Pocketing the skull he sauntered back to the car and reversed down the hill until the road offered s.p.a.ce enough for him to turn. Then he was away at a speed that would have been suicidal on such bends and in such darkness had suicide not been one of his many playthings now.

Raul put his fingers to one of the splashes of Nuncio. It rose in beads to meet his hand, winding into the spirals of his fingerprints, then climbing up through the marrow of hand, wrist and forearm, before petering out at his elbow. He felt, or imagined he felt, some subtle reconfiguration in his muscle, as though his hand, which had never quite lost its simian proportions, was being coaxed a little closer to the human. He let the sensation delay him only a moment; Tesla's condition concerned him more than his own.

It was as he went to make his way back up the hill that it occurred to him that the drops of Nuncio left in the ground might somehow help heal the woman. If she didn't have comfort of some kind soon she'd surely die. What was there to lose in letting the Great Work do what it could?

With that thought in mind he started back towards the Mission, knowing that were he to attempt to touch the broken vial it would be he who received its benefit. Tesla would have to be carried down the road to where these precious drops were scattered.

The women had set their candles all around Tesla. She looked like a corpse already. He was swift with his instructions. They wrapped her up and helped him carry her down the road a little way. She wasn't heavy. He took her head and shoulders and two of the women supported her lower half, a third held the bundled shirt, now thoroughly soaked, to the bullet hole.

It was a slow process, stumbling in the darkness, but having been twice touched by the Nuncio, Raul had no difficulty finding the spot again. Like called to like. Warning the women to keep feet and fingers clear of the spilled fluid he took Tesla's weight entirely into his own arms and laid her down, her head haloed by splashes of the Nuncio. The remains of the vial itself still contained the bulk of the fluid; at most, a teaspoonful. With great gentleness, he turned her head towards the vial. At her proximity the fluid inside had begun a firefly dance- -the poison brightness that had rained on Tesla as she fell before Tommy-Ray's bullet had solidified in seconds: become a gray, featureless place where she lay now without any sense of how she'd come to be there. She couldn't remember the Mission, Raul, or Tommy-Ray. Even her own name was beyond her. It was all outside the wall, where she couldn't go. Perhaps would never go again. She had no feelings either way about this. With no memory, she had nothing to mourn.

But now something began to scratch at the wall from the other side. She heard it humming to itself as it worked, like a lover digging at the stone of her cell, determined to reach her. She listened, and waited, no longer quite so forgetful, nor so indifferent to escape.. Her name came back to her first, heard in the hum from outside. Then a memory of the pain the bullet had brought with it, and the grinning face of Tommy-Ray, and Raul, and the Mission, and- Nuncio.

That was the power she'd come looking for, and now in its turn it was looking for her, eroding the walls of limbo. Her exchanges with Fletcher about its transforming talents had been all too brief, but she understood its basic function well enough. It ran with whatever baton it was pa.s.sed; a race against entropy towards some conclusion not even its client/victim could guess, much less its subject. Was she ready for such a proving touch? It had made a swollen evil of Jaffe, and a bewildered saint of Fletcher. What might it make of her?

At the last possible moment Raul doubted the wisdom of this medicine, and reached to take Tesla out of the way of the Nuncio's touch, but it was already leaping from the shattered vial towards her face. She inhaled it like a liquid breath. Around her head the other drops flew towards her scalp and neck.

She gasped, her whole body responding with tremors to the entry of the messenger. Then, just as suddenly, every jitter in her joints and nerves ceased.

Raul murmured: "Don't die. Don't die."

He was about to put his mouth to hers in one last s.n.a.t.c.h at preserving her when he saw the motion behind her closed lids. Her eyes were roving back and forth wildly, scanning some sight only she could see.

"Alive..."he murmured.

Behind him, the women-who'd witnessed this entire scene without comprehending any of it-began to pray and wail, either out of grat.i.tude or of fear of what they'd seen. He didn't know. But he added his own muttered prayers, no more certain of his reasons than of theirs.

II.

The walls went suddenly. Like a dam first breached in a tiny place, then broken from side to side by the flood behind it. She had expected the world she'd left to be waiting when the walls were rubble. She was wrong. There was no sign of the Mission, nor of Raul. Instead there was laid before her a desert lit by a sun which had yet to reach its full ferocity, and crossed by a gusting wind which picked her up the instant the walls fell, and carried her over the ground. Her velocity was terrifying, but she had no way to slow herself, or indeed change direction, because she possessed neither limbs nor body. She was thought here; pure, in a pure place.

Then, ahead, a sight that gave the lie to that. There was sign of human occupancy on the horizon; a town set in the middle of this nowhere. Her speed didn't slow as she approached. This, apparently, was not her destination, if indeed she had one. It occurred to her that perhaps she could simply travel and travel. That this state of being was simply one of motion; a journey without purpose or conclusion. She had time, as she pa.s.sed through the Main Street, to register that though the town was solidly constructed stores and houses arrayed to either side-it was also completely characterless. That is, unpeopled, and unparticularized. There were no signs on the stores or at the cross-streets; no mark of human presence whatsoever. Even as she registered this weirdness she was at the other side of the town, and once more speeding over sun-scorched ground. The sight of the town, however brief, had given weight to her suspicion that she was utterly alone here. Not only was her journey to be endless, but unaccompanied too. This was h.e.l.l, she thought; or a good working definition of same.

She began to wonder how long it would be before her mind took refuge from this horror in insanity. A day? A week? Were there even such distinctions here? Did the sun set, and rise again? She strained to turn her sight skyward, but the sun was behind her, and having no body she neither threw a shadow by which to read its position nor possessed the power to turn and see it for herself.

There was something else to see, however, more curious than the town: a single tower or pylon, built of steel, standing in the middle of the desert, with wires tethering it as though it might at any moment float away. Again she was at it and past in seconds. Again, it gave her no comfort. But once beyond it a new sensation crept over her: that she, and the clouds and the sand beneath her were all fleeing from something. Had some ent.i.ty been lurking in that blank town, just out of sight, and now, aroused by a human presence here, was coming after her? She couldn't turn, she couldn't hear, she couldn't even feel its footsteps in the earth as it approached. But it would come. If not now, then soon. It was relentless, inevitable. And the first moment she saw it would be her last.

Then, refuge! A fair distance away yet, but growing in size as she speeded towards it, what appeared to be a small stone hut, its walls painted white. Her sickening pace slowed. The ride apparently had a destination after all: this hovel.

Her sight was fixed upon the place, looking for signs of occupancy, but her peripheral vision nevertheless caught sight of a movement way off to the right of the hut. Though slowing, her speed was still considerable, and her inability to scan the scene prevented her catching more than a glimpse of the figure. But it was human; female; clothed in rags: that much she did grasp. Even if the hut turned out to be as empty as the town, she had the comfort-albeit slight-that some other soul wandered these wastes. She looked hard for the woman again, but she'd come and gone. And there was more urgent business: the fact that the hut was almost upon her, or her upon it, and her speed was still sufficient to demolish hovel and visitor on impact. She readied herself, reflecting that a death by dashing would be preferable to the unending journey she'd feared.

And then, she was at a dead stop; and at the door. From two hundred miles an hour to zero in half a heartbeat.

The door was closed, but she sensed something over her shoulder (bodiless though she was, it was impossible not to think of over and behind) which reached into her field of vision. It was serpentine, the thickness of her wrist, and so dark that even in bright sunlight she could make out no detail of its anatomy. It had no patterning; no head; no eyes; no mouth; no digits. It had strength however. Enough to push the door open. Then it withdrew, leaving her undecided as to whether she'd seen the whole beast, or merely one of its limbs.

The hut was not large; one glance and she'd taken it in. The walls unadorned stone, the floor bare earth. There was no bed, nor any furniture. Only a small fire, burning in the middle of the floor, its smoke given an escape route through a hole in the middle of the roof but instead choosing to stay and dirty the air between her and the hut's sole occupant.

He looked as old as the stone of this hovel's walls, naked and grimy, his paper skin stretched to splitting point over bird's bones. He'd singed off his beard patchily, leaving clumps of gray hairs in places. She wondered he had the wit to do that. The expression on his face suggested a mind in an advanced state of catatonia.

But no sooner had she entered than he looked up at her, seeing her despite the fact that she had no substance. He cleared his throat, splitting the phlegm into the fire.

"Close the door," he said.

"You can see me?" she replied. "And hear me?"

"Of course," he replied. "Now close the door."

"How do I do that?" she wanted to know. "I've got...no hands. Nothing."

"You can do it," he replied. "Just imagine yourself."

"Huh?"

"Oh for f.u.c.k's sake how difficult can it be? You've looked at yourself often enough. Picture what you look like. Make yourself real. Go on. Do it for me." His tone veered between that of bully and wheedler. "You have to close the door..."

"I'm trying."

"Not hard enough," came the reply.

She paused a moment before daring the next question.

"I'm dead, aren't I?" she said.

"Dead? No."

"No?"

"The Nuncio preserved you. You're alive and kicking, but your body's still back at the Mission. I want it here. We've got business to do."

The good news, that she was still alive, albeit separated flesh from spirit, fuelled her. She thought hard of the body she'd almost lost, the body she'd grown into over a period of thirty-two years. It was by no means perfect, but at least it was all hers. No silicone; no nips and tucks. She liked her hands and her fine-boned wrists, her squinty b.r.e.a.s.t.s with the left nipple twice the size of the right, her c.u.n.t, her a.s.s. Most of all she liked her face, with its quirks and laugh-lines.

To imagine it was the trick. To picture its essentials, and so bring it into this other place where her spirit had come. The old man was aiding her in the process, she guessed. His gaze, though still on the door, was directed inward. The sinews of his neck stood out like harp strings; his lipless mouth twitched.

His energies helped. She felt herself losing her lightness, becoming substantial here, like a soup thickening in the heat of her imagining. There was a moment of doubt, when she almost regretted losing the ease of being thought, but then she remembered her face smiling back at her when she stepped from the shower in the morning. It was a fine feeling, maturing in that flesh, learning to enjoy it for its own sake. The simple pleasure of a good belch, or better yet a solid fart: the kind that had Butch blaming himself. Teaching her tongue to distinguish between vodkas; her eyes to appreciate Matisse. There were more gains than losses in bringing her body to her mind.

"Almost," she heard him say.

"I feel it."

"A little more. Conjure."

She looked down at the ground, aware that she had the freedom to do so. Her feet were there, standing on the threshold, naked. So, solidifying in front of her eyes, was the rest of her body. She was stark naked.

"Now..." said the man at the fire. "Close the door."

She turned and did so, her nakedness embarra.s.sing her not at all, particularly after the effort she'd used bringing her body here. She worked out at the gym three times a week. She knew her belly was trim and her a.s.s tight. Besides, her host was unconcerned, both with his own nudity and, it seemed, with giving her more than a cursory glance. If there'd ever been lechery in those eyes it had long ago dried up.

"So," he said. "I'm Kissoon. You're Tesla. Sit. Talk with me."

"I've got a lot of questions," she told him.

"I'd be surprised if you hadn't."

"I can ask?"

"Ask. But first, sit."

She squatted down on the opposite side of the fire to him. The floor was warm; the air too. Within thirty seconds her pores had begun to ooze. It was pleasant.

"First-" she said "-how did I get here? And where am I?"

"New Mexico is where you are," Kissoon replied. "And the how of it? Well, that's a more difficult question, but what it comes down to is this: I've been watching you-you and several others-waiting for a chance to bring someone here. Your near-death, and the Nuncio, helped erode your resistance to the journey. Indeed you had little choice."

"How much do you know about what's happening in the Grove?" she asked him.

He made dry sounds with his mouth, as though trying to summon saliva. When he finally replied it was with a weary tone.

"Oh G.o.d in Heaven, too much," he said, "I know too much."

"The Art, Quiddity...all that?"

"Yes," he said, with the same dispirited air. "All that. It was me began it, fool that I am. The creature you know as the Jaff once sat where you're sitting now. He was just a man then. Randolph Jaffe, impressive in his way-he had to have been to have got here in the first place-but still just a man."

"Did he come the way I came?" she asked. "I mean, was he near death?"

"No. He just had a greater hunger for the Art than most who went after it. He wasn't put off by the smoke screens, and the shams, and all the tricks that throw most people off the scent. He kept looking, until he found me."

Kissoon regarded Tesla with eyes narrowed, as if he might sharpen his sight that way, and get inside her skull.

"What to tell," he said. "Always the same problem: what to tell."

"You sound like Grillo," she remarked. "Have you spied on him?"

"Once or twice, when he crossed the path," Kissoon said. "But he's not important. You are. You're very important."

"How do you figure that?"

"You're here, for one. n.o.body's been here since Randolph, and look what consequences that brought. This is no normal place, Tesla. I'm sure you've already guessed that. This is a Loop-a time out of time-which I made for myself"

"Out of time?" she said. "I don't understand."

"Where to begin," he said. "That's the other question, isn't it? First, what to tell. Then, where to begin...Well. You know about the Art. About Quiddity. Do you also know about the Shoal?"

She shook her head.

"It is, or was, one of the oldest orders in world religion. A tiny sect-seventeen of us at any one time-who had one dogma, the Art, one heaven, Quiddity, and one purpose, to keep both pure. This is its sign," he said, picking a small object up from the ground in front of him and tossing it across to her. At first glance she thought it was a crucifix. It was a cross, and at its center was a man, spreadeagled. But a closer perusal gave the lie to that. On each of the four arms of the symbol other forms were inscribed, which seemed to be corruptions of, or developments from, the central figure.

"You believe me?" he said.

"I believe you."

She threw the symbol back over to his side of the fire.

"Quiddity must be preserved, at any cost. No doubt you understood this from Fletcher?"

"He said that, yes. Was he one of the Shoal?"

Kissoon looked disdainful. "No, he'd never have made the grade. He was just an employee. The Jaff hired him to provide a chemical ride: a short-cut to the Art, and Quiddity."

"That was the Nuncio?"

"It was."

"Did it do the job?"

"It might have done, if Fletcher hadn't been touched with it himself."

"That was why they fought," she said.

"Yes," Kissoon replied. "Of course. But you know this. Fletcher must have told you."

"We didn't have much time. He explained bits and pieces. A lot of it was vague."

"He was no genius. Finding the Nuncio was more luck than talent."

"You met him?"

"I told you, n.o.body's been here since Jaffe. I'm alone."

"No you're not," Tesla said. "There was somebody outside-"

"The Lix, you mean? The serpent that opened the door? Just a little creation of mine. A doodle. Though I have enjoyed breeding them..."

"No. Not that," she said. "There was a woman, in the desert. I saw her."

"Oh really?" Kissoon said, a subtle shadow seeming to cross his face. "A woman?" He made a little smile. "Well, forgive me," he said. "I do dream still, once in a while. And there was a time when I could conjure whatever I desired by dreaming it. She was naked?"

"I don't think so."

"Beautiful?"

"I didn't get that close."

"Oh. A pity. But best for you. You're vulnerable here and I wouldn't want you hurt by a possessive mistress." His voice had lightened, become almost artificially casual.

"If you see her again, keep your distance," he advised. "On no account approach her."