2.

Lyle awoke hot and sweaty. He could hear the air conditioner in the window running like a bandit, yet the room felt like a steam bath. d.a.m.n thing was only a month old. Couldn't be going south already.

He opened his eyes and lifted his head. Someone had pulled up the blinds and opened all his bedroom windows.

Lyle rolled out of bed. What was going on here? Had Charlie done this?

He had no intention of cooling the rest of Astoria so he slammed his windows shut and stalked down the hall to the rear bedroom. He barged in and found Charlie sprawled on his sheets, both windows wide open, and his his AC going full blast. AC going full blast.

"d.a.m.n it, Charlie, what are you up to?"

Charlie lifted his head and blinked at him. "Wha.s.sup, bro?"

"The windows, for one thing! What's with opening the windows? It's gonna be ninety today."

"Didn't open no windows."

"Yeah? Well then who did? Ice-T?"

He slammed them closed, then stepped back into the hall. He was headed for his room when he felt a warm breeze flowing up the stairwell. He ran downstairs and found all the waiting room windows and the front door wide open.

"Charlie!" he shouted. "Charlie get down here!"

When Charlie stumbled in he gaped at the open windows and door. "Dawg, what you doing?"

"Me? I locked that door last night myself, chain lock and all. I I didn't get up and open it. And since there's only two people in this house, that leaves you." didn't get up and open it. And since there's only two people in this house, that leaves you."

He shut and relocked the door as he was speaking.

"Don't look at me, yo," Charlie said, closing the windows. "I been racked out."

Lyle stared at his brother. Charlie used to be a def joker who could spin out a line like no one else. But ever since he'd been born again, he told the truth-about everything, even if it hurt.

"Then who...? s.h.i.t! Someone got in!"

Lyle raced to the channeling room. If they'd wrecked the equipment...

But no, the room looked fine. No obvious damage. A quick survey by Charlie and him revealed it to be just as they'd left it. Except for the windows. During the remodeling he'd painted the panes black and draped them with heavy curtains to block the tiniest ray of light. Now the drapes were pulled back and the windows thrown open, allowing sunlight to flood the room. It changed the look entirely, making all his carefully arranged mystical touches look... tacky.

Relieved that nothing had been damaged, Lyle closed the windows, pulled the drapes, and headed back toward the kitchen.

"We're running late, Charlie. We've got a noon sitting, so-"

Lyle almost tripped when he came back through the waiting room: the windows and the front door were open again.

Charlie stumbled to a stop behind him. "What in the name of the Lord-"

"The Lord's got nothing to do with this, Charlie. They're still here!"

Lyle darted into the kitchen-where the windows and back door all stood open-and grabbed two knives. He handed one to his brother.

"All right. We know he's not down here. So you plant yourself by the stairs to make sure no one sneaks down, while I sweep upstairs."

Lyle's heart was already running in high gear as he took the steps up two at a time; it further picked up its tempo as he moved down the hall, knife held before him. He'd grown up in a tough neighborhood, but he'd stayed away from the crazies, the crackheads, and the bangers. He'd had fights along the way, mostly shoving matches, one that got his face cut when someone pulled a boxcutter, but that was it. So he wasn't exactly practiced in knife fighting. He didn't even know if he could stab somebody, but he was mad enough now to find out.

He checked the hall closet-empty. Moved on to his bedroom. s.h.i.t! The windows were open again. How the h.e.l.l? But the screens weren't pushed out so no one had gone out that way. He checked his closet, then closed the windows.

Same with Charlie's room: open windows, empty closet. Who was opening these things? After closing them he moved to their sitting room-actually a converted bedroom; what had been the living room and dining room downstairs was now the Channeling Room.

All clear here.

Downstairs he rechecked the kitchen and pantry, going so far as to look behind and under the sofa in the waiting room.

"Okay. Both floors clear. That leaves the cellar."

First he and Charlie locked up, front and back, then stood in the center hall before the cellar door.

"If he's still in the house, that's where he'll be."

Charlie shook his head. "The paper towels still there, yo."

Right, Lyle thought. To keep the stink in the cellar. Forgot about that.

"We'll look anyway."

He pressed his hand ever his nose and mouth as he pulled open the door. He started down the stairs and risked a sniff half way down. No stench, just the typical musty bas.e.m.e.nt odor.

"It's okay," he told Charlie, close behind him. "The stink's gone."

Searching the bas.e.m.e.nt was a snap: no closets, no heavy furniture, n.o.body hiding. The crack was still there, though, big as ever.

Relieved, Lyle let out a long, slow breath. Whoever had been in the house was gone.

But when they got back up to the main floor, Lyle felt a warm, humid breeze. Uneasy, he approached the waiting room.

Someone had opened the windows again.

"How're they doing this, Charlie? Did they rig our house while we were sleeping?"

Charlie was the mechanic half of their partnership. He made the otherworldly illusions happen. He hadn't done well in school-more for lack of interest than lack of ability-but he knew how things worked. He could break down any piece of machinery and put it back together. If anyone could explain this, it would be Charlie.

"Don't see nathan," Charlie said as he inspected one of the windows. "Even if I did, you know what it take to whip up this sorta rig overnight? Gotta have a whole crew with drills and pry bars and hammers."

"Okay, then maybe they did it some day when we were out for a while."

"Still don't see nothin' gonna open no window. I mean, it gotta be pushed or pulled, and ain't nothing here gonna do that."

"Take the windows apart if you have to. There's got to be some sort of servomechanism in there that's doing it."

He wasn't quite sure what a servomechanism was, but it sounded good.

"Maybe we got ourselfs a demon."

"Not funny, Charlie."

"Ain't kidding, bro. Nothin' in or on this window to make it move."

"Got to be. We both know that the only demons and ghosts in this world are the ones manufactured by the likes of you and me. Someone's trying to gaslight us, Charlie. Scare us off. Only we don't scare, right?"

Before Charlie could answer, Lyle heard the click of the front door latch, the door he'd locked just minutes ago. With his mouth going as dry as leather, he watched it swing open with a soft, high-pitched creak.

Lyle leaped through the opening onto the front porch. No one. Empty. He turned in a quick circle, looking for someone, something, anything to explain this. He stopped when he saw the plants.

"Charlie, come here."

Charlie had been inspecting the front door. He straightened and stepped up beside Lyle. "I can't find no-dear Lord!"

All the foundation plantings-the rhodos, azaleas, and andromedas-were dead. Lyle hadn't noticed anything wrong with them last night, but now they weren't simply wilted, they were brown and dried up as if they'd been dead for a month or more... as if something had sucked the juice of life out of them.

"Someone must've sprayed them with weed killer."

"When this gonna stop, Lyle?"

He heard the fear in his brother's voice and laid a rea.s.suring hand on his shoulder.

"We'll be all right, Charlie. Things have never come easy for us, and I guess this is no exception. But we always come through, don't we. Somehow the Kenton brothers always manage to come through. We stick together and we'll be okay, Charlie."

Charlie smiled at him and held out his hand for a low five. Lyle gave him a dap.

But when he turned back to the yard he felt a deep rage begin to bubble through his blood.

Whoever you are, he thought, you go ahead and try whatever you can against me, but don't you hurt or frighten my little brother. You do and I'll hunt you down and squash you like the bug you are.

He stared at the dead plants. The sitters for the first session would be arriving in less than an hour and the place looked like h.e.l.l. No time to spruce it up.

s.h.i.t. He'd hardly expected to be welcomed with open arms by the local compet.i.tion when he moved here from Dearborn, but he never antic.i.p.ated anything like this. Someone was using every dirty trick under the moon to run them out.

Well, they weren't budging. Do your d.a.m.nedest, whoever you are. The Kenton boys are here to stay.

3.

"You didn't feel a thing?" Jack said.

Abe shook his head. "Not even a wiggle. Some earthquake. A quakeleh, you should call it."

Abe Grossman, dressed as always in a half-sleeve white shirt and crumb-speckled black pants, sat perched on his stool, legs akimbo, one hand resting on his ample belly while the other guided a large piece of crumb cake into his mouth.

Jack leaned on the customer side of the scarred counter at the rear of Abe's store, the Isher Sports Shop. The morning papers lay scattered between them. It had become an irregular tradition of sorts, now and then during the week, but almost always on Sat.u.r.day and Sunday mornings: Abe bought the papers, Jack brought breakfast.

Jack ran his finger down a column of type on page three of the Post Post and stopped when he found what he wanted. and stopped when he found what he wanted.

"Says here the epicenter was located in Astoria. How about that? Gia and I were at ground zero."

"Ground less than zero, maybe," Abe said with a dismissive shrug. "No fires, no injuries, no tumel tumel. This is a quake?"

"They clocked it at two-point-five Richter-about the same as the one that hit the East Eighty-fifth Street area in early '01."

"Another nonevent, as I remember." He pointed to the crumb cake. "You're not having?"

"I, uh, brought something different."

Jack pulled a sausage Mcm.u.f.fin from the sack; his mouth watered as he unwrapped it. He waited for the reaction. Took about two nanoseconds.

"What's this? Meat? Juicy meat for you and for your old friend Abe a fat-free coffee cake?"

"You don't need the meat. I do."

"Says who?"

"I do. And I thought you were trying to lower your cholesterol."

"You're trying to lower my cholesterol." trying to lower my cholesterol."

True enough, Jack admitted. But only because the guy was riding the heart attack express, and Jack wanted him around for a lot more years-as many as possible.

"And even if I was," Abe said, "I should get a second-cla.s.s breakfast on a Sat.u.r.day morning?" He stuck out a hand. "Give. Just a bisel bisel. A biseleh biseleh."

"Once you get into shape, I'll go out and buy you a whole-"

"What?" He patted his belly. "A sphere is not a shape?"

"Okay then, how about I buy you a sausage Mcm.u.f.fin when you can touch your toes?"