"Often enough. They help me clear my mind. I kind of follow one around until..." He shrugged.

"Yes. Well. Where were we?"

A one-sided smile: "You were about to tell me everything about everything so I'd know it all and wouldn't bug you with any more questions, like, just for a crazy example, just who the hell are you people?"

She looked over her shoulder wistfully at the padded benches against the opposite wall, but when he didn't offer her that comfort, she toyed a little with the thin silver chain attached to her purse and said, "You know, I think I've never seen an angel fish that large before."

He frowned. "Look, Miss Harp-"

"Lady Harp, actually," she said absently. "Sir John is my husband."

"Okay. Lady Harp. I-"

"You can call me Beatrice, though. I don't mind. It's Sir John who likes all the ceremony and pomp."

He checked his hands, watching the fingers twitch because just about now they wanted very badly to find a neck to strangle. When she noticed his agitation, she gripped his upper arm briefly. "I'm sorry. When you've been with Sir John as long as I have, you tend to take up his faults."

"No problem," he said. "But I'm not waiting much longer."

"Nor should you have to," she answered kindly. "But I'm not standing here, if you don't mind. My legs aren't what they used to be."

So saying, she grabbed her purse and walked over to a bench, settled herself with a wiggle and a sigh, pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her purse and held it. Waiting.

Trey figured he had a couple of choices here: he could leave her where she was, grab a cab back to the Excalibur, and go home, the heck with fattening the stash, he could always do it another time; if they wanted him that badly they'd have to follow, and meet him on his own ground. It was, by far, the most tempting option. Ever since he thought he had seen Lil and the horse last night, everything had seemed . . . off-kilter somehow, not the least of which were this woman and her husband. He didn't believe for a minute they weren't some kind of private detective team. What he didn't know was who wanted him.

Which made sticking around not a bad choice either. As long as doing it didn't drive him out of his mind.

She sat with her legs crossed at the knee, foot bouncing impatiently, one hand cupping the elbow of the other arm. She cocked an eyebrow, he made her wait a second longer, then crossed over, sat beside her, pulled out his buck-and-a-half lighter and lit her cigarette.

"Thank you," she said, blowing smoke at the high ceiling.

"Sure."

To their left the lobby narrowed to a corridor that led to restrooms, shops, and, he supposed, offices.

"What in heaven's name is that?" she said, pointing across him to the right.

"The rain forest."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, you must have seen it when you came in. It's a rain forest. All different kinds of trees and things, a couple of statues, things like that. It ain't very big, but it's humid as hell in there." He frowned at her. "Come on, you must have seen it."

"Sorry," she said, flicking an ash into the sand of a brushed chrome ash tray cylinder. "I had other things on my mind, as you may remember."

"I remember," he said sharply, "that the only reason I'm still here is that you promised to talk to me."

"Ah," she said. "Yes?' Another puff, and she stabbed the cigarette into the sand. "First, I must ask a favor, that you let me speak until I've done. Sir John is much better at this than I am, he just ignores anyone who interrupts. I," and she smiled, "tend to get a bit flustered and lose my place."

"No problem."

"That goes for questions, as well."

A grunt for a laugh. "Lady, you have no idea how many questions I have. But okay, it's your show. I am, as they say, all ears."

Her eyes closed and opened slowly, then followed the movement of a stocky woman carrying shopping bags on either arm, not looking away until she sidled into the ladies' room, using her hip to bump open the door.

Then Beatrice looked at him, once again her eyes closing and opening slowly. "That woman. Did you see her?"

"What-"

"Did you see her, Mr. Falkirk?"

"Yeah, yeah, I saw her. So what?"

"If you put your hand on her arm, or took her hand, would you be able to do what you do with those machines? Would you be able to contact her . . . what you might call her spirit?"

It was his turn to blink slowly, frowning his puzzlement. "No. I don't. . . no. Good God, what kind of a question is that?"

"It's the one you have the wrong answer to, Mr. Falkirk."

He shifted uncomfortably, made to rise, and changed his mind. "That's . . ." He floundered, unable to find the word he needed, because nuts was too ordinary, and insane wasn't strong enough.

"Listen to me," she insisted quietly, leaning back against the wall, turning her head to face him. "These are strange days, Mr. Falkirk. Strange days indeed, as I've no doubt you are already aware."

"Oh, yeah, right," he said, thinking of the street shepherd and his sign. "The Millennium and stuff, right?" He shook his head at the notion, wanted to tell her, though, that she was right about the "strange" part. Sitting in the lobby of a hotel that had an actual rain forest inside, a zillion gaming tables and video gambling and slot machines and an attached complex that housed dolphins and white tigers, while after dark, a volcano blew up every fifteen minutes out front.

All while a woman he didn't know tried to tell him he could take Jude's hand and contact her spirit. Whatever that was.

Strange, he decided, wasn't strong enough either.

4.

The simple truth of the matter is, Mr. Falkirk, there is no simple truth.

While you've been hiding here in the city, the world's been falling apart. And don't give me that look, you know damn well you've been hiding. It's safe here for you, Mr. Falkirk, you don't get hurt, and you don't think about it because it frightens you.

But the world has been falling apart. I would guess the violence, the death, began just about the time you decided to come back to stay. When that ended-temporarily, I must caution you, only temporarily-it was followed by the famine. There was rain at last, of course, and the blight was defeated, but you can still see it out there ... if you'd ever bother to leave. Malnutrition and starvation don't vanish overnight. And even if you don't leave, there are still things you can't readily get because it all isn't quite back up to speed, is it?

Do you follow me, Mr. Falkirk? Do you understand?

There is a man, a priest, his name is Casey Chisholm and-ah, I see you've heard the name already. Is that so? And have you then heard of another man, a would-be writer named John Bannock? No, I don't suppose you have. But they are compatriots of yours, Mr. Falkirk, and sooner or later you're going to have to meet them. Talk to them. And to do that, you're going to have to leave Las Vegas.

You're going to have to leave soon.

That was the third question, Mr. Falkirk. How long do you think this safety in hiding is going to last?

Oh, dear, I'm not doing this very well, am I. Sir John is so much better at this sort of thing. He's quite fond of you, you know, truly he is. But he has so little strength left, you see, that he can't hold one's attention as he used to, through the sheer power of his will. His voice. His words. He's quite weak, Mr. Falkirk, but he refuses to stop until you've been made to see what must be done.

Here. Take this . . .oh, damn, I can never find anything in this blasted purse when I want to. The curse of my. . . ah. Here. Take this. Mr. Falkirk, please, take it. Thank you. I hope you can read my writing, it tends to get cramped when I write fast. Those places there, and there, the ones I've underscored, I think you'll find that's where the Sickness, as you call it, spreads from. Like ripples, I suppose. Easy enough to check on, if you have the time. But you don't, you'll just have to take my word for it.

Look at the dates, Mr. Falkirk. I believe if you crosscheck them against- Mr. Falkirk, where are you going?

Please, don't do this, oh God, I wish Sir John were here.

Mr. Falkirk, tomorrow night, watch the news. Do you hear me, Mr. Falkirk? Watch the news tomorrow night, then look out your window.

It's dying, Mr. Falkirk. For God's sake, your dragon is dying.

4.

H.

e stumbled out of the hotel, and people thought he was drunk and side-slipped out of his way.

Ahead, past the overhang under which limousines and taxis and airport vans stopped to pick up and take on, the cone of the volcano rose above lush greenery and palm trees, just a fountain now, water spilling down its sides into pools in which alabaster statues of Chinese lions waded.

He walked down the left arm of the driveway's half-moon arc until he reached the boulevard sidewalk. Holding on to the iron fencing that kept the crowds away from the grassy knoll that was the volcano's base.

He could go left and watch a full-size British frigate sail into a cove where it would do battle with pirates amid explosions of fire and smoke; he could go up a little farther and duck into a yellow submarine restaurant with portholes for windows, where steam shot from pipes and the lights dimmed and the captain shouted, "Dive, dive," and huge screens cycled through films of underwater caverns and sharks on the hunt; he could cross the street and go to the casino in a place that was Venice, complete with canals and gondoliers and every room a suite; he could go down to Paris and visit the Eiffel Tower; he could go back to Caesar's and sit on a bench near the shops and watch the vaulted arch of the painted sky run through the day from dawn to dark and back again in less than an hour; he could go to the place where slot machines huddled under acrobats and highflyers; he could stop at the hotel where the food court was Greenwich Village, dark grey cobbled walks and flower pots in curtained apartment windows three and four stories above him.

He could.

But the sun was too bright and the traffic too noisy and he had had enough of things that didn't make any sense. Of being a target.

Of let's pretend.

So he walked back up the drive, left hand gliding along the top of the fence, and got in the line of chattering guests who waited for transportation. He said nothing to anyone and met no one's gaze, and when his turn came, he tipped the all-too-cheerful doorman five dollars and got into the cab and deliberately faced straight ahead so he wouldn't see Lady Beatrice standing, back in the entrance, clinging to her purse, her face flushed and her eyes filled with frustrated tears.

He did not think.

He concentrated on the street, on the several lanes of traffic, on the way shadows had begun to fill in the gaps and arches and windows and alleys, and he wondered only briefly where the afternoon had gone.

When the taxi dropped him off, he tipped the driver too much, and walked straight through the Excalibur without listening, without seeing, without thinking, until he reached the parking lot and unlocked the pickup's door and sat behind the wheel with the window rolled down to let the stifling heat spill out of the cab with the engine running to get the air-conditioning in gear.

When he could grip the steering wheel without scorching his palms, he said, "For crying out loud, please, get me out of here, okay?" and pulled into the street, drove past the towers and the drawbridge and the moat with the once-a-night dragon, past the sphinx that crouched in front of the black glass pyramid, and in less than a blink, or so it seemed, backed into his driveway and shut the engine down.

He remembered nothing of the drive-no turns, no lights, no traffic-and his hands began to tremble because he could have hit someone or something and not remembered it at all.

When his hands calmed and his stomach stopped jumping, he shook himself and got out, closed the door, and patted the hood. He muttered, "Thanks," and backed away quickly when the truck shuddered once and was still.

He stood in the tiny shower stall and let cool water wash the stench of sweat away. When he was done, when the cool became cold and the cold became pain, he wrapped a towel around his waist and stared in the mirror over the bathroom basin.

Still you, he thought to his reflection, and looked away when his grin seemed too much like a grimace.

He picked up the white shirt Sir John had given him, balled it up, and carried it into the kitchen, where he slammed it into the trash. He closed the blinds in all the rooms. He turned on the air-conditioning by cranking the thermostat down with a single vicious twist of his wrist and listened to it clank and sputter like the struggle of old pipes. Then he sat cross-legged in the middle of the couch, hands loosely folded in his lap, and watched the sunglare around the edges of the windows fade, and turn dark.

The air-conditioning shut off, thermostat setting reached, and the silence was much larger than the rooms in which he lived.

The girls knocked on the door, giggling, then calling out, then muttering, then leaving.

He heard cars drive by.

There were voices raised in shrill argument.

Later, much later, someone else knocked, softly, and he had no idea when whoever it was finally left.

Even later, the crunch of tires rolling slowly over the dirt. No engine sound. The sharp slam of a car door. Tires passing in the opposite direction.

And through it all, when his mind wavered, couldn't stay blank, all he could think was who the hell are you?

A stiffness in his neck.

He inhaled slowly, deeply, and let the air out in an explosive sigh so loud it sounded unnervingly like a sob.

His left hand passed over his right arm, the gooseflesh there like fine-grain. sandpaper. Gingerly, hissing in, he straightened his legs one at a time, waiting for the inevitable cramps in foot and calf and thigh. When they came, he rubbed them away absently, not really feeling the pain.

Listening, instead, to the silence in the house. In the street. Wondering how late it was but in no hurry to find his watch. A faint glow marked the windows' edges, so the porch lights were on and the moon was probably out and full. Not yet midnight. Far too long till dawn.

Walking stiffly, kicking out a leg to loosen it, swinging an arm in a circle to bring back the circulation, he walked into the bedroom, tossed the towel aside and dressed without bothering to put on a pair of shoes. His bladder, now that he was back among the living, demanded release, and he gave it, and once given, he checked the mirror again and still didn't like what he saw, even after he turned off the light.

Food, then. He hadn't eaten since lunch, and that had been lost in the restroom at the Mirage. The memory of it put the taste of sour bile in his mouth, and he licked his lips constantly as he hurried into the kitchen and flung open the refrigerator door. A cock of his head-a beer, he figured, probably wasn't wise. He grabbed a package of deli American cheese, a small jar of mustard, a head of lettuce. The bread was on the counter, between the sink and a small radio he usually listened to while he ate. As he made himself a sandwich, not too thick, he finally permitted his brain to get to work.

And the first thing he thought, with a self-mocking chuckle while he cut the sandwich in half, corner to corner, was that Lady Beatrice scared the living bejesus out of him. She was very kind, and rather attractive in a nontraditional sort of way, and she had to be a good . . . what, thirty or forty years younger than her husband? Easily; no problem.-But while Sir John merely angered him with his mysterious, mystical, bullshit three questions, Beatrice, in her fumbling for a way to explain and confuse him, made them sound too damn real.

As if she knew, knew, that he had posed them to himself a long time ago and had decided, rightly or wrongly, he didn't want to know the answers.