Snake Oil

by Martha

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world."
Ephesians 6:12

"This is snake oil."
Jim Ellison: 'Private Eyes'

***

It had been raining when they left Cascade, and it was still raining when they got back.

Blair lay awake in bed listening to it patter down. Had he forgotten to close that window? Probably. Amazing that Jim hadn't come storming out to slam it shut hours ago.

He ought to get up and close it himself. He rolled over, adjusted the pillow under his head, and pulled the blanket up over his bare shoulder. There was a draft in the loft, too. Just enough to raise goosebumps. Really, he should close that window.

After another moment he rolled over on his back again. He'd missed a few spots with the sunblock, and the burns on his cheeks and nose were scratchy against the pillow.

Uh oh, there was Jim coming down the steps after all. Too late. And in the morning he'd have to sit through another lecture about house rules and common courtesy and worst of all, Jim probably wouldn't allow him to open a window again until June. Well, maybe he could try getting some more houseplants for oxygen.

No, actually, that must not have been Jim. He'd thought he'd heard something, a footstep or a creaking stair, but now there was nothing but the rain. If Jim had come down to shut that window, he sure as hell wouldn't be tiptoeing around to do it.

So there was still time. Come on, Sandburg, up and at 'em. Learning to pick up after yourself is a small price to pay for the privilege of sharing Jim's life, isn't it?

But even that argument wasn't enough to get him out of a warm bed on a cold rainy night. Besides, he rationalized, if the rain and wind hadn't already woken Jim, Blair getting up and stumbling around certainly would. He glanced over at the clock on his bedside table. Three a.m. He didn't mind being awake though, drowsy and content as he was. Kind of nice to enjoy the luxury of simply being in bed. He let himself think back to Los Angeles and the conference and bask in the remembered glory. You're all alone, Sandburg, and it's the middle of the night. Nobody will know if you gloat just a little.

He had been aware the whole time of Dr. Mooney sitting coiled like a snake in the third row, not really listening to a word Blair said, just waiting for his chance. The embittered old fossil was on the editorial board of practically every journal Blair had submitted to, and he knew good and well that was the reason his paper hadn't been published yet.

Of course, it wasn't Blair's fault that the man had practically based his whole career on one glib theory about the bhuta shrines in Rajasthan. Maybe it was Blair's fault that when he'd come across a fascinating oral tradition while doing fieldwork in Nepal that strongly indicated that poor old Dr. Mooney had been wrong for twenty-five years, he just couldn't let it go. But after all, it wasn't supposed to be about protecting pet theories. Surely there was something bigger at stake here. This had nothing to do with his Sentinel studies, was nothing, in fact, but a distraction from Blair's real work. But knowing that Mooney's erroneous research was still being cited as the last word was more than he could stand. He just had to speak out, and finally, finally he was getting his chance.

As soon Blair had finished reading, and the polite smattering of applause subsided, Mooney sprang. Blair heard him out, but he was ready for him. Man, was he ready.

He tried to make his response courteous and deferential. Even if Mooney had barely gotten off his ass in the past quarter century, he was still one of the founding lights, and Blair knew there was nothing more unlovely than a snot-nosed kid lording it over his elders. He even managed to hold still when he found himself starting to bounce a little on his toes in his eagerness to get all his words out. But man oh man, he was so right and everybody in the room knew it. Mooney shot back with a pathetic little defense that was politely ignored, and the rest of the discussion dealt entirely with Blair's interpretation.

And that wasn't the sweetest part. Not even close. The high point of the entire conference – no, the high point of the entire trip – was the moment right after Blair had gotten out his rebuttal, knowing that after all this, he'd finally made himself heard. Only then had he dared raise his eyes a little to look past all the beards and tweed jackets, seeking out that military haircut and clean-shaven face.

Jim was in the very back row. Arms crossed over his chest, tilting his chair back, not quite grinning, but a little smirk on his face, eyebrows raised, letting Blair know that even if he hadn't followed every detail, he understood that the kid had done all right.

In the darkness of his bedroom, Blair hugged the memory to himself, playing it over and over again in his mind until he started to feel a little embarrassed. Well what the hell, it would never happen again. It had just been a fluke that Jim had been there at all, and Blair certainly couldn't keep dragging him around to anthropology conferences. But for once, just once it had been nice that Jim could see him in his element. Nice to be able to show Jim that there was something he was actually good at.

And suddenly Blair was wrenched away from his pleasant memories. Damn. What was that? He lay motionless, listening. Was someone out there? He held his breath. Jim would have heard, surely. It must just be his imagination.

For some reason that didn't make him feel any better. The rain was still coming down hard, and there was a dull rumble of thunder in the distance. Blair pushed back the blanket and sat up as quietly as he could. What was he hearing? He didn't even know. He just had an unshakable conviction that something was there. He crept to the door, shivering in his boxers, and peeked out.

The only light came from the reflected glow of streetlights, making ordinary objects seem unfamiliar and strange. The staircase up to Jim's room was shrouded in shadow. He could make out the sofa and the coffee table, but the kitchen was completely dark. A few dull embers still glowed in the fireplace. There was that open window, a broad rectangle of black surrounded by panes of glass wetly reflecting the lights of the city. Blair was shivering so hard by now that his teeth had started to chatter. He was up now, he should just cross the room and close the damn window. And turn up the thermostat while he was at it.

Lightning flashed across the sky, followed by a boom of thunder. There, Jim was sure to be awake now. So, hey, Jim, old buddy, old pal, you know what? Something's giving me the heebie-jeebies real bad down here. You wanna take a little look-see around with those old Sentinel senses? Just to lemme know there's nobody here but us chickens?

He took a step out of the safety of his bedroom, then another one. His feet felt heavier than lead. Why don't you just turn on a light, Sandburg? What the hell's the matter with you anyway?

He tried to see the front door. It too was lost in shadow, and Blair had the sudden, peculiarly horrible thought that it might be standing wide open for all he could tell. His breath was coming in fast, shallow pants and his heart was pounding away so hard he couldn't understand why Jim hadn't gotten up to see what was wrong. He took another step into the living room, and then another. His eyes were straining so wide open the muscles in his forehead were starting to ache.

A gust of wind made the rain splatter against the windowpanes, and Blair nearly jumped out of his skin.

(Oh man, there's probably water all over the floor. Gotta mop that up before Jim finds out and pitches a fit.)

The sudden intrusion of the severely practical banished more irrational fears. He crossed the room quickly, skirting the sofa, and pulled the window shut. As predicted, the floor all around was sopping wet. He tiptoed back to the kitchen, realizing belatedly that he had tracked wet footprints the entire way. Oh for pete's sake.

He groped around the counter until he found a dishtowel hanging over the sink, then scooched it underfoot all the way back to the window. He mopped at the water under the windows, quickly realizing that the sodden little towel was entirely inadequate, but he was too cold and annoyed to care much anymore. Snatching it up, he carried it dripping to the bathroom, draped it over the laundry hamper, and hurried back to his bedroom.

The bed was still warm. He wrapped the blankets gratefully around himself in the darkness, suddenly so sleepy that he could hardly keep his eyes open.

He missed the pillow when he laid his head down. He scooted and scrunched around, trying to find it without having to take his arms out from under the blankets, but to no avail. He must have knocked it off the bed when he'd got up. With a sigh, he reached down, but his grasping fingers touched nothing but the cold floor. Dammit, where was it? Finally, entirely disgusted, he sat up in bed again and turned on the lamp. His pillow was nowhere to be seen. Under the bed, maybe? He hung over the edge and looked into the shadows underneath. No pillow, but a trickle like ice down the back of his spine. He sat up again quickly. Too weird. He found himself wishing he had checked to make sure the front door was actually secure when he had been up a few minutes ago.

With an aggravated sigh he crawled out of bed for the second time and went into the living room to grab a throw pillow off the sofa. He'd find his own in the morning.

Then, since he was up anyway, he checked the front door too. Safely shut and locked, of course, as it had undoubtedly been all night. He turned, his back to the door, and looked around one last time. Rain was still lashing across the window panes, but the sound was muted now that the window was shut. He glanced upwards. The clerestory across from Jim's bedroom shone with the lights of the city, but the staircase was impenetrably dark.

He had goosebumps all the way up his arms, and he was shivering hard. No wonder. It was cold, and the floor was wet. He was going to hear about this in the morning, no doubt about it. Now go to bed, Sandburg.

Clutching the scavenged pillow he scurried back to the bedroom and jumped in bed.

***

Just before dawn he had a horrible little nightmare, all the worse because he strongly suspected he was dreaming the whole time, and still couldn't do anything to stop it. It seemed to him that he lay frozen in his bed while Dr. Mooney crouched in the corner of his bedroom. His eyes were rimmed in red and his thin gray hair had escaped the control of his hair wax and hung over his ears in scraggly clumps. He was rubbing his hands together convulsively and pointlessly.

Blair kept his eyes fixed on Mooney. He couldn't move and couldn't speak, but he was convinced that as long as he didn't look away, nothing too bad could happen.

But suddenly, involuntarily, his eyes darted off. He wrenched them back, and found that while he hadn't been watching, Mooney had covered half the distance to his bed side. More terrible still, Blair realized that Mooney wasn't crouching at all. He was really only two feet tall, and his diminution had been grotesquely selective. His arms were no shorter, and his elbows nearly touched the ground, but his legs were mere stumps now, and the largest portion of his torso seemed to have been simply eclipsed out.

Oh god, oh god, whatever you do, don't look away—

Then he thought he heard something outside – Jim! Oh thank heavens – but when he looked, the doorway was empty and dark, and by the time he looked back, Mooney was at the very foot of his bed. He couldn't see his face anymore, lying prone as he was, just the claw-like hands at the end of those long, long arms, clutching and scrabbling at the bedclothes.

Please wake up now, Blair. This isn't funny anymore.

And you're going to wake up – now.

Now!

Now!

Oh God! Despite himself, his eyes rolled up towards the ceiling, and he felt the thump as something small and heavy landed on the bed beside him. And it was too late to look now. He kept his eyes on the ceiling because he wasn't a very brave person, he admitted it freely – I'm sorry, Jim, I tried – and there was no way in hell he could look over and see what was crouching on the bed beside him. Paralyzed and helpless, he even rolled a little towards the indention its weight made on the mattress, and cold damp fingers touched his belly, walked up his chest, tickled his throat, and in a moment he was going to feel them on his face, and when that happened, he was going to lose his mind.

***

Whoomf. Something weightless and suffocatingly soft covered his face, and he awoke kicking and flailing his arms and fighting to suck enough air into his lungs to scream.

"Blair!" Jim knocked the pillow away and grabbed his arms. "Calm down. I'm sorry. That was dumb of me. I didn't mean to scare you like that."

"Jim?" He sat bolt upright in bed. "Oh, man—"

The gray light of another rainy morning lit the corners of his room. It was just a dream. He'd known it was a dream all along.

"Are you okay?" Blair nodded, then saw what had awakened him. "Hey, you found my pillow. Where was it?"

"Funny thing to ask me, Chief. You got something you want to get off your chest? Maybe it's your guilty conscience that's making you so jumpy this morning."

"You woke me up by dropping a pillow on my face. That would make anybody jump. Seriously, man, where did you find it?"

Jim just looked at him. "It was at the head of the stairs," he said at last. "That really wasn't very funny, Sandburg. If I hadn't been paying attention I could have broken my neck when I got up this morning."

"At the top of the stairs? You're kidding. I didn't put it there. I was looking for it last night. I couldn't find it."

"Uh huh. I guess you don't know anything about the water all over the floor either? The wet footprints somebody tracked all through the kitchen?"

"Um, no, I know about that. Sorry. I thought I cleaned it up."

"Well, you want to take another shot at it? Maybe use a mop this time? And soap? And be sure to rinse it twice, please. I hate the smell of that Murphy's Wood Oil."

***

Part 2

"Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you"

T.S. Eliot: 'The Wasteland'

***

He'd stepped in a puddle getting out of the truck, and his left foot was soaked clear to the hem of his dress slacks. He wasn't happy about the necessity for a coat and tie anyway, and sitting in the back of the courtroom with one foot soaking wet just seemed to underline the absurdity of the whole endeavor. Okay, fine, he understood the necessity of appearance and facade in the courtroom, especially with Dan Singleton sitting up there in a Brooks Brothers suit. It shouldn't make any difference whether the detective who'd arrested him gave his testimony in blue jeans, or dress blues, or bike shorts and a tank top for that matter, but appearances did matter. Especially in the claustrophobic theater of the courtroom.

Now, of course, he was hardly likely to impress anyone when he was called to the stand and made his entrance with one shoe squelching wetly all the way.

That was assuming he was even called today at all, which was beginning to seem increasingly unlikely.

It wasn't even eleven o'clock yet, and the jury had already been excused twice. Singleton could afford the best, and they were doing their job. Jim studied the faces in the jury box. Glazed with boredom, shifting in uncomfortable chairs, trying hard to concentrate on the judge's instructions, doing an increasingly poor job of stifling their yawns. Jim had been through this a million times before, but that didn't lessen his frustration. Singleton was a murderer, a racketeer and worse. He'd used Jim and the entire system, destroyed families, ruined lives. (Now you've got a chance to put his sorry ass away for good, so pay attention, goddamnit.)

He looked away. He could hardly blame the jury, really. If it weren't for the misery of this wet nylon sock, he'd probably be more than half asleep himself.

Okay, time to lighten up, Ellison. This was going to be a long enough day as it was, so he might as well think about something pleasant. Like hot, white sunshine beating down on his head. Palm trees, a breeze blowing in off the ocean, the smell of the sea mingled with popcorn, fried fish and coconut oil. Blair had been giddy as kid after giving his paper, bouncing along at Jim's side and beaming at the crowds on the Santa Monica pier. Entire families were lugging picnic baskets and beach chairs past them. Teenage boys crowded around the arcade. People thronged all around them. Hare krisnas, the homeless, gangbangers, fishermen, hustlers, hookers, skaters, joggers, the pierced and tattooed, the sight-seers like themselves.

But Jim was almost oblivious to everything but that sunshine. The warmth of it on his face more than made up for the past three months of rain. He found himself slowing to a stop as they walked so he could close his eyes for just an instant and tilt his face up to it.

Blair touched his arm. "Hey man, you all right?"

He was all right. More all right than he'd been in months.

(Oh no, not again.) While his attention had been wandering, one more question about admissibility of evidence or the judge's opening remarks must have arisen. The jury were shuffling to their feet, then trailing out the back door of the courtroom, frustration and boredom writ large on their faces. Jim hoped they at least had some decent coffee waiting for them in the jury room.

He took advantage of the break to stand up and slip out to the corridor himself. The county courthouse was full of people this time of morning, and the benches lining the walls were full. The building was modern, intended to be open and full of light. Personally, Jim had always thought it looked a lot like a shopping mall. And today the skylight three stories overhead let in only the sodden gray light of another gloomy winter day, filtered through the rain running across the plexiglas.

***

No doubt about it, Los Angeles had been a very good idea. And if Blair hadn't been planning to get to his precious conference by Greyhound, god help us, Jim never would have gone.

He'd been talking about it for months, and Jim was starting to wonder when he'd get hit up for a ride to the airport. He might need a day or two's warning to make sure his schedule was clear. But Sandburg hadn't said a word, and Jim had finally brought it up himself one rainy evening a couple of weeks before Blair's trip. He just wanted to spare himself that look of disappointment when Blair finally got around to asking at the last minute and Jim didn't happen to be free to play taxi driver.

Blair glanced up from his laptop. "What? Oh, thanks man, but the bus goes straight to the Greyhound station. I'll just grab that."

"Greyhound? Sandburg, do you know how long it's going to take you to get to Los Angeles on a Greyhound?"

He shrugged. "Thirty, thirty-two hours, something like that. I figure I ought to be able to get a lot of reading done. Plus, I've got an old seminar paper to write. With that much time, I ought to be able to get a pretty good start on it, don't you think?"

"Listen, Blair, I'm sure it's cheap as hell, but—"

"Not so cheap, actually. Eighty-nine bucks round trip, do you believe that? I was able to get a little travel grant from the department, but this late in the year, they're pretty tapped out. I'm barely gonna have enough left for the room. I'll have to pack some peanut butter and crackers if I actually want to eat while I'm there."

He was grinning like the whole thing was going to be one big adventure. Jim sighed. "Why don't you just drive?"

"Yeah, right. You know that car's gotta get me through grad school."

"Then let me spot you the money for a plane ticket."

Blair shook his head. "No. No way, man. Thanks, but no way."

"Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I thought this conference was a pretty big deal for you. You're finally going to get to read this paper that you've been trying to get published for years now, right?"

"Yeah, that's right," he answered cautiously. "So?"

"So, I'm just imagining the kind of impression you're going to make when you spring your big theory on the world fresh from a thirty-two hour bus ride."

"No problem. A shower and a cuppa jo, I'll be fresh as a daisy."

Jim shook his head. Thunder was rumbling in the distance, rain pattering steadily against the windowpanes. It had been raining for days. Weeks. Months. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen the sun. "Okay, Chief, have it your way." The next words out of his mouth surprised him at least as much as they did Blair. "But I sure as hell don't intend to get to L.A. on the bus."

"What?"

"Tell you what. I've been meaning to refinish the floors in here for years. You pencil in a couple of weekends to help me with the sander and the varnish, and we'll call it even on your plane ticket, all right?"

Blair looked like he didn't dare believe his ears. "What are you talking about, Jim? Since when have you been planning to go?"

"Ever since I realized how annoyed I was that you were the only one getting out of this damn rain for a few days."

The grin that broke across Blair's face was brighter than the sun. But then he quickly suppressed it. "Oh man, that's really great of you, but I just can't. I'm in too deep already."

"You have any idea what it would cost me to hire somebody to do these floors? A plane ticket's a bargain, believe me."

***

"So, Ellison, how's it going in there? It's the Singleton trial, right?"

Detective Brown had just come out of the courtroom across the hall, looking just as uncomfortable in a suit as Jim felt in his.

"Yeah, that's right. Damn thing's going to take months at the rate they're going."

"Don't sweat it. Those delay tactics don't usually work. Jury's just as likely to take it out on the defense as the prosecution."

"Hope you're right."

He shrugged with completely false modesty, then grinned. "I thought you knew better than to doubt me by now."

"Don't know what came over me there."

"Just don't let it happen again. You want to grab a bite across the street?"

"I can't. The judge hasn't broken for lunch yet, and the way things are going, it may be the middle of the afternoon before she does."

"Well, okay then, you take it easy, man." Brown slapped his shoulder and headed for the elevator. "Where's Sandburg? At the barber's I hope?"

"That'll be the day."

"What I was afraid of." Brown squeezed onto the elevator before the doors could close, crowding the flock of lawyers who had preceded him. Jim grinned after him and shook his head, then went back into the courtroom. The jury still hadn't returned. He slid into the same seat on the back row. For a while he just sat and glared at the back of Singleton's head, but that got old pretty fast.

He leaned his own head against the back wall, bringing back the memory of sunshine on his face.

***

It was so bright it bled crimson through his closed eyelids. He had opened his eyes cautiously, sorry he'd left his sunglasses in the hotel room. The light was brilliant, reflecting off the waves and on the windshields of the cars crawling across the pier to the parking garage. Their weight made the planks underfoot rumble with a vibration Jim felt clear to his fingertips.

The air was electric with sound, and Jim was relaxed and happy enough to enjoy the cacophony. A babel of languages, English, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog, Russian, who knew what else. Blair probably did. Tinny carousel music, the whoops and explosions from the video arcade, boom boxes down on the beach, the hiss of french fries being lowered into hot oil, all of it bound together by the crashing of the waves.

A fisherman vacated his bench just as they were passing by. Jim touched Blair's shoulder. "Want to sit down?"

"Sure," Blair agreed and flopped down on the bench facing the sea, avoiding the little pile of fish guts on the deck which the previous tenant had left behind. "Is this the life or what?"

"It's not too bad."

Blair tugged his t-shirt out of his jeans and pulled it over his head, wadded it up into a pillow and leaned back so he could rest his head on the back of the bench. He closed his eyes blissfully. Two women in cropped tank tops and bikini bottoms were passing by on rollerblades. They stopped and circled, admiring the view. Blair's shoulders gleamed like alabaster in the sunlight. One of the women grinned at Jim and touched her tongue to her upper lip before they skated on.

Jim elbowed him in the ribs. "You're gonna burn red as a lobster if you don't watch it. We both will."

"Yeah, I know." Blair didn't move or open his eyes. "Just a minute won't hurt."

Jim looked over his shoulder at the souvenir stand on the other side. "I'll be right back."

He crossed the pier, paid an outrageous amount for a two ounce tube of sunblock, and carried it back, smearing some over his own face and exposed arms as he went. Blair still hadn't moved. Jim took Blair's hand and squeezed a generous amount into his palm. "Here you go, paleface."

He scowled but dutifully sat up and rubbed the lotion on his shoulders and chest anyway.

"Turn around," Jim said. "If you're going to run around like that you need it on your back too."

"You're worse than Naomi ever was," he grumbled. Jim ignored that, smearing lotion across Blair's back in a few quick broad sweeps.

"That ought to do it." He still had some on his hands, so he wiped them off on Blair's face.

He jerked out of range. "Thanks, Jim. Thanks a lot." He rubbed in the excess lotion, then arranged his t-shirt more carefully across the back of the bench and leaned back, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes closed. "So it's still okay with you if we go to Pasadena in the morning?"

"Pasadena. Right." (Can't we just spend the day at the beach?) "What's in Pasadena again?"

"Huntington Library, man, don't you remember? Professor Wodehouse at the conference yesterday arranged to get a guest membership for me. They've got Burton's Travels in Asia lectures in manuscript, plus a copy of Ultima Thule with his own annotations. I've seen a lot of it on microfilm, but it's not the same as being able to touch it with your own hands."

"I guess it wouldn't be."

"Sorry. I know that's maybe not so interesting for you. But the botanical gardens around the library are beautiful. I saw them four or five years ago, and it's a gorgeous place. You'll love it, Jim."

A library. Botanical gardens. He could hardly wait.

"Jim?" Blair cracked open one eye. "That is okay with you, isn't it?"

Jim felt ashamed of himself. This was Blair's trip. Buying a plane ticket didn't give him the right to dictate the itinerary. "It sounds great."

Blair closed his eyes again, satisfied. "I know you'll like it."

"I'm sure I will." Jim followed his example, closing his eyes and leaning back. Somewhere in the arcade behind them, someone finally succeeded in knocking down the wooden milk bottles at the softball pitch stand. A seagull screamed overhead. Wind flapped in the sails of a boat going past the pier.

But despite the bright warmth of the sun overhead, the thing huddled there between them was as cold and dark as a moonless winter night.

***

Jim suddenly sat bolt upright in the courtroom, his heart racing, his hand automatically reaching for his gun.

What had that been?

Jesus Christ, what had he just remembered?

Heads were turning. Jim forced himself to calm down, to sit back. It couldn't have been a real memory. Just the stress of this trial, the disappointment of being back in Cascade after a few days in the sun. It couldn't possibly be anything more.

As if to confirm that, Dan Singleton turned around in his seat just then, saw Ellison at the back of the courtroom, and smiled at him.

It felt a lot like being grinned at by the devil himself.

***

Part 3

"When it was in any room, let them make what noise they would, its dead, hollow note would be closely heard above them all."

Wesley: 'Letters concerning some disturbances at my father's house at Epworth in Lincolnshire' (1716-17)

***

That afternoon Blair finally got down to brass tacks. He should have submitted his textbook order for the spring semester a week ago, but the latest edition of book he'd been using for the past several years was so bowdlerized, he had decided he would have to find something new. After spending the long, rainy afternoon in his office browsing through the other available options, though, he was starting to conclude that maybe his old textbook wasn't so bad after all.

Well, that wasn't really quite true. The new textbooks were uniformly atrocious, that was the truth of the matter. Bigger pictures, bigger typeface, smaller words, any hint of controversy carefully edited out. No mean feat in an anthro textbook.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor of his office, surrounded by stacks of shiny new books with "instructor's edition" stamped on the spines, he indulged himself by imagining what his dream syllabus for this course would look like. No more wasting his and his students' time with this predigested pap. Just a handful of primary texts – hey, maybe even some Burton, why not? – read slowly and carefully over the course of the semester. Sure, it would be tough going for them, not to mention for their teacher, but they just might learn something that would last beyond the final exam.

Blair stretched his arms over his head and tried to crack his back, unsuccessfully. Rain was pouring across the window panes. Thunder rumbled dull and incessant in the distance. So why don't you do it, Sandburg? Go ahead and design the course you'd really like to teach.

Man, did he ever hate the answer to that one.

(Because I just don't have the time.)

He had a million ways to rationalize these compromises. But the bottom line was, Jim needed him, and Jim came first. Pure and simple. He couldn't remember when he had first started cutting corners, but the behavior was so ingrained by now that most times he scarcely gave it a thought. Besides, it was just little things. So he used a survey text. So did everybody else. So he only assigned one research paper now, instead of the weekly essays he'd required when he'd first started teaching this class a couple of years ago. Back before he'd found a Sentinel. That didn't make him a bad teacher, did it? Just one with a few outside commitments.

God, he hated this. What was the matter with him? He had long since resigned himself to the fact that there were only twenty-four hours in the day. There was no point beating himself up because he had to stop and sleep occasionally.

Must be feeling guilty about Los Angeles. (Busy as your schedule is, you managed to find time to go show up poor old Dr. Mooney, didn't you?) That was probably the real reason he'd been so set on taking the Greyhound. Despite the time it would have wasted, the misery of the trip would have absolved him of any feeling of guilty self-indulgence.

Thinking of Mooney reminded him of this morning's nightmare. It had been with him all day, lurking as far away in the corners of his mind as he'd been able to push it. No wonder he was in such a lousy mood.

Blair stood up abruptly and walked out to see the clock that hung at the end of the corridor. Five-thirty. Looks like nobody was going to show up for office hours after all. Big surprise. Their research paper wasn't due for another month, and there were no tests this week. Might as well have gone to court with Jim for all the good he'd done by coming in to campus today. Or at least stayed home and gotten a start on that damn seminar paper. Geez, he couldn't believe he'd put that off as long as he had.

Feeling vicious and lazy, he hurriedly filled out the order form for the same textbook he'd been using all along and dropped it off at the bookstore on his way to the parking garage.

Jim wasn't home yet. He must have gotten tied up in court, which meant he would be in a wonderful mood by the time he finally got in. It occurred to Blair that he had said he would fix dinner tonight, hadn't he? So it would probably be a good idea to have something ready. Otherwise it was sure to be a long, long evening.

He hung his wet coat on a hook by the door and dropped his equally wet backpack on the floor underneath, then went to rifle through the refrigerator, only to be met with sterile aluminum shelves. Darn, he'd forgotten Jim had taken advantage of their trip to clean and defrost the fridge. Only a handful of things had survived the purge. A couple of eggs. A jar of green olives. Three bottles of beer. A hard leftover heel of parmesan cheese, and a half-pint mason jar of clarified butter that Blair used for frying curry spices.

Actually, Blair had volunteered to do the grocery shopping today too. What had he been thinking? Why had Jim agreed? They had both known he was going to have a long day at school. He had to get started on that paper. And then he was supposed to mop the damn floor on top of everything else.

"For chrissakes, Jim, I can't do everything," he said out loud, and swung the refrigerator door shut as hard as he could.

The little flash of temper vanished as suddenly as it had come, and Blair felt like an ungrateful wretch. All that L.A. sunshine sure hadn't lasted very long, had it? He tried to cheer himself up by remembering the conference, but even that memory felt empty and wrung out now, like a favorite song played one too many times.

Must be the rain, the gloom of the early winter evening, his disappointment at having to settle for that stupid textbook, not to mention the lingering emotional hangover from this morning's dream.

And it didn't help matters that the atmosphere in the loft was about as inviting as a damp, chilly cave.

He raked his wet hair back off his forehead and looked around. Usually just being home automatically cheered him up, no matter what sort of a day he'd had. Not tonight, though. Maybe it would help if he started a fire. Then figure out what to do about dinner, get things ready so he could throw it all together when Jim came walking in the door, and then if he had time, hey, go ahead and mop the floor too. Just get busy and do something. He'd be better able to concentrate on his own work after getting the chores done anyway. It was probably this standing around sulking that was getting him down.

It wasn't a bad plan, but it went wrong right from the start. He couldn't get a match to light to save his life. He crouched in front of the fireplace striking one long fireplace match one after another and watching in exasperation as each briefly flared blue then winked out, leaving only a fading plume of smoke. The living room stank of sulfur by the time he finally gave it up in disgust. They must have gotten wet last night, though heaven knew how. Or maybe it was just the humid atmosphere.

Okay, so forget the fire. He turned up the heat to compensate, then went back to the kitchen. Next on the agenda: dinner. He was almost certain there were a couple of onions still in the vegetable bin, and surely there was an old package of spaghetti around here somewhere.

Well, one onion anyway, a little shriveled and growing long green tops, but finding it felt like the first thing that had gone right for him all day. He managed to dig out half a package of egg noodles that had somehow gotten shoved to the back of the drawer with the dishtowels, and an unexpected bonus in the breadbox – a few slices of stale rye. The makings of a feast. Finally his spirits began to lift.

He broke a chili off the ristra hanging by the vent and put it in the toaster oven to puff up and finish drying out. He grated the parmesan cheese and beat it with the two eggs and set the bowl aside. He started humming to himself a little as he chopped some olives, then sliced the stale bread into little cubes, and tossed them into a saucepan with a big spoonful of clarified butter. This was gonna be pretty good, actually. A little high in fat, not exactly low in cholesterol, and not much nutritive value, but comfort food had its place every once in a while. Especially after a day like today.

He set the onion on the chopping block, sliced off the tops and the roots, made a shallow cut from end to end and peeled off the skin. The frying bread smelled wonderful. He waltzed back the oven to make sure it wasn't going to scorch, and decided to turn the burner off for now. No telling how late Jim might be. He could finish toasting the bread when he actually arrived.

You know, he really was being too hard on himself about his spring class. Show me another grad student in the department – heck, in the whole school – who wasn't juggling his time every bit as desperately between the demands of teaching and completing the degree. Devote as much time to your classes as the poor undergrads actually needed and deserved, and you'd never finish. The university might praise your high class evaluations, but that wouldn't stop them from booting you right on out the door if you didn't complete your dissertation on time.

So give yourself some credit, Sandburg. Jim did, after all. You trust him on everything else, why not this?

***

He smiled at a sudden recollection from the trip. He'd spent all morning and a good bit of the afternoon in the archives at Huntington Library, so enthralled that he'd forgotten all about Jim, if the truth be told. When he'd finally thought of the time and realized how long he'd left Jim to fend for himself out in the gardens, he had regretfully dropped everything – a single day wasn't enough time to pore through it all anyway, a week wouldn't have been, but at least he'd had a few lovely hours – and dashed out to the sunny afternoon to look for him.

Jim wasn't in any of the obvious places. Not on the hillside overlooking the lake, not in the Japanese gardens, not in one of the shady forest glens, not in the rose arbor. As he searched, it struck Blair for the first time that maybe, just maybe, six hours at the botanical gardens might not have been the way Jim would have chosen to spend his last day in Los Angeles.

He finally found him in the formal parterre in front of the old family mansion. A long yew alley stretched behind him, shadowed and dark despite the brightness of the day. He must have heard Blair coming long before Blair saw him, but he just waited for him, smiling as though there were no place he'd rather be than sitting there on that hard marble bench, surrounded by the carefully reconstructed elegance of an earlier age.

***

And just then the knife in Blair's hand slipped. The blade went skidding across the slickness of the peeled onion and bit so deeply into his finger that Blair felt the shudder of cold clear through to his spine.

He just stood there for a moment, stunned and furious with himself, watching the long white slice turn red. A fat drop of blood hit the cutting board. Dammit! Not on the very last onion. He snatched it up with his other hand and threw it into the sink. He could wash it off and Jim would never know. (And Jim thought finding a hair in his food was bad.) He suppressed a giggle, then realized there was a ringing in his ears, and that he didn't seem to be able to focus his eyes.

Oh my god, was he about to faint?

He sat down abruptly on the kitchen floor, his head between his knees, his cut finger wrapped tight in his t-shirt. This was too stupid for words. What a night! He should have just ordered out some pad Thai noodles and beef satay and been done with it.

Even with his head down he felt sick and dizzy. The ringing in his ears had given way to a dull booming that he thought must be the thunder of his pulse. His finger throbbed in time with the beating of his heart.

His t-shirt was quickly soaked through. How bad was it really? Good grief, was he going to need stitches? He gathered up more of the shirt and wrapped his finger more tightly, holding it hard with his other hand. Great. So now his shirt was a total loss too. Why couldn't he have grabbed a dish towel on his way down?

He stayed on the floor, waiting for the initial shock to wear off. His finger was starting to ache clear to his scarred knuckle, which he supposed was a good sign. His heartbeat was slowing down, and he didn't feel so dizzy anymore.

But the booming in his ears hadn't stopped. What in the world?

He sat up, straining to see around the kitchen island. It sounded as though someone were swinging a sledgehammer against a lead pipe. It must be coming from somewhere else in the building, but that wasn't what it sounded like. It sounded like it was right here in the loft with him. For the love of—

And then it stopped so suddenly that Blair wondered whether he had heard it at all. But he had, he knew he had.

(And just how did your pillow end up at the top of the stairs last night?)

Then the forgotten chili pepper he'd left roasting in the oven burst into flame.

Blair lurched to his feet and unthinkingly opened the oven door. A thin curl of black smoke rolled out, giving him a face full of airborne pepper oil. He reeled back, hacking and gagging, tears streaming from his eyes. (Oh God what had he done to deserve this?) Doubled over with coughs, he slammed the door shut again and turned the toaster oven off, leaving bloody hand prints all over it. He managed to get the vent fan on, dripping blood on the floor, the countertops, the refrigerator and the stove all the while, then staggered away, feeling like he was about to cough up a lung. He had to get out of here. He groped his way to the front door and flung it open, surprising the hell out of Jim, who apparently had those old Sentinel senses turned off right now. He stared in astonishment for just an instant before the poisoned smoke caught up to him and he began to cough as well. He pulled Blair into the hall, instinctively slamming the door behind them. The fire alarm began to whoop.

Blair was coughing too violently to stand up. Jim helped him down, his own eyes streaming with tears. Bending over him, he took Blair's hand without unwrapping the bloody shirt. "Have you got the bleeding stopped?" he gasped out. Blair couldn't answer. He shrugged and tried to nod.

"Try to keep the pressure on it. Can you do that?" He showed Blair what he meant by wrapping Blair's right hand around the afflicted finger and bearing down.

I know Jim, I know, he thought, mortified by the whole thing and wondering how dinner could have gone so disastrously wrong. He couldn't begin to suppress his coughs.

"Is the fire out?"

Blair nodded again, feeling like his esophagus was lined with chili pepper ash. All his hacking and gasping just seemed to make it worse.

"Wait here a minute."

Jim went back, leaving the door open this time. After a few moments, the fire alarm was silenced. Blair's coughs were finally beginning to ease a little. Oh man, was this ever stupid. Jim came back carrying a glass of water that he handed to Blair. "I got some windows open. Give it another few minutes to clear out and we'll get your hand cleaned up." His eyes were red and streaming tears, and his voice was just a dry rasp. (So anyway, welcome home, Jim. You have a good day in court today?)

"Was that our dinner you just immolated in the toaster oven?"

"A part of it," Blair whispered hoarsely. "Sorry."

"Uh huh. You know, pizza would have been just fine with me, Chief."

***

Part 4

"Mammy told this tale about her stepmother. Late one Sunday evening they went to the barn to milk. One or maybe both saw a person coming across the field a way off. They didn't know who it was. It kept getting closer and closer and wobblier and limper. As it got real close, it just went down to the ground. Its arms flew up and fire came out to the tips of its fingers."

Montell: 'Deathlore In The Kentucky Foothills' (1975)

***

Jim was back in court at eight-thirty the next morning. By nine the jury had been seated, and by nine-fifteen hustled to their feet and ushered right back out again. Jim leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and rested his head in his hands. It had been well past midnight before they'd gotten back from the Emergency Room. Of course Blair had needed stitches. Six, in fact, curving in a bloody line from the knuckle practically up to the fingernail. He was lucky not to have sliced his finger clean off. As if anyone would believe Lady Luck and Blair Sandburg had even a nodding acquaintance.

The kitchen had looked like an abattoir. Blair's bloody handprints all over the counter tops, drops spattered on the kitchen floor and trailing a wobbly line to the front door. Blair complained the whole way to the hospital and then griped and fidgeted for three hours while they waited for a doctor. Jim didn't bother to point out this was hardly the way he had planned to spend the evening either.

On top of everything else, Jim had felt exhausted and didn't really know why, though he thought it must have been those eight hours in the courtroom. Nothing was more tiring than complete inactivity. He hadn't even gone to the gym afterwards, telling himself he didn't have time, not and catch up the work he was falling behind on at the station.

So he'd stopped by the precinct on his way home, shuffled a few files around, but was so dull his head felt as though it were stuffed with cotton batting. He'd closed his eyes just for a moment and nearly fallen asleep right there at his desk.

Then back to the loft to find his home transformed into a war zone, and Blair pretending that the cut wasn't really so bad and anyway, man, he had too much to do to waste the whole night in the Emergency Room.

Of course, that's exactly what they had ended up doing anyway. Hour after hour crawled by under the harsh flourescent lights of the waiting room while Blair moaned about the paper he had planned to work on tonight and bitched at Jim for not holding up long enough for him to bring his laptop along to the hospital.

Exasperated, Jim finally asked him how much typing he thought he could do with a half-severed finger anyway, and Blair had turned on him in earnest.

"You just don't get it! I've been carrying an incomplete for a year now because of this damn seminar paper, and now it's finally lapsed to an F. Fellowship renewals are coming up next month, and it's curtains if I don't get it cleaned off my transcript before then."

"So you've had a year to write it? Then I don't understand why you're yelling at me, Chief."

"Yeah, right, Jim. Thanks a lot. I wonder what could I possibly have been doing this past year that would interfere with schoolwork?"

"If this isn't working out, you should have said something before now. We can make other arrangements. Maybe you really should be spending at lot less time at the station, less time riding around with me—"

Of course, as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Jim had regretted them.

Blair's eyes had gone wide in dismay. "Oh, Jim, that's not what I meant. The time I spend on the job with you isn't the problem at all. It's really not. I've just had kind of a bad day."

(Way to go, Ellison. Why don't you just take a swing at him while you're at it?)

He took a breath and started over. "I haven't had a great day either. But let me be sure I understand you here. Not having finished this paper yet – that's going to stand in the way of you getting your teaching fellowship next year?"

Blair pulled his legs up onto the chair. His shirt looked as though it had been tie-dyed in blood. "Yeah, kind of. It's really stupid, it's just a little seminar paper, but I've just kept putting it off and putting it off, and it's finally caught up with me, that's all."

"You never should have told me."

Worry crept back into those huge blue eyes. "Jim, it's no big deal. I'll get it done."

"I know you will, because I'm going to make sure that you do. Now this Singleton trial is liable to stretch on to the end of the week, which means there's really no good reason for you to be showing your nose down at the station anyway. So just stay away. You think you can finish it by the end of the week?"

He nodded quickly. "No problem. It's just a matter of sitting down and doing it."

"Okay. No housework, no cooking, nothing until it gets done. I'm going to have to be checking in downtown in the evenings while this trial is going on, which means I won't be around to do it either. The bottom line is, if we have to live on pop tarts and pizza, wading hip deep through our own filth till you finish, then that's just the way it's going to have to be. Maybe that'll motivate you to get off your butt and get it done, all right?"

"All right, Jim," he said quietly. "Thanks, man."

In the light of day, Jim was a little sorry to have treated him like a child, but it seemed to be what Sandburg had needed to hear. He calmed down a little and stopped complaining quite so volubly. In fact, Jim finally must have been able to catch some sleep in that hard little waiting room chair, because his next clear memory of the evening was of Sandburg holding up his stitched finger like a trophy, shaking Jim's shoulder with his other hand and saying, "C'mon, wake up, man, let's get out of here."

Jim had to smile a little. Not four days ago he had watched Blair get up in front of a jury of his peers and take on a scholar with twice his age and experience. It was a little difficult to reconcile that memory of Blair calmly, politely, and apparently devastatingly taking apart a theory no one else had questioned in twenty-five years, with the Blair of last night who'd been fretful as a little kid on a long car ride, unable to cook dinner without precipitating a trip to the Emergency Room, worrying about an 'F' on his report card, for pete's sake.

***

It made Jim glad all over again that he had been at the conference. He knew Blair was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, and was even beginning to have some inkling of just what Sandburg's standing in his field was. Still, it didn't hurt to be reminded of it now and again.

The fact that he'd even heard Blair read his paper was almost as big a surprise as going to Los Angeles in the first place. That hadn't been the plan. The plan had been for him to simply drop Blair off at UCLA, then take the rental car and drive up Pacific Coast Highway maybe as far as Santa Barbara, maybe just find a quiet beach somewhere along the way. Just enjoy the day, the sunshine, the ocean, a little peace and solitude for once in his life.

Not the way it had happened, however.

"You can let me off right here, man," Blair said. "Royce Hall is at the top of the hill there. Do me good to walk. Guess I'm still a little nervous or something."

Jim pulled up to the curb. "Nothing to be nervous about, Chief. You'll knock 'em dead."

Blair was drumming two-handed on the dashboard, making no move yet to get out of the car. "Or Mooney will knock me dead. One way or the other. If you come back tonight and find my head on top of the flagpole there, you'll know how it went."

Jim laughed. Blair smiled weakly in return, then finally twisted around to get his papers out of the back seat.

"Sure you've got everything?" Jim asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure." He stopped nevertheless, and paged through the folder carefully. Jim looked around. He'd never been here before, but the campus had a dreamlike familiarity. It was a feeling he was getting used to in Los Angeles. Must be the result of seeing these places as the backdrop to countless movies and TV shows. Strange to be confronted with the evidence that they were more than stage props. But he still had the secret belief that he could reach out and give the scenery one hard push, and the whole thing would ripple like a painted canvas at the back of a stage.

Blair took a deep breath. "Okay. So, I'll meet you back here about eight, all right?"

"I'll be here."

"Listen, man, thanks again for all this. You were right. I'd have been a total basket case if I'd taken the bus."

"No problem."

There was a parking garage right across the street. Jim sighed as he suddenly recognized the inevitable. "Wait a minute," he told Blair before he could open the car door. At the first break in the traffic pouring onto campus off Sunset Boulevard, he made a hasty U-turn across four lanes and drove up the ramp into the garage.

"Jim?"

"Think you can stand to have your own cheering section, Sandburg?"

"You're not serious." The look on Blair's face at that moment was more than worth the price of the plane ticket.

"Your call. You don't want me there, just say the word."

Blair beamed at him, and didn't say a word.

***

11:00 a.m. The jury still hadn't been called back. I'm in hell, Jim was thinking calmly to himself. The plane we were on must have crashed coming over the Cascade Mountains. We all died quick, messy deaths, and now I'm in hell.

At noon, court was recessed for lunch without the jury ever having been recalled. Jim glanced around at the crowds thronging out of the other court rooms, looking for someone to have lunch with, but not recognizing anyone but defense attorneys and court officials. Oh well, guess he'd be better off eating alone anyway. He still felt as lethargic and dull as he had last night. Nothing but Blair's chattering had kept him awake on the way home from the Emergency Room. He hadn't even cared about the lingering smell of charred chili pepper in the loft. He stumbled to the couch and collapsed, too beat even to make it up the stairs to his bedroom.

He was practically asleep right there on the sofa when he became aware of the sound of running water, then the quieter splash of water in a plastic bucket. He smelled detergent and managed to peel his eyes open.

"Sandburg, what are you doing?"

Blair popped up from behind the kitchen island, sponge in hand. "Just cleaning up a little."

"What were we just talking about?" It was an effort for Jim to speak at all, sleep was tugging so powerfully at his mind. He closed his eyes again.

"Yeah, I know, but I didn't think you meant we had to leave bloodstains too. It's gross, man. Looks like a slaughter house in here."

Jim supposed he had a point. That had been his impression of the kitchen, too. He drifted back into a lazy half-sleep, still aware of his surroundings. It seemed to him that he could see the entire loft without opening his eyes, could go anywhere he wanted without moving a muscle.

So he walked up the stairs to his bedroom, then turned and looked down at Blair. He was pouring the bucket of bloody water down the drain, wringing out the sponge, throwing it into the plastic basket below the sink, acting like he was all done. That good-for-nothing kid. Was that what he considered cleaning up? The kitchen looked worse than it had when he'd started. The blood was everywhere now, smeared and diluted with soapy water, running an inch thick on the floor, pouring off the countertops, running down the walls. Goddamn you, Blair, he thought furiously as the little punk disappeared into his own bedroom. Get out here and clean up your own goddamned mess.

A quiet little sound brought him suddenly out of his dream and he sat upright on the sofa, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs.

Blair really was in his bedroom. Jim ventured a cautious glance towards the kitchen. There was no blood, of course. Blair had cleaned it up. Just a bad dream. No surprise after spending the whole evening in the hospital.

Then his attention was drawn back to Blair's bedroom. What in the world was he doing in there? He pulled himself up off the sofa and went to see.

Sandburg was dragging the sheets off his bed in a frenzy, wadding them up, throwing them on the floor. He was shaking the pillow out of its case like a madman when he looked up and saw Jim standing there.

"Do you mind telling me what you think you're doing?" Jim felt like he was pushing through molasses just to get his words out. He just wanted to get up the stairs and go – to – bed. "I tell you no more housework, and you start more cleaning than I've seen you do in all the time you've lived here."

Blair smiled a guilty, absolutely miserable smile. If Jim hadn't been so damn tired he would have gotten to the bottom of the terrible grin right then and there, but he just didn't have the energy.

"Hey, sorry, man. But sometimes you just gotta change the sheets. You know what I mean?"

"I don't even want to know, Sandburg." He turned and finally got up the stairs to bed, and when he awoke this morning, he'd still been wearing his clothes.

Abruptly, Jim decided he had lost his appetite for lunch. He bought a cup of startlingly bad coffee from a vending machine in the basement of the courthouse, and spent the next hour standing by the propped-open emergency exit door, just watching the rain patter down on the sidewalk.

***

Part 5

"'How am I to fear the absolutely non-existent?' said Huree Babu, talking English to reassure himself."

Kipling: 'Kim' (1901)

***

Idea of reference. There, Blair thought. That's it. That's what I was looking for.

He was certain he'd remembered there being a term for it from a class in abnormal psych, but he'd spent a grim hour browsing through a list of common delusions to find it. As wound up as he was this afternoon, everything seemed to apply to his mental state, and he felt gullible as a hypochondriac reading a medical text. On top of that, he was twitchy with guilt, as if Jim would somehow know that he wasn't working on his paper.

(I'm getting right to it, Jim, I promise. Just need to check on something first.)

But "idea of reference." That was it. Believing that things happening around you hold a special, secret significance. Like thinking a song on the radio is really meant just for you. Or that the pigeons waddling around on the ledge outside the library window are discussing your life.

Or even beginning to suspect that a few funny little mishaps around the loft, some odd noises, a misplaced pillow – or even a drop of blood in the wrong place – could possibly, possibly be anything more than that. Just funny little things. It's a funny old world, after all.

Blair read the entire entry again, resisting the urge to get up and find a more exhaustive text than the little psych reference book. He took comfort in the author's contention that ideas of reference were common, probably happened to most people from time to time, and passed without incident.

Without incident.

Of course, if they persisted, they could be symptomatic of mental illness. Schizophrenia, say.

That was a little less reassuring.

He slammed the book shut, drawing a disapproving glare from a guy studying at a carrel nearby, then got up and put it back on the nearest reshelving cart. Time to get to work on that seminar paper.

Actually, it was nice to have a name for what he seemed to have been experiencing. After all, there was enormous power in being able to name something. No wonder so many traditional peoples kept their soul names a secret. Once you named something, you could control it.

Blair hoped.

He dragged the file folder with his notes for the seminar paper out of his back pack and laid it open on his desk.

He hadn't even looked at this stuff in more than a year. He thought the research was pretty much finished, but frankly, after all this time, he really didn't remember. Looked fairly complete, though. A sheaf of xeroxes, some lecture notes, lots more notes from other sources, the bibliography already put together (Great! Hoped it was still on his hard drive and that he hadn't accidentally deleted it some time during the past year) and hey, here was an unexpected bonus, a tentative outline for the paper itself. He didn't realize he'd gotten so far along before being sidetracked.

He smiled a little as he looked over his work. What a different person he'd been back then. He could hardly recognize the smug, hyperactive brat who'd begun working on this paper so long ago. His smile broadened. Jim probably would, though.

Poor Jim. The guy had looked absolutely wiped last night. And then to have to spend the entire evening at the hospital while Blair had the results of his own terminal clumsiness repaired. Oh, man. Blair lowered his head into his hands, remembering. And he'd been a major jerk the whole time too. So angry and frustrated that he couldn't find anything better to do than to take it out on Jim.

Oh man. Oh, geez.

'Cause it's not like Jim's ever done anything for you, is it? Not like he paid for your plane ticket to spare you a sixty-hour round trip bus ride, not like he gave up a peaceful drive up the coast to listen to you and a roomful of other anthropologists discuss the orientation of bhuta shrines (boy, bet you got a whole lot out of that, didn't you, Jim? I bet you were absolutely enthralled) not like the poor man hadn't declared his willingness even to sacrifice the ordered tranquillity of his own home if it would help Blair finish his paper on time.

So the least, the absolute least you can do is write damn thing, isn't it?

Besides, knowing Jim, he was likely to ask to see what progress Blair had made as soon as he got back from court tonight. That was one thing about James Ellison. Once he took an interest in something, he was absolutely committed. Blair might very well come to regret having brought up the paper at all.

Which may have Jim's intention in the first place. The man was no fool.

Okay. Getting right to work.

You know, he really should have stayed at home to do this. There was no reason for him to be on campus today. If he tried to work at the library he was sure to keep getting distracted.

But really, while he was here, he should check and see if anything relevant had come out in the past year.

No, no, no. It doesn't matter. This isn't for publication, and you're not trying to ruin some poor old guy's career, all you need to do is turn out twenty or thirty pages showing you were awake during Professor Skal's seminar, have some nodding familiarity with trendy critical approaches and the rudimentary ability to digest source material, then throw it all together into something at least approximating coherence. He should be able write this in his sleep.

Well, he didn't absolutely have to go home. Maybe he could work on the computer in his office.

(Because you're scared to go home, isn't that right, Sandburg? The thought of being alone in the loft all day scares the bejezus out of you.)

Yes, it certainly did. Ideas of reference or not.

Blair laid his hands flat on the desk on top of his notes, studying the stitches in his left index finger. The bruising extended half way up the back of his hand. Lovely, really lovely.

Now let's try to think about this like a rational human being. As long as he stayed away from sharp objects, what's the very, very worst that could happen? He could obsess himself into a complete screaming panic, but really now, even if he got home and found – oh, I don't know – another blood-soaked handprint in the Wrong Place – so what? Big deal. Nothing soap and water wouldn't take care of.

Of course, there was always the possibility that his "ideas of reference" diagnosis was a little off the mark. Maybe the problem wasn't that he was attaching enormous important to trivial events. Maybe he was seeing and hearing things that weren't even there in the first place. Maybe he was actually suffering full-blown delusions.

Oh great. That hadn't occurred to him before. Now he was sorry he had washed the sheets last night. He should have shown them to Jim at least, gotten some confirmation that, whatever twisted way his mind was dealing with sensory input, at least the raw data was sound.

But last night that really hadn't seemed like an option. Jim was sacked out on the couch, and Blair wasn't much better, interested in nothing but getting to bed and putting this whole night behind him. But the kitchen had looked so awful. No matter what Jim had said about housework, they really couldn't leave bloodstains all over the floor and counters for a week.

He hadn't even gone to his bedroom, because he'd been afraid if he went in there the temptation to fall face down on the bed and immediately go to sleep might prove irresistible. No, he had gotten a bucket and sponge out from under the sink, mopped up the dried blood, then rinsed it twice because Jim hated the smell of the soap. Jim had woken up once, grumbled something about leaving it alone, and immediately fallen asleep again.

So he'd finished up, gone to the bathroom, washed his face, brushed his teeth, everything a little awkward and a little slow with his frankenstein finger here, then gone to his bedroom—

That was the first time. He had not been in his bedroom since cutting his finger. He was absolutely, positively, one hundred percent sure.

Nevertheless, the first thing he saw was the thin spray of brown droplets across his pillow, and he felt the blood still left in his veins turn to ice.

(And I always thought that was just cliche, but what do you know? There really does seem to be something about as big and cold as an ice cube stuck in a ventricle right now.)

He moved forward slowly, slowly, thinking, that's blood, isn't it? Yes it is, my friend. There's no doubt about it. There's blood spattered all over your pillow. And would you mind telling me how it got there?

His brain had been frantically casting about for an explanation the whole time. Maybe Jim had come in here? He'd gotten some blood on himself helping Blair get fixed for the ride to the hospital.

Right, Jim comes home, finds Blair bloody and half asphyxiated and the loft about to go up in flames for all he knows, so what does he do? Runs into the bedroom to sprinkle a little more blood around. That made a whole lot of sense.

Blair had probably had a nosebleed or something during the night. Just hadn't noticed at the time.

Then he remembered that he hadn't slept on that pillow, because it had been at the top of the stairs in Jim's bedroom.

Horror had made him very calm for a moment. He went to his bed side and looked down at the pillow without touching it. The sheets and blankets were twisted in a heap in the middle of the bed. He reached out slowly and pushed them aside, and there it was.

Not even a whole hand print. A thumb, the first two fingers, a jagged piece of the palm. Neatly stamped in the center of the fitted sheet in brown, dried blood.

His next memories weren't very clear. He recalled looking up to see Jim standing in the doorway.

"You mind telling me what you think you're doing?"

He had no idea what he had told Jim, but it must have worked, whatever it was. Jim made a face, then turned and stumbled away, leaving Blair to finish ripping the sheets off the bed.

That's how tired Jim must have been last night. Blair proceeds to start a load of laundry at one in the morning, and Jim doesn't complain?

More than tired. Blair thought about the way Jim had looked standing in his doorway there. No, asking him to examine the blood on the sheets and the pillow case had not been an option. Those normally piercing blue eyes had been glazed with an exhaustion that seemed to emanate from his very soul.

That Singleton trial must really be taking it out of him.

Or something was at any rate.

Oh.

Oh, Jim.

And here was that chunk of ice back in his heart again, lodged hard in his aorta.

***

Jim felt the change in air pressure a moment before he heard the hinges, and he saw Judge Juarez's eyes flicker to the back of the courtroom. A faint scowl creased her brow.

Sandburg.

He would have known even without seeing the expression on her face. Jim could feel his suppressed energy from halfway across the room.

He glanced around. Blair had sidled into the courtroom and was standing with his back to the door. In deference to his surroundings he was trying to hold still, but though his arms were at his sides, his hands were frantic. And seeing the expression on his face, Jim forgot his own momentary annoyance. He got quickly to his feet and went back to him.

Blair managed to hold his tongue until they were outside the courtroom, but it was clearly an effort. "Are you okay?"

Not what he'd been expecting to hear. He took Blair's arm and guided him further away from the courtroom entrance. His leather jacket was soaking wet, his hair plastered to his scalp. So much for Jim's hope that maybe the rain would let up this afternoon.

"Am I okay, Chief? I'm fine. What's the matter with you?"

Blair searched his face anxiously, then sank down onto an empty bench, all that excess energy just evaporating into the air. His eyes closed for a moment and Jim heard him taking deep, slow breaths.

Jim waited for him a few moments, his arms crossed over his chest, but as it became increasingly evident that there was no immediate threat, his concern started to give way again to faint annoyance. Juarez hated interruptions in her courtroom. "Mind telling me what this is all about?"

Blair looked up at him, rueful and apologetic. "Sorry, man. Little anxiety attack there or something. I had this horrible idea and I just, I mean, I just had to make sure you were all right, you know?"

"No, I don't, frankly. Why aren't you home working on that paper of yours?"

Blair flinched.

"Sandburg, what the hell's the matter with you?"

He was twisting his hands together nervously, unable to answer, and now unwilling even to meet Jim's eyes. With a sigh that he tried to suppress, Jim sat down next to him and kept his voice calm. "Something sent you flying down here to drag me out of court. Now that you're here, doesn't it make sense to just go ahead and tell me what it was?"

He looked as though he were gathering his courage. Then he said, "Jim, have you noticed anything funny going on at the loft?"

"'Funny?' Funny how? Funny like you almost burning the place down last night? In case you didn't notice, I wasn't laughing."

"No, not that. Little things. Things out of place. Stuff like that."

"Is this about that pillow of yours, Sandburg? I've been thinking about that. Do you think it's possible you've been sleepwalking?"

"I wondered that too. I never have before, but I guess that might explain it. But all the other stuff too—"

"What other stuff?"

He hedged. "You haven't, you know, heard anything? Like a booming sound, sounds like someone's banging on a pipe?"

"Blair, what in the world are you talking about?"

"How about nightmares? Have you had any bad dreams since we got back? 'Cause I had a helluva one the night before last. I still can't get it out of my mind."

It was Ellison's turn to flinch, and he looked away quickly, so Blair wouldn't be able to read even a hint of his guilt.

(Bad dreams? Why no, Chief. Don't know what you're talking about there. Of course, last night I had a vision of you washing the entire kitchen in your own blood, and it made me so angry I could have twisted your head off without a second thought, but no, I haven't been having bad dreams.)

He put his hand on Blair's shoulder and forced himself to look into those anxious, trusting eyes.

"Blair, listen to me. Go home, or to the university, or public library, I don't care. Just find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed and can get that paper written. I'm sure once it's not hanging over your head anymore you'll feel a lot better about everything."

Blair shrugged Jim's hand away and stood up. "Right. You're right. Sorry I bothered you, man."

***

Part 6

"And it had a glare – a staring glare to it, which was a – which was a strange thing, for a thing that had no real face and couldn't make any facial expressions."

Hufford: 'The Terror That Comes In The Night' (1982)

***

When he'd started working on this paper a year ago, Blair had been amused and fascinated by the Malaysian Penanggalan. The spirit of a woman who died in childbirth, the Penanggalan appeared as a disembodied head trailing its own viscera, and could be found hovering greedily about the roof during the birth of other women's children, or worse yet, worming its way through the floorboards under a newborn's cradle, hungry for the infant's lifeblood.

Grotesque as it was, the legend stirred Blair's pity too. All his training and education cautioned him against imposing his own feelings here. Nevertheless, he couldn't help but suspect that belief in such a creature must spring from the appalling irony of labor pains ending only in death. It was probably easier to demonize the poor woman who died than face up to the utter heartlessness of the universe.

And if he were very, very careful, and trod very, very gently, Blair thought he could use his personal feelings about the matter – un-intellectual, un-rigorous as they might be – to humanize what could otherwise prove just another dull romp through the hinterlands of academia.

At least, that's the way he'd thought about this paper a year ago.

This evening, however, huddled in a corner of the sofa with his notes spread around him, every light in the loft turned on, the rain washing down across the windows in sheets, lighting flashing, the power flickering with every boom of thunder, Blair really wished he could be thinking about something other than vampiric, disembodied heads bouncing around like helium balloons.

You know, the esophagus and intestines would probably look a lot like jellyfish tentacles.

Stop it right now.

Wasn't it bad enough that he'd make such an idiot of himself this afternoon? Anxious as he was for Jim to hurry up and get home tonight, part of him dreaded facing him again after pitching that fit in the courthouse.

Heard any mysterious noises, Jim? Had any nightmares lately? Oh lord. Blair closed his eyes for a moment. That had been really, really bad. Working himself up into a state of complete hysteria, and for what? Sure, the blood was a little freaky, but let's be honest now. He'd practically sliced his finger off, then nearly choked to death on that damn chili pepper, how mysterious was it that he didn't remember dashing into his bedroom for a second before going to the hospital? He'd probably run in just to pick up his coat or something, which he'd probably left on the bed. The only mystery was that there hadn't been even more blood.

Well ... that, and the fact that the sheets had washed out so clean. Last night he'd been far too crazy to think about the best way to get bloodstains out of cotton sheets. He certainly hadn't pre-soaked them, and for that matter, he didn't think he had washed them in cold water either. Now admittedly his memory of the previous evening couldn't be relied upon, but thinking back on it, he could have sworn he had washed them in hot water with some dim notion of trying to sterilize the influence of whatever filthy thing had marked his bedclothes.

Which should have cooked those bloodstains right into his sheets for good. But when he came home this afternoon, thoroughly abashed after talking to Jim, and went to pull the sheets out of the dryer, he'd found the fitted sheet and pillow case both as clean as could be. No trace of the blood that had so terrified him the night before.

Well, so what? So he was a better housekeeper than he'd ever realized.

Or here's one for you, Blair: maybe there was never any blood there in the first place.

He quickly bent over his notes with renewed attention. Okay. Let's see here. So W. W. Skete was the first Westerner to write about the Penanggalan. His 1900 Malay Magic was typically Eurocentric for the time, but interesting nevertheless for its—

There was a deafening crash of thunder. The lights flickered, then blinked out all together.

Blair sat absolutely still.

This is not a problem. The lights are going to come back on any second now.

Just any second now.

He looked towards the windows, hungry for the lights of the city. Then it occurred to him how absolutely dreadful it would be to see one of those heads bobbing gently outside the window.

He squeezed his eyes shut again. Geez, man, would you please please get – a – grip.

Think about something else for a minute. It's just because you're obsessing about this, driving yourself crazy. Jim's right. It must be this paper. It's been hanging over you for so long it's given you a major case of writer's block. Tough to come down again after a high like the conference, and of course, to come back to this – a falling barometer, endless rain, a paper that simply couldn't be put off any longer – then having that nightmare about Dr. Mooney his very first night home.

Ideas of reference. Delusions of reference. You're determined to read something sinister into every little thing that happens. You've got yourself so worked up that even Malaysian folk tales are freaking you out.

But just for the sake of argument, said that nagging, nervous little voice, just for the sake of argument, Blair, my man – hadn't Jim seemed, oh, I don't know, just the tiniest bit ... off? What did that expression on his face mean when you asked him if he'd been having nightmares? And why did he look away from you so quick?

All that expression meant was that he couldn't believe he had such an impressionable imbecile sharing his home, and he'd looked away fast so he wouldn't throttle Blair for dragging him out of court on such a ridiculous excuse. Thank you and case closed.

He dared a peek around the loft. Power was still out. He should light some candles. There was a kerosene lantern in the closet that would probably be bright enough to work from.

Except there weren't any functional matches in the whole loft. He'd forgotten that little detail.

No, wait a minute. There were waterproof matches with the camping equipment. He could just dig them out of that back storage closet ... just head right on back there in the total darkness and hunt up those matches. Piece of cake.

On second thought, what about getting out of this place for some dinner? He'd been planning to wait for Jim to get home, then ordering take out, but maybe it would do him good to get out of here for a little while. After all, he'd done the best he possibly could, hadn't he? Come straight home from the courthouse and made himself sit here for the rest of the day, and nothing bad had happened, had it?

Of course, he still hadn't written Word One of his paper.

He took a deep breath. So just stay put, Sandburg. The lights are sure to come back on any minute now.

Man, L.A. had been so nice. Who would have thought it could all fall apart so quickly? Jim had been in a great mood then. Coaxing Blair along before the conference, not letting him get too wound up, quietly sharing his jubilation afterwards, not saying a whole lot, but from time to time Blair would glance over and catch Jim watching him, a smug, almost proprietary smile on his face.

And now—

Well, the explanation was simple, of course. Act like an idiot, and Jim's going to treat you like one.

***

Except that wasn't totally true, was it? They'd arrived in L.A. the day before the conference, and Blair knew he'd been acting like an idiot then too, way too hyped and nervous to sit still for five minutes, hardly able to walk a straight line without bumping into walls. Jim took it all in stride, simply asking – a little wistfully, Blair realized in retrospect – if he'd like to drive to Griffith Park. James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause, you know.

Blair had jumped him like he was completely insane to have even suggested such a thing. Didn't Jim know what he had to do tomorrow? Had he forgotten the whole reason they were in L.A.?

So Jim just shrugged, palms up, and went out on his own, leaving Blair to stew in his own juices for a while.

When he returned a few hours later he had an L.A. Weekly under one arm. It didn't look like Jim's kind of rag, but Blair was too unnerved by the thought that he was finally going to get to take on Mooney to pay much attention. He was tinkering obsessively with his notes, changing articles and prepositions, practically repositioning commas. He was dimly aware of Jim sitting on the corner of the bed and paging through his newspaper, when suddenly he stood up, walked over to the little table where Blair had his notes spread out, and laid the paper open on top of them.

"Jim? Do you mind, man?"

He pointed to a little article on the open page. "What do you think, Chief?"

"What I think is I don't have time for this right now."

"This La Luz gallery in West Hollywood has an exhibit of hand-painted Tibetan signs on display right now. Sounds right up your alley, doesn't it?"

"Really?" Blair scanned the article quickly, intrigued despite himself. "Cool. But I don't have time today. Maybe once this is all over."

"I've got a better idea." Jim proceeded to gather up Blair's notes from the little hotel room table. "Let's go right now."

"Jim, no, man, wait, I can't possibly." Ridiculously, he tried to grab some of the papers out of Jim's hands. Jim refused to become involved in a tug-of-war, but he didn't let go either. He just looked down at Blair, raising one eyebrow, and Blair released his hold first.

"It's on the corner of Melrose and King's Row. Do you know how to get us there, or do we need to stop in the lobby and buy a map?"

"I'm pretty sure we can just take Santa Monica Boulevard all the way, but you're not listening to me here. I can't go. I've got to be ready for this or Mooney'll eat me alive."

"If you don't relax he's gonna do that anyway."

They had gone to the gallery.

It had been a wonderful exhibit, too, knocking Blair right out of his obsessive spiral. Hand-painted shop signs had been rapidly going the way of the snow leopard when Blair had last been in Lhasa, replaced by American and Chinese prefabs, but it had still been possible to find a few on back streets, vivid oil paintings on tremendous sheets of canvas fifteen feet long and more. Tibetan characters interspersed with the English language names like Coca-cola, Pepsi, and Levi's. Blair was charmed to find someone else treasured these signs too, cared enough to try to preserve a few before they all disappeared.

There had been another exhibit going on at the same time, a contemporary American sculptor doing found object compositions or something like that. Blair hadn't paid much attention, but Jim had seemed intrigued by them. In fact, he'd spent most of his time there in one of the sunny upstairs galleries. Blair remembered being a little surprised. He wouldn't have expected those spiky, abstract constructions of stainless steel, leather and rubber – medical instruments? antique industrial tools? who knew? – to hold Jim's interest, but then, there was a lot he didn't know about Jim.

***

But he certainly did know enough about Jim to understand that this afternoon in the courthouse when it had seemed like Jim was evading his questions, had almost seemed, in fact, like Jim was practically lying to him, well, that was just craziness. It was simply not the way Jim was.

You're the one with the problem, Sandburg, so just deal with it. And get that paper written while you're at it.

The universe seemed to have been waiting for Blair to take those firm steps with himself. The lights came back just then, and Jim's key turned in the front door lock.

Thank God.

Uh oh.

(Don't you know he's going to ask about the paper the very first thing?)

But when the door swung open, Blair forgot all about his seminar paper.

Jim looked like he could hardly stand up. He dragged himself in the door, shrugging his wet coat off his shoulders.

"Jim?"

He tried to hang his coat on the rack, but missed, and it hit the floor. He shook his head and just left it.

Blair got up fast. "Jim!"

He cocked his head a little and managed a wan imitation of a smile. "How's it going, Chief?"

"You look like you're dead on your feet. What's the matter with you?"

He rubbed one hand over his face, shuffling towards the couch. Blair hurriedly cleared his papers away and gave Jim a hand as he sank down heavily. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

"Jim?"

"I don't know," he said at last. "Must be this damn trial. I could hardly keep my eyes open long enough to drive home."

"You think you're coming down with something? Maybe you picked up a bug while we were in Los Angeles."

"I don't feel sick," he muttered. "I just need to sleep."

"Well geez, can I get you anything? You look terrible. Would some dinner help? Is Thai all right? Would you rather have pizza? What do you think?"

Jim's mouth dropped open a little, and Blair shut up.

He was already sound asleep.

***

Part 7

"A short time later, Drewry and Betsy saw strange creatures for which they could not account; but as the country was new and many different animals and birds were to be seen, they did not attach much importance to what they saw."

Bell: 'A Mysterious Spirit: The Bell Witch Of Tennessee' (1935)

***

Jim didn't move for the next five hours. Blair tiptoed around for a while, but it soon became clear Jim was so zonked a herd of buffalo probably wouldn't make much of an impression, and he stopped worrying about being quiet. Around nine-thirty or ten, when Blair's growling stomach reminded him that he hadn't had any dinner yet, he ran down to the all-night bakery around the corner and bought a baguette and large cappuccino to go. He was hoping that Jim would be awake by the time he got back, but he wasn't. He hadn't moved.

Blair put the bread and coffee down on the kitchen table and went over to him. He seemed okay, just sleeping the sleep of the pure-at-heart.

Downstairs on the couch.

Just like last night.

Blair darted a nervous glance towards his own bedroom door.

Stop it.

And seriously, he was starting to feel more than a little concerned about Jim. Did he have a fever? He knelt beside the couch and looked closely into his sleeping face, wondering if he could touch his forehead to check without waking him up. Probably not. He didn't look flushed, though, and his breathing was steady and regular. Very steady. Very regular.

Blair worked at the kitchen table the rest of the evening. To keep an eye on Jim, he told himself, not because he was scared to go to his own bedroom. Sometime past midnight he finally wrote the first sentence of that seminar paper, right about the time that Jim finally mumbled and stirred in his sleep, and then blearily opened his eyes.

"Sandburg?"

"Welcome to the world of the living. How do you feel?"

Jim sat up slowly. "Like I've been hit by a ton of bricks. Did I fall asleep on the couch?"

"Uh huh. Do you even remember getting home?"

"Not real clearly." He stretched and yawned. "I told Simon I'd stop by the station when I got out of court, but I didn't do it. I should probably give him a call."

"It's twelve-thirty, man. If I were you, I think I'd just wait."

Jim nodded.

"You hungry? There's half a loaf of bread from that place around the corner."

"I think I'll just hit the sack. How's your paper going?"

"All right."

"How far'd you get on it today?"

"I, um, laid a lot of the groundwork. That's the most important part."

Jim got to his feet, looking highly skeptical. "I'm not kidding around here, Sandburg. Get it written."

"Yeah, I will, Jim. That's what I'm doing right now."

He nodded again and stumbled off to the bathroom, then climbed the stairs to bed.

The storm picked up again sometime around three a.m. Blair glanced up from his work as hailstones spattered against the windows. At long last, he was finally starting to make a little progress. He'd rewritten the first paragraph about seventeen times, but that was okay. He knew how this worked. Sooner or later now he would hit his stride, and the rest of the paper would start pouring out faster and faster until the last half wrote itself in such a white heat he would hardly know what it said until he went back and read it. That's the way it had always happened before. That's the way it would happen this time. For some reason he'd just needed to take this little detour through the twilight zone first. And wasn't out quite yet, apparently, working with every single downstairs light on. He'd worried a little about all the lights bothering Jim, but he needn't have. The man was out cold.

He really hoped there was nothing wrong there. Could it be some Sentinel thing that Blair had been too preoccupied to pick up on? Maybe something to do with their recent travel, the change in climate, or maybe just the forced inactivity of having to sit in that courtroom day after day. Maybe his senses were running on overdrive, and it was wearing him out.

Aw, man, this was no good. He had nothing to go on here. He'd have to catch Jim awake and talk to him about it. And Jim wasn't going to be in the mood to talk about anything until Blair had made some substantial progress on the paper.

He'd known confessing to Jim had been a bad idea. Sandburg, when are you going to learn to just keep your mouth shut?

Thunder cracked and rolled in the distance.

Jim had been right, of course. (Big surprise that was.) Now that the paper was finally underway, he did feel better about everything. He could almost dismiss the past forty-eight hours as nothing more than an interesting case study in hysteria.

In fact, once his paper was finished, he thought he should go talk to his friend Gunter over in the folklore department. Gunter was writing his dissertation on ghost lore in modern urban legends, and Blair certainly felt like he had gotten a firsthand look at the psychology of a haunting these past few days. No wonder people still believed in ghosts. A few funny coincidences, a little stress, and Blair had honestly been ready to think—

Lightning forked across the sky, and the furniture on the patio glowed blue for an instant.

Blair really hoped the power didn't go off again.

(Not completely over this little attack of nerves yet, are you?)

Nope, not yet. But that was because he was sitting around daydreaming instead of writing Paragraph Two.

No need to worry though. He was prepared now. He'd pulled a flashlight and some matches out of the camping equipment, and he had the kerosene lantern all set up on the coffee table. Even if the power did go off he could keep writing. It would be great to get a real start on this tonight, be able to get up tomorrow morning and soar right through the next five or ten pages before lunch. He could do it, he knew he could, if he could just stay focused here.

Anyway, he thought the storm was moving away after all. The hail seemed to have stopped. Lightning still flashed on the horizon, but the thunder had receded to the dull, far rumble.

And Blair found himself thinking about that other half of the baguette. He could toast a couple of slices, fix himself a pot of coffee, maybe just go ahead and work the night through. He didn't have to be on campus until his three o'clock class anyway.

Yeah, that was the ticket. Just a little break here. Then second to the right and straight on till morning.

He unfolded himself from the sofa, joints creaking and popping, and walked into the kitchen. Uh oh. Getting a little low on coffee. Maybe he'd just make half a pot. Or maybe if he got enough work done tonight, Jim would let him bend the rules enough to run to the store and buy another bag.

It was odd that he heard that tiny little noise at all. He wasn't the Sentinel here, was he?

But he did hear it, and it stopped him dead in his tracks. And for just an instant, he didn't think that any power in the universe could force him to turn his head and see what was behind him.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He honestly didn't think his heart was beating any longer. It had frozen solid in his chest, so how could it beat?

The sound stopped.

The slow thaw began. Moving like he was a million years old, Blair turned to look at the living room. Nothing out of place.

(Oh, man, you have got it bad.)

He would have slapped himself if he'd thought it would do any good. He started breathing again, and then he noticed the pen he'd left on the coffee table.

It was moving.

Oh, not a whole lot. Not dancing a jig or anything like that. Just rocking back and forth the tiniest little bit.

Blair felt his throat close up. The hairs on the back of his neck stirred as though a cold, cold breeze were blowing through.

Earthquake. Right. That's what it was. Just a little tremor. 1 or 2 on the Richter Scale. That's all.

Then it rolled to the very edge of the coffee table and back again. That was the sound he had heard. Plastic rolling across wood.

Well, that settles that, doesn't it, Blair? You are Out Of Your Mind. But look on the bright side. At least they won't make you finish this damn paper in your padded room.

He caught of flicker of movement in the corner of his eye. Too much. I can't take any more of this, he thought calmly, hopelessly, but he turned to look anyway.

Something small and pale was crouching at the foot of the staircase that led to Jim's bedroom. There wasn't enough light for him to see what it was. And that made less sense than anything else, didn't it? He thought he'd turned on every light in the place.

And so he had. But something was happening to them. He looked at the lamp beside the sofa. The bulb behind the shade seemed to be growing dimmer. They all were, and as they did, the shadows sprang from the corners, reaching greedily for him.

The thing started up the staircase, and Blair got a better look at it. Something like a little white puppy dog. Or a six-month-old kitten, the way it bounded effortlessly from step to step. A kitten without a head or a tail.

At the top of the stairs, it disappeared into the darkness of Jim's bedroom.

(oh god Jim oh god)

Blair shook himself violently from his paralysis and began to run, but he knew he was already too late. He could hear a low growl rumbling out of the darkness above him. (oh god Jim I'm sorry) He flew upstairs, trying to take them three at a time, tripped halfway and sprawled full length up them, banging both shins so hard that he shouted out loud, but never stopped, crawling on hands and knees as he dragged his way to his feet again.

It sounded as though a rabid animal were loose up there. The mindless snarling rose an octave as he reached the head of the stairs, but it was so dark Blair couldn't see his hand in front of his face. The growls seemed to be coming from all around him, degenerating into barks and howls and whimpers. "Leave him alone!" Blair screamed, his voice already hoarse. "Dammit! Jim!"

Something hurtled into him. Blair slammed into the railing and somehow managed to hold on, not tumble backwards down the stairs. The weight of the beast dragged him to the floor, its claws ripping at his chest, his ribs, his back. A bony skull butted hard up under his chin. He felt the heat of its breath on his throat, felt the bristle of hair, then the teeth. Blair's shriek was cut off abruptly as they clamped down.

He brought his knee up hard, and it screamed.

Blair scrambled up. He was trying to scream too, but all that came out were hoarse little grunts. Desperately groping in the darkness, he finally found the corner of Jim's bed, followed it around to the bedside table, finally touched the lamp and turned it on.

Jim was doubled over on the floor, his hands cupped between his thighs and his face grayer than potter's clay.

***

Part 8

Ab omni malo, libera nos, Domine.

The Litany Of The Saints

***

Jim was still moaning. His pain and helplessness finally roused Blair from his stupor. Stumbling a little, he knelt down beside him. "Jim?" he whispered.

(oh god it hurt to talk)

Jim didn't respond at all. Blair touched his face momentarily, just until those dull blue eyes focused a little, then let his hand rest on his shoulder. "C'mon, man. You'll be more comfortable if you can get in bed."

Jim just groaned and shut his eyes tight.

Blair sat back. Okay. Give him a minute. He reached up cautiously and felt of his own throat.

(oh god)

The flesh was welted, torn and wet and numb to the touch. He closed his eyes, then opened them again and looked at his fingertips. There was a little smear of blood, but most of the fluid was clear. Jim's saliva.

He had to close his eyes again.

(So anyway, Jim, now that we seem to have exchanged bodily fluids here – I was just wondering – did you happen to get an antibody test during that last physical?)

Oh god, he was losing his mind.

And that was a Very Bad Thing, because it seems that Jim has already lost his. What a kick in the head, huh? And all along you thought you were the one sliding down that slippery slope. Turns out Jim was waiting at the bottom for you all the time.

He couldn't quite suppress a sob.

"Sandburg." Jim's voice was a hollow groan. He still hadn't opened his eyes.

"I'm right here." He crawled closer so he could rest his hand on Jim's back.

"What the hell happened?"

"You were sleepwalking. Must have – run into the night table or something. You think you're going to be okay?"

"My .38's under the mattress," he gasped. "Do me a favor. Just shoot me now."

(Oh, man, you forgot about the gun, didn't you? Good thing he only came after you with tooth and claw.)

He patted Jim's shoulder and got up. "Just hang on." He had to stand still a moment to let his head clear, then he groped under the mattress until he found it.

"Blair."

"Just a second." He hurriedly shoved the gun in the waistband of his jeans the way he'd seen Jim do, hoping he wouldn't shoot his butt off in the process. "You want to try to get up?" He crouched beside him again. "The floor's cold."

"Yeah," he groaned. "Okay."

Blair draped one of Jim's arms over his shoulder and slowly helped him up. Supporting so much of Jim's weight brought a moment of panic, but when they reached the corner of the bed, Jim simply let go of him and slowly curled into a fetal position on the mattress.

"I'm gonna run downstairs for just a minute. You need anything?"

Jim shook his head a little. He'd grabbed a pillow and was huddled around it, clutching it tight. Blair looked back at him once, then hurried down.

All the lights were blazing brightly. The rain was still coming down hard outside. He pulled the gun out carefully and laid it on the kitchen table, on top of his notes for the Penanggalan paper.

Then he went to the bathroom to check the damage.

Oh shit.

He studied his reflection in the mirror for as long as he could stand it, then sat down hard on the side of the tub. He was going to have a hard time passing this off as a love bite. He started to giggle. Yeah, Jim, see, Sam got really, really pissed at me the other night.

The giggles turned into sobs. They hurt his throat but he didn't try to stop them.

What was he going to do?

One step at a time. Get all the crying out of your system now, Sandburg. Don't think. Because if you start thinking, the next thing you know, you'll be running, and you probably won't stop till you're half way to Lhasa.

Oh man, his throat hurt, and those dry, husky sobs that kept forcing their way up weren't helping matters any. Bruised larynx, he supposed. (Was it possible to bruise a larynx?) He was lucky it hadn't been crushed outright.

And just imagine what Jim would have thought when he finally came to his senses and found Blair on the bedroom floor with his voice box chewed out.

Well, you always did think I talked too much, didn't you, Jim?

Oh god.

He could hear the hysterical edge creeping in, and tried to stifle it. He didn't think Jim was in any position to be listening to him, but if he got much noisier, he might not be able to help it. Blair eased himself down onto the bathroom floor, drew his legs up to his chest and tried to rest his forehead on his knees. But bending his head like that hurt his neck, so he leaned back against the wall and tried to control his breathing.

No good. Deep breaths hurt too.

Hey, Jim. Know what? I'm a little out of my depth here, and I'd really, really appreciate it if you could take over for a little while. Just point me in the right direction and I'll do the best I can, I swear. But not like this, man. You cannot expect me to handle this all alone.

The next sob turned into a wail. He clamped both hands over his mouth. Okay. Apparently he wasn't going to get the luxury of crying it all out. Should have known better. He could cry till the crack of doom and it still wouldn't be enough. Need to just get busy and do something and stop thinking.

One step at a time, man.

He got to his feet and made himself look in the mirror again. Oh boy. You know that's gotta hurt, sports fans. The imprint of teeth was a vicious shade of purple, and the rest of his throat splotchy and red. Nice set of canines you got there, Jim. The skin was broken in a couple of places, but there wasn't much blood. Still, a tetanus booster probably wouldn't be a bad idea.

Or a rabies shot.

Oh God. There was that hysterical giggling again. What the hell is the matter with you? If you're ever planning to get a grip, I'd say that now would probably be a real good time.

He pulled up his shirt and looked at his chest and ribs, and turning around, tried to see the reflection of his back in the mirror. There were welts where Jim had grabbed him, but nothing to worry about. Not like this monster hickey on his neck here. He snorted in bleak amusement. Then regretted it. That hurt too.

Even if he could consider leaving Jim long enough to go, an emergency room was out of the question. Cascade suddenly seemed like a very small town at a time like this. Blair didn't know anywhere he could go to have this looked at without the risk of Jim hearing about it. He'd just take care of it himself and keep an eye on it. He could run up to a clinic in Seattle or someplace later if he had to.

He washed the bite with plain soap and water, wincing, then splashed a generous amount of alcohol around and gently taped down a little square of sterile gauze. The surgical tape began to itch almost immediately. Then he went to his bedroom and dug a black turtleneck out of the back of his closet. As he was pulling it on it occurred to him that he'd certainly gotten over the fear of going to his own bedroom this evening, hadn't he? He checked in the mirror, rolling up the neck as far as he could. A dark red flush was still visible on the underside of his jaw, but it ought to get him by, as long as Jim didn't pay too much attention. As an afterthought, he found a jar of Tiger Balm and smeared the ointment all over his wrists and the back of his neck. The reek of menthol and clove oil made Blair's eyes water. It ought to encourage Jim to keep his senses turned down while Blair was in the vicinity.

Then he went to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. Not that he was all that thirsty. He was just curious to see whether he could swallow or not.

Well, that hurt too, but he managed it. Looks like you're going to survive after all, Sandburg.

He put the glass down on the counter and let his eyes travel up the staircase to Jim's bedroom. The lamp was still on upstairs. Good. Every light in the place was on. Blair looked at the clock, suddenly curious about the time, and was a little amazed to find out it was only four. Two and a half hours until dawn.

Might as well be a million years.

He didn't dare hesitate any longer, or he knew he'd lose his nerve. But he did glance at the gun on the kitchen table as he went by.

(Yeah, right. You really think you could use that? Against Jim? Give me a break, man.)

He climbed the stairs, feeling the sore places on his shins from where he'd fallen before. Jim was lying curled on the bed just where Blair had left him. His eyes were closed, but when Blair sat down gingerly on the far corner of the bed, he said, "Blair?"

"Yeah, Jim. How you feeling?"

He groaned.

"Sorry, man. I know."

There was a long silence and Blair thought he'd fallen asleep. It occurred to him that he should have brought some of his notes up with him. The idea of working on the paper was risible, but at least it would have been something to occupy his thoughts. Because he was absolutely not ready to deal with this yet. In the light of day, maybe. But all he could do now was try to get through the rest of the night without losing his mind.

And keep an eye on Jim.

"Blair."

"What?" he husked out too loudly, startled.

"I'm gonna be all right," Jim was sounding sleepy and relaxed now. "You don't have to sit up with me."

"I know. Go to sleep."

Really, Jim was right in a way. Was he just going to sit here and watch him sleep for the next three hours?

And what other choice did he have? Go back downstairs and wait for the lights to get dim again? No way. At least if he were here beside Jim when it happened again, he would know what was going on. Wouldn't be charging into the dark like before.

Yep. He'd have the pleasure of seeing that look in Jim's eyes up close and personal right before Jim tore his throat out.

Well it's your choice, Sandburg. Run now and abandon him if that's what you have to do. Get up. Go. Who could blame you? Hell, do you think Jim would let you stay if he suspected even for one instant what had happened?

He pulled nervously at the turtleneck. That's why Jim wasn't going to find out.

He looked at the clock on the bed side table. Three minutes had passed since he'd first climbed the stairs. It was going to be a long, long night.

But the next thing Blair knew was a hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently, and he opened his eyes to see Jim's concerned, annoyed face close to his own. "I thought I told you I didn't need a nursemaid."

"Jim." It came out as a croak.

"You coming down with something?" He helped Blair sit up.

Blair looked around himself, trying to figure out what had happened in the gray light of another rainy morning.

Oh man, he'd fallen asleep. Good going, Sandburg. You're lucky to be waking up at all.

He saw Jim's nose twitch, and abruptly Jim sat back. "You know I hate that menthol stuff."

"Sorry, man," he whispered. "Sore throat."

"So you stayed up here so I would be sure and catch it too? Thanks, Blair."

"How you feeling?"

Jim stood up cautiously. "How do you think? It's okay. I'll live." He was limping as he walked over to his dresser. "What exactly happened last night?"

"You were walking in your sleep. I heard you moving around, mumbling or something to yourself. By the time I got up here you had fallen over the bedside table, I guess. I was scared to leave you alone after that. I thought next time you might fall down the stairs."

Jim was shaking his head. "Weird. Never happened before. Not that I know of. You think it could be a Sentinel thing? How do I keep it from happening again?" He smiled ruefully. "Believe me, once is enough."

"Um yeah. Well, I'm working on that. First off I thought I'd pick up one of those little infrared burglar alarms like you can get at the hardware store, you know? Something that would make a noise if you get up and start moving around. Just as a stopgap measure till I figure out what's going on here."

(Not bad, Blair. I think you sound pretty convincing.)

Jim nodded thoughtfully. "Okay. Sounds good." He clapped Blair on the shoulder on his way down the stairs. "Just let me know."

"Yeah, man, I will." Blair said softly.

He stayed put for a little while longer, waiting for Jim to shut the bathroom door so he could have a few minutes of privacy to get any tears out of his system, when suddenly Jim shouted up, "Sandburg! What's my weapon doing down here?"

That damn gun. He kept forgetting it. "Sorry." Blair got up and came down the stairs. "But you were scaring me last night. I just didn't like the idea of a somnambulist having access to firearms, if you know what I mean."

That one worked too. Amazing. Jim merely looked concerned. "You're right. It might be a good idea to keep this a little further out of reach until you figure out what's going on."

That calm faith in him was just too much. Blair didn't think he would be able to hold together after all, but then Jim saw the papers still spread out across the kitchen table. "You should have been working on your paper last night. This couldn't have happened at a worse time."

"No, don't worry about it," he said quickly. "It's practically done."

"Really?" Jim sounded frankly disbelieving.

Oops. Overshot the mark a little there. "Well, I got a good start anyway."

Jim nodded. "Tell you what. I'll pick up the burglar alarm during my lunch break at court today, all right? You just concentrate on getting your paper finished, and then we'll work this out together."

***

Part 9

"I have trapped ghosts myself, and I have felt something running into my hand, like trapping a mouse."

Emmons: Chinese Ghosts And ESP: A Study Of Paranormal Beliefs And Experiences (1982)

***

As soon as Jim left for court, Blair cobbled together a fake seminar paper by grafting the paragraph he'd managed to write last night onto the first thing he found on his hard drive, which just happened to be the paper he'd read in Los Angeles. Then on the off-chance that Jim would actually want to look at it, he did a universal search to replace to "Rajasthan" with "Malay," and "bhuta" with "penanggalan."

He printed it up and then scribbled some notes in the margins as though this were a rough draft. With the bibliography he'd prepared a year ago tacked onto the end, Blair thought it looked pretty convincing. He was even faintly amused by how well certain passages seemed to work. It's funny how vampirism keeps coming up, isn't it? The bhuta and penanggalan were both bloodsuckers. Almost be worth turning it in to see if Professor Skal was paying attention.

Yeah, right. At any rate, it certainly ought to be good enough to get Jim off his back.

(Now if you can just figure out a way to keep him off your neck, you'll really be making some progress.)

Oh man, here he was with the shakes again. His hands were trembling so hard he had to put down his coffee. There wasn't any more in the house, so he certainly didn't want to spill this last cup.

Maybe on your way to buy the wooden stake and silver bullets, you can run in a coffee place and pick up some java too. After all, you've finished the paper now, just like you promised Jim you would.

And now he was on the verge of tears again.

He thought suddenly and absurdly of a drill sergeant gym teacher he'd had in fourth or fifth grade who had spent the entire year bellowing, "That's not doing it right there, Sandburg!"

He swallowed back the tears and paced to the windows. The never-ending rain was pouring down out of lowering gray clouds. How could he have let Jim go out without telling him anything? What if he flipped out in the courtroom? Jim was armed. They'd shoot him down without a second thought. And no telling how many he'd take with him.

No. He had to believe that wouldn't happen.

(And just what exactly are you basing that hopeful little fantasy of yours on, Blair?)

Not a whole hell of a lot, admittedly. But whatever was going on, he was sure it was connected with those eerie bouts of deep sleep he'd seen overtake Jim the past two nights. As long as he didn't doze off in court, it ought to be all right.

And if you're wrong, Sandburg, hey, then I guess you'll have the whole rest of your life to think about how you didn't do it right there.

Gunter was in his office, but aggravatingly enough, was already talking to one of his students when Blair arrived. Blair hovered outside the half-open door, trying not to scream in frustration at the delay. To make it even worse, it sounded as though the kid in there with Gunter was complaining about a test grade. This was great. Just great. Jim's sanity was on the line, (and incidentally, my entire world seems to have tipped about ninety degrees on its axis), and the first person Blair turned to for help was wasting his time listening to excuses from some whiny undergrad who'd probably been up partying all night before the test and now was suddenly worried that one 'B' on a folklore midterm was going to keep him out of med school.

The kid's querulous, self-justifying voice fell silent for a moment. Gunter got in a couple of words, but no more than that, before he started in again.

Blair couldn't stand it anymore. He pushed the door open the rest of the way and announced, "Gunter, I need to talk to you."

The kid turned around, shocked that someone would have the gall to interrupt. Actually, Gunter looked a little surprised too, but obviously didn't mind an excuse to get rid of the student. "I'm sorry, Anthony. My decision's final. If you want to take it up with the department head, be my guest."

"But—"

Gunter stood up. "I'll see you in class tomorrow."

"Mr. Cole, if you'll just try to see it from my point of view for a minute here—"

"Goodbye, Anthony." It took closing the door in the kid's face to get rid of him.

"Sorry about that, Blair." He turned around, shaking his head. "You sound terrible. That sore throat going around campus is strep. Have you been to student health yet?"

Blair sat down on the corner of his desk. "Don't worry. I'm not infectious."

"I'm just supposed to take your word for that? No really, what's up?"

"Gunter, something's happened. It's a little weird, and you're the only person I could think of who might know something about it, and who isn't a total flake."

Gunter smiled good-naturedly at that. He was a foot taller than Blair, tubercularly thin, his face scarred with acne though his rapidly thinning hair had already turned gray. "Uh, thank you, I think. It's not about that grad student union stuff is it? I told you I don't have time to run."

"Nothing like that. See, it's— You've met Jim, haven't you? My roommate?"

"The cop, right? Yeah, I met him over at your office that one time." He grinned, showing coffee and cigarette-stained teeth. "It still cracks me up to think of you renting a room from a guy like that."

"Yeah, well, something's happened, and to be honest, I'm a little out of my depth here."

Blair had thought he was doing a pretty good job keeping his tone light and casual, but evidently he was wrong about that. Gunter's clear gray eyes, the man's only attractive feature, suddenly widened dramatically. "Blair," he said, his voice very gentle, as though he were talking to a frightened child, "Whatever I can do. You know that."

(Oh no, not sympathy. Anything but sympathy.)

He got up quickly and walked to the window. He could hear Gunter moving around behind him, shuffling papers, stacking books or something, tactfully pretending that there was nothing strange about Blair barging into his office, interrupting a student conference, and then completely losing it before he could get out a word of explanation. (That's not doing it right there, Sandburg.)

"Sorry," Blair whispered at last, but couldn't turn around to face Gunter yet. He could have handled dissolving into tears, embarrassing as that would be, but he was afraid it would be much worse than that. He might start to scream, and if that happened, he'd probably just keep on until the men in the white coats came for him.

And then what would happen to Jim?

"Tell you what," Gunter said calmly. "I was just gonna run over to the Commons and pick up some lunch. If you don't mind hanging out for a few minutes, I'll be right back."

Blair nodded gratefully.

"Can I bring you anything?"

"No thanks."

"If they've got chicken soup I'll get you some. Probably make your throat feel better."

Gunter was back ten minutes later, drenched from the rain, cradling a slightly greasy white paper bag, an oversized styrofoam cup, and two cokes. "Hey, turns out we were in luck," he announced, cleaning the clutter off his desk with a sweep of his arm and proceeding to spread lunch before Blair. "Chicken noodle was the soup of the day."

"Gunter—"

He opened the paper bag and got out a paper-wrapped sandwich. "Plus a BLT for me, and I thought we could share the fries, but if your stomach's upset, maybe you should skip them."

Blair fumbled for his wallet. "You really didn't need to do this. What do I owe you?"

"Put it away."

"No, really— "

"Blair, I'd like you to cast your mind back, oh, two, two and a half years ago, when a certain grad student in the folklore department who shall remain nameless happened to freak out right in the middle of his comprehensives and showed up on Blair Sandburg's doorstep at three in the morning, shaking from a caffeine overdose and crying uncontrollably. Does this ring any bells?"

"Gunter," Blair said, embarrassed.

"Lunch is cheap, believe me. Eat your soup, and then if you wanna tell me what's on your mind, I'm listening, OK?"

"I'll tell you what's on my mind." Blair gestured towards the row of cassette tapes on the bookshelves under the window. "I'm wondering if you're actually using the department's money to buy those X-Files videos."

Gunter looked towards the ceiling and innocently whistled a few notes of the theme song.

"Oh man, I don't believe it! Do you know Anthro's so cheap I ran through my xeroxing allocation by the third week this fall? I've been doing my copies for class on the mimeograph machine over in the English Department all semester."

"And I thought the folklore department was Rainier's poor stepchild. At least we've got our own mimeograph. But no, seriously, those are important for my research."

"Uh huh."

"Seriously. You wouldn't believe the impact that show has had on the urban legends I've collected over the past three years. It hasn't quite knocked The Exorcist or Poltergeist out of the running as the number one influence structuring the way people tell their ghost stories, but it's in the running, definitely."

"Yeah, well, actually, that's what I wanted to ask you about, Gunter. Your field work."

He looked puzzled. "My field work? I don't get it. You're into ghost stories all of a sudden?"

"Kind of." Blair took a deep breath. (Slow and easy, man. You're doing great so far. Just take it one step at a time.) "The people you talk to when you're out there collecting ghost stories. Are they telling you about things they really saw themselves? Or is it mostly just friend-of-a-friend stories, things they heard in boy scouts, stuff like that?"

"When I first got started a few years ago it was all FOAF stories. The Vanishing Hitchhiker, The Hook, you know. Frankly it would make me a little nervous when somebody'd tell me about personally seeing a ghost. I guess I was afraid I wouldn't be able to ID the right memorate or something. Maybe even more afraid that they would ask me if I believed them. Lately, though, I've been finding myself more and more interested in personal encounters with the supernatural."

Blair focused his attention on his soup, stirring it around in the styrofoam cup. Maybe this would be easier if he didn't look at Gunter. (You have got to pull yourself together here. How do you expect to talk to Jim tonight if you can't even stand to face Gunter?)

It's okay. Don't anticipate. Just take this one step at a time.

"So, why is that? Why are you more interested now in people telling you about things they really saw?"

"For one thing, it's a lot more complicated. I mean, someone tells you a ghost story they remember from cub scouts, and yeah, there's something going on there, there's a little play with the cultural nexus transmitting the story, but that's nothing compared to the real thing."

Blair looked up. Gunter's gray eyes were alight with enthusiasm. "The real thing? You mean you believe people actually see ghosts?"

He laughed a little. "C'mon. I'm a folklorist. Belief don't enter into it."

"Um, yeah. Right."

"I just mean when someone tells you what happened to them personally, it's a whole different ball of wax. All the cultural determinants are still in play, of course, but it's a far more subtle, far more complex process."

"And what about the original, un-mediated experience?"

Gunter cocked his head and looked at Blair. "Doesn't matter. Even if you could get to it, which you can't, of course."

"Doesn't matter?" Blair heard himself raising his voice, but he didn't seem to be able to help himself. "You're telling me it doesn't matter whether someone has really seen a ghost or not? I know all about scientific detachment, but come on, man, give me a break here."

Gunter winced with concern, but his own voice remained steady. "No, Blair, from the point of view of my research, it doesn't matter a bit. It would just complicate things if I started worrying about what 'really' happened. That's a whole different field, and not a particularly legitimate one either. All I do is collect the stories."

Well, so much for Gunter. He'd been a long shot, but Blair hadn't wanted to jettison the academic approach without at least trying it. What's next? Naomi's psychic friends network? (God help Jim and me both.)

"Blair?"

He looked up. "Sorry. I guess I'm a little tired."

"Hey, talk to me." He grinned. "Cause I have to say, you really look like you've just seen a ghost."

Blair was surprised into a sudden laugh. Tears welled up too. "You don't know, Gunter. Oh man, you just don't know."

"Wait a minute, I think I do. Blair, I'm sorry. You really have seen something, haven't you?"

Blair covered his mouth with his hand and nodded quickly.

"Oh lord." Gunter sat back. "I've been a real jerk. Are you all right?"

Blair lowered his hand cautiously, relieved to hear that he wasn't screaming after all. "Not really, no."

"How can I help?"

Blair shrugged a little, his hands spread open wide. "I'm not sure what I was expecting from you. I'm sorry."

"What if you tell me what happened? I don't know." He smiled gently. "Would it make you feel any better if I could tell you the memorate number Baughman would assign your experience in his folk-motif index? At least you'd know you're not alone."

Blair smiled back. He was still crying a little, but it didn't look like he was going to lose it. Not right now at any rate. "I don't know, Gunter. I guess it couldn't hurt."

***

Part 10

"It is certain that evil may attach itself to possessions, to jewelry and gems, to objects of value and objects of comparatively no worth, to pictures, to miniatures and photographs, and almost especially, perhaps, to articles of furniture."

Summers: 'The Werewolf' (1933)

***

Apparently he was coming down with whatever Sandburg had. Not counting the startling, hollow ache that opened across his groin whenever he shifted incautiously in his chair, every joint and muscle in his body felt sore and abused. His head hurt, his eyes were a little too sensitive to the light, and there was a ringing in his ears. Felt like stage one of a nasty bout of the flu.

That damned kid, he thought, not without affection, remembering waking up this morning to find him curled at the foot of his bed like a devoted spaniel. He really must have scared Sandburg last night. He couldn't remember much about it himself. Just finding himself doubled over on the floor, more than half-seriously wishing he could die right then and there.

And maybe he'd deserved one in the family jewels for not telling Blair what was going on before now.

(All right, Chief, I know we had an agreement, but does that really mean I have to tell you everything?)

Seriously, did Blair really need to hear every nightmare? Every twisted, unpleasant little scene his subconscious sprang on him when he was tired and frustrated? It was this damned trial, Jim knew that's all it was. This morning the jury hadn't