Rhodajane swiveled around to see who he was talking to before she realized that she was Xyrena.

'Me? Tonight? You're kidding. I have my grandma's funeral this afternoon, and then a reception afterward.'

'Xyrena, it's critical. You have to join us.'

Rhodajane pulled a face. 'Well... they're holding the reception right here, in the Griffin Room. I guess I could find an excuse to sneak off a little early. To tell you the truth, it would be a relief. My family make the Munsters look normal.'

Springer said, 'I need you asleep by one a.m. at the latest. And - please - try to keep your drinking within reasonable limits. Too much alcohol can affect your dream body as well as your waking perceptions, and the chances are that you're going to have to make plenty of split-second judgments.'

'Talking of my dream body, Mister Old-Army-Buddy-Who-Ain't-Really, I still have no idea what my dream body is going to look like. If I can turn on "man or woman, demon or beast", I must look pretty d.a.m.ned hot.'

Springer raised his eyebrows. 'You do. You will. I promise you.'

'Then show me. You showed me what he's going to look like - Dom Magator. Let me see me.'

Springer hesitated, and looked across at John, but John pulled a face that meant, why not? She's going to find out anyhow, and sooner rather than later.

'Very well, then,' said Springer. 'Step over here and face the mirror. Try to empty your mind as much as you can. Think of nothing at all, but the surface of a lake.'

Rhodajane stood in front of the mirror, still with her arms folded. Springer said, 'Relax, now. Arms by your sides. Breathe very gently, as if you're floating on the water.'

'Old army buddy or not,' Rhodajane said to John, out of the side of her mouth. 'Your friend here is some character, isn't he?'

'Please, Xyrena, relax.'

Rhodajane stared at her reflection, and to begin with it was obvious that she was trying very hard not to laugh. After a few seconds, however, the air around her head began to glitter and sparkle, as if it were filled with scores of tiny fireflies, and a high curved crown began to appear on top of her head, made up of the finest filaments of light. Two curving epaulets appeared on her shoulders, as high as the epaulets of a j.a.panese gala costume, and then, with a soft rumble, a huge cloak of rich golden fabric billowed out from her shoulders, rising and falling and curling in a dream wind that none of them could feel.

Around Rhodajane's neck seven gleaming gold neck-rings materialized, so that it looked as if her neck were elongated. At the same time the diamond-shaped heads of two golden snakes peeped out from between the toes of each foot. They slid out and formed themselves into an elaborate pair of very high heels - first of all coiling themselves into the shape of shoes and then pouring relentlessly up her calves and around her knees, around and around her thighs, until they finished up as a pair of high golden boots.

But it was the gradual appearance of her breastplate that made Rhodajane's mouth slowly drop open. It was a perfect replica of her naked torso, in highly-polished gold. Her big, full b.r.e.a.s.t.s, complete with dimpled nipples. Her slightly rounded stomach; and her navel, like a tiny shining mollusk. Below that shone a golden facsimile of her plump, bare v.u.l.v.a, complete with a peeping c.l.i.toris.

'Oh my Gawwd,' she said. 'I cannot walk around like this, flaunting my p.u.s.s.y! Not even in somebody's dream!'

'I did tell you,' said Springer. 'Xyrena arouses man or woman, demon or beast.'

'But I'm showing everything I've got. Well, I'm not really, but as good as.'

'Xyrena is the ultimate paradox,' Springer told her. 'She attracts, she arouses, she fascinates. Did you know that the word "fascinates" comes from fascinum, which was a p.e.n.i.s-shaped object worn around the neck in Ancient Rome, and often used in medieval witchcraft? If a woman fascinates a man, she gives him an erection, and that's just what Xyrena does. But even though it looks so revealing, nothing can penetrate Xyrena's armor, and believe me, Xyrena herself is deadly.'

Rhodajane pouted at herself in the mirror. She struck an exaggerated pose to the left and then to the right, and then she slowly tottered around in a circle. Underneath her voluminous gilded cloak, her back was armored in the same polished gold, with her shoulder blades and her dimpled b.u.t.tocks as perfectly replicated as her breastplate.

'Well, I don't know...' she said, thoughtfully. 'Maybe I could get used to this I do have a pretty good figure, though I say it myself.'

'But what's the point?' John asked Springer. 'OK, fine, she turns people on. As a matter of fact, she's making me feel distinctly twitchy in the BVD department right now. But why does she do it?'

'Hold out your hands, Xyrena,' Springer instructed her. 'That's right. Spread out your hand so that your fingers are totally rigid.'

Rhodajane did as she was told, and almost immediately eight long fine needles slid out, one from the tip of each finger. The needles were at least three inches long, and slightly curved inward.

'Xyrena arouses her intended prey until they're blinded with l.u.s.t,' Springer explained. 'Then she takes them into her arms and embraces them - whether it's a he or a her or an it. All she has to do then is run these needles into their back. They're forged out of an alloy of t.i.tanium and ultrasound, way beyond the range of human hearing, and they can pierce through anything. Skin, leather, chitin, armor. Absolutely nothing can bend them or deflect them.'

'So she gives her prey a few little p.r.i.c.ks,' said John. 'Then what?'

Rhodajane turned around to face him and struck another pose, her hands on her hips, her crowned head slightly tilted to one side. 'I'm really turning you on, aren't I, John?'

'Let's just get this over with, shall we?' John protested. 'I have to go eat before I can think about sleeping.'

Springer said, 'The needles enter the victim's veins and his blood literally boils. It usually takes less than twenty seconds for his entire blood supply to evaporate, and that's between five and six liters. Then, of course, he's dead. It's a very effective way of killing somebody at very close quarters.'

'Do you have anybody in particular in mind?' John asked him. 'This clown guy, for instance?'

Springer didn't answer, but closed the closet door so that Rhodajane's Night Warrior costume instantly vanished.

Rhodajane said, 'Oh, no. Not the clown guy. I feel like every guy I ever went to bed with in the whole of my life was some kind of clown.'

TEN.

A Night to Dismember Walter wedged himself into his usual corner booth in Rally's, smacking his hands together in antic.i.p.ation of his triple cheeseburger. Outside the sky had grown even darker, and raindrops began to patter against the windows as if somebody were throwing handfuls of raisins at them.

Netta their waitress came over to take their order. She was four feet ten and as squat as a Munchkin, with fraying gingery hair and a swiveling cast in her right eye which always made Walter feel seasick. 'Hi, big feller,' she greeted him, taking her notepad out of her red checkered ap.r.o.n. 'Guess you want your usual?'

'You got it, sweet cheeks. But maybe today I'll go for the loaded fries.'

'The loaded fries? With the Cheddar cheese sauce and the ranch dressin' and the bacon bits?'

'Those are the very babies I had in mind.'

'You do know that a single regular-sized serving of loaded fries contains nine hundred eight calories, which is almost half your recommended daily intake?'

Netta's right eye was fixed on the clock on the wall, as if she were timing how much longer he had to live.

'Is that all? Sheesh! In that case, you'd better fetch me the jumbo-sized serving.'

Charlie ordered a plain hot dog, no bun, mustard only, no ketchup, and a Diet c.o.ke.

'I don't know how the f.u.c.k you can live on that, Charlie,' said Walter. 'You need calories. Calories are very much maligned. They make your brain work, among other parts of your body. And do you know what they put in hot dogs? Chicken's feet.'

Charlie looked across at him with total seriousness. 'Believe me, Walter, if I thought that eating a triple cheeseburger would help me to understand how Maria Fortales got out of her bedroom, I'd order one, same as you. And the loaded fries.'

'We need to ask Mossad,' said Walter.

'Mossad?'

'You know, the Israeli secret service people. They whacked that Hamas dude in his hotel bedroom in Dubai, didn't they, but they left his door locked from the inside, with the chain fastened, even. Now, how did they do that? I don't have a clue. But it must be possible because they did it.'

Netta brought their drinks over. As she set down Walter's Gatorade, she accidentally knocked his gla.s.s and spilled it. Walter grabbed two handfuls of napkins from the dispenser and frantically dabbed at the spreading soda to stop it from pouring across the table top and on to his pants. He didn't want to spend the rest of the day looking like he'd peed himself.

'Netta, for Christ's sake!' he blurted out, but he managed to bite his tongue before he said, 'Why don't you watch what you're doing?' He didn't want to hurt her feelings.

'I'm real sorry, Walt,' said Netta. 'I've been as clumsy as a ox all mornin'. I haven't been sleepin' good.'

Walter wiped up the last of the Gatorade. 'You need a man to share that lonely bed of yours, Netta. That's what you need.'

'A man? What good would a man do me? I need to stop havin' them nightmares more like.'

'What nightmares?'

'Them circus nightmares. I've been havin' them every single night for weeks and weeks and they always wake me up and I'm shakin' and sweatin' like n.o.body's business.'

'Circus nightmares?' asked Walter. He felt a crawling sensation down his back, as if a c.o.c.kroach had dropped into his shirt collar. 'What kind of circus nightmares?'

'Oh shoot, you don't want to know about them. Probably some psycho-mological thing from out of my childhood. I'll go bring you another soda.'

'No, wait up,' said Charlie. 'Tell us what they're like, these nightmares.'

Netta shrugged. 'I always have them round about the same time of night, about two a.m. I'm walkin' up this gra.s.sy hill and it's rainin' cats'n'dogs and I can hear this music playin' like all off-key. Kind of music you used to hear when a carnival came to town, only all the notes are wrong.'

'Go on,' Charlie encouraged her.

'Right at the top of the hill I see all of these tents, and they're all black, with red lights hangin' off of them like shinin' drops of blood. And I walk between the tents and there's trailers and animal cages all covered over with black tarps and the music's still playin' but I can't work out who's playin' it or where it's comin' from.

'In The Good Old Summertime, that's what it sounds like, only like I say it's all off-key and none of the notes are right.'

'Is there anybody else there, in your nightmare, apart from you?'

Netta shook her head so that her jowls wobbled. 'Not to begin with, but when I carry on walkin' between the tents I see shadows runnin' hither and thither and I can hear people mutterin' and coughin' and some people whinin', too. Then I always turn this corner and there's a row of trailers and I see this small critter go scuttlin' across the gra.s.s from one trailer to another and he goes scamperin' up the steps more like a rat or a groundhog than a person, but he's wearing a coat like a person and this weird kind of hat.

'I try to call out, hey, where am I? I'm lost! But somehow the words won't come out, like somebody's got their hand pressed over my mouth. And this small critter stops at the back of the trailer and starts jabberin' at me like five different languages all at once.'

'Can you remember what he says?' asked Charlie.

Netta frowned. 'Only a couple of words. Somethin' that I guess sounds Frenchish, like "prennay guard". Then some stuff that's all mixed up and don't make no sense at all. "Coop sign pianos." And "may go wordy". And "gang up you start". That's what it sounds like, anyhow, but he says it over and over and over, that's how I remember it so good. He says it over and over and over.'

'OK, so he spouts all this gibberish,' Walter prompted her. 'Then what?'

'He opens the door and disappears inside the trailer, and I'm left out there all on my ownsome, and it's still rainin' cats'n'dogs and the music's still playin'. I'm about to turn around and go back the way I come but then I hear a woman sobbin' her heart out. I follow the sound of her sobbin' and it's comin' from inside of this little black tent.

'I push my way into the tent but there's no woman inside it, only a man in a black suit and he's standin' with his back to me. I say excuse me, sir, but at first he don't answer. I say excuse me again and then he turns around and he has this clown face and he's grinnin' this greasepaint smile at me even though his real mouth ain't grinnin' at all.

'He says somethin' to me but I don't understand what it is and I'm so darn scared that I fight my way back out of that tent and I run and I run in between the tents and the trailers and down the hill and that's when I usually wake up.'

Charlie said, 'That's some nightmare, Netta.'

'Every night, too. Every night the same. For weeks and weeks and I don't know how to stop havin' it. And I don't know why I'm havin' it, or what it's supposed to mean. Like, dreams are supposed to have meanin's, aren't they? Like you dream about a pigeon p.o.o.pin' on your head and that means you're goin' to win the lotto.'

'This clown you see, what color is his make-up?'

'His face is like gray but his lips are shiny green.'

'And he has long gray hair?'

Netta fixed him with her good left eye. 'How do you know that?'

'Because I know a whole lot about clowns and I think that this particular clown is called Mago Verde, the Green Magician. Part clown, part conjuror. And you heard that rat-person say "may go wordy", right? "May go wordy" - that could be "Mago Verde".'

'Hey,' said Netta. She was impressed. 'That's exactly what it sounded like, Mago Verde.'

Charlie said, '"Prennay guard", you're right, that's French - "prenez garde" - and that means "beware". Sounds like this rat-creature was telling you to watch out for Mago Verde.'

'How about "coop sign pianos"? What does that mean? And "gang up you start"?'

'I don't have a clue,' Charlie admitted. 'But give me some time, and I'll work on it.'

Netta said, 'Guess you think I'm losin' my reason. It's the stress, probably. My brother Kyle lost his job at the Brook Park engine factory last September and he and me have been strugglin' to make ends meet ever since.'

Walter took hold of Netta's piggy little hand and gave it a rea.s.suring squeeze. 'You're probably right. Maybe you should talk to your pharmacist - ask him for something to help you sleep more heavy.'

When Netta went off to refill Walter's soda gla.s.s, Walter leaned across the table and said, 'How about that? Netta's been having the same G.o.dd.a.m.ned nightmares as Maria Fortales. The same - in every detail. How in h.e.l.l's name can that happen?'

Charlie pulled a face. 'It's not totally unknown for strangers to share the same dream. Some psychologists think that dreams are like an alternate state of reality, rather than an alternate state of consciousness.'

'Meaning exactly what, exactly?'

'You know, like that Second Life thing you can do on the Internet - turning yourself into a s.e.xy-looking avatar and leading a double life in some tropical fantasy world. And Carl Jung believed that the entire human race shares a collective unconscious.'

'Oh, yeah? Carl Jung must have gone to see that last Mel Gibson movie. The whole audience was collectively unconscious, including me.'

Netta brought them their food. Walter immediately picked up his triple cheeseburger in both hands and took a large bite; but Charlie said, 'Were you ever scared of clowns, Netta, when you were a kid?'

Netta shook her head. 'Clowns? No, never. I loved clowns. They used to make me laugh.'

'You never had a scary experience at a circus, or a carnival?'

'I was sick as a dog once on the Tivoli Spin-out Ride at the Ohio State Fair. But then so was most everybody else. But I don't know. Maybe somethin' bad happened to me when I was a kid and I got some kind of horrible memory that's just comin' out only now.'

Walter flapped his hand at Charlie and said, with his mouth full, 'Eat.' At that moment, however, his cellphone rang. He picked it up and said, 'What? I'm on my lunch break.'

But he listened, and then he said, 'Where?' and at the same time he slowly lowered his triple cheeseburger back on to his plate.

'Something wrong?' asked Charlie.

Walter nodded. 'That was Skrolnik. He had a call from the School of Law where Maria Fortales was studying. There was blood dripping out from the bottom of her locker.'