The coroner glanced at Connie. "Where else would he be?"

4.

The bedroom floor was covered with black ceramic tile. Like purling water, it glistened in places with dim reflections of the ambient light from the night beyond the windows. It was cool beneath Bryan's feet.

As he walked to the gla.s.s wall that faced the ocean, the huge mirrors reflected black on black, and his naked form drifted like a wraith of smoke through the layered shadows. He stood at the window, staring at the sable sea and tarry sky. The smooth ebony vista was relieved only by the crests of the combers and by frostlike patches on the bellies of the clouds. That frost was a reflection of the lights of Laguna Beach behind him; his home was on one of the western-most points of the city.

The view was perfect and serene because it lacked the human element. No man or woman or child, no structure or machine or artifact intruded. So quiet, dark. So clean. He longed to eradicate humanity and all its works from large portions of the earth, restrict people to selected preserves. But he was not yet fully in control of his power, still Becoming. He lowered his gaze from the sky and sea to the pallid beach at the foot of the bluff. Leaning his forehead against the gla.s.s, he imagined life-and by imagining, created it. On the sward just above the tide line, the sand began to stir. It rose, forming a cone as big as a man-and then became became a man. The hobo. The scarred face. Reptile eyes. a man. The hobo. The scarred face. Reptile eyes.

No such person had ever existed. The vagrant was strictly a creature of Bryan's imagination. Through this construct and others, Bryan could walk the world without being in danger from it. Though his phantom bodies could be shot and burned and crushed without causing harm to him, his own body was dismayingly vulnerable. When cut, he bled. When struck, he bruised. He a.s.sumed that when he had Become, then invulnerability and immortality would be the final gifts bestowed on him, signaling his Ascension to G.o.d-hood-which made him eager to fulfill his mission.

Now, leaving only a portion of his consciousness in his real body, he moved into the hobo on the night beach. From within that hulking figure, he gazed up at his house on the bluff. He saw his own naked body at the window, staring down.

In Jewish folklore there was a creature called a golem. Made of mud in the shape of a man, endowed with a form of life, it was most often an instrument of vengeance. Bryan could create an infinite variety of golems and through them stalk his prey, thin the herd, police the world. But he could not enter the bodies of real people and control their minds, which he would very much have enjoyed. Perhaps that power would be his, as well, when at last he had Become.

He withdrew his consciousness from the golem on the beach and, regarding it from his high window, caused it to change shape. It tripled in size, a.s.sumed a reptilian form, and developed immense membranous wings.

Sometimes an effect could spiral beyond what he intended, acquire a life of its own, and resist his efforts at containment. For that reason, he was always practicing, refining his techniques and exercising his power in order to strengthen it.

He had once created a golem inspired by the movie Alien, Alien, and used it to savage the vagrants in an encampment of ten homeless people under a Los Angeles freeway overpa.s.s. His intention had been to slaughter two of them, lightning quick, and leave the others with the memory of his power and merciless judgment. But then he became excited by their abject terror at the inexplicable manifestation of that movie monster. He thrilled to the feel of his claws ripping through their flesh, the heat of spurting blood, the rank steaming gush of disembowelment, the crack of bones as fragile as chalk sticks in his monstrous hands. The screams of the dying were piercingly shrill at first but became weak, tremulous, erotic; they surrendered their lives to him as lovers might have surrendered, so exhausted by the intensity of their pa.s.sion that they succ.u.mbed only with sighs, whispers, shudders. For a few minutes he and used it to savage the vagrants in an encampment of ten homeless people under a Los Angeles freeway overpa.s.s. His intention had been to slaughter two of them, lightning quick, and leave the others with the memory of his power and merciless judgment. But then he became excited by their abject terror at the inexplicable manifestation of that movie monster. He thrilled to the feel of his claws ripping through their flesh, the heat of spurting blood, the rank steaming gush of disembowelment, the crack of bones as fragile as chalk sticks in his monstrous hands. The screams of the dying were piercingly shrill at first but became weak, tremulous, erotic; they surrendered their lives to him as lovers might have surrendered, so exhausted by the intensity of their pa.s.sion that they succ.u.mbed only with sighs, whispers, shudders. For a few minutes he was was the creature that he had created, all razored teeth and talons, spiked spine and lashing tail, having forgotten about his real body in which his mind actually reposed. When he regained his senses, he discovered he had killed all ten men beneath the overpa.s.s and stood in a charnel house of blood, eviscerated torsos, severed heads and limbs. He hadn't been shocked or daunted by the degree of violence he'd wrought-only that he'd killed them all in a mindless frenzy. Learning control was vital if he were to accomplish his mission and Become. the creature that he had created, all razored teeth and talons, spiked spine and lashing tail, having forgotten about his real body in which his mind actually reposed. When he regained his senses, he discovered he had killed all ten men beneath the overpa.s.s and stood in a charnel house of blood, eviscerated torsos, severed heads and limbs. He hadn't been shocked or daunted by the degree of violence he'd wrought-only that he'd killed them all in a mindless frenzy. Learning control was vital if he were to accomplish his mission and Become.

He had used the power of pyrokinesis to set the bodies afire, searing them with flames so intense that even bones were vaporized. He always disposed of those on whom he practiced because he didn't want ordinary people to know that he walked among them, at least not until his power had been perfected and his vulnerability was nil.

That was also why for the time being he focused his attentions primarily on street people. If they were to report being tormented by a demon who could change shape at will, their complaints would be dismissed as the ravings of mentally deranged losers with drug and alcohol addictions. And when they vanished from the face of the earth, no one would care or attempt to discover what had happened to them. Someday soon, however, he would be able to bring holy terror and divine judgment to people in all strata of society.

So he practiced.

Like a magician improving his dexterity.

Control. Control.

On the beach, the winged form leapt off the sand from which it had been born. It flapped into the night, like a truant gargoyle returning to a cathedral parapet. It hovered before his window, peering in with luminous yellow eyes.

Although it was a brainless thing until he projected part of himself into it, the pterodactyl was nevertheless an impressive creation. Its immense leathery wings fluidly fanned the air, and it easily remained aloft on the updrafts along the bluff.

Bryan was aware of the eyes in the jars behind him. Staring. Watching him, astonished, admiring, adoring.

"Be gone," he said to the pterodactyl, indulging in theatrics for his audience. The winged reptile turned to sand and rained on the beach below.

Enough play. He had work to do.

5.

Harry's Honda was parked near the munic.i.p.al building, under a streetlamp. Early spring moths, having come out in the wake of the rain, swooped close to the light. Their enormous, distorted shadows played over the car.

As she and Harry crossed the sidewalk toward the Honda, Connie said, "Same question. Now what?"

"I want to get into Ordegard's house and have a look around."

"What for?"

"I don't have a clue. But it's the only other thing I can think to do. Unless you've got an idea."

"Wish I did."

As they approached the car, she saw something dangling from the rearview mirror, rectangular and softly gleaming beyond the moth shadows that swarmed over the windshield. As far as she could recall, there had been no air-freshener or ornament of any kind tied to the mirror. She was the first into the car and got a close look at the silvery rectangle before Harry did. It was dangling on a red ribbon from the mirror shank. Initially she didn't realize what it was. She took hold of it, turned it so the light struck it more clearly, and saw that it was a handcrafted belt buckle worked with Southwest motifs.

Harry got in behind the wheel, slammed his door, and saw what she held in her hand.

"Oh, Jesus," Harry said. "Oh, Jesus, Ricky Estefan."

6.

Most of the roses had taken a beating from the rain, but a few blooms had come through the storm untouched. They bobbed gently in the night breeze. The petals caught the light spilling from the kitchen windows and seemed to magnify it, glowing as if radioactive.

Ricky sat at the kitchen table, from which his tools and current projects had been removed. He had finished dinner more than an hour ago and had been sipping port wine ever since. He wanted to get a buzz on.

Before being gutshot, he'd not been much of a drinker, but when he had had wanted a drink, he'd been a tequila and beer man. A shot of Sauza and a bottle of Tecate were as sophisticated as he got. After all the abdominal surgeries he endured, however, a single jigger of Sauza-or any other hard liquor-gave him intense heartburn and a sour stomach that lasted the better part of a day. The same was true of beer. wanted a drink, he'd been a tequila and beer man. A shot of Sauza and a bottle of Tecate were as sophisticated as he got. After all the abdominal surgeries he endured, however, a single jigger of Sauza-or any other hard liquor-gave him intense heartburn and a sour stomach that lasted the better part of a day. The same was true of beer.

He learned that he could handle liqueurs well enough, but getting drunk on Baileys Irish Cream or creme de menthe or Midori required the ingestion of so much sugar that his teeth would rot long before he did any damage to his liver. Regular wines did not go down well, either, but port proved to be just the thing, sweet enough to soothe his delicate gut but not so sweet as to induce diabetes. Good port was his only indulgence. Well, good port and a little self-pity now and then. Watching the roses nodding in the night, he sometimes pulled his gaze back to a closer point of focus and stared at his reflection in the window. It was an imperfect mirror, revealing to him a colorless transparent countenance like that of a haunting spirit; but perhaps it was an accurate reflection, after all, because he was a ghost of his former self and in some ways dead already. A bottle of Taylor's stood on the table. He refilled his port gla.s.s and took a sip. Sometimes, like now, it was difficult to believe that the face in the window was actually his. Before he'd been shot, he had been a happy man, seldom given to troubled introspection, never a brooder. Even during recuperation and rehabilitation, he had retained a sense of humor, an optimism about the future that no amount of pain could entirely darken.

His face had become the face in the window only after Anita left. More than two years later, he still had difficulty believing that she was gone-or figuring out what to do about the loneliness that was destroying him more surely than bullets could have done.

Raising his drink, Ricky sensed something wrong just as he brought it to his mouth. Perhaps he subconsciously registered the lack of a port-wine aroma-or the faint, foul smell of what had replaced it. He stopped as he was about to tilt the gla.s.s to his lips, and saw what it contained: two or three fat, moist, entwined earthworms, alive and oozing languorously around one another. Startled, he cried out, and the gla.s.s slipped from his fingers. Because it dropped only a couple of inches onto the table, it didn't shatter. But when it tipped over, the worms slithered onto the polished pine.

Ricky pushed his chair back, blinking furiously- -and the worms were gone.

Spilled wine shimmered on the table.

He halted halfway to his feet, his hands on the arms of his chair, staring in disbelief at the puddle of ruby-red port.

He was sure he had seen the worms. He wasn't imagining things. Wasn't drunk. h.e.l.l, he hadn't even begun begun to feel the port. to feel the port.

Easing back into his chair, he closed his eyes. Waited a second, two. Looked. The wine still glistened on the table.

Hesitantly he touched one index finger to the puddle. It was wet, real. He rubbed his finger and thumb together, spreading the drop of wine over his skin.

He checked the Taylor's to be sure that he hadn't drunk more than he'd realized. The bottle was dark, so he had to hold it up to the light to see the level of the liquid within. It was a new liter, and the line of the port was just below the neck. He had poured only the two gla.s.ses. Rattled as much by his inability to come up with an explanation as by what had happened, Ricky went to the sink, opened the cabinet below it, and got the damp dishcloth from the rack on the back of the door. At the table again, he wiped up the spilled wine.

His hands were shaking.

He was angry at himself for being afraid, even though the source of the fear was understandable. He worried that he had suffered what the doctors would call a "small cerebral incident," a minor stroke of which the flickering hallucination of earthworms was the only sign. More than anything else during his long hospitalization, he had dreaded a stroke.

The development of blood clots in the legs and around the sutures in repaired veins and arteries was one especially dangerous potential side-effect of major abdominal surgery of the extent that he had undergone and of the protracted bed rest that followed it. If one broke free and traveled to the heart, sudden death might ensue. If it traveled instead to the brain, obstructing circulation, the result could be total or partial paralysis, blindness, loss of speech, and the horrifying destruction of intellectual capacity. His doctors had medicated him to inhibit clotting, and the nurses had put him through a program of pa.s.sive exercise even when he had been required to remain flat on his back, but there hadn't been one day during his long recovery that he hadn't worried about suddenly finding himself unable to move or talk, unsure of where he was, unable to recognize his wife or his own name.

At least then he'd had the comfort of knowing, whatever happened, Anita would be there to take care of him. Now he had no one. From now on, he would have to face adversity alone. If silenced and badly crippled by a stroke, he would be at the mercy of strangers.

Although his fear was understandable, he also realized that it was to some extent irrational. He was healed. He had his scars, sure. And his ordeal had left him diminished. But he was no more ill than the average man on the street and probably healthier than a lot of them. More than two years had pa.s.sed since his most recent surgery. His chances of suffering a cerebral embolism were now only average for a man his age. Thirty-six. Men that young rarely had debilitating strokes. Statistically, he was more likely to die in a traffic accident, from a heart attack, as the victim of violent crime, or perhaps even from being struck by lightning.

What he feared was not so much paralysis, aphasia, blindness, or any other physical ailment. What frightened him, really, was being alone, and the weirdness with the earthworms had impressed upon him just how alone he would be if anything untoward happened. Determined not to be ruled by fear, Ricky put the port-stained dishcloth aside and righted the overturned gla.s.s. He would sit down with another drink and think it through. The answer would be obvious when he thought about it. There was an explanation for the worms, maybe a trick of light that could be duplicated by holding the gla.s.s just so, turning it just so, recreating the precise circ.u.mstances of the illusion.

He picked up the bottle of Taylor's and tipped it toward the gla.s.s. For an instant, though he had held it up to the light only a couple of minutes ago to check the level of the wine, he expected the bottle to disgorge oily knots of writhing earthworms. Only port poured forth. He put down the bottle and raised the gla.s.s. As he brought it to his lips, he hesitated, repulsed by the thought of drinking out of a gla.s.s that had contained earthworms slick with whatever cold mucus they exuded.

His hand was shaking again, his brow was suddenly damp with perspiration, and he was furious with himself for being so d.a.m.ned silly about this. The wine slopped against the sides of the gla.s.s, glimmering like a liquid jewel.

He brought it to his lips, took a short sip. It tasted sweet and clean. He took another sip. Delicious.

A soft and tremulous laugh escaped him. "a.s.shole," he said, and felt better for making fun of himself.

Deciding that some nuts or crackers would go well with the port, he put his gla.s.s down and went to the kitchen cabinet where he kept cans of roasted almonds, mixed nuts, and packages of Che-Cri Cheese Crispies. When he pulled the door open, the cabinet was alive with tarantulas. Faster and more agile than he'd been in years, he backed away from the open cabinet, slamming into the counter behind him.

Six or eight of the huge spiders were climbing over cans of Blue Diamond almonds and Planters party mix, exploring the boxes of Che-Cri. They were bigger even than tarantulas should have been, larger than halved cantaloupes, jittering denizens of some arachnophobe's worst nightmare. Ricky squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them. The spiders were still there. Above the drumming of his own heart and his shallow noisy breathing, he could actually hear the hairy legs of the tarantulas brushing against the cellophane on the packages of cheese crackers. The chitinous tick-tick-tick tick-tick-tick of their feet or mandibles against the stacks of cans. Low, evil hissing. But then he realized he was misinterpreting the source of the sounds. The noises were not coming from the open cabinet across the room but from the cabinets immediately above and behind him. of their feet or mandibles against the stacks of cans. Low, evil hissing. But then he realized he was misinterpreting the source of the sounds. The noises were not coming from the open cabinet across the room but from the cabinets immediately above and behind him.

He looked over his shoulder, up at the pine doors, on the other side of which should have been nothing but plates and bowls, cups and saucers. They were being forced outward by some expanding bulk, just a quarter of an inch ajar, then half an inch. Before Ricky could move, the cabinet doors flew open. An avalanche of snakes cascaded over his head and shoulders. Screaming, he tried to run. He slipped on the wriggling carpet of serpents and fell among them. Snakes thin as whips, snakes thick and muscular, black snakes and green, yellow and brown, plain and patterned, red-eyed, yellow-eyed, some hooded like cobras, watchful and grinning, supple tongues fluttering, hissing, hissing. Had to be dreaming. Hallucinating. A big blacksnake, at least four feet long, bit him, oh Jesus, struck at the back of his left hand, sinking its fangs deep, blood br.i.m.m.i.n.g, and still it might have been a dream, nightmare, except for the pain. He had never felt pain in a dream, and certainly not like this. A sharp stinging filled his left hand, and then a sharper stabbing agony shot like an electrical charge through his wrist and all the way along his forearm to his elbow.

Not a dream. This was happening. Somehow. But where had they come from? Where? Where?

They were all over him, sixty or eighty of them, slithering. Another one struck at him, sank fangs through his shirt sleeve and pierced his left forearm, tripling the pain in it. Another bit through his sock, raked teeth down his ankle.

He scrambled to his feet, and the snake that had bitten his arm fell away, as did the one at his ankle, but the one with its fangs through his left hand hung fast, as if it had stapled itself to him. He grabbed it, tried to jerk it loose. The flash of pain was so intense, white-hot, that he almost pa.s.sed out, and still the snake was clamped tight to his bleeding hand.

A turmoil of snakes hissed and coiled around him. He didn't see any rattlers at a glance, or hear them. He had too little knowledge to identify the other species, wasn't sure which were poisonous, or even if any any of them were, including the ones that had already bitten him. Poisonous or not, more of them were going to bite if he didn't move fast. of them were, including the ones that had already bitten him. Poisonous or not, more of them were going to bite if he didn't move fast.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed a meat cleaver from a wall rack of knives. When he slammed his left arm down on the nearest counter, the relentless blacksnake flopped full-length across the tile counter top. Ricky swung the cleaver high, brought it down, chopped through the snake, and the steel blade rang off the ceramic surface underneath.

The hateful-looking head still held fast to his hand, trailing only a few inches of the black body, and the glittering eyes seemed to be watching him, alive. Ricky dropped the cleaver and attempted to pry open the serpent's mouth, spring its long curved teeth out of his flesh. He shouted and cursed, furious with pain, kept prying, but it was no use.

The snakes on the floor were agitated by his shouting.

He plunged toward the archway between the kitchen and the hall, kicking snakes out of his way before they could coil and spring at him. Some were already coiled, and they struck, but his heavy, loose-fitting khaki pants foiled them.

He was afraid they would slither over his shoes, under a pants cuff, up and under one of the legs of his khakis. But he reached the hall safely.

The snakes were behind him and not pursuing. Two tarantulas had fallen out of the snack cabinet into the herpetological nightmare on the floor, and the snakes were fighting over them. Frantically kicking arachnid legs vanished under rippling scales.

Thump!

Ricky jumped in surprise.

Thump!

Until now he hadn't a.s.sociated the strange noise, which had plagued him earlier in the evening, with the spiders and snakes.

Thump!

Thump!

Someone had been playing games with him then, but this was not a game any more. This was deadly serious. Impossible, as fantastic as anything in a dream, but serious. Thump! Thump!

Ricky couldn't pinpoint the source of the pounding or even tell for sure if it came from above or below him. Windows reverberated, and echoes of each blow vibrated hollowly in the walls. He sensed that something was coming, worse than spiders or snakes, something he did not want to encounter.

Gasping, with the head of the blacksnake still dangling from his left hand, Ricky turned away from the kitchen toward the front door at the end of the hall.

His twice-bitten arm throbbed horribly with each beat of his trip-hammering heart. No good, dear Jesus, a racing heart spread the poison faster, if there was any poison. What he had to do was calm down, take deep slow breaths, walk instead of run, go to a neighbor's house, call 911, and get emergency medical attention.

THUMP!.

He could have used the telephone in his bedroom, but he didn't want to go in there. He didn't trust his own house any more, which was nuts, yes, crazy, but he felt the place had come alive and turned against him.

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!.

The house shook as if riding the back of a bucking earthquake, almost knocking him down. He staggered sideways, bounced against the wall.

The ceramic statue of the Holy Virgin toppled off the hall table that he had set up as a shrine like all of the shrines his mother had kept in her home. Since being gutshot, he had been reduced by fear to his mother's choice of armor against the cruelties of the world. The statue crashed to the floor, shattered at his feet.

The heavy red-gla.s.s container with the votive candle bounced on the table, causing goblin shadows to dance across the wall and ceiling.

THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP!.

Ricky was two steps from the front door when the oak flooring creaked ominously, pushed upward, and cracked almost as loudly as a thunderclap. He stumbled backward. Something smashed out of the crawls.p.a.ce under the bungalow, shattering the floor as if it were an eggsh.e.l.l. For a moment the blizzard of dust and splinters and jagged boards made it impossible to glimpse what had been born into the hallway.

Then Ricky saw a man in the hole, feet planted in the earth about eighteen inches under the floor of the house. In spite of standing below Ricky, the guy loomed, loomed, immense and threatening. His untamed hair and beard were tangled and dirty, and the visible portions of his face were grossly scarred. His black raincoat billowed like a cape around him as a draft whistled out of the crawls.p.a.ce and up through the broken boards. immense and threatening. His untamed hair and beard were tangled and dirty, and the visible portions of his face were grossly scarred. His black raincoat billowed like a cape around him as a draft whistled out of the crawls.p.a.ce and up through the broken boards.

Ricky knew he was looking at the vagrant who had appeared to Harry out of a whirlwind. Everything about him fit the description-except his eyes.

When he glimpsed those grotesque eyes, Ricky froze midst the fragments of the Holy Virgin, paralyzed by fear and by the certainty that he had gone mad. Even if he had kept backing away or had turned and tried to run for the rear door, he would not have escaped, for the vagrant clambered out of the hole and into the hall as lightning-quick as any striking serpent. He seized Ricky, swept him off the floor with such unhuman power that any resistance was pointless, and slammed him against the wall hard enough to crack the plaster and his spine.

Face to face, washed by the vagrant's foul breath, Ricky gazed into those eyes and was too terrified to scream. They were not the pools of blood that Harry had described. They were not really eyes at all. Nestled in the deep sockets were two snake heads, two small yellow eyes in each, forked tongues fluttering.

Why me? Ricky wondered. Ricky wondered.