroom, but it was only a hoarse whisper. He lay still, eyes wide open, heart pounding with remembered terror. He reached out violently, despairingly, and found Blair safely asleep in his room below. His senses were so wide open he could hear every rustle of the blanket as Blair's chest rose and fell in a deep, steady rhythm. Sandburg, at least, was untroubled by bad dreams tonight.

It had to be almost morning, didn't it? He looked toward the skylights, but could see no predawn glow. The disorientation of the dream threatened to seize him once more, and he rolled over fast to look at his alarm clock.

It was only 3:30. He'd barely been asleep for an hour.

Damn. He rolled back onto his back and looked glumly upward, not wanting to close his eyes again lest the images of the dream come back to him. Think about something else. Let it go. Don't let your emotions get involved, isn't that what he was always telling Blair? He had to smile a little at that. And Blair listened so earnestly to those little cop lectures too. He'd have to ask Blair someday if he believed a single word Jim said.

Then he heard it. A dull, loud click, like a heavy latch releasing, and then a softer sound, a muffled smack like a body impacting against something that wouldn't yield easily.

Jim was out of bed, his gun in his hand, and half way down the stairs, before he realized the sounds weren't coming from inside the loft. He froze, straining to hear, but he had lost his bearings completely and couldn't find it again. It could have come from anywhere on the block, hell, anywhere in the city, just about, as widely as he had cast his senses when he awoke in the first panic of the dream. It wasn't here, though. He made his way slowly down the stairs, listening to his surroundings, feeling them on the surface of his skin, assuring himself everything was safe and reasonable. Everything in order. He walked to Sandburg's bedroom door, pushed it open, and looked in on his friend. Blair lay on his back, one bare arm on top of the covers, looking peaceful as a child as he slumbered. Jim wanted to speak to him, to comfort himself with the sound of Sandburg's voice, but it wouldn't be fair to wake him just because Jim was having a bad night.

He backed away from the open door, but though he was as quiet as he could be, he heard the change in Blair's respiration, and then a sleepy, quiet, "Jim? Something the matter, man?"

"No, Jim said, and was not surprised to find that it was now the truth. "Go back to sleep."

Chapter 3

Blair's Anthro class met in a room on the fourth floor of the Chemistry building. There were lab tables instead of desks, white boards on every wall covered with scrawled formulae and, in the air, a lingering miasma of sulfur, formaldehyde, and other, less identifiable substances that made Jim flinch when Blair opened the door for him.

"Yeah, I know," Blair said, flashing a smile like sun breaking through on a stormy day. "You think they're trying to tell me something here? First no parking permit, then I get stuck in a chem lab all the way across campus from Hargrove. It's enough to make a guy paranoid." Then the smile was gone as the dull, resigned grief Blair had gotten up with this morning settled over his features once again. Jim felt a stab of anger at Ross, and it didn't matter that the kid was dead. In some ways that only made it worse. He put his hand on the center of Blair's back and followed him into the room.

Most of the seats were already taken. Blair had wondered over breakfast this morning if anyone would even show up for the class, but Jim had known better. "You called it, man," Blair said quietly, dumping his books and notes on the instructor's desk. It was another lab table, this one with a sink and gas jets and a length of rubber tubing coiled on one side. "There's people here I haven't seen since the first day of class."

Blair's students fell silent, watching with wide, unblinking eyes Jim found faintly unnerving. "You can just, um, sit down anywhere there's a seat, I guess," Blair told him. Jim raised an eyebrow at that, hoping to make Blair smile again, but Blair was already turning his attention to his class and away from Jim. A few last students had slipped in behind them, scrounging for the remaining seats. The backpacks slung over their shoulders made them clumsy as turtles trying to navigate a maze, so Jim walked to the back of the room to get out of the way and stood against the wall by the window. The sill was littered with ballpoint pen caps and vending machine food wrappers, and through the grimy pane, Jim could see students on the sidewalks far below scurrying to make their classes.

He looked back toward Blair, who had stopped fussing with his books and papers to shove his sleeve back, obviously looking for the watch he had forgotten to wear once again this morning. "Anybody got the time?"

"Five of," someone volunteered on the front row, at the same time another student said, "I have three minutes after."

"That's great, thanks," Blair mumbled, and stepped out to check the clock in the hall. While he was gone, curious heads swiveled to examine Jim gravely, and Jim found himself wondering how Blair got used to it. Not that Sandburg was exactly the shy type, but being the object of such dispassionate interest felt a little too much like being a lab rat to Jim. It was a relief when Blair came back into the room, and the unblinking, passive eyes turned back to the front. Blair walked around the desk, ignoring the notes he'd been worrying over, and smiled at his students. Not the Sandburg radiance that could blind Jim in unguarded moments, but a quirky, half-sad expression, sympathetic and somehow vulnerable. Under the influence of that smile Blair's class lost some of its air of watchful tension.

"The Nambikwara are a nomadic band in Brazil's northern plateau," was the first thing Blair said. "And despite the fact they live now with only the barest rudiments of material culture, some anthropologists speculate they're really a southern offshoot of the great Chibcha civilization, which was still flourishing when the Spanish arrived."

There was a sudden scrabble for notebooks and pens -- obviously no one had been expecting anything substantive today -- and a querulous voice called out, "Can you spell that for us, Mr. Sandburg?"

Blair held up one hand, palm out, an expression that was half surrender, half a plea for patience. "It was all in this week's reading, people. Give me a moment and just listen, all right?" He was wearing that ugly green checked blazer that was at least two sizes too big for him, his glasses were sliding down his nose, and he looked to Jim as though he had suddenly leapfrogged a decade or two, and was already deeply immersed in the role of tenured professor. An eccentric one at that. This was where Blair really belonged, wasn't it? The ride with Jim these past three years was only a stepping stone along Blair's path, not the end of the journey. Funny how hard it was to remember that sometimes. Even funnier how miserable that little reality check could make Jim feel.

He glanced back out the window. In just the minute or two since he had last looked, the sidewalk below had cleared. There was only one person below the window now, an anonymous student in jeans and three layers of flannel, clutching a tall white paper coffee cup identical to the ones half of Blair's students had brought with them to class this morning. The student seemed to be gazing up at Jim's window.

Jim narrowed his focus, trying to meet the eyes of the watcher outside the window. He zeroed in on a hazel - colored iris flecked with gold, the pupil shrunk to a pinpoint in the bright spring sunlight, and as he did, he felt the first, floating contentment of a zone begin to creep over him. Whoops. He shut his eyes fast, and turned his head before he opened them again. He half expected Blair to have noticed what was happening, and felt a foolish instant of disappointment when he saw Blair was going on with his lecture, quite oblivious.

"One unique aspect about Nambikwara culture is their lack of burial rituals. They mourn bitterly when a friend or family member dies, but they believe the souls of the dead are carried up into the air, dispersed by the wind, and vanish forever. The body of the deceased is simply left on the ground where he or she died."

Blair put his hands behind himself on the lab table and heaved himself up with a grunt and his usual disregard of personal dignity. His feet swung six inches off the floor. "You and me, though," he said in a quieter voice, "We live in a society with a very different attitude about the responsibilities the living owe to the dead."

Rubbing his palms on his jeans he went on, "We feel a debt to those who die before us. Even the body of the deceased is accorded reverence. It's as though, by showing respect to the carcass left behind, we can somehow assuage what is often a profound sense of indebtedness, even guilt, at our own survival. We owe the dead something tremendous, even though the very nature of that debt makes it one we can never repay, no matter what we do."

Finally Blair looked over the heads of his class for a moment, finding Jim before he said the rest. "Ross Malitz was shot to death last night in the research library. I suppose everyone here already knows that. The morning paper had a pretty accurate write-up. I heard the channel 11 news last night called it a gun battle, but it really wasn't. There was only one shot fired, and that was by Detective James Ellison."

There was little reaction from the class, but Jim didn't think it was callousness, necessarily. A degree of shock, perhaps, at hearing what they already knew described so starkly. Only one woman on the back row turned to look at Jim.

Blair's face was composed, his voice mostly level, save for the little rumble as it dropped too low. "I don't know why Ross did what he did last night, but I want to understand it, if I possibly can. It won't take away what I feel for having survived when he didn't. I know it won't change the way his family and friends feel either, or any of you here today. The thing is, not trying to understand is worse. For us, regardless of our beliefs about the afterlife, the dead continue to matter, long after they're gone. This is a debt I owe to Ross."

Blair's class was silent, no one shifting on those uncomfortable lab stools, not a piece of paper rustling. Jim turned his head to glance out the window once more, and saw that the student who had been watching Blair's classroom window from far below was gone. He extended his senses instinctively to search, finding a trail of footsteps and following the sound until he realized there was no scent of coffee nearby. He followed another thread of sound and scent as it pattered away across campus, footsteps on cement, then asphalt, the strong smells of patchouli and grass mingling above and almost drowning out a faint, slightly stale scent of coffee. That wasn't the watcher's trail either. Casting about further he found the sharp acidity of fresh coffee in a paper cup, and followed it until he distinguished the click of heels on linoleum bearing the coffee away. Wrong again. He found another trail, then another, following more for the challenge of the hunt than with any real hope of finding his quarry. Besides, he had entirely lost his bearings by this point -- was he even following sounds on campus anymore? -- when suddenly he happened across a sound and its entwined scent he didn't understand. Clumsy footsteps, shambling and slow, splashing through water. A sewer. Those smells, at least, were unmistakable. What he didn't understand was the impossibly faint, far away glimmer of scent that was Blair Sandburg.

A mistake. It had to be. Blair's presence here in the classroom must be fooling his senses, but it was a damned odd illusion, Blair's scent reflecting back to him from such a distance. He was still trying to puzzle it out when the sound of Blair's voice saying his name broke Jim's concentration, and he lost the trail and the scent altogether.

"That's Jim at the back of the room there. Any of you who have taken classes from me before, you've probably already met him, I guess, or at least seen him around campus. He's the detective with the Cascade PD who lets me tag around with him while I research my dissertation, so you know he's got to be a pretty easy going kind of guy, right?"

Blair raised his head to smile at Jim, and this time Jim hardly noticed the curious faces that turned to regard him once more. He even managed what he hoped would pass as the advertised easy going smile himself. "If there's anything any of you know about what was going on with Ross," Blair went on, "please, you can talk to either one of us. You can catch me at the office, or call, or drop me an email, whatever. Just let me know. Even if it's just to talk. Same with Jim. You can call him at the station if you don't catch him here on campus." Blair rattled off the phone number, then slid off the desk and walked around to write it on the board. There was hardly an inch of clear space on the board, so he wiped a smeary space clean for himself with his sleeve.

So that's how he was always ending up with black and red stains on his shirt sleeves, Jim thought. He'd wondered.

Then Blair stopped talking. The hand holding the board marker froze, and Blair just stood there looking at something in the tangle of numbers and Greek letters. The hesitation lasted only a moment, but when he finally wrote down Jim's number at the station, Jim saw his hand trembling. What in the world? He was on the verge of going to Blair's side himself, to hell with this classroom full of sheep, but Blair finally turned back on his own and looked at the faces of his students without speaking. A long moment passed. Too long. Heads finally turned aside or looked down to escape Blair's searching gaze, and at length Blair shook himself slightly and said in a quiet voice, "That's all for today. I don't think any of us are in the mood for a lecture."

The resulting gust of movement was as sudden and irreversible as dry leaves whirled away by the wind. Notebooks were slammed shut and stuffed into backpacks, lab stools shoved back, and students streamed out of the room as through blown by that imaginary wind. Blair stood at the front, his hands empty at his sides, white faced, saying in a voice that sounded forlorn to Jim, "If there's anything you can tell me about Ross, please, you can call any time. Just let me know."

If anyone was listening, they gave no sign of it, and in a moment more the room was empty of students. Jim pushed himself away from the back wall and walked to the front, where Blair was stacking his notes and books together. He didn't look up to meet Jim's eyes until Jim was on the other side of the desk from him. Then he straightened up and shrugged. "Guess I didn't handle that very well, did I?"

"There wasn't really any good way to do it," Jim said, reaching across to pat the side of Blair's face.

"I guess not," Blair agreed, a fragile smile appearing for an instant.

"What's on the blackboard?"

"Did I jump that much? Oh man, I wonder if everybody else saw it too?"

"What is it?"

"I don't know. Probably nothing, but it gave me a nasty shock. There I'd been talking about poor Ross, and then to turn around and see this on the board -- I dunno. Look at this."

In the midst of scribbled formulae in half a dozen different handwritings was a grid of symbols that did look different. Jim came around the desk to examine it more closely. "See what I mean?" Blair said. "When's the last time you saw Hebrew letters in the middle of a stoicheiometry problem?"

"It's been a while," Jim said dryly, and was rewarded with another quick smile. "What is it? Can you read it?"

"I think so." Blair ran his finger along the top line of letters. "Pe-gimel-resh. It means corpse. Or carcass, I guess. You see why I nearly lost it? And look at this." He traced a line of letters along the side of the little grid as well. "It spells the same thing going down too. Just at first glance, it looks half way like Hellenic iamblichan theurgy mixed up with the Qabala, but I'm not sure at all. Or maybe I've just got the book Ross stole on my brain, and everything is starting to look all mysterious to me now."

Jim seized on the only word he recognized. "Kabala? Like magic spells, fortune telling?"

"Well, kinda." Blair made a warding-off gesture with one hand, palm out, as though shutting himself up before he could begin another lecture. "I really don't know anything about it, that's just what it looks like to me. Or you know, Jim, maybe this is all just crazy. I bet you anything a class in Hebrew mysticism meets in this room too, and I really need to relax." He ran his hand back through his hair, pushing it out of his face and looked up at Jim earnestly.

"Or maybe it does mean something," Jim said.

"Yeah." Blair nodded fast and picked up his notebook. "Yeah, maybe it does. I'll find someone in the religion department who can tell me more about this." He copied the letters carefully, and when he had finished, Jim reached for his wrist and wiped the odd little grid of symbols from the board himself with the sleeve of Blair's coat. "Are you sure that was a smart thing to do?" Blair asked, hardly seeming to notice being used as a human eraser. "It might be evidence or something."

He had a point, actually. Erasing the symbols had been unthinking instinct. "Too late now," Jim said, since he couldn't really explain what he'd done.

Blair looked at him curiously, but in the end he didn't ask Jim about it. He simply gathered his notebooks into his arms and said, "Let's go."

Ross's dorm mate was a kid named Eddie Norton. He was just as thin and pale as Ross had been, and his T-shirt and jeans were black, as was the duster he wore against the cold April wind. Even so, Jim thought he believed Eddie when he protested plaintively that he hadn't had any idea what Ross was planning, or why he had wanted the book so badly he'd been willing to kill for it. He was red-eyed, and his voice shook when he answered some of Blair's questions, but he was glad enough to let Jim buy him a hamburger and a double order of cheese fries at the student union, and he ate them with a gusto that went a long way toward convincing Jim this was a kid too interested in living to have had anything to do with Ross's self-destructive plans.

"I mean, lookit," Eddie said, interrupting himself to stuff half a dozen dripping cheese fries into his mouth and swallow them apparently whole. "He couldn't have needed the money -- his folks own like half of Rhode Island. And how much money could you get from a weird old book anyway? It doesn't make sense."

"Rhode Island?" Jim asked. "He was a long way from home, wasn't he?"

"No kidding," Blair put in. "Rainier's a good school and all, but it doesn't usually attract rich New England kids."

Eddie shrugged and picked up his burger again. The hamburger patty was beginning to slip out the back of the bun, along with a mayonnaisey slice of tomato. "He went to school somewhere back east his freshman year. I can't remember the name of it now. No place I've ever heard of."

"Do you know why he transferred?" Blair asked.

A frown creased Eddie's white brow. Thinking was apparently an unfamiliar activity, and that tended to convince Jim as well that Ross had not shared his plans with Eddie. Ross hadn't acted any too bright either, but his delusions had seemed, if nothing else, the end result of too much thinking rather than too little. "No, I don't know why he came out here," Eddie said at last. He pushed the innards of his hamburger back into the bun. "He would talk about stuff sometimes, but that was just Ross. Shit, I can't believe any of this. Ross was whacked, but he was a pretty good bud. I can't believe he's gone."

"What kind of stuff did he talk about?" Blair's voice was gentle. "I know this is rough, but if you can help us understand what happened, it would mean a lot."

Eddie nodded, his grief not preventing him from taking another bite before he answered. The wind picked up, whistling around the end of Apter Hall, scattering papers from the tables of other students. It was a cold afternoon to be eating on the outside patio, but the rare golden light of a sunny day and the cloudless blue sky seemed worth braving the wind.

"I don't know," Eddie said at last. "Just stuff. It always sounded pretty cool but -- I don't know. Things that seem really mind-blowing when you've got a buzz on, but the next morning don't make all that much sense. You know what I mean?"

Blair nodded, shivering as a fresh gust of wind blew his hair into his face. "Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. What kind of stuff did Ross talk about?"

"You know, about Rainier, about all the people who were getting offed here."

"What?" Blair asked incredulously. "Offed? Murdered?"

"Well, yeah." Eddie looked at Blair as though he was a little thick. "You know, like that maintenance guy who got stung by poisonous spiders, and the professor in the anthro department who was killed in the parking garage out behind Hargrove, and then the chick who taught archeology. Ross would talk about how they were all related, really, but the cops and everyone were too stupid to figure it out." He glanced at Jim and shrugged with an apologetic grin. "Like I said, just crazy stuff."

"That is crazy," Blair said sharply. "Hal Buckner and Emily Watson -- there was no connection between their murders."

"Hey, I'm just telling you what Ross said. Other stuff, too. Did you know they were storing a canister of ebola right here on campus, and that it got stolen? They tried to hush it all up so there wouldn't be a huge panic, but Ross said he knew all about it, that it was all true. And that research farm the university runs? If people had any idea the kind of things they were really breeding out there they would freak, just totally freak."

Blair's jaw was set, and he was looking away from Eddie expressionlessly. His hair blew in his face, hiding his eyes, and he didn't push it aside. Jim said, "OK, so Ross believed there was all this sinister stuff going on here on campus, and that it was all connected somehow. You're right, Eddie, it's all pretty incredible. But what I want to know is what he thought the connection was."

Eddie made a face, scrunching up his nose. "Well, that's the part that never made all that much sense the next morning. But you know on those episodes on Star Trek, where something goes wrong and the hologram starts to buzz and get staticky and then Captain Picard or the Romulans or whoever it was can see through the hologram and see what's really there? Well, Ross said Rainier was like that, and if you were standing at the right place at just the right time, then when the hologram went down you would be able to see what was really there too. It could be really dangerous, which is why people keep dying, but Ross thought it would be totally cool too. He said he had it all figured out."

"I don't think I do," Jim observed mildly.

"Well, he didn't really believe Rainier was just a giant hologram," Eddie said. "At least, I don't think that's what he meant. But that's why he was so psyched about finally getting into your class, Mr. Sandburg." Eddie finally put down the remains of his burger, his face going sad again, as though he had just remembered his room mate had been shot to death last night.

"My class?" Blair turned. "He wanted to be in my class? Why?"

Eddie looked appealingly at Jim, as though Jim would understand what Blair was apparently too dense to get. "That's the only thing that was obvious about it. Whenever something bad happens on campus, Mr. Sandburg's like always there in the middle of it."

Blair reeled like a man who'd just been blindsided. "What?"

"Come on, man," Eddie said with a snort of disgust. "Don't act so stupid. It happened again last night."

The beep of Jim's cell phone interrupted them. Great timing, Jim thought in helpless exasperation. "Excuse me," he said, and rose and walked a step away from the table to take the call. "Ellison."

"Jim." Simon's voice, angry and curt. "Where the hell are you?"

"Here on campus with Sandburg, sir. Where you told me to be."

"Well now I'm telling you to get back to the station," Simon growled. "Everything's just gone to hell in a handbasket."

"Excuse me, sir." Something was really riding Simon's ass. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Dammit, Jim, someone broke into the morgue before dawn last night and stole Ross Malitz's body."

Chapter 4

Blair was waiting in the corridor outside Nagle's history seminar, hoping for a chance to talk to the professor when class let out. Hard to believe Professor Nagle or his medieval European seminar could have had anything to do with Ross's death, but Ross had mentioned Nagle that evening, so it couldn't hurt to check. Blair was covering all the bases. Doing things in neat, tidy Jim-fashion. Best way he knew to impose order on chaos.

And things were chaotic. Let's not forget crazy. Spooky crazy. Keep-looking-over-your-shoulder crazy. It was like David Lash all over again. Even worse, in a weird sort of way, and that was saying something. Eddie's story was a special little nightmare in a class all its own. Not that it was such a revelation to learn Ross hadn't been dealing from a full deck. That much, at least, had been abundantly clear during the last minutes of the kid's life. But if Eddie were to be believed, Blair had been the hapless star of Ross's private delusions for months. Maybe even for years. It was that cautious, careful, spider patience that made the face of Ross's madness so frightening. Just too damn much like David Lash, wasn't it? But even worse, because apparently Ross's delusions weren't so private after all. For crying out loud, someone had cared enough about them, or at least about Ross, to break him out of the morgue last night. David Lash's own father had refused to claim his son's body.

And hey, you know, wasn't it way, way past time to stop thinking about David Lash?

A door slammed somewhere in the building, and Blair flinched, drawing curious stares from students beginning to congregate in the hall for their next classes. "Not enough sleep last night," Blair offered with a shrug and a grin. "Always makes me jumpy."

Nobody smiled back. Not the jock in the Jags t-shirt, shoulders straining at the seams, no surprise there, but the little hippie girl in the broomstick skirt looked just as blankly at him, and the copper-haired, porcelain-skinned beauty queen who didn't even bother pretending to carry books around (a backpack would have wrinkled that linen dress) made a faint grimace of distaste. Okaaay. Blair's hands came up, making a whoa-excuse-me-for-living gesture. What was the matter with these people?

Or maybe a better question would be what was the matter with him. He was a walking bundle of nerves. No wonder he was weirding out the people around him. He needed to just calm down, stop thinking everyone he passed might be in Ross's coterie of true believers. Like his own class this morning. They had been so distant, so cold, when he talked about Ross's death. Had some of them known what Ross had been planning? Had one of them written those symbols on the board?

And on and on and on, and give it a REST already. That kind of thinking was just crazy, paranoid nonsense, because if Ross had been proselytizing, it hadn't been during class. Blair couldn't remember seeing him even talking to anyone else. He had just sat in the back row with a sullen frown on his face, barely even pretending to take notes. Not that anyone in that class had shown signs of becoming the next Richard Leakey. Spring quarter classes were notorious for attracting students who were only there because they'd suddenly realized they needed another GE on their transcripts, and Ross had seemed like another face in the listless crowd. Anyway, Blair thought, trying to be fair to his class, one of their classmates had been shot dead the night before. No wonder they'd been a little stunned and dull. Kids that age liked to pretend they had seen it all and were incapable of being shocked by anything, but Blair knew himself what a facade that was. At nineteen or twenty, firsthand evidence of one's own mortality wasn't accepted easily. Ross certainly hadn't accepted it. Right up until the moment Jim put a bullet in his head he'd been insisting on his own immortality.

Oh, good going, Blair. That line of thought will calm you right down.

Damn. Maybe it was childish of him, but he really, really wished Jim could have stayed on campus with him. They were supposed to be doing this together -- that had been the plan for today, before Ross's body had so inconveniently disappeared. Jeez, who could have anticipated something so crazy? Of course, knowing Simon's managerial style he was probably blaming Jim anyway. He'd have been happier scapegoating Blair, but Blair wasn't within reach. Jim was. So Blair wouldn't call, no matter how badly he wanted the reassurance of Jim's voice. He didn't have any new information, and Jim had enough on his hands. Jim was doing his job. He was counting on Blair to do his.

There, that was better. By the time the door to Nagle's classroom swung open and people began trickling out into the corridor in groups of two and three, Blair felt as though he was finally getting his emotions under control. Nothing to be ashamed of, still feeling shaky and vulnerable less than twenty-four hours after the shooting, but it wasn't useful either. It could be put aside for the time being, while Blair dealt with more important things.

He made his way into the classroom along with the students who were coming in for their next class, and saw Nagle still at the front of the room, surrounded by half a dozen students who were vying for attention, or simply listening with every evidence of being enraptured. Nagle's sharp black eyes darted across the room, picking out Blair instantly from the other people coming into the room, but he didn't pause in his monologue.

Blair sat on the corner of a desk in the front to wait. He had a passing acquaintance with Nagle. Back in the days when he had been trying to scare up a dissertation committee, Buckner had suggested Nagle for one of the required out-of-department committee members, so Blair had dutifully gone and talked to him. Professor Nagle had been profoundly unimpressed with Blair's prospectus, and told him so, but Blair really couldn't hold that against the man. Almost every faculty member he'd approached had turned him down. It had taken nearly 18 months just to put together a committee.

Nah, he had a much better reason to dislike Nagle, he thought, and had to laugh at himself. Jealous, Sandburg? Well, all right, maybe he was, just a little. Nagle was a hugely popular instructor. His lectures were dynamic, sparkling performances, brilliant, accessible, and funny. At sixty, he still wore his blue jeans convincingly, and had aquiline features and a shock of silver hair that made him an arresting figure. His classes routinely had waiting lists fifty names long, and his students adored him.

He was the kind of teacher Blair had always thought he could be too, at least in his secret, immodest, heart of hearts. Hey, he was funny, he was smart, he loved teaching, loved his subject matter, knew he could identify with his students, was certain he could connect with them. His first solo 101 class had been a revelation. It turned out not every important idea in the world could be made funny and accessible. And while he was close in age to his students, there was some stuff about them he'd just couldn't understand. The intellectual laziness, the fashionable ennui. The implicit demand that it was somehow his responsibility to coax them into wanting to learn. Blair just didn't get it. This was the whole world, and you only got one lifetime. Just one shot, folks, so what sort of lazy-assed blockhead would waste any opportunity? Sometimes, he even got exasperated enough to tell his class so, and by the end of his first quarter of teaching, he had figured out he would never be a very popular teacher.

Oh well, he still had a lot to learn about being a teacher, he knew. Funny how hanging out with Jim had made him realize that, more than all his years at the university ever had. And if there was anything Blair knew he despised, it was teachers who blamed their students for their own shortcomings. Look at him, already on his way to becoming just as bad. Maybe he should audit some of Nagle's classes sometime, see if he could pick up some tips.

The lecturer for the next class had arrived by then and, acquainted, no doubt, with the difficulty of prying Nagle out of the room, was drawing attention to himself by erasing the blackboard with wildly enthusiastic strokes. At length Nagle waved his lingering disciples away, saying, "Regular office hours on Thursday," picked up his briefcase, and made his way out of the room.

Blair had to take a few quick steps to catch up. "Excuse me, Dr. Nagle, if you have a minute, I need to talk to you."

Nagle never even slowed his pace. "Blair Sandburg, isn't it? No, I'm sorry, I have an appointment off campus. I'm afraid it will have to wait."

It was like trying to keep up with Jim, Blair having to take a step and a half for every one of Nagle's. "Please," he said, "this is important. It's about Ross Malitz."

"A terrible tragedy," Nagle said flatly. "You were there when it happened, weren't you?"

"Yeah," Blair said. "Yeah, I was. And now I'm doing the best I can to try and figure out why it happened."

The professor shook his head. "The only person who could have answered your question is dead already."

"Ross, you mean." They passed through the double doors out of the history building and into the brightness of a spring afternoon. The wind was blowing colder than ever, driving stray papers twisting and spinning across the lawn. Blair shivered and shoved his hands deeper into his coat pockets. "You're probably right -- I mean, of course you are, but I'm just trying to put together the pieces."

"What good can that do now?"

"Maybe none," Blair answered, choosing his words carefully. "But I won't know until I try. Ross was in your history seminar, wasn't he?"

"Clearly you already know that he was," Nagle said. "I resent being asked questions you already know the answers to. You sound like someone who's been hanging around police departments too long."

"I'm sorry," Blair said, a mostly sincere apology. "I'm just trying to understand the sequence of events. Did you know what book Ross was trying to steal? It was von Junzt's Unaussprechlichen Kulten. What's tough for me is figuring out how a guy who practically slept through all my classes knew the first thing about rare 15th century German witchhunting manuals."

Nagle turned his head and raised an eyebrow. "It seems you don't expect very much from your students, Blair. And von Junzt's treatise is not about -- about witchmongering." He spat the word out with distaste.

"So you did talk about the book in class?"

"I certainly discussed Rainier's collection. This is a seminar on the late medieval mind -- of course I wanted my students to be aware of the treasures we have here. The Bollingen Collection is the finest of its kind west of the Mississippi. With the exception of Cornell's White collection and of course Miskatonic's library holdings, it's probably the finest in the country."

"The Bollingen Collection. Right, that's right, I know a little bit about it. Books on alchemy and magic and stuff. The first president of Rainier purchased them from monasteries and private libraries all over Europe while he was in service as minister plenipotentiary to Berlin. I've never had much opportunity to use them in my field, but I understand there are a lot of pretty amazing books."

Nagle nodded in grudging approval. The brick walks were crowded with students hurrying to make their classes, and Blair had to turn sideways to make room for the flow of people going the opposite direction. Nagle didn't wait, and Blair stepped off onto the grass and half-jogged to catch up to him. "But the book Ross took. Did you mention it specifically in class?"

"I really don't remember."

"Was the von Junzt book particularly rare or valuable?"

"Rare? Well, all the books in the collection are rare and unusual, but this one was merely a seventeenth century reprint. There were many books that would be worth more to a collector of antiquities than that particular volume." Both he and Blair had to stop and wait at the crosswalk to the north campus parking lot.

"Can you think of anything at all? I'm just trying to figure out why, of all the books Ross might have asked for, he wanted that particular one. So it wasn't about witchcraft. Then what was it about?"

At a break in the traffic, Blair stepped out into the crosswalk, expecting Nagle would continue on his precipitous way. Instead though, the professor just kept standing on the curb, an expression on his face, Blair saw when he stepped back, as though he were making up his mind about something.

"Von Junzt's Kulten has a special status, I suppose you could say," Nagle explained at last. "It's one of those books that's widely known by specialists in the field, but seldom actually read."

"Oh, I understand," Blair agreed quickly. A definite thawing, there, wasn't it? "Like anthro profs that I swear get all their information on Girard from the digests, or lit people who've never really made it all the way through Middlemarch."

Nagle almost smiled. Probably the same smile that enthralled his undergrads, but Blair could live with that. At least they were finally making some progress.

"As a young man in the service of Count Palatine of Siradz, Gottfried von Junzt traveled as far east as Constantinople. In the course of his travels, he observed certain, ah, survivals that were very surprising to an educated man of his day."

"Survivals?" Blair darted a quick glance over his shoulder, suddenly having the unpleasant sensation he was being watched. The walks behind him were crowded with students and faculty. If someone had their eyes on him, there was no way for him to know it. Feeling the cold wind more keenly, Blair pulled his coat tight, crossing his arms over his chest. "Survivals of what, exactly?"

Nagle cocked his head, black eyes sparkling in the sunlight. "It would probably be an anachronism to call them religious observances. Say, then, certain rites and practices that were already ancient when Sarab and Ganj-Dareh themselves were young."

Blair fell back a step, struggling to keep his face neutral. "Von Junzt noticed that Marian shrines looked a little bit like pagan goddess worship?" he said, wondering if the tone of his voice betrayed him. "Something like that?"

"Oh no. Oh, no, even the ancient fertility cults are only a cover for something far older. Rites that came down from the Pa I-Taq Pass to Samarra on the banks of the Tigris, and thence to Ur and Nippur."

"Dr. Nagle," Blair interrupted, "A man of von Junzt's time couldn't have known about Kermanshah villages, I don't care how widely traveled he was. Excavations didn't even begin until the 19th century, and I seriously doubt he would even have known anything about Samarran caravan routes. What are you talking about here?"

"I'd expect an anthropologist to understand. Mankind's oldest secret. The dark rites that predate civilization, that will continue long after civilization's end."

Blair wiped his hand over his mouth. He could feel himself trembling. "Professor, is that the sort of thing you've been telling your class?"

"What a closed mind you have, Blair. Surprising from a scholar who's based his own life work on finding Burton's superman."

He's baiting you, Sandburg. Blair could almost hear Jim's voice saying the words in his head. You hit the jackpot, all right, so keep it cool, and don't lose your head now.

He met Nagle's mad, bright black eyes steadily. Jim was right. There was no point in arguing with a lunatic. "At any rate," Blair said, keeping his voice quiet so it wouldn't shake, "it sounds to me as though you did discuss Kulten with your class. Probably extensively."

Nagle gave a little shrug of acknowledgement. "It would be difficult to conduct a class in the medieval world view responsibly without discussing von Junzt's findings. Naturally, there was no reason for me to go into detail. Not with a class of undergraduates, at any rate. Now if you'll excuse me, I do have to be going."

"Go into detail about what?" Blair asked, physically moving in front of Nagle before he could step into the crosswalk.

Nagle laughed, whether at the question or at Blair's attempts to impede his progress, Blair didn't know. "There's a very good reason von Junzt's book is often spoken of, yet seldom read. Not all knowledge is a good thing, is it, Blair? You know that as well as I do." He grinned at Blair. "Like the kids say, 'Too much information, man.'"

Blair was really starting to hate that smile. "How about this?" he asked. He swung his backpack off his shoulder and dragged his notebook out.

"Blair, I'm going to be late," Nagle complained mildly.

"This," Blair said, flipping it open to the grid of symbols he'd copied from his classroom board. "Is this from Kulten?"

He couldn't read Nagle's expression at all. He looked down at Blair's notebook, and then up at Blair with a face as blank as an egg. "Dr. Nagle?" Blair prompted at last, at the same moment his cell phone shrilled in his backpack, the sound startling them both.

Dr. Nagle shook himself and stepped away. "I'm late," he announced, and took off across the street, half-loping in his haste. Blair was tempted to follow, but hoping it was Jim calling him, he dug out the phone instead and let Nagle go. "Sandburg."

God, it was good to hear Jim's voice.

"Jim, you won't believe the conversation I've been having with Ross's history professor. He is nuts man, lock 'im up and throw away the key certifiable." Blair turned and started to walk back toward Hargrove, trying to keep his voice down and thinking, as he stepped off the sidewalk onto the grass to keep from getting run over by a pack of sorority girls in matching plaid wool miniskirts, how much he hated people who walked around chatting on cell phones. "The things he's been telling his class, I don't know, it's no wonder Ross went off the deep end. Somebody's got to get that man out of the classroom before he can screw up any more kids, and I wouldn't be surprised if he told Ross to steal the book himself. What's up at the station? Do you need me to come down there? Can you get Simon to ask for a warrant? I think somebody should search Nagle's office. There's no telling what you'd find."

"Whoa, hold on, hold on. Who is this guy?"

"Peter Nagle. A history professor here. Ross was in his class -- they had talked about the book Ross tried to steal in class."

"Doesn't sound like a lot to go on."

"No, Jim, you don't understand. You should have heard this guy, trying to tell me about secret rituals dating back to paleolithic times, practically. Crazy stuff. I expected him to tell me next that aliens built the pyramids. I'm telling you, this is not the sort of thing you'd expect to hear from a tenured history professor. Something is way wrong there. You gotta trust me on this."

"OK, OK, sounds like we should both have a talk with him."

"What's going on at the station? You find out anything?"

Jim sounded tired. "Just that whoever stole Ross's body had to have followed the ambulance straight from the school last night, been right here in the station with us."

"What? Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. The perpetrators broke out of the morgue last night, not into it. They must have been locked in with the body."

"Oh my god." Blair stopped dead. "Jim, this is all just too weird. You want me to come down to the station?"

"No, I'm sorry, Chief, that's why I'm calling. Ross's parents are flying in, and they're due any time now. Simon doesn't want you around while they're here."

"Jim, I don't think --"

"He's got a point. This isn't a good time to draw any more attention to your observer status than we have to. Not while things are still such a mess down here. You can imagine how the comissioner is breathing down Simon's neck on this."

"OK," Blair agreed reluctantly. "All right, I guess so."

"Good man. I'll see you tonight. Might be late getting home."

"All right, I --"

When he realized he was talking to a dead line, Blair turned off the phone and stuffed it into his backpack. Just when he thought things couldn't get any stranger, he thought ruefully. What next?

And then there it was again, dammit, that creepy, cold air on the back of his neck feeling. He whirled around fast, just in time to lock eyes for an instant with a woman across the quadrangle, standing on the steps of the Law Library. Blair raised his hand in a tentative wave, even though he didn't recognize her, and the woman quickly ducked her head and turned away.

Chapter 5

Blair realized he hadn't stopped thinking about Lash. He was thinking about him as he crossed to the Law Library and walked through the lobby and the first floor stacks, not actually looking for the girl he'd seen watching him, just refusing to turn his back on her, because that was the mistake he'd made with David Lash. Turned his back on him. When he'd seen Lash reflected in the window of the cab, some part of his brain had already started putting the pieces together, but what had he done about it? Nothing but glance over his shoulder and be mostly relieved to see that whatever had cast the reflection of someone who was Blair and yet so absolutely not-Blair had already stepped out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind. That sort of thinking had allowed Lash to herd him home like a scared sheep split off from the flock. Practically invited Lash to grab him.

Well, never again. Never, ever again. Hey, there was a time and place to turn tail and run, he knew that. But not when running was exactly what your enemy wanted you to do. Assuming there were any enemy here at all. Assuming the girl he'd glanced from across the quad had really been watching him in the first place. For instance, maybe she'd just seen him from across the way and been so taken by his boyish good looks she hadn't been able to tear her eyes away. Blair grinned to himself, cheered for a minute. Right, Sandburg. Well, it was just about as likely as assuming she was in Ross's big secret posthumous cult.

Or maybe it was Nagle's.

At any rate, it was a moot point because there was no sign of her here, and the longer he walked through the stacks, peering around every carrel and glancing into the windows of all the conference and study rooms, the less certain he became he'd even recognize her if he saw her again. She'd been wearing blue jeans, right? With some sort of flannel jacket and shoulder length light brown hair. In other words, just like half the students on campus. In all probability she'd gone right through the building and out the other end, taking the shortcut between the student union and the upperclass dorms on the north side of campus, and he was completely wasting his time.

He turned around and went back out the double front entrance again, blinking in the bright sunlight. The sky was a hard, clear, cloudless blue, and budding trees on the quad were bent double by the bitter wind, their branches outstretched like imploring arms. Spring or not, Blair was freezing. Maybe he had another coat in his office he could get. Probably he had half a dozen. He was bad about leaving them at school and then being forced to borrow Jim's. Which was fine until he left Jim's at the office too.

Then he should see what he could find out about Peter Nagle. That had to come first, whatever else happened with the investigation. It would take a helluva smoking gun to get a tenured professor out of the classroom, but the man was bad, bad news. Blair had to try before any other kids ended up like Ross. He'd look up Nagle's vita, check his publications, see if he had committed any of his lunatic ideas to print. Hard to imagine anyone would publish his rantings, but it was a place to start.

There, that sounded like a plan. Then catch the bus back home and see what was up with Jim. The poor guy had sounded beat on the phone, and with Ross's parents arriving, the worst was yet to come for him. Blair would get to the loft first, be sure there was a good dinner in the oven for them both. Least he could do. And if that meant he would have to be sure and leave campus well before dusk, well, then, so that's what it meant. He shook his head at his own skittishness but didn't try to argue himself out of it as he half-jogged across the quadrangle, his backpack jouncing on his back and his hands shoved deep in his pockets as protection against the cold wind.

Ross's parents didn't want to see Jim, and he was unabashedly relieved by that, though he would have talked to them if they had asked. Even over Simon's protests. It was Simon's job to protect the department, and any expressions of sympathy could come back to haunt them in the liability suit the grieving parents might bring one day down the road. Jim knew that. He even understood it, in the same way he understood why a two-bit stickup artist with a couple of convictions behind him would kill the clerk at the next store he robbed, rather than leave an eye witness who could send him up again. Understanding the point of view didn't mean he agreed with it. As far as Simon's concern about liability issues went, well, there was a limit. You couldn't let lawyers dictate your humanity, because once you did, you were well on your way to forgetting what justice was supposed to be all about. Too many people in the system like that already.

Something about having Sandburg around made it all the more important to stand fast against the creeping, incremental compromises, too. Jim had never been very good at those games anyway, as Carolyn had always been quick to tell him. Simon didn't exactly keep his opinions to himself either. But with Sandburg there, watching him in unguarded moments with that -- that look in his eyes. Like Jim could save the whole world if he wanted to, given enough time. It would be an impossible expectation to try and live up to, except Blair never gave Jim time to think about it. The very next minute he'd be pushing Jim toward the door demanding they go to Waterfront Park while the wind was coming out of the west and a fog was rolling in, and they should do a couple of experiments to see how that affected his ability to judge distance and by the way Jim, you didn't really want to go to that steakhouse tonight for dinner, did you? Not when there's a great new Vietnamese place that's just opened up, organic AND vegetarian, sounds great doesn't it?

Jim smiled to himself, shaking himself out of his musings. As a matter of fact, the Vietnamese place had been pretty good. Worlds better, at any rate, than the fast food Mexican joint where Jim had stopped on his way to the station this afternoon. The soda he'd gotten with lunch had been sitting mostly forgotten on his desk all afternoon, and a puddle of condensation was slowly spreading from its base, advancing on a stack of files in inexorable degrees. That really had to be dealt with, sooner rather than later by this point. Jim picked up the paper cup, swinging it out in a wide arc to try to avoid dripping all over the desk, and succeeded about as well as he had expected he would. Now he had a puddle of condensation on the desk and an arc of water droplets splattered across all the files and papers. What a mess. Looked like Sandburg had been sitting there.

He carried the cup over to the water fountain, still dripping water with every step, pried off the lid, and dumped the remains down the drain. The melted ice had settled in a layer of water on top of the darker soda, and they poured out together in mingling ribbons, circling the drain and disappearing down the tiny holes punched in the metal. There were sparkles of round brightness where the surface tension held bubbles of water poised for an instant before they broke and were replaced with darkness.

"It's called a water fountain." A heavy hand fell on Jim's shoulder, the weight of it and the sound of Joel's amused voice bringing Jim back. "Makes you wonder what they'll think up next, don't it?"

"Hey," Jim said, shaking his head. He'd been gone there for a minute, hadn't he? He crumpled the empty cup in his hand and dropped it into the trashcan across the way. A neat hook that would have made Sandburg proud. "Little tired is all."

"Yeah, I hear you. How you feeling? IA got their claws into you yet over this?"

"Not yet. I've got an appointment in the morning, but I don't think it'll be any problem. It was pretty cut and dried."

"Hell of a thing, though. Come on, a library book? And now the body's missing? Makes you wonder what's next. Is Sandburg all right?"

"Little shook up. He's all right."

"Good." Joel nodded. "Good. You tell him he's doing all right."

"I will."

"Hey, he's keeping you on the straight and narrow." He elbowed Jim in the ribs, hard enough for Jim to feel it, laughed at Jim's exaggerated wince. "I know that's gotta be a fulltime job."

There was a trail of dark drops leading back to Jim's desk, and the puddle of condensation on the surface had reached the end of his desk and was dribbling to the floor a drop at a time. Have to wipe that up. Jim scanned the other desks, looking for napkins left over from somebody else's takeout lunch. Water continued to fall, a quick rush of droplets spilling over the edge, then slowing, and Jim was still standing there, thinking about the grid of little round holes in the drinking fountain drain. Sparkling with reflected light for a moment as they held the water, then rushing away into darkness.

Jim could hear things in the darkness. Water splashing in vaults of stone and metal. And the other thing. It was really always with him, wasn't it? All he had to do was be still a bit and listen. Footsteps coming in slow procession. Clumsy but indefatigable. For the love of heaven, Chief, what is that?

And then, just like before, something of Blair shimmered out at him from the darkness, bright as a lock of his curly hair in the sunlight. He reached for it, scent, sound, a vision, touch or taste, but whatever he was sensing, it was too subtle to be caught. Something had caught Blair, though. What other explanation could there be? Why else would Blair be with something that shuffled endlessly through the wet, stinking darkness?

"Jim! What's wrong with you? Siddown before you fall over."

Joel was practically holding him up, both big hands wrapped in the shoulders of Jim's coat. "I'm OK," Jim heard himself muttering. He brought up his hands, trying to pull free, but Joel wasn't buying it. He steered Jim forcibly around and sat him down at his desk.

"Are you sick? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Jim shook his head. "I'm fine," he lied. "I'm fine." He couldn't find his way back to the darkness now, the way his heart was pounding in his chest, certainly not with Joel still leaning over him, one hand still on his shoulder.

Jim groped for the telephone on the desk and punched in Blair's number. It rang once, twice. One more time and Jim was going to hang up and drive straight to campus himself, but then Blair picked up the phone, saying, "Hey Jim, is that you? You should have called me on my office phone. These calls cost money, you know."

I know, Jim thought, weak with relief at the sound of Blair's voice. He was the one who paid the cell phone bill, and it had never seemed a better investment than it did at this minute.

"What's going on?" Blair said. "Has anything new turned up?"

"Is that Sandburg?" Joel asked. Jim nodded, and at that, Joel finally let him go and moved away to his own desk, still scowling with worry.

"No," Jim said. He swallowed. "No, nothing new on this end. We might have something when the fingerprint analysis comes back. I was just wondering -- uh -- if you wanted a ride home this evening."

"Sure," Blair said happily. "When have I ever turned down a ride? Are you leaving now?"

How he wished he could. "No. It may be a little while. Simon's meeting with Ross's parents. He wanted me to stick around until after they left."

Blair's voice was warm with sympathy. "Do they want to talk to you?"

"Not so far. It may be a couple of hours, though. I'll just give you a call before I leave."

A moment of hesitation, then Blair said, "You know, it's a little after five now. I was just gonna catch the bus home anyway. Tell you what, I'll go ahead and do that, then I can have a good dinner started by the time you walk in the door. I think we could both use some home cooking. I'll even thaw out a sirloin for you. Heck, I'll get one out for me too. It feels like a red meat sort of night."

There had to be some good reason to tell Blair to just stay put on campus until Jim could get there. A reason besides persistent auditory hallucinations anyway.

"Jim? Hey, Jim, are you all right?"

Or maybe he could just blow off Simon and go pick up Sandburg right now. "I'm all right," was all Jim said.

"I've got a better idea," Blair announced in a quiet, quick voice. "I'll come down there, meet you at the station and we can head home together. Don't worry about Simon, I'll be invisible. Nobody will even know I'm there."

Sandburg going unnoticed. Oh yeah. Things might be a little crazy and out of sorts today, but not THAT crazy. "Nah, Blair, your first idea was better. I'll see you at home. Need me to pick up anything for this big dinner?"

"Not that big. Just salad and some veggies and I think we've got plenty of frozen. I'll be sure not to start anything that won't keep in case you get held up there. I should just expect you when I see you. Is that about the size of it?"

"Sounds like it. Listen, Sandburg --"

"What is it?"

Jim looked at the puddle of water on his desk. Most of the water had bled away onto the floor, and little more than the outline remained. "Blair, this is a funny kind of case. Just keep an eye out, all right?"

"Hey, I always do," Blair assured him. "Jim, listen to me for a second here, though. You're really all right?"

"I'm all right," Jim said. "See you tonight."

Blair wasn't so sure Jim was all right. When was the last time Jim had called him just to say hello? There'd been the excuse of offering a ride home, but that had only been an afterthought, Blair knew. He sat there in his office after Jim hung up the phone, thinking about it. Wondering if he should show up at the station anyway, because it sure sounded as though Jim needed some moral support there. Blair was feeling pretty shaky himself, but Jim was the one who had pulled the trigger last night. No matter how justified it had been. Despite the fact there had been no other way, it must be rough on Jim, especially with Ross's parents there. It made Blair's heart ache to think about it.

In the end, though, he decided to go straight home after all. If Jim was having a hard time, Blair showing up at the station when he'd been emphatically uninvited wouldn't help. Sighing, he stuffed the books and xeroxes he'd gathered during the afternoon into his backpack, found Jim's nice brown bomber jacket hanging on the back of his office door, and jogged across campus to the bus stop where he was just in time to see he'd wasted so much time dicking around trying to make up his mind that he'd missed the five-twenty bus.

Shit. It was a fifteen minute wait until the next one, and it was cold outside. He sat down on one of the concrete benches, the cold leeching quickly through his blue jeans. Man, was he ready for summertime. April was lovely and all, but it was just too damn cold for him. He dug a handful of photocopies out of his backpack to distract himself while he waited. Professor Peter Nagle's academic legacy. Nagle wasn't a prolific author, but the articles he had published were in sound journals. Blair didn't much expect to find ranting about secret religious rites in them, and glancing over them as he had copied them seemed to bear out his prediction. He read over the first article in his stack with more care, doggedly looking for something -- a word, a phrase, just a hint of the same craziness that had gleamed from Nagle's eyes this afternoon.

Nothing. Just brittle post-structuralist play, punning deconstruction of texts in four languages. Densely composed, even brilliant in their way, if a little dated by now. Utterly empty. Clean as a newly white-washed room. Nagle wrote about the forces and counter forces of Catholicism and Protestantism, sacred and profane languages, the rise of literacy, witchcraft prosecutions, the education of women and the tradition of alchemical texts with assurance and verve. Blair couldn't fault his scholarship, though he felt his lip curling at Nagle's characterization of the ecclesiastical courts who sentenced countless thousands to die at the stake as victims themselves of stresses in the texts. (Can you put down your Derrida for a half a second, Professor? People died here.)

Whatever Blair thought about the critical approach, though, there was no substance to condemn Nagle in these articles. He even mentioned Unaussprechlin Kulten in one, in connection with a related work, De Vermis Mysteriis, but he afforded them the same treatment as every other text and historical event mentioned in his article. Simply fodder for the great critical guns. The author's own beliefs -- however nutso they might be, Blair thought gloomily -- simply didn't enter into it.

Well, it had been a thought. Most of the other articles looked the same, and after only glancing through a few more, he stuffed the rest of them back into his backpack. His fingers were too cold to hold the papers, and besides, wasn't it about time for the bus to get here? He stood up and walked to the curb to look, despite the way it violated his superstitious certainty that looking for a bus was the best way in the world to be sure it never arrived. Why hadn't he just waited for Jim to show up? A couple more hours on campus wouldn't have killed him. He had just been sick and tired of feeling like everyone was watching him, that's what it had been, and he wanted to escape to the safety of the loft.

Oh well. He'd be home soon enough. If the bus ever arrived. He had to step out into the street to see around a green Chevy Nova parked inconveniently up the hill above the bus stop, the late afternoon sun reflecting blindingly off the windshield, and hello, can you say hallelujah, brother? There was the bus at last. What a hell of a day. It was going to feel so good to get home.

He piled on board with half a dozen other riders, most of them people Blair knew from the same route. He forgot to look at the readout after he fed his debit card through, but he knew he was getting pretty low. Might not even have enough for another ride, so he'd better check that before he got on a bus again. There were some empty seats near the back, and Blair snagged one for himself, sinking down on the hard molded plastic with relief. It beat the heck out of that ice cold concrete bench. It was stuffy in the bus, and a little too warm, and someone a seat or two over was playing a walkman at such earsplitting volume Blair could hear the tinny bass rattling through the seats, but at least he wasn't cold anymore.

The rush hour streets of Cascade slid past the grimy windows in fits and starts. Blair settled back as well as he could on the unyielding seat, his arms crossed over his backpack on his lap, and let his eyes close. At once he felt himself beginning to drift. Slow and easy, back and forth, gliding into darkness like a skater making ever-widening circles on a frozen lake somewhere deep in a snow-wrapped forest. Night was falling, stars twinkling one by one in an indigo sky, and still the skater turned and turned. Ice hissed under her blades, and the forest pressed closer, and there was something odd about the outline of the trees against the sky. Blair looked, trying to understand, but the cold caught in his throat and he awoke with a violent start.

Oh man. He sat up straighter, pushing his hair out of his face. Man. Have to watch that. Last time he'd fallen asleep on the bus he hadn't woken up till the end of the line. Let's not even talk about how much that would suck tonight. He looked out the window, hoping they were near home. Nope. They hadn't even crossed Main. He wiped his eyes, almost regretting his promise to make dinner tonight. It'd be nice to get home and just catch a little shut eye.

On the other hand, Jim would be just as tired, and he wasn't even on his way home yet. Have a heart, Sandburg. OK, so he didn't regret promising Jim dinner. All he had to do was stay awake until he got home. He pulled out the sheaf of xeroxes that was starting to look a little crumpled by this point, and smoothed the last one down over his backpack. It was the only one that looked different from the others, if for no other reason than the journal it had appeared in. The Illinois Journal of American Folklore? Didn't sound like Nagle's bag, and neither did the topic. "Notes Toward an Originating Source for a Dis-Arming Prank Tale."

No, it didn't sound like Nagle at all. In fact, it sounded so far afield he'd checked twice before he'd even bothered copying it. But no, this was Rainier's Peter Nagle all right. The writing was breezy and familiar, a nice change from the high critical sterility of the other articles. In it, Nagle recounted an urban legend that had been current at least since the 1920's, with dozens of versions recorded at various colleges all over the country in the past seventy years. In most versions of the story, a malicious medical student decides to play a prank on his girlfriend by leaving an arm borrowed from an autopsy cadaver in her bed. The girlfriend arrives home, and when the waiting boyfriend doesn't hear the anticipated screams, he breaks into her room to find the prank has gone horribly wrong. Blair found himself wondering how a prank like that could ever have gone right. At any rate, so the story went, the girlfriend's hair has turned white as snow, and she's crouched in a corner of the room chewing on the arm ... driven completely out of her mind.

Great story, Blair thought. Remind me never to date a doctor.

In his article, Nagle went on to suggest the genesis of the story could be found in events that actually transpired at Rainier in 1927. Rainier's first president Rudolph Bollingen, long since retired, still lived in a grand Victorian house just off campus. A very old man by then, suffering from senile dementia, he was attended by a housekeeper who had been with him for decades and could not have been much younger than her employer. At length, it was noticed that no one had entered or left Bollingen's home for several days. When all attempts to rouse the occupants failed, the police entered the house and found poor old Rudolph strangled to death in his bed. His ancient housekeeper had apparently hacked off both his forearms with a carving knife, and when the police found her, she was engaged in boiling them in a stewpot on top of the stove.

Whew. Well, that was a pretty story. Blair watched the view outside the bus window for a few minutes, reassuring himself with the view of ordinary people walking down ordinary streets, no lunatics or cannibals in sight, before finishing the article.

The official explanation, and certainly the right one, was that Rudolph Bollingen's housekeeper had been as mad as her employer, her own dementia going unnoticed until it was far too late. The story on campus, as one would expect, ascribed more lurid motives to the grisly events. Bollingen's legendary collection of books on magic and exotica had still been housed in his home at the time, though they were promised to Rainier in his will. The story went that reading those books had driven Bollingen mad decades before, and his housekeeper had followed him into madness when she had read them in turn, thinking only to while away the long night hours alone in a house with a poor lunatic.

Yeah. A great story all right, and Nagle told it all with a certain ghoulish glee that seemed in keeping with his attitude this morning. But something else was bothering Blair. In the article Nagle pointed out how the old story about the "cursed" book collection had lingered on at Rainier in various guises for decades, giving a peculiar twist to other urban legends. When they were told on Rainier, they took on an edge of madness that was often absent in other versions, a peculiarity Nagle ascribed to the existence of the Bollingen collection, and faint memories of a horror connected with it that lingered long the original events had been mostly forgotten.

Nothing so surprising about that. It was the nature of legends that had any whisper of truth at their back to spread thinner and thinner with retellings and the passage of time. But what was odd was that Nagle hadn't said anything about it this morning when Blair had asked him about one of the books in the Bollingen collection. Instead, he'd fed Blair a line about dark horrors from prehistory, and then just grinned when Blair had floundered in protest. Was THAT why he'd been grinning? Because he'd been pulling Blair's leg?

Christ, a kid was dead. Nagle wouldn't have been joking at a time like that. Would he? Blair shuffled back through the earlier articles. High and dry, unemotional academic exercises unaffected by the tens of thousands of women and children dead at the hands of men Nagle described as victims of intertextuality. You know, maybe it wasn't so far fetched. Maybe Nagle had been laughing at him all along.

His face started to burn. Blair raised cold fingertips and touched his cheek. Red hot, all right. He was way out of his depth. Losing all sense of perspective, chasing phantasms, letting an arrogant SOB like Nagle toy with him. God, he needed Jim. Jim wouldn't have let Nagle get away with it for a minute. What a screwup he was turning out to be on his own. He crammed the papers back into his backpack, shaking with anger, feeling more than a little sick.

A screwup who was just about to miss his stop. He leaped to his feet, yanked the bell and stumbled to the back doors, lurching as the bus jerked to a stop on the other side of Prospect. The cold dusk air burned his flushed cheeks like dry ice as the double back doors swung open. He took the long step down to the street, and the bus rattled away behind him.

Deep breaths. Calming breaths.

Oh like hell. He swung his backpack violently over his shoulder and stalked to the intersection, waiting impatiently for the light. Where were all the cars coming from anyway? Yeah, rush hour, whatever. The instant the light changed he stepped out in the street, heard tires squealing on the pavement, and looked up to see a green Chevy Nova fishtailing across the lane. No way it could stop in time. No way. He stumbled backward, trying to get out of the way, caught the heel of his shoe on the curb and fell hard on his butt on the sidewalk, skinning the palms of his hands on the concrete. The Nova swerved through the crosswalk, one tire bumping up onto the curb, and Blair was eye level with a dented chrome bumper like the maw of a unsouled beast.

Chapter 6

He knew the car would stop in time. He knew the wheels would roll backward off the curb, not make one last revolution forward. No question in his mind. The late afternoon sun was shining low on the horizon, and the sky was pale in the last hours before sunset, and there was no way he could be run over trying to cross Prospect on his way home. He kept scrabbling and flopping backward anyway, since the universe might not realize this was all some ridiculous mistake, until at last he sat on a strap from his backpack and went sprawling, his legs kicking out like a beetle flipped on its back. He looked helplessly up at the sky too beautiful to die under, feeling the corner of a book digging into his spine. The car was so close the heat of the engine panted across his legs.

And then, nothing. The dead sound of the engine stalling out, then of a car horn somewhere on the other side of the intersection blatting impatiently. Blair rolled over. The palms of his hands were burning. His elbows hurt, as well as his butt, and he could hear the tinkle of broken glass inside his backpack. That would be his thermos liner, wouldn't it? Third one this year. The car was still on the sidewalk, barely three feet from him, and he crawled away so he wasn't right in front of the grill. He was breathing in quick gulps of air, and he was shaking too badly to stand up just yet. The driver's door swung open, and he saw scuffed running shoes and blue jeans swing out. The driver was talking in terrified gasps of sound. "Oh god," she said. "Oh god, oh god."

"Take it easy," Blair muttered. "Nothing's broken."

"I'm so sorry. I was watching the bus and I didn't even see the light change. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." She crouched beside him on the sidewalk, babbling in shock. Straight, fine brown hair swung forward, partially hiding her face, but Blair recognized her all the same.

"It's all right. I'm all right."

"God, I'm sorry. I could have killed you. Mr. Sandburg, I'm so sorry." She took his hand as though to help him to his feet, saw his skinned palm and moaned, "Oh, you're bleeding. Oh, god, I'm such an idiot."

"Look, calm down, I'm all right." Blair got his feet under himself and tried to stand up. The woman grabbed his elbow and supported him strongly when he staggered.

"You're not all right. We should get you to a hospital. Oh, I'm so, so, sorry."

Blair took an experimental step. He'd wrenched his ankle in the fall, and he felt it when he put his weight on it. His skinned hands hurt worse. "I saw you," he said bluntly, as his own shock began to wear off. "You were watching me while I was talking to Peter Nagle. Your car was sitting at the bus stop. What's going on? Why are you following me?"

She let him go. "I just wanted to talk to you."

"What, you couldn't stop by during office hours?" He took another step, wincing. "You know, you really need to watch where you're going. You could kill somebody."

"I know," she whispered. "I'm so sorry." Tears rose in her eyes. Her plain, angular face was flushed and blotchy with emotion.

"Look, calm down," Blair said, sighing. "No harm done except I think I broke my thermos. You can buy me a new one and we'll call it square, OK?"

She gulped and nodded quickly. "I was watching the bus," she explained again. "I was trying to see if you'd gotten off yet or not, and the sun was in my eyes and I didn't even see the light. I'm so sorry."

"All right, all right, I got that," Blair said, his voice gentler. "What's your name? You're not an anthro major, are you?"

"Susan. My name's Susan Pera. I'm writing my senior honors paper in history."

"OK, Susan, the first thing you need to do is get your car out of the intersection before somebody comes sailing by and takes the rear end off."

"Oh, you're right. You're right." She took a hesitant step backward. "You're sure you're really not hurt?"

"I'm sure."

She slid back another step. "I'm really sorry. I guess -- I don't know -- maybe I'll be seeing you around?"

Blair sighed. "Something was so important that you followed me all the way home from campus, and now you don't want to talk about it?"

"I thought after practically running you down you wouldn't want to talk to me." One tear slipped down her cheek and she wiped it away with the back of her hand.

"Please don't do that," Blair said quickly. "Sure we can talk. Tell you what, you move your car, and we can have a cup of coffee." He indicated the bakery two stores down with a tilt of his head. "The coffee isn't the greatest, but they make a mean chocolate croissant."

"Thank you." Susan smiled cautiously at him, her hazel green eyes lighting up for a moment. "I really appreciate it."

Blair watched to be sure she didn't plow into anyone while she backed her Nova off the sidewalk, then made his way to the bakery to wait for her, going slow and trying not to limp. Well, well, well -- a senior history major too afraid to talk to him on campus. Three guesses whose class she was in, and the first two didn't count.

When he came in the door of the bakery, Joey, the day chef, glanced over his shoulder and then stopped midway to the ovens. His arms were full of a tray of pale, raw hard rolls for pan bagnats. "Look what the cat drug in," he announced to Blair with a broad grin. "What does Jim mean, letting you out of his sight?"

"Between him and school, I've been pretty busy," Blair said, smiling back. "Can I use your sink for a minute? I just wanna wash my hands."

"Sure, you know where it is." Joey stepped back so Blair could make his way around the counter. "What happened to you? Somebody try to run you over?"

"Just about. I don't think she meant to, though."

Joey shook his head, grinning. "No wonder Jim has to keep you on such a tight leash."

"Yeah, yeah, very funny."

Blair washed the blood and sidewalk grit from his hands in the tiny alcove of a bathroom behind the bakery racks. Mr. April sneered at him from the calendar over the toilet, and Blair found himself wondering if he ever got those chest hairs caught in the buckles. Ouch. He blotted his hands dry on a paper towel, and by the time he came out, Susan had arrived and was ordering a cup of coffee and a chocolate croissant for him, getting a bottled water for herself. Figured, Blair thought, as he thanked her. Susan didn't look like the pastry type. Her hip bones were hard, angular planes under her jeans, and her face had a pale clarity that suggested sugar and butter and chocolate were rare indulgences. Track and field, he thought. Or maybe swimming, he amended, noticing the broad shoulders under her flannel shirt.

They sat down at the little café table Susan picked out, near the counter and away from the window. Blair wasn't really in the mood for decadent pastries either. He sipped at the coffee Susan had bought for him while Susan sat watching him worriedly, twisting her hands together under the table.

"So," Blair said at last. He put down the coffee cup and smiled at her. "What can I do for you?"

Susan put her hands on the table. No jewelry, her nails trimmed short and neat. "This is going to sound really stupid," she said. "It's about my honors paper."

"The one you're writing in history," Blair couldn't help pointing out. "Not in anthropology."

"That's exactly why I wanted to talk to you. I can't go to anybody in the history department because I'm afraid it would get back to my advisor. My friend Monica Underhill's in your class this quarter, and she said you were really easy to talk to, and I just thought maybe you could give me some advice, or at least point me in the right direction, because it's gotten so bad by now that I don't know where else to go."

Blair held up his hands. "Whoa, one step at a time. Is your advisor by any chance Peter Nagle?"

Susan nodded.

"OK, I can see where you wouldn't want to talk to people in the history department about him. What's the problem with your paper?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm writing about Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft. I don't know if you know anything about it or not."

"Just a little. I've never read it, but he's supposed to be one of the great debunkers, right? At the height of the witchcraft hysteria he writes this book to show there's no such thing as magic or witchcraft. Pretty brave thing to do. At the time even doubting the reality of witchcraft could be grounds for execution."

"Yes, that's right." Susan's face had lit up with pleasure. "He takes on everything -- the confessions of condemned witches, the claims of alchemists and sorcerers, all kinds of stuff, and shows how it's all just fear of torture or sleight of hand tricks. I mean, basically he's saying there's no such thing as the supernatural."

"Sounds like a really interesting paper topic. That kind of skepticism is pretty scarce even these days. So what's the problem?"

"Well, it's Dr. Nagle." She made a helpless gesture with her hands. "He approved my topic and everything -- he's my advisor! But when I turned in my outline and first draft he started to get very weird. He told me I was being close minded -- that I wasn't considering other points of view."

"He wanted you to give equal time to sorcerers and witchcraft judges?"

Susan smiled faintly. "Yes, something like that, I think."

"Is it possible he just meant you should refer to more primary sources? You know, maybe see what Scott's contemporaries were saying about him?" Personally, Blair didn't believe for a second that's what Nagle had really meant, but he wouldn't do Susan any good jumping to conclusions. He hadn't been there -- he didn't know what Nagle had actually said. Susan seemed bright, but Nagle had toyed with him as well. No telling what he might have said to an undergrad. He'd certainly strung Blair along without raising a sweat.

"Well, that's what I thought at first. Once I got over being kind of mad about it, I mean."

Blair nodded. "Yeah, I understand."

"But then he brought it up in class, in front of everybody. I can't even tell you what it was like. He was talking about my paper like it was heresy. He just went on and on, saying how disrespectful it was to ancient beliefs, how arrogant I was to dismiss the testimony of so many learned men. Everyone else just turned around and looked at me. I felt like I wanted to die." Susan planted her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands. "This sounds really stupid, doesn't it?"

"No, it doesn't sound stupid. It sounds like a very uncomfortable experience."

"You must think I'm being such a baby about this. I mean, if I disagree with Nagle's point of view, I just need to work harder and write a better paper."

"That's the way it's supposed to be," Blair said ruefully. "It doesn't always work out that way."

"Anyway, after that, everybody in class stopped talking to me. I'm not, you know, very outgoing or popular anyway, but now no one in that class will even look at me. And Monday I found somebody had stuffed this into my backpack." She dug a folded sheet of notebook paper from the pocket of her jeans and handed it to him.

He looked in her face before he unfolded it. The corner of her mouth was shaking. He unfolded the sheet of paper on the cafe table to reveal a grid of Hebrew letters identical to the one that had been on his board this morning. Blair swallowed. "Do you know what this is?"

She nodded. "It's from one of the sorcerers that Scot demolishes as a total fraud in Discoverie. One of the guys we studied in class, Gottfried von Junzt. He used Kabalistic signs like this to describe magic he claims he found on his travels in the middle east."

That son of a bitch, Blair thought. "Nagle talked about it in class?"

"Well, yeah, of course." She blinked in mild surprise. "Anyway, I went and showed it to him after I got it. I told him it felt like a threat. I mean, it scared me."

Blair's mouth was dry. "What did he tell you?"

"He said I didn't believe in magic, so what did I have to worry about?" Susan took a hitching breath. Blotches of red appeared on her cheeks. "And now Ross is dead. Mr. Sandburg, I think they're half crazy, all of them. Who would do something like that unless they were crazy?" She knotted her hands together, squeezing until her knuckles turned white. "I'm so scared," she whispered. "I don't know what to do anymore."

Blair had made the salad, thawed the steaks, had a couple of foil wrapped potatoes baking in the oven, and was propped on the sofa reading when he heard Jim's footsteps in the hall. About time. He was starving. Jim was sure to be hungry too, the poor guy, unless he'd broken down and stopped at Tacos Tacos on the way home. He let himself in before Blair could get to the door, looking tired and out of sorts, but he nodded at Blair and said, "The potatoes smell good."

"Hey, good. Does that mean you're ready to eat? I can have the steaks on the table in fifteen minutes."

"Thanks, Chief." Jim relaxed a little, some of the tension leaving his face. He shrugged his coat off his shoulders and hung it on the rack by the door.

"No problem. I'm gonna sautè some mushrooms and onions to go over them, that sound all right to you? -- and then we'll be good to go. But listen to me a minute, Jim, something's happened. I think I've got this all figured out. Peter Nagle is behind the whole thing."

Jim paused on the first step up to his bedroom, already stripping himself of the literal weight of being a cop, handcuffs and cellphone in his hand. "Nagle. That history professor you were talking about before."

"That's right, man. It turns out he's even weirder and scarier than I thought." Blair made his way to the kitchen to get the rest of dinner started. "I talked to one of his advisees this afternoon and she told me about some of the stuff that goes on in his class, and I'm sure he's the one who convinced Ross to try and steal that book. It has to be him."

"You're limping," Jim said.

"Yeah, I know. I'm OK. But this girl I talked to, Jim, she's so scared of Nagle and the other people in his class that she didn't want to risk anyone seeing us talking on campus. See, she's writing a paper about these medieval magician guys Nagle is so hot on, basically saying all their magic is a crock. You know, that nobody was really summoning demons or raising the dead, no matter what they claimed they could do."

Jim had reached the head of the stairs, unbuttoning his shirt one-handed. He looked back at Blair. "Doesn't sound like it would be a real hotly contested point of view."

"Well, not in a normal place it wouldn't be, but I don't think Nagle's classroom is normal at all. I'm not totally sure whether Professor Nagle really believes in all that magic and stuff or not, but that's not all that important. What's important to him is the power trip. This is a guy who loves to play games with people's heads. He could make the undergrads in his class believe anything he wanted to."

"You think Nagle convinced Ross to try and steal the book," Jim called down, out of sight for a moment upstairs.

"Yeah, I do. I was able to get a look at Ross's transcript this afternoon, and it turns out he took his first history class from Dr. Nagle back when he was a sophomore, right after he transferred out here. Nagle had his hooks in that poor kid for nearly two years."

"Pretty slim evidence," Jim said mildly. He reappeared at the head of the stairs, shirtless.

"I know it's not a whole lot to go on so far, but I'm telling you, I really think I'm right about this." Caught up in trying to convince Jim, Blair dropped half a stick of butter into the hot skillet instead of slicing off a tablespoon. It sizzled and ran to the edges of the pan, and Blair, after briefly considering going to the trouble of pouring most of the butter out again, gave up and threw in the onions too. They were already having steak, after all, not much point in trying to spare their arteries at this point. "Nagle lied to me. First he told me they didn't talk about the von Junzt book at all in his class, and then he said he mentioned it, but they didn't talk about any specifics. This poor girl I talked to this afternoon, she tells me they talked about the book a lot. And she's scared, man. After what Ross did, she thinks the whole class is crazy, and I don't know if maybe she isn't right after all. I told her not to go back to class, and I'm going with her to talk to the dean tomorrow about the whole situation. I think Peter Nagle's got his students so wound up there's no telling what they might do."

The frying onions smelled fantastic. Blair turned the heat down and shook the pan, and Jim came back down the stairs as though pulled there by the scent. He was tugging a sweatshirt over his head on the way. "Wound up enough to steal Ross's body?" Jim asked. "I agree we haven't got a better suspect at this point, but it's just not very much to go on."

"But take a look at this. Here, can you stir the onions for a minute? Don't let them burn."

Jim frowned skeptically at him, the same expression that always crossed his face when Blair tried to give him cooking advice. He took the wooden spoon from Blair and carefully scraped chopped onions from the sides of the pan all the same while Blair found the piece of paper Susan had given him. "You're still limping," Jim said, watching him. "What'd you do?"

"Didn't check both ways before trying to cross the street. Look at this." He held up the paper for Jim to see.

"Is that the same thing that was on your board this morning?"

"Sure is."

"Where did it come from?"

"The girl in Nagle's class. Someone put it in her backpack. Jim, it's from the von Junzt book Ross was trying to steal, and Susan thinks it's a threat."

Jim looked at him, then back at the piece of notebook paper. He put the spoon back in Blair's hand and took the paper to examine it more closely. When he looked up again, there was a serious, unhappy expression on his face Blair wasn't sure how to interpret. "I think we need to have a talk with Professor Nagle," Jim said.

Ray Weston was dead, lying in the mud with the rain pouring down on his upturned face. The air was thick, unbreathable. Everything reeked of blood and raw lumber, wet earth and burned flesh. The stench turned Jim's stomach. He reeled and fell hard against the railing on his way up the stairs, trying to get back in the house. Trying to get to Blair. Angie was so intent on reaching her daughter she didn't even notice Jim had staggered. The door banged shut behind her, leaving Jim alone in the storm. Ah, god, everything hurt. His head, his hands, his arm. The bullet wound seared him, the rain-soaked bandages weighed him down. He had to get out of this. He had to find Blair, and they both had to get out of here.

Ray Weston was behind him on the ground, his stringy blond hair dark with water and blood, and his dead eyes looking up at the cloud-choked night sky. Jim knew he was dead, but in a storm like this, maybe dead wasn't quite good enough. Madness, Jim thought, but he couldn't force himself to look over his shoulder at Ray. He dragged himself to his feet and made it the last few steps up the outside stairs. The door was banging in the wind, a wild and lonely sound. Where was everyone? God help him, where was Blair?

He staggered across the threshold, calling for Blair, and found himself in the loft. Outside the storm still howled and thundered, but though the rain splattered against the clerestory windows and balcony doors, inside it was warm and dry, and the world smelled like onions frying in butter instead of mud and blood and death. Blair was standing by the stove, holding his palm against his head, a dazed expression on his face. "Chief," Jim called to him, and Blair turned. His eyes took too long to focus.

"Jim," he said. He smiled at first, but then he realized the state Jim was in, and his gentle expression of pleasure turned to one of alarm. "Oh, Jim, you're hurt," he said. He tried to reach Jim, but his knees buckled and he had to brace himself against the counter to keep from falling.

"Easy," Jim said in alarm. He reached Blair's side, his own injuries forgotten. "Easy, there. Weston clipped you pretty good."

"Is that what happened?" Blair asked, slurring his words a little. He sagged into Jim's support, allowing Jim to guide him out of the kitchen and across to the sofa. Blair's feet tangled together and the toes of his shoes dragged against the carpet.

"That's what happened," Jim told him. "Easy, just sit down here and let me see what we're dealing with." He tried to push Blair down into the sofa, but Blair flopped like a rag doll, as though his joints were all bending the wrong way.

"Don't burn the onions, Jim," he demanded worriedly.

So that was the problem. "Onions are fine," Jim said. "I turned off the burner."

The reassurance was enough, and Blair allowed Jim to sit him on the sofa. He slumped with his head back, his hands lying empty and open on the cushions. Jim bent over him, pushing the hair back out of his face to expose the bloody abrasion on his forehead. He laid the side of his thumb gently beside the wound. "How's that feel?"

Blair smiled up at him, his eyes half-closed and fogged with pain. "Actually, it kinda hurts, man."

"Well, I'm not too surprised." Jim slid his hand around to the back of Blair's head, looking for the evidence of the second injury. He found a warm, tender knot under the curve at the back of Blair's skull and said, "I bet you can feel that one too, huh, Chief?"

Blair's lips had tightened for a moment in a wince of pain, but he smiled again at that. "Is that how you made detective, Jim?"

"Just for that crack you're doing the dishes too," Jim told him. He held Blair's chin in both hands and carefully tilted his head up so he could look into Blair's eyes. Blair held still for the examination, only blinking once or twice.

"Am I gonna live?" he asked, a smile at the corner of his mouth.

"Afraid so," Jim told him, grinning back. "How do you feel about a trip to the ER anyway?"

"Aw man, do we have to? It's pouring down rain outside."

"Humor me," Jim said, and then, still holding Blair's face cupped in his hands, said the rest as well. "You saved my life, Sandburg. Weston would have killed us all if you hadn't jumped him when you did."

Blair closed his eyes, for a moment unable to meet Jim's gaze. "I was stupid. I didn't even realize he was in the house until it was too late." He opened his eyes again, his expression miserable but somehow, terrifyingly, resigned. "He's in the house now, Jim."

Everything stopped for an endless, eternal moment, and then Jim whirled around to see that he'd left the loft's front door standing part way open. A bitterly cold draft of air blew in, stinking of rain and earth and burned, dead flesh. There were footsteps in the hallway, and a voice just on the other side of the half-opened door. Humming a little, mumbling the words. Jim started to run even though he knew he couldn't make it in time. "S'all coming back to me," the voice muttered, almost singing. Then the door swung open with a bang, but Jim woke himself up before he could see what lay on the other side.

Chapter 7

It was a little too warm in the loft, and it was much too light. Jim lay curled on his side with his pillow clutched hard in his arms. His heart was thudding in his chest so violently he could feel the reverberations through the mattress. Through the floorboards, practically. He wondered if Blair could see the floor shaking.

Blair.

Jim held his breath, listening. There. Blair was right downstairs, right where he was supposed to be. Well, almost. He should have gone to bed hours ago, but apparently he was still sitting up working. Jim could hear the rustle of turning pages, then the quiet, muffled patter of his fingers on the keyboard. A lamp was on in the living room, and Blair hadn't turned down the thermostat. He only did that when he went to bed. No wonder it was too warm upstairs.

Jim slowly uncurled his long form on the bed. His calves and forearms ached, making him wonder how long he'd been bundled up on the bed like that. Angie Ferris's song was still going through his head like a bad taste he couldn't get out of his mouth. What a hell of a dream. He rolled onto his back and sat up, raising his arms above his head and trying to stretch. There was a knot under his left shoulder blade that made him gasp and curl into himself again. Blair's fingers paused on the keyboard, as though he had heard Jim's gasp, but then Jim heard pages turning again. Blair had simply taken his hands off the keyboard to pick up his book.

Jim straightened up again, breathing carefully. Must be getting old. A couple of bad nights, and he was knotted up tighter than a clenched fist. No question of getting right back to sleep, either. Not when he was still afraid to close his eyes. He got up quickly, angry with himself, and padded downstairs before he could think about the dream anymore.

Blair looked up at him. He was sitting sideways on the sofa in a nest of pillows. His glasses were half way down his nose, hair falling out of his ponytail and tumbling around his shoulders. The laptop was on his stomach. He had one book propped open on his knees and a second, much fatter one, lying just in arm's reach on the coffee table. "Jim, man," he said, "What's up?"

"Why aren't you asleep?" Jim demanded instead of answering the question. He turned the thermostat down and then came and stood over Blair, his arms crossed over his chest. "You should have been in bed hours ago."

Blair shrugged, picking up the book on his knees. "Yeah, I know. I just wanted to get a start on the Huysmans here before I packed it in for the night. It's slow going, though. Taking me longer than I thought it would."

Jim plucked the book out of Blair's hands and looked at it. The text was French, and not the kind his Introduction to Conversational French would be any help with. He handed it back. "Still trying to get something on that history professor?"

"Yeah, I am," Blair admitted. "Trying to find out more about the book Ross was trying to steal. There aren't any English translations, but while I was in the library this afternoon I found that Huysmans translated some of Kulten into French around 1870 or so. My French isn't great, but it's better than my Middle High German, I can tell you that much." Blair scowled, picked up the book on the coffee table and dropped it again. A French-English dictionary, Jim saw. "At least I thought it was, but this stuff isn't making any sense to me. Either I'm getting it all wrong, or Huysmans added a lot on his own when he translated von Junzt's book, because whatever this is, it isn't sixteenth century Qabala."

Jim sank down on the other sofa. The dream was receding, pushed from his mind by the sound of Blair's voice, the light in his eyes, even his left hand making frustrated circles in the air. "What is it, then?" Jim asked.

"Damned if I know." A quick grin. "Not something to joke about, is it? Seriously, though, it's majorly bizarre, even though he starts out with the ordinary stuff. A lot of necromancy, mostly, which is what you'd expect to find in a book like Kulten. Raising the dead, using corpses and body parts in magic rituals, that sort of thing. I found the symbol that was on the board in my room, by the way. The same one someone put in Susan's backpack. It's a sign you're supposed to write on the forehead of a corpse you're trying to bring back to life. Anyway, all this stuff, it's old, well-known, well documented rites, going all the way back to the Greeks. No surprises there. But then von Junzt takes this left turn into nowhere, and things get totally weird."

"Weirder than raising the dead," Jim said, and tried to smile. He could feel how miserably he failed. Blair saw it, too.

"Jim, are you all right? What are you doing out of bed, anyway?"

"Just couldn't sleep. Tell me what the really weird part is."

"OK, this is what makes me think I must be getting the translation wrong. He talks about a void of blackness, but he's real vague about just what it is and where it is. Either it's right around the corner, or maybe it's on the far side of the stars, one way or the other." Blair shook his head. "I don't know, it's all crazy. Anyway, this black place, that's where the Olds Ones come from. Or maybe it is the Old Ones. They're entities and a place, both at the same time. I think."

"Old Ones?"

"I don't know. It doesn't seem like von Junzt is talking about demons or familiars. Doesn't sound like any system of demonology I've ever come across. It's more like the Old Ones are part of the whole shape of creation. The dark side. The part we can't look at too close, because it would probably blow our minds if we saw how the pieces really fit together. I think that's what von Junzt is hinting at, anyway. He just won't come out and SAY anything." Suddenly Blair slammed the book shut on his knees. "Stuff is giving me the willies, man. And anyway, maybe I'm getting it all wrong. There's a guy at Miskatonic, Professor Howell Phillips, who seems to be the reigning expert on von Junzt and his ilk. I'll try to give him a call tomorrow." Blair set his laptop over on the coffee table and stretched hard. "You want something to drink? Maybe some hot tea?"

"Nah, thanks." Jim stood up, took one of Blair's outstretched arms and pulled. Blair allowed himself to be hauled to his feet with a tolerant grin. His wrist and the back of his hand were cool to the touch, and Jim felt a little stab of guilt for turning back the thermostat. "I'm just going to go back to bed," he told Blair. "You should, too. You're not going to be any good to anybody if you get so obsessed trying to pin this on Nagle that you can't sleep. Believe me, Chief, I know what I'm talking about here."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Blair agreed reluctantly. He knelt in front of the coffee table, saved his work and shut the cover of the laptop. Then he reached expectantly for Jim's hand, and Jim pulled him to his feet again. "What do you think, Jim, really? Do you think I'm going off the deep end with this stuff?" He gestured back to his books, then answered his own question. "Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with what happened to Ross, but I won't know until I've done the research."

"I know," Jim said. "And there's no such thing as researching a case too much. You taught me that, Sandburg."

A startled smile spread across Blair's face. "Thanks." He stood there for a moment longer, grinning up at Jim contentedly. "I'm glad you woke up. The truth was, this stuff was all starting to get to me. I think I really didn't want to turn out the lights and go to bed. Pretty dumb, huh?"

Jim couldn't help smiling back in the face of that look. "Well, yeah, it is. I won't tell anyone though."

Blair laughed out loud. "Know what I'm going to do if I have nightmares tonight? I'm gonna come crawl in bed with you."

"Is that a promise or a threat?"

"Guess you won't know till I get there, will you?" Blair tried to dance out of range, but his wrenched ankle made him clumsy, and Jim cuffed the side of his head with his open hand. Blair just laughed again. "Sweet dreams, man. Don't let the bedbugs bite."

In the end, though, joking about it didn't help. The nightmare lurked at the center of Blair's consciousness like a whirlpool in the middle of the ocean. Blair circled it all night long, coming ever closer, knowing every time he awoke from his shallow, restless sleep, that it was waiting for him still. It was Jim's alarm clock that awoke him the last time, and he opened his eyes with a sense of panic, knowing his fragile craft was whirling about the very edge of the maelstrom. One more revolution and it would have him. He clutched at the sheets, trying to wake himself up completely. He could hear Jim overhead, footsteps crossing the floor, then padding down the stairs. There were Jim's steps passing his bedroom door, making the french doors rattle just a bit in their frames, and if he would just say, "Sandburg get your lazy ass out of bed already," that would be enough, but no, this morning of all mornings, Jim decided to let him sleep in, and he passed the doors without a word.

A moment later Blair heard the chunk of the pipes in the bathroom, and then the rush of water, and it dashed him back into sleep. He spun at the edge of the whirlpool, looking down at the blue green depths. Then he was over the edge, whirling down into the abyss, and the dream had him. He'd known it would get him in the end. What else could he have expected after obsessing about David Lash all day long?

Despairing, helpless, he was dragged down to the bottom of the ocean of sleep and into the middle of his nightmare. Less dream than memory, though Jim always told him that couldn't be true. He was in the kitchen, bracing himself with a hand on each countertop. He had dialed Jim's pager, and he was waiting for Jim, because there was no one else who could help him, and nothing he could do to save himself. He couldn't even run anymore. How could he run from someone who was everywhere at once? A rattle at the back door, thundering footsteps on the fire escape, a shadow across the skylight and at the balcony doors. That couldn't be one man, a single pursuer. It couldn't be, but if it wasn't, then what in the name of sanity was coming for him? It whistled around the outside of the loft like an evil wind trying to slip through a crack in the wall -- Jesus, Jim, please, please help me -- and then came the inevitable snap like the crack of doom. All the diffuse energy of madness coalesced once more, became solid and human, and David Lash kicked in the front door.

The only mercy was that in the dream, he felt no terror. He almost felt no fear at all. Terror only came from anticipation, Blair thought. It was the fear of not knowing how things were going to turn out, and the terrified hope you might after all be able to fight hard enough and run fast enough to escape your fate. But all this had already happened. There was no hope of escape, and without hope, there could be no fear.

He ran head on into Lash, hardly even seeing him, no plan of escape at all besides bowling him over and perhaps managing to make it as far as the hallway. They both fell hard in a tangle of limbs, and Blair was screaming. Lash didn't make a sound. They rolled over and over, and when Blair felt the wooden floor under his hands and knees he crawled toward the open door. Hot fingertips raked his skull and knotted themselves in the hair at the back of his neck, and Blair didn't spare breath for another scream. He hoarded all his breath and all his strength trying to fight his way free. He slammed his elbow back and twisted his head down, not caring about the hold Lash had, not caring frankly if he scalped himself as long as he got away. But his elbow sank into something yielding, and Blair screamed silently then, because he knew there was nothing yielding and soft anywhere on David Lash. He was pure sinewy strength, everything extraneous burnt away in the fires of utter madness.

Something always broke in that instant, deep inside Blair's mind. Just like the first time. Just like every dream he'd ever had since then. He didn't stop fighting, though. Not even then. He hurled himself to the side, trying to dislodge the monstrous thing on his back. Feeling a sudden gust of air, he was able to get his feet up under himself and stagger toward the smashed open door. For an instant the way seemed clear, but then, impossibly, Lash was in front of him once more. Blair veered off, running doubled over, trying not to think, not to reason, because figuring out what was really going on might be worse even than allowing Lash to take him. He jumped the coffee table, put one foot on the sofa cushions and the other on the back, and fell forward as the entire sofa tipped back under his weight. He was planning to hurl himself straight through the balcony windows. Nothing mattered except getting away.

Before he could make it, a hot, strong hand suddenly slipped under the waistband of his jeans from behind and yanked him backward with vicious force. Blair struck out in animal desperation and slipped to his knees. One flailing hand grasped the blinds and pulled them down in a papery rustle. He shook himself free and saw David Lash standing on the other side of the balcony window, smiling in at him.

Everything was broken, everything was lost, but his body still didn't have enough sense enough to stop fighting. He lurched to his feet again, turning once more and staggering toward the front door even though he knew he would never reach it. He tripped over an electrical cord and fell headlong, hearing the television set smash to the ground behind him, and this was the moment he never could avoid, the blinding pain at the back of his skull, and then the terrifying age in limbo until he awoke in a place that smelled like standing water and hot candle wax, chains weighing down his hands and feet.

But it didn't happen like that this time. He realized he was frozen, waiting for Lash to hit him, and when he didn't, the breathless terror of hope bloomed in his heart. Once more he pushed himself to his feet and ran. This time he would make it. This time he would get out. He believed it so completely he didn't even see Lash standing in the doorway, waiting for him. Lash caught him effortlessly in his outspread arms and embraced him with all the passion of his violent need. Blair shuddered, his body going rigid with horror, and the moment of helplessness seemed to be all the creature David Lash had really needed all along. The shambles of Jim's living room spun sideways past Blair, and with a muffled thud Blair found himself dropped onto his own bed, the futon unforgiving under his shoulders and tailbone. David Lash knelt over him, smiling in obscene satisfaction. "I can be you," he whispered to Blair, caressing his face with fingers that elongated into drumsticks. They beat a restless tattoo upon his cheekbones.

"No," Blair whispered back in horror. This was not the way it had happened. It was supposed to be over by now. He was supposed to wake up. "No."

Lash leaned closer. His breath smelled like anise and tea tree oil. God, he's even using my toothpaste."I can -- be -- you," Lash said again, and the universe contracted violently, squeezing the breath from Blair's lungs and his soul from his body. So this is the void, Blair thought, and yeah, von Junzt was right, it was pretty horrible all right. It was his own little taste of hell. But then it went away, and he was kneeling on his own bed, holding a man down under him.

Wide, frightened blue eyes stared up at him, and tangles of curling hair covered the man's face. As Blair watched, the fear in those blue eyes slowly faded, and the mouth opened in a wide grin.

"What do you think?" Blair Sandburg asked him. "Do I make a pretty good you?"

NO. Blair scrambled backward off the bed. Oh, no, oh no, this was not possible. His hand flew to his head and he pulled off the wig, then stood staring with stupid horror at the wad of brown curls in his hand.

And then he finally heard the voice he had been waiting for all along. "Freeze," Jim barked from behind him. "Just step away slow."

Blair whirled around. "Jim, you've got to help me. Look what he's done to me."

Not a spark of recognition showed in those steely eyes. "I said freeze, you son of a bitch."

"But Jim--"

Jim didn't hesitate. He fired again and again, though Blair didn't fall until the force of the bullets themselves drove him back against the bed. He slumped to his knees, dying. The void was opening for him, but Jim pushed him away, reaching out for the body on the bed that was not Blair Sandburg and would never be him.

Blair opened his eyes with a shriek, escaping the dream like a man who would escape a fire by flinging himself out the window.

"Blair!" Jim shouted back at him. His hands were on Blair's shoulders, holding him. "Blair, buddy, come on, you're awake now."

Blair felt his own body flinch violently, as though he really had gone out a window and hit the pavement hard, and he stared up at Jim, wide-eyed with shock, desperately trying to figure out what was going on. He gave one more cry, a hoarse, strangled squawk as his body finally caught up with his head. He gulped for breath, and Jim pulled him up and wrapped his arms around him. Blair buried his head against Jim's shoulder, not giving a damn about anything except the glorious realization he was alive, he was safe, and it had all been just a dream.

Jim still held him, rocking just a little, his warm, gentle hands patting Blair's back. "Steady," he said, "You're doing great." Warm, gentle, and very wet hands. Blair's T-shirt was sticking to his back where it was soaked through. His front was even wetter where Jim held him cradled against his chest.

Aw, Jim. Blair raised his head, and Jim released him, trying to smile at Blair, but worry still obvious in his eyes. He was sopping wet from the shower and naked as a baby. He hadn't even finished washing the shampoo from his hair, and a little trail of foam trickled down the side of his face. "Jim--" Blair said helplessly, "Jim, hey, I'm all right."

"Good," Jim said. He touched Blair's face. "You didn't sound all right there for a minute."

"I am." Blair took a deep breath to demonstrate how all right he was. "Go finish your shower before the soap gets in your eyes."

Jim nodded and made no move to get up. "You were talking about Lash," he said. "In your sleep. Yelling." There was a haunted look just under Jim's slightly desperate smile.

"Yeah, it was that old dream again," Blair admitted softly. Jim had his own nightmares about David Lash, Blair knew. "But it was all mixed up with the stuff I was reading about last night. Weird."

Jim relaxed a little. "It's this case," he said, nodding. "Stirring things up again. It's happening to me, too."

"Is it? You're having nightmares too?"

Jim nodded again. "An instructor at the academy told us all once that when you stopped having bad dreams, it was time to get out of the business. Not much fun, though."

"No. Not really."

"You're OK, Chief?"

"I'm OK." Blair reached up and wiped away the shampoo suds curling toward Jim's eye with the side of his hand. "Get back in the shower." He wiped the suds in turn on his wet T-shirt. "I know it was only a dream."

Jim padded back to the bathroom, dripping the whole way. Blair rolled out of bed, pulling off the wet sheets and comforter. Only a dream. He believed that. After all, that's what Jim had kept telling him in the weeks after Lash's death. Blair had taken a blow to the head, and he couldn't remember what had really happened the night Lash attacked him in the loft. Those dreams were just his mind's way of trying to fill in the missing gaps, and they hadn't done a very good job of it. Lash was only a man, and a dead one at that, buried in Potter's Field with five bullets from Jim's gun still in his chest. It was all just a dream, not memory at all. That's what Jim told him, and he believed that, he did. After all, what other choice did he have?

"I don't know how long this song and dance with IA will take," Jim told him. Blair stood at the curb, leaning in the open door of the truck. "I hope it doesn't run into the afternoon, but with Sheila you never know what she'll pull out of her hat."

"Yeah, I know. You sure you don't want me there? Just in case?"

Jim smiled at him, but Blair could still see the faint lines of worry around his eyes. Jim had had a bad night, too. Probably worse than he'd admitted this morning. "Thanks, Sandburg, but I'm a big kid. I'll be OK."

"I know you will. Just give me a call when you get done to let me know how it goes. I'll be working on things from this end -- maybe have something for you by the time you get back. That'd be good, wouldn't it?"

"That'd be good," Jim agreed. "Just leave me a message if anything turns up before I get out of the hearing."

"I will."

Blair stepped back from the truck, but before he could swing the door shut, Jim said in a serious, low voice, "Sandburg, keep an eye out, all right? Ross was willing to die for that book. If it looks like there are any more like him around, I expect you to keep your distance till I can get here."

"I know, Jim." Blair swung the door shut. "I will."

It was another clear, cold spring day. A shame it was almost too cold to enjoy the sunshine, Blair thought, scurrying across the quadrangle to Hargrove. Wasn't like they saw all that many sunny days in Cascade, was it? In the light of day, surrounded by students bundled against the wind and hurrying to make their own classes, last night's dreams and terrors seemed very distant and more than a little foolish. He had to calm down, remember he was living in a mostly rational world, and stop taking the rantings of people like Nagle and poor Ross seriously.

He swung himself up the stairs to his floor in Hargrove. His ankle was a little stiff, but he'd live. It was a couple minutes after nine, and the halls had cleared. His own footsteps were the only ones scuffing along the tile. He rounded the corner, and saw a woman huddled on the floor against his office door. Her head was resting on her knees, her backpack on the floor beside her. Susan.

"Hey--" He ran to her side and half crouched beside her. "Hey, what's wrong? I thought we were going to meet at the dean's office at ten. Is something wrong? Are you all right?"

She lifted her head. Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes still streaming. "I can't," she said, her voice quavering. "I can't go to the dean."

"Susan, I want you to calm down and tell me what's happened, please. Come on, it's all right."

She made a helpless, despairing gesture with both hands. "They broke into my room. I hadn't been gone five minutes, when I remembered I'd left my calculator in the desk. I went back and it was all over everything." She took a desperate, hitching breath.

Blair fumbled for his keys and managed to get his office door open. "Come on, let's get out of the hall," he said, and helped her to her feet. "What was all over everything?"

"That corpse sign. It was painted on my door, on my bed, on the mirror -- I hadn't even been gone five minutes. Not even five minutes." Her voice was rising dangerously. "Why are they doing this to me?"

"I don't know, but we'll find out, I promise. Have you called campus security yet?"

"Oh, god, no, I just tried to find you."

"All right, that's the first thing." Blair dumped his backpack on the floor and picked up the phone on his desk. "What dorm are you in?"

"I'm in Mathers. Room 206. Blair, I don't know, what if this just makes it worse?"

"How can it get worse? Now they're destroying your property. Come on, Susan, that's way over the line."

"I guess so," Susan agreed unhappily, twisting her hands together as Blair called. He tried to reach Suzanne Tamaki, but she wasn't at her desk. He talked instead to the campus safety officer the switchboard routed him to, giving him Susan's dorm room number and the barest details of what had happened.

"All right, they'll meet us there in ten minutes," he told her when he put down the phone.

Susan looked at him unhappily. "Are you sure this is the right thing to do?"

He felt like Jim as he said, "If you have any other suggestions, I'd be glad to listen. Susan, this is vandalism, pure and simple. This makes the case against Nagle and the rest of the class even stronger."

"I guess so," she agreed reluctantly. Blair handed her a box of tissues and she wiped her eyes and blew her nose. "I'm sorry," she said, sounding calmer. "You're right. It's all just so crazy. It feels like the whole world is coming apart. Why would anyone hate me so much just because of an old book?"

"I don't know, but it is crazy." Blair herded her gently out of the office again and locked it behind them. "We've been saying that all along, right?"

He smiled at her and was rewarded with a tentative near-smile back. She tucked a lock of her fine, mouse brown hair behind her ear and nodded. "Right," she whispered.

They walked back across the quadrangle and cut through the law library, and then through the faculty parking garage built into the hillside under the upperclass dorms. By the third flight of stairs in the parking garage Blair's ankle was aching in earnest, but for Susan's sake, he was determined not to limp. He let Susan lead the way all the same. Across the fourth level ramp was the sidewalk that wound up the hill to the dorms. Almost there. The sun slanted in through the open sides of the parking garage, and coming out of the shadow of the stairwell, Blair suddenly noticed something odd about Susan's backpack.

It was moving. Something in it was moving.

Blair stopped dead. "Susan?" Understanding was just dawning, and he couldn't keep it out of his voice. Susan must have heard it, because she stopped so abruptly the Chihuahua nestled in her backpack raised its pop-eyed head to look around, and gave an indignant yip.

"It was you," Blair said, and goddammit, he was too furious to be scared, not even when Ross's roommate Eddie suddenly appeared from behind one of the concrete barricades, smiling almost apologetically. "It was you. You were the one in Special Collections with Ross."

Susan turned around slowly, nothing apologetic on her face at all, just bright, angry tears. "Of course it was me." She took a step toward him. "You didn't even recognize me." Her face twisted. "I could have run you down last night, Mr. Sandburg. The only reason I didn't is because Ross needs you in one piece."

Chapter 8

Blair tried to judge the distance to the stairwell without turning his head. A dozen steps behind him and a little to the right, he thought. "So I guess you're not really writing your paper on Reginald Scot," he told Susan, saying the first thing that came to his head. And you know what? Even at a moment like this, that really did piss him off.

"Actually I am." She was circling to cut off his escape. "You should have done your homework better, Mr. Sandburg. Scot wasn't arguing there was no such thing as magic. Just that the witch courts were executing the wrong people for it."

Great, just great. "Eddie," Blair said, "Listen to me. Ross is dead. There's nothing you can do for him anymore."

"That's not what you said yesterday." Eddie was still smiling, sheepish and somehow determined all at the same time, as though he were trying to talk his way out of a term paper deadline. "I heard all about what you told your class. You said you owed Ross a debt you didn't know how to repay."

"For the love of-- Eddie, not like this. Not like this." Blair tensed for flight and kept talking. "Remember what you told Jim and me? Whatever you two are trying to do, I promise you, it won't make any sense the morning after. Forget about the morning after. It doesn't make any sense now. Dead is dead."

Eddie pulled the gun he had hidden under his coat and leveled it at Blair. "If you really believe that, then you better do exactly what we tell you."

"Hey, wait a minute, easy, easy." Blair raised his hands as high as his shoulders, wondering if Professor Nagle's entire damn class was packing. "Come on, you don't want to use that."

"Get down on your knees," Susan said. "Put your hands on top of your head." Eddie was advancing on him carefully, holding the gun like it was a wild animal that might suddenly turn on him. He looked like he'd never fired a gun in his life. At the very least he didn't know much about the weapon he was holding now. It occurred to Blair that three years ago, he wouldn't have known Eddie's gun was a single action Colt either, much less that it wouldn't fire because Eddie hadn't racked the slide.

(Thanks, Jim.)

Of course, if he'd never met Jim, he never would have needed to know so much about guns in the first place, would he? Oh man, never MIND already. He could work out the balance sheet some other time.

Susan had reached back, still circling closer, and dug something out of an outside pocket of her backpack. Blair saw it from the corner of his eye, but couldn't figure out what it was. Some sort of knotted wad of leather and snaps. He heard the metal pieces rattling together in her hand. "Come on, Mr. Sandburg," she said. "Don't be stupid."

"Funny, that's what I was going to tell you."

Eddie was almost within range. His hands were white-knuckled, forefinger braced at the trigger. "Get down now. I'm not scared to use this."

"Yes, you are," Blair said gently.

Susan shouted, "Eddie, don't!" at the same moment Eddie leaped for him, the easy-going smile wiped off his face, replaced by a rictus of mortified rage. Blair only had time to think that had worked just a little too well before Eddie shoved the pistol against his jaw.

"Now get down before I blow your head off!" Eddie's breath reeked of coffee and sausage.

"All right, all right, easy." It wasn't hard to act terrified. Blair craned his head back from the muzzle of the semi-automatic and began to lower his hands.

"Just chill, Eddie," Susan said urgently. "Don't let him psych you out." The chihuahua in her backpack was yipping on and on. Eddie didn't relax. Now or never, Blair thought. He felt very calm, and was a little amazed at himself. Maybe more of Jim was rubbing off than he'd ever realized. Or maybe the whole thing was just so damn stupid he didn't really believe any of it was real. That was the more likely explanation.

He clapped his hands around the barrel of the pistol, and in the same motion wrenched it out of Eddie's surprised grasp. Eddie roared, "No!" and tried to grab it back, but Blair had already skidded out of range He turned, trying to cover Susan, but she rushed him anyway, as heedless of the gun as Blair had been. He expected her to go for the gun, but instead she clasped her hands together and swung a two-fisted blow at the side of his head. Blair ducked the worst of it, curling forward to try to protect his grip on the gun, but she still managed to land a solid whack across the back of his skull. The force of the blow staggered him, and as he stumbled, the pistol went flying. Blair heard a solid, metallic clunk as it hit a nearby car and skittered across the concrete. Eddie and Susan both dove after it.

Time to leave the party. Blair ran for the stairs, hearing Susan shout behind him. Grabbing the pillar, he swung himself around and into the stairwell and leaped down, taking the steps three at a time. Metal and poured cement thundered under his feet. Susan was still yelling, her voice muffled by the walls of the stairwell. Down to the first landing, then the second. He would get to ground level and make it back to the law library. They weren't crazy enough to try anything with so many people around. On the other hand, maybe they were that crazy, but with so many witnesses, surely someone would call the police. He'd be OK as long as someone got word to Jim.

Susan's voice rang out above him, suddenly clear and loud. She must be at the head of the stairs.

"Stop him!"

Who was she yelling to? Blair wondered with a sinking feeling. Surely there wasn't anyone else. Please, please, don't let there be anyone else.

He bounced himself off the wall at the next landing and used the momentum to rocket himself down the next flight of stairs, just as someone stepped into the stairwell from the ground level. Blair recognized him. It was Seth Lamb, one of Blair's own students. "Seth!" Blair shouted down to him, "Get out of here! Call the cops!"

Seth looked up the center of the stairwell, almost smiling, and started up the stairs toward Blair at an easy lope. Blair felt a wave of sick, hot rage. Seth too, then. That son of a bitch. He wasn't sure if he was angrier at Seth or himself. Seth had been on the front row of class yesterday, his regular features fixed in an expression of bland almost-concern as Blair struggled to find the words to grieve for Ross's death, and Blair had never even suspected. He wouldn't have thought Ross the Nihilist and a pre-med golden boy like Seth would have been able to agree on the color of the sky, much less something as elaborate and screwed up as all this. Whatever this was, heaven help him.

He felt another vibration on the steps, and looked up to see Susan and Eddie coming down behind him. At least they hadn't found the gun. Small blessings, very small blessings. He thought he might be able to make it back up half a flight to the second floor of the garage before they reached him, which was probably exactly what they expected him to do. He'd be better off just getting out of here as soon as possible. He backed up a couple of steps, keeping a wary eye on Seth's progress. He was a big kid, six inches on Blair and proportionally broader. Blair might be able to bowl him over and get past him, but it was equally likely Susan and Eddie would catch up to them during the tussle, so when Seth reached the turn of the staircase right below him, Blair put both hands on the railing and hoisted himself up. One foot on the second railing, step up to the top railing, moving fast before he could lose his balance or his nerve. Jim wouldn't even think twice about a move like this. He would just do it like Jim would.

He stepped forward into space, dropping to the stairs half a flight below. He felt instant of mingled terror and exhilaration as he fell, totally worth it for that glimpse of Seth's expression of baffled rage. It was going to work, he thought, ready to scream with triumph as he felt the bone jarring impact under his heels. God, Jim, look at that, it worked. Three more steps to the ground level. He was practically home free.

And then when he tried to take his first step down, still staggering a little from the impact of the jump, his bad ankle rolled beneath him. He heard and felt something pop, and the next seconds passed in a hot blur of pain. He didn't remember falling, but he was sprawled at the foot of the steps, breathless with agony. He knew they were right behind him; he knew he needed to get up and move goddammit, but when he tried to pull himself up, the pain made his head begin to swim. Something was really wrong with his ankle, dammit, dammit all to hell. It felt like ripped rubber bands and broken glass, swelling so rapidly his shoe was already painfully tight, and oh, Jim, this is so stupid. I was practically out of here. It's so damn unfair.

"It's OK!" Seth bellowed behind him, "It's OK, I've got him, I've got him."

Not yet you don't, Blair groaned to himself, sick and shaking. His ankle hurt so badly he just wanted to wrap himself into a little ball and cry, and he was so angry he almost thought it was a good thing he hadn't held onto the gun, because he'd sure be tempted to use it. He began to crawl, trying to get to his feet. Seth was right behind him, not even hurrying, just pacing Blair, waiting for Eddie and Susan to catch up. Blair kept going even though every movement sent shivers of agony through him. Cmon, the heroines in monster movies were able to get up and keep limping away decoratively until the hero arrived, weren't they? Jim wasn't here to play hero, worse luck, but that didn't change the fact it should all be a question of mind over matter. Just get up and move already.

He curled into himself, drawing his legs up, and tried to stand, lunging forward as though sheer momentum would be enough to keep him on his feet. A terrific spike of pain shot through his ankle, and then he was falling again, nothing he could do to stop it, sprawling across the concrete. Right behind him Seth snorted in exasperation. "Would you give it a rest, already? It's over." He grabbed Blair's upper arm and dragged him over onto his back. The pavement was gritty and hard under the back of Blair's skull. Seth dropped to straddle his chest, reaching down to try to pin his wrists. "Just stop it before you hurt yourself any worse."

Panting in fury, Blair balled his right hand into a fist and swung as hard as he could. He felt a sickening, yielding crunch as his knuckles hit Seth's nose. Seth screamed and covered his face with both hands. Blood spurted between his fingers. Some of Blair's rage was lost in a shudder of self-disgust. He had to get out of this. He had to stop this before anyone else got hurt. Geez, things get a little out of hand, and the best thing he could think of to do was break a student's nose?

OK, to be honest, things were a lot out of hand. He heaved up, pushing hard, and managed to dislodge Seth. Then he rolled onto his belly again, sobbing with every breath. He couldn't run, but he could crawl under a car. Wouldn't hold them off for very long, but maybe just long enough for someone to happen in on them, see what was happening and call the cops. Surely someone would start to wonder about that incessantly yapping dog if nothing else.

Once his head was under the carriage of the nearest car, he could hear the sounds he was making. Cripes, he was in bad shape. He had to calm down, keep his wits about him. The air seemed colder under here. He could smell motor oil and his own sweat. Then someone grabbed his bad ankle and yanked hard, dragging him backward. Blair groaned in pain and scrabbled uselessly at the cement as he was hauled out inch by remorseless inch. "God damn." Eddie's voice. "I thought this was supposed to be easy."

"It would have been if you hadn't lost the gun," Susan said. "Mr. Sandburg, for the last time, we're not going to hurt you. We just want to talk."

Oh yeah, he believed that all right. He twisted himself onto his side so at least he could come out swinging. He was dizzy and sick to his stomach, and turned like he was, the pain in his ankle shot up his leg in agonizing spurts of heat. His three attackers were crouched around him, and it was Eddie who had the grip on his ankle. Seth held one hand cupped over his bloody nose, his white shirt front spattered red. As soon as Blair was free of the car he kicked hard with his free foot, hitting Eddie's thigh with a good, solid thump. Eddie grunted and let him go, and Blair pushed himself up to a sitting position against a tire. No one tried to stop him. In fact, now that he was trapped, they all seemed a little at a loss. It was like being chased down and cornered by a trio of dull witted hyenas, Blair thought, exasperated. He could see better what Susan was holding in her hands, but it didn't make it any easier to believe. "How long have you been planning this?" he croaked.

"Ross had everything planned," Susan said. "He just didn't know your cop friend was a big enough pig to kill him."

"Wait a minute." Blair braced himself against the tire and tried to push himself up. "Wait a minute." Oh, man, he should have known ever since he and Jim first talked to Eddie. All the pieces had been right there. "Everything was planned? You mean Ross meant to walk out of the library with the book and me too?"

"But we're going to fix it." Susan's expression hardened. Her fierce demeanor was only marginally compromised by the chihuahua barking away in her backpack. "We're going to give Ross back what you took away."

Blair was braced against the car in a half-crouch, all his weight on his right foot. He tried to fend Susan off when she lunged for him, but she blocked his punch with her other arm, grabbed the collar of his coat, and yanked him violently forward. He couldn't catch himself before he was pushed flat onto the pavement. One of the three grabbed his wrist and wrenched it up between his shoulder blades. "Stop it," Susan hissed in his ear. "Mr. Sandburg, we don't want to hurt you."

That same idiotic refrain, repeated every time they proceeded to hurt him again. The dragging pressure against his wrist brought his shoulders up, but his other hand was still free. He slammed his elbow back, and had the satisfaction of hearing someone beside himself grunt in pain. The person holding his wrist let go and Blair forced himself to his hands and knees, trying to crawl away. Surely someone would show up to get their car soon. If he could just hold them off another few minutes --

"Dammit." Seth's voice sounded like he had a bad cold. "I've had enough of this."

A knee in the small of his back forced him flat once more. He writhed under the unbearable pressure of a kneecap against his spine, shouting at them and belatedly screaming for help. But then someone pushed a merciless hand between his thighs, found a grip through his khakis, and clamped down hard. Blair's screams died in his throat.

"Now for the last time," Seth moaned at him, leaning so close Blair could feel splats of blood falling on his back, "Stop fighting and shut up."

"Please," Blair whispered, lying absolutely, positively still. "Please."

"That's more like it," Seth announced, panting and satisfied.

"Don't hurt him," Susan said.

"I'm not." The knee on his spine lifted away, but at the same time, the hand between his legs clenched harder, twisting remorselessly. Tears came to Blair's eyes. "I'm just showing him who's in charge."

"Come on, hurry up already." Eddie sounded nervous. "This is taking way too long."

Blair lay unresisting, hardly able to breathe. A leather cuff was buckled around one wrist, then the other. The leather was smooth and slick, and the snaps and hardware jangled as Susan worked. His wrists were pulled to the small of his back, and the cuffs were linked together. He felt his pants leg being pushed up next and his sock bunched down as a similar cuff was fasted around his right ankle. He didn't move when his left foot was lifted and his sock pulled down, but he moaned. It came out low and strangled, from deep in his throat. "Oh, god, Seth, look at this," Susan said. "Do you think it's broken?"

Someone's hand cupped the outside of his ankle, then bore down gently. Blair whimpered.

"I don't know, but it's not my fault. He's the one who tried to jump." Another squeeze, as though in reproach, and Blair laid the side of his face on the concrete and wept.

"Oh man," Eddie said, "Oh man, this was not supposed to happen."

"What are you whining about? He fucking broke my nose."

"Look, both of you, just calm down. It's going to be all right if we just keep our heads." Another strap of leather went around his left ankle, buckled more loosely than the first one. His ankle was so swollen it felt like a flesh balloon under the strap. The cuffs were linked together as his wrists had been, and then a hand slipped under his jaw and lifted his face. No, Blair thought, weeping in rage as well as pain. No, no, no, no, no.

It didn't matter how furiously and silently he protested. His jaws were pried open and the ball gag forced into his mouth. Wide, soft leather straps crossed his face and were buckled together at the back of his head, catching at his hair and pulling painfully. Finally the hand between his thighs was withdrawn and Blair curled slowly onto his side. He was dizzy, his face prickling with heat as though he was about to be sick. He breathed hard through his nose, trying to swallow back his nausea.

"Hurry up, Seth, get your wheels, and make sure nobody sees you. You look like hell."

Seth growled something unintelligible and took off at a jog. Blair closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them again, trying to take in as much of his surroundings as he could. There were droplets of Seth's blood on the concrete -- Jim would see them, if he was looking, but he ought to be able to leave a better sign. C'mon, Sandburg, think, think. It wasn't easy, sick and hurting and mad as he was.

His wallet. Of course, his wallet. He looked up at Eddie and Susan. Eddie was fidgeting nervously, walking out and then back again. Susan was leaning against a car. She'd scooped the incessantly yapping dog out of her bag and was cradling it against her chest. The little beast had long, silky red hair, and Blair could only hope a few strands would float down for Jim to find. Had he ever even told Jim what Susan's full name was last night? He strained his fingers, trying to reach his wallet in his back hip pocket. There, he had it. He felt the pain in his ankle throbbing in time with his heartbeat, and wondered if it was broken. Remembering the pop and the first shock of pain nearly made him sick all over again.

Man, he had to calm down. Keep a clear head, that was the most important thing.

Let's be honest. That was the only thing he could do anymore.

He eased his wallet the rest of the way out of his pocket and held it cupped carefully between his palms.

"Jesus, what's taking him so long?" Eddie came stalking back.

"Take it easy," Susan said. "He's only been gone a minute."

Blair dropped his head so the side of his face rested on the pavement. Tears were trapped under the leather strap that crossed his cheeks, but his eyes were dry. He heard and felt a rumbling in the concrete. Probably Seth's car, but in case it wasn't, he should be ready to move. If he kicked out hard and fast enough, he might be able to knock Susan down. Create enough of a ruckus and surely someone would look to see what was going on.

"See," Susan said, relieved. "There he is." Even though he'd known what a longshot it was, the disappointment was numbing. Blair swallowed hard. So OK, back to plan A. And keep your cool, man.

A big gray Suburban pulled up, blocking the slanting sunlight. A door opened and slammed shut again, and at that moment, Blair flicked his wallet out of his hands, hoping it would land under the car behind him and go unnoticed.

"All right, help me get him up, come on, come on." The chihuahua was stowed in the backpack once more and Susan bent to grab him under his shoulder. Eddie hooked his hand under Blair's other arm, and together they hauled him upright. The sudden change in position and the weight on his ankle was excruciating. Blair moaned, his voice trapped by the gag holding his mouth open. For an instant he couldn't even breathe, and he thrashed in panic.

"Dammit, don't you ever give up?" Seth grabbed a handful of hair at the top of Blair's scalp and yanked his head back. "Did you forget already that I know how to make you behave?"

"Oh knock it off," Susan snapped. "We've got him, that's all that matters."

Seth snarled and let him go. He was a pretty scary sight, blood still dripping from his purple nose, the dried and drying blood smeared across his face and over both sleeves. He turned away and wrenched open the back doors. The space behind the seat was littered with pizza boxes and the remains of a sixpack or two. Seth swept it out with the side of his hand. The cans went bouncing and rolling.

"Get his legs," Susan said, and Seth wrapped his arm behind the back of Blair's knees. "On three," Susan directed. "One, two --" On three, all of them heaved up, and Blair was rolled over into the back of the van, ending up on his side against the bolted-down legs of the back seat. He gasped in pain and felt like he was strangling to death. Calm down, he told himself desperately, trying to do it. Calm down, keep it cool. (Please, Jim, please get here soon.) "You're not gonna just leave all the trash are you?" Susan asked.

"Oh, give me a break," Eddie complained. "Don't you have anything else to worry about?"

"At least someone does," Susan retorted. "Your address is on the pizza box."

Seth snorted in exasperation, and the pizza boxes were tossed back in. "Wait a minute," he said then. "Hey, Mr. Sandburg, looks like you dropped your wallet."

The wallet was thrown in after him, too, and the doors slammed behind him.

The scariest thing in the world, Jim thought, was what you already knew. The complete unknown was nothing. A cakewalk in comparison. Say you go around the corner, and something you've never even imagined in your whole life is standing there. Well, hell, either your heart stops, or you just bust out laughing.

But suppose it's something you already know about, something you've been waiting for. Something you've been dreading, worst of all. Like these damned senses he'd known about all his life, really, though he'd buried them deep. Sandburg comes along out of the blue and holds them up where Jim has no choice but to see him. Now that was scary. The kind of scared that makes your heart clench like it might never beat again, turns your bowels to ice, your blood to water. The kind of scared that made a fighter like Jim explode. He was lucky he hadn't slammed poor Sandburg right through the wall that morning in his office.

Or like those sounds. Liquid and soft. Far away, but drawing ever closer. Even today, when he was deliberately not listening for them, Jim knew they were there. After all, they had walked through his dreams the past two nights. All he would have to do was to let his guard down just a little, and he would hear them now, he was certain of it.

He would not listen anymore. He would not, because he thought he had figured out what they were, and he could not bear to listen, knowing.

"Detective Ellison, did you even hear the question?"

Jim looked up from his white-knuckled hands, clenched together on the conference table. Sheila was losing patience with him. Her mouth was tightlipped and angry.

"No, ma'am." Jim forced his hands to unclench. "I don't think I did."

Chapter 9

Simon caught up to him as he was pulling out of the parking garage, taking long strides across the 'no pedestrians' ramp, yelling as though Jim might not notice him otherwise. "Dammit, Jim, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

Jim rolled down the window to answer, though he didn't turn off the engine. "I need to see Sandburg."

"In the middle of your IA hearing? Have you lost your mind?"

"It's important."

"More important than your career?"

Jim kept his gaze locked straight ahead. "I don't know, sir. Maybe it is."

"Don't pull this with me. If it's so damned important why don't you just pick up the phone and call the kid?"

"I already tried. He's not answering."

"You think he might be in trouble? Why didn't you tell somebody instead of just haring off like this?"

"Sandburg isn't the one in trouble. He probably just left his phone in his backpack somewhere."

"Then who -- oh. " Jim heard Simon swallowing. When he spoke again his voice was much softer. "You're the one in trouble. It's a sentinel thing."

Jim didn't look at him. "I don't know, sir. I think so."

"Dammit, Jim," Simon breathed softly. He sounded as angry and helpless as Jim felt. "I thought you two had this thing under control by now."

"Yes, sir." Jim slid his hands down the steering wheel, then back up again. "I thought so too."

Looking up through the tinted back windows, Blair saw the pocked gray concrete ceiling of the parking garage give way to the shock of hard blue sky. The van turned to the left. Must be heading up the hill toward the dorms. Seth was driving slowly, doing nothing to draw attention to himself. No one spoke, though Eddie was still breathing hard, and Seth snuffled through his bloody nose. Blair was thinking he could probably manage to kick the back door at least a couple of times before any of his captors could stop him. He'd wait and try it when they were stopped in traffic, and there was a chance someone would actually hear him. The carpeted floor was hard under his shoulder. Every bump in the road jarred his busted ankle and his aching balls. The gag in his mouth tasted like old tupperware. His jaws were beginning to hurt from being held open, and he was drooling. He could feel the trail from the corner of his mouth across his jaw.

The van slowed and then stopped, which seemed vaguely surprising. They couldn't have made it past the dorms, could they? Probably not even that far. All Blair could see out the window was blue sky, and stark against it, the branch of a tree not yet budded out. Then suddenly he could hear the outside world as well as see it. Someone must have opened a window or a door. Now, Blair thought fiercely, and kicked the back door as hard as he could. A globe of fire seemed to shatter in his ankle. He lay stunned with pain, his heart ratcheting in his chest, and he couldn't make himself kick the door again. For a second he couldn't even remember why it was so important that he try. All that mattered was waiting for the pain to go away.

Aw damn, it hurts, Jim. It really hurts.

He was pretty sure this wasn't the way Jim would have done it anyway. Jim would have recognized Susan and wouldn't have walked into the ambush in the first place. Jim wouldn't have tripped and broken his ankle trying to get away. Most of all, Jim wouldn't have let a trio of undergrads truss him up like a refugee from a bargain basement b/d flick and throw him in the back of some kid's SUV. This was so stupid. So incredibly, unbelievably stupid.

A door slammed and the van lurched into movement again. His shoulder rolled against the hard carpeted floor. His ankle didn't hurt any less, but the horrifying surprise of the pain was fading, and he realized he had lost the chance to draw attention to his plight. In sheer frustration he tried to shout even though he knew he couldn't, and once more felt the panic of suffocation when the gag trapped his cries in his throat. His eyes flew open wide, and he breathed hard through his nose until he began to feel lightheaded, like he was on the verge of hyperventilating. He had to calm down, dammit. Somehow he had to relax and wait for his next opportunity. Be ready for it when it came.

A girl's head popped over the back of the seat and looked down at him. Her head was haloed with white-blonde hair, distractingly shiny with just the faintest tinge of green that all the swimming shampoos in the world couldn't get rid of. He knew her. She was Monica Underhill, Susan's friend. A straight B student in Blair's class who always seemed like she was putting at least a little effort into her work. Susan had mentioned her last night. Said Monica had told her Blair was a nice guy, easy to talk to. Someone who could help Susan with Professor Nagle. It had all been just a tissue of lies, playing him for the sucker he was. Blair trembled in rage, staring up at her balefully. She didn't seem to notice, and after a moment her head disappeared. "So what happened?" she asked.

Someone else laughed. "I can't believe you let him break your nose, man. Does it hurt?" That was a male voice, one Blair didn't recognize. How many people were in the van now anyway? And what were they planning to do? The pain in his stupid ankle seemed to be draining all his strength, or perhaps it was the frustration of being bound like this, or the terrifying constriction of the gag in his mouth, because when he wondered what in the world his kidnappers wanted with him, he felt the crush of fear bearing down on him like an unendurable weight.

OK, forget it then. If he couldn't deal with that, he wouldn't. Just concentrate on the here and now. He'd pay attention to what was going on and wait for them to make a mistake. That's when he'd make his move.

(Please, Jim. Please get here soon.)

"I think he saw Bitsy in my pack," Susan was saying. "We had to go ahead and do it in the garage."

"That stupid dog," Seth said in a nasally voice. "You could have ruined everything."

"I can't leave her in my room, you know that. If someone heard her barking I could get pitched out of the dorm."

In the middle of a kidnapping, and Susan was worried about losing her campus housing. Blair didn't know whether to laugh or scream. Didn't much matter, since he couldn't do either one.

"Can you and Eddie get him in by yourselves, Tom? Seth better stay in the van until he gets cleaned up."

Another head looked over the back of the seat at him. Tom, presumably. Blair didn't know the kid, and insanely enough, that was something of a relief. At least he wasn't another of Blair's own students. Blair didn't know how many more of those betrayals he could take.

He'd take as many as he had to, a small, doomed voice at the back of his head whispered. Until he got out of this, he would have to take everything they felt like giving him.

All right, stop it. Just stop it right now.

"We can get 'im," Tom said. He could have been talking about moving a sofa for all the concern in his voice.

"There goes campus security," Eddie said. "That was cutting it pretty close, Susan."

"I couldn't help it. He's the one who called them."

Tom grinned down at him. "If they only knew, right, Mr. Sandburg?" Then his head pulled away, and Blair could see nothing but the roof of the van and the blue sky. He had lost track of where they were by now. Still on campus he thought, or very close by. They were making slow progress through the maze of stop signs, traffic lights and pedestrian crosswalks. There were people all around him, some of them maybe even his friends and colleagues, and he was just lying here. It was enough to drive a person mad.

"There's a place," Susan said abruptly.

"I can't fit in there," Seth complained.

"There's plenty of room. You just don't know how to parallel park."

Stopping again already? Where were they?

Blair could see a streetlight against the sky, and the cornice of a building, ornate and in need of a new coat of paint. Probably they were in the Westchester neighborhood east of campus. Half a dozen city blocks of Victorian gingerbread fantasies from the Goldrush era, these days subdivided into apartments and boarding rooms. Blair had rented a room on Yakima Street for a couple of months himself just for the convenience of being close to campus, but it had been expensive and crowded, and with frat houses on either side and across the street, so damned noisy the warehouse had felt like an escape to the dark side of the moon.

Then a terrible suspicion occurred to Blair. It was incredible, impossible. He couldn't be right. He couldn't be.

The back doors of the van were suddenly wrenched open. Blair blinked against the sunlight and cold spring air. Eddie and Tom were standing there, and Eddie reached in first and grabbed the shoulder of Blair's coat. "Wanna give me some help here?" he demanded.

Tom just grinned. "This is pretty wild, isn't it?" he said. He hooked both hands behind Blair's knees and pulled his legs out of the back of the van while Eddie tugged at Blair until he was sitting up. Then the two of them gripped his shoulders and pulled him upright. When his feet touched the pavement, pain spiked through his ankle once more. Tom swore at him as they staggered.

"Watch it!" Eddie hissed. "You got him?"

Tom adjusted his grip on Blair's shoulder, bracing himself. "Yeah, I got him, I got him. What's wrong with him?"

"Seth busted his ankle. You should see it. It's already turning purple."

"He did what? I don't believe it."

"Hold on a minute, I've gotta get the doors." Eddie half turned, supporting Blair awkwardly, and managed to slam the doors shut behind them. A couple of cars were going down the other side of the street, but neither of them even slowed down. Maybe they didn't see him in the shadow of the van.

Maybe.

They were in front of the Psi Omega house, which was a rambling, three story mansion of a place that had seen better days, and hadn't been improved by a recent paint job in yellow and black. Even the sidewalk and the wrought iron fence had been painted. A window was open in a third story turret despite the cold, and music was blaring.

"Hey, whoa, hold up!" Someone's voice shouted from the other side of the street. Hope bloomed for an instant as Blair saw a kid come jogging across toward them. Seth had started to pull the Suburban back into the street, but he stopped at that. Blair was frantically calculating their odds. They were absolutely lousy. The kid should turn and run the other way, call the cops, get help.

He didn't do any of those things. He ran right up to the three of them, his round, friendly face flushed red from the jog in the cold. "Eddie, dude, what do you think you're doing?" Without waiting for an answer, he reached out and ran his finger under the strap holding the gag in Blair's mouth. "Whose leather is this?"

"How you doing, bro?" Eddie said, as if they had just run into each other in the campus pub. "It's Seth's. You know him?"

"Hell, yeah, I know Seth. Does he ever lend it out?"

"You're sick, man." Eddie laughed.

This couldn't be happening. Of every impossible thing that had happened this morning, this was the worst. Oh, god, this was insane. Blair shook his head frantically, trying to make the kid see him somehow. Tom said, "I don't think he wants you borrowing Seth's stuff either."

The kid laughed too. "You're about six months late for Hell Week. You know that, right?"

"We're not late," Eddie said. "We're just getting a six month head start."

"You guys are messed up," the kid said happily. He patted Blair's cheek and looked closely into Blair's eyes. Blair could hear himself panting with terror and frustrated rage, but Eddie's friend didn't seem to notice anything at all. "I hope you know what you're doing, man," he told Blair. "These guys are seriously messed up." Still laughing, he punched Eddie companionably in the shoulder and took off at the same easy lope. Blair stared after him, dumbfounded, until Eddie complained, "Come on, this guy isn't getting any lighter."

At that Blair thrashed hard, trying to twist out of their hold. The pain in his ankle stabbed at him, and the gag was suffocating, but he couldn't let them take him into that house. No matter what, he had to keep that from happening.

In the end, of course, it didn't matter how hard he fought. Tom and Eddie didn't even seem to notice. They dragged him the length of the yellow and black sidewalk, swearing and laughing, then up the staircase and across the wide stone verandah to the front door, which Eddie kicked open with the toe of his shoe. Blair's very soul felt as though it would be crushed as the smells of that crumbling house spilled out the front door. Rotting lathe and plaster work. Stale beer. Tomato sauce, cigarette smoke, unwashed laundry and pot. Those were the ephemeral things, though. The reek of age and decay was paramount, and it froze his heart in his breast. Please, Jim, Blair screamed in his mind as Eddie kicked the door shut behind them. For a few stark moments he wasn't even sane anymore. Please, Jim, please don't let them do this to me.

"Shit," Tom said explosively. "Stop a minute. Stop."

They lowered him to the floor with a gentleness that would have surprised Blair, if he had been in any position to notice. It was dark in the foyer, red light coming through the stained glass window set high in the front door. The carpet under his head was worn down almost to the backing and reeked of mildew. Blair's heart was pounding away in his chest, but the threat of suffocation had reached him through his panic, and he lay still, struggling to calm down enough to breathe.

"I thought I was gonna lose it when Stevie showed up like that," Tom said. He was bent over Blair, hands on his knees, breathing as though he too were trying to catch his breath.

"No way. I knew we were cool. It went just like we planned. As long as you act like you know what you're doing, nobody gives a damn."

"Oh bullshit you weren't scared, man."

Eddie snorted in laughter. "It's not my fault you're some kind of a wuss. I'm telling you, I wasn't scared. How about you, Mr. Sandburg?" Eddie crouched down and rolled Blair over. Blair's cuffed hands dug into the small of his back. "Were you scared?"

"Let's just get him downstairs before anybody else shows up," Tom said.

"Yeah, all right, all right. Here, get him under his arm here. I think it'll be easier like this."

The two of them picked Blair up once more, their hands digging painfully into his underarms through his coat, and dragged him backward down the hall. His bound feet trailed along the worn carpet. He couldn't see where they were taking him, only the back of the front door. On one side was a large open area with a fireplace and three unmatched sofas. Other doors along the hallway were closed. Many of them were obviously recent additions. The walls were water damaged, and in places the wallpaper had peeled off above the wainscoting in long ragged strips. Blair heard a door opening behind him, and the ancient smell of the house suddenly grew much stronger. Terror closed his throat once more, spots dancing before his eyes. He really might pass out, he realized bleakly. And if he did, he could choke to death before either of these idiots figured out what was happening. He had to calm down. He had to keep his head. Besides, he was probably all wrong about what house he thought he was in. He was just scared and jumping to conclusions because he was in a seriously bad situation. There were lots of old houses around Rainier.

Tom and Eddie pulled him through a doorway, and they were now making their way down a steep, narrow staircase. Posters of Pamela Anderson and Claire Dane were tacked to the woodwork. Blair's feet bounced from step to step as they descended, and each thump felt as though it drove a dull spike straight through his ankle bone. Thump. Thump. Thump. His head dropped back in agony, and he stared up at the slanting wood ceiling claustrophobically near overhead. A bare bulb at the head of the stairs illuminated their descent. They turned a sharp corner at the foot of the stairs at last, Blair's shackled feet catching at the corner, and then went down a short, dark corridor. The floor was smooth and very hard, stone or concrete, Blair thought. The walls were tongue-in-groove paneling. A door stood open to the left. "That's my place," Tom said. He sounded proud of it. Blair could smell dirty laundry and peanut butter.

Eddie added, "But you know who used to live here, don't you?"

Oh, god. Oh, god, no.

They dragged him another few yards and through another doorway into a large, open bathroom. The plumbing was a mixture of ancient and modern, two urinals against one wall, a single stall with steel walls painted mud brown, a sink that looked as though it had been designed for washing laundry by hand, and shower heads along another wall. The entire room was tiled with tiny white octagonal tiles, many of them cracked and broken, mold growing black in the grout. The smell was indescribably foul. Blair felt himself trembling violently, his eyes darting around his surroundings, trying to take in as much as he could and terrified of what he would see.

They dragged him across to the showers and dropped him once more, this time rolling him over onto his face. His head was near a drain, and he could smell the water standing in a trap. "You ready?" Tom asked above him. Blair felt them fumbling at his cuffed wrists. Something clicked, and then they were no longer hooked together. His hands were dragged apart, the sudden change in position making his shoulders burn. He was yanked up and slammed back against the wall of the showers, his arms spread wide. He struggled against them, but it was already too late. Eddie and Tom snapped the rings on his cuffs around the water faucets and stepped back. He was in a half-crouch, trying to keep from putting any weight on his bad ankle, unable either to sit down or stand up, huffing through flared nostrils in pain and fear, the shower wall cold at his back. They could not leave him. Not here, not like this.

"Oh yeah," Eddie said, bending down to look into his face. "You know, don't you? These were the servant's quarters when President Bollingen lived here. His poor old housekeeper slept down here for decades before that night when she finally went upstairs to get the butcher knife. Kinda makes you think, doesn't it? It does me, anyway."

Blair stared at them, struggling to breathe.

"Let's get out of here," Tom said. "I'm starving."

Eddie straightened up. "Me too, man. We've got a couple of hours. What about Papa John's?"

"Oh yeah, that's only the worst pizza on the planet." They turned their backs on Blair and walked out of the bathroom, still arguing about lunch, shutting the door behind them and turning out the light.

Chapter 10

Blair wasn't in his office, so Jim let himself in using the key Blair had given him a couple of years ago. Blair's backpack was in his desk chair, and Jim unzipped the pack and checked inside, mostly to verify what he already knew. The cell phone was right where he expected to find it, nestled in an interior pocket next to the tahini, mayo and sprouts sandwich Blair had made for himself before leaving this morning. Jim grimaced at the sharp scent of sesame paste and lemon juice, and he dug the sandwich out and stowed it on the top shelf of the little fridge under the coffee maker. Mayonnaise should be refrigerated, everybody knew that. Hadn't Naomi taught that kid anything normal?

In the meantime, though, Blair wasn't here, and Jim had no idea where he might have gone. Aggravating. The cell phone wasn't a whole lot of use if he didn't bother to carry it with him, was it? Of course, Sandburg hadn't had any reason to expect him this morning, so Jim couldn't exactly grouch that Blair hadn't been sitting around waiting for him. Jim could grouch about the phone, he supposed, if he thought it would do any good. He knew perfectly well it wouldn't.

Oh well, Sandburg probably wouldn't be gone long. He'd left his backpack, so he wasn't in class or off at the library doing research. The coffee in the pot was a day old at least, maybe more, which meant Blair had come in, dropped his stuff, and immediately taken off again. He'd be back. Jim could wait. He moved the backpack out of the office chair and settled down in it himself, propping his feet on the desk. Here in Blair's office, surrounded by the artifacts of Blair's life, Jim no longer felt so out of control, on the verge of panic. In fact, he almost wondered what he was doing here in the first place.

Almost. That was the mistake he had been making all along, wanting to believe the problem would just go away on its own. He should already have talked to Blair about his hallucination in the library, but with the shooting and everything else, it simply hadn't seemed all that important. The nightmares should have tipped him off, but Blair was having them too, so it had been easy this morning for Jim to pretend his own bad dreams were just the stress of the case as well.

Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to worry about.

But it was something out of the ordinary when the dreams followed him back into the waking world. Things were getting worse instead of better, and he couldn't handle it by himself anymore. Blair would know what was going on, though. Blair would be able to tell him why he was being haunted by footsteps he could not possibly be hearing. He would banish them with some Blair-speak and the touch of his hand on Jim's brow or planted firmly in the middle of Jim's chest, and maybe his irritable demand to "concentrate, Jim -- how do you expect to accomplish anything if you won't pay attention to me?" And somehow, he'd fix it. Just like he had fixed everything. The only thing he hadn't been able to do for Jim was make these senses go away for good.

A part of Jim still despised his dependence. After all, what was he going to do once Blair got his degree? When he didn't need his research subject anymore? It was a subject Blair had learned to avoid, but Jim remembered every word of every conversation they'd ever had about Blair's future. The reality of Blair's profession was there were hundreds of applicants for every good teaching position that opened up. Blair was good, and knew it, and he seemed to have no doubt he could get himself hired somewhere, but it could be anywhere in the country. Maybe he'd take a lectureship at Rainier for a year or two, but that was only a temporary position, intended to help young PhDs while they looked for a job. For the sake of his career, he would eventually have to go.

Then what would Jim do when his senses turned reality inside out?

Jim swung his feet down off the desk irritably. That kind of thinking wasn't doing him any good. There was still a case to solve here, questions which needed to be answered. Why had Ross taken that book? Who else had known about his plan?

And by the way, who had taken Ross's body?

Jim's knuckles whitened on the arms of the chair. Where the hell was Sandburg anyway? He picked up the backpack again. If Blair had had an appointment this morning, perhaps he'd made a note of it. He rooted around, searching, then pulled out a thick little leather volume from the bottom of the bag. He was smiling to himself at finding the dayplanner, which had been a gift from Jim last Christmas. He'd never been able to understand how Blair could possibly keep track of all his commitments just by scribbling notes to himself on whatever scraps of paper happened to be at hand. ATM receipts, the back of Jim's grocery lists, whatever. It was true, Jim had to admit, Blair usually managed to show up more or less on time, more or less where he was supposed to be -- but wouldn't his life be easier with a little organization?

Blair had laughed, agreed that maybe his life would be at that, and had thanked Jim for the gift. Silly how touched Jim felt to find Blair was really using it. He opened the book, letting the pages fan open against his thumb, and found the whole month of April entirely blank. He paged back. Nothing in March. Almost nothing in February. The first two weeks of January had been carefully filled in, all with the same pen at the same time, it looked like. After that, the notations of appointments and classes became increasingly erratic, degenerating into post-it notes stuck to the pages, or written on the back of a deposit slip and tucked between the leaves. By mid February Blair had given it up entirely.

Jim shut the book and put it back in Blair's backpack, his smile a trifle rueful now. Sandburg must have known from the start the dayplanner wouldn't work for him, but for Jim's sake, he'd been willing to give it a shot. Why he was still carrying it around was the mystery. Well, not such a mystery after all. He would have to remember to tell Sandburg it was all right, really. He didn't need to keep lugging it around just to spare Jim's feelings. The damn thing was heavy.

But he still didn't know where Blair was this morning. Jim pulled out the sheaf of xeroxes stuffed in the center of the backpack and shuffled through them. They all seemed to be articles written by that professor Blair was so suspicious of, Peter Nagle. So maybe that's where he was this morning. Jim put the papers back and looked around on Blair's desk, then opened drawers, and finally found a campus directory under a package of coffee filters in the bottom desk drawer. He looked up Professor Peter Nagle's office number, then put the directory back in the drawer, under the coffee filters. He'd go have a word with the good professor himself this morning. Whether or not Blair was already there, Jim thought it would be a good idea for him to meet the professor himself. He trusted Blair's instincts, but he'd learned to be careful when they were dealing with a case on campus. For some reason, Blair was least reliable on his own home turf. Jim thought he understood why. It was always toughest when it was personal.

When Blair was very still, he could almost hear the words. The bass came thumping right down through the floor whether he wanted to hear it or not, the pulsing backbeat a counterpoint to his own rapid heartbeat. It was only when he held very, very still, even his breathing shallow, that he could hear the tortured voice. Shouting, not really singing at all. Crying out in anger.

Hole's second album, wasn't it? He'd always liked it, but he was pretty sure once he got out of this, he would never, ever want to listen to Courtney Love singing again. He thought the stereo he was hearing now must be the same one he had heard from out on the street, blaring out of the third story window. Apparently the CD was set to endlessly repeat, because he was sure this was at least the third time he'd heard "Violet."

Which meant he had been here -- how long? More than ninety minutes. Closer to two hours, maybe. He couldn't feel his hands anymore, and his shoulders and thigh muscles were a solid mass of fire. He'd managed to push himself up to an almost-standing position a few times, trying to stretch the muscles cramping in his thighs, but the last time he had tried, he hadn't been able to force his legs to straighten.

At least his ankle wasn't bothering him so much anymore. He hardly noticed it, really, now that everything else hurt just as badly. The gag was the worst of all. The hinges of his jaw were burning with pain, and there was something terrifying about the way the muscles in his neck and throat were tightening. He really could suffocate down here, trussed up like this, and it was very cold comfort to reflect this was almost certainly not what his kidnappers had intended to happen.
Go on, take everything
Take everything
I want you to

Oh shut UP already, he thought furiously. Great victim music, wasn't it? Maybe that's why they were playing it. Maybe they'd planned it that way. Maybe they had planned everything. Who could guess what a twisted genius like Dr. Nagle might have told them to do anyway? Apparently they had been smart enough to break Ross's body out of the morgue. So maybe everything that was happening was part of the same plan. Right down to his slow death by suffocation in the basement while Tom and Eddie went out for pizza.
Take everything
Take everything
I dare you to

Blair shook his head violently, and the movement was enough to blot out the faint, penetrating lyrics for a few moments. Too bad he already knew the words, because he couldn't stop hearing them in his head. He should think about something else already. The only problem was, nothing he could think of was much better. Like, where was Ross's body, anyway? Seemed logical to assume it was stowed somewhere nearby. Probably down in the basement with him, which was a pleasant thought, wasn't it? Stuffed in the linen closet, maybe. Why on earth had they taken the body in the first place?

Why had they taken him?

Did it really have anything to do with the book Ross had been trying to steal? Blair still didn't have a very clear idea of what was in it. A seriously twisted demonology, if the Huysmans translation could be trusted, and a lot of necromancy. That was the part that was particularly unpleasant to think about now, chained up in the dark by a gang of body snatchers. Were they seriously planning to act out the rites described in the book? Yeah, it was completely crazy, but from a certain, sick point of view, it did make sense. After all, they had a corpse, and you couldn't do much necromancy without one. For that matter, if they left Blair down here much longer, they would have two corpses on their hands. Then they could really go to town.
Take everything
Take everything

Oh, god. He thumped his head against the tile wall behind him. Not hard, just enough to feel it. What did he do to attract these types anyway? He really didn't want to start thinking about David Lash right now, but it was tough not to remember Ross had been watching him, just like Lash had. Both men had seen something in him they wanted for themselves. Something they were willing to reach out and take, risking prison, risking death. And sure enough, Jim had killed both of them. The only difference was, this time, death apparently hadn't been enough to derail Ross's plans.

A door slammed somewhere overhead. Blair started violently, and for a moment couldn't breathe. The darkness of the basement was suddenly speckled with light, phosphenes trailing away out of the corners of his eyes as he struggled to take a breath. He felt a cramp in his neck like a hand around his throat, and had a sudden, vivid image of Jim finding him like this, hanging in chains in a filthy bathroom in the basement of a frathouse. Dead of his own panic.

No. Oh no.

He held himself absolutely still, pretending it didn't matter that he couldn't breathe. All that mattered was staying calm, keeping still. Allowing muscles that were cramped so badly he couldn't imagine ever moving without pain again to relax. Peaceful and calm, easy, easy, like Jim reading the paper on a Sunday morning, wrapped in a houserobe and still a little damp from the shower. Sipping at coffee too hot to drink yet, and smiling in drowsy pleasure when the sun broke through the clouds over the bay, shining in through the skylights and touching his face with warmth and light.

The first breath burned Blair's lungs like he was breathing water instead of air. Hurting was OK, though, because it meant he wasn't dead. Through the roaring in his ears he could hear the thunder of footsteps. Someone was coming. A lot of someones. Maybe even the whole gang? Great. The more the merrier. He hardly cared what happened next, just as long as they got him down off this wall, or at least took the gag out of his mouth.

The door banged open. An arc of light spilled across the tile floor from the hallway, and Susan complained, "God, it stinks down here." Then someone switched on the overhead, and Blair had to squeeze his eyes shut against the violence of the incandescent light. Footsteps clicked across the tile to him. He squinted his eyes open again. Susan was bending down over him, her hands fumbling with the buckle at the back of his head. Oh, thank you. A few strands of hair were caught in the strap, and the sharp, contained pain of the pulled hairs when she tugged the gag away was so welcome tears came to his eyes.

"How you feeling?" she asked him.

Blair blinked up at her, taking deep gulps of air. I feel wonderful, he thought. I can breathe, and that's all that matters. "I can't breathe through that gag," was what he tried to say to her, but his jaws didn't work. He couldn't close his mouth, so all that came out was an "ahhhh," that seemed to alarm Susan almost as much as it did him.

"We better not use that anymore," she said. "He's got to be able to talk."

He supposed that was an encouraging sign. Wonder what they wanted him to say?

"Look," she said. "Don't fight this, OK? We don't want to hurt you."

Great, that refrain again. He could not remember the last time he had hurt so much. Being shot was pretty bad, but at least that was a sudden violence, not this torturously slow business. One cruel turn of the screw at a time. He almost thought he'd rather take a bullet.

"Here it is," Monica said, somewhere out of Blair's line of vision. "I measured three teaspoons."

Oh, shit. What now?

"Get his head back," Susan said, and Seth loomed over him. He'd cleaned up the blood, but his nose was still swollen and purple. He ought to see a doctor about that, Blair thought insanely.

"I got him," Seth said, and grabbed a fistful of hair at the back of Blair's head, yanking his head back. He felt Seth's knuckles at the nape of his neck as he stared bleakly upward. Even the ceiling was covered in those tiny little octagonal white tiles. Susan clamped her left hand over his chin, her strong fingers digging into the left side of his jaw. The pressure on the sore muscles there was excruciating, and he heard the open mouthed whimper that escaped him. Metal knocked against his teeth, and he felt something syrupy and thick slide across his tongue. He gagged reflexively, and Susan smashed his mouth shut with her palm against his chin.

"If you spit that out, we'll pour the whole bottle down your throat," she said. She stroked his throat with her other hand, trying to force him to swallow.

"Do you want the water?"

Blair couldn't keep track of the voices any longer and didn't know who was talking. Whatever they had poured into his mouth was slipping down his throat. When Susan released his chin he spat weakly, but there was nothing left to get rid of. The sickeningly sweet taste was thick on his tongue, but his whole mouth felt puckered and dry. He recognized the taste, he thought, and the sensation of dryness, but he couldn't quite place it.

"Looks like most of it went down," Susan said. Blair felt the lip of a plastic bottle against his bottom lip, and then water flooded his mouth. He choked and coughed, and Susan forced his mouth shut again. "Swallow it, dammit." He couldn't possibly, not as violently as he was coughing. He thrashed, choking, and Susan released him with an exclamation of disgust. "Let him go, Seth. Just let him go."

Blair's head dropped forward. Water spilled out of his mouth to run down his chin and under the collar of his shirt. Every cough sent rivulets of fire through the cramped muscles in his legs and shoulders. He would give anything in the world just to lie down, he thought. Just to curl up and lie down anywhere at all, even on this cold tile floor.

"Do you think he spit out all the stuff?" Eddie was talking. Oh, good. Glad to know Eddie was here too. Just like old home week wasn't it? Whatever that was. His coughs were becoming less violent. He'd begun to shiver uncontrollably, and his stomach was cramping from coughing so hard in this awkward position.

"I don't know," Susan said. "If he did, we'll just do it again." She crouched down in front of Blair and held something up for him to see. A bottle of water. Same brand she'd bought for herself at the bakery last night, in fact. "You see, Mr. Sandburg? It's just water." She tipped the bottle up and swallowed some herself. "So you might as well drink it," she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "Because if you won't do it on your own, we'll have to make you drink it."

"What --" Blair managed to whisper.

"Are you gonna drink it or not?" Susan said impatiently.

"What did you give me?" There. Oh, his jaws hurt, though. His throat hurt, everything hurt.

"You drink the water, and I'll tell you, all right?"

It wasn't much of a deal, but on the other hand, he didn't have a whole lot of leverage right now. He closed his eyes and nodded. Susan tipped the bottle into his mouth, slowly enough for him to swallow a mouthful at a time. It seemed as though he could feel every drop going down, and when his belly began to feel oddly tight, he turned his face away from the bottle. Susan straightened up. "Guess we'll wait and see if that does it," she said.

"What was it?" Blair whispered.

"Don't you think we should get him down first?" Monica asked thoughtfully.

"Yeah," Eddie said. "It'll be a real mess if he spews like that."

"What did you give me?" Blair asked again, hearing the edge of panic in his voice this time.

"You're right, man." Seth loomed over him again. "Help me with him, all right?"

"Don't try anything," Susan warned him. "You can't get away."

Blair wondered blankly what they thought he could possibly be capable of in this state. "What did you give me?"

Seth unhooked one manacle from the fixture, and Blair's arm dropped like a stone, slapping his own thigh with a crack. A gritty, raw kind of pain turned tight circles in his shoulder. His other manacle was released, and he collapsed in a heap on the bathroom floor, panting. He'd thought the only thing he wanted in the world was to get down, but it turned out being released was almost as bad. Someone grabbed his wrists again and tried to pull them together behind his back, and it felt as though his arms were being twisted out of their sockets. "Please," he gasped. "Please don't."

"Oh, leave him," Susan said. "He's not going anywhere. How's your ankle, Mr. Sandburg?"

He felt someone's hand on his calf, pulling back the bottom of his jeans. "Looks pretty bad," Eddie announced.

"For the last time, it's not my fault," Seth said defensively. "He's the one who jumped."

"It's too late to do anything about it now," Susan said. "Look, Mr. Sandburg, tell us when you start to feel sick, all right?"

"What the hell did you give me?" Blair asked again, his aching jaw moving against the cold tile floor.

"Take it easy already, it's just ipecac. Half the anorexics on my floor use it."

Monica laughed. "Oh god, I know. It's so sick."

Blair curled painfully onto his side, drawing his knees up in slow degrees, and trying to turn his head so he could see his tormenters. The blood was beginning to flow back into his hands, and his fingertips were tingling and burning. "Why?" was all he could manage to ask. His stomach was cramping, though he couldn't tell if it was really the emetic working already, or just knowing what he had swallowed that was making him feel nauseated.

"Why do you think, man?" Eddie sounded honestly puzzled, but his puzzlement switched to anger just as quickly. "It was your cop buddy who killed Ross in the first place."

Well, that explained everything, didn't it? "Eddie," he whispered. "Jim didn't want to do it. Ross was acting crazy, waving a gun around. Jim didn't have any choice."

"Hey." Eddie nudged Blair in the center of his chest with the toe of his running shoe. "You know something, Mr. Sandburg? Unless you want that gag back in your mouth, I think you better just shut the hell up."

"Take it easy," Susan said. "It's gonna be all right. Just like we planned, right? Everything's going perfect."

"Yeah," Seth agreed. "Just like Ross wants. Maybe it's even better this way, you know?"

Aw, god, here it came. Blair felt the sudden twist in his gut and his face flamed with heat. He groaned in warning, and someone yanked him up by his collar, while Monica tried to shove an aluminum pan into his hands. It fell from his nerveless fingers, and he was violently, humiliating sick. Someone held his head and perhaps someone else picked up the pan and was holding it under his head, but his awareness had spiraled down to nothing but the pain of his stomach contracting again and again, and the burn of bile in his throat. When it was over, he fell forward to lie with his face once more on the tiles, which felt cool and soothing against his flushed brow. Please, Jim, he was thinking. Now, please, would be a good time to get me out of this. He had a glimmering of the inevitable outcome of all this, and even the suspicion was enough to freeze his heart. Not that he had a whole lot of courage left to spare at this point. His only hope was maybe his kidnappers weren't really willing to follow things to their logical conclusions.

But he bet they were. After all, Lash would have understood. Him and his nice hot baths.

Blair heard a toilet flushing. The air was fouler than ever, a smell that made his stomach clench so painfully he was afraid he would be sick again. "Come on," Seth said. "Can you sit up?"

Maybe he could sit up, but he couldn't see what his motivation was, so he just lay there until two of them grabbed the shoulders of his coat and dragged him to his knees, then turned him around and shoved him against the wall. He sat with his legs extended straight before him, still manacled at the ankles. His arms hung nervelessly at his sides. "You think you can handle this by yourself?" Susan said. She crouched beside him, lifted his right hand, and put the box in his hand. "See?" she said. "It's safe, just the mineral oil kind. We haven't even opened it."

Blair looked at it numbly, turned the box to feel the liquid moving inside, then looked up at the ring of his kidnappers standing above him. They didn't even seem embarrassed. They were true believers, every one of them. God help him, but he was in deep, deep shit.

A pun. Oh god, was that a pun? He must be cracking up. "You've got to be kidding," he whispered to them. The foulness was on his lips, in his mouth. Beginning to dry on his chin.

"You didn't answer the question, Mr. Sandburg." Seth stood over his legs and looked down at him. "Maybe you just don't understand your options. See, either you do it yourself, or we'll do it for you." He smiled, the ugliest expression Blair had ever seen in his life. "The instructions are right there on the side of the box."

"You sick bastard," Blair whispered helplessly, and Seth just grinned more broadly than ever.

"What did you say?" he asked Blair, his voice still sounding stuffed up. If Blair had his way, the kid would have a stuffed up nose for the rest of his miserable life.

Blair looked around, the weight of the evil house bearing down all around him. "Help me up," he said, and tried to keep the quaver out his voice.

Take everything take everything

Chapter 11

The secretary in the history department was a thin, unhappy-looking woman, her face deeply lined by a lifetime of rigorous diet and exercise. She was stuffing flyers printed on cheap green copy paper into the departmental mailboxes along the back wall of the history office, and she glanced up with a smile when Jim said, "Excuse me." Her smile vanished when he said, "I'm trying to find Dr. Nagle, but he doesn't seem to be in his office and he's not answering his phone. I wonder if you could help me."

"I'm sorry." Her face shut up like a steel trap. "Except for the department chair, instructors handle their own schedules. If you'll leave a message on his voicemail, I'm sure Professor Nagle will get back in touch with you."

"I'm sure he will eventually, but I'd really like to talk to him this morning. Can you tell me if he's on campus today?"

She held out her hands in a gesture intended to indicate her complete inability to be of any help at all, still clutching flyers which featured a grainy portrait of Karl Marx bisected with an equally badly copied photo of Demi Moore. Probably an announcement for the kind of lecture Sandburg would eat with a spoon. "Professor Nagle keeps his own calendar," she repeated.

"I'm sure you can at least tell me if he's teaching a class this morning."

"Well, that information would be in the class schedule."

"I'm sure it is," Jim agreed, smiling at her. "So maybe you could look it up for me."

She just gazed back at him, blank faced, apparently trying to stare him down. This was ridiculous, Jim thought. Was he really losing his touch that badly? He crossed his arms on the high counter and waited. He smiled a little more.

She turned away. "It'll be a few minutes," she muttered, talking more to the mailboxes than to Jim.

"Actually, I'd like to have that information right now," Jim said. "I'm Detective James Ellison, Cascade PD. I'm investigating the death of one of Dr. Nagle's students, and I really need to find the man as soon as possible."

She spun around and stared at the badge he held out for her inspection. The handouts slipped from her trembling fingers. A door opened behind Jim, and the sudden updraft caught the falling pages. They spun around her like a muddy green snowstorm, falling lightly to the desk, the chair and the floor around her feet. "Peter," she said in a voice as thin as her pinched face. "It's a detective. He wants to talk to you about poor Ross."

"I'm Peter Nagle," said the man who had come in behind Jim. Jim turned to confront a tall, slender man with a full head of silver hair, who took Jim's hand in an aggressively firm handshake and smiled to show his even white teeth. "And you must be Detective Ellison." He didn't let go of Jim's hand. "The whole department is still in shock, myself included, but if there's anything I can do to help you make sense of this tragedy, I'm only too glad to help."

So this was the professor Blair despised. Well, there wasn't much there to love in Jim's book, either. The man was effusive and condescending. Too damned friendly and too damned pretty as well. Reminded him of his first impression of Blair. Except in Blair's case it had been youth and nerves -- the stumbling early steps of a young man with brains and talent who hadn't quite figured out what to do with either yet. Nagle'd had thirty years to sculpt his looks and smarts into high, brittle art. Jim wasn't impressed. "Thank you," he said, retrieving his hand. "I was hoping you could clear up a couple of matters for me."

"Of course, of course. Is there any mail for me, Lori?"

The department secretary smiled miserably, and got up from the floor where she was still collecting the scattered flyers. She tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear, but the moussed, sprayed lock fell stiffly forward again, still frozen in an unmoving ringlet. "Just a few things. I'm still sorting," she apologized. She pulled a stack of envelopes from one of the boxes and handed it to him, the Karl Marx flyer on top. Nagle immediately dropped the flyer into the trash basket under the desk.

"Really a waste of trees, distributing these things to everyone," he announced. "Lori, I think the mail is supposed to be in all the boxes by ten, isn't it?"

Jim was well on his way to deciding his first impression of the man was justified.

"Of course, I spoke to Blair Sandburg about this yesterday," Nagle continued, turning away before Lori could answer. "Was that part of the official investigation as well? You see, I thought Blair was just doing an extended ride-along to research his dissertation. Am I to understand he's actually employed by the Cascade Police Department?"

"Sandburg has served as an unofficial consultant from time to time," Jim said carefully. "His background and expertise have proven helpful in certain cases."

Nagle smiled thoughtfully. "Like this one, I suppose. Does Blair get paid for this 'unofficial' work?"

"I'm not here to discuss Sandburg's position with the Cascade PD, Dr. Nagle. Is there some place we could talk?"

"Yes, of course, my office is right down the hall." He touched Jim's arm above the elbow and guided him out of the office. "I'm sure you can understand my concern, however. It's a little disconcerting to learn what I had considered an informal conversation with a colleague is actually part of an official police investigation."

"In whatever capacity Blair spoke to you, he wanted the same thing we all do. To understand why Ross is dead."

They stopped before an office door with yellowing New Yorker cartoons and an appointment schedule taped to the woodwork. "Oh really?" Nagle said. "I would have thought that much, at least, was obvious." He unlocked his office door and gestured Jim in before him. "Ross is dead because you shot him."

The room was nothing like Sandburg's office. Any student papers or blue books were carefully stowed out of sight. There was no clutter anywhere, no unclassifiable artifacts propped in heaps and piles, just a broad expanse of desk with a computer on it, a couple of file cabinets, and bookshelves on every wall. Instead of metal rack shelving, Nagles's bookshelves were oak, built flush against the wall and around the windows. The sunlight which did make it in through the deep windows reminded Jim of light filtering down into a mine shaft. "Ross had a weapon and presented a clear and present danger," he said, not taking the seat Nagle offered him. The professor shrugged and sat down across the desk from Jim all the same. "I fired to protect everyone present."

"But especially to protect Blair Sandburg. Ross was trying to use Blair as a hostage to ensure his own safety, wasn't he? It turned out to be a bad choice."

"That's an interesting interpretation of what happened in the library. Were you there, Professor? I don't remember interviewing you with the other witnesses."

Nagle smiled. "No, of course not, but students talk, you know that, and it seems to have been quite a terrible and dramatic moment. I doubt any of the students who were there that evening will ever forget it."

Jim walked to the bookshelves and began reading the titles of books which would have meant more to Blair. "I don't think I'll ever forget it either," he told Nagle truthfully. "What else are students telling you? Why Ross was willing to die to steal that book, for instance?"

"I'm sure he didn't expect to die. He couldn't have known a police officer would be in the lobby."

"The boy was armed, so he seems to have been ready to kill even if he didn't intend to die himself. Do you have any idea what would have made that book important enough for Ross to try to steal it?"

"There was no reason for him to steal it when he could study it all he wanted in Special Collections."

"Apparently that wasn't good enough for him. What was the book about? Had you discussed it in class?"

"Yes, of course. We talked about many books from the Bollingen Collection in my seminar. I'm sure Blair has already told you all this."

"I'd appreciate it if you could explain it to me yourself."

Nagle extended one hand, palm up. "The subject matter is quite esoteric, Mr. Ellison. I mean no disrespect, but I'm sure it falls far outside of a policeman's usual purview."

"My understanding is that it was a book of medieval magic. Spells, and rituals. Did Ross believe all that stuff? Is that why he wanted to have the book?"

"Really, Detective, you'll forgive me, but that's such a -- such a tremendous oversimplification of the subject matter of Unaussprechlichen Kulten I hardly know how to answer your question."

"You told Sandburg the book was actually a record of religious practices dating back to prehistory. He was a little skeptical."

Nagle gave a bark of surprised laughter. "Yes, he was at that."

"Blair is concerned that the students in your class may not have his resources for evaluating the validity of your claims about the book. Given some of the things Ross said in the library before he died, I'm beginning to share those concerns."

"What a picture you're painting." Nagle shook his head. "I sound like the Pied Piper of Rainier, don't I? Leading my hapless students away into wickedness."

"It does make an interesting picture. Any truth in it?"

Nagle laughed again and shrugged. "This all boils down to Blair's impression of me, doesn't it? Let me tell you something about Blair Sandburg. He's a very gifted scholar, maybe even a brilliant one. With discipline and hard work, he could become one of the leading lights in his field. Tragically, though, Rainier University has failed Blair. The anthropology department has allowed him to waste his time and the university's resources with ludicrous dead-end projects for years now. While Blair's peers are finishing their dissertations and entering the job market, Blair is still riding along with a detective from the local police department, looking for Burton's sentinels, I presume, though who knows what he's really doing. He's not telling his committee, at any rate. Is he telling you?"

Nagle didn't wait for Jim to answer. "The point is, the way his department has coddled Blair for so many years, he's come to believe all his own hunches and impressions. No one questions him, mostly because he's so far out there no one has any clear idea what he's doing anymore. And the inevitable result is, he's become intellectually lazy. He jumps to wild conclusions and doesn't believe there's anyone else on the planet qualified to question him. He can't go on like this forever, you know. There are people in the administration and in Blair's own department who are beginning to see Mr. Sandburg as a liability, not an asset to the university, and sooner or later, they'll decide to cut their losses and remove him from the program. I think it'll be a damned shame when that happens. The waste of a potentially brilliant mind."

"You think Blair's impression of you is just another of his unsubstantiated hunches." Jim was dimly surprised to hear how hollow his voice sounded. He had to remind himself that the man he was talking to had every incentive to discredit Blair. There was no reason to think anyone else at Rainier saw Blair that way. As a promising scholar gone astray. A great mind wasted.

"Well, of course I do. I'm teaching a seminar on the medieval world view, not recruiting disciples to the dark side."

Then Jim saw the book on the next shelf. It was just above eye level, wedged between Fox's Calendar of Protestant Saints, Martyrs, and La Rire de la Meduse. The sun shone on the slick dusk jacket, obscuring most of the title until Jim raised his hand to block the sunlight. It was that book after all. He could hardly believe it. He pulled it down and turned it in his hands, looking at the hated face on the cover. The Masquerade Killer read the title in lurid red block letters, The Amazing True Story of the Many Lives of David Lash.

That damned book. All the memories it conjured up. The darkness in Blair's eyes, the twist at the corner of his mouth every time he saw it in a bookstore, even if he did go on to make a joke about it being on the cheap shelves now. Jim had actually given a couple of interviews to the author himself, and it still felt like a betrayal to him, a worse and worse one as the years went on. If he had to do it all over again, he never would have agreed to it. The whole thing had been cooked up between Simon and the Commissioner, of course, in an attempt to make the department look better in the aftermath of a badly botched investigation. Simon had hoped Jim's cooperation would put a better spin on the Cascade PD's role in finally stopping David Lash. He'd even asked if Blair would mind being interviewed for the book as well.

"Well sure, hey, yeah, it's OK," Blair had told Simon, his face as white as chalk, his voice hardly above a whisper. "I don't mind talking to him. I mean, it happened, right? No use pretending it didn't."

Jim seldom got really angry any more. He was older and hopefully wiser, and besides, Sandburg had changed him, brought the secrets that had once made him so angry into the light, and shown him it was all right -- that he, James Ellison, was all right after all. But in that instant, Jim had felt a sick, hot spurt of absolutely blinding rage. He would not let this happen to Sandburg, and he didn't care if the mayor himself threw him off the force. No one would make Blair talk about the night David Lash had almost killed him. Especially not that pompous little jackass of an author from L.A. who made his living off other men's public suffering and private grief.

And apparently he'd been saying all that out loud, and perhaps more, because when the explosion finally went rumbling away into the distance and the outside world came back, he had been sitting in the chair at his desk, Blair leaning over him with both hands on Jim's shoulders. "Hey, Jim, you know what? Simon's got a great idea." Blair had been smiling, a slightly desperate expression, but it had been concern for Jim, not his own fear any longer. Jim had looked around for Simon, and found him in his office, the door shut firmly behind him. "You give this Truman Capote wannabe his interview," Blair had said, "and I don't talk to him at all, and everybody goes home happy, OK?"

Not happy, no, but it was, at least, an imaginable compromise. He had reached up and patted the side of Blair's face to see him grin for real. "OK, Chief."

Suddenly Jim wished he had found Blair this morning before coming to talk to Peter Nagle. He wanted Blair right here, right next to him, within arm's reach. "Have you seen Sandburg today?" he blurted out suddenly, which was not what he had meant to say.

"No." Nagle's eyebrow arched in mild surprise. "I haven't seen him since yesterday morning."

Jim held the book out. "This seems a little out of place on your shelves, professor. What does David Lash have to do with medieval history?"

"More than you might think. It was an amazing case, wasn't it? And my congratulations, Mr. Ellison, on what seems to have been brilliantly intuitive detective work. You saved Blair's life. Perhaps it's no wonder he's found it difficult to leave your world and return to his own."

Jim dropped the book. It hit Nagle's polished desk with a crack. "That book doesn't disclose the name of Lash's last victim."

"Please. You know as well as I do Blair's unfortunate involvement in that case is an open secret on campus."

Jim hadn't known that. He supposed Blair did, but he'd never said a word about it. "Perhaps you can enlighten me, then," Jim said, tightlipped. "What does a psychopath like David Lash have to do with medieval history?"

"Have you read the book yourself?"

Jim shook his head, and Nagle smiled a little no-of-course-you-haven't smile at him. "Ah. Well, the author postulates that rather than being a true psychopath, Lash was actually attempting, in a maimed and probably incomplete fashion, of course, to recreate certain necromantic rites the author traces all the way back to the middle ages. If the author had consulted with specialists in the field, he would have discovered those rites are far older still."

"A specialist like you, I presume?"

Nagle shrugged again. "I certainly have some ideas along those lines."

"You know what I think?" Jim said quietly. "I think Sandburg is absolutely right about you." He shoved the book hard across the desk, forcing Nagle to block it with his hand. "I think you're one irresponsible, dangerous son of a bitch."

His anger let the door swing open wide for an instant, and there it was, right on the edge of consciousness. The footsteps were becoming clumsier with the passing hours, but that was the least of it. The squelching noises were no longer simply the splashing of water over shuffling feet. There were liquid sounds inside as well, sounds Jim recognized. He'd heard them at crime scenes, one of the sentinel fringe benefits he'd never told Sandburg about. The seemingly lifeless body crumpled there on the street within chalk outlines, or in the flophouse bed or under the boardwalk or dragged behind some bushes in the park was anything but silent to a Sentinel. Before the violence of putrefaction set in, Jim could hear the hungry, tiny, wet sounds of the corpse's stomach digesting itself.

Nothing which made those sounds could be walking upright, however clumsily. Nothing on this earth.

He heard Nagle's exclamation of surprise as though from a million miles away. Congratulate me, Chief, he thought, on the verge of laughing out loud. Or maybe that was a scream trying to get out. I've gotten so good at this sentinel stuff, now I can even hear the dead walking around in hell.