anything here!"

"There's got to be an entrance to the lower levels somewhere," Wyrdrune

shouted

back into her ear over the deafening music.

"Awwright" shouted Billy, his head banging in time to the music and moshing

his

way into the crowd, slamming into bodies and rebounding off them to spin

crazily

off in another direction.

They followed him, pushing their way through the crowd, going through one of

the

arches in the cross wall to a small corridor with a flight of stone steps

leading upward to the next floor. Wyrdrune started toward it.

"Hey, warlock," Kira said. "We want to go down, not up, don't we?"

"The only other way is to try getting through that crowd again," said

Wyrdrune.

"Let's try upstairs and see if we can't come down on the other side. There's

got

to be another stairway somewhere. And grab him, for God's sake!"

Kira's arm lashed out, and she caught Billy by the coat as he was about to go

back into the Great Hall.

"Don't worry about me," said Merlin. "You go on ahead. Find Modred. Carfax is

expecting you, but he doesn't know about me yet."

"You sure?" said Kira.

"'Course I'm bloody sure!" said Billy. "G'wan, now! Git!"

Kira shrugged and followed Wyrdrune. "Man, that's a spooky kid," she said. "I

hope he knows what the hell he's doing."

"Do we?" said Wyrdrune.

"Hmm, you've got a point there, warlock. Hell, let's go."

They went up the stairs, past a couple locked in a passionate embrace on the

landing, and through an archway into the corridor on the second floor. The

corridor ran straight along the cross wall for the full width of the

building.

As they headed toward the opposite end Kira hesitated and grabbed Wyrdrune's

arm.

"Hey, warlock. Check this out."

She was looking through an open archway into the castle chapel. In the dim

light

of the candles they could see several couples huddled together in the dark

corners. It didn't look like they were praying. But then, it wasn't that kind

of

chapel. Above the altar, which was covered with a black velvet cloth

emblazoned

with a golden circle with a pentagram inside it, was a huge, gleaming sliver

cross hung upside down. The stained-glass windows showed grisly scenes of