"Ey, 'ow d'ya think I feel?" Billy said. "You think I like 'avin' an old geezer like you stuck in me 'ead, all the time moanin' and gripin' and makin' me smoke this bloody bog moss?" He took the pipe out of his mouth, made a face, and spat on the rug. "Gor'blimey, what 'orrid stuff!"

"If you don't mind, I happen to enjoy it!" Merlin said, making Billy put the pipe back into his mouth.

"Yeah, but I'm the one what's gotta smoke the bleedin' mess!" He took the pipe out of his mouth again and brought his hand back to fling it across the room.

"Don't you dare!" shouted Merlin, stopping the arm in mid-swing. "That's a four-hundred-year-old, hand-carved Algerian briar!"

Billy struggled, having a tug-of-war with his own arm muscles as he tried to throw the pipe while Merlin restrained him.

"Leggo me arm!"

"Stop that, you little holligan! Stop it, I say!"

"Do you people know what time it is?" the broom said," swaying sleepily into the room. It had a red nightcap stuck on the end of its handle.

"Go back to sleep, Broom," Wyrdrune said wearily.

"Who can sleep with all this tummel? It's almost two o'clock in the morning! It took me hours to get to sleep after listening to those fercocktuh birds all day long and now I have to listen to young Mr. Split Personality kvetching at himself? Who needs this, I ask you? Is it too much trouble to go to bed like normal people?"

"Listen 'ere, you scraggly old loo swabber," said Billy, "you shut yer cakehole! Wherever the 'ell yer bleedin' cake-hole is!"

"Did he just call me a toilet brush?" the broom said in an outraged tone. "Was that what you called me, a toilet brush? Gevalt! I don't have to take that kind of talk from someone who wears his hair like a Shetland pony and dresses like a stolen car."

"Right," said Billy, snaking his hand out and grabbing the broom around the handle. "I'm gonna tear out all yer bleedin' bristles!"

"No, you're not," said Merlin.

"I am, too!"

"You are not!"

"Let me go, both of you!" the broom cried.

"Billy. . . . Professor. ..." Wyrdrune said.

"You stay out of this!" said Merlin. "I've had about enough disobedience from this young whelp!"

"Whelp, eh?" said Billy. "I'll whelp you right upside the 'ead, I will!"

"That would be a neat trick," Kira said. She stepped up to Billy, grabbed a handful of his crested hair, and held her knife against it.

"Ey!"

"Let the damn stick go and settle down, or else I'll scalp you, you little twerp."

"Awright, awright!" said Billy, letting the broom go. It quickly retreated to the closet. "But I still ain't smokin' this dreck!"

And he tossed the pipe across the room.

"Ahhhh!" cried Merlin, and Billy suddenly started smacking himself in the head.

"Ey! Stop it! Cut it out!"

"You rotten little pismire! You've had this coming to you!"

"Stop it, you crazy old git!"

Wyrdrune rolled his eyes at Kira. "It's going to be a long, long haul," he said, shaking his head with resignation.

"Cheer up," she said. "It could be a lot worse."

"Yeah? How?"

"It might not have been Billy that Merlin decided to possess. He could've chosen one of us, instead."

Wyrdrune turned pale. "Don't," he said. "Don't even think it!"

The door opened and Modred came in. One look at the expression on his face and they all instantly became silent.

"I'm afraid we have a rather serious problem," he said, looking around at them. "There's more than one of them."

 

CHAPTER Eight

"What do you mean there's more than one of them?" said Wyrdrune.

"There's more than one necromancer," Modred said. He glanced at Kira. "Are you all right?"

"Never mind me, I'm fine," she said."What do you mean there's more than one necromancer? Are you saying there are two Dark Ones?"

"There are at least two, and perhaps more," said Modred.

"How do you know?" said Wyrdrune.

"It's obvious how he knows," said Merlin. "His runestone sensed their presence."

"More than that," Modred said. "I saw them."

"You saw them?" Wyrdrune said, his eyes wide. "Where? When?"

"In the alleyway, when Kira was attacked. It was a close call," he added. "I had a rather narrow escape myself."

He took off his jacket and they saw that his sleeve was red with blood.

"You've been shot!" said Kira.

Modred glanced at her and smiled slightly. "Yes, I know. I'm afraid I caught a bullet when the police officers started shooting. Careless of me. I'd say they overreacted somewhat, wouldn't you?"

"Let me have a look at that," said Merlin.

"No need," said Modred. "The wound is already almost healed."

He took off his shirt and they saw that he was right. Not only had the wound stopped bleeding, but it had already closed and new skin was quickly forming.

Modred examined the wound thoughtfully. "I've always healed more quickly than ordinary humans, but never quite as fast as this."

"The runestone?" Kira said.

Modred nodded. "Unquestionably. It's healing me even as we speak."

It was true. The bullet wound was healing right before their eyes. Merlin looked for an exit wound, but there wasn't one.

"What about the bullet?" he said with some concern. "It's not still in there, is it?"

"No, it was expelled," said Modred, going to the closet to get a fresh shirt. "I've never experienced anything like it. The bullet was literally forced out of my body through the entry wound, as if by some sort of telekinesis." He glanced at Wyrdrune. "As I recall, you also healed very rapidly after our first battle with the Dark Ones. Our symbiosis with the runestones seems to be responsible. They're using their energy to accelerate our normal healins functions. You know I'm beginning to think that short of a mortal wound, we can survive almost anything."

"Perhaps," said Merlin, "but that's no reason for becoming careless. Surviving a physical attack is one thing. A magical attack is something else, again. Which brings us back to the essential point of this discussion. How can you be certain that what you saw were Dark Ones? Tell me what happened."

"At the moment Kira was attacked," he said, tucking in his shirttails, "I suddenly felt. . . ." He hesitated and then shook his head. "No, it wasn't a feeling, exactly. It was more like an extremely powerful intuition. I simply knew somehow that Kira was in trouble."

"I know what you mean," Wyrdrune said. "I felt it too, right after Billy came to get me in the club. The minute we got outside, I knew Kira was in danger."

Modred nodded. "Yes, we already know we can call upon the runestones to forge a psychic link between us. Only it also seems to be an involuntary function, something that happens by itself only when the runestones feel it's absolutely necessary."

"That would make sense," said Merlin. "Such a link, established thaumaturgically, requires considerable lifeforce energy which the runestones would understandably want to conserve. Go on."

"Anyway," Modred continued, "the moment I sensed that Kira was in trouble, I bolted outside through the rear door of the club. I'm not sure how I knew to head for the alleyway, but I simply did. I ran down the back steps and the moment I turned the corner into the alley, I saw that creature teleport to escape from your attack. When the police arrived, I would have made myself scarce just as you did, only in that instant, I also saw something else.

"They were behind the dumpster," he continued, "not twenty feet away from me. It was dark, but they were outlined with thin borders of bright light, an effect rather like a solar eclipse. Two shadowy, indistinct, ghostly figures. I had the momentary impression that they were hovering, floating just above the ground. They turned toward me for an instant and then suddenly they were both gone. They simply disappeared. Before I could react, the police had started shooting and I was hit. I don't think they even saw me at the back of the alley. The police, that is. They must have instinctively started shooting when you teleported. It was probably a shock reaction, their fingers involuntarily tightening on the triggers. I was hit by a stray bullet. It knocked me down, which was rather fortunate, or I might have been more seriously wounded. I figured that you'd probably come back here and so I followed."

"And you're certain about what you saw?" asked Merlin.

Modred nodded. "There can be no doubt. The runestone reacted very strongly. I had a sudden, sharp, searing pain in my chest, as if the stone had suddenly become white-hot. I think the Dark Ones must have sensed it, too, which must be why they left so quickly. I have to admit that puzzles me. I was alone and there were two of them. Why didn't they try to kill me?"

"Perhaps it was because they couldn't," Merlin said. "They were not physically there. What you saw were only their manifestations, projections of their astral selves. Which is not to say they had no power, but they wouldn't be at full strength unless they were actually physically present." He picked up his pipe and started tamping the tobacco back down with his thumb.

"'Gor', you're not gonna fire that bloody thing up again, are you?" Billy protested.

"Quiet, Billy," Merlin said, scowling as he snapped his fingers and lit his pipe with a jet of flame that shot out of his thumb. "I have no time to argue. We must plan carefully. We've obviously lost the element of surprise. But then, in a sense, so have the Dark Ones. True, we don't know where they are, but we now know that there are at least two of them. The question is, are there anymore?"

"I'd say the question is will they stay and fight?" said Modred. "Or will they disappear now that they know we're on to them and turn up somewhere else?"

"It's possible," said Merlin. "When they broke free of the spell that confined them, they scattered far and wide, each thinking only to escape from the power of the runestones. Separately, they could never be as strong as the three of you together. But they have had some time now, time in which to gather acolytes and murder to increase their strength. Time to learn not to repeat the mistakes they made with Al'Hassan. There will be no more wholesale butchery such as they accomplished through him, because any spell strong enough to kill people in such vast numbers would also be strong enough to enable you to trace it to its source. And that would be the last thing that they would want."

Merlin paced back and forth across the room, puffing out huge clouds of aromatic smoke. The smell of nuts roasting mingled with the heady odor of fresh-baked raspberry tarts, then changed once again to the unpleasant scent of mothballs.

"No, I think they've learned from their mistakes," he said, continuing his pacing. "They will try to increase their powers gradually, so as not to give away their exact location. We know of at least one acolyte and you can be sure that there are others. They will use those acolytes to kill for them, just as in the ancient days, when they appointed priests to conduct their sacrificial rituals. They have had to establish a sanctuary for themselves and find people they could use to serve their purposes. They will not be anxious to abandon what they have accomplished here and start all over somewhere else. At least, not unless they have no other options left. The fact that there are two of them suggests there may be more and that, in turn, suggests that they have a leader among them. And that's very disturbing news, indeed. Still, I doubt they will risk a direct confrontation. At least not yet. Not unless they're forced to. They will use their acolytes against us first. And as we've already seen, those can be quite dangerous enough."

"Well, we know that at least one of them is someone who was invited to the party tonight," said Modred. "I'll get a complete guest list from Rydell. I'm not sure how much help it will be, but we'll have to start someplace."

"I think you'll find that your friend Rydell isn't very anxious to see you at the moment," Wyrdrune said. "He called a little while ago. The police were questioning everybody in the club and he said there was an I.T.C. man with them who seemed to know all about us. Does the name Thanatos mean anything to you?"

Modred frowned and shook his head. "No. It's a mage-name?"

"His real name is Bryant Winslow," Merlin said. "He was once one of my students. Now it seems he's a field agent with the I.T.C."

Modred shook his head again. "The name means nothing to me."

"He said he was an old friend of your mother's," Kira said.

"Did he?" Modred said, raising his eyebrows. "How very interesting."

"You think it's true?" said Wyrdrune.

Modred shook his head. "I can't believe she'd have told anyone at the I.T.C. who she really was, much less told them about me, especially since I'm on their 'most wanted' list. And Rydell doesn't know who I really am. So unless this Thanatos is running some kind of a bluff, there are only three other sources where he could have learned that agent Fay Morgan was really Morgan Le Fay and that I was her son. Jacqueline Monet, Sebastian Makepeace, and Michael Blood. Jacqueline would never talk and Makepeace ... no, he may be as crazy as a bedbug, but he's utterly reliable. Besides, I've known both Sebastian and Jacqueline for years and they've always been completely trustworthy. Which leaves our friend, Chief Inspector Michael Blood of Scotland Yard."

"That's what Merlin figured," Kira said.

Modred grimaced. "I never did trust policemen. I should never have made an exception in his case."

"I can't believe that Blood would sell us out," said Wyrdrune. "He helped us, remember?"

"Yes, and now it appears he's being just as helpful to the I.T.C," said Modred wryly.

"Wyrdrune's right," said Billy. "Mick wouldn't give us up. 'E's on our side. It's like ole Merlin said, if Mick told this Thanatos bloke about us, it's because 'e thought Thanatos could 'elp us."

His expression suddenly changed as Merlin spoke through tern.

"There's a simple enough way to find out for certain," Merlin said. "Why not call Blood and ask him?"

"You think he'd tell the truth?" said Modred.

"You always did have a suspicious nature," Merlin said. "That can be useful on occasion, but unfortunately, in this case, it's preventing you from seeing the obvious. We've already deduced that Blood's the only one who could have told Thanatos about us. If he tells us that he's never heard of Thanatos, then we'll know that he betrayed us. If he admits it, then we can simply ask him why."

Modred nodded. "All right. Call him."

Merlin picked up the phone and called the desk. "Overseas operator, please."

A few moments later, Scotland Yard had answered and Merlin asked to speak with Chief Inspector Michael Blood.

"I see, sir. And who shall I say is calling, please?"

"Tell 'im Billy Slade."

There was a slight pause, then Blood was on the phone. Billy put him on the speakerphone so that all of them could hear.

"Billy? Is that really you?"

"It's me, Mick. 'Ow've ya been, old sod?"

"Thank God! Where the devil are you? I've been trying to get in touch with you, but your New York number's been disconnected!"

"We're in Los Angeles," said Billy.

"Los Angeles? Why didn't you tell me you . . . wait, you said 'we.' Are the others with you?"

"We're here, Michael," Wyrdrune said.

"Wyrdrune? Is Kira there, as well?"

"Right here, Mike."

"Sebastian?"

"No, he's still in New York."

"What about ..." He hesitated, obviously not wanting to say Modred's name out loud. ". . . our other friend?"

"I'm here as well, Michael," Modred said. "Can you talk?"

"Well, I'm in my office, but it can't hurt to be cautious, you understand? I'd just as soon not use your name on these premises."

"Yes, I quite understand," said Modred. "You said you'd been trying to reach us?"

"Yes, I needed to tell you about a chap called Thanatos, an agent with the I.T.C."

Wyrdrune glanced at Modred and smiled.

"Go on," said Modred.

"He came to me recently, asking a lot of questions. Officially, he was investigating the disappearance of one of their agents. Fay Morgan. But he was asking a lot of questions about what happened here, as well. At first, I played it cool, telling him I didn't see the connection between the case their agent was investigating in Boston with what happened here in London, but then he started telling me about the runestones, about Wyrdrune and Kira and Sharif and Al'Hassan and those two fences in New York and the fire in the penthouse of John Roderick. ... He had it all just about completely put together. And he'd tied it in with what happened here, as well."

"And so what did you tell him?"

"Well, at first I stuck with my amnesia story, but he saw. right through that. I didn't know how he knew, but he looked me straight in the eye and as politely as you please, told me I was lying through my teeth. Now I'll tell you, I've spoken to all sorts in my time, from petty thieves to homicidal maniacs to my father's stuffy friends in Parliament and I've always thought I could take just about anyone without flinching, but let me tell you, this chap gave me a dead level stare that went right through to my bones. I tried to put the best possible face on it and I acted all put out. I told the bastard to get out. He didn't move. He simply sat there staring at me with that implacable gaze of his and then he asked me to tell him about the living triangle."

Modred, Wyrdrune, and Kira exchanged astonished glances. Billy simply sat there, stroking his nonexistent beard thoughtfully, as Merlin always had a tendency to do.

"Well, as you can imagine," Blood continued, "that knocked the pins right out from under me. I simply sat there, staring at him, unable to respond. Thanatos just watched me for a moment, and then he proceeded to tell me an amazing story. He said he'd been out to the Carfax place. I hadn't known that. He'd apparently gone over my head with that one, straight to the Commissioner. I hadn't a clue he'd seen it. He'd been in the dungeons, down in that underground temple where it all happened. He told me that he'd sensed indescribably powerful thaumaturgic trace emanations down there, as if an incredible amount of thaumaturgic energy had been released.

"He'd ordered everybody out so that he could get the feel of the place alone. And then told me something that set me right back on my heels. He said he'd seen three auras. A red one, a blue one, and a green one, standing apart in a sort of triangular formation, interconnected by patterns of thaumaturgic force. Apparently no one else could see them, but he could, because he could detect auras. Actually see them. He said he could mine, which was how he knew that I was lying to him earlier. Something about some sort of color shift, I didn't completely understand it all, but apparently it had nothing to do with his thaumaturgic training. He said he'd been a sensitive from birth and that his training as a sorcerer had only increased it."

Modred glanced at Billy. "Is that true?" he said.

"'Ow the 'ell should I know?" Billy said.

"He's asking me, you dolt," said Merlin. He shook his head. "I don't know. It's possible, but it's extremely rare. I never knew that Thanatos was a sensitive."

"Why would he have concealed it from you?" said Modred.

"Difficult to say," said Merlin. "Thanatos never was the most forthcoming of individuals. He always had a sort of curious inscrutability about him. On the other hand, come to think of it, he always seemed to know whenever I was asking a trick question or planning a pop quiz. Go on, Michael. What did he say then?"

"He said he knew that what happened in the States with the theft of the runestones was connected with what happened to Al'Hassan, as well as with the murders here in London and the incident at Carfax Castle. He said that the I.T.C. knew that Al'Hassan was killed while casting an immensely powerful necromantic spell, but they did not know for what purpose. And then he said he had a theory of his own, one he hadn't shared with his superiors at the I.T.C. because he had no proof. He said he was convinced that Al'Hassan had discovered something in that dig in the Euphrates Valley, something apart from the artifacts they found. He'd been down there. And he said there was a wall of solid rock in the deepest part of the excavation, and that he'd sensed something behind that wall, as if a tremendous amount of thaumaturgic energy had been released."

"Did he try to break through it?" Wyrdrune said softly.

"No. He said he was afraid. He didn't know why, but he felt a fear that chilled his bones right to the marrow. And then he looked at me and in a very quiet sort of voice, he said, 'Al'Hassan released something down there, didn't he? Something very old, and very powerful and terrifying.' He said that if he wanted to, he could put me under a spell of compulsion to tell him what I knew, but he'd rather I told him of my own free will, because he knew I was protecting someone and he had a feeling that the people I was covering for would need all the help that they could get."

"And so you told him," Modred said.

Blood sighed. "Of course I told him. I told him everything. What else could I do?"

Modred nodded. "I suppose you had no choice. And what was his reaction?"

"He turned pale and remained silent for a while, then he thanked me and asked me to keep what I'd told him to myself. And then he asked me to get in touch with you and let you know that he was coming. He said to tell you that he would help in any way he could. He said he had a deep personal stake in this, as well."

"In what way?" said Modred.

"Fay Morgan," Blood said. "Your mother." He hesitated. "Apparently, the two of them were lovers."

"What?"

"He showed me a ring he wore," said Blood. "A large fire opal in a silver setting. It was engraved with some peculiar symbols. He said you'd know what it meant."

For a moment, Modred didn't say anything.

"You know what he's talking about?" said Kira.

Modred nodded slowly. "It was my mother's. It was given to her by my grandmother, Igraine. Gorlois gave it to her as a token when they wed." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "It means they were much more than lovers. It means they were man and wife."

"Morgana?" Merlin said, astonished. "Married to a mortal?"

Kira stared at Modred. "Then that means Thanatos is—"

"My stepfather," Modred said. "It seems I have a stepfather who is younger than me by some two thousand years."

"I ... I hope I did the right thing," said Blood.

"It seems you had very little choice," said Modred.

"If you need me," Blood said, "I can hop the next plane—"

"No," said Modred. "No, you stay where you are. But there is something you can do."

"Name it."

"Get in touch with Jacqueline. And then call Sebastian in New York. Tell them we're staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel and ask them to get out here right away."

"You've got one of them out there, haven't you?" said Blood.

"No," said Modred. "We have two of them. And perhaps more. Thanatos was right. We're going to need all the help that we can get."

"I'll call them right away," said Blood.

"Good-bye, Michael."

"Good-bye, my friends," said Blood. "And good luck."

 

It was getting late when Gorman arrived at Spago-Pogo, but the party was still in full swing. He showed his identification to the man at the door, who merely rolled his eyes and said, "Hell, go right ahead. We've had half the police force here tonight already."

Once inside, Gorman, stood near the entrance for a while, allowing his eyes time to grow accustomed to the dim light. The music was loud and the dance floor was packed with I writhing bodies. The bar was packed, as well. Gorman recognized the celebrated actor, Burton Clive, laughing and leaning back against the bar with his arms around two stunning young women. His thick, graying hair was in a state of disarray, his lace jabot looked wilted, and his expensive suit was thoroughly rumpled. The celebrated Burton Clive looked as if he had already done more than his share of celebrating. Gorman made his way over to the bar.

"Mr. Clive?"

"Yes, dear boy, what can I do for you? You want an autograph? Happy to oblige."

His eyes were bleary and his balance was uncertain—in fact, it appeared as if the two young women were literally holding him up—but remarkably, that magnificent, stentorian voice literally dripping with Old Vic was as clear as a church bell. Clive was infamous for his epic drinking bouts and it was said that on numerous occasions, he had played demanding leading roles on stage while so drunk that he could barely see. It had sounded improbable at the time, but seeing him now, Gorman believed it.

"No, sir, thank you, but I don't want your autograph." He held up his I.D. "Agent Gorman, Bureau of Thaumaturgy."

Clive squinted at the I.D., but he was clearly incapable of reading it. He turned to the woman on his left and said, "What's it say, darling?"

"What he said, Bertie," the woman replied.

"Ah! Excellent! Excellent, indeed! An honest-to-goodness sorcerer, eh? I'm about to play a sorcerer, did you know that, Agent . . . sorry, what did you say your name was?"

"Gorman. Phillip Gorman."

"Phillip! Excellent name! My father was named Phillip. Which reminds me ... bartender! Be a good lad and 'phillip' this glass!"

"Have you see Mr. Rydell?" said Gorman.

"Ronald?" Clive said, swaying back around to face him, leaning against the ample busoms of his support posts. "Oh, he's gone. Left some time ago, after the police departed. You with that lot? Understand there was some shooting or something. Did somebody get killed?"

"I wouldn't know about that, sir. I was looking for Mr. Rydell."

"Oh, well, he's gone. Come and have a drink."

"Thank you, sir, but not while I'm on duty. Perhaps you could help me. You're familiar with his productions, aren't you? You're currently working on one, isn't that right?"

"About to start filming the role of a lifetime!" Clive declaimed with a wild sweep of his arm that almost pitched him headlong to the floor. "Merlin Ambrosius! Spawn of an incubus! Court wizard to King Arthur Pendragon! Father of Modern Thaumaturgy! Greatest mage of all—"

"Yes, yes, I understand," said Gorman hastily, anxious to forestall an impromptu soliloquy. "Are you familiar with the man who conjured the special effects on his last feature? A man named Brother Khasim?"

"Certainly, dear boy. The Sorcerer Saint of Sunset Strip, they call him. Keeper of Lost Souls! Master of illusion and—"

"Yes, yes, is he here tonight?" said Gorman.

"He left about the same time the Warlock people did. I suppose it wouldn't be seemly for a saint to be seen getting . sloshed in nightclubs, what?"

"Damn it," said Gorman.

"The other special effects chaps are still around, though."

"Are they? Where?"

"Right over there," said Clive, leaning forward and overbalancing, catching himself at the last moment by putting his palm flat against Gorman's chest. He pointed at the far end of the bar. "Those three chaps over there," he said. "Bert, Mort, and . . . somebody or other. Always together. The three witches, I call 'em. That's from Shakespeare, y'know. Macbeth! The Thane of Cawdor! The—"

"Right, thank you, Mr. Clive," said Gorman, departing quickly. He hastened toward the far end of the bar and approached the three special effects men. "Gentlemen, may I have a word with you, please?"

"Who're you?" said Joe Gallico, slurring his words slightly.

Gorman flashed his I.D. again. "Agent Gorman, Bureau of Thaumaturgy. I'd like to ask you some questions."

"It's about Khasim, isn't it?" said Mort Levine. "I knew it! I just knew there was something screwy about that guy!"

"What makes you say that, Mr. . . . ?"

"Levine. Mort Levine." He jerked a thumb at his partners and said, "Bert Smith. Joe Gallico."

"Bert, Joe," said Gorman, nodding to each of them. "What makes you think I wanted to know about Brother Khasim?"

"Don't you?"

"Would you answer my question, please?"

"Okay, for the record, I don't like the s.o.b., okay? I never did. All that holier than thou bullshit about saving souls and helping people and he comes muscling in on our business, taking the bread right out of our mouths. ..."

"So you have some personal animosity?"

"Some what?"

"You don't like him."

"Didn't I just get finished saying that?"

"Yes, but you still haven't told me why you thought I wanted to know about him."

"All right," Levine said, "Look, we did some checking, see? There was always something about that guy that rubbed me the wrong way."

"Me, too," said Joe.

"So we did some checking," Bert Smith said.

"Merely because he rubbed you the wrong way?" said Gorman.

"No, it was much more than that," Levine said. "Like, how come he could pull off illusions nobody else could do? Okay, so he's a sorcerer, which makes him a higher grade adept than anyone else in the business, but even though I'm not an adept, I know a thing or two about magic use. I know that if you pull off a complicated spell, it tends to make you tired 'cause it uses up your energy, isn't that right?"

"Yes, that's right," said Gorman.

"Well, Khasim was never tired," said Levine. "And hell, on our last picture, he popped an effect that should've knocked him out."

"What sort of effect?" asked Gorman.

"He manifested a demon," said Bert Smith.

"He did what?" said Gorman.

"It was illusion," said Levine. "But, damn, you should've seen it. Let me tell you something, it takes a hell of an effect to impress a pro, and that was sure as hell impressive. Never saw anything like it. Landau was so knocked out by it, he gave Khasim a bonus."

"Landau?"

"Johnny Landau, the director. See, the scene called for the necromancer to summon up a demon that was going to attack Jessica . . . that's Jessica Blaine, she was the female lead. She was chained down to mis altar and Khasim was standing in for Jay Solo, who plays the necromancer in the films. Anyway, Khasim was up on this big rock and he was supposed to conjure up this demon effect. And what he came up with didn't look anything like what was in the storyboard."

"It was pretty scary, I gotta admit," said Joe Gallico, nodding over his beer.

"They'd drawn this thing that looked like a werewolf or something, but Landau told Khasim he wanted something really special, really dramatic, and Khasim sure as hell delivered, let me tell you. It was huge, with sparks and flashes going off inside it, like an electrical storm, and it screamed like a runaway express train. Scared Jessica half out of her mind, it was so real."

"Even got the hoofprints right," Joe said.

"What hoofprints?" Gorman said.

"He threw in some hoofprints on the ground," said Bert. "We had a camera crane shooting from a high angle, I guess he thought it would look more real if the thing left hoofprints, only they never showed up on film. For a while there, he had us so convinced, we thought he'd conjured up a real demon, because of those hoofprints, but of course, that would be crazy. Still, it just goes to show you what the hell of an effect it was."

"I figure it should've wiped him out," Mort Levine said, "but he looked fresh as a daisy when it was over. Apologized for scaring Jessica to death, then sauntered off, calm as you please, as if he pulled off tricks like that every day of the week. And that got us thinking. I mean, if the guy's that good an adept, why the hell is he wasting his time in the motion picture business? He could get ten times as much from some major corporation."

"I'll tell you the truth," said Bert, "we never did buy this social worker thing of his. It costs a lot of money to go to school for all those years and then get certified, right?"

"It is rather expensive," Gorman admitted, prodding him on.

"Right, that's what we figured," said Levine. "It's got to put a serious dent in the bank account, right? And most adepts have to get student loans and such. So you gotta recoup, right? Does it figure that somebody like that turns his back on all the money to be made in corporate sorcery and goes in for charity work with a mission?"

"It does seem rather unusual," said Gorman.

"Well, we did some checking," said Levine. "I called in a few favors. And . . . well, listen, can I tell you something off the record?"

"Go ahead."

"We got a printout of his B.O.T. file."

Gorman raised his eyebrows. "Those are strictly confidential. How on earth did you manage that?"

"I'd rather not say, all right? I don't want to get anyone in trouble. Anyway, guess what we found out?"

"He struggled all the way through thaumaturgy school and barely squeaked past his adept certification," Gorman said.

Levine made a face. "Right, of course. Stupid of me. You've already seen his file. Anyway, you said it was off the record. We're not going to get in trouble for this, are we?"

"I'll forget you ever told me," Gorman said, making a mental note to follow up on it and find out how they got their information.

"Anyway, you saw the file," said Levine. "How does someone who barely managed to get certified as a lower grade wizard suddenly breeze through his sorcerer's exam? He never took any additional training. At least it didn't show on his file." Levine shrugged. "I don't know, I thought maybe we'd get something on him, like maybe he'd been convicted of some kind of white collar thaumaturgical crime or something, but there wasn't anything like that on his record."

"Tell him about the mission thing," said Joe.

"Yeah, Brother Khasim's Lost Souls Mission," said Levine. "I don't know what it is with this 'brother' business. Is he hooked up with some religion or what? What is he, a monk? He takes in a lot of money to keep that mission going. Contributions. He's got a reputation now and he's made contacts with a lot of people in the industry who can help him out, but where'd he get the scratch to get the whole thing started up? No one seems to know. And nobody donated that building to him. He paid for it in cash. In cash."

"You have done some checking, haven't you?" said Gorman. "You seem to be very well informed."

"Well, when you've worked in this town as long as we have, you make lots of connections with all sorts of people," Bert Smith said. "To be honest, we've been worried about our jobs. A guy like Khasim could make us obsolete. We're only being used for incidental effects as it is. On this new picture, Khasim's picking up all the big gags. He's got a lot of people in our business worried, especially some of the lower grade adepts. They've never had to compete with a full-fledged sorcerer before and it he starts cutting his prices and matching what they get, they'll all be out of work."

"Us, too," said Joe, staring deep into his glass.

"You got something on Khasim?" Levine said hopefully. "Has he done something?"

"Just a routine investigation," Gorman said. "But I'd appreciate it if you kept your eyes open and let me know if he does anything that seems at all unusual." He held up his hand and a business card suddenly appeared between his index and middle fingers. "You can reach me at that number. Or ask for Captain Farrell. Anything you say will be kept strictly confidential."

"Sure," Levine said, taking the card. "He has done something, hasn't he? I just knew he wasn't on the level."

"Thanks for your help, gentlemen," said Gorman. "I'll be in touch."

He was suddenly extremely anxious to meet Brother Khasim and have a look around the Lost Souls Mission.

 

CHAPTER Nine

The first one was easy. He caught her strolling west down Sunset, near the Fairfax intersection. Her short skirt was slashed right up to her waist and her spike-heeled boots clicked sharply on the pavement as she cruised in a leisurely fashion down the boulevard, every step a hip shot. He quickly spoke a teleportation spell and vanished, to reappear in an alleyway just ahead of her. He waited till she drew even with him, then he called to her from inside the alley.

She paused, hesitating as she peered into the darkness, then said, "Come out here where I can see you."

He stepped out of the shadows.

She recognized him instantly. "Oh, it's you, Brother Khasim. For a second there, I thought—"

His eyes started to glow with a hellish green fire.

The words suddenly froze in the hooker's throat. The green lambence of Khasim's stare was reflected in her eyes. She stiffened and slowly started moving toward him, into the darkness of the alley. A short while later, Khasim came out alone.

He found his second victim only two blocks farther on. It was late and all the night flowers were out in full bloom. He could pluck them at his leisure. Only there was nothing leisurely in the way he went about it. A sense of desperate excitement was welling up within him and he practically trembled with anticipation as he approached the young girl standing on the corner. She couldn't have been a day over sixteen. His eyes were already burning with green fire when she turned to face him and there was a brief, sharp intake of breath as her mouth fell open with surprise, then her gaze unfocused and she stiffened. Helplessly, she followed him around the corner and into a darkened doorway.

There was the soft, dull, thumping sound of something striking flesh repeatedly and she sank down to the ground. Khasim bent over her, working swiftly, and moments later, he was on his way once more, searching for the next sacrificial victim. Behind him, where the young hooker lay sprawled in the doorway, a shadow seemed to detach itself from the darkness and glide after Khasim.

 

Rebecca Farrell sat staring at Thanatos, not knowing what to say. She shifted her gaze to Ben Slater, who sat across from her at the table in the kitchen of his apartment, watching her somberly.

"Is this for real?" she said.

Slater nodded silently.

Rebecca expelled her breath heavily. "Jesus."

"Jesus has nothing to do with it," said Slater wryly.

"So you're telling me these people, these Dark Ones—"

"Not people," Thanatos said, interrupting her. "At least not as you and I would know them. The Dark Ones are not human."

"Well, whatever the hell they are, you're saying they've been alive for all these thousands of years, kept prisoner in some hole in the ground, hidden in a secret underground temple in the Euphrates Valley? How'd they manage to stay alive?"

"Well, for one thing, they're immortal," Thanatos explained.

"Great," Rebecca said. "How are we supposed to fight something we can't even kill?"

"Fortunately for us, they can be killed," said Thanatos. "Of that, there is no question. Apparently, they just don't die of natural causes, such as old age, for example, or disease. Keep in mind that most of this is merely theory and supposition. I have no empirical knowledge of the Dark Ones, just what I've been able to piece together through secondhand reports and obscure, veiled references in ancient, forgotten thaumaturgic texts. I suspect that what probably happened after the Dark Ones were imprisoned was that their life functions slowed to an almost imperceptible level."

"You mean like suspended animation?" Slater said.

"Probably something very similar; perhaps some form of cryptobiosis," Thanatos said. "I don't know if anybody really knows for sure, except perhaps for the three possessors of the runestones."

"If they're the ones with all the answers, men why aren't we looking for them?" asked Rebecca. "Let's bring them in and hold them for questioning."

"It's rather difficult to detain someone for questioning who's capable of teleportation," Thanatos replied dryly. "You saw what happened earlier tonight. According to Chief Inspector Blood of Scotland Yard, these people are quite capable of taking care of themselves. Wyrdrune is a gifted, if somewhat erratic, warlock whose natural abilities, when augmented by his runestone, should place him at the level of a high grade wizard, at the very least. Kira is a cunning cat burglar and con artist whose streetwise instincts, coupled with the power of her runestone, should make her a very formidable young woman, indeed. Billy Slade might be a mere boy of thirteen, but if Merlin's spirit has possessed him, then he's become the most resourceful teenager on the planet, and the most dangerous, as well. And as for Modred . . . well, we're talking about a man who's got some two thousand years of knowledge and experience to draw on, a man who isn't even fully human. None of them are, really. At least, not anymore. With people such as these, one doesn't simply walk up to the front door, flash a badge, and expect them to come down to headquarters and answer some routine questions."

"So what are we supposed to do?" Rebecca said. "Sit on the sidelines and just watch?"

"No, most emphatically not," said Thanatos. "By now, we can be reasonably certain that Mr. Rydell has communicated with his new partners and passed on the particulars of our discussion with him. I fully expect that we will be contacted very soon. In the meantime, we need to start compiling information as quickly as possible. Ben from his various sources on the street and you, Rebecca, from the police department. We're looking for certain patterns. Not only murders, but disappearances as well, kidnappings where no demands for ransom were ever received. Somehow, somewhere, a pattern must emerge that will give us a clue where to start looking for the Dark Ones and their servants. It shouldn't be long before Gorman's had a chance to track down the information I requested. Meanwhile, we can monitor what's happening on the Strip. I have a strong intuition that before the night is out, the Dark Ones will make their presence felt.

 

Gorman pushed open the door to the Lost Souls Mission and stepped inside. It was an unpretentious lobby, with a few potted plants placed here and there and several chairs set back against the walls. It was late and it was very quiet. A somewhat bedraggled-looking young man was bent over his desk in the reception area, reading a lurid horror comic book. Gorman rapped on the desk sharply, startling him.

"Yeah, what is it?" said the young man in a somewhat surly tone. "I mean . . . uh, how can I help you?"

Gorman showed the young man his I.D. "Agent Gorman, Bureau of Thaumaturgy," he said, looking the young man directly in the eyes.

"Yes, sir?"

"Is Brother Khasim in?"

"No, sir. He's out for the evening. Is there something I can help you with?"

"I understand that Brother Khasim lives here at the mission, isn't that right?"

"Yes, sir, he has quarters on the top floor."

"I would like to see them, please."

"Sir?"

"I would like to see Brother Khasim's quarters," Gorman repeated. "I would like you to show them to me." His gaze was still locked with the young man's. He didn't blink. Little lights danced in his pupils.

The young man blinked twice and flinched slightly, but he couldn't tear his gaze away from Gorman's.

"I ... I'm sorry, sir, but I ... I don't think I can do that."

"Yes, you can."

"I ... I ... I really think. ... I think you'd need a warrant . . ."

"I don't need a warrant," Gorman said deliberately, willing the young man into submission.

"You . . . you don't need a warrant," the young man repeated dully.

"You are going to show me Brother Khasim's private quarters," Gorman said.

"I'm going to show you Brother Khasim's private quarters," the young man said flatly. His gaze had become unfocused.

"If anyone asks what we are doing, you will say that I am from the studio and Brother Khasim sent me back to get some script notes. Now what will you say?"

"Brother Khasim sent you back to get some script notes."

"Good. After you take me to Brother Khasim's private quarters, you will return here and you will forget that I am up there. In fact, you will forget that I was ever here. You will forget my name. You will forget we ever spoke or saw each other. You will not remember anything about me at all."

"I will not remember anything about you at all."

"Take me up there now."

The young man got up somewhat stiffly and said, "Follow me, please."

 

By the time the first body was discovered in the alley, Khasim had already accounted for four more. He had killed them all within an area encompassing eight blocks and he wasn't finished yet. The raging bloodlust had risen to a fever pitch within him.

By the time the detectives, the assistant medical examiner, and the lab man had arrived to take over from the beat cops who had initially responded to the call, Khasim had stalked and killed three more women. While the lab man took his pictures and filled out his forms and the detectives together with the assistant medical examiner puzzled over the curious markings carved into the dead woman's chest, Khasim's second victim was discovered, only two blocks away, on the same side of the street. The detectives hurried to the scene and found another dead hooker, slain the same way as the first, stabbed to death, with the same curious runes carved into her chest. The medical examiner asserted that both women had been killed within minutes of each other, and very recently, at that. Within the hour. And as they were examining that body, the patrol officers discovered a third one only half a block away.

With disbelief, the detectives radioed for backup and started following a trail of bodies that led them east on Sunset Boulevard. All were killed in exactly the same way, all mutilated in the same manner, carved with the same indecipherable markings. They realized that they had to be literally within blocks of the killer as he steadily, diabolically slaughtered his way east toward La Brea Avenue. The scream of police sirens cut the night as they tried to cordon off the area and the people on the Strip, like livestock sensing a predator in their midst, started milling about fearfully, darting across the street, running aimlessly in all directions, and huddling in doorways. In short, doing everything except going inside where it was safe, seeking instead the illusion of safety in numbers, following the herd instinct of the streets.

Back at Ben Slater's apartment, they followed the reports over the police frequency on Slater's portable radio.

"This must be it," Rebecca said, quickly getting to her feet and starting for the door. Slater grabbed his hat.

"Wait," said Thanatos, calmly sipping his coffee and making no move to get up from the table.

"What for?" Rebecca said. "This is just what you were telling us would happen! We've got to get down there right away!"

Thanatos glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. "Rebecca, have you forgotten that I can teleport us directly to the scene in an instant?"

She grimaced sheepishly. "Oh. That's right."

"We can follow the progression of events from here," said Thanatos. "We will listen, and wait, and see what develops. When the confrontation comes, we will be there."

Rebecca and Ben exchanged glances and came back to join Thanatos in the kitchen.

"Relax. Have some more coffee," he said, while voices crackled back and forth over the radio.

"How can you be so calm?" said Slater. "Women are being slaughtered down there even as we sit here and you say relax and have some more coffee?"

"I assure you, Ben, that at the moment, I am anything but calm," said Thanatos, staring into his coffee cup. "In fact, I'm trying very hard to steady my nerves, because I'm rather frightened." He looked up at them. "I have to depend upon the element of surprise, you see, and that means I have to pick my moment carefully. The police must provide the necessary distraction. Because if I cannot strike quickly, decisively, and without warning, then I'm not sure I'll have a second chance."

"This is Unit nineteen, we've got another one! Alley behind the Whip and Chain club. . . ."

"Roger, Unit nineteen, we copy, all units—"

"It won't be long now," said Thanatos, as Slater and Rebecca stood behind him, listening intently. "It seems they've got him hemmed in. Unfortunately, that isn't going to help them."

He turned to the radio and gestured at it. "Attention all units," he said, and a second later, they heard his words repeated over the police band. "Attention all units. Attention all units. The perpetrator is a magic-user. Repeat, the perpetrator is a magic-user. Exercise extreme caution. Locate, but do not attempt to apprehend. Repeat, locate, but do not attempt to apprehend."

"What are you doing?" demanded Rebecca.

"If they try to apprehend him, he may escape," said Thanatos. "Or he may turn on them and kill them all."

"This is Unit twenty-one, suspect in sight, white male, dark clothes, running down alley off Sunset and Alta Vista, repeat suspect in sight—"

"This is it," said Thanatos, getting up out of his chair. He glanced at Ben and Rebecca. "Perhaps you'd both be safer here."

"Not on your life," said Rebecca. "Get us down there. Now."

Thanatos grimaced tightly. "All right. Give me your hands."

 

Gorman hesitated at the door to Khasim's private quarters. The young man who had brought him up had gone back downstairs and there was no one else around, yet Gorman still hesitated. Carefully, he put his hand out, placed his palm flat against the door, and closed his eyes in concentration. Like a safecracker feeling the tumblers falling into place, Gorman felt the faint surge of thaumaturgical trace emanations through the door. Yes, it was as he'd suspected. The door was spell-warded. He smiled.

He backed well away from the door and turned, looking around the outer office, where the administrative volunteers did all the work that kept the mission going. His gaze fell on one of the heavy wooden desks. He stretched his arms out, spoke a levitation and impulsion spell, and concentrated. The heavy desk started to rise. When it was about three feet above the floor, he guided it around and toward the back of the room, then with a grunt of effort, impelled it hard toward the door to Khasim's office. The desk hurtled across the room and smashed into the door.

There was a crash as the door splintered and broke inward and at the same time, a bright, searing flash of light filled the room. Gorman threw his arm up to protect his eyes as the desk was incinerated in an instant. When the smoke cleared, the way was open. Just to be on the safe side, Gorman picked up a chair and tossed it through the doorway. It landed with a clatter inside Khasim's office. Well, so much for subtlety, he thought, as he entered the office. But at least he was inside.

A thorough search produced nothing. Gorman grimaced with disappointment. It didn't make any sense. Why spell-ward the entrance if there was nothing in here to protect? Somehow, he had to have missed something. He searched the office once again, with no more result. Yet he did not give up. He knew he was right. He knew there was something here that Brother Khasim had been anxious to conceal, anxious enough to spellward the entrance with a spell that would instantly kill an unwary intruder. He looked through Brother Khasim's desk again, he tore his bed apart and carefully examined the mattress, he looked through his clothes in the closet. . . and then he spotted the small switch on the inside wall. Why hook up a switch inside the closet, especially if there was no light fixture in there? He threw the switch and there was a soft humming sound. Gorman frowned with puzzlement, and then he noticed that the floor of the closet had started to descend.

"Well, well, well," he said to himself. "How very interesting. Now why would someone want to hide an elevator in a closet?"

He reversed the switch and waited for the floor to come back up, then stepped inside and threw the switch again. The floor started to descend once more. Khasim tried to estimate the distance. Was there a false wall on one of the lower floors? But no, after several moments, he realized that the elevator had gone past the street level and down to the basement level . . . and still lower. What the hell, he thought, there's another basement below the basement? And then the elevator stopped and Gorman stepped out into Khasim's secret underground apartments.

He gave a low whistle as he stepped out into Khasim's sprawling living room and took it all in. "Well I'll be damned. . . ."he said.

And then he saw the bodies.

 

Officer Zeke Paterno spotted him first. The squad car was slowly cruising down the Strip, Paterno's officer adept partner taking care of the driving while Paterno flashed the spotlight into shadowy doorways and dark alleys. Just as they were passing an alley near Sunset and Alta Vista, Paterno suddenly said, "Stop, Al!"

Al Carlson, the driver adept, held the squad car motionless as Paterno adjusted the light. The high intensity beam illuminated a dark figure in the alleyway, crouched down over something . . .

"Jesus, that's a body," said Paterno. "Get on the horn, we've got him!"

And before Carlson could react, Paterno was out of the car and running toward the alley.

"Zeke, wait! Dammit, we're not supposed to—" The squad car dropped about a foot to the ground with a jarring thud as Carlson stopped concentrating on his levitation spell and grabbed the radio mike. "This is Unit twenty-one, suspect in sight, white male, dark clothes, running down alley off Sunset and Alta Vista, repeat suspect in sight—"

"Hold it right there! Police!" shouted Paterno, pulling his 9mm from his holster as he ran. The suspect looked up and for a brief moment, Paterno caught a glimpse of a white face, eyes bulging, jaws slack, and then the suspect was off and running down the alley.

"Stop!" Paterno shouted. "Stop or I'll shoot!"

The suspect kept fleeing. Paterno brought his gun up in a two-handed combat stance and fired three shots rapidly. The suspect stumbled but kept on going.

"Damn," Paterno swore. And then he saw the mutilated body lying in the alley. "Oh, Jesus. . . ."

He took off after Khasim. All around him, the night was filled with the sound of police sirens as all units converged on the area. The suspect reached the end of the alley, where it T-boned into another alley running parallel with Sunset. Paterno, who like most of his fellow officers was not a marathon runner, was breathing hard as he gave chase. At the far end of the alley, a squad car pulled up, blocking off the exit. Paterno saw the suspect veer sharply to the left, down another alley between two buildings, heading back toward Sunset.

"Stop, you son of a bitch," Paterno gasped as he pumped his arms and legs, trying to close the distance.

Breathing hard, he turned into the alley, paused, saw the suspect about halfway down, still running, checked to see that there was no one in the line of fire at the other end of the alley, raised his pistol, aimed carefully, and squeezed off another three rounds. The fleeing suspect went down.

"Gotcha, you bastard," Paterno said with satisfaction.

Behind him, he heard the siren as Carlson brought the squad car around. Another police cruiser came up to block off the mouth of the alley. Red and blue flashing lights reflected off the brick walls as Paterno approached the fallen suspect.

Suddenly, the suspect sprang up with a growl and Paterno found himself face-to-face with something inhuman. Its leathery, batlike face leered at him demonically as it bared its dripping fangs and screeched like a demented harpie. For one fraction of a second, Paterno froze, stunned into immobility, and in that one fraction of a second, the creature lashed out with a clawed hand and Paterno felt the gun plucked right out of his grasp. He only had time for a shocked gasp before the creature tossed the gun aside, grabbed his head between two immensely powerful hands, and turned it around one hundred and eighty degrees, snapping his neck and killing him instantly.

The officers at the far end of the alley opened fire. The creature jerked twice as bullets struck it, then threw out an arm and a bright blue bolt of thaumaturgic energy shot out from its outstretched claws and enveloped the police officers and their cruiser. There was a blinding flash of light and an eardrum-shattering concussion as the police officers and their cruiser exploded in a spray of viscera and shrapnel.

Carlson watched it all with stunned disbelief. And then the creature turned toward him. Desperately, he tried to focus on his levitation and impulsion spell, but fear destroyed his concentration. He threw himself across the seat, tumbled out the passenger side door, and ran right into Thanatos, Ben, and Rebecca, bowling them over as they materialized directly in front of him. Behind him, the police cruiser exploded as it was struck by a bolt of thaumaturgic energy and Carlson cried out as several pieces of jagged metal shrapnel struck him in the back.

By the time Thanatos scrambled back up to his feet, the alley was deserted.

 

Gorman stared down at the bodies of the half-clad women and fought down his revulsion as nausea surged up within him. They had been literally torn apart, savaged as if by some wild beast. Blood was everywhere, soaked into the luxurious, handwoven rugs and splattered on the expensive wall hangings. It looked like a seraglio turned into an abattoir.

In the bedroom, he found implements of perversion that disgusted him almost as much as the grisly sight outside in the living room. He also found the bloody corpse of yet another naked young woman, chained to the wall. So much for the so-called Sorcerer Saint of Sunset Strip, he thought. The benevolent Brother Khasim was a foul, depraved necromancer who kidnapped young girls and kept them prisoner in his underground lair, violating them repeatedly and then sacrificing them in his unholy rites. That such a twisted creature should be a sorcerer and that he should use his training in the thaumaturgic arts for such a bestial, abominable purpose filled Gorman with an outrage so profound that he began to tremble.

His gaze fell on the huge, black-canopied bed, covered with black satin sheets and a black brocade coverlet with the mirror mounted overhead and his lips twisted down in disgust at the thought of what had gone on there. Rage welled up within him, a fury he was unable to control. He swept his arm out in a violent gesture and the bed burst into flames. The fire quickly spread to the canopy and within seconds, the entire bedroom was a conflagration. Gorman retreated back into the other room, turned . . . and then stopped cold.

He was no longer alone.

Huddled, bleeding on the floor, was Brother Khasim. He was on his knees, clutching himself, his breaths coming in sobs. His clothes were dirty and torn, spattered with blood, some of which was his own. He had been shot several times and he was whimpering with pain. He looked up at Gorman and held out a bloody hand.

"Help me. . . ." he said.

"Help you?" said Gorman, barely able to restrain his fury. "I ought to kill you, you son of a bitch!"

And then he noticed that Khasim was looking past him. He turned and saw something dark and featureless standing close behind him. It was the last thing he ever saw.

 

CHAPTER Ten

It was a long night on the Sunset Strip. It began with a murder spree that ended with the deaths of a dozen women and three police officers and to make matters still worse, the perpetrator had managed to escape. Nor was that the end of it. A raging conflagration at the other end of the Strip had destroyed the Lost Souls Mission and it was almost morning by the time the fire was extinguished. When it was over, the routine investigation to determine if arson could have been the cause unearthed the truth about Khasim. They found the concealed elevator, which, along with two hidden ventilation shafts, had acted as a forcing cone for the flames. These, in turn, led them to the discovery of the secret rooms underneath the mission and the charred remains of several more female bodies, as well as the body of one male. The bodies had been burned beyond recognition, but they were able to identify Gorman by his flame-blackened B.O.T badge. The media descended on Rebecca Farrell and the fire marshals. They didn't like being told that there would be no comments until a "full investigation" was completed, but it was what they had to settle for.

Outside on the street, Thanatos leaned back against the rear seat of the police cruiser and wearily massaged the bridge of his nose. The first gray light of dawn was starting to show and he was exhausted.

"I don't understand," he said in a weary voice. "Why didn't he call me? What on earth made him go in alone?"

"Gorman probably thought he could handle it," said Slater, sitting beside him, sipping a container of coffee. "And if he'd called you in, he wouldn't have been able to take full credit for the bust. A B.O.T. man beating out an I.T.C. agent on a necromancy case. It would've looked good on his record. Or maybe he just couldn't wait because he was hot on the scent. It's probably the same reason Paterno tried to bring down Khasim all by himself. The game was afoot. They couldn't resist the chase."

"Unfortunately, we're left with no proof that the killer was Khasim," Thanatos said.

"Who else could it possibly be?" said Rebecca, twisting around in the front seat. "What do you think he was doing down there in that secret chamber of his, conducting meditation sessions? With all those chains and handcuffs they recovered from the fire? Those women were murdered in some kind of twisted, necromantic rites. Gorman discovered his nasty little secret and confronted him, so Khasim killed him, too, then set the fire to cover up his crimes."

"It certainly looks that way," Thanatos said, "but what we have is still only circumstantial evidence. Admittedly, it's very strong circumstantial evidence, but it may not be enough to make a charge of necromancy stick, much less multiple murder charges."

"Are you kidding?" Slater said. "How the hell do you figure that?"

"Put yourself in a defense attorney's place," Thanatos replied. "With those bodies burned the way they are, it will be almost impossible to establish what killed them. The defense would almost certainly argue that they probably died in the fire. A fire that could well have been caused by Gorman, for all anyone knows. And there's no way to tie in those deaths with the murders on the Strip tonight. The only one who got close enough to the killer to make a positive identification was Officer Paterno and, unfortunately, we'll never know what Paterno saw because he became one of the victims."

"Maybe Paterno can still identify the killer," said Rebecca. "According to Carlson, Paterno put at least two bullets in him, maybe more. And we've got Paterno's gun. All we have to do is match up the slugs taken out of Khasim and we've got him. I've got an A.P.B. out and we can alert all the hospitals

Thanatos shook his head. "Don't bother. If Khasim is seriously wounded, a hospital will be the last place he would go. Unless he was mortally wounded, he could be healed thaumaturgically and for that he will turn to his Dark Lord."

"What about the fact of the secret rooms themselves?" Slater said. "And all those restraints they found. Chains embedded in the walls, for Christ's sake!"

"Brother Khasim was widely known for his work with addicts," Thanatos said wearily. "The withdrawal symptoms from some of the street potions available today can be quite frightening, often inducing psychopathic behavior. As a defense attorney, I would argue that the purpose of that secret chamber was to treat the most violent cases of potion withdrawal, to allow them to submit to being voluntarily restrained before the most serious onset of the withdrawal symptoms."

"You know, for an I.T.C. agent, you think an awful lot like a crooked lawyer," Rebecca said wryly.

"Virtually all the crimes involving magic use we have to deal with are corporate crimes," said Thanatos. "And multinationals employ entire batteries of crooked lawyers. You have to learn to think like one or else you can't hope to secure convictions. It has a tendency to make one somewhat cynical."

"So where does that leave us?" Slater asked.

"Unfortunately, it leaves us right back where we started," Thanatos replied. "Searching for patterns. Necromancers feed on death. Tonight was an example, only a small example, of what they're capable of. Nor, I suspect, will it be an isolated incident. Brother Khasim was sent out on a rampage tonight, to kill as many times as he could. Sacrifices to increase his Dark Lord's power. Causing a train wreck or an apartment building to collapse would have made that much more life energy available for quick consumption, but so powerful a release of energy might also have alerted the runestones and perhaps enabled them to focus in on the Dark One. One life at a time, one right after another, is a great deal slower, but a lot more surreptitious from the point of energy release and its thaumaturgic absorption, which leaves behind trace emanations that can be detected by sensitives."

"So what does that mean?" said Slater.

"It means the Dark Ones must know the runestones are nearby," said Thanatos, frowning. "They're getting ready, trying to increase their power. The confrontation must be drawing near."

"Then it's time we brought in these people with the runestones," said Rebecca. "If they've really got a way of locating these necromancers, I want to know about it. And I don't care how dangerous the Dark Ones are, I don't want magic-using vigilantes running loose in this city. We have laws for dealing with criminals and—"

"Oh, Becky, for God's sake, stop sounding like a department P.R. flack," said Slater. "You had half the damn police department on the Strip tonight and they couldn't even stop Khasim. And he was only human. Imagine what one of these Dark Ones would be capable of doing."

"So what would you have me do, Ben?" she replied hotly. "Sit back and do nothing while a goddamn mage war takes place on the streets?"

"And just how do you intend to stop it?" Slater asked.

She turned to Thanatos. "You said these Dark Ones could be killed just like a human, right? Guns will stop them?"

"Yes, they can be killed," Thanatos admitted. "However—"

"Then if that's what it takes, the law will do it, not some group of vigilantes. Officially, it's still my case—"

"I'm afraid not," said Thanatos. "After what happened tonight, there's no hope of keeping the lid on it anymore and I have more than enough grounds to officially take charge of the case. In fact, with the death of a B.O.T. agent involved, I have no choice."

"I see," she said curtly.

"Believe it or not, I'm doing you a favor," Thanatos told her. "It's my hide they'll scream for now, not yours."

"Whatever you say," she said flatly. "So what do you want me to do?"

"Coordinate with all police agencies, on the local and on the state level as well, and check for cases involving unsolved murders, serial killings, rituals slayings, disappearances, anything that could indicate necromancy. A pattern is bound to be there. You'll find it. In the meantime, Ben, see what you can learn from your sources on the street. We're looking for any unusual occurrences, especially disappearances of people who might not ordinarily be missed, such as homeless individuals; anything at all that could suggest illegal magic use. The Dark Ones cannot function in a vacuum. They must have their minions, like Khasim. They must have a source of life energy to empower their vile spells. Someone somewhere must know something."

He sighed wearily as the police cruiser pulled up in front of his hotel, the MacDonald Wilshire. It was dawn.

"Do what you want to get things started and then try to get some rest," he said. "For now, all we can do is wait."

He left them and went through the golden arches over the hotel doors, up to his room on the forty-second floor. He hoped he was doing the right thing, but he wasn't sure of anything anymore. Perhaps he should have told Rebecca that the bearers of the runestones were not exactly "magic-using vigilantes," that since the runestones were animated by the collected life force of the Old Ones who had made up the Council of the White, they in fact represented an authority older than any human law. However, he wasn't sure she would have appreciated his point. He wasn't sure that anybody else would, either, particularly his superiors at the I.T.C. In fact, there was very little that the I.T.C. would appreciate about the way he was conducting this case ... if they knew about it.

Officially, all the I.T.C. knew was that he was investigating the disappearance of one of his fellow field agents, Fay Morgan. He did not tell them that he already knew that she was dead, killed in a battle with the Dark Ones. Nor did the I.T.C. know that he and Fay Morgan had been secretly married, or that Fay Morgan was really a two-thousand-year-old sorceress named Morgan Le Fay or that one of the world's most wanted criminals, a man known to the I.T.C. only by the name "Morpheus," was actually her son, Modred, the last survivor of Camelot. They did not know about the true nature of the runestones and they did not know about the Dark Ones. That was an awful lot for them not to know, yet despite his sense of duty, Thanatos could not bring himself to tell them.

For one thing, he could not be certain it would be the right thing to do. As an agent of the I.T.C., there was no question but that he should have told his superiors about all the information he'd uncovered, but as an adept, he was not convinced that it would be the proper thing to do. He had his oath of office to the I.T.C, but over and above that, he was sworn to the Ambrosian Oath, which every magic-user, from the lowliest warlock to the highest mage had sworn. And in taking that oath, he has sworn not only never to abuse the old knowledge that Merlin brought back to the world, but also to use it only for the greater good. Only what was the greater good in this case?

It was one thing to share his knowledge with people like Rebecca Farrell and Ben Slater, whose auras snowed him that they could be trusted, but if he were to report the results of his investigation so far to his superiors at the I.T.C, it would have to go through normal channels and be classified and filed, analyzed and considered, discussed and verified, subjected to all the slowly grinding processes of a large and unwieldy bureaucracy and, as was inevitable in any bureaucracy, there would be leaks. The information would be certain to get out to an unprepared and unsuspecting public and there would be a worldwide panic. Every magic-user would wind up under suspicion in the ensuing climate of fear and distrust.

Yet, at the same time, the Dark Ones' greatest strength was that the world at large did not know of their existence. It left them free to move among the humans who were once their chattel and whom they hoped once more to enslave. It left them free to gather human acolytes and form a perverse and evil priesthood that would serve them; free to recover from the weakening effects of their eons-old confinement and increase their evil power even more.

Thanatos did not know what to do. He felt trapped in the middle, caught up in something bigger and more frightening than anything he'd ever experienced before. And he was too exhausted to think clearly. He turned the key in the lock and entered his hotel room.

And suddenly discovered than he was not alone.

 

The police cruiser took them both back to the station, where Rebecca assigned detectives to check with their other local and state police agencies, looking for any pattern of crimes that might indicate that necromancy was responsible. In the meantime, Ben took out his little black book and started making calls to sources who had given him information in the past, with instructions to ask around and get back to him through his remote pager the moment they heard anything. The city was just starting to wake up for the next day by the time that they were through.

"You about done?" Rebecca asked him, coming over to the desk that he was sitting at.

Slater hung up the phone. "That was the last call. Now it's like Thanatos said. We wait."

"You look tired," she said.

"So do you, kid."

"I am, but I don't think I can sleep."

"Me neither."

"Breakfast?"

"Sure, why not?" he said. "I've got to put something else in there on top of all that coffee before it eats a hole in my stomach."

They went downstairs and Rebecca checked out an unmarked cruiser powered by a thaumaturgic battery. They'd driven several miles before Slater realized that they were heading back to her place. He glanced at her questioningly as he recognized the route.

"We're going back to your place first?" he said.

"I could use a shower," she said. She sniffed. "And you could do with one, as well."

"That bad?" he said.

She grinned. "No, just kidding. But you're welcome to take one anyway. I can put on some coffee and whip us up some steak and eggs."

"Sounds great," Ben said, thinking about other breakfasts that they used to have together. It seemed like a long time ago. He forced the thought from his mind. "What do you make of this whole thing?"

She sighed and shook her head as she drove. "I don't really know what to make of it, Ben. It all sounds so incredible. A race of immortals that once lived on this planet and dominated primitive man. It seems so hard to believe, yet it would explain so much about our legends and our mythology, about our religions, about history's unanswered questions, about why some people have powers of extrasensory perception and why some people can easily learn to use magic while others can't do anything, no matter how hard they try."

"Yeah," Slater said with a grunt. "And then there was the other graphic evidence of what was done to Sarah Tracy, not to mention her boyfriend."

Rebecca shuddered. "There've been other murders like that, just as you guessed in the first place," she admitted. "Same pattern, mostly hookers and street people. But as bad as they were, I'd never seen anything like what was done to Victor Cameron. It was as if he was just. . . shredded. There wasn't even a body, just . . . entrails and blood. God, all that blood splattered everywhere. ..."

"I know," said Slater. "It makes me wonder how the hell you stop anything like that. What can you do with someone who can actually conjure up demons? And while we're on the subject, remind me to ask Thanatos just what exactly a demon is, anyway."

"Gorman briefed me on that at the beginning," Rebecca said. "Don't ask me to explain exactly how it works, because that part of it I didn't understand at all, but as near as I can make out, it isn't some creature summoned up from hell or anything like that. The conjured demon is essentially an alter ego of the necromancer, a sort of psychic projection of his inner personality, what psychiatrists call the id."

"No kidding?" Slater said. "You mean like turning your subconscious self into a monster and sending it out to kill?"

"Something like that," Rebecca said. "Gorman said that in its mildest forms, the principle behind it accounts for such parapsychological phenomena as feeling pain when someone very close to you is injured or maybe having a dream in which a close relative comes to you and says goodbye and you find out the next day that they'd died that night."

"Yeah, I heard of that happening," said Slater.

"Well, according to Gorman, people who have experienced things like that have an innate genetic potential for thamauturgy." She grimaced. "Which I guess could be another way of saying what Thanatos claims, that somewhere way back along the line, one of their ancestors was an Old One. Anyway, say your son gets hurt. The theory is that at that precise instant, perhaps not even consciously, he thinks of you, because you were the one he always came to for protection. And he subconsciously does this projection thing and you feel the pain because he's reached you. Or say your mother's dying. Maybe she's thinking of you at the moment of her death, wishing she could say goodbye, and her projection comes to you in a dream."

"What if your son or your mother hates your guts?" asked Slater.

"You mean can the psychic projection hurt you?" said Rebecca. "No. At least, not according to Gorman. There isn't enough energy involved or something. Even with white magic, a sorcerer would have to expend a great deal of energy, and he couldn't do it without severely depleting himself. But with necromancy, where you use someone else's life force—"

"I get the picture," Slater said.

They pulled up in front of Rebecca's building and she parked the car, flipping down the visor with it's printed "Police Officer on Duty" card clipped to it, so that the car would not get ticketed or towed away. Her apartment hadn't changed much since Slater had last seen it. She was still an utter disaster as a housekeeper. She didn't apologize for it like most people did, saying "Excuse the apartment, it's a mess; I didn't have a chance to clean." Rebecca's apartment was always a mess and her cleaning methods were sporadic and haphazard, at best. Like many women, Rebecca had a habit of taking off her shoes the moment she came in and they had a tendency to remain wherever they fell when she took them off. As a result, one could find shoes all over her apartment. The rug was covered with long orange-blond hair from her pet snat, Snuggles, a thaumagenetically engineered creature that was half snail and half cat. It had no legs and its rubbery underside would cling to just about anything. To Slater, it always looked like a giant hairball sticking to the wall.

"Snuggles?" Rebecca called as she kicked off her shoes. "Snuggles, where are you, Snuggles?"

A thirty-pound ball of fur dropped from the ceiling and plastered itself to Slater's head.

"Aaah! Jesus! Get this hairy slug off me!"

"Ooh, Snuggles, there you are!" she cooed, prying the snat off Slater's head. "Did he scare you, Snuggles, did he? He won't hurt you, nooo. ..."

"Me hurt him? Hell, I think he gave me whiplash," Slater grumbled, rubbing his neck. He never could understand why perfectly sensible women turned into total mushminds whenever they spoke to their cute, furry little pets.

"Fooood," Snuggles said, sounding like a Munchkin on downers. "Foood, foood."

"You want your food, Snuggles?" said Rebecca in a high-pitched, little girl voice.

"I think he wants his food," said Slater wryly.

Rebecca glanced at him and shook her head in reproof.

"What?" said Slater. "Go feed the little hairball. Meanwhile, I'll take you up on your offer and go grab a quick shower."

"You know the way," she said.

Yeah, Slater thought, I know the way. He sighed and headed for the bathroom. He was brought up short the moment he walked in. He had almost forgotten about Rebecca's bathroom. It seemed to be one of nature's more peculiar laws; the more trouble a woman took to care of her appearance, the messier her bathroom was.

Slater's personal toiletries included one bottle of shampoo (no rinse), soap, roll-on deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, mouthwash, shaving soap and brush, razor, and witch hazel for aftershave. He could get the whole kit and kaboodle into one small leather traveling case. Rebecca, on the other hand, had what seemed like a dozen different bottles of shampoos and rinses and conditioners and color highlighters and hot oil treatments and PH balancers and styling gels and moisturizing agents—and that was only for her hair. Her face required another thirty or forty some odd bottles and tubes and jars, most of which were scattered in profusion on the bathroom countertop. As he stripped for his shower, Slater thought that with all that junk and. all the time she spent putting it on, she had still looked best to him first thing in the morning.

He stepped into the shower and put his face directly in the spray, enjoying the invigorating feeling of the water beating down on his skin. He started to soap himself. His once dark chest hair was now mostly gray. Getting old, he thought. Too old for going on crusades and chasing necromancers and thinking wistfully of a certain police captain who was just about young enough to be his daughter. It had been nice while it lasted. Now, he was just a harmless old friend whom it was safe to ask back to her apartment. At least it seemed that they were friends again.

He heard a soft click as the shower door opened and then he felt her hands on his back, her fingernails softly stroking down his shoulders. He turned and she came into his arms.

 

He knew who they were even before the boy spoke and said, "Good morning, Winslow," calling him by his truename.

He caught his breath and stared at Billy. "Professor Ambrosius? Is that really you?"

Billy stepped forward with his swaggering walk, thumbs tucked into his belt. "Nah, it's really me, mate, but ole Merlin's in 'ere, too." He held out his hand. "Billy Slade," he said.

Thanatos shook it and then watched in bewilderment as the boy's entire demeanor underwent a complete change.

"It's been a few years, Thanatos," Merlin said. "I'm pleased to see you've done so well. However, we can reminisce about your student days another time. There's someone here who wants to meet you."

Modred came forward, looking at Thanatos intently.

"Modred," Thanatos said softly. "Or do you prefer another name these days?"

"How do you feel about Morpheus?" said Modred, watching him curiously.

"It's my duty to arrest him," Thanatos replied. He paused and smiled faintly. "But I don't think I've ever met the gentleman." He held out his hand. "Your mother told me a great deal about you."

Modred raised his eyebrows. "Whereas you come as a complete surprise to me," he said, taking the proffered hand. He noticed Thanatos looking at his chest and smiled. "Is this what you're looking for?" he said, opening his shirt. The ruby runestone was glowing dimly.

Thanatos gazed for a long moment at the stone embedded in Modred's chest, then he looked up at Modred and glanced at the others.

"You must be Wyrdrune," he said.

Wyrdrune took off his hat. The emerald runestone gleamed in his forehead.

"Of course," Thanatos said, nodding. "The green aura." They shook hands and then he turned to Kira.

"And Kira, the bearer of the sapphire," he said. He reached for her hand, then hesitated slightly as he saw the soft blue glow emanating from her palm. He took her hand, feeling the warm hardness of the stone against his palm.

"You were very foolish tonight," Modred. "You might have easily been killed."

"Then you know about what happened?"

"It was on the news," said Modred. "Even if we could have been there, I'm not sure we could have done anything. The police were everywhere and they were only in the way. This is not the way to handle the Dark Ones."

"It was a sorcerer known as Brother Khasim," said Thanatos. He sighed heavily. "I'm afraid he escaped. I'd hoped that if we could have captured him—"

"You would have died," said Modred. "He was not alone. The Dark Ones were with him."

Thanatos frowned. "Were? You're speaking in the plural."

"There are at least two of them here," said Modred. "Perhaps there are more. I saw them. They were in the alleyway when the police opened fire on my friends. I wasn't as quick to get out of the way and I caught a stray bullet." And then he added ironically, "You almost killed me, Stepfather."

"It was not my intention, I assure you of that. The police overreacted."

"I've noticed that they often do that when confronted with something that infuriates them," Modred replied wryly.

"Modred's right. Bringing the cops in is not the way to handle this," said Kira. "They're not qualified to deal with a situation like this. They'll only make things worse."

"How much have you told them?" Wyrdrune asked.

"The police? Hardly anything," said Thanatos. "A police captain named Rebecca Farrell knows as much as I do, as does a newspaperman named Ben Slater, but they can both be trusted. Except for them, all anyone knows is that a sorcerer named Brother Khasim, a charity worker and sometime special effects adept, has been discovered to be a psychopathic, murdering necromancer. Officially, no one knows anything about the Dark Ones. Nor about you."

"How much do the I.T.C. and the B.O.T. know?" Modred asked.

"Even less," Thanatos replied.

"Even less?" said Wyrdrune, not sure he heard right.

"Officially, I'm investigating the disappearance of one of our agents," Thanatos said. He glanced at Modred. "Although I know about what happened to Fay."

"You mean Morgana," Modred said.

"She was always Fay to me," Thanatos explained, a note of sadness in his voice. "I knew her as Fay Morgan for five years before she told me who she really was. She told me the night we were married."

Modred grimaced. "Mother always was one for surprises."

"Yes, well, you can imagine what my reaction was. I was staggered. In any case, her true identity always remained our secret, as did the marriage. No one else ever knew." He sighed again. "I found out how she died from Michael Blood."

"Talkative boy, young Michael," Modred said.

"Don't blame him, he had no choice," said Thanatos. "I gave him none. I had already deduced a great deal on my own. He simply filled in the blanks. Anyway, no one at the Bureau or the I.T.C. knows anything about the Dark Ones. And I could never go to them without sufficient proof."

"And just how do you expect to present them with sufficient proof?" said Merlin, taking out his pipe and pouch. "Did you think you could capture a Dark One? Or perhaps you'd hoped to arrest one of their acolytes? You could certainly make a case for a renegade sorcerer practicing necromancy, but you could never prove a thing beyond that, not about the existence of the Dark Ones. And none of their acolytes would ever dare to testify. Jail would afford them no protection whatsoever."

"Yes, I know," said Thanatos. "I've already had a rather vivid demonstration of that. However, that was not what I intended. I'd hoped to capture Khasim alive because I thought that I could make him lead me to the power behind him."

"And then what?" Kira said. "What would you do? You don't really think you could place a Dark One under arrest, do you?"

Thanatos met her challenging gaze. "I would have to try. I have my duty."

"Oh, jeez," said Kira, rolling her eyes. "We've got a boy scout."

"And what about me?" said Modred. "You know perfectly well who and what I am. Where is your sense of duty as regards arresting me?"

"At any other time, I would arrest you," Thanatos replied, "stepson or not. However, in the present circumstances, the Dark Ones are obviously a far greater threat."

"Then why not inform your colleagues at the I.T.C.?" said Modred.

"Because I have no proof yet."

"I see," Modred continued. "And you only report your findings when you have absolute proof, is that it?"

"No, that isn't it," Thanatos replied tensely.

"Then what?"

"I don't see why I have to explain myself to you. I don't—"

"Getting a bit defensive, aren't we?" Modred said with a mocking smile.

Thanatos bit off his reply and took a slow, deep breath, composing himself. "All right. What do you want from me?"

"To begin with, I'd like for you to be honest with yourself," Modred replied. "Before you can hope to deal with the Dark Ones, you first need to deal with your own internal conflicts."

"What would you know about my 'internal conflicts'?"

"Perhaps more than you might think," said Modred. "I have been observing human nature for about two thousand years and in all that time, I think I might have learned a thing or two. That you are conflicted is obvious. And I don't need to be sensitive to auras to see that in you. As to the cause of your internal conflict, I think that can be traced back directly to your marriage with my mother."

Thanatos stiffened.

"Oh, for God's sake, don't get your back up," said Modred. "You're going to tell me that you loved her. Well, let me tell you that a great many people have loved Morgana over the centuries and it didn't benefit a single one of them."

"She was your mother," Thanatos said stiffly.

"Yes, and her own half brother was my father," Modred replied. "Please, let's not have any illusions about the sort of woman that she was. Morgana was a compulsively manipulative, thoroughly immoral, and totally unprincipled bitch." He quickly held up his hand before Thanatos could reply. "And before you manifest the appropriate outraged response of the loyal, grieving husband, let me tell you that I meant that without any rancor whatsoever. It's the simple truth."

"He's right, you know," said Merlin. "Morgana had her good qualities, to be sure. Believe me, I was in an excellent position to appreciate that. After all, I'm the one who taught her all she knew. About magic, anyway. But Morgana was also a very complex and tortured woman. She was all those things that Modred said, and more."

Thanatos glanced at Billy, sitting there and smoking his pipe, tapping it lightly against his teeth as Merlin always used to do. It seemed absurdly surreal to listen to a thirteen-year-old, pipe-smoking street urchin sitting there, calmly and paternally discoursing about his one-time relationship with the woman he had loved, the woman who had been his wife.

"Keeping your marriage a secret was Morgana's idea, wasn't it?" Modred continued.

"Yes," Thanatos admitted. "The I.T.C. has a policy against field agents being married to one another. It could compromise their effectiveness and—"

"Yes, yes, I know," said Modred. "But you were in love."

"We were in love," Thanatos said.

"I have no doubt of that," Modred said quietly. "Otherwise, she would not have given you that ring. Don't misunderstand me. I am not questioning your feelings for each other. But because of those feelings, because she wanted you, Morgana got you to break the rules. She never gave a damn about rules anyway. But you did, didn't you? True, it was a rather minor infraction, perhaps, but it was the first step. And when she got what she wanted, she told you who she really was. And after that first broken rule, the first secret kept from your superiors, this one was a little easier to keep, especially since it was such a momentous one. How could you tell anyone that you'd married a two-thousand-year-old sorceress?"

The expression on Thanatos's face told Modred he was right.

"I imagine she waited for some time after that before she told you about me," Modred continued, "about who Morpheus really was. And by then you had become more accustomed to keeping secrets, which was rather fortunate, because this one was a little more difficult to bear. One of the I.T.C.'s most wanted criminals rums out to be your stepson. And your wife, his mother, was the agent in charge of his case. Suddenly, without doing anything but falling in love, you had become corrupt. And perhaps you began to wonder if the only difference between you and someone like Al'Hassan was a difference of degree."

Thanatos turned pale.

"Modred ..." Wyrdrune said, taking him by the arm.

"No." Thanatos said tensely. "Let him have his say."

"I'm almost finished," Modred said. "When Morgana died, you probably blamed yourself. Perhaps you believed that if you were forthcoming with the truth, you might have prevented it somehow. Well, you couldn't have. Nothing you could possibly have done would have changed a thing. The bitter irony is that for the first time in her life, she acted in an unselfish way and it resulted in her death. So now here you are, working with the Los Angeles police in your official position as an agent of the I.T.C., only the I.T.C. knows nothing of your actions. Technically, that makes you a renegade agent, but that isn't what concerns me. What concerns me is that I think you are a guilt-ridden man embarked on a crusade to right an entire plethora of wrongs, both real and imagined, to make up for your past mistakes, when in fact the only real mistake you made was falling in love with the wrong person. I frankly don't care about your emotional self-flagellation, but a guilt-ridden crusader might very well get us all killed and that's something I care about very much, indeed."

"Are you finished?" Thanatos said tightly.

"Yes, I'm finished. How did I do?"

"Not badly," Thanatos said. "Not badly, at all." He smiled tightly. "Your mother was right about you. You really are a heartless bastard, aren't you?"

"Quite literally," said Modred. '

"So, you've said your piece. Now I'll say mine. Whatever feelings of guilt I may or may not have are none of your business. The relationship I had with your mother is none of your business, either. After all, you two were hardly what one could call close. My internal conflicts regarding my duty as an agent of the I.T.C. are none of your business, either, although I can see where you may be concerned about them."

"Look, this isn't getting us anywhere," said Wyrdrune.

"No, now you let me finish," Thanatos said. He turned back to Modred. "First of all, I do not see myself as a crusader, and though I grieve over Fay's death, believe me, I am not so filled with remorse that I would throw away my own life. However, I do find myself in a very difficult position, a position that, from the ethical standpoint, is very similar to the position in which I found myself when your mother told me about you. You were quite correct on that point; I commend you on your insight. It was one thing to keep our marriage a secret, because in spite of the department regulations, that was something that really didn't hurt anyone and I didn't think the department had any business regulating the personal lives of its agents."

"How very naive of you," said Modred.

"Perhaps, but that is beside the point. The point is that although it was a breach of regulations, it was something I could live with, even if it did require some rationalization. But you were quite right, it was the first crack, so to speak, in the foundation of my ethics. When I found out about you, that wasn't something I could live with very easily at all. And yet I did, for her sake. So the crack opened a lot wider. But the foundation did not break. I accept the responsibility for the decisions that I made. I may not be very happy about them, but I do not feel guilt-ridden. More fallible, perhaps, but not guilty. Which brings us to the crux of the situation.

"I've come to the conclusion that the existence of the Dark Ones must be kept a closely guarded secret," he continued. "Not only because knowledge of their existence would bring panic to the population of the world, but because it would also completely undermine most of the world's spiritual belief systems, as well. And I do not wish to see a repetition of the Spanish Inquisition or the Salem witch trials, where thousands of innocent people were condemned to death. Such a climate of fear would only serve to help the Dark Ones."

"That's a very sensible conclusion," Merlin said, blowing out a long stream of peppermint-scented smoke.

"But knowing what I know, I can't simply sit by and do nothing," Thanatos said. "So I would like to help you."

"You can help us best by not getting involved," said Modred.

"That isn't an option," Thanatos said curtly.

"We aren't giving you any options," Modred replied.

"Wait a minute," Wyrdrune said to him. "Don't we get a say in this too?"

"I'm against it," Modred stated.

"Why? We didn't know about Brother Khasim. He did."

"That's right," said Kira. "He was ahead of us on that one."

"We would have tracked him down," said Modred.

"Yes, but not as quickly," Wyrdrune said. "Modred, you're allowing your personal feelings to get in the way. We could use someone on the inside at the I.T.C. Someone who could obtain information for us, get cooperation from the police. Run interference with the B.O.T. if need be."

"I am perfectly willing to let him do those things," said Modred. "But I'm against his taking an active part in this."

"You let Michael Blood take part," protested Thanatos, "and he wasn't even an adept."

"The question is not open to discussion!" Modred said, raising his voice.

"I'm sorry," Wyrdrune said. "I don't recall our ever voting to place you in charge."

Modred spun around to face him, his eyes flashing with anger. For a moment, they simply stared at each other, then Modred said, "Fine. Have it your way. But I'll not be held responsible."

He flung his arms up and teleported.

Thanatos took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm sorry," he said "I only wanted to help. It was not my intention to cause dissension."

"I don't think it's your fault," said Kira. "Not directly, anyway."

"I don't understand."

"Modred won't admit it," she said, "but I think he's carrying around some guilt himself. What do you know about that ring you're wearing?"

"Fay . . . that is, Morgana gave it to me. On our wedding night. It seemed important to her. She said she'd had it for a very long time."

"For at least two thousand years," said Kira. "Modred said it belonged to her mother, Igraine, who received it on her wedding night, from Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall. He was the youngest member of the Council of the White. The last of the Old Ones."

"I had no idea," Thanatos said, looking at the ring.

"You should have seen his face when Michael Blood told him about the ring," said Kira.

"I still don't understand."

"Don't you?" she said. "For all the distance between them, he still loved her. And he himself never felt loved. Only used."

"Ah," said Thanatos. "I'm beginning to see. Her giving me this ring implies a depth of feeling that she never had for him. So he resents me."

"No, he doesn't resent you," Kira said with a wry smile. "He's jealous of you."

"May I see that ring?" said Merlin.

Thanatos walked over to the boy, took the ring off, and handed it to him. Billy turned the ring over in his hands several times examining the runes carved into the setting, gazing deep into the large fire opal stone.

"Curious," he said. "You mean you never felt it?"

Thanatos frowned. "Felt what?"

"The power," Merlin said. "The power in the ring."

"What?" said Thanatos, raising his eyebrows.

Merlin handed it back to him. "You don't sense anything now?"

Thanatos took the ring back and stared at it. "No. Nothing."

"And you're a sensitive, too," said Merlin. "That's very interesting."

"What is it?" Wyrdrune asked.

"The ring's enchanted," Merlin said.

"How?" Thanatos said. "What sort of an enchantment?"

The boy shrugged. "I haven't the faintest idea," Merlin said. "But whatever it is, it's a spell that's at least as old as the runestones. And now I suggest that you ring room service and have them send up some breakfast. We have a great deal to discuss."

 

CHAPTER Eleven

Khasim did not know where he was. A palace of some sort, judging by the vaulted ceiling, the arched cross-wall, and the stone pillars. The walls were hung with ornate tapestries depicting scenes of savage, carnal degradation, demonic visions that would have shocked even a de Sade. He had appeared inside the torch-lit chamber, the incensed braziers reeking heavily of musk, and though his clothes were wet with blood, the bullet wounds were gone, as if they'd never even been there. As he slowly pushed himself up to his feet, an imperious female voice commanded him to turn around. He did so and his mouth fell open.

Before, she had always appeared to him as a shadowy, featureless specter, a darkly glowing manifestation whose voice he had come to know as well as his own, but whose face he'd never seen. He saw it now. And it was so beautiful it took his breath away.

Her oval, fine-boned face was framed by lush, flame-red hair that fell long and thick to a point below her waist. Her skin was a creamy, almost golden color, and her eyes were a fire storm of gold-flecked green. Her nose was straight as a blade, her chin slightly pointed, her mouth wide and sensual, the lips thin and delicately formed. She leaned back languorously on her throne, a thin circlet of hammered gold around her forehead, her tall, slender frame sheathed in a simple, form-fitting gown of raw black silk, cut low and slit deeply up the side to expose a long and shapely leg. She was barefoot, with a thin gold chain around one ankle. Her green eyes flashed at him and when she spoke, her voice was like a whip crack.

"You dare stand in my presence?"

Khasim's legs suddenly buckled, as if he'd been struck viciously across the knees with an iron bar. He actually heard his bones crack. He collapsed to his hands and knees in agony, pressing his forehead to the floor.

"Forgive me, Mistress! Aaah! Please, Mistress, the pain ..."

"Pain? What is your pain to me?"

"For pity's sake . . . aaah! God!"

"God?" she said, raising an eyebrow. "What god has done for you as much as I have? It was I who healed your wounds. It was I who saved your worthless life and brought you here."

"Have pity, Mistress . . . aaah! I beg you, make it stop!"

"Beg then," she said. "Crawl to me, like the vile lizard that you are."

His entire body was wreathed in pain, as if his bones were being splintered. He started crawling toward her, every slightest movement a symphony of torture, every breath a sobbing gasp of agony. She sat, watching him implacably as he slowly dragged himself, whimpering, across the floor. He reached the dais, crawled up the throne, took her foot, and kissed it. It was cold. As cold as ice.

"Please, Mistress, I beg you. . . . Make it stop. . . ."

The pain abruptly went away. He collapsed at her feet, breathing hard, sobbing with relief.

"Thank you, Mistress, thank you. . . ."

He glanced up and his eyes opened wide in astonishment. A second earlier, she had been alone. Now there were two of them. A tall and youthful-looking man stood beside her, leaning against the back of the throne. His skin was a pale golden color and his hair a darker shade of red than hers, falling to his shoulders.

"What do you think, sister?" he asked. "What shall we do with it? Has it outlived its usefulness?"

Khasim turned pale. He opened his mouth to protest, but his throat felt suddenly constricted and only a soft, strangled gasp came out.

"Perhaps, Ashtar," she said. "Still, his life energy can be useful."

They looked down at him as if he were some curious beetle that had scuttled across their field of vision. Khasim began to tremble with dread at the thought that they might do to him as he had done to so many others.

"It is a wretched-looking creature, is it not?" said Ashtar. "Yet, I suppose it's possible it might be of some further use."

"Yes! Yes, I can be of use!" Khasim said desperately. "I've served you well! When have I ever failed you? Haven't I done everything you've asked? Tell me what more I can do! Name it! I'll do anything!"

They turned to one another and smiled.

"We do need a priest, Yasmine," Ashtar said.

Khasim wasn't sure he heard correctly. "A . . .a priest?" he said.

"A sorcerer priest," Yasmine said with a sly smile. And her next words chilled Khasim to the bone.

"For the Black Sabbath."

 

Jacqueline Marie-Lisette de Charboneau Monet, who insisted on her name being pronounced "Zha-kleen" and never "Jack-we-line," looked more like a French leading lady than a witch. She was in her late forties, but she had the figure of a woman in her twenties. She chain-smoked unfiltered French cigarettes and could drink a Cossack under the table. She favored neo-Edwardian-style brocade suits and wore her dark, gray-streaked hair shoulder-length. Her voice was a husky whiskey baritone, her manner was abrupt and frequently abrasive, and she spoke English with only a slight accent. Most of the police agencies of Europe had a long dossier on her, remarkable in that it listed a large number of arrests for an entire plethora of charges ranging from fraud to grand larceny, and yet not one single conviction.

In contrast, the ebullient Sebastian Makepeace was a bombastic giant of a man, standing six foot six and weighing about three hundred pounds. His flowing, shoulder-length white hair was topped off by a black beret and his out-of-style brown tweeds were covered by a full-length, black leather trench coat. His voice had as much volume as a bullhorn and the only record he had was one of complaints from his fellow faculty members at New York University, many of whom took exception to a professor who was rumored to have connections with government intelligence, taught most of his classes drunk, and claimed to be a fairy. It was not that the more staid members of the faculty objected to his sexual orientation. There was no question on that score. Makepeace was relentlessly, incorrigibly, irrepressibly heterosexual. What they objected to was Makepeace claiming that he was literally a fairy ... a magical sprite, in other words, the sort of creature usually depicted as being of miniature size, with gauzy apparel and gossamer wings.

The fact that Makepeace did not come even remotely close to matching this image did not discommode him in the least. If anything, it made him even more vociferous in his insistence that he was a supernatural being, a fey creature of enchantment. And the fact that the words "fey" and "fairy" had taken on considerably different connotations since the days when they were universally understood to refer to things magical made Makepeace even more vociferous. On occasion, it even made him violent. And a violent, six foot six, three-hundred-pound fairy was a thing not to be trifled with.

Thanatos already had some knowledge of Jacqueline Monet from seeing her Interpol dossier and he had been somewhat prepared for Makepeace by Chief Inspector Michael Blood, who had experienced some of his "fairy magic" up close and personal.

"I never was able to decide if Makepeace was simply a very gifted, albeit seriously neurotic sorcerer or if he was actually a fairy, as he claims," Blood had told him. "Mind you, there's a damn good case to be made in favor of neurosis, but I've known a good many adepts in my time—including the unforgettable amalgam of Merlin and young Slade—and none of them made use of thaumaturgy in quite the same way Makepeace does. I'm well aware that the I.T.C. accepts only the most talented adepts, but just the same . . .when it comes to Makepeace, watch yourself."

Thanatos recalled that warning as he stood with Wyrdrune, Kira, and Billy, waiting for Makepeace and Monet to deplane. He also recalled that first and foremost, their allegiance was to Modred, as both had been clandestine contacts of Morpheus for years. Modred's days as Morpheus were over, or at least so they all claimed, yet just the same, Thanatos resolved to be very cautious around his new associates.

"There they are," said Kira as they came into the concourse, and Thanatos had no difficulty in recognizing them from their descriptions.

Makepeace looked even larger than he had expected, the effect bolstered by his wild hair and dramatic attire. He looked like a black leather dirigible moving through the crowd, which parted before him with alacrity. Jacqueline Monet walked beside him with a firm, athletic stride, yet she still took two steps for every one of his. They both carried shoulder bags.

Hers was a businesslike piece of brown leather hand luggage with a buckle strap; his was a voluminous carpetbag that seemed to have been made from a handwoven Persian rug, suspended from a wide band of woven cloth that resembled a cross between a Navajo belt and a cyberpunk's guitar strap.

Jacqueline spotted Thanatos and hesitated, checking Sebastian's juggernautlike stride with a firm grasp on his elbow. She spoke to him quickly and he frowned, then they resumed their approach.

"Every time I see the three of you," she said, "you appear to be fraternizing with policemen. Did you know this man was an agent of the I.T.C.?"

"Yes, Miss Monet, they knew," said Thanatos. "Didn't Chief Inspector Blood tell you about me?"

"Who?" Jacqueline said carefully, uncertain of her ground.

"Apparently he didn't tell you," Thanatos replied. "In which case, I'm curious as to how you knew me."

"I saw you testify in court once," she said.

Thanatos frowned. "In Paris? I don't recall testifying in a case involving you."

"I was not charged in that case," she replied evasively. "I was merely observing from the gallery."

"No doubt because you must have been involved," said Thanatos dryly.

"You expect me to implicate myself?"

"No, Miss Monet," he replied with a smile. "Your record indicates that you are far too competent for that. I've testified in a number of cases in Paris over the years. I won't try to guess which one might have involved you. And as for your friends fraternizing with 'policemen,' as you put it, it wasn't entirely their decision. At least one of them is doing so under protest."

"And who would that be?" Makepeace asked cautiously.

"That would be your old friend, Modred," Thanatos replied. "Alias Morpheus, alias John Roderick, Michael Cornwall, and an entire host of other names. You see, you need not be so circumspect. I'm very well informed."

"So it would seem," said Makepeace with a questioning glance at Wyrdrune.

"Thanatos is here to help us," Wyrdrune explained. "It's okay. He knows everything."

"Does he?" said Jacqueline with surprise. "And where is Modred now?"

"He's picking up our things and checking us out of the hotel," said Kira. "It's no longer safe there. Thanatos has arranged a place for us to stay. We'll be meeting Modred there, along with some other people. We've got a car waiting."

"It's probably best to avoid teleporting so we can conserve our energies," Wyrdrune explained.

"Especially the way you teleport," said Kira wryly.

Wrydrune gave her a sour look, then turned to the others. "Come on, I'll fill you in on the way."

With Thanatos handling the driving chores, they left the airport and took the freeway to a rented house nestled on a hillside in Laurel Canyon. As the car skimmed smoothly and quickly above the surface of the road, Wyrdrune brought them up-to-date.

"Things have escalated in the last twenty-four hours. The Dark Ones know we're here and too many people knew we were staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel. However, we still have an advantage in that they don't know about you two. At least, not yet."

"They?" said Makepeace. "You mean there's more than one of them?"

"At least two," said Kira. "Maybe more. At this point, we just don't know for sure.

"That's not encouraging news," said Makepeace with a grunt. "What about these other people you mentioned?"

"Rebecca Farrell, a captain in the Los Angeles Police Department, and Ben Slater, a reporter," said Wyrdrune. "They've been working independently with Thanatos up 'til now."

"Just how many people have you got involved in this?" asked Jacqueline.

"There's also a local producer we've been using as a contact," Wyrdrune said, "a man named Ron Rydell, but he doesn't really know what's going on. He owed Modred a favor."

"An adept who's been casting the special effects illusions for his films turned out to be in the service of the Dark Ones," said Kira. "He goes by the name Brother Khasim. He was also operating a charity mission on the Sunset Strip as a cover for his necromancy. He's been preying on the street people he was pretending to help, runaways, derelicts, hookers, sacrificing them to the Dark Ones. But last night, the mission was burned down. The bodies of a B.O.T. agent named Gorman and several women were found in the ruins. Khasim killed them and then went on a wild rampage, murdering over a dozen people on the street. And he may not have been the only one."

"You mean there have been more mass killings?" asked Jacqueline.

"If you mean mass killings like Al'Hassan's, no," said Wyrdrune. "At least, not that we know about. Captain Farrell is checking police reports statewide, but the Dark Ones seem to have been specifically avoiding that so far. Any spell powerful enough to consume life energy in a mass sacrifice on the scale that Al'Hassan did would release trace emanations strong enough to be detected at a distance. And they're apparently not ready to come out into the open yet. But after last night, it could come at any time."

"I don't like this at all," Jacqueline said. "Too many people are involved. The police, the B.O.T., the I.T.C., and even a journalist?" She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I cannot believe it. Why not just call a press conference and announce it to the world?"

"It wasn't their decision to involve the others, Miss Monet," Thanatos replied. "That was my doing. Captain Farrell and Mr. Slater are the only ones aside from us who really know what's going on and you have my personal assurance that they can be trusted to keep it to themselves."

"I'm afraid the personal assurance of an I.T.C. agent does not mean very much to me," Jacqueline said. "Al'Hassan was on the board of the I.T.C, as I recall."

"Then you should also recall that he was ousted," Thanatos replied testily. "But your point is well taken, Miss Monet. For your information, my involvement in this matter is completely off the record. So far as the I.T.C. knows, I'm investigating the disappearance of one of our agents."

"Fay Morgan?" Makepeace said.

"Yes, that's right."

Makepeace hesitated. "You know she's—"

"I know she's dead, yes," Thanatos said flatly. "She was my wife."

"Your wife?" Makepeace said incredulously. "But that's . . . that's. . ."

"Impossible?" said Thanatos without emotion. "Is that what you were going to say? Impossible that the enchantress, Morgan Le Fay, should marry a mere mortal? I'd think that you of all people, Doctor, considering your reputation with female undergraduates, would acknowledge that such attractions can occur."

"Is this true?" Jacqueline asked the others with astonishment. "Does Modred—"

"Yes, he knows," said Thanatos curtly, interrupting her. " And he's satisfied himself that it's the truth. Though it seems he doesn't like it very much."

"I think I'm beginning to understand," §aid Jacqueline slowly. "This is something very personal for you."

"Oh yes," said Thanatos in a soft voice. "It's very personal, indeed." He paused. "I loved her very much."

"I am glad you told us that," Jacqueline said.

Thanatos glanced at her in the rearview mirror. "Why do you say that?"

"Because that is something I can understand," she replied. "I would sooner trust someone who seeks revenge than to merely do his duty. Revenge is a much stronger motive."

She reached into her bag and took out a silver flask.

"To revenge, mon ami," she said, and took a gulp. She passed the flask to Thanatos.

"I'll drink to that," said Thanatos grimly.

They turned off the freeway onto Laurel Canyon Boulevard and headed south. Once they reached the canyon itself, with its steeply curving roads, they took a side road that climbed up the hillside and bent back upon itself though several switchbacks until they came to a short driveway leading to a small frame house nestled out of sight behind a grove of trees and some rock outcroppings. Several vehicles were parked in the small open carport and in front of the house.

"What is this place?" asked Makepeace.

"A police safehouse," Thanatos replied. "Captain Farrell arranged for us to stay here indefinitely. We'll even have police protection. Two officers will be stationed outside at all times, though of course they're not aware of the exact nature of this case."

"What have they been told?" Jacqueline asked.

"Something fairly close to the truth, actually," said Thanatos. "They've been told that several 'expert witnesses' and an investigating team will be using the house as a base of operations in a case involving serial murder and necromancy. Needless to say, after last night, they all know about Brother Khasim. The media's been playing it up big all day, especially since he managed to escape. However, officially this is still a case involving one renegade sorcerer and nothing more. No one else knows about the Dark Ones."

Modred had already arrived, as had Rebecca Farrell and Ben Slater. While they were all being introduced to one another, the broom came swishing in, carrying a tray with coffee and doughnuts.

"So there you are!" it said, in an affronted tone. "You'd think maybe somebody would tell me what was going on, but noooo. . . . There I am, stuck in the hotel, nobody calls, nobody tells me where anybody is, I've swept the room for the twenty-second time and the maids are starting to give me tips—"

"I'm sorry, Broom, we've been very busy," Wyrdrune said.

"Busy, shmizzy! Well, excuse me, Mr. Man-about-town! It takes so much effort to pick up a telephone? It takes so much time to say 'Never mind with dinner, we'll be working late'? And then I have to run around and do all the packing for you when I suddenly find out that we're moving? It's too much trouble to call and say what's going on, so a person doesn't worry?"

Wyrdrune sighed. "I'm sorry, Broom, you're absolutely right; it won't happen again."

The broom sniffed, which was mildly interesting, since without a nose, it really had nothing to sniff with. "Hmpf! I've heard that before!"

It finished pouring the coffee, then swept out of the room in a huff.

"Every time I see that thing, it makes me feel guilty that I haven't called my mother," Makepeace said.

"Phone's over there," Rebecca said.

"My mother's been dead for thirty years," said Makepeace with a sad shake of his head. "Guilt lingers."

"I've had a couple of calls from some of my old sources," said Slater, getting down to business. "I picked up the messages at the paper and got back to some of them from here. They'll call the paper in case they come up with anything else and I've arranged for the calls to be forwarded here."

Thanatos nodded with approval. "That's good. What have you heard?"

"You were right," said Slater. "There have been other disappearances among the street people, most notably the homeless and the addict population. And I don't think Brother Khasim's responsible for all of them, not unless he's been moving around an awful lot. There've been a number of unexplained disappearances in Venice, at least nine that my source knew of, people who had established patterns of behavior who suddenly broke the pattern and simply weren't seen by anybody anymore. I've also learned of similar cases in Burbank, Watts, and Maywood, as well as Pico Rivera, El Monte, and Covina."

As he spoke, he indicated the various areas on a map spread out on the coffee table. Rebecca took over when he was finished.

"I called the station shortly after we got here and spoke with the detectives I had checking with various local police agencies," she said. "And once again, Thanatos, you were absolutely right. There were patterns. Six ritual murders in Huntington Beach, same m.o. as Khasim's, only several of them occurred at times when Khasim's whereabouts were accounted for. There were also five murders in Newport Beach, six in Santa Ana, four in Buena Park, and seven in Placentia. All the same m.o.; all with the same peculiar runes carved into the bodies.

"We've also got a pattern of disappearances," she continued. "Three apparent abductions in Fullerton, high school girls who never made it home. No ransom demands were ever received. No leads; no clues. Nothing. They were all seen heading home, but none of them ever made it. We've got nine missing persons reports in Orange; similar circumstances. Only this time, four of the missing young people were male. Similar reports out of Garden Grove, Irvine, and Costa Mesa, as well as La Mirada, La Habra, Brea, Villa Park, and Tustin. You noticing anything here?"

She too had been indicating the areas on the map as she spoke.

"It all seems to be radiating out from an approximate center," Makepeace said.

"That's right, Doc," said Rebecca, indicating a spot on the map with her index finger. "About right here."

"Anaheim?" said Thanatos.

Wyrdrune and Kira exchanged surprised glances.

"What?" said Thanatos, looking up at them. "What's in Anaheim?"

"The Magic Kingdom," Wyrdrune said in a hushed tone.

 

Once, years before the time of the Collapse, a man named Disney had a vision of a special, magical place for children of all ages, a fairyland of entertainment that would appeal to the innocent in everyone. Located about thirty miles southeast of Los Angeles in Anaheim, the original park had been called Disneyland and it covered close to a hundred acres. The Magic Kingdom, as it came to be known to millions of enchanted visitors the world over, had something for the dreamer in everyone.

Originally, the Magic Kingdom was divided into different lands—"Adventureland," "Frontierland," "Tomorrowland," "Fantasyland" and so on, each with its own special atmosphere and attractions. In addition to spectacular rides such as the Matterhorn bobsled ride, the Space Mountain, the Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Mississippi riverboat, there were lifelike figures created by an almost magical technology known as "audio-animatronics," as well as real people costumed as fantastic characters from the live-action and animated films the Disney studios produced. It was a clean, well-maintained, and ever-changing world of wonder where everyone who came could forget their troubles for a while and become a child once again.

But sadly, the Magic Kingdom was forgotten in the time of the Collapse. There was no time for magic dreams when everyone was trapped within a living nightmare. And as corporations and governments alike collapsed the world over, so did the Magic Kingdom. There was no one left to wear the brightly colored costumes of Snow White and Mickey Mouse and no children came to wonder at these characters. With all the power gone, the incredible animatronic figures froze into silent immobility. The wonderful rides ground to a halt and slowly fell into disrepair. The Haunted Mansion became truly haunted, empty save for the ghosts of all the children who had once tramped through it to scream in delighted terror at the playful apparitions it contained.

After the Collapse had ended and magic had returned, there was a time of rebuilding and realignment with the natural forces that were once abused so cruelly. For a long while, with the memory so recent and so painful, no one wanted to remember the Collapse or the time that came before, when greed and irresponsibility had almost destroyed the world. It took many more years before people could accept that in addition to the bad things, there were good things about the old days prior to the Collapse. And one of those good things had been the Magic Kingdom.

A small, devoted group of antiquarians and scholars, comprised of both magic-users and lay people, joined together and acquired some of the land where the remains of the Magic Kingdom stood. There was not much left of it. Most of the buildings had long since been leveled and those that had been left standing were in ruins. But the new owners of the property did not give up. They formed an organization called "Knights of the Magic Kingdom" and, for a small fee that constituted annual dues plus whatever people wanted to contribute in addition, opened its membership to anyone who wished to join them in restoring the Magic Kingdom to its former glory.

There was a monthly newsletter that detailed their work and issued periodic calls for volunteers to come and spend some time in the laborious restoration project. There was a quarterly magazine that featured articles painstakingly researched and illustrated, depicting the Magic Kingdom as it once had been and telling anew the wonderful stories that had once issued from its creators. There were membership kits including an I.D., a "mousca-pin" and "mousca-patch," as well as a ranking system (from "Subject" to "Page" to "Squire" to "Knight" and even "Lord" or "Lady") based upon volunteer work and amounts donated, which also entitled members to free visits to the Kingdom and various other privileges and prizes. And when the craze for pre-Collapse nostalgia hit, membership in the Knights of the Magic Kingdom grew by leaps and bounds.

Soon, the new Kingdom was completed, this time with real magic powering its rides, attractions, and illusions. And adopting the slogan, "Earth is a Magic Kingdom," the Knights continued to support the Kingdom and work toward awareness of the magic energy inherent in all things.

As a boy, Wyrdrune had been a proud member of the Knights of the Magic Kingdom and had held the rank of "Page." Ben Slater somewhat wistfully confessed that he had also been a member, making it as far as "Squire," and Rebecca said she was a full-fledged "Knight" in her late teens, having often spent summers doing volunteer work at the Kingdom. Makepeace, as it turned out, was still a member with the rank of "Lord" and while Billy, due to his harsh life in the London slums, had never before heard of the Magic Kingdom, Merlin surprised all of them when he revealed that he had been one of the founders who began the restoration project. The thought that the Dark Ones might actually be hiding in the Magic Kingdom was a profound shock to each and every one of them.

"You know, I've always wanted to go there," Thanatos said, "but somehow I never found the time."

"My mom took me there once when I was thirteen," said Wyrdrune. "I've never forgotten it."

"One summer I got to be Cinderella," Rebecca recalled. "I still have a picture of myself wearing the costume."

"I always wanted to be Peter Pan and fly away to NeverNeverland," said Kira.

"Well, you've got Tinkerbell right here," said Modred, grinning at Makepeace.

"If that's Tinkerbell, then I'm Pinocchio," said Wyrdrune.

"How'd you like your nose to grow about a foot?" growled Makepeace.

"Enough!" Jacqueline said. "Before we go jumping to conclusions, first of all, how do we know that the Dark Ones are somewhere in the Magic Kingdom?"

"We don't know for certain," admitted Thanatos, "but it does seem as if it would provide the ideal hiding place for them. With all the thaumaturgic energy it must take to power the Magic Kingdom, the trace emanations from their spells could easily go unnoticed unless one were specially looking for them."

"But surely the staff adepts there would have become aware of necromantic spells being cast within their midst!" Jacqueline said. "The trace emanations would be greater! Surely someone would have seen or felt something!"

"Perhaps not," said Makepeace thoughtfully. "Thanatos does have a point. True, the thaumaturgic energy already present in the Magic Kingdom might not be enough to mask the far more powerful trace emanations of necromancy, but it might easily help hide the existence of a spell maintaining a dimensional portal such as the one we encountered in London."

"That's true," said Merlin. "The energy used to maintain a dimensional portal wouldn't have to be any more powerful than the spells used to maintain many of the illusions in the Magic Kingdom."

He used Billy's left hand to slap at his right, which was in the process of reaching for a jelly doughnut.

"Ey!" protested Billy. "Wot's the idea?"

"I can't speak with you stuffing your mouth full."

"But I'm bloody famished!"

"You've already eaten six of those damn things!" said Merlin. "You'll give us an upset stomach!"

"Yeah, an' you should talk with all that rotten swamp moss you go stuffin' in your pipe all the bleedin' time!"

"Look, can you two settle this some other time?" said Kira. "We've got more important things to worry about right now."

Wyrdrune grimaced. "Yeah. Such as how to find a magic doorway hidden somewhere in the middle of a place that's full of spells."

 

CHAPTER Twelve

Jessica Blaine gasped as she opened the door. "What are you doing here?"

"You don't sound very pleased to see me, Jessie," said Khasim, pushing past her into the luxurious apartment. "The last time we spoke, I got the distinct impression you thought we should get to know each other better."

"That was before the police were looking for you," she said, then put her hand up to her mouth in her patented theatrical gesture, performed so often it had apparently become natural to her. She stood by the open door and clutched her white silk robe around her.

"Oh? Were the police looking for me?"

He glanced around at her apartment. The living room was decorated all in white. White carpeting, white walls, white furniture, white marble on the bar and coffee tables. A large oil painting of Jessica hung over the mantelpiece, showing her nearly naked, strategically wrapped in a white fur, head back, lips pouting invitation. He smiled.

"You must be crazy, coming here," she said behind him. "What do you want?"

He turned around to face her. "You," he said.

She drew herself up indignantly. "Get out."

Khasim made a languid gesture and the door to the apartment slammed shut with a bang.

"In good time," he said softly.

"Jessica?" said a man's voice from the bedroom. "Who was that?"

By the accent and the drink-slurred speech, Khasim easily recognized the voice of Burton Clive.

"Really, Jessie," he said, turning back to her and frowning disapprovingly. "You disappoint me. I might have thought you would have better taste than that."

"Get out, Khasim," she said, picking up the phone. "Get out right now, before I call security."

Khasim chuckled. "Go ahead and call them."

"You don't think I will?"

"I couldn't care less, Jessie. If you really believe that the security guards can help you, then by all means, call them. They weren't very helpful in keeping me out."

She hesitated, still holding the phone. . "Jessica, who was that at the door?" said Burton Clive, coming out of the bedroom, belting one of her spare robes around himself. It was pink silk with a fur ruff around the collar and wide, fur-trimmed bell sleeves. He saw Khasim and stopped abruptly. "Good Lord!"

"Good evening, Burton," Khasim said. "I must say, that looks rather becoming on you. The color matches your eyes."

"Bertie, throw him out!" said Jessica. "I'm calling building security." She began to dial.

"Now ... eh, let's not be too hasty, darling," said Clive uncertainly, finding it difficult to maintain his Shakespearian poise in a fuzzy pink lounging robe. "After all, we're responsible, civilized adults. ..."

"Civilized, my ass," said Jessica. "This man's a murderer! Hello? Security?"

Khasim sauntered over to the bar, picked up a bottle of expensive Scotch, and poured himself a drink. "She's right, you know," he said. "Haven't you seen the news?"

"Security, this is Jessica Blaine. A man's just broken into my apartment. He's wanted by the police for murder. He's a lunatic! Get up here right away!"

Khasim poured another glass for Clive and offered it to him. "Join me?"

Clive swallowed hard and nervously ran a hand through his thick, graying hair. "Uh . . . don't mind if I do," he said, taking the glass and tossing it back quickly. "Now see here, Khasim ... I... I won't pretend to know just what's going on here, but. . . well, there's no reason why we can't be civil about this, is there?"

"Another?" said Khasim, picking up the bottle.

Clive took a deep breath and held out his glass while Khasim filled it to the brim.

"Look, what Jessica said just now ... I mean, that is ... I. . .I'm sure there must have been some kind of unfortunate mistake. No doubt it's all some sort of terrible misunderstanding."

"No," said Khasim, shaking his head. "There's been no mistake. The police are looking for me because l am a murderer. A necromancer, to be exact. I've sacrificed dozens of people to the Dark Powers. One more?"

"Dear God." Clive's hand shook as he held the glass while Khasim poured.

"Oh, God has very little to do with it, I'm afraid," Khasim said.

"Bertie, for God's sake, do something!" Jessica shouted.

"What would you have me do?" Clive said helplessly. "The man's a sorcerer." He slam-dunked the Scotch and took a deep breath. "Look," he told Khasim, "I don't know anything. Honestly. I haven't seen the news, so I really don't know what you're talking about. In any case, I swear, I won't tell anyone a thing. ..."

"How can you, if you don't know anything?" Khasim said, refilling Clive's glass yet again.

"Yes . . . yes, of course. ..."

Someone started hammering on the outside of the door.

"Miss Blaine? Security! Open up, Miss Blaine!"

"Come, Jessie, it's time to go," Khasim said.

"You must be out of your mind," she said. "I'm not going anywhere with you!"

"Miss Blaine! Miss Blaine, open the door!"

She turned to get the door. Khasim gestured at her.

And she vanished.

"Oh, my God. ..." whimpered Clive.

"Drink up, Burton," Khasim said, clinking the bottle against Clive's glass.

"Okay, break the door down!"

The bottle of Scotch crashed to the floor. Khasim was gone.

The door splintered and flew open as the security guards burst in with their guns drawn.

"All right, freeze! Don't make a move!"

Burton Clive stood there, swaying drunkenly, naked beneath a diaphanous pink silk lounging robe with pink fur trim around the sleeves and collar.

His eyes rolled up and he fainted dead away.

 

Detective Sergeant Harlan Bates stood at the head of the muster room, facing the uniformed and plainclothes police officers assembled before him.

"All right, now I'm going to go over this one more time to make sure that everybody's clear on this. All uniformed units will take up their positions near all entrances and exits to the Magic Kingdom. Plainclothes units will circulate inside the park within their respective assigned areas. Keep a low profile. Remember, we don't want to cause a panic. Captain Farrell wishes me to stress that we still don't know for sure the suspect's in there, but if he is. there's a good chance he may not be alone. He may have accomplices. In that event, when the signal comes, we're going to have to move in very quickly."

He slowly looked around at all their faces.

"None of you need to be reminded of what happened on the Strip the other night. Brother Khasim is an accomplished sorcerer who won't stop at killing police officers or innocent bystanders. He is insane and extremely dangerous. He is to be shot on sight. Those orders come straight from the I.T.C. agent in charge of this investigation, in case any of you might have concerns about your legal standing in this. And once again, any of you who might have such concerns need only think about what happened to Officers Paterno, Andruschak, and Levy on the Strip the other night. We never even found the remains of Andruschak and Levy. All we found were the charred pieces of their patrol car."

He looked around at everyone significantly.

"I want you to think about everything you've heard about this case," he said, maintaining eye contact with them. "I want you to think about the body of Sarah Tracy. You all saw the photographs and the coroner's report. I want you to think about what happened to Victor Cameron, who was literally torn apart while in police custody. I want you to think about those bodies that were discovered in the Lost Souls Mission after the fire that destroyed it. I want you to think about those hookers Khasim murdered and your brother officers who were slain and all the other victims whose bodies we haven't even found yet."

The room was utterly silent save for the sound of Bates slowly pacing back and forth.

"We know there is at least one sorcerer—Brother Khasim—who's gone renegade and has become a necromancer. Evidence strongly suggests there may be others and that they might have non-adept confederates. The layout of the Magic Kingdom and the diverse number of spells active throughout the park will make them difficult to find, but that's not your job. Captain Farrell and the I.T.C. investigating team will be taking care of that. I don't want any heroics. Your job is to move in when Captain Farrell gives the word and clear the people out of there as quickly and efficiently as possible.

"When the order comes," he continued, "I want everyone to follow instructions implicitly. I don't want any sirens. I don't want anyone running around with their weapons out. I don't want any panic. I don't want any accidents and I don't want any mistakes. I want the citizens moved out of the way and I want it done fast. Our number one priority is to keep the people safe. At all times, keep in mind that thaumaturgy draws its power from life energy, only a necromancer can utilize that power much faster and much more efficiently by drawing it from outside sources. ... In other words, by killing people. Lives are ammunition for the necromancer's spells. And it's the height of the tourist season. The Magic Kingdom will be full of lives."

*     *     *

"They're here," said Modred, bringing his hand up to his chest and touching the runestone through his shirt. "I can feel it."

Kira took off her black glove and gazed down at the sapphire runestone in her palm. It was glowing brightly.

"Right," she said. "Only how do we find them in this crowd?"

All around them, people surged in currents and eddies, standing in lines, buying snacks and souvenirs, jostling one another, pushing strollers and tugging small children behind them.

"We're simply going to have to let the runestones lead us to them," Modred said.

"How are you going to do that?" asked Thanatos.

"We'll head in one direction and see if the reaction of the stones is stronger. If it turns out to be, weaker, we go back the way we came until their pulsations become stronger once again."

"But that could take all day," protested Slater.

"It could," Modred admitted as they started walking. "However, we have no alternatives. The number of spells that are active in the park already complicate the situation. It would not surprise me if there were decoy spells in place, as well."

"Decoy spells?" Rebecca said with a frown. "What do you mean?"

"The Dark Ones may have cast spells specifically designed to throw us off at different locations in the park," Jacqueline explained.

"Necromantic spells intended to confuse the runestones," Wyrdrune added. "And probably to act as booby traps, as well. The spells could be cast in such a way as to be triggered by the power of the runestones."

Rebecca gave a small snort of exasperation. "Terrific. You're telling me they've sprinkled magical booby traps throughout the park?"

"It's very possible," said Modred, pausing and looking around uncertainly.

"Then why don't you just have the park closed down right now?" Slater said. "Get everyone evacuated."

"Because that will undoubtedly alert them that we're coming," Modred said. "And if they have enough advance warning, they can devise a spell that would endanger the lives of all these people. Timing is everything. We have to get in close enough before they can divert us by striking at the people."

"Fortunately, the same thing that's helping to mask their presence from us works against them, as well," said Wyrdrune. "With any luck, they won't be able to detect our presence until it's too late."

"Assuming we don't stumble into any of these magical booby traps," said Slater.

"We may not have to stumble into them, Mr. Slater," Modred said, looking around. "Some of them might well be ambulatory."

"What?" said Slater.

"They could be moving around the park," Modred said.

"You're sensing something?" Rebecca said, looking around uneasily.

"Perhaps not," said Modred. "I'm not sure. The feeling's not as strong as what I experienced when Khasim was close. There could be something near, but I don't have the sense that it's anyone living."

"Jesus, what the hell does that mean?" Slater said. "On second thought, I'm not sure I really want to know."

"Well, I do," Rebecca said. "I want to know what we're going up against. What are you saying, we might have some sort of zombie on our trail?"

"No, that wasn't what I meant," said Modred, "although it's an interesting possibility."

"Interesting isn't exactly the adjective I think I'd use," said Slater apprehensively.

"What I was thinking of was more like a sort of... well, a sort of mine, for lack of a better way of describing it," said Modred. "I've encountered spells used in that way once before, as part of a security grid for a—" He caught himself and glanced at Rebecca and Thanatos. "On second thought, it might be best if I did not elaborate on that point. Suffice it to say that it's possible to place a spell on something in such a way that its activation would be delayed and achieved only by a specific stimulus. For example, if a spell of this sort were to be placed upon an object you wanted to protect, then it could be cast so that merely touching the object would trigger it. Or perhaps the spell could be activated by picking the object up or trying to move it, or even by coming into the same room with it."

"And what would happen?" Slater said.

Modred shrugged. "It would depend entirely on the nature of the spell."

"What about the one you encountered?" asked Rebecca. "The one that was part of this security setup you mentioned. What would have happened if you'd triggered it?"

"Unfortunately, I did trigger it," said Modred. "I managed to escape, but two of my associates were not so fortunate. They died quite unpleasantly."

"Great," said Slater sourly.

"You don't have to come with us, you know," said Wyrdrune. "In fact, it would be better if you didn't. We may not be able to protect you. No one will think you're afraid if you elect to stay behind with the police."

"Are you kidding?" Slater said. "I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm afraid, but if Rebecca's coming with you, there's no way I'm staying behind."

"You don't have to protect me, Ben," she said. "I'm a police officer. This is my job."

"I'm not going to argue about it," he said. "I'm coming with you and that's final."

"Perhaps it might be better if we were to split up," said Makepeace.

"I agree," said Modred. "We could cover more ground that way and we're much too vulnerable bunched together like this."

"But I'm the only one who has a radio," Rebecca said. "How will we keep in touch?"

"We can communicate telepathically," Modred said. "The runestones can forge a mind link between Wyrdrune, Kira, and myself. It will mean expending a greater amount of energy, but it can't be helped. Wyrdrune, why don't you take Sebastian and Rebecca? Kira, you go with Ben and Thanatos. Billy and Jacqueline can come with me. That way we can teleport to whoever finds them first. But whatever you do, wait for the others. Don't go in alone. All right, let's go."

 

She awoke to find herself stretched out on something cold and hard. She was in a small, dark room, dimly illuminated by torchlight. She was chained down to a stone slab and she was completely naked. Two pretty teenaged girls stood over her, also naked, their eyes expressionless. One was fingering a string of beads and the other held a small ceramic bowl into which she kept dipping her fingers and then smearing the oily contents on Jessica's skin. Whatever it was, it smelled awful and it made her flesh tingle.

"What . . . what are you doing?" she stammered at the girl. "Stop that! Let me go! Leave me alone!"

The girl paid no attention to her. Slowly, methodically, she continued to spread the oily balm all over Jessica while her companion stood close beside her, fingering the beads and slowly swaying back and forth while making a tuneless sound somewhere between a hum and a groan.

"Don't touch me! Stop it, I said!"

"I'm afraid they can't do that, Jessie," said a familiar voice out of the darkness.

"Khasim?"

He stepped into her field of vision and looked down at her. "It's unguent, Jessie," he explained. "A very special sort of unguent, made from the blood of the lapwing and the bat, the raspings of necromantic bells, soot, and a few somewhat less appetizing ingredients. It's ground up by hand with a mortar and pestle, boiled over a fire of vervain and applied over every inch of flesh while it's still warm. It's known as 'witch's unguent,' and it's necessary to be anointed with it prior to the mass, so as to properly prepare the flesh. It nullifies the effects of Christian baptism, you see, allowing you to attend the Sabbath in the same state of nakedness and purity as Adam and Eve."

"What in God's name are you talking about?" she said, staring at him with fear.

"Not in God's name," said Khasim with a sinister smile. He held up his right hand with the thumb and two middle fingers bent in toward the palm, little finger and index finger extended. "In the name of Satan."

"You're crazy," Jessica whispered, shaking her head, refusing to believe that this was happening to her.

"Am I?" said Khasim, taking the string of beads from the second girl and holding them over Jessica's face, so she could see them. "Do you know what this is, Jessie?" he asked.

It looked like a small necklace strung with amber-colored beads that alternated with obsidian, as well as dice in various shapes and sizes, tiny bells of gold and silver, a broken crucifix, and what appeared to be a miniature skull.

"It is Satan's Rosary," said Khasim, handing the horrid thing back to the girl, who immediately started fingering it once again, counting the beads and swaying back and forth, groaning unintelligible words in some unspeakable, guttural tongue.

"And these," Khasim continued, holding up a large bowl filled with what looked like old brown sticks, "are the bones of a murderer buried in unhallowed ground. Crazy men imagine things that are not there, Jessie. Yet there is nothing imaginary here. It is all absolutely real and authentic."

He put down the bowl and picked up two black, leather-bound books, one in each hand.

"La Clavicule de Salomon," he said, showing her the one in his right hand. "And Le Grimoire du Pope Honorius." He held up the other book. "Both dating back to the seventeenth century. The Church declared these to be abominations and ordered them all burned, but a few were hidden away by the sorcerers of those dim, dark days, who only groped blindly toward the powers I serve now."

Jessica began to cry. "Khasim, please . . , please, I'm begging you, please let me go. I'll do anything, anything you want. . . ."

Somewhere above them, a giant gong was struck.

"It's time," Khasim said, his eyes glittering with madness.

The two ensorcelled girls, one holding the dish of bones, the other the bowl of witch's unguent and the Satan's Rosary, stepped up onto the platform on which stood the stone altar that Jessica was chained to. One of them stood on either side of her, their expressions vacant, their eyes glazed. Khasim also stepped up on the platform and stood at the foot of the stone slab, the two black books held clasped against his chest. "Khasim," sobbed Jessica, "please . . . please. ..." The gong rang out again and two trapdoors opened in the ceiling. With a low, scraping sound, the stone platform slowly began to rise.

 

"Mommy, Mommy, that man's got a rock in his head!" shouted the little five-year-old, tugging on his mother's hand and pointing at Wyrdrune.

They had stopped to make way for a small parade of fantastic-looking mythical creatures, little two-foot-high gargoyles with scaled, batlike wings and goat's horns, capering around for the amusement of the onlookers, led by a piper in a dark, hooded cloak. Wyrdrune scowled and pulled the brim of his hat down farther to cover the bright green emerald runestone.

"Come on, dear, it's not polite to point," said the boy's mother. She tried to pull him along, but he stubbornly dug in his heels and pulled back against her.

"Mommy, I want a rock in my head, too!"

The tired-looking woman glanced at Wyrdrune and gave him a strained, apologetic smile. "Come along now, Michael."

"Mommy, buy me a rock for my head!"

"Michael"

"I want a rock in my head, too!"

"Come on, Michael. . . ." She tugged sharply on her son's arm.

Wyrdrune brought his hand up to his forehead.

"Are you all right?" asked Rebecca.

"I don't know," said Wyrdrune. "There's something—"

"Mommy, look!"

The little gargoyles suddenly took flight, their metallic wings making clicking sounds as they swarmed toward Wyrdrune.

"Look out!" shouted Makepeace, shoving Wyrdrune aside as one of the creatures came diving down at him, raking the air with its sharp talons. It caught Wyrdrune's hat as he fell and the brown fedora started smoking as the caustic acid from the creature's talons ate into the cloth. Rebecca pulled out her gun, but there were too many people around to risk a shot.

The gem in Wyrdrune's forehead blazed and a bright green bolt of thaumaturgic energy shot out from it, striking one of the dive-bombing gargoyles as it plummeted toward Rebecca. The creature shrieked loudly and broke apart in an explosion of bright, gleaming shards that rained lightly to the ground like pieces of cut glass.

Makepeace whipped off his beret and threw it up into the air. It stiffened and started whirling like a discus, then began darting among the flying creatures with astonishing speed. As it struck them, they broke apart and fell to the ground, shattering into tiny fragments, the pieces melting away into small puddles of steaming ooze. Wyrdrune's energy bolts knocked the remaining few creatures out of the air and the onlookers broke into delighted applause at the display, thinking it was all part of the show. The beret returned to Makepeace like a boomerang and softly fell back into his outstretched hand.

"Mommy, Mommy, I want a frisbee hat, too!" the little boy named Michael shouted.

The hooded piper who had led the creatures took off running, his cloak billowing out behind him.

"Don't lose him!" Wyrdrune cried.

They shoved through the crowd, running after the hooded figure, who pushed through a line of people waiting to get into The Enchanted Grotto. He vaulted the gate, hopped into a cart, and disappeared inside.

"Hey, wait your turn!" one of the parents shouted as they pushed past the people on line in pursuit of the hooded figure.

"Wait a minute, lady," the attendant at the gate protested, grabbing at Rebecca's sleeve. "Get to the end of the line."

"Police officer!" she said, shoving the man away and leaping into a waiting rail cart. Wyrdrune and Makepeace piled in beside her as the cart shuddered off down the track, into the darkness. As they passed through an arched gateway made to look like the entrance to a cave, they were greeted by a cacophony of sounds, like the wailing of spirits echoing throughout the artificial cavern. They could barely see several feet ahead of them.

"I'm not sure this was such a good idea," said Rebecca, nervously holding her gun.

With a bloodcurdling howl, a grinning troll suddenly came scuttling out at them from a crevice in the wall. Rebecca fired and the magically animated troll burst apart in a shower of plaster dust.

"You'd better put that thing away," said Wyrdrune as their cart lurched around a sharp bend in the tunnel. The gem in his forehead glowed brightly in the darkness.

"That's it. I'm calling in the order to evacuate the park before somebody gets hurt," Rebecca said.

She reached for the radio she had clipped to her belt, but it wasn't there anymore.

"Damn! The radio's gone! I must have dropped it somewhere back there!"

"It's too late, we can't go back for it," said Wyrdrune. "We've got to catch that piper before he can warn the Dark Ones."

"We'll never do it at this rate," Makepeace said. "Hold on."

He took a deep breath, grabbed onto the edges of the cart and it suddenly started to pick up speed.

Kira heard Wyrdrune's voice in her mind and came to a sudden stop. "Wait," she said.

"What is it?" Merlin asked. "You sense something?"

"It's Wyrdrune," she said. "Come on, he's after someone!" She sent a telepathic call to Modred.

"I heard. We'll meet you there."

The cart was gathering speed as they hurtled through the tunnel, past screaming apparitions that popped up on either side of them.

"Slow down, Sebastian!" shouted Wyrdrune. "We're liable to run into something!"

Rebecca recoiled with a gasp as a flock of gibbering bats came swooping down at them from the ceiling, but it was only a magical illusion. They passed harmlessly right through the insubstantial flock of bats and lurched around another sharp bend in the tunnel, into a chamber that widened out around them in a garishly illuminated diorama scene depicting little dwarves at work with picks and shovels, digging glittering diamonds out of the rock wall. They sang in high-pitched voices as they worked and some of them paused to wave as the cart went by. They made another turn and the cart swung wildly around, almost overbalancing as they hurtled down another tunnel.

"Sebastian, we're going way too fast!" said Wyrdrune.

Suddenly there was another cart ahead of them. Sebastian tried to slow them down, but they collided and the impact knocked both carts off the rails. Their cart overturned and they came tumbling out onto the floor of the tunnel.

After a few moments, Wyrdrune slowly picked himself up off the ground, groaning and rubbing his shoulder. "Damn it, Sebastian! I told you we were going too fast!"

A dancing skeleton knocked into him as it came prancing out from a niche in the wall. Wyrdrune cried out, startled, then angrily batted it away. It fell rattling to the floor, then scuttled back into its niche. Wyrdrune glanced toward the other cart, lying on its side in the middle of the tunnel. It was empty.

"Terrific," he said. "Looks like we've lost him." He looked toward Makepeace. "Are you all right?"

"A little bruised, perhaps," said Makepeace, dusting himself off, "but nothing seems to be broken." He sighed. "I'm sorry. I should have listened to you, but I was afraid we wouldn't catch him."

"Never mind," said Wyrdrune sourly. "Rebecca, are you okay?"

He turned around.

"Rebecca?"

There was no sign of her.

 

"There's something wrong," said the attendant at the exit gate. "One of the carts must've gotten stuck or something."

"Shut down this ride at once," said Thanatos.

"It shuts down by itself," said the attendant. "It does that automatically if there's any kind of stoppage. Don't worry, sir, it's perfectly safe. I'm sure it's only a minor problem. Kids, you know. Teenagers. Sometimes they get out of the carts and . . . hey, wait a minute, mister, you can't go in there!"

Modred pushed past the attendant and started into the tunnel. Kira, Ben, Jacqueline, and Billy hurried after him.

"Hey, you people can't go in there!"

"Let them go," said Thanatos, showing the attendant his identification. "You stay right here. Under no circumstances are you to let anyone else inside, you understand?"

"Look, mister, what's this all about?"

A plainclothes officer came up to them and flashed his badge. "Police officer," he said. 'What's going on here?"

"I.T.C.," said Thanatos. showing his I D "You're part of the task force?"

"Yes, sir. Detective Foster."

"Task force?" said the attendant. "What task force? What the hell is going on here?"

Thanatos ignored him. "Captain Farrell's in there." he said. "Something's gone wrong. Get on your radio and have your people move in. I want this park closed down right now. Get everybody out, as quietly and as quickly as possible."

"Yes, sir!"

Thanatos ran into the tunnel after the others.

 

The stone slab came rising up through the floor into a large, torch-lit, vaulted chamber with walls of mortared blocks of stone and fluted columns supporting arched stone cross braces. It looked like the throne room of some ancient castle. And, in fact, there was a throne, on a high dais at the far end of the room. It glittered in the flickering light of the large bronze braziers placed on either side of it. It was made entirely of gold and encrusted with precious stones. For the moment, it was empty.

To the left of the dais hung a giant gong and it was ringing out steadily, despite the fact that no one was there to strike it. Its sound was deafening. Jessica wanted to cover her ears, but her arms were chained down at the wrists. Drawn on the stone floor around the altar was a large cabalistic circle, with strange signs painted within it. The circle itself was inside a larger drawing on the floor, that of two interlaced triangles forming the Seal of Solomon. Jessica recognized the satanic paraphernalia from the necromancer films that she had starred in. Placed on the floor at various points inside the circle were a human skull, cracked and brown with age; a severed human hand, known as a "hand of glory"; a lamp burning scented oil; a violin and bow; and a turnip painted black that was used in the satanic mass in place of the Host.

It was both ludicrous and terrifying at the same time. It was just like a scene from one of Rydell's films. It had to be a set. None of this could possibly be real. And then Jessica recalled what had happened the last time they filmed a scene that was almost identical to this and she began to tremble uncontrollably.

Khasim stepped off the dais and carefully laid the two black books down inside the circle, opening each of them to a specific place marked with a raven's feather. The two enchanted girls stepped back away from her as well, to the outermost points of the circle. In the darkness at the far sides of the cavernous room, Jessica thought she could see shadowy shapes moving.

The ringing of the gong ceased abruptly, its echoes reverberating off the walls. Khasim raised his arms up to the ceiling and the violin and bow suddenly floated up into the air, as if borne up by some invisible musician. The bow moved as if of its own volition across the strings and Jessica recognized the opening notes of "Night on Bald Mountain" by Saint-Saens. Death playing his violin at midnight while the evil spirits come out of their graves to dance.

The Black Sabbath had begun.

 

CHAPTER Thirteen

"Rebecca!'" Wyrdrune shouted.

His call echoed in the dark tunnel. There was no answer.

"We'd better split up and look for her," Makepeace said.

"No way," Wyrdrune said. "One of us has already disappeared. Let's not try for two, all right? We stick together."

They heard running footsteps.

"Be careful, someone's coming." Makepeace said.

"It's all right," Wyrdrune said, hearing Modred's voice in his mind. "It's only Modred and the others."

Slater came running around a bend in the tunnel. He was breathing hard. "What's happened?" he said, gasping for breath. "Where's Rebecca?"

Modred and the others were right behind him.

"Rebecca's disappeared," said Wyrdrune.

"What the hell do you mean, she's disappeared?" Slater said.

"I mean she's gone," said Wyrdrune. "We were chasing a man in a dark, hooded cloak through this tunnel and our cart collided with one that was ahead of it. We overturned and were thrown clear. When we got up, Rebecca had disappeared."

"You were supposed to be protecting her!" cried Slater.

Modred put a hand on his shoulder. "Take it easy, Slater. Both you and Captain Farrell were advised to stay behind. You were told we couldn't guarantee protection, yet you both insisted on coming along. Now recriminations are not going to help us find her. She might still be around here somewhere, lying unconscious—"

"No," said Wyrdrune, shaking his head. "We've already looked all around here."

"Then she's either been carried away or she somehow passed through a dimensional portal," Modred said.

"If she passed through a portal, then it must be around here somewhere," Kira said.

"Unless it was closed after she passed through it," said Jacqueline.

"God, then what do we do?" asked Slater anxiously.

"What we started out to do," said Modred. "Find the lair of the Dark Ones. This is probably nothing more than a diversion intended to draw us away from our objective."

"You're not going to just leave her!" Slater said.

"We have no choice," said Modred. "We must find the Dark Ones at all costs."

"No!" shouted Slater. "I'm not going! Somebody's got to look for Rebecca! She could be in danger!"

Modred paused, hesitating. "Very well. Jacqueline?"

She nodded. "I will stay and help look for her."

"I'll stay, too," said Makepeace. "It's my fault she's been taken. We'll try to catch up with you."

"How will we know where you'll be?" Jacqueline asked.

"If we find the Dark Ones," Wyrdrune said, "I have a feeling you'll know."

"Good luck," said Makepeace.

"You, too," said Kira.

They split up and Wyrdrune, Kira, Modred, Billy, and Thanatos went back out through the exit while Slater, Makepeace, and Jacqueline headed in the opposite direction, retracing the route the cart had taken.

"How will we know if we find one of these dimensional portals?" Slater asked. "What do they look like?"

"You cannot see them," said Jacqueline. "They are invisible."

"Well, that's just great," said Slater. "How the hell are we supposed to find it, then?"

"If you come in contact with one, it will be very cold," Jacqueline explained. "It will feel like freezing water."

"But you can't see it," Slater said.

"Correct."

''So by the time I get this feeling like I'm touching freezing water, I'm already going through the damn thing."

"All the more reason to proceed with caution," Jacqueline replied. "If you pay close attention to your surroundings, then if you pass through a dimensional portal, you will be able to get back the same way."

"Wait a moment," Makepeace said, pulling up short.

"What's wrong?" said Slater.

They had come around a bend and Makepeace stood in the center of the tunnel, between the rail tracks the carts traveled on. He stood frowning, staring at a place where the tunnel opened out into a garishly illuminated diorama.

"The dwarves," he said.

"What dwarves?" asked Jacqueline. "I see no dwarves."

"Precisely," Makepeace said. "What the hell happened to the dwarves?"

 

Rebecca couldn't move. She was being taken down a narrow corridor by two ranks of tiny dwarves, who carried her between them on their shoulders while they swung their free arms in exaggerated motions and sang, "Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go . . ."

She had struck her head and lost consciousness when she was thrown clear of the cart and when she came to, she was being tightly bound and gagged. The magically animated dwarves had dragged her from the spot where she had fallen and pulled her through a narrow maintenance door in the tunnel before Wyrdrune and Makepeace had recovered. By the time Rebecca realized what was happening, it was too late. They had her legs tied together and her arms bound tightly to her sides. She couldn't move a muscle.

The little dwarves reached the end of the maintenance corridor and came out into a fenced-in work area around the back of the ride. They dumped Rebecca into the back of a small cart with a fringed canvas top, piled in themselves, and drove off through the gate. Down in the bottom of the cart, Rebecca couldn't see a thing. All she could see were the grinning little dwarves all around it, swaying happily from side to side as they sat in the cart and sang in their high-pitched voices.

*     *     *

"Watch it!" said Thanatos, pulling Billy back by the arm as the little cart whizzed by, almost running him over. The cart swung around wildly with a screech of its small tires and continued weaving its way down the walk while the dwarves inside it swayed back and forth like beer buddies and sang their little work song. *

"Ey! Watch where the bloody 'ell yer goin'!" Billy shouted. He turned to Wyrdrune. "Blasted little morphodites," he said in Merlin's voice. "The\ shouldn't let them drive!"

"Why are the dwarves driving?" Wyrdrune said, thoughtfully staring after the cart.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the park is being closed," a police officer announced through a bullhorn. "Please proceed immediately to the nearest exit. Thank you for your cooperation. Ladies and gentlemen, the park is being closed. ..."

"What did you say?" asked Modred.

"The dwarves!" said Wyrdrune. "The dwarves from The Enchanted Grotto!"

"What?" said Thanatos.

"Come on!" shouted Wyrdrune. "Run!"

 

Jessica could not believe her eyes. it was a scene wilder than anything she'd ever sees and she was trapped right in the middle of it. Musical instruments were whirling around in midair and playing by themselves while fantastic-looking creatures danced and capered all around her. It was like a surrealistic scene by Breughel, with her bird-legged, furry creatures with short horns and long tongues leaping all about, whistling teapots and steaming cauldrons waddling around her on stubby little legs, heards of great horned toads and white mice hopping about in time to the music while the torches blazed up on the walls, revealing nude figures standing there, entranced, naked teenaged girls and boys waiting in stiff, ensorcelled postures, eyes blank, jaws slack, oblivious to their surroundings.

The torches blazed up once again, and several niches opened in the walls, through which a number of somber figures stepped into the room. They were sorcerers, like Khasim, dressed in their ceremonial robes. Adepts in the service of the Dark Ones. They came toward the cabalistic circle and stood around its circumference, their hands clasped in front of them. They looked up at Khasim, the high priest, and bowed respectfully.

Jessica gasped when Khasim turned back to face her. She almost didn't recognize him. His long, sleek, jet-black hair had turned completely gray and his handsome face had aged. It was lined and wrinkled, pale, and his lips trembled like an old man's.

The sorcerers around the circle shrugged off their robes and stood naked in the torchlight as the music peaked and the surrealistic creatures spun around in their wild dance. And as Jessica watched in disbelief, the sorcerers started changing. Matted fur started to sprout from their bodies and horns pushed up through the skin of their foreheads. Their feet seemed to wither and gnarl, then harden into bone as they turned into tufted hooves. Their knees bent sharply and their thighs grew larger and more muscular. They were turning into satyrs right before her eyes.

And then Jessica saw other strange creatures, elves and skeletons and little pigs in human clothing walking up on their hind legs, all leading little children by the hand, bringing them into the room where they stood watching, fascinated, not realizing the danger they were in. Now other people started coming in, groups of men and women dressed in pirate costumes, Indian loincloths and headdresses, cowboy clothing, the fringed buckskins of frontiersmen, and each small group carried a person, either bound and struggling or unconscious.

Jessica realized with horror that there was going to be an act of mass sacrifice—and she would be the main offering.

"Look!" said Slater, bending down to pick up something from the ground. "Rebecca's gun!"

He tucked it into his waistband as the others came to join him.

"Yes, she was unquestionably brought this way," said Makepeace. He pointed at the ground, where there were long tracks in the dust. "Looks like she was dragged."

They followed the trail to a narrow door made to look like part of the artificial rock wall. Makepeace found the handle and opened it.

"Be careful," Jacqueline said.

Makepeace felt around inside. "Nothing so exotic as a dimensional portal," he said. "Just a plain, ordinary doorway. The dwarves took her this way. Come on."

"You're telling me Rebecca was carried off by a bunch of magically animated dwarves?" said Slater.

"It certainly seems that way," said Makepeace, moving down the narrow maintenance corridor. He bent down quickly and picked up something off the floor.

"What is it?" Slater said.

"A piece of rope," said Makepeace. "They must have tied her up."

They proceeded quickly down the corridor and came outside into an open, fenced-in work area. There were two little maintenance carts with fringed canvas tops parked against the fence and the gate was open.

"They must have loaded her up in one of the carts and driven off," said Makepeace.

"Now what?" asked Slater.

"We'll have to try and find them somehow," Makepeace said. "There's nothing else to do. Come on."

They climbed into one of the other carts and drove out through the gate.

"Attention, ladies and gentlemen, attention! The park is being closed. Pleased proceed immediately to the nearest exit. Thank you for your cooperation. Attention. . . ."

"They've started to evacuate the park." said Makepeace as he drove, looking all around for a sign of any cart similar to theirs.

"We're never going to find her." Slater said.

"We'll find her, Ben," Jacqueline said. "We'll find her."

"My baby!" screamed a woman. "What happened to my baby?"

"Michael?" another woman cried. As they drove by, Makepeace recognized the mother of the obnoxious five-year-old. "Michael, where are you?"

"Jennie?" called a young man as they passed him. "Jennie?"

"There's going to be a panic," Slater said tensely. "The cops are going to lose control. People are getting separated from their kids, it's all going wrong. It isn't going to work."

"Sheila? Sheila, where are you?" someone called as they drove by.

"My God," said Makepeace, weaving through clumps of people running around and streaming toward the exits. "They've started snatching people!"

"What?" said Slater.

"That's why Rebecca was abducted," Makepeace said. "They've started grabbing people, children . . . victims for a mass sacrifice."

"A mass sacrifice?" said Slater, alarmed. "What are you talking about?"

"A Sabbath," Jacqueline said softly. "They're celebrating a Black Sabbath."

 

They ran hard, trying to keep the crazily weaving cart in sight. All around them, people were moving toward the exits, some proceeding in an orderly fashion, others running. People were calling for their children, boyfriends were calling for their girlfriends, husbands seeking wives they had suddenly become separated from. Nobody knew why the amusement park was being evacuated and everyone had their own suspicions. The police were moving through the crowd, trying to keep order and keep everybody moving, but the people who had become separated from members of their families were refusing to be herded out. The crowd was on the verge of panic.

"Do you feel it?" Modred called out as they ran.

"It's all around us," Kira said. "What the hell is happening?"

"It's much worse than I thought," said Modred. "They've taken over. They've overwhelmed the spells controlling all the attractions and illusions. They have the entire park under their control."

"There's an incredible amount of energy being gathered," Wyrdrune said, gasping as he ran. "I can sense the focus somewhere just up ahead."

They passed a sign that said, "Sleeping Beauty Castle closed for repairs." The castle was just ahead of them, its graceful towers and turrets rising up into the sky. The drawbridge had been lowered and the cart driven by the dwarves turned and drove across it.

"There!" said Modred, stopping to catch his breath. "The Dark Ones are in there! I can feel it!"

"No," said Wyrdrune, aghast as he stared at the beautiful castle, the famous symbol of the Magic Kingdom. "Not in there!"

As they stood there, the drawbridge slowly started to rise.

"We'll never make it," Thanatos said.

"Yes, we will," said Modred. "We'll teleport."

"Kira, quick, give me your hand," said Wyrdrune.

"Not this time, warlock," she said. "I'm not ending up in that damn moat! Modred?"

He took her hand. "Thanatos?"

"I can make it."

"All right. Now!"

The drawbridge was already up at a forty-five-degree angle. They teleported. Modred, Billy, and Kira reappeared inside the courtyard of the castle. Thanatos popped in a second later, right behind them.

"Where's Wyrdrune?" Kira said.

"Shiiiiiiiiiiiit!"

They turned around in time to see him sliding down the inside of the rising drawbridge, rolling end over end until he hit the ground and came to a tumbling halt at their feet.

"Well, that certainly was graceful," said Modred wryly.

"Get any splinters?" Kira added.

"Very funny," Wyrdrune said sourly.

"Modred, look!" said Thanatos. He held up his hand. The fire opal on his ring was glowing brightly.

Modred stared at it and frowned.

"What does it mean?" asked Thanatos.

"I haven't the faintest idea," Modred said. "I didn't even know it was enchanted."

"Don't look at me." said Merlin. "Morgana did not always confide in me, you know. For that matter, even she might not have known. The ring belonged to Gorlois. It's as old as the runestones themselves."

Thanatos tugged at the ring. "It won't come off!" "Well, then I guess you're about to find out what the spell is," said Modred as they went through the castle doors. "Let's hope it isn't too unpleasant. This is not a good time for surprises."

Jessica watched in frozen fascination as the last of the captives were brought in. Rebecca was among them. The dwarves set her down and joined in the whirling dance as the sorcerers-turned-satyrs moved among the captured victims, making passes at them and putting each into a deep trance. The ropes holding Rebecca magically fell away, along with her clothing, and she had time only for a brief gasp as a leering satyr stepped before her and then her vision blurred and everything went numb as she retreated somewhere deep inside herself, still able to see and feel, but no longer able to control herself.

Khasim stood on the altar beside Jessica, his arms thrown wide, his chest rising and falling as he gasped for breath. He was a doddering old man now, aging rapidly before her eyes. His hair had turned pure white. His pale skin now translucent, the flesh hanging in slack folds. His dark eyes were glazed and deeply sunken, his hands were liver-spotted, gnarled, and palsied, the fingernails as long as talons. His right hand held the ritual dagger and Jessica could not tear her eyes away from it. She writhed panic-stricken on the altar, pulling against the chains, but they held her fast. The music was reaching a crescendo and the dancing figures whirled faster and faster and faster.

Suddenly there was a mist in the shadows over the throne, an area of deeper darkness that slowly formed into the brightly glowing outline of a man. A moment later, the dark shadow with the glowing border resolved into a handsome, golden-skinned young man with dark red hair and a crimson robe thrown over his well-muscled shoulders. Except for the long robe, he was naked. He had the body of a Greek god. But below the waist, he was a goat with cloven hooves and a forked tail. Ram horns sprouted from his forehead. He held a pitchfork in his hand. Jessica cried out and shook her head. No, she thought, it couldn't be, it couldn't possibly be. ... A strong voice suddenly rang out in the torch-lit chamber, rising above the music and echoing off the walls.

"Khasim!"

The music stopped abruptly. The skeletal sorcerer jerked as if struck. His hair had all fallen out and the bones showed through his face. He was barely able to stand. He looked up toward the sound of the voice. He was astonished when he saw that it was only a young boy.

"Drop the knife!" called Merlin, extending his arm toward the high priest. "Drop the knife or die!"

Khasim looked down at Jessica, his face a grinning death's head. She screamed as the knife started to descend.

A searing, bright blue bolt of thaumaturgic energy shot out from Billy's outstretched hand, lancing across the torch-lit chamber and striking Khasim in the chest. It blasted him right off the altar platform and he flew backward to land on the stone-floor, lifeless, his skin shriveling away to nothing, his bones collapsing, turning into dust.

With a snarl, Ashtar threw off his robe and leapt from the throne. Large, batlike wings unfolded from his back, spreading as he launched himself into a long glide across the chamber, swooping down over the altar. Jessica screamed hysterically as he raised his hands, claws extended, intending to rip her open as he swept on past her in his dive toward Billy, but in that moment, three bright beams flashed out across the chamber. Modred had torn open his shirt and a scarlet beam lanced from his chest to strike Kira's upraised hand, where she stood against the wall, near the center of the chamber. A bright sapphire beam shot forth from Kira's palm and struck the stone in Wyrdrune's forehead, which in turn sent its emerald beam across the chamber to strike the stone in Modred's chest. The living triangle was formed and it extended up and out from them in a pyramid shape, trapping the Dark One and all the shape-changed sorcerers beneath it. With a cry of agony, Ashtar fell, his wings collapsing and shrinking away as he reverted to his normal form under the combined power of the runestones. The satyrs started bellowing as they reverted to their human shapes and sank down to the floor, clutching at their throats. Billy ran up to the platform and climbed up to the altar. His eyes sizzled with blue fire and twin beams of thaumaturgic energy shot out from them, burning through the chains holding Jessica. He picked her up in his arms and carried her through the archway and down the corridor, which led out to the courtyard, calling to the others to follow him. In a daze, Rebecca and the other captives stumbled after him. Behind them, Ashtar fought to struggle to his feet, but he collapsed at the foot of the altar, gasping as he tried in vain to draw air into his lungs. He clawed at his throat and thrashed upon the ground, his movements growing weaker and weaker as the living triangle leeched his life force from him.

Halfway down the corridor, Billy came to a sudden stop. A strikingly beautiful, golden-skinned young woman with a thick mane of fiery red hair stood at the far end of the corridor, blocking their way. She was wearing a long black robe and her green eyes glowed with thaumaturgic fire.

"No!" she snarled in a voice that was laced with venom. "You'll all die for this!"

"No, Yasmine," said Thanatos, stepping out from a side corridor to stand between her and the others. His voice sounded much different, deeper and more resonant. "You have killed enough. This time, you shall be the one to die."

The fire opal on his ring burned like a star, glowing brighter and brighter and brighter, its blinding light enveloping him entirely and when it died away, Thanatos was gone and in his place stood a knight in full, gleaming armor, a twisting, ivory horn rising from his helmet, his shield bearing the device of a unicorn rampant.

Yasmine stared at him with disbelief. "You!" she said.

The knight unsheathed his sword and started walking toward her.

She opened her mouth and a deafening screech issued forth that sounded like the trumpeting bellow of some prehistoric beast. She spread her robe out and scaled wings began to form. Her face lengthened and her back arched. She began to grow, looming larger and larger as the metamorphosis progressed with amazing speed. Her long tail whipped back and forth, her giant wings beat at the air, her long, curving teeth snapped as she hissed and bellowed at the knight who continued to approach her resolutely. She grew until her scaled bulk filled the entire corridor and her wings scraped against the ceiling. And then the dragon opened up its mouth and a stream of fire shot forth.

'"Gor'blimey!" Billy said, staring slack-jawed as the knight took the fire full upon his shield and continued to advance.

The dragon flapped its wings furiously and pieces of the ceiling started to rain down.

"Get back!" Billy shouted. "Everyone get back!"

The dragon's tail whipped around and the knight jumped over it, then he dropped his shield and caught it as it whipped around again. The dragon bellowed and started to rise up into the air as the knight climbed up along its tail, clinging stubbornly despite all her efforts to dislodge him. Debris rained down as she broke through the ceiling and rose up high into the air, screeching with fury and pain as the knight clung to her back, his sword rising and falling as he hacked away at her repeatedly.

 

The little cart swerved wildly as Makepeace nearly lost control and almost crashed. Around them, people ran screaming toward the exits, the police no longer able to control them.

"Sebastian, look!" Jacqueline said.

"I see it," Makepeace said, braking sharply and staring at the apparition ahead of them.

"My God," said Slater, staring wide-eyed at the sight. "What the hell is that?"

A dragon was rising up high over the fairy-tale castle, its huge wings beating at the air, its bellowing screams echoing throughout the park. There was a tiny figure perched upon its back, an armored knight who kept plunging his sword down between the dragon's shoulder blades again and again and again. The creature threw back its head and screeched in agony, then fell, pinwheeling to the ground. They felt the force of its impact as it struck.

"Come on!" Jacqueline urged Makepeace. "Drive on!"

The cart lurched forward, toward the castle.

 

Billy stood over the dead woman's broken body. Her back was covered with raw stab wounds and blood trickled from her mouth and nose. Her neck was at a strange angle and her legs were splayed out beneath her. As Billy watched, she slowly began to fade away like a mirage until there was nothing left of her at all.

Thanatos lay on his back in a pool of blood a short distance away, his glazed eyes staring sightlessly up at the sky. Billy bent down and closed them. He heard a clinking sound as the ring fell from the dead sorcerer's finger and rolled toward him, coming to a stop at his feet. Billy picked it up and put it in his pocket.

A crowd was gathering around him. The dazed captives from the castle stood around, confused, some embarrassed by their nakedness, others too disoriented to fully realize their state. The small maintenance cart pulled up and Slater leapt out and ran over to Rebecca, taking off his coat and wrapping it around her protectively. Modred, Wyrdrune, and Kira came through the crowd to stand behind Billy. They looked utterly exhausted.

Makepeace took off his long black leather coat and was about to offer it to Jessica, but she didn't even see him. Heedless of her nakedness and the crowd around her, she came up to Billy and put her arms around him.

"You saved my life," she said, and kissed him deeply.

"Please, madam," Merlin said in an embarrassed voice, extricating himself awkwardly. "Go get some clothes on."

EPILOGUE

They sat drinking coffee in the kitchen of Rebecca Farrell's small apartment. It was late and she had just come off duty after the busiest and longest day of her career.

"Officially, the story is that Khasim went completely off the deep end at some point during his involvement in Rydell's necromancer films and started taking it for real," she said. "He supposedly 'discovered' a sub-basement underneath the mission, a relic from the days of the Collapse when an older building had stood there, and he used it as a meeting place for a satanic cult he organized. The department called in Gorman to help with the investigation of the murders and Gorman asked the I.T.C. for help when he realized that necromancy was involved. Gorman uncovered what Khasim was doing at the mission and Khasim killed him, then holed up in the Magic Kingdom after subduing the wizards on the staff, which allowed him to assume control of the spells used to maintain the attractions and illusions in the park. That part of it, at least, is true, except it was the Dark Ones who overpowered the wizards at the Magic Kingdom and not Khasim.

"As for what happened in the castle," she continued, "the official word on that is that the whole thing was an elaborate special effects illusion executed by Khasim. He had become obsessed with Jessica Blaine and intended to murder her in a reenactment of the climactic scene from the last necromancer film. A team of non-adept special effects technicians who worked with Khasim on that film have testified that he was a gifted illusionist who could easily have pulled off such a sophisticated series of effects, especially if he was able to tap into already existing spells devised by the wizards of the Magic Kingdom. Thanatos had managed to put it all together and he stopped him with the aid of a special department task force, but both Khasim and Thanatos died in the confrontation. Fortunately, the people who were kidnapped by the Dark Ones and their acolytes were sufficiently dazed and confused by everything that happened and none of them can really contradict the official version of the events that transpired in the castle. The Bureau has brought in a team of therapist adepts to debrief the victims and provide counseling. So far as the official version of the story goes, none of you were even there, although both the Bureau and the I.T.C. are very anxious to find out what really happened. In particular, they're anxious to speak with the staff of Warlock Productions, but luckily, I was able to get to Ron Rydell before they could question him."

"How did Rydell respond?" asked Modred. "What did you work out with him?"

"Rydell's story is that Warlock Productions decided to back out of the film deal due to adverse publicity and he doesn't know what happened to them. He told the investigators that the Warlock people closed down their L.A. office and left town, leaving him holding the bag, and he made a lot of noise about how he'd like to find them himself because he intends to sue. He conveniently neglected to mention the twenty-five million dollars that you gave him but assured me that he intends to pay it back as soon as the heat's died down."

She smiled at Modred. "He seemed extremely anxious not to antagonize you. Anyway, he was very convincing. In the meantime, the so-called adverse publicity has given Jessica Blaine's career a tremendous boost and there's apparently a deal in the works to adapt Ambrosias! as a Broadway musical, starring both her and Burton Clive."

"Oh God!" said Merlin with dismay.

"Serves you bloody right," said Billy, still angry with him for not having allowed him to take full advantage of Jessica Blaine's gratitude. "'Gor', I ain't never 'ad anyone kiss me like that before an' you 'ad to go an' ruin it!"

"That will be enough of that," said Merlin sternly. "You're much too young for that sort of thing and as for me, I'm much too old. As far as I'm concerned, the sooner we leave Los Angles, the better."

"That's a very good idea, said Rebecca. "There's an I.T.C. investigator by the name of Graywand who's been asking a lot of very pointed questions about the four of you. And he's particularly interested in 'Michael Cornwall.' I had a pretty close call with him."

"I know of him," said Modred. "He's the I.T.C.'s senior field agent. I've had a couple of close calls with him myself over the years. He's very sharp and extremely competent."

"That was my impression, too," said Rebecca. "He's convinced I know a lot more than I'm telling. He wanted to interrogate me under a spell of compulsion, but the police commissioner and the chief put a stop to that idea. They said that I'd already answered all his questions and the fact that I'd been abducted and almost killed entitled me to some consideration, so he decided not to push it. But he's not the sort to let it go. He'll keep after it, you can be sure of that. So if I were you, I wouldn't stay around too long."

"No, I think we'll be leaving right away," said Modred.

"What, again we're moving?" said the broom, swishing in with a fresh pot of coffee. "Nice of somebody to tell me. How do you expect me to keep things organized if nobody ever tells me anything? Always everything at the last minute! Rush, rush, rush! Gevalt! I'm going, to get permanent jet lag at this rate!"

"Since when does a stick get jet leg?" Kira said.

"You hear this?" said the broom, turning to Rebecca. "You see the kind of respect I get? What it is with young people these days, I'm asking you? They're spoiled, that's what they are. Spoiled rotten."

"There's still one thing that I don't understand," said Slater. "Not that understanding it will do me much good. It's really ironic. The greatest story of my career and I can't even write it. But I still can't help being curious." He turned to Billy. "That spell on the ring Thanatos wore. When he changed into that knight, you said he called the Dark One by name. Yasmine. And from what you said, she seemed to know him, too. So if he wasn't Thanatos, who was he?"

"No, he was Thanatos," said Modred. "But for a short time, the spell of the ring changed him into someone else. And it explains why my mother always wore that ring and why she gave it to him after they were married. She wanted to protect him." He paused. "The unicorn device on the knight's shield means that it could only have been my grandfather. The last survivor of the Council of the White. Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall."

"Of course!" said Merlin. "I, of all people, should have realized that. Only it was so very long ago ... I had forgotten."

"But... I thought you said that Arthur killed him," Kira said.

"He did," said Modred. "But my grandfather was as powerful a mage as the ones who fused their life forces with the runestones. He must have prepared a similar spell to guard against his physical death, one that would preserve his spirit." He paused and sighed heavily. "I looked for the ring when Thanatos died, but he was no longer wearing it. The only explanation I can think of is the spell must have worn off."

"No, wait!" said Billy, reaching into the pocket of his coat. "You should 'ave told me! I've got the ring!"

"What?" said Modred, sitting bolt upright. "Where is it?"

"Just a minute," Billy said, rummaging through all his pockets. "Wait, I know I've got the bloody thing 'ere somewhere. ..."

"Billy," Kira said. "It's on your hand!"

"It's what?" said Billy. He looked at his hands. The fire opal was gleaming on the ring finger of his left hand. '"Gor'blimey!" he exclaimed. "So it is! But it wasn't . . . I didn't put it on! I swear I didn't! I 'ad it right 'ere in me pocket!"

He tried to take it off.

"I think it's stuck," he said, grimacing. "I can't understand it, it was way too big before. . . ." He kept pulling on it, but it wouldn't budge. "Bloody 'ell, now it won't come off!"

"I don't mink it's meant to, Billy," Modred said softly.

Billy stared at him. "What? No, g'wan, it's only stuck, see"

He put his finger in his mouth and moistened it, then redoubled his efforts to pull it off, but it remained stuck firmly on his finger.

"It looks like Modred's right, lad," Makepeace said. "It seems as if the spirit of Gorlois has chosen to remain with you."

Billy looked up at them with alarm! "No," he said. "No, it can't be!"

"I'm afraid it is, Billy," Modred said. He smiled. "It's the supreme irony, in a way. Arthur killed Gorlois with Merlin's help, and now both their spirits are with you. It should prove rather interesting, to say the least."

"No!" said Billy, shaking his head with disbelief. "Aw, no! You mean now I'm stuck with two of 'em? Oh, bloody 'ell!"

"You can say that again," said Merlin, miserably. "Oh, bloody hell!"

As if in answer, the fire opal glowed brightly for a moment and Billy got a very strange smile on his face. Then he threw back his head and laughed. Only they knew it wasn't Billy laughing. And Merlin was not at all amused.