"Is he dead?" She was across the kitchen. Any closer and she'd see who I was.Malcolm's hand pressed my wrist. He was close enough, but it was dark and he didn't have her night eyes-not yet. "Yeah, let's go."

I had to wait. No matter how badly I wanted them dead, I had to let them get clear and hope Escott and Bobbi stayed out in the car. I might be able to protect them from Malcolm, but not from her.

The front door slammed shut behind them.

Get up, go after them. Push against the wall, get the legs under the body. Stand up, get control, walk.

It was more of a drunken reel. The table got in the way.

Rest a second. It's not that bad. Now move.

I shoved the table away and went to the front of the house, trying to ignore my back. I made it to the door and twisted the k.n.o.b. They were down the steps and walking quickly to their car parked down the street. Her coat was too long, but her figure fit it; it might have been one of Norma's spares. Her hair was full and dark, her walk light and strong. I didn't have to see her face; it would look like the photo she'd given Escott. Her skin firm and smooth again, an image of a girl in her pretty youth.

Their heads were down because of the rain, so neither of them saw it coming.

A narrow alley ran between Escott's house and the next; kids were always charging through it in their games. Malcolm, no gentleman, was on the inside of the walk and closest to the opening when a noise like thunder, but much louder and briefer, happened there. Raindrops were caught and frozen for an instant in the flash before smoke and darkness obscured them.

It had been Escott. He'd seen something from the car and had gone around to ambush them. Unfortunately, Malcolm's body was in the way for the crucial second and took most of the blast.

He was thrown hard against Gaylen. She screamed from surprise or pain or both, and they went down together. She rolled clear, her coat full of small holes. He pitched onto his face, his head and part of one shoulder hanging over the curb in the runoff water.

Gaylen got to her feet, dazed and staring at Malcolm, then looked down the alley.

She took a half-step toward it, but lights were coming on in the surrounding houses.

Malcolm moved and moaned, pushing himself up and reaching for her. She hesitated; there was blood all over his left side, head to toe, but he was somehow still alive. He sobbed her name. She made her decision and got him standing and helped him unsteadily toward the car. They were too busy to notice as I followed in roughly the same condition. I glanced down the alley in pa.s.sing, but Escott had sensibly left.

She started the car and began rolling away. It paused undecided at the end of the street, enabling me to catch up, but not long enough to get inside. I grabbed the spare-tire cover and got my feet up on the b.u.mper's narrow edge, with most of my weight resting on the slick angle of the trunk. It was not the most comfortable or secure position I'd ever been in, much less in a rainstorm with a knife in my back.

The gears were grinding. I dug in with my hands and held on tight. The metal began to bend under the pressure. I tried to vanish and slip inside the car. but the knife was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g that up somehow. I tried to find a way to hang on with one hand so that I could pull it out, but things were too precarious. Literally and figuratively. I was stuck with it.

Dirty water flew up in my eyes, blurring the spinning pavement. I squeezed them shut, not daring to spare a hand to wipe them. Headlights flashed briefly, then peeled away. A horn honked. The Ford sped up, skidded on a corner, and straightened with a jerk. My foot came loose from the fender. The damaged muscles in my back protested the sudden movement and again at the effort required to put the foot back again. Wind caught Escott's borrowed hat and sent it spinning. My hair got soaked and dribbled into my eyes. Bobbi had said I needed to cut it.

Bobbi- Not now. I couldn't think of even her now. I had to hold- A short skid, more headlights. A truck coming from the other direction; its spray blinding, its roar deafening.

A speed change. Brakes.

We slow and stop. Stoplight.

! stick a foot on the road for balance and reach around. Can't find it-there-close the fingers-pull.

The initial pain returns. I nearly fall, nearly scream. Bite my lip instead. There's no end to the d.a.m.ned blade.

Pull.

Fingers slipping, gripping, no time to baby it out.

Pull.

It's a G.o.dd.a.m.ned sword... There... the edge catches on something...

There.

Gears. Car lurching forward. Grab at the wheel cover. Rest.

It didn't hurt so much now, but the nerves were suffering from the aftershock. I looked at the thing. It wasn't a sword, just eight inches of good-quality steel and heavy enough not to easily break. A solid chef's knife that was meant to be slipped under Escott's ribs so he couldn't tell anyone what he learned in Kingsburg. After the first hideous shock he wouldn't have felt much, maybe just a little surprise as the floor came up. Malcolm was un efficient killer, he liked to do it quick and then get away before the fuss started.

We made another turn, and the streets looked familiar. How'd that story go about the man walking backward so that he could see where he'd been? We were approaching the neighborhood where Malcolm's house was, where she had left her box of earth, where Gordy and his men were waiting.

Chapter 12.

THE CAR CRUISED past the correct turn and took the next one a quarter mile down the road. The shotgun blast had made Gaylen cautious. Someone knew about her and her changed nature and knew how to fight her. She was going to be careful not to approach her box openly. We rolled into an area thick with trees and darkness. Branches and leaves stirring constantly in the wind made it all seem alive and aware. We stopped cold in the middle of a deserted mud-washed road, the motor died, and their voices rose up in the relative quiet.

"Don't leave me here!"

"I'll be right back. I have to see that it's clear."

"G.o.d, I'm dying. You can't go now."

"You'll be all right." Her door opened.

"No! Do it now! You said you would-you promised! Gaylen!"

She got out. I was flat on the ground by the rear pa.s.senger tire pretending to be a rock. The door slammed shut on Malcolm's protests. From under the car I saw her feet slip on the mud, regain balance, and walk away. When I no longer heard her I stood up.

Malcolm was on his side across the length of the seat and hardly noticed when his door opened. He was still alive, and that was all that mattered to me.

His wounds were scattered and colorful and he was bleeding freely in several spots. The little skin showing through the blood was white and clammy with shock.

He and Gaylen had been outside the lethal range of the wood pellets, though. His claims of dying were premature, at least for the moment.

"Gaylen, please-"

"She's gone, all you've got left is me." I wanted him to know, to see it coming.

He didn't know me at first, I was only an unexpected intrusion, then his eyes rolled fully open and he started to scream. My hand smothered his mouth and part of his nose."You said you wanted it. Does it matter where it comes from?"

He couldn't move. He was that scared and hardly flinched when my hand slid down his face to close around his neck.

"You want to be a dead man like me? I can do that for you, Malcolm." My fingers tightened.

He struggled for air, imagining my grip to be stronger than it was.

"I'm not as good as you are, though. It won't be quick, and believe me-it's gonna hurt."

Simple words he could understand, and now simple actions. I brought the knife up so he could see. The blade was clean and shining now, the edge was so sharp that it hurt to look at it. He recognized the thing and realized the mistake he'd made in Escott's kitchen. I let it hover next to his face. He shrank back into the car seat, and when he could go no farther, the first pathetic mewlings of sound began deep in his throat.

"Where do you want it first? Your eyelids?" I pressed the flat of the blade against his temple, the razor edge brushing his eyebrow. "I could cut them away, top and bottom."

He jerked at the touch of the steel, causing a tiny nick in the skin. I drew back and let him recover. His breath was coming too fast, and I didn't want him pa.s.sing out.

"That'd hurt, but there are better nerve centers to play with. I want you to know what I went through in that stairwell. I want you to know what you gave Braxton and Bobbi. You think you're hurting now-in a minute you're gonna wish it was this good."

I threw the knife in the backseat and used my bare hands and, G.o.d help me, I was laughing.

I crawled from the car like a drunk and leaned against it, still shaking a little from what I'd done. Maybe I should have been sickened by my actions, but nothing so normal as that touched me now.

The wind was damp and cool as it washed over my face.

I'd stopped in time. He was still alive. Somehow I just managed to shake free of the insanity that had taken me over. Malcolm hadn't been so lucky. I'd paid him back for all that he'd done and then some. I was free of the nightmare. He would always be its prisoner.

I sucked clean, moist air deep into my lungs and let it shudder out again, flushing away the last stink of his terror.No regrets. None.

I pushed away from the car and went after Gaylen.

The rain had almost stopped, but the leaves above continued to drip, creating a false fall. I couldn't count on that to m.u.f.fle any noise I made, and stepped carefully on soft gra.s.s whenever possible.

She'd heard his screams and was coming back to investigate. I saw her just in time, put a fat tree between us, and sprinted, closing the s.p.a.ce. I got within ten yards and froze, peering out from a fork in the branches.

She stopped short of the car; one of her sharp new senses had tipped her off and her head snapped around, on guard for an unknown threat.

The old woman was gone. It was one thing to know that fact, quite another to see it. Her face was so very like Maureen's, especially now with her anxious expression.

But she was someone else, not the gentle woman I had loved.

I stepped out from behind the tree and walked swiftly toward her.

The body and its inner functions may have changed, but her mind was still human-slow to react. I was absolutely the last thing she expected to see, and with good reason, since she'd watched me die. She was still rooted in place when I caught her arms. The touch confirmed my reality. There was some struggling, then she abruptly stopped and smiled, quite calm. That smile made me freeze in turn and I knew then why Maureen had confined her sister to an asylum.

"What are you going to do?" she asked. "Kill me?"

I held her fast. "I can try, and after what you did to Bobbi, I'll enjoy it. There's a lot of wood around here... haven't you noticed?"

She had. She was still smiling, though. Then her face rippled, faded, and became a shapeless something. The hair on my scalp went up. My hand no longer clutched arms, but closed through cold tendrils darker and thicker than any fog. Her body was gone and in its place was a floating blob of about the same size. She had vanished, even as I had done a hundred times before.

But I could see her. She might not know that. It was some kind of advantage to me if I could keep fooling her.

The gray thing hung in the air for a few seconds, then moved away like an amoeba swimming in fluid. It fell in on itself, shaping and growing solid again. She was laughing.

"You didn't expect that; I thought you would have. I can do everything you can.

Did you think I'd just let you kill me?"

"Do you think I'll let you go? If I don't get you, Escott will. Malcolm missed, you know. Did you see him in the alley? His gun? You felt it. That wasn't rock salt in the cartridges."

"I'm not worried about him."

"Aren't you? You tried to have him killed tonight, but the next time you'll have to do the dirty work yourself. Malcolm's finished."

"I don't need him now."

She vanished again, or almost. The shape swung to one side and behind some trees, but didn't wander far. I kept staring at the spot she'd been in, even after she materialized, turning only when she made a sound. It was to test me. Apparently I'd pa.s.sed. Pleased, she vanished again.

There were noises behind me, near Malcolm, but off to the left. I followed their direction, stopping, listening. A loud snap. A foot skidding over damp leaves. Silence.

A glimpse of movement against the wind.

The gray thing moved closer, coming across open ground to get close to me. It seemed larger.

I circled as though searching, but with my head turned enough to keep an eye on her. She would sense my presence and movement. I made it easier for her by stopping next to a tree and waiting.

She went solid and swung the broken branch at my head. I dropped a split second early, turned, and dived for her mid-section. Her club broke against the tree; she still clutched a two-foot length as we went down. I pulled it from her, raised, and struck.

The angle was bad; there was no force in the blow, nothing near what was needed. The raw edge caught her shoulder, not her head. She yelped and the splinters tore her dress and sc.r.a.ped her fresh skin, and then I was holding on to nothing again as she turned into living fog.

It slithered along the ground and rose into a rough human shape. I remembered to move around as though confused. A face began forming, and when there was enough for ordinary eyes to see I brought the branch down on its middle. That did no harm and she only retreated again.

Her direction was good, she was moving toward the house. She must have tired of teasing me and wanted to get on with her original business before she made a mistake. I let her get ahead and followed, keeping a prudent distance.

The backyard to Malcolm's house came into sight, its width sloping down at us, the trimmed gra.s.s giving away to weeds as the ground tilted sharply. The land did the same again from our side, forming a broad V shape. Down the middle, swollen and fast from the rain, was a brown stream. It wouldn't be very deep, two or three feet at the most, and in some spots no more than four feet wide. As far as she was concerned it could have been the Chicago River. Without help she'd find it nearly impossible to cross.

She stopped short at the very edge of the bank, the gray pseudopods probing and undecided. She was held back by the invisible barrier of free-flowing water. She went solid, with her back to the stream and her eyes on the woods to see my approach. I was hunched down behind a bush, keeping very still, and she missed me. Now she glanced side to side for a bridge of some sort, a fallen tree or stones sticking up, but nothing so convenient was at hand.

She turned again, checking for me and considering the car. She could go back for it and reach the house from the front, but would it be any easier? It was a long way back and I might be waiting near it. The truck with her box of earth was less than a hundred feel away, its nose pointing to the street, .ill ready to go.

Gaylen made up her mind and eased one foot tentatively in the water like a swimmer testing the temperature. She didn't like it, pulled out quickly, and again looked for an alternative. Nothing presented itself, so with a grimace she tried once more, right foot, left, the water churning up around her knees, then higher. For all her need of speed, she might have been wading through partially set cement.

When she was in far enough, I broke cover and closed on her with the club. She heard me and turned, or tried to; her feet couldn't keep up with the changing situation. The branch swung, she caught my arm, and no doubt at that moment tried to vanish. The confused surprise was plain on her face.

Had she been floating freely in the water, I'd have lost her, hut her contact with the stream bed negated that option. The mud and earth beneath her feet held her solid.

I dragged free and struck again. She deflected it, but the force she needed threw her off balance, and she gave out a little scream and splashed full length on her side.

The next scream was louder and filled with anguished pain. She fought to get up and out.

The branch caught her flailing hand, and she grabbed my arm successfully with the other and held fast, either to pull me in or make me pull her out. My own balance was tenuous on the loose, slippery bank. The fall was inevitable, but only my right arm and leg went in. They were more than enough.

I'd crossed free water before: above it dematerialized and rushing out of control to the nearest sh.o.r.e or clinging to the inside of a boat or sitting solid in a car to feel only its tug from one riverbank to another, but never by direct contact. It was a tremendous shock, like being dumped in the Arctic in winter. The actual temperature of the water had nothing to do with the freezing ice it felt like to me. I was different now and uniquely vulnerable to this element. I was instantly weakened.

No wonder she'd screamed.