"She's a vampire, then?"

"Yes, and every bit as potentially dangerous as our friend here."

Gordy looked at me, considering the possibilities. I didn't look particularly dangerous, but he knew from experience I at least had endurance.

"She will appear to be about Bobbi's age now," I said. "Maybe younger, and she could kill either of you without even trying. These guns give us a chance against her at night, hut only a chance. If you get a clear shot, don't hesitate; I can promise she won't. If you miss and it looks bad, do whatever you can to get away, and let me handle her."

"Are they in the house?"

"I don't know. It looks deserted. If it weren't raining I'd be able to hear something inside.""We shall have to break in, then," said Escott. "But quietly."

"I've got a window picked out, but I want someone to back me up while I'm checking the joint."

"Just lead the way."

Loading our pockets with sh.e.l.ls, we took the guns, concealing them under our coats as Malcolm had done at the radio station. I cautiously led them around and pointed out the window. Gordy let out a startled "Jeeze" when I vanished and re- formed inside. The catch was a rusty mess and nearly broke off in my hand when I twisted it free and pulled. As it was, they had to push from the outside while I dug my nails deep under the painted-shut framing. There was a sharp crack and a creak and it opened. We all stopped moving and listened, but no one came down the stairs to investigate. When it was wide enough, Escott came through feetfirst, and as soon as they touched the floor he pivoted around to get his shotgun.

"Come on, Gordy."

His eyes went around the opening. With him next to it for comparison it looked a lot smaller. "Are you kiddin'? I'll watch things out here 'til you can get the back door open."

Escott nodded. "Very well, we do need a rear guard."

Rain spattered our faces, and above Gordy's huge frame the sky burned with lightning. The thunder that followed seconds later made me wince from the sheer sound, and even Escott paused and frowned.

"Lousy night," Gordy muttered, showing his nerves again.

I told Escott to stay in the bas.e.m.e.nt while I looked upstairs, and left him in charge of the guns. He didn't argue.

The bas.e.m.e.nt door was hanging wide open, which was a bad sign to me. Most people keep theirs shut because a large opening into a dark pit makes them uncomfortable, but only when they're home. The door led straight up to the kitchen.

No one was there, but they had been. The table, counters, and stove were all stacked with dishes, pans, and leftover food; a small garbage pail by the back door had pa.s.sed the point of no return some time ago. I held still and listened, but the rain on the roof acted like so much radio static.

The back door was locked. I didn't want to chance any noise letting Gordy in, he'd have to wait awhile longer.

The kitchen opened onto a dark living room. No one was hiding in the corners. In the middle of the floor stood Gaylen's discarded wheelchair.

I went back, pa.s.sing Escott, who waited quietly near the top of the steps with a shotgun ready in his hands, his brows raised in a question. I shook my head and pointed down the hall to the bedrooms and went there.

The first door on the right was the bath, the second a small empty bedroom. The bed was unmade and women's clothing decorated the floor and furniture. A crumpled ma.s.s of fabric on a chair looked like the flower-print dress Norma had worn l.u.s.t night. It was still damp and smelled of the river.

The door to the second bedroom was shut. I pressed my ear to it. Even with the rain, I was certain to hear anyone on the other side, but the wood was thick and the thunder made me jumpy. I vanished, slipped through the door, and clung close to it while trying to subst.i.tute extended touch for sight.

On the right was something large and square, perhaps a bureau; on the left, s.p.a.ce for the door to swing and another square object. Ahead was empty s.p.a.ce. I could hear, but only in a m.u.f.fled sort of way, and by then I was imagining sounds. I had to see what I was into and tried for a partial materialization.

Standing out starkly on the walls and ceilings were red splashes-a lot of them.

My eyes dropped to the body on the floor. She was on her back, half-covered with a bedspread, her legs tangled in its folds. The red dress still looked new, the bloodstains blending invisibly into the bright color.

Blood was everywhere.

Everywhere. There was no head.

I must have made a noise or been too long. I was dimly aware of Escott quitting the bas.e.m.e.nt and approaching. I had no memory of leaving the room, but he found me on my knees in the hall next to the open door.

"Jack?"

I blinked. I was staring very hard at a corner where the wall met the floor. There was dust in the crevice. I had to look at that and concentrate on it or I would see her instead.

He stepped carefully past me and turned on the bedroom light.

"Don't." The word came out of nowhere. It was wrong to put light in that room; light would make what was there real.

He flinched, caught his breath, then looked back at me, but my mind and eyes were focused on a meaningless detail to keep the unacceptable at bay. The light went out and he remained still for a while, getting his breath back to normal. After a time he stepped away from the door.

"Come on. Jack. Come with me."

It was something simple to respond to, something undemanding. I got up and walked. In the kitchen he pulled a chair out for me. I sat.He unlocked the door and went out. His voice and Gordy's drifted in. I could guess what was being said, but didn't want to distinguish the words because that would make it real as well. I stared at a bent spoon fallen from the counter. My arm brushed against a tray on the table and tipped over a coffee cup. I righted it again.

There was lip rouge on the rim. I recognized the color.

The crash inside was louder than the storm and brought Escott and Gordy right away, but by then it was over. The table and all the junk on it were now in a shattered heap with the wheelchair in the living room. I pushed past them into the rain. Water streamed down my face. It was a good enough surrogate for tears that would not come.

Escott and Gordy trudged into sight, their figures distorted by the water on the windows. They got in, the car shaking a little from their combined weight and movements.

"Jack."

It was hard to raise my eyes, and when I did, Escott didn't like what he found there. He didn't ask me if I was all right; he could see for himself I wasn't.

"Jack."

I shook my head and looked out a window that faced away from the house, a window full of darkness and rain. I watched a drop slither down on the inside and disappear into the frame and waited to see if another would follow.

"I'd like to take him home."

Gordy looked at me uncomfortably. "Yeah, go ahead. I'm gonna stick around until she comes back for her box." He handed over the key and got out.

"Thank you."

He didn't quite shut the door. "He gonna be all right?"

Escott slid over to the driver's side and put the key in the ignition. "I'll park it behind my building, you can pick it up later."

The door slammed, he started the motor, and made a U-turn. I closed my eyes in time to avoid looking at the house.

The sky opened up in earnest as we crawled home. The streetlights did little more than mark where the sidewalks began, and lightning flashed overhead as though G.o.d were taking pictures of it all. Between the water hammering the roof and the thunder, conversation was impossible, but neither of us felt like talking. Escott refrained from the usual phrases of sympathy, his silence was infinitely more comforting. He would leave me alone or stick around, whatever was needed. He seemed to understand grief.

He pulled the car around the house, triple-parking behind the Nash and my Buick. He must have picked it up from the warehouse sometime during the day. He cut the motor and considered without enthusiasm the soaking dash to the door.

"I suppose we can't get any more wet," he said, but hesitated.

Maybe he was thinking about standing in the downpour and struggling with the stiff lock on the back door; it was that or the necessity of having to leave me alone for a few minutes. He opened his mouth again, but the sound died as his attention focused rigidly on something in the mirror. His head whipped around.

"Oh, good G.o.d," he whispered.

I stared out the back window. A pale shape lurched toward the car. Rain streamed past, blurring the view. The shape stumbled and fell against gla.s.s, and the face, anxious and white, looked inside. Our eyes locked with mutual incredulity.

Numbed only for a second, I tore out of the car, afraid she'd disappear, but she came into my arms, solid and real, moving, laughing, crying.

Alive.

Some joys are too much for the heart to hold and can even supersede grief for intensity. The tears that had not come before now burned my eyes and finally spilled out onto Bobbi's upturned face.

We clung to each other in the car while Escott watched with a mixture of happy indulgence and indecision. He looked ready to leave us alone, but Bobbi saw his intent, hooked an arm around his neck, and held him in place with a hug.

"Good heavens," he mumbled, embarra.s.sed and pleased, and unsuccessfully tried to suppress his smile.

She finally released him and turned back to me. Her face was swollen and red from crying, and her chopped-oft' hair was limp and dripping, but honest to G.o.d, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Escott offered her a handkerchief and she gratefully accepted and blew her nose.

"I thought they'd killed you," she told me with a hiccup.

"We had drawn the same conclusion about you," said Escott.

"What do you mean?"

"We traced down Malcolm's house. There's a woman's body there, wearing your red dress."

"Jesus, no wonder Jack looked so strange."

"Who was it? What happened?"

"That was Norma. We had a fight and she lost.""Could you be a little less succinct?"

"Easy, Charles, she's all in," I said, annoyed.

"No," she gulped, "it's okay. The other two left, the man and old woman."

"She's still old?" I asked.

"I don't know. I only heard her voice. I'd heard what they wanted you for, what they wanted you to do... Did you?"

"Yes."

She paused, her thoughts on her face.

"I had to, Bobbi."

Her fingers brushed my temple, and I caught her hand and kissed it.

"I heard you," she said. "I think it was you. It was after she pulled me from the water, that's when they said you were dead."

"They were wrong. Charles found me in time to save my a.s.s. Just tell me what happened to you."

"It's hazy; I was drugged a lot of the time. They kept me tied up in that bedroom all day, and once in a while the man would come in and check on me. The woman, Norma, sometimes shoved some cotton wadding over my nose and I'd hold my breath."

"Chloroform?"

She nodded. "I didn't think it was perfume, so I faked sleeping, and they left me alone most of the day. I spent the time getting untied. When it got dark I heard them again, the other woman, Gaylen-"

"What was her voice like? Old or young?"

She thought a moment. "Young, I think. I was still pretty woozy, but it was strong, at least. She and the man left, and then it was just me and Norma. When she came in to check on me she had the shotgun, but I hardly saw it because she was prancing around in my new red silk. It was a stupid thing to get mad about after thinking you were dead, but it just set me off. I jumped her, the gun came up, I pushed it away, and it-just-"

I held her tight. "It's okay, we know."

"G.o.d, I was sick and I had to get out. I grabbed one of her dresses and started walking. I didn't know where I was and the rain-"

"How did you get here?" asked Escott."Some couple in a car saw me, stopped, and offered a lift." She began to laugh- with relief, not hysteria. "I told 'em I had to walk home from a bad date and they believed it. They took me here, because I had to see Charles about you."

"Do you know where Gaylen went?"

"No."

"Probably the Stockyards," said Escott.

I agreed with him and looked at Bobbi. "Come on, let's get you inside before you freeze."

"Could we go to my place?"

"Anywhere you want."

"And Marza, she looked so awful when they grabbed me. Could you call her?

Please, I know she's worried sick."

Escott fingered his waistcoat pocket. "My key-"

"Won't need it." I grinned and left the car, dashed up the hack steps, and sieved through, re-forming again inside the kitchen. I opened the door and waved at them through the screen, showing off. They couldn't see me very well, what with the darkness and rain- "Hey... Escott." A man's voice. Behind me.

Again, no warning.

They must have been expecting him to come in the front way and been waiting there, then heard the back door open and quietly come up from behind. It might have been avoidable with no rain or with the lights on, but then the right man would have been killed. I might have even stepped out of it, but my thoughts were elsewhere, and all the emotional shocks had made me sluggish. There was no time to react before something like a sledgehammer slammed into my back at kidney level.

The breath was pushed right out of me. I staggered sideways against a wall and slid down, my back on fire.

Legs gave out and crumbled with no strength, right arm hanging loose and useless, left one twitching-my nervous system was shot all to h.e.l.l. What was it, what was wrong with my back? My hand flailed around the source of the pain and my fingers brushed against hard metal. It was sticking out of my back at a firm right angle and I didn't realize what it was at first. When I did, I moaned and felt a sudden sympathy with Escott's squeamishness.

Two other people were with me, but only one was breathing. I kept my head down and went very still.