He pulled off his brown leather windbreaker and wrestled his way out of his raspberry-colored polo shirt. In his closet he found a pale blue b.u.t.ton-down shirt that didn't look too creased, and his tan linen coat. There was a three-inch split in the back of his coat, but if he made sure that he always kept his face toward whoever he was talking to, then n.o.body would notice.

He washed his teeth and brushed up his thinning dyed-black pompadour and splashed his cheeks with American Crew aftershave. Then he grimaced at his face in the mirror over the washbasin and said, 'Mister Eee-resistible, that's you!'

He knocked on the door of Room 309 and waited. There was no reply at first but he was sure that he could hear voices inside, and they didn't sound like some daytime television show. He knocked again, and then cleared his throat loudly. Still no reply.

Eventually he pressed his ear against the door. He could hear a woman talking, and he was pretty certain it was Rhodajane; he would recognize the drawn-out vowels of that Brunstucky accent anywhere. The other voice was so soft and growly that it was impossible for John to make out what he was saying, but it was definitely a man.

Oh well, he thought. Maybe the sign wasn't telling me what I thought it was telling me. Or maybe I just got my timing wrong. I should go eat, and come back later.

He had just started walking back along the corridor, however, when the door opened and he heard Rhodajane whistle and call out, 'Taxi!'

He stopped as abruptly as if he had been hit on the back of the head by a flying baseball, and slowly turned around. He hoped that she hadn't seen the split in the back of his coat. She was standing in the open doorway with her arms folded so that her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were pressed so tightly together that he couldn't have slipped a credit card between them. She was wearing a purple silk headscarf, a very tight purple velour top, and narrow-leg jeans, and another pair of her impossible shoes - in silver this time, with buckles. Her pose was jaunty, and she was smiling - even if it was one of those smiles that said here we go, I was expecting this.

'Dead on time, JD,' she told him.

He waddled back toward her with his arms held up in surrender. 'Hey - it's not what you think, believe me.'

'How do you know what I think?'

'Sorry, but it's pretty obvious. You think I'm hitting on you. You think I'm some kind of stalker. Whereas that is absolutely not the case.'

'"That is absolutely not the case," huh?'

'Absolutely one hundred thirteen percent.'

Rhodajane thought for a moment, with her lips pursed. Then she said, 'You want to know what I'm really thinking?'

'OK. What are you really thinking?'

'I'm thinking that you found my earring in the back of your taxi and you came here to return it to me. You're hoping that I'm going to be so - oao grateful that I'll agree to have dinner with you and maybe one thing will lead to another. Or that at the very least I'll give you a sawski by way of a tip.'

John held out the earring in the palm of his hand. 'Here - look - take it. I'm not looking for a tip and I'm not expecting you to come out to dinner with me and I'm not expecting one thing to lead to another, although I acknowledge that it can sometimes happen, you know - one thing leading to another - especially after the cream-cheese pierogis at Sokolowski's. They're almost worth learning Polish for.

He paused, and frowned, and then he said, 'Wait up a G.o.dd.a.m.ned minute. How the h.e.l.l did you know I came here to return your earring?'

Rhodajane kept smiling. 'Your friend told me. He said that you'd show up in exactly twenty-one minutes, and sure enough here you are.'

John leaned sideways, trying to see over her shoulder into Room 309. 'Excuse me? Who - what - which friend is that, exactly?'

'Come on in and meet him,' said Rhodajane. 'He's been telling some real interesting stuff. Weird, I'll grant you, but interesting.'

She stepped aside so that John could enter the room, but he didn't want to go in first because of the split in his coat. He took hold of her elbow and gently pushed her ahead of him, and closed the door behind him.

'I could sew that for you,' she said. 'You wouldn't think it, but I'm pretty good with a needle and twist.'

John was about to ask her how the h.e.l.l she knew about that, too, but then he saw the figure standing in the bay window with his back to him. He was silhouetted against the gray, subdued daylight, his hands deep in his pockets, his coat collar turned up, his shoulders slightly hunched, but John recognized him immediately. He felt as if he had forgotten how to breathe.

'Deano,' he said. 'Deano, is that you?'

The man turned around. The hotel room was so dark that it was difficult for John to see his face, but there was no question that he was smiling.

'Hallo, John. How's it hanging?'

'Deano! I know you're not Deano, so don't try to give me that "how's it hanging" bulls.h.i.t.'

Rhodajane went over and switched on the bedside lamps. Now John could see that Deano was very much younger than the last time he had seen him. He had died of chronic alcoholism at the age of forty-two, with blotchy skin and rheumy red eyes and a ma.s.s of white tangled curls, like a half-starved Santa Claus. But here today, in Room 309 at the Griffin House Hotel, he looked as young as he was when John first met him at Fort Polk, over twenty-one years ago, when they had joined the Army together. Handsome, in a rakish way, with a broken nose like Owen Wilson and piercing blue eyes and short-cropped blond hair. He held out his hand but John ignored it. This wasn't Deano. Deano had been cremated on a gray day up in Presque Isle, Maine, with only four people to sing Amazing Grace and one of them had throat cancer.

'Your friend's been spinning me all kinds of fancy stories,' said Rhodajane. 'Like how I'm descended from some kind of family who can walk around in other folks' nightmares and hunt down demons. Hey, would you care for a drink?'

'Best not,' said John, guardedly, without taking his eyes off 'Deano'. 'The cops have been keeping a pretty close eye on me lately. They even pulled me over for taking a bite of my m.u.f.faletta sandwich at a traffic signal. It's that fat guy, what's his name? Detective Windsocky. He really has it in for me.'

'Well, I'm going to have a drink,' Rhodajane declared. She went across to the mini bar and bent down in front of it so that her purple thong appeared over the waistband of her jeans. 'Champagne, I think. How about you, Deano?'

'Deano doesn't drink,' said John.

'Oh, really? What, are you in AA or something?'

'Deano doesn't drink because Deano isn't Deano. The real Deano is dead and his ashes scattered at the Fairmount Cemetery in Presque Isle, Maine. This is a messenger from the great Power-That-Is, who recruits poor suckers like us to fight the eternal war against good and evil.'

Rhodajane stood up with a half bottle of Cuvee Napa in one hand and a champagne flute in the other. She blinked her eyelashes furiously, as if she were trying to create two miniature hurricanes. 'You mean what he's been telling me is true? It isn't just a line?'

'Deano' kept looking at John and smiling, although he didn't say a word.

John said, 'It's true all right, Rhodajane, and I can prove it to you. I never would have had you down as one of us unlucky few, but there you are. Most of us look pretty unlikely in our everyday bodies. One of the last guys who fought with us, he was kind of a r.e.t.a.r.d in real life but inside of those dreams and nightmares, he was a regular genius. I mean it was like eat your heart out, Stephen Hawking.'

Rhodajane turned to 'Deano' and said, 'So who did you say I was supposed to be?'

'Xyrena, the Pa.s.sion Warrior. The woman who can inflame the s.e.xual desires of everyone and everything she meets - man or woman, demon or beast.'

'There!' said Rhodajane. 'That's some line, isn't it? "Man or woman, demon or beast!" But you're trying to tell me it's for real? If you're not this guy's old army buddy, then who the h.e.l.l are you?'

'So far as I know, his name is Springer,' said John. 'Well - I say "his" name but he can pop up in pretty much any kind of guise he wants to, male or female. He gets sent here by the Man Upstairs - G.o.d, or Gitche Manitou, or Allah. Springer always calls him Ashapola.

'Ashapola is who or what protects the human race from the forces of evil, and believe me there are plenty of forces of evil out there. That's why he created the Night Warriors, which is us - you and me, and hundreds more like us. It's our dubious distinction to save the world from corruption, chaos and ultimate destruction. Let me put it this way, ma'am: if there had never been any Night Warriors, the human race would never have survived so long as it has. We would have gone to h.e.l.l in a handcart centuries ago.'

'So you're a Night Warrior, too?' said Rhodajane. She handed him the half bottle of sparkling wine and said, 'Here - can you open this for me? I don't mean to be rude or nothing, but how did you get past the physical?'

John gently eased the cork out of the bottle so that the gas came out with faintest piff! 'Angel's fart,' he told her. 'That's the correct way to do it.'

Then he said, 'Like I told you, none of us look especially prepossessing, present company excepted. You don't have to be Steven Seagal in your waking life to be a tough guy in your dreams.'

'So who are you?' asked Rhodajane. 'You know - like I really believe all of this, not.'

Springer came over and laid a hand on John's shoulder. 'This is Dom Magator, the Armorer. He carries most of the weapons that the Night Warriors need when they do battle in the world of dreams. For instance, he has over two hundred different kinds of knives - like a Retinal Stiletto, which - when you throw it - will exactly follow your line of sight, and unerringly hit who or what you are looking at. Or a Spiral Flensing Knife, which will peel whoever you cut with it like an apple, in one long spiral - skin, subcutaneous fat and all.

'He also carries over a dozen guns, like the Density Rifle, which compresses its target down to its ultimate possible density. A two-hundred-fifty pound man can be instantly reduced to the size of a smoking walnut. Or an Absence Gun, which uses quantum physics to negate the existence of whoever it hits. If you get shot by an Absence Gun, you don't get killed. You were never born in the first place. There never was any you. I have to tell you that it makes a most thrilling sound when it hits its victims, like a thunderclap, echoing back for years.'

Rhodajane poured herself a gla.s.s of sparkling wine and drank almost all of it in three gulps. She burped and said, 'Excusez-moi! I have to tell you two mooks that I am finding it very difficult to get my head around all of this. Either this is some kind of ridiculous set-up for Candid Camera, or it's a joke in very bad taste, or you're both out to lunch.'

'It's none of the above,' said John. 'It's for real.'

She prodded her finger into John's chest. 'OK, if it's for real, prove it. You said that you could. So go ahead.'

John looked at Springer and said, 'What are you doing here, man? Is something going down?'

Springer nodded. 'Yes, there is, and it's serious, and it's happening right here, in this hotel. But before I tell you what it is, I think it would be a good idea if we convinced Xyrena here that we're not spinning her a line.'

John took a deep breath. 'When you say serious-?'

'I mean serious to the point of the whole world falling victim to the same nightmare, all night, every night. I mean serious to the point of the human race losing all of its morals, all of its scruples, all of its kindness, all of its humanity. I mean what John Milton meant in Paradise Lost when he wrote about "Chaos and Old Night". A h.e.l.l on earth, John, where n.o.body respects anybody else's authority, or their dignity, or their freedom, or even their right to life. A mirror image of the US Const.i.tution, if you like, in which it is almost mandatory to do harm to others.'

'That does sound serious,' Rhodajane agreed. 'I think that sounds very, very, very serious,' and she nodded her head emphatically with every 'very'.

'Then let us prove it to you,' said Springer. He went across to the closet and opened it up, adjusting the door so that John could see himself in the mirror on the back of the door. Springer beckoned to him, and John slowly walked over to join him.

'This is how Dom Magator appears in the world of dreams,' Springer announced.

John stared at his reflection in the mirror. He thought his face was looking baggy and lived-in, and he hadn't realized that his pompadour was now so thin that his scalp was gleaming through. However, Springer rested his hand on his shoulder again, and after a few seconds he began to see the ghostly image of a helmet materializing around his head - big and black and cube-like, with only the narrowest visor for him to see through, and even that was tinted dark green like the vizier in a welder's face-mask. The helmet was encrusted with k.n.o.bs and switches and locking springs and other small metal attachments.

'Jesus,' said Rhodajane. 'Talk about Transformers.'

Now Dom Magator's battledress began to appear - a heavy cloak made of some soft, gray, metallic material, and underneath it a suit of black, leathery armor, jointed like the thorax of a stag beetle. He wore a wide metal belt, from which seven or eight handguns were suspended, all with decorative handles and elaborate c.o.c.king mechanisms and illuminated sights - some laser, some infrared, some ultraviolet. Across his back was fastened a curved chrome-plated frame, in which all of his various knives were fitted, as well as his armory of rifles and bazookas.

His outfit was finished off by heavy-duty knee-boots, to which even more knives were clipped. There was scarcely an inch on his body which had no weapon attached to it.

Rhodajane came up to Dom Magator and cautiously touched his helmet with her fingertips.

'There's nothing there,' she said, in bewilderment. 'I can only feel your hair.' She paused, and then she added, 'What there is of it.'

'Get out of here,' John snapped at her.

Springer said, 'You cannot feel his helmet because this is nothing more than a holographic vision of Dom Magator's battledress. This is the waking world, Rhodajane, and your Night Warriors' uniforms only take on physical reality in the dream world. Likewise, Dom Magator's weapons. We couldn't have anybody running around the waking world with an Absence Gun, or a Successive Detonation Carbine. Think what a terrorist could do with a weapon like that.'

Rhodajane stepped back, and Dom Magator's armor gradually began to fade, until he was back in his crumpled blue b.u.t.ton-down shirt and his tan sport coat with the split in the back.

'Now do you believe us?' John asked her, primping up his hair. 'It isn't easy, I'll admit. I didn't believe it myself at first - not until our first mission.'

Rhodajane looked at her champagne gla.s.s. 'OK, I guess I have to believe you. That's unless you've slipped me a roofie.'

'So what's happening?' asked John, with a sniff. '"Chaos and Old Night" - that sounds like Satan's involved.'

'A child of Satan, if you like,' said Springer. 'At least, that's what he likes to call himself. His name is Brother Albrecht and he used to be a Cistercian monk. For a very long time, though, he has called himself der Ursprungliche Sohn des Teufels - the Original Son of the Devil.'

'When you say "a very long time",' said John, easing his backside down on the corner of the bed with his feet planted wide apart. 'How long a very long time would that actually be, roughly?'

Springer looked at him with a faraway expression. It was unnerving enough, seeing Deano recreated exactly as he had looked on that humid morning in 1991, when he and John had both showed up at Fort Polk, Texas, as gangling young recruits, but it was even more unnerving to think that Springer might be able to remember what he and Deano had done together.

'I'm sorry,' said Springer. 'Brother Albrecht has described himself as the son of the Devil ever since he was dismissed from his monastery in Southern Germany for blasphemy and other transgressions against G.o.d. That was more than eight hundred years ago.'

'Eight hundred years?' asked Rhodajane.

'He exists in the world of dreams,' Springer explained. 'n.o.body grows old in the world of dreams - not unless they want to, or unless some malevolent spirit makes them wither away. Brother Albrecht runs a carnival, a traveling freak show, a circus of pain and torture and human atrocities. It's already infecting the night-time consciousness of thousands of people, this circus. You only have to look at what's happening in our society. But now we're beginning to suspect that Brother Albrecht is trying to bring it back to life in the waking world, too.

'Can he do that? I mean, like, it's only a dream. Or a nightmare, by the sound of it.'

'We don't yet know, but we're doing everything we can to find out. We strongly suspect, though, that this hotel is a critical part of whatever Brother Albrecht is planning; and we think that he's being helped out by a one-time ma.s.s murderer called Gordon Veitch. If not Veitch himself, then a copycat.

'Veitch used to mutilate or murder his victims in some of the poorest parts of Cleveland, like Kingsbury Run and the Roaring Third. He used to paint his face like a clown, so that n.o.body would recognize him.

'He was never caught, even though some of the finest law enforcement officers in the country were hunting for him for months. One of them was Eliot Ness, who was Cleveland's Safety Director in those days. The main reason Veitch eluded capture was because he dreamed about every attack that he committed, and then he came here to this hotel, and dreamed it into the walls. All of the evidence that could have convicted him is right here, in the plaster. He left none of it behind, at any of the actual crime scenes.'

'I think I might have seen him here, in this room,' John told him.

'You're kidding me!' said Rhodajane. 'You mean I've been sleeping all night in a bedroom with somebody's murder inside of the walls?'

'I don't know,' said John. 'But when I fetched your bags up yesterday, and switched on the TV, I saw the TV reflected in the mirror and in the mirror it was showing a different picture altogether.'

'Hey... you're giving me the creeps now, JD.'

'I'm sorry, I don't mean to. But it was what I saw. There was a woman lying on a bed and a guy was standing over her with his back to me.'

'Could you see what he was doing?' Springer asked him.

'Not too clearly. But his elbow was going back and forward, like he was sawing. I'll tell you what it reminded me of... one of those stage magic acts where the magician saws the woman in half.'

'Oh, my G.o.d,' said Rhodajane.

Springer said, 'That was him, I'd lay money on it. That was Gordon Veitch, or his copycat. You didn't have any nightmares last night, did you, Rhodajane?'

'If I did, I can't remember them. I was so bushed I slept like ten babies. Two bottles of Chardonnay didn't exactly help to keep me awake, either.'

Springer said, 'Maybe the dream image in this room isn't as powerful as some of the others. Maybe Gordon Veitch didn't actually kill the woman you saw in the mirror - only mutilated her. Pain, of course, is a very efficient conductor of spiritual images, but nothing like as graphic as the pa.s.sing of a human spirit. It could very well be that the woman he attacked here could still be alive, someplace - either in the waking world or the world of dreams.'

'What, like, sawn in half?'

'It's amazing what the human body can withstand. You remember when we went to Fort Hood, John, and saw that young corporal crushed under a tank track? He was talking and laughing like nothing had happened. He even smoked a cigarette while he was lying there.'

'Oh, sure,' said John. 'He was fit as a fiddle until they moved the tank off of him.'

Springer said, 'Anyhow, we need to go looking for Gordon Veitch as a matter of extreme urgency. The music from Brother Albrecht's circus is growing louder and nearer every night. The chaos is coming closer, and you have no idea what this world is going to be like when it arrives.'

'Yeah, the January sales at Dillard's.'

'You will be ready to go tonight, won't you, Dom Magator?' Springer asked him.

'Tonight? Hey - I'm not so sure about that. I have a late shift tonight, finishing at one.'

'In the case you'll have to cancel it. Xyrena?'