Andrez looked at him strangely. "I don't know. The Prodigium? I doubt we can even begin to understand them. So killing them approaches the impossible. Can we kill these-I like your name for them, Bull-teenager gods? Maybe. We can definitely kill their agents and the people they infest. We can thwart their plans."

Ingram shifted again and raised his swaddled fist, resting it on the table. His chest, where he'd been stabbed, itched. He scratched it with his good hand.

"Jesus," he said. "I need a drink."

Andrez patted his wrapped hand. "Take heart. We are not powerless." He smiled, showing white even teeth. "And you have resisted them three times now, Bull."

"What?"

"When you encountered one on the gravel road that was most assuredly Hastur himself. And you resisted. At the radio station when you heard the music and fought the dead man. You resisted him again." Andrez tapped his wrapping with a finger. "And once again at Ruby's. You openly defied him. You killed his agent, Early Freeman, rest his soul. And you pursued the Pale Man. Then, something-some power-brought you here. You didn't float here by chance, that much is sure."

"I've got a question for you," Ingram said. "Why are you here? I mean, in Arkansas?"

"This is another good question, Bull. One I've been thinking about as we've been talking. At the time, it seemed like chance but now I'm beginning to doubt that. A nephew of a cardinal had fallen ill, and I was called to consult because the attending priest felt that his illness was infernal in nature. I thought it was godshatter."

At Sarah and Ingram's quizzical looks, the little man held up his hands. "Godshatter is the illness that falls on people who have been inhabited-enthralled-by the teenager gods. Often godshatter goes unnoticed because how can one diagnose the remains of a possession? Of course, the church doesn't refer to the illness as that. It was a piece of Guisseppi's personal jargon that I discovered in his papers, and it has stuck with me since.

"The young man had been institutionalized due to some violent behavior, but had been released because he had made a dramatic recovery. This alerted me to the possibility of possession. But then he fell ill. He was wracked by fever and violent palsy. Whatever god had infected him, it left the boy tainted with horrible dreams and waking visions of torment and torture. And desires. For flesh. So I brought him back to my chambers adjoining the Bibliotheca Occulta, so that I might study his illness further and, I hoped, restore the young man to health."

Ingram shivered. Flesh? He's not talking about sex.

"I intended to get the young man to join me in a very old rite. A rite of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm means, literally, 'full of a god.' En theos. I wanted to invite Mithras or Cybele or even one of the capricious lesser gods to inhabit him in hopes they would restore their vessel. This would take blood, and sacrifice. A finger, maybe. A tooth. Once it was done, and I had the boy deified, I planned to use an ancient rite of banishment and expel it from the boy's body.

"However, I made a mistake in judgment. I didn't suspect that the boy could still be possessed.

"I left him alone to retrieve the knife and chalice. Another mistake. When I returned, he was gone. I called for the Vatican City guards. We began searching. It was then I realized that my keys-the keys to the Bibliotheca Occulta-were missing. We went to the vault that held the volumes, and its door stood open like the gates of hell. The boy had set a fire. Once the inferno was extinguished, we entered the chamber that once had held every evil book known to man. All burnt. All destroyed. There was no way to tell whether he had removed any books, though I strongly suspect he did. I fear it was the Daemonlateria, our version of the Quanoon. In the original Arabic. I was assaulted by conflicting emotion: happiness at seeing so many evil books destroyed, and fear that we had been left defenseless against the Prodigium and their offspring. However silly it may sound, knowledge truly is power, and the boy-or the entity that possessed him-left us powerless.

"We found the boy's body in a neighborhood close to the Vatican. Dead and horribly burnt. It seems the entity that possessed him didn't care much for the longevity of his vessel. Which indicated to me that he had help. Either from other gods or people.

"And for all of this, I was to blame. I made the mistakes of judgment regarding the boy and consequently a priceless collection of books was destroyed. Not to mention the death of the Cardinal's nephew. The Cardinal spent the next year of his life punishing me. His final act of retribution was to send me to the most remote and god-forsaken places on the face of the earth. Tierra del Fuego. The Mexican slums. North Dakota. Ten years ago, he sent me here, to Arkansas. And here I've been. But it occurs to me now that I might have been sent here for a reason, just like you, Bull. That some other force drew me here. And that gives me hope."

"What I don't understand is why you didn't leave the priesthood? How can you know the truth and still take this exile?" Sarah stared at him.

He sighed. "For many years I asked myself the same question. The Christian god is a myth, a bright wrapping on unexplainable events tied to other gods. But whatever the case, when I became a priest and learned Guiseppi's secret, my vocation became not to serve god, but to protect man. In some ways, I became a policeman, I think, burdened with too much knowledge of dark and terrifying things.

"I've always hoped to resume my duties at the Bibliotheca Occulta. I still serve the new curator in many small ways. Translations. Experience. It is sad, yes. But the cloth is all I've known. And I cannot bring myself to believe that the church is all bad. The people need hope and something to distract them from the wolves walking among them in sheep's clothing."

Sarah stared at him, this small, pitiable man. She put her hand on his.

"Is it shameful for me to say I still hope that there is a Christian god? That Jesus was not some godshattered young man? That despite everything, I still hope there might be some purely benevolent force in the world?"

She shook her head. "Of course it isn't, Andrez. Of course not. And your hope brought you here. To us."

Something occurred to her then. "In the yard, you looked up at my room. Why?"

"The piles of dead birds. They were arranged in a pattern. A pattern, it seemed, only apparent from a height. From a window, say, on the second floor of this house."

Sarah's eyes went wide. She bolted out of the door and raced through the dining room. Ingram followed fast on her heels, bare feet slapping on the floor, with Andrez trailing behind.

Up the stairs and across the gallery, Sarah ran for her mother's room. Her hands scrabbled at the doorknob, and she erupted through the door, hair flying.

"Momma! Are you okay? Momma?" Sarah was nearly hysterical.

The bed was empty. Dizzy from the burst of adrenaline, Ingram placed his hand on the doorjamb to steady himself.

"Goddamn it, Sarah." A voice came from the dark corner of the room. "What the hell do you think you're doing, coming in here like that?"

The stooped figure of a woman sat near the window on a padded bench. Her face seemed strange, dark, her white hair was wild around her face. She peered at Ingram, drawing her robes around her body.

"Who the hell is that? Who is that in my house?"

"My name's Ingram, ma'am. Your daughter-"

"I don't give a damn what your name is, sir. Get out. Now. Vacate these premises."

"Momma, this is the man who-"

"I know who that idiot is, girl. He's the stray dog you brought home."

Sarah moved further into the room. She stood by her mother, near the window. Sarah glanced out and then looked again.

"No."

"What? What did you say, Sarah?"

"I said no. He's not leaving. I don't care what you say or do. He's going stay here until we figure out what's going on. Your peafowl are all dead. Didn't you know?"

"Jesus Christ, Sarah," the old woman said, voice hoarse and sharp. "A priest, too? You planning my funeral? Well, I'm not dying today. No, madam, not today. So you can send the runt away, too."

Ingram realized Andrez stood by him. He turned back to the room. From the light of the lamp, he could see the older woman's face more clearly. A red and brown mask covered her cheeks and jaw-line. Her back was crooked, and her joints oversized. She held her body in an uncomfortable pose, hunched over like a crone.

"Momma, he's staying. And that's that," Sarah said. She turned to the door. "Bull, will you go downstairs and get the bottle of port from the library? It's on a silver tray on my desk. Just go down the stairs when you're about to enter the kitchen, take a right, and follow the long hallway. It'll end at the library. Can you do this for me, please?"

He nodded, looking from her to her mother.

"His name is Bull? I can see that," said Sarah's mother. "What's the other's name? Weasel?"

"Momma," Sarah said slowly, "you used to have manners. What happened to them? Did they get sick as well? You've always been a-"

"What? A bitch?" The old woman cackled. "It's what you're thinking."

Ingram turned. "I'll come too," said Andrez.

They found the library easily. Andrez tsked at the stacks of books littering the floor, but followed Ingram to the desk. There they stopped and looked.

Two books and a sword lay there, waiting for them. Andrez reached forward and touched the cover of the larger book. He picked it up and opened it. He caught his breath.

Ingram peered at the book over Andrez's shoulder. An illustration glared back at him. A grotesquely fat man sat naked in the middle of a floor marked with designs, a knife in his hand. Blood pooled around him, from the wound at his crotch. He'd severed his own testicles. In the next panel, the man crouched over a bowl and defecated into it, blood spilling onto the feces from the wound in his groin. In the last panel, the man, with a look that could be pain or joy, sculpted a creature from the shit, pushing his severed testicle inside his creation, into its chest.

Realizing Ingram looked over his shoulder, Andrez closed the book. "The Necronomicon. An evil work."

"What the hell was that guy doing?"

"Golem. Making a golem from his own waste and giving it power through blood."

Andrez gave Ingram a sick smile. "All power comes from sacrifice. So, in some sense we are gods too. We can create things as well. If you're willing to sacrifice, you can create. This set of illustrations shows a very foul way to sacrifice. That is all that magic is. The willingness to sacrifice, to negate yourself."

"Damn," Ingram said, resting his hand on the smaller man's shoulder. "I think I understand now what Sarah meant when she said she nearly lost her mind."

"Damned, indeed," Andrez said. "And look. The sword. Wilhelm's sword."

Ingram reached forward and took it in his uninjured hand. When he raised it high, he felt as if invisible gears locked into place. It felt good in his hand. Perfect.

Chapter 16.

Sarah's mother glared at her.

"You sleeping with him?" Her black eyes shone bright, inquisitive, like polished buttons. Her tone of voice made the question light, as if she inquired about the mail, or whether Sarah had remembered to get milk at the store.

"Of course not, Momma," she said. "He's been hurt, that's all. He woke up last night."

"He's a big one, isn't he? I'll bet he'd fill you up." She chuckled. "Bull, you say? He looks it. A hoss."

Sarah gasped, a hand coming to her mouth. She felt the blood rushing to her cheeks, her neck.

"Oh, girl," her mother chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. "You can lie to me, but don't lie to yourself. If you haven't thought about it you're either dumber than ditchwater or so well practiced at self-deceit you don't even know you're doing it."

Ingram coughed nervously from the door. The old woman looked at the man, grinning.

"How big are you, Bull?" She glanced at Sarah. "Sarah here wants to know. Are you a big old hoss?"

He entered the room, padding softly on his bare feet, and placed the port on the bedside table, scowling. He looked like someone held a gun on him, shoulders high and tense. He shut the door behind him as he left.

"Don't think he likes me too much, girl." She pointed at the port. "I want my sip. Pour it for me."

Sarah brought the tray to her mother's vanity and poured a glass. The old woman slammed it back, rocking her head like a sailor on leave. She swallowed loudly, smacked her lips, and held out the small glass for another. Sarah filled it again.

Sarah looked down at the yard. Two workers, coming from the direction of the field shop, walked through the cornfield with a large drum between them. Handles of rakes and shovels poked out of the barrel. She looked back at the yard.

What would do something like that? Was slaughtering not good enough? Why make a bloody arrangement of everything?

The sign in the grass stopped the breath in her chest.

In the center of the arrangement glared the severed head of Ole Phemus, that cantankerous peacock. Up and away from the center lay a curl of wings and the torso of another bird-denuded of feathers and flayed of skin so that it glistened red and white in the morning sun-looking for all the world like a question mark. Two other lines of flesh and feathers ran away from Phemus' head; one curled around like a tentacle and the other shot straight away, ending in a flourish of tail-feathers. It was indecipherable and full of meaning all at once. She clenched her fists.

"Another, girl."

Sarah turned away from the window, back to her mother. Elizabeth held out the filigreed cup and shook it in Sarah's face. Before she realized what she was doing, Sarah slapped the cup from her mother's hand, sending it flying across the room to shatter on the crown-molding.

"Pour your own," she said, grinding her teeth. She squatted down on her haunches so that her face was even with her mother's.

"I don't know what's happened with you, Momma, but you look fairly spry to me. I don't see why you can't start taking care of yourself."

Elizabeth Rheinhart's nostrils flared. Her eyes widened. Then she smiled.

She chuckled again, sounding like sandpaper blocks rubbing together.

"Goddamn it. I knew it. I knew you weren't just Ware's girl." She reached out a liver-spotted hand and jabbed a yellow fingernail into the flesh of Sarah's breast. Deep. Sarah yelped with pain and jerked away from the old woman.

"I've waited years for you to show a little backbone. I knew there had to be a bit of me in there, little girl. Not just the weak-willed thing you've shown yourself to be ever since you left with Jim." She laughed from deep in her throat. "Jim. You picked a winner there, didn't you. Eh?"

Again, Sarah's hand lashed out, striking her mother on the cheek. She remembered her mother doing the same thing to Uncle Gregor.

Elizabeth stood, uncoiling herself from the vanity bench. She drew her robes around her as she rose, straightening her back.

Spry is an understatement, Sarah thought. I haven't seen her move like that since I was a girl.

"I'll tolerate quite a bit from you, child, but not that," her mother said, each word clear. "Go. You're not fit for conversation. Have Alice bring me my dinner. When you've calmed down, we'll talk."

Once in the hall, door firmly closed behind her, Sarah began to shake uncontrollably. Her breath came in gasps and-even though she tried to press them back-tears sprang in her eyes. Her hands shook as if palsied. She leaned heavily on the wall.

"Sarah?" His soft, deep voice. She felt his hand touch her on the shoulder, warm and powerful. She didn't want him to see her tears and think her weak, but his hand turned her inexorably toward him, like the movement of the earth. She gave in, something inside her relinquishing, and she hugged his chest, pushing into the circle of his arms. Like a circle round the sun, bright and warm and massive, blotting out everything else.

"You OK?"

She held him for a long time, trying to bury herself in his body, pressing her face into his chest and breathing, taking in his scent. He smelled like horses, cigarettes, and bourbon. Arms around him, she could feel just the edges of the wide, muscular expanse of his back. And she thought about what her mother had said. Yes... he could fill her to brimming. God, now she wanted that more than anything, this giant of a man pushing himself into her.

"Sarah?"

Andrez's voice.

She released Ingram. Andrez watched from the doorway of Ingram's bedroom, a worried expression on his face. Ingram reached forward, taking her hand.

"It's gonna be okay. Right? She's got her juice. She'll simmer down."

She turned from the men, pulling her hand away, and walked back across the gallery and downstairs. She could hear them following. She didn't know where she was heading until she found herself in the library.

She sat at the desk. Opening the drawer, she looked inside, then slammed it.

"Do either of you have-"