"Ouch!" Joby gasped, nearly sprawling to his face. "Goddamn it!" he spat, looking back to find Mary stretched halfway into the busy sidewalk, looking crossly up at him as she rubbed the foot he'd stumbled over. "Damn it, Mary! Can't you stay out of my way?" he raged at her, heedless of the stares from passersby. "What's your problem?"

"Have I the problem?" she asked severely. "I'd say it's your manners have slipped a bit." She gave him one last scowl, and went back to reading the book in her lap.

Joby turned angrily to go, then realized what she was reading, and spun back, sure his mind had gone at last. Yet there it was: A Child's Treasury of Arthurian Tales!

"Where did you get that?" he demanded, his fury momentarily displaced by astonishment.

She looked up from her reading, seeming irritated to find him still there. "Thrift store," she said curtly. "The throwaway bin. Seemed too pretty t'toss out without one more readin', not as I can see it's any of your business."

"I . . . I had a book like that once," Joby said. "It was a gift from . . . Can I see it?"

She held it up for him to take, still looking cross.

The book was as worn as his had been, in virtually the same places. He held it to his face, and breathed in the very scent he remembered. Knowing there was no way it could be his own, he lifted its faded cover anyway, turned to the first blank page, and froze, openmouthed.

To my beloved grandson on his first day of life, May you grow to be a knight Arthur would be proud of. Do great things with a large heart, beautiful child. I am proud of you already.

With much love, your Grampa Emery For a moment, he could hardly breathe. Then his eyes began to well, his breath to come in gasps as his exhausted mind and ravaged heart collided, the first propelled by shocked disbelief, the second by grief and shame.

"How did you get this?" he demanded, trembling.

"I told you," Mary said.

"No!" Joby shouted. "I threw this away! How did you get it?"

"Haven't we a temper today!" Mary replied sternly. "Thrown-out things is what thrift stores sell, lad. Stompin' on my feet, yellin' like a drunkard. Now yer callin' me a liar. Your company's gone sour. Think I'll go find better." She started to get stiffly to her feet. "Keep the silly book since you seem to own it. Cost me little enough."

"No, wait! I'm sorry," Joby said. "It's just that . . ." The last frayed lines of defense inside him collapsed like the walls of Jericho. "I can't . . .," he pleaded. "Not now! Not now!" Clutching the impossible book to his chest, he doubled to his knees in unchecked misery, oblivious of those who gaped or turned away on the street around him, only half-aware of Mary's arms folding him toward her breast. "I tried," he sobbed as Mary pulled him closer, kissing his head, and rocking him in her arms. "I ruin everything I do, everyone I care about!" he wailed into her lap. "I just come near them and they die!"

"There, there, child," she cooed sadly. "I know. It's been an awful thing. . . . Just cry now, 'til it's done. . . . I ain't goin' nowhere, my dearie."

Twice, as Joby sobbed into her lap, he felt her stiffen convulsively, and wondered fearfully if she were going to have a heart attack and die now too. He wanted to run away, and couldn't stop crying, and didn't want her to let go of him, all at the same time.

When his sobbing finally ended, he lay empty and exhausted in her embrace, ignoring the respectable people who hurried by averting their eyes, or shaking their heads, until Mary broke their silence.

"You should leave here, dearie. This town's got nothin' but pain for you now. Go someplace far off where there's no past to haunt you."

"I tried that," Joby murmured without raising his head. "When I came to Berkeley. . . . Start again. Someplace new. . . . There is no such place." He sat up, wiping ineffectually at his eyes.

"There must be," Mary pressed. "Ain't nowhere ever made you happy?"

"Well . . . there was one place," he said, surprised to think of it so suddenly after so many years. "There was this town called Taubolt. But I don't know anyone there, or have anywhere to stay. Not on the twenty or thirty bucks I've got left."

Mary nodded soberly and said, "That's it, then. If I was you, I'd go there right this minute, and not look back."

"What? But . . . I just told you. Where would I stay? What would I do for food?"

"Homeless is homeless, one place or another." She shrugged. "And if all you've left is thirty dollars, that's what you'll be soon either way. Small towns ain't no meaner to such folk than big ones are. There's all manner of things t'eat in the sea, child, and who's to say there ain't a job waitin' for you there?"

"Oh sure," Joby scoffed, wearily. "I can't get work for love or money here in Metropolis, but up in 'two-store Taubolt,' I'll be first in line, right?"

"You're doin' it again, dearie," she said, absently pulling one of her yarn ornaments from somewhere in her skirts. "Always rollin' out that dark carpet in front of you. Them two stores will also have fewer folks to choose from, I imagine." She began to wind and weave the trailing yarn around its small frame. The little diamond shape looked nearly finished. "Have you really anything t'lose by tryin'?"

Joby saw her wince and flinch again.

"Are you all right?" he asked anxiously.

"Indigestion," she huffed. "An old woman's stomach is no pretty sight, child. Are you goin' or not?"

"Mary, I don't even have a car. How am I supposed to get there?"

"You'll find a way once you decide," she said. "Decidin's the hard part, ain't it, dearie." She yanked the last strand of yarn tight, and tied it off.

"What are these things you're always making?" Joby asked.

"Just little charms." She smiled. "For friends I meet here and there. . . . Brings 'em good luck. Keeps the dark away some." She held out the one she'd just finished. "This one's for you, dearie. Been makin' it special."

"Thank you," Joby said, abashed. "You've been so nice to me, after the way I-"

Her face spasmed, and her arm jerked, as she held the ornament out to him.

"Mary, what's wrong?"

"I told you, dearie, bad chowder," she said shortly. "Take it now."

After shoving her gift into Joby's hand, she began climbing to her feet.

"Where are you going?" Joby asked.

"I got places to be some time ago," she said a bit breathlessly, and turned to leave. "As do you, my dearie, if you've the brains God gave you."

"Mary, wait!" Joby said, leaping to his feet.

"What is it?" she asked brusquely, looking back over her shoulder.

"I just . . . Thank you," he said, embarrassed. "For these." He held out her woven gift and his long-lost book. "I've never said it, but . . . I really . . . you're one of the kindest, wisest"-he struggled for some way to express what he was feeling-"most patient people I ever met. . . . I just wanted to say that."

Her eyes grew shinier and more pink-rimmed than usual. "Whatever fool things you must think about yourself, child, I've always been proud of you. Now, for God's sake, get out of here. Wherever your life's waitin' now, it ain't nowhere 'round here." She turned again, and walked off toward the corner without a backward glance.

"Good-bye," Joby said quietly, amazed to realize that the consuming rage that had driven him for days had simply vanished, like a spent fever, though, like a fever, it had left him feeling weak and insubstantial. Willing himself to look away from Mary's retreating back, he turned and headed home down Telegraph, his book in one hand, her yarn charm in the other, wondering if she could be right about going to Taubolt.

Merlin's skirts were bunched in white-knuckled hands as he left his grandson behind, straining to hold the demon's onslaught at bay until he could be sure the boy was out of sight. The jig was clearly up for this disguise. A pity really. With a saint for a mother and a demon for a father, it wasn't easy to invent personas effectively beneath the interest of both Heaven and Hell. Still, "Mary" had served her purpose, he hoped.

"Who are you, woman?" the demon demanded, appearing directly in front of him, steps short of the damned corner. "What are you?"

Knowing that no normal mortal would see the apparition, Merlin vainly pretended not to, hoping to confuse his tormentor just long enough to achieve his escape. Though twelve years spent waiting unobtrusively to act had seemed hardly any time at all to a man of Merlin's age, reaching that corner ahead of him seemed to be taking forever.

"I know you see me, hag!" the demon snarled. "Your concealments are a marvel, I confess, but no merely mortal thing sloughs off my attacks one after another. You weaken though. I feel it. Tell me what you are, and where you got that book, and I may let you live. Resist me further, and I will simply tear the answers from you."

Merlin just kept walking.

"Fool!" the demon snarled. "Where do you think to hide from me now?"

Fool, Merlin thought back through gritted teeth. Around that corner will do nicely.

"Do you think your noxious little knot of spells can save the boy?" the demon pressed. He raised a hand and redoubled the barrage of strokes and heart attacks he'd been hurling at Merlin, sufficient some time ago to drop any normal mortal woman where she stood. Throwing all his remaining strength into the shields that wreathed him, Merlin walked straight through the shadowed ghost, to its clear amazement.

"What are you?" it snarled, in angry dismay.

"If you don't know by now, dearie, it's too late t'care," Merlin cackled, turning the blessed corner at last. No one at all came around the other side.

"He was there then, wasn't he?" Gabriel asked. "With us in the glade when Joby threw his books away. That's how they disappeared."

"It would seem so," mused the Creator. "He hides quite well, you know, even from angels."

"But not from You, My Lord," the angel pressed. "Why did You not just tell me?"

The Creator shrugged. "I just assumed that if he'd wanted you to know what he had done, he'd have told you himself."

Disguised as a pigeon, Gabriel had watched the confrontation between Merlin and Malcephalon from atop a nearby record store, but, unlike Malcephalon, Gabe had quickly guessed who the old woman must really be. The sudden cessation of Merlin's anguished pleas to Heaven on his grandson's behalf, the angel now realized, had coincided too perfectly with "Mary's" appearance. The book's unexpected reappearance had removed any remaining doubt-regarding Merlin's involvement, at least.

"But . . . does all this not suggest he's been planning to disobey You from the start?" Gabriel asked anxiously. "He serves Heaven and received the same command all others did, not to interfere unasked, yet he disobeys. What are we to do, My Lord?"

"You know I'm not allowed to answer such questions, Gabe," the Creator chided. "Keep this up, I could get confused and say something I'm not allowed to. Then Lucifer would win. That what you want?"

"No, My Lord. Of course not."

But can that be what You want, Lord? Gabriel thought, unable to expunge the shameful thought.

As worded, Lucifer's condition forbidding the Creator's servants from helping Joby uninvited had applied only to immortal beings, but Merlin, though uniquely long-lived, was certainly not immortal. It had been the perfect loophole! The one remaining mortal able to hide from angels and contest with demons would have been free to help Joby, had the Creator not gratuitously upped the ante by addressing His command against unsolicited aid to "all serving Heaven." Why had He done that? The Creator never used words carelessly!

No one knew better than Gabe that the Creator's decisions were infinitely above any angel's right, or ability, to question. And yet, for the first time in all the angel's eons of experience, there it was . . . doubt. Gabriel didn't want it, didn't know what to do with it. But now it was and could not be unmade. Could the Creator want Joby to fail? Had He given up on creation? . . . Or was there something else between the lines here that Gabe was failing to perceive?

"You won't punish him then?" Gabe dared to ask.

"I can hardly imagine doing so would not constitute an expression of My will in this matter," the Creator replied patiently.

Gabe looked down uncomfortably, wondering how much of his own newly minted doubt the Creator had already divined. "Lord," he said, as dry of mouth as an angel is capable of being, "these conditions You have agreed to are so impossibly unfair. It might seem to some . . ." He shook his head. "No. It is I who wonder. Have You intentionally set this contest against Joby for some reason?"

"Why would I do that?" the Creator asked casually.

"I cannot imagine, Lord. But . . . it seems to me that Joby would certainly have failed had Merlin not disobeyed Your command."

The Creator shrugged. "He may still fail. What is it you really want to know?"

"Is that what You intend, Lord?" Gabe pleaded in sudden desperation. "That he fail?"

"I can't tell you what I intend, Gabe. You know that. I'm quite out of the loop until this wager is ended, though I may have much to say then, if anyone is left to hear it. How about a hand of cards, Gabe? Would that cheer you up?"

Gabriel could hardly believe his ears. Cards? The Creator sounded almost cheerful! Didn't He care at all?

"My Lord," he said palely, "I fear I have no appetite for cards. May I decline?"

"Why, of course, Gabe." The Creator sounded nonplussed. "Would I make you play? How much fun would that be?"

Williamson hovered anxiously amidst the cloud of demons wreathing Joby's bed. Despite Malcephalon's efforts to dissuade him, Joby had hung the old woman's charm around his neck on a strip of ribbon, where, to everyone's livid consternation, it had blunted their influence ever since. The boy had even considered going into a church to pray for guidance! It had taken the combined strength of six different demons just to make Joby tired enough to come here to sleep instead. Adding insult to injury, the thing cast off a prickly energy difficult for Williamson, or even his superiors, to endure.

"Impossible!" Malcephalon kept hissing. "This cannot be happening!"

The Triangle, who might ordinarily have made quite a joke of Malcephalon's disgrace, were too dismayed to do more than grumble agreement.

To Williamson's concealed satisfaction, Malcephalon was in dire trouble for having failed to recognize the old woman's purpose and power in time. In fact, the once-dominant demon hadn't a friend in Hell now.

It seemed the old sorceress had left the world without a trace. Since she'd tried to send the boy to Taubolt, most thought it likely that's where she'd gone as well. Lucifer had ordered that Joby be allowed nowhere near the coast on pain of punishment far worse than death. Ironically, that very command had caused Williamson to realize that his long-awaited chance to grab the ball had finally come. It was common knowledge by now that not even Lucifer had been able to find the place, or Joby in it. Thus, if Joby were to get back there now, and Williamson were with him when he did, Lucifer, for once, would be powerless to prevent Williamson from calling the shots alone and engineering Hell's victory all by himself. Not even Lucifer would be able to deny him credit then! The one remaining problem was how to get sufficient time alone with Joby.

"Watching him snore is a bore!" Tique whined. "If you can't get that thing off his neck, Malcephalon, then-"

"He can't wear it forever!" Malcephalon cut in angrily. "The moment it comes off, he will pay dearly for that old hag's cheek."

"Well, he's not likely to wear it into his morning shower," Eurodia said. "Why can't we just come back then?"

"What!" Malcephalon snarled. "Leave him here unguarded all night so the Creator's cheat can come steal him away for good? Are you mad?"

"Who suggested leaving him unguarded?" Eurodia sniffed. She waved contemptuously at Williamson. "If anything happens, our security camera here just squeals and we're back in a snap, right? So why hang around and watch the child sleep?"

It was too perfect! Trying to sound offended, Williamson whined, "You guys can't just leave me here alone with this thing he's wearing. It's not my fault we're in this mess, and what if-"

As expected, Malcephalon whirled to face him in a rage. "You dare assign blame here, worm? If we tell you to watch, watch you will 'til Hell freezes, or you'll grace our dinner table for as long! Is that clear?"

"Yes, Sir," Williamson whimpered, silently congratulating himself.

"See ya in the mornin', bug." Tique smirked and vanished.

"Watch well, fool," Malcephalon warned. "Hell's master is as close to fury as I have seen him in an age." Then Malcephalon vanished with the others.

Williamson glanced at the digital clock glowing beside Joby's bed. Seven hours 'til dawn. There might just be time if he could force the boy's hand quickly. With a smirk, he began humming at the walls, extending his modest little lure down into the building's filthy bowels.

Joby was grudgingly tickled from sleep by a feather-light touch on his bare shoulder. Reaching up to brush it away, his hand found something brittle that wriggled frantically under his fingers. With a jolt he was awake, swatting in revulsion at his shoulder as he threw the covers off and leapt up to slap the light switch. In the sudden glare, he saw the cockroach scuttle through a crack beneath the floorboard.

Joby sat down heavily on the bed, nursing a hellish head rush, and looked at the clock. Nearly midnight. Vowing to seek employment as an exterminator himself in the morning if his sleep was not quickly retrieved, Joby reached up, turned off the light, and settled hopefully under his covers again.

Only then, lying in the darkness, did he notice the soft, sporadic tapping sound. At first, he thought it might be rain on the windows, but it seemed to come from too nearby. He got up again, went to the doorless jamb that separated his sleeping quarters from the kitchen, and reached through to flip the light switch just inside. As illumination flooded the room, he jerked his hand back with a gasp, and stumbled back in horror.

Roaches rained from the ceiling, swarmed across the countertops, and scuttled across the kitchen floor in frenzied retreat from the light. Joby leapt back farther, looking down in alarm at his bare feet, then around the pantry space in which he stood. For some reason the incomprehensible invasion seemed confined to the kitchen despite the absence of any door to hold it there. He had no intention, however, of waiting around to find out how long this fortunate condition would persist. As he'd struggled that evening with Mary's advice about Taubolt, Joby had kept wishing for some kind of sign to guide him. Well, if this wasn't one, he didn't know what was. Holding her yarn charm against his chest with both hands, he knew Mary had been right. He had to get out of here! Now!

After yanking his clothes back on, Joby grabbed the duffel bag he used as a suitcase from the pantry cupboard he used as a closet, cramming as much of his warmest clothes inside it as would fit, glancing periodically at the kitchen doorjamb. After one last look around the pantry, he grabbed his newly recovered storybook, and shoved that in his bag just as a roach scuttled down the pantry cupboard door, and free-fell to the floor. Joby whirled to find several more insects scuttling from their kitchen stronghold. As he'd feared the tide was starting to advance.

He dashed into the living room and looked around. His rent was due in less than a week, and he had nothing to pay it with. In truth, there was nothing here he really wanted that much anyway. Jogging into the bathroom, he shoved his toothbrush and a few other things in with his clothes, then fled his apartment without looking back. Let the roaches have it all, he thought. It felt almost good to be so free.