Which parting had been a d.a.m.n sight more peaceful than their meeting....

* * *Mark was looped; Tim, Phil, and Quasi were a good bit farther along than that.

Quasi short for Quasimodo was carrying the booze -box, for the reason that he was the only one of them capable of toting that much, drunk or sober. Quasi was built like a gorilla, and just about as hairy.

He was also on a full academic scholarship to the anthro department. Phil claimed it was because he was the only living specimen of Neanderthal and they wanted to study him; Mark knew better he'd seen Quasi's midterm marks. Impressive.

It was three flights up to Quasi's apartment, and this old wreck of a building didn't have an elevator.

Normally, this was no big deal, but half blitzed, it was an adventure. The staircase was lit only infrequently, and poorly; the stairs were worn and slippery. Mark was clinging to the banister with both hands, but frankly wondered if it would stay attached to the wall if it had to take his full weight.

"This," Tim announced to no one in particular, "is 1970. The Age of Enlightenment. The Age of Illumination. This is the dawn "

"Of the Age of Aquarius, Age of Aquar-i-uuuuus " Phil warbled. He was, as usual, off -key.

"Shut up, dork," Tim said, glaring at him from under an untamed thatch of thick black hair.

"Sir, yessir!" Phil saluted which struck Mark as hilarious, since Phil, flatfooted, four -eyed, and a genuine asthmatic, had about as much chance of being drafted as a nun.

"You were saying " Quasi prompted, shifting the box a little, and pointedly ignoring Mark's snorts of laughter.

"My point is, what the h.e.l.l are we doing having a seance?" Tim demanded, squinting almond eyes at their host.

"One," Quasi replied amiably, "This is Halloween. It is traditional, as it were, and I am all in favor of tradition. Two, I'm curious about that 'spell' I dug up. My anthro prof claims he's seen magic work you know, stuff that had no rational explanation. The way I see it, if a magic spell ever works at all, I'm betting it will work on Halloween. Three, I'm paying for the booze."

"And very good booze it is," Phil agreed, nodding so hard his gla.s.ses slid down his nose. "Well worth a bit of cavorting and chanting."

"Okay," Tim replied, mollified. "That's a good reason."

"Hey, we're here " Mark interrupted, hauling himself up the last few stairs and getting to the door on the landing ahead of them all. "I want to get this over with."

He held the door open for the other three. Phil had been entrusted with the key to the apartment, and skipped to the front of the group. The hallway was even dimmer than the staircase; Mark suspected that the bulbs in the light fixtures were at best fifteen-watt refrigerator bulbs. It was probably just as well; by the musty smell, n.o.body had cleaned the hall carpet for years. Mark was just as glad he didn't have to look at it. It might be growing something.

Phil fumbled with the lock while the other three made rude comments, and finally got the scarred and gouged door open. Quasi shouldered him aside impatiently; Mark trailed in behind his three friends.

Quasi had obviously been hard at work earlier today; his usual clutter of Salvation Army furniture and books had been pushed up against the wall. The couch was shoved against the wall next to the door they'd entered. It was absolutely covered with junk. The chairs and orange-crate tables were piled up against each other on the back wall. The curtains were tightly closed and then pinned shut with enormous safety pins.

It was, without a doubt, the cleanest this place had been in weeks.

Drawn on the anonymously brown rug in colored chalk was an intricate diagram. Placed at the four corners of the design were rickety candlesticks apparently salvaged from a church; they stood as tall as Mark's shoulder and held black candles as thick as his wrist. In the center of the diagram was a hibachi stoked with instant-starting charcoal. Beside the hibachi was a sheet of newspaper with a neat arrangement of little piles of unidentifiable flotsam on it.

The three invitees stared at the bizarre setup. Quasi set the box down on his cracked vinyl sofa and took control of the situation.

"Okay, since you want to get this over with, let's move it. Phil, you go stand in the south "

"Right." He made a face. "Which way is south, Leatherstocking?""Behind the candlestick in front of the record player." Quasi cast his eyes up toward the ceiling.

"Give me strength."

"If you're gonna raise a demon, you should be looking in the other direction," Tim pointed out.

"How many times do I have to tell you cretins? We're not raising a demon, we're trying to contact a dead person. That's what this book says " Quasi waved a thick paperback at them; the cover said Voudoun Today. Mark squinted at the letters, which wavered in front of his eyes.

"Voo-doon? What's that?" Mark wanted to know.

"It's not 'voo-doon,' dummy, it's voodoo. Sheesh. You go stand to Phil's right."

"Over here " Phil flapped his right hand helpfully. Tim took the other open position without being directed.

"Shouldn't we be wearing robes or something?" Mark asked, looking.down at his jeans and Grateful Dead T-shirt doubtfully. It didn't seem like the right outfit to be talking to a ghost in even if he didn't believe it would work. Well the skull on the front was okay, but the outfit itself seemed kind of disrespectful.

"Nah you'll be okay." Quasi dismissed his objection with an airy wave of his hand, and took a healthy slug of whiskey directly from the bottle. "Now, don't move, or you'll ruin the pentacle."

Quasi moved unsteadily around the diagram, closing up lines they'd erased by walking on them, lighting the candles, and giving each of the partic.i.p.ants a carefully printed slip of paper.

"Okay, when I point at you, say what's on that. I wrote it down pho-net-ic-al-ly " he had a little trouble getting the word out " so just say what's there. If this works "

"If? Why shouldn't it?" Phil wanted to know. "My sister gets answers on her Ouija board all the time!"

"Well, I didn't have everything, so I had to make some subst.i.tutions in the formulas," Quasi admitted. "But I did it logically, okay? So it should work. Anyway, if it does, the ghost will show up in the middle, in the center of that five-pointed star. I'm trying for Julius Caesar " He lit the hibachi; there was a sharp chemical smell and a sparking line traveled across the surface of the charcoal.

"You wanted me 'cause I know Latin, right?" Phil blinked owlishly.

"I wanted you 'cause you're a Scorpio, okay? Now shut up, I'm gonna start." Quasi palmed the light switch, and suddenly the only illumination in the room was coming from the four candles and the hibachi.

Mark went very cold; with the lights out this was beginning to seem like something other than funny. The Scotch he'd downed had worn off all too quickly, and with it his bravado. He wanted very badly to walk out that door, but didn't dare. He knew what the other three would say if he did. He'd never live it down. He was supposed to be studying criminology; it wouldn't look real cool if he couldn't handle a spooky situation.

Quasi, looking warped and sinister in the flickering candlelight, began chanting and throwing various substances on the coals in the brazier. Some of them smelled vaguely pleasant; some stank to high heaven. All of them produced a good deal of smoke, further obscuring vision. Mark could scarcely see when he pointed dramatically in his direction.

He stammered out what was written on the notebook paper, not feeling at all ashamed that his voice shook. This wasn't funny anymore. He waited, feeling a cold chill ooze down his backbone, as Phil and Tim said their pieces. Then Quasi intoned a final sentence Everything just stopped. No sound, no nothing. Then Mark's stomach lurched, and every hair on his arms stood straight up. The temperature in the room dropped at least twenty degrees. But that was only for openers.

Without warning a soundless explosion in the center of the diagram knocked Mark right off his feet.

By some miracle, he didn't turn over the candle behind him; as he staggered upright again he saw that Phil and Tim hadn't been so lucky. His candle and Quasi's were the only sources of light Then something at the heart of the diagram flared greenly; the remaining two candles were snuffed out by the hurricane wind that followed that flare of sickly light. For with the light came a tempest.

Mark dropped back down to his knees and sheltered his head in his arms. There was a whirlwind raking the room; it was centered by a vortex in the heart of the diagram. The wind was sucking anything loose into that vortex papers, bits of herb, posters torn loose from the walls. Quasi was staring at his handiwork with a face that was panic-stricken and utterly dumbfounded. There at the heart of the vortex was the source of the evil light it was Mark didn't know what it was, only that it was a dark, amorphous blot that smelled utterly foul and made him sick to his stomach. It had eyes that glowed a vile, poisonous green; eyes that he could not look away from.

He found himself rising again to his feet, and realized with cold and helpless horror that he was being pulled toward it.

Phil screamed; an incongruously girlish sound. Mark heard him clearly above the howl of the wind.

And then Mark heard the sound of his footsteps fleeing toward the back door. A splintery crash marked the slamming of the porch door against the wall then Tim followed Phil, backing put slowly, unable to take his eyes off the apparition. Tim was not screaming, he was giggling hysterically. Quasi held out a few moments longer, but when the thing turned its horrible eyes on him, Quasi howled like a mad dog and followed the other two.

Mark fought the fascination as best he could, but found himself taking a slow, deliberate step toward the thing then another and another He was too frightened to cry out, too terrified even to pray. He could only fight against the pull, and know his fight would be, in the end, useless.

The creature in the vortex chuckled wetly, and Mark felt his whole self become one inarticulate and soundless cry for help.

And like a miracle help arrived.

The front door literally exploded inwards, with a force that dwarfed the initial explosion that had brought the thing, and the compulsion and the whirlwind weakened as the thing turned its attention to the newcomer.

Light light against the awful darkness.

Brilliant, clean white light poured in the open portal. Standing in the light or had she brought the light with her? was a young woman. A very angry young woman.

Some unenc.u.mbered part of his mind recognized her as one of Quasi's upstairs neighbors.

Her waist-length hair stood out from her head as if she had taken hold of a static generator. She was wearing ballet slippers, a leotard, and an ancient j.a.panese kimono that whipped wildly about her in the screaming wind.

She was holding what could only be a broadsword.

The sword was glowing. Blue-green flames flickered all up and down the blade. The thing in the vortex saw that, and snarled at her.

The girl sidestepped into the room, slowly; she looked like she knew exactly what she was doing.

She was holding the sword in both hands, and Mark had the relieved feeling that this was not the first time she had fought this particular battle. She eased along the edge of the diagram until she stood a few feet from Mark Then she suddenly dashed the remaining few feet toward him and slashed the fiery blade down into the s.p.a.ce between him and the thing, as if she was cutting a line that was binding him and the thing together.

The compulsion to join the thing snapped so abruptly that he stumbled backwards into the wall.

The girl was shouting words that he couldn't quite make out and didn't really want to above the howling of the wind and the higher wailing of the apparition in the vortex. He crouched and covered his ears with both hands, unable to look away. She gestured with the sword, drawing fiery lines in the air between herself and the creature, lines that glowed and continued to hang suspended before her long after any afterimage should have faded. The thing's wailing grew in intensity and so did the sucking wind. Mark huddled against the wall, his heart pounding with absolute panic.

Then the girl changed her stance, balancing the pommel of her sword in her hand as if the whole ma.s.sive piece of metal was nothing more than an oversized throwing-knife.

Mark stared at that; the back of his head was insisting that you couldn't do that, but his eyes were telling him that she was, and logic be d.a.m.ned.

She held it that way for only an instant then cast it, throwing it as if it had no weight at all, aiming it at the darkness between the thing's eyes.

There was a third explosion and a flash of light that left Mark half blinded and half-deafened, and not a little stunned.When he finally came to himself again, the electric lights were back on. There was an awful stench filling the apartment, like burned and rotting meat.

There was nothing in the middle of the room except a blackened spot in the center of the rug, a spot that had a sword sticking out of the middle of it. Mark stared at the blade with a slackened jaw; it had buried itself into the floor for a depth of at least two inches. He couldn't imagine how the h.e.l.l she had tossed it that hard.

The girl was again standing between him and the spot where the thing had been, surveying the wreckage with her feet slightly apart, and her hands on her hips. As he stared stupidly at her back, she turned to face him.

She was not happy.

"Well," she said at last. An angry frown marred her otherwise pretty face as she grabbed the hilt without looking at it and wrenched the sword from the floor with an audible crack. "You sure blew my study plans all to h.e.l.l. I'm not too thrilled about having to drop everything to rescue an almost-d.a.m.ned fool. What have you got to say for yourself?"

"Uh " He swallowed hard. "Thanks?" She stared at him for another long moment, then began laughing. So it was that Mark Valdez, criminology student, and Diana Tregarde, expert in the occult, first met.

She never did let me off the hook for interrupting her midterm studying, either, Mark reflected wryly. Recruited me for her ghost-hunting squad before you could say "poltergeist." Lord ghosts, phony mediums, the Celtic Nightmare half the time I thought I was making a mistake in letting her boss me around like that, in letting her railroad me into her Spook Squad. I should be, I am, just as glad now. She told me once that she always helps if anybody asks that she has to and unless my instincts are all wrong, we need her, and badly.

"Amerine Airways flight 185, service from Hartford, Connecticut, with continuing service to Phoenix, now arriving gate 18...." The announcement broke into his recollections and brought him to his feet, pushing forward with the rest of the modest crowd awaiting pa.s.sengers from the plane.

He had to watch for her carefully even after all these years he was still vaguely amazed at how tiny she was. She'd certainly been impressive enough when she'd rescued him; she'd seemed ten feet tall, no matter what her true physical size was. But for all that she loomed large in his memory, she scarcely topped five feet, about the height of the average ballet dancer. She looked like a dancer, too or at least she used to He saw her finally; nearly the last one down the jetway. She had a pair of turquoise nylon carry-on bags and a hefty purse slung over her shoulders, and was wearing an outfit that he remembered was almost a uniform for her, a black leotard and jeans. She waved at him and eased her way gracefully toward him through the throng of embracing relatives and friends.

She hadn't changed a bit; still wore her long, silken brown hair waist-length and unbound, still had the same piquant, heart-shaped face with her high, prominent cheekbones and brown eyes so huge she looked like one of those stupid velvet paintings of big-eyed kids and she still had her dancer's grace and dancer's figure.

"h.e.l.lo, love!" She dropped her carry-on bags, threw her arms around him, and gave him a very thorough and shamelessly hearty kiss.

"You had me worried for about five minutes," he said, when he'd recovered from the inevitable effect. "I realized I hadn't heard from you since you told me your flight number, and for one long moment I wasn't entirely sure you were going to be on that plane."

"Oh ye of little faith," she chuckled, picking up her bags and indicating with a nod of her head that he should lead the way. "I'm sorry; I was smack in the middle of a particularly tangled love triangle, and I had to get it sorted out and in my publisher's hands before I left. I literally finished the d.a.m.n thing at the last minute. I did drop the FedEx package with the final in it at the pickup box at the airport. Good thing I have an account with them, or I wouldn't have made it."

It was Mark's turn to chuckle. Diana took no compensation for her occult work and being unable to live on air, had a perfectly non-arcane way of paying the rent and grocery bills.

She was a writer but not of horror or even books about the occult, as might be thought.She wrote romance novels. Sentimental, wildly entangled, and blatantly melodramatic romance novels, with never an unhappy ending in sight.

"So what was it this time?" he asked, taking one of her two bags and leading the way to the baggage- claim carousel.

"Regency." She laughed as he made a face. "Oh, you might have liked this one. The heroine was a tomboy, the hero was a smuggler, and the complication was a duke."

"A dastardly cad, no doubt."

"But of course, aren't they all? You're looking for turquoise-blue rip-stop nylon, like the rest of my gear."

She shrugged at his raised eyebrow. "Hey, it was a bargain, and it's certainly easy to see in a crowd."

He spotted and retrieved the appropriate bag and he almost suspected her of a little spell -casting, it came off the plane so quickly.

He gave her a long sidelong glance, and she laughed.

"Don't give me that look you know I don't work that way," she admonished.

He continued to give her a teasingly skeptical stare.

"Honestly, some people work it out for yourself, Sherlock."

"Huh?"

"Lord, I thought you were supposed to be good at figuring mysteries out. I told you myself that I was in a hurry, so much so that I posted the FedEx package at the airport. Ran on the plane at the last minute. Simple airline procedure, silly. Last baggage on is first off. No hocus-pocus needed. Except maybe a little nudge at the handlers to make sure my stuff got on at all."

"Okay, okay, I believe you." By way of apology he relieved her of one of her carry-ons. "After you " he gestured grandly.

They headed out the door, to be met by a blast of heat, light, and noise.

"Good Lord! This is like walking into the ninth circle of h.e.l.l!"

"Welcome to January in Dallas," he shouted over the screeching of tires and the roar of motors. "So you were up to your eyebrows in love triangles right up until you left, huh?"

"Uh-huh. The best is yet to come I w.a.n.gled an advance on a five -book contract, all five to be set down here. That's who paid for these plane tickets, m'lad. I am ostensibly doing research even as we speak."

He shook his head with admiration as they approached his battered little red Karmann Ghia. Diana handed him her burdens silently, then said, very softly, and with just a faint hint of mockery "I wondered how long it was going to take for you to call me. I've been keeping track of your weirdo killer in the news items. That's the reason I went after that contract in particular I was about ready to call you up and volunteer."

Mark sighed. "If it had been up to me, I'd have called you in sooner."

She waited until he unlocked the pa.s.senger door before replying. "Why don't you pretend I don't know anything about this and start from the beginning. What I've gotten so far has been what's. .h.i.t the national news, and it's probably pretty distorted."