"ALLIES" is not only a story of a modern-day witch-hunt; it is also a plausible story of how yet another theocratic government could come to power. Ultimately, it is a story of how a young Wiccan priestess defies those who would deny not only her rights as a free citizen, but all of ours as well.

"Suspects who are innocent should (be protected by the Miranda ruling). But the thing is, you don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect."

U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese, III (Quoted in a Los Angeles Times Editorial, October 9, 1985)

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Exodus 22:18

Chapter 1

She suddenly lurched upright with a scream caught in the back of her throat. The covers fell away from her bare breasts as her heart pounded furiously within her chest, almost as though someone was banging with the bottom of their fist against one end of an empty fifty-gallon drum, and her pale, clear amber eyes were wide as she sat frozen in terror. Her head snapped left and right in panic as she quickly assessed her surroundings--and then comprehension suddenly washed over her like a tidal wave. Realizing she was holding her breath, she let it slowly escape in a long, soft sigh as she slowly ran her fingers through her long, rich, midnight hair. Nightmare, she thought with a slight groan as she slowly massaged her temples. That damned nightmare again . . .

Sitting naked in bed, and suddenly realizing there wasn't much more to protect her than the darkness and the silence, she felt exposed and vulnerable. Defensively, and in need of warmth and comfort, she pulled the covers back up to cover herself.

"Valerie?" asked a sleepy male voice. "You okay?"

She gasped softly, and her horror-filled eyes bored into his; and almost as quickly, they relaxed as recognition dawned on her. "Yeah," she whispered in reply with another soft sigh. One hand brushed her dark bangs up and away from her forehead, where they flopped back into place. "Yeah, I'm okay. . ."

Tony Nichols raised himself on his elbows and watched her for a moment with bleary eyes. "What's the matter?" he asked, his voice soft and dry and sleepy.

"Dream . . . " Why she was whispering, she didn't know; there was no one else in the small, one-bedroom house, so it wasn't as though she would disturb anybody. "I was just having a bad dream."

"You want me to get you something?"

Valerie St. James cast him a quick, sideways glance. Pills, she thought, always with the damn pills. If the Foundation suspected drugs in their place, they could seize all of their property and toss the two of them into jail, where they could wait for as long as a year for their arraignment. With the Foundation for Law and Morality now securely in power, and thanks to this hysterical and on-going "war on drugs," the government's eagerness to use the federal asset forfeiture laws had intensified to a level that was beyond deplorable. Suspect had at last become synonymous with convict, and all it took these days to ruin someone's life and to have the authorities seize and sell all of their property was nothing more than an unsubstantiated accusation, made by an anonymous source.

Not that she was prudish about drugs. She enjoyed a good marijuana buzz on those increasingly rare occasions when she could get one; but she didn't like pills. To her, pills and coke and all of its derivatives, and injectable drugs were definitely bad news. She believed that if junkies really wanted to kill themselves, they ought to hang themselves with their tourniquets rather than raise a vein with them; it would be a quicker death, and no one would have to clean up the acrid puddle of vomit that they left behind.

"Let me go get you something," he said with a sigh of his own. Hell, he was already awake; he figured he might as well get her a little helper. He climbed from the gently sloshing waterbed and put on a brown robe to ward off the bedroom's chill, then went into the living room. He removed a false light switch in the near wall and set it aside; inside the small niche, where a functioning switch had once been housed, there was now a small plastic sandwich bag that contained half a dozen bright red capsules. He removed the thin brown rubber band and shook one out, thought for a moment, and then shook out one more for himself. He closed the bag, replaced it and the phony switch, and then went into the kitchen for a glass of water.

When he returned to the bedroom, he found Valerie sitting up and hugging her knees to her chest, her forehead resting in the crevice between them as her naturally feathered and layered dark hair, parted slightly off-center, swept across her brow and cascaded about her shoulders like a rich, dark waterfall. Her head snapped up when he entered the room, and for a moment her amber eyes were once again filled with fear. The first thing he thought was that she looked like some kind of a pagan goddess, what with that midnight hair and those almost hypnotic amber eyes that seemed to shine in the moonlight, and her fit and sculpted figure. Sometimes she reminded him of something that would be more at home in a forest; there seemed to be a certain wildness about her at times, with toned muscles that rippled barely hidden beneath soft skin.

But now she was afraid. She was terrified by something, and he felt an instinctive urge to protect her--but he didn't know how he could protect her from her own subconscious.

As he sat on the edge of the bed, Valerie quickly snatched at the two capsules and downed them in a single gulp, then went for the water. Tony watched her for a moment, and then sighed in mild exasperation. Oh well, he thought, maybe two reds could protect her from the terrors of her own subconscious.

"You want to talk about it?" he asked at last. He took the empty glass from her slender, trembling hand and put it on the table on his side of the bed, next to the small, FM radio. He turned it on, dialed in on an officially approved mellow rock station, and set the volume on low.

"I . . . I was being dragged through a street somewhere," she said as she leaned back. Hugging the covers around her once more, she grimaced slightly at the taste of the chlorine and God knew what other chemicals that allegedly purified the water. "People were stoning me and calling me a witch, and there was someone . . . a priest?who was dragging me to a stake to be burned. He kept waving a Bible and yelling 'Repent!' and shit like that."

"Oh, yeah?" he asked. "Maybe it was something you ate. Pepperoni pizza does that to me sometimes."

She cast him a cold and furtive look, and fought down the urge to call him a lout; the last thing she needed from him was another argument. "I've had this dream before, lots of times," she said at last. "I just thought it had finally gone away." The more she thought about it, the more the memory made her want to run on; maybe by talking about it she could purge the fear from her soul for a while. At least for the rest of the night, she hoped. "It started when I was about seven or eight, and I was about fifteen the last time I had it. It used to really scare the hell out of my folks when I'd wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and screaming bloody murder. They took me to a friend who used to be a psychologist . . ." She thought for a moment. ". . . yeah, I was about eight at the time, and he told my folks that I just had an overactive imagination. He said that the best thing I could do would be to quit reading about witch trials." As she remembered, she could see the dubious look on her mother's face when the psychologist had spoken with her. There was something in her eyes that said she knew what the real cause was, but she had never come right out and said so.

"Strange thing for a kid to want to read about," Tony said.

"That's what the shrink thought, too. He thought it even weirder when I told him that I'd never even heard of witch trials, let alone read about them." She sighed softly. "It's strange, though . . . "

"What is?"

"The first time I had that dream was the day I . . . " She sighed heavily. "This'll sound nuts, but . . . it was the same day I got thrown by a horse, and I conked my head on the ground. Ever since then, I've been having this damned nightmare . . . and at the same time, I've . . . " She was a little reluctant to go on. " . . . I've had this way of knowing about things before they happened."

Tony regarded her with an eyebrow that was raised in doubt, but she didn't notice.

"It still happens, sometimes. Like, I'll be doing something and I'll suddenly get a flash of a friend or someone that I haven't seen in a long time. Every time something like that happened, the person I was thinking about would either call me up on the phone, or just happen to be in the neighborhood and would drop in."

"Sounds more like a coincidence to me," Tony said with smiling skepticism.

"I used to think that, too, at first. But it happened a lot, and with different people. And as a kid I used to know what my folks got me for my birthdays just by touching the packages."

For a long moment she thought about her parents. It had been so long ago when her father had been killed and her mother had taken her to her uncle Vincent's ranch. FLM storm troopers had killed him, along with her mother, during the battle less than a week later.

"When I was about eleven or twelve, I once went with Uncle Vince to an antique shop and almost got us busted. I saw this really old roll-top desk, and I went over to it for a closer look. I touched it and I felt a . . . a combination of such violence and dread and malice . . . and sadness. It was so strong that I thought it'd spark my hand; I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming. Later I asked the owner of the shop where it had come from, and he told me that he'd heard it used to belong to a man who had murdered his wife and her lover. The poor guy had sat at that desk and wrote a suicide note, and then blew his brains out."

Tony had been quietly listening to her, looking into her eyes. "You're psychic?"

She shrugged slightly. "I guess. Flashes seem to come to me when they want to. When I try for them, most of the time nothing happens." She smiled weakly. "I guess I'm just not very good at it."

"Jesus, I hope the Foundation doesn't find out about you. They'd probably offer a reward for your head on a pole or something. Or have you burned at the stake again."

She looked at him with a raised eyebrow, and then a skeptical smile. "Again?"

He smiled a tiny, mildly self-conscious smile at what he silently admitted was a rather silly comment. "I'm just saying the authorities consider psychic phenomena and other related matters to be the same thing as black magic. Ever since the Plagues, the FLM has been running this country like it was fucking medieval Europe. If I were you, I wouldn't talk too loudly about being psychic."

Valerie snuggled a little farther back into the soft, warm comfort of one pillow with a deep sigh as dozens of thoughts swirled through her mind. The Plagues, she thought. The Foundation for Law and Morality referred to the worldwide biological war as "the Plagues" because of its biblical connotation. As a child, she had heard family discussions about how the government had devised programs for the development of various strains of diseases; in particular were diseases similar to AIDS, which specifically attacked and destroyed the immune system in order to leave the victim defenseless against the most harmless of diseases, and thereby insuring mass death. Only instead of through the exchange of body fluids, these diseases could be passed along as easily as the common cold.

More thoughts about the Foundation, out there protecting people's morals, swirled through her mind. Protecting, hell, she thought. What they really do is thump their Bibles and legislate their own brand of morality, and anyone who disagrees with them is just plain out of luck. The anti-abortion laws, and prayer in the public schools, and creationism replacing evolution in their science classes . . . not to mention that fanatical "war on drugs," she thought again in disgust, which had finally resulted in an Executive Order combining law enforcement with the military. The FLM had taken this idea--originally conceived during the Nixon administration and seriously considered by the Reagan administration--and had employed it to its fullest extent. Nowadays, in the Foundation's perpetual state of national emergency, the military was used not only for a literal war on drugs but also in the much more encompassing and bona fide war on crime.

Members of her family had seen it coming for a long time. Valerie had grown up in an open-minded and politically-oriented family, and she could remember listening in on all the dinner-table discussions when she was a small child; and as children are frequently inclined to do, she had begun to adopt her parents' politics and attitudes. On that single occasion when she had cautiously broached the subject with her young friends, most of them had scoffed at her with a vicious cruelty that was either inborn in some children or learned from their parents--she wasn't sure of which. It had been one of her first lessons in politics, and as the years passed by Valerie had still kept a wary eye on political activities--but in recent years she had decided to keep her opinions to herself and not get involved. It was safer that way.

"Listen, why don't you try thinking of something other than your nightmare?" Tony suggested. "Try counting sheep or something."

Yeah, maybe so, she thought. She rolled onto her side with a grunt and a sigh, and tried to distract herself from thoughts of the FLM by concentrating on the good memories of her family. Unfortunately, even here her thoughts took another wrong direction, and instead of remembering sunlit days and laughter she found herself remembering their deaths at the hands of FLM soldiers.

Holy Guardians, as the law enforcement troops were frequently called, had shot her father and brother in the back during a massive demonstration at a nuclear power plant. Michael St. James and five hundred other people--including his son Timothy, who was among the women and children--had tried to shut down the newly-constructed Betatron Nuclear Power Station by sitting in front of the main entrance gates and blocking the vehicles full of men and equipment that had attempted to enter it. It had been an entirely non-violent demonstration, and they thought they would be successful; but most of the people there hadn't studied their history too well, and weren't really prepared for the Government's habitual reaction to non-violent protest.

First had come the tear gas, after only one order to disperse. Men, women and children ran in panic, blinded by tears in their burning eyes and choking with constricted throats. A few people had tried to pick up the canisters and had attempted to throw them back at the soldiers. The State press, which had been called out with the FLM troops, took pictures of "terrorists throwing projectiles at the authorities," and in what was eventually ruled to be self-defense the State mercenaries had responded by firing into the crowd. Michael and Timothy St. James had been two of the sixty fatalities. Valerie's mother, Alexandra Ryan St. James, had taken her and fled to the northern end of Mendocino County, to the ranch of her brother Vincent. It was a perfect place in which to hide; lush greenery spread out in all directions, and the mountains and hills had made it nearly impossible to move the large mechanized transports of the Foundation authorities in their search for escaping seditionists.

The Foundation troops had not expected much resistance, and the battle had been bloody. Valerie had been not quite thirteen at the time, and she had wanted to stay and fight alongside her family and friends. Her mother and uncle, of course, wouldn't allow it. Alexandra and Vincent had put her on a horse out in the barn; while Ryan kept his rifle trained on the door Alexandra had told her, "Go to Oscar Corey's house, you'll be safe there. He knows how to get in touch with other resistance members."

"I can't leave you here!" Valerie had cried, not wanting to let go of her. "I can't!"

"Shh, honey . . . don't cry. You have to be brave. And I want you to remember this." She gazed steadily into her daughter's amber eyes with her own. "If you ever need our help--I mean really need us--you call, and we'll come. That's a promise." She kissed her quickly and said, "Blessed be. Now go!" She swatted the horse hard on the rump, and the horse took off down the dirt path with Valerie hanging on as tightly as she could, blinded by tears. Alexandra St. James knew that her daughter had inherited her psychic abilities, and she didn't want that legacy to be ended here.

Valerie remembered that piercing, searing pain that lanced through her chest at the moment her mother was shot. She remembered the blows she felt as her uncle fell under the rifle butts of four FLM soldiers whose ammunition had run out. The pain had been so intense that it had nearly caused her to fall from the horse. But she held on more tightly and rode on, with tears streaming down her face. From that moment on, Valerie St. James hated the Foundation for Law and Morality, and everything it stood for. She hated it for killing her family and she hated it for destroying her life, and as a twelve-year-old girl she thought only of revenge. Not mere justice; she wanted cold, soul-gratifying vengeance. Oscar Corey had managed to smuggle her to Denver, to soothe her rage and anguish, and had left her with friends to keep her out of danger. Oscar had brought her out here so she could regain her perspective and to keep her out of danger, and to help make the pain go away . . . but the problem was, the pain never really went away. Now, some ten years later and living with Tony in this small suburb outside of Denver, Valerie still wanted to kill the people who had shattered her life and destroyed her family; the question was, could she?

She yawned again.

"How're you doing?" Tony asked.

"I'm fine . . . " she replied with a deep sigh. "I just hope I don't dream again. I thought I was finally over it . . . " Her voice trailed off.

"It's okay," Tony said as he curled up behind her. "You just relax and get some sleep."

"Mhmmm . . . " As she began to drift off, she could still see and hear the sounds of the battle at Ryan's ranch; she could hear the sounds of horses' hooves in her ears as she raced down the path, leaping over a startled soldier. There was something familiar about his face, but that was probably just her imagination. In those black fatigues and helmets, they all looked pretty much alike.

Then she saw the attic--the one room in the entire house that she had never been allowed to enter. "In time," Alex St. James had told her. "There are things in there that'll be yours someday, but you'll have to be patient." She could see the inside of the room now, filled with books, shelves, boxes, crates . . . and a large wooden trunk with a shiny lock which held it shut. Got to get into that attic, she thought drowsily. Got to find out what's in that trunk. Something for me, but . . .

Sleep finally overtook her, and as she drifted off she was dimly aware of the dull pain in the back of one thigh. The bruise that appeared there, when she had been struck in her dream by a flying stone, would be gone by morning.

Chapter Two

It was cold and gray in the late afternoon, and ready to rain. But neither that nor the public burning of rock and roll albums, tapes and compact discs could stop Valerie from getting her shopping done. The owner of the record store was outside, swearing and screaming at the FLM troops in protest as two of them--dressed in Kevlar vests, black fatigues and wearing German-made Heckler & Koch MP5 machine guns slung across their backs--restrained her while the other two splashed gasoline all over most of her inventory and set it alight with a wooden match. The Beatles were not alone this time, as they had been once, due to a misunderstood comment from one of the members about their group being more popular than Jesus; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Doors, Jethro Tull, Traffic, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, copies of "Woodstock," Cheech and Chong comedy albums, and scores of others--all declared by the Foundation to be seditious and drug-inspired--went up in noxious black clouds of smoke. Distorted by the rippling waves of heat, some of the onlookers shouted angrily in protest while others--the vast majority, who were also waving placards that were covered in Bible passages--cheered and chanted in an almost sexual frenzy, "Burn the filth! Burn the filth! Burn the filth! BUUURRRN!!" Hoping that no one would pay any attention to her (she didn't want to get roped into a discussion of what was taking place, because one never really knew where someone else stood on such issues anymore), Valerie had to edge her way carefully around the noisy crowd of spectators to make her way into the market. German-made machine guns and German-styled helmets, she thought, glancing once more over her shoulder at the Foundation soldiers as she passed through the automatic doors; looks like they won World War Two after all.

She and Tony usually couldn't afford to spend too much money on food, since gasoline was over five dollars a gallon and their energy bills were rising constantly--as was their rent, only in smaller leaps--but Tony had been unusually lucky at the weekly poker game the night before. Valerie usually disapproved strongly of his weekly gambling because of their increasing bills, but this time she had encouraged him to go, saying she had a strong feeling that it was going to be his night for cards. He had come away from the game almost four hundred dollars richer, so they had decided that this time they could splurge. After setting aside most of the winnings for rent and utility bills, Valerie had actually gone so far as to buy some cake mix--with icing!--an extravagance they usually could not afford.

Exiting the store, loaded down with two heavy bags of groceries and noting that the crowd had finally dispersed, she slowed her pace for a moment as she cast a quick glance at the molten remains of the records. With a very slight movement of her head, she shook it sadly--and then hoped that no one had noticed her. She glanced around quickly, saw that no one was observing her, and then she walked briskly to the small, battered, piss-yellow Ford station wagon, figuring that the record store owner was going to have to put in a lot of extra hours to pay off her fine for carrying that kind of music. She rested one foot on the sagging bumper to support one of the bags on her knee, leaning it against the other, and dug into a pocket of her heavy, over-sized Army surplus jacket for the keys so she could unlock the hatch. As she did, she happened to look up again and spotted the "Whitman's Used Books" sign across the street. "25% Off On All Used Books," the sign continued to proclaim, in smaller black letters beneath the name of the store. She stood frozen, staring at the sign. A gentle breeze teased at her hair, and a large raindrop went splat! against one of the bags, staining it an even darker brown. Another hit the bridge of her nose, but she didn't notice. There was something about the store that she found compelling, almost forcibly drawing her to it. Without taking her eyes from it, she opened the hatch and deposited the groceries, then slammed it shut and headed across the street. Maybe I can find an interesting book or two before that place gets its inventory reduced, she thought. But on another, almost subconscious level, she knew it wasn't books that had suddenly captured her interest.

The small bell tinkled over the doorway as the door swung open on slightly rusty hinges, and Valerie stepped into the dim warmth of the bookstore. She looked around for a moment, and wondered where they might be.

Near the door was an old wooden desk, behind which a small, middle-aged man with oily dark hair and a heavy paunch was sitting. Too many bread-and-mayonnaise sandwiches, she thought. The damn stuff looked like it was coming out through his hair.

He was in the midst of examining a strip of paper that fed into an old mechanical adding machine when he thought he felt someone watching him. As he glanced up his glasses slipped part way down his nose. He pushed them back up with one finger, said "Afternoon," and returned to his adding machine.

"Hi," Valerie said pleasantly. "How're you . . . today?" Her voice trailed off as the man's action of returning to his bookkeeping seemed to say, "Go look around--I'm busy."

Above the desk was a directory that listed book and magazine subjects on one side and corresponding aisle numbers on the other. Having to start somewhere, Valerie went to the science fiction section first. She tried to walk quietly across the wooden floor, but the heels of her boots still made hollow, resounding sounds. She examined the shelves and found this section to be nearly empty. They certainly weren't here, she figured. She didn't exactly know what she was looking for, but she knew they were around here somewhere . . .

She wandered slowly through the other aisles, looking through history books, travel magazines and drug abuse material--mostly Foundation publications on marijuana, "The Devil's Weed"--and noticed that nearly all of the latter category had been written in the early 1930s, when Harry Anslinger had been head of the Federal Narcotics Bureau. Jesus, she thought, talk about ancient ideas! She wandered on around to the other side where the religion section was and found that the shelves here were sagging from the weight of so many books. They sure wouldn't be here, she told herself as she began counting titles. Looks like whoever owned these books before really followed in the footsteps of so many electronic evangelists, she thought. Selling religion for money. She thumbed through one of the books, and her hand suddenly flew to her mouth to stifle an outburst of laughter. The previous owner of this volume had taken a black pen and blocked out several letters on each page; those that remained spelled out a number of original and highly amusing obscenities. She put the book back with a grin, then stuffed her hands into the deep pockets of her jacket and continued to wander around some more.

At the far end of the aisle she saw a narrow, winding staircase. That's where they are! She figured the place was probably off limits, but . . .

"Sir?"

Down at the other end of the aisle, the man behind the desk looked up, pushing his glasses up the oily bridge of his nose again. "Eh?"

"Is it okay to go upstairs?"

"What?"

Louder: "Is it okay to go upstairs, or is that off-limits?"

"Just a lot of stuff to be burned. Go on up if you really want to. Mind the spiders and mice."

Spiders and mice? Changing her mind was out of the question. Oh, what the hell, she thought, I'm bigger than they are anyway. She started slowly for the wooden stairs. They creaked noisily under her weight, and a couple of them sagged in warning of possible collapse, but she was determined to go on. She didn't really have any choice; she had to go on, because they were up there, waiting for her. Slowly and carefully, she went on up.

The narrow corridor was flanked on both sides by more shelves, with peeling old paint and laden with dust. Thick cobwebs decorated some of the shelves, while others fell silently apart in dust-laden corners. This is where they are, she thought as she sniffed at the musty smells of dry rot and mold. A single, dim, twenty-watt bulb lit the hall, casting more shadows than it was supposed to disperse. It felt much warmer up here, too, and as she took off her jacket and slung it over her shoulder, Valerie thought that this place was an excellent firetrap.

The books up here were of a completely different nature. "Parapsychology Today," was the title of one book; she examined them as they sat on the shelves, straining her eyes slightly in the weak light to make out the titles. "'Man And His Symbols,' by Carl G. Jung," she read softly to herself. "'Your Erroneous Zones,' by Dr. Wayne D. Dyer . . . 'Introduction To Yoga,' by Richard Hittleman . . . Hmmmm, sugar-free and non-fat yoga, I hope . . . God, girl, you're such a wit . . . " More titles . . . "'Born Again,' by Hans Holzer . . . " She slipped the jacket from her shoulder and draped it over one arm, then took the book from the shelf and leafed through its yellow, brittle pages. She found that it was a book dealing not with the radical Christian movement and it's Foundation, but rather with reincarnation. All of these books, and so many more like it, were going to be burned, she thought sadly. The book and the knowledge of its fate brought back vivid memories of last night's dream, but this wasn't what she had come looking for. Maybe she could save it by slipping it into a pocket of her jacket . . . Naw, I'd probably get caught and wind up in jail, she thought. What's the penalty for stealing a book like this? She started to put it back when something caught her eye. In the space where the book had been she saw a part of something yellow resting behind the rest of the books, and she thought, Here they are! She pulled a few more books out to make room for her hand, reached in, and immediately yanked her hand back with a suppressed "Oh! Shit!" as she felt something--either a spider or a cockroach--skitter across it. With a shudder of revulsion, she hurriedly rubbed the back of her hand against her jeans (God, she could still feel those creepy little legs crawling across her skin!), then looked in more carefully. She reached in again, hoping she wasn't disturbing an entire nest of the damn things.

It was a deck of Tarot cards. The seal of the box had never been broken. She opened the box and took out the cellophane-wrapped cards. "I've seen these before," she said to herself, and tried to remember where and when. But all she could see in her mind's eye were the cards and a dim room with a fire in the small fireplace. And another person . . . a blonde woman sitting across from her and smiling. The face seemed familiar, yet it was no one she knew. She couldn't remember ever having seen these before, but they looked so familiar . . .

She slid the cards back into their box and replaced the books, then went down the stairs. As she approached the desk, she held up the deck and asked, "How much do you want for these?"

The man looked up once again. "What?"

This guy must be deaf or something, she thought. She spoke a little louder. "I said, how much do you want for these?"

"You want to buy those?" the man asked, somewhat nervously, as he eyed the Tarot cards.

Kinda slow, too. "Yes. How much?"

He thought for a long moment, watching her . . . studying her . . . wondering what kind of a woman would want to buy occult objects, and suspecting he already knew the answer. Slowly, unnoticed by Valerie, his hand slid under his desk and pressed a button. From a nearby corner above her, a concealed security camera began videotaping her.

"Uh, fifteen dollars."

"Fifteen bucks!? You were gonna burn 'em, fer chrissakes! How the hell can you charge fifteen dollars!?"

Startled, the man flinched backward. How dare she act like this! Proper women were supposed to be polite and lady-like and cooperative, and not at all like this . . . this troublemaker. He hated women like this. He had never been good at confrontations like this, and he had to force himself to be more assertive. "Fifteen dollars," he said as his heart raced wildly. "Take it or leave it." There! That ought to show her!

Valerie glared at him in menacing outrage. Yet she also managed to control her anger. She had to control it, because she had to have these cards. She could have simply stolen them . . . No, she couldn't. She couldn't, because she honestly believed that stealing was wrong. Besides, she reminded herself, she figured she'd probably get caught somehow anyway. She'd probably look like she was trying to skulk out of the store with a huge, dark cloud of guilt hanging oppressively over her head, pointing a cumulus black finger of accusation at her. Otherwise, she would have snatched the book, too. No, it really was best to be honest.

Grumbling imprecations under her breath, she reached for her wallet and opened it, and inside she found a worn twenty-dollar bill that had somehow escaped her notice earlier. She handed it over to him, and he returned five dollars. She put the bill in her pocket along with the cards, and turned to leave.

"Wait a second, I have to give you a receipt."

"I don't want it," she snapped as she headed for the door. Y'goddamn little crook, she added silently as she shrugged into her jacket.

"Business law says I have to give one with each purchase."

"I don't care; I don't want it."

"Well, what am I going to do with it?"

She placed her hand on the doorknob, then turned to face him with a cold smile. "Use your imagination," she told him, and slammed the door behind her.

He sat there for a moment, staring at the closed door, and another moment later he realized he had just been insulted. How dare she! he thought. He quickly got to his feet and looked out the large front window to watch Valerie make her way across the street, moving slowly between the cars that crept by. He saw her get into a small yellow station wagon, and then he went back to his desk. I'll show her!

That was just one of the nice things about so many security cameras being everywhere; not only were they good for security, he told himself, but they also came in handy for when people--like this woman, for example--came in to buy any questionable books or other materials. He knew that the Foundation frowned on people keeping these kinds of things around, but keeping an eye on people like her always helped to supplement his income. He liked to think he was on good terms with a colonel at the Guardian Building; in truth, he had once almost been arrested for possession of subversive literature. But not only had he managed to talk his way out of jail, he had even convinced the colonel that this was a perfect way of "stinging" heretics and possible radicals who were looking for contraband material. And after a moment's thought, the colonel finally agreed with him, and had decided to let him keep his subversive books.

I'll show her! he thought again as he reached across his desk for the telephone.

***

When the Foundation for Law and Morality had first seized power, their main concern had been maintaining law and order. The best way to do this, they had decided, had been to take over the US Departments of Justice and the Treasury, and then every agency under their jurisdiction, so the logical choice was to first take possession of the main offices, all of the equipment, and the complete files of the FBI and the IRS. From there all of the major branch offices of these two organizations had also been taken over and converted into regional Guardian headquarters, thereby insuring their hold on as much information on the American public as possible. After that, it had been a simple matter for the authorities to convert local law enforcement offices into FLM offices. The end result had been the complete takeover and militarization of all investigative agencies at every level.

There was one such small local office outside of Denver that was staffed with about seventy people. Inside, there were dozens of black-clad troops wearing side arms who walked up and down the short corridors on their various missions. Most of them were taking reports to and from other offices in the building--reports on burglaries, automobile accidents and thefts, protesters, suspected heretics and subversives, and dozens more. A couple were taking reports to the "morgue"--a term which had been borrowed from the press, and which originally had been used to name the storeroom where newspaper and magazine publishers had kept old copies of their publications. The Guardian Building's morgue was used exclusively for filing and storing highly sensitive and top-secret execution reports. Other soldiers were standing about and socializing, and trading stories about their own personal experiences and satisfactions with their line of work.

At the front desk, one of the phones rang. The desk soldier lifted the receiver, punched the flashing line three button, and said, "Guardian Building one-one-five. Corporal Ross speaking."

"Yes, hello. I'd like to speak with Colonel Warren, please," said the faintly distorted voice on the other end of the line.

"State your name and the nature of your call."

"I've been promised anonymity," the voice said. "Just tell the colonel this is George from the bookstore. He knows who I am. I have information regarding a possible witch."

The corporal checked the readout on the caller I.D. One could never be certain whether or not somebody was making a prank call. It happened often. Usually it was kids, having some fun at the expense of the authorities; there were always people out there who had no respect for The Law and those who enforced it. But information on a witch was something that was very rarely called in, the corporal thought as he entered the number in his computer. If it wasn't a crank call and he didn't report it, he could wind up in some considerable trouble. "One moment, please." He put the man on hold and checked the results of his computer search. Sure enough, there was the verified number. He pressed a button on his intercom.

"Yes?"

"Colonel Warren, there's a George from Whitman's Used Books on line three to speak with you in regards to a possible witch. He says you know him."

"Thank you." He punched his own flashing line three button and lifted the receiver. "Yes, George, what is it?"

"Colonel? There was a woman in my shop just a few minutes ago who I think might be a witch."

Warren sighed with slightly strained patience. A witch, he thought. Not too many people believed in or reported witches these days, but this suspect might be investigated and perhaps even charged with some other crime. Anyone who could lead somebody into believing they were a witch must certainly be into something illegal, and it could be worth an investigation. But, he thought with another sigh, it was probably just some punk rocker; there were still a lot of them around, sad to say. Young and dirty punks who insisted on "doing their own thing," as they liked to call it, rather than conforming to the boundaries of a normal and decent society. It was probably just some kid dressed in black with a weird hairstyle. "A witch," he said. "What makes you think she's a witch?"

"She bought a deck of Tarot cards," George replied.

Warren sat up a little straighter. It still irritated him to know that someone was in possession of such things, since they had been outlawed by the Foundation under the new anti-witchcraft laws. But Warren reminded himself of his deal with George, and he forced himself to be calm. Besides, any and all arrests with his name on the booking sheets as commander of the local office always made his record look good. Maybe someday he could finally get out of this piss ant little office and get into a Regional headquarters, where his full talents could be put to good use.

"I didn't have them on display or anything, sir," George went on. "Honestly. They were upstairs and out of sight, and I was going to burn them. She must have known they were there. She demanded that I sell them to her."

If she's really a witch, why didn't she just steal them? Warren wondered. "Can you describe her?"

"Better than that," George replied. "I have her on video. I also saw the car she was driving."

"You've done very well, George," the Colonel said, using much the same relaxed tone he used when rewarding his dog. "Stay where you are; I'll be there shortly."

"Yes sir. I'll be right here."

Warren hung up his phone and pressed his intercom button. "Paul, have someone get my car ready. I'm going out for a drive."

"Yes sir."

Warren looked down at the book he had been reading, and closed it with a soft thud. The title, in Old English script, was stamped in silver on the black leather cover. It was an old copy of Malleus Maleficarum, the Hammer of Witches.

No, there weren't very many people nowadays who really, truly believed in witches. But Colonel Warren was one who did.

***

The rain came with a vengeance. The heavy downpour fell in a mad rush, threatening to flood the streets and making driving almost impossible. The windshield wipers on Colonel Warren's police cruiser clicked back and forth in a vain effort to keep his visibility clear while Warren himself sat behind the wheel with the heater on full, watching George through the large shop window. Such a repulsive little man, he thought. He really enjoys informing on his fellow citizens. George was a frequent caller on the anonymous tip phone lines. Anonymous, hell; not so anonymous with caller I.D. A witch, indeed, Warren thought skeptically. Some girl comes in and buys a deck of Tarot cards, that doesn't make her a witch. Although the charge could stick, if properly handled. Most likely she was just some teenager looking for cheap thrills, that's all.

He hated the idea of stepping out of his nice warm car to walk through the bitterly cold rain, avoiding the many puddles, to go into the Whitman's Used Book store. Informants are low people, but they're useful, he thought. Without people like George, our job would be a lot tougher.

Reluctantly, he opened the door and stepped out into the rain.

***

George had been sitting behind his desk, nervously wringing his hands as he waited for the Colonel's arrival. George had always been a nervous man, and dealing with soldiers of the Holy Guard made him even more nervous. But at least he was a good American doing his patriotic Christian duty, he told himself, and he knew that he would receive his well-deserved reward in Heaven, and probably even a little something extra in his mailbox. Sometimes it was fifty dollars, and sometimes it was a hundred. Every little bit helped.

He looked out through the window and saw Colonel Warren, dressed in a black, visored cap, uniform and raincoat. The only color on him was the white of his collar, the silver eagles on his cap and epaulets, and an American flag patch on each shoulder. On each patch were the familiar stars and stripes, but superimposed on them in the center was a large black crucifix.

Looks like a tall, thin rat, George thought as the Colonel approached the door, with those beady eyes. He never would have said so to the Colonel's face, of course; he didn't want any trouble with him. No one did. George may have been a fink, but he wasn't stupid.

"Good evening, Colonel Warren. How are you, sir?"

"Fine, George. Just fine," Warren replied as he closed the door against a gust of wind. "You mentioned something about a possible witch earlier."

"Yes sir," George said. He reached under his desk and withdrew a videotape cassette. "I have her picture right here." He plugged it into a VCR, which was hooked into a small television under his desk.

With a polite yet bored expression, Warren stepped around behind the desk and looked at the small color screen as George pressed the "play" button. The picture rolled for a moment with a little bit of visual static, and when it cleared Warren's eyes widened as his stomach suddenly dropped. The room seemed to reel around him, as though he was riding on an unbalanced merry-go-round, and he clutched at George's desk for support.

George looked at him nervously. "Is there something wrong, sir?"

Warren took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trembling nervously and trying to steady himself. He reached forward and pressed the "pause" button, freezing the picture that clearly showed a close-up of the woman's face. "Do you know who this woman is?" his voice rasped.

"No sir."

"She didn't happen to mention a name or anything?"

"No sir, she didn't. Do you know her?"

Warren's mind went back to the night before, to the recurring dream he had, and that unrelenting, echoing voice from . . .

No. Not a dream, he told himself. The idea of a mere habitual dream was a thought and a lie planted in his mind by Satan trying to trick him. Oh, Satan was clever, so very, very clever, and there were so many ways in which he could disrupt the Lord's work. But he couldn't fool Elias Warren. No, it hadn't been mere dreams that had been plaguing him for so many years; and it certainly had not been any echoing memories from a previous life in the distant past. They had been visions, he told himself. Visions from God, in which he had been presiding over the trial and execution of a witch. He'd had these visions before, many times, but they had occurred a long time ago and when he had been spiritually weak, and subject to Satan's trickery. And at the time, he had believed that, indeed, they had been nothing more than mere dreams. Frightening dreams, to be sure, but still just dreams. But in later years, he had come to convince himself that these visions had been messages from God, and warnings of the existence of witches--and these visions had become his driving force to uncover and prosecute as many of those witches as the Lord would allow.

But now, standing in George's bookstore and with this woman's face before him, he discovered with a sudden and terrifying realization that there was something dreadfully different about this one.

"A curse on you, priest!" said that haunting voice from his past, just before the woman had been consumed by the flames. "We will meet again, you and I. In another life and time, we will meet again . . . only next time it will not be me who burns!"

It was her! Dressed differently, yes, but the face and the hair and the eyes--those demonic amber eyes, like those of a wild animal--were the same!

Was it possible that she had come back?

He looked at George. "You say you saw her car?"

"Yes sir. A small yellow station wagon."

"What kind?"

"Oh, gee, what was it?" he muttered to himself as he rubbed his chin.

"Hurry it up, man!" he snapped, startling him. He wanted to grab him by his jacket and shake him. "I haven't got all night!"

"Umm . . . uhh . . . a Ford, I think. Yes, it was a Ford!"

"Say nothing of this to anyone," Warren told him, forcing himself to be calm. "For your own safety. You've been a great help."

"Is she a witch?"

Warren nodded slowly. "Yes," he said as his voice dropped to a foreboding whisper. "Yes, I believe she is."

George gasped. Oh, my God! he thought. A real live witch had been in his store! He remembered the way she had spoken to him earlier; she had muttered something under her breath when he charged her for the cards. Had she put a curse on him?

"Do you think she put a curse on me?" he asked, his own frightened voice a near whisper. She might have left some demon here to spy on him.

Warren studied this insignificant little man for a moment, then said, "I doubt it. But then, it wouldn't hurt you to spend a little extra time in church." He looked him in the eyes. "I would say you've had a close call." It was always a good idea to throw a little scare into people like this, just to keep them in line.

He looked at the screen again, then popped the tape out and slipped it into his pocket. "Yes, you've been very helpful tonight. And you'll be finding something extra in your mailbox tomorrow."

"Yes sir! Thank you, sir! God bless you, sir!"

Warren turned away from him, went to the door, and stepped once more into the cold night rain. It was still falling hard as he turned up his collar; and as he looked into the black night sky with fear in his eyes, he silently said to himself, God help me.

Chapter Three

The small living room was lit by two oil lamps, which rested on the low coffee table in front of the sofa, and by two more oil lamps that rested on end tables that stood at each end of the sofa. The television was on, set inside of a false fireplace and facing the sofa, and on top of the wide mantle there rested a stereo receiver with a compact disc player; the two speakers rested on small high shelves in opposing corners. Near the front door was a recliner chair, covered in worn and slightly cracked brown vinyl, and opposite this was a swivel-rocker covered in blue-gray material of an indeterminate nature. Next to the doorway that led to the short hall, on the other side from the wall switch where the reds were stashed, stood an old-styled, gas wall furnace. There was also a slight, lingering smell of marijuana in the air.

Valerie and Tony had just finished an after dinner joint, and were relaxing, talking and listening to the news. The newscasters--one male, one female, both dressed in gray, both blond, both grinning empty-headed grins--had covered topics from the Plagues and the apparent recovery and slowly growing population ("Praise the Lord," the woman had said, softly yet conspicuously) to the arrest of two environmental terrorists, who had been caught pulling up survey stakes in the middle of Yellowstone National Park, where a lumber company was building yet another logging road so they could clear-cut another section of forest; and from the celebrations of the fifth anniversary of Congress overturning Roe v Wade to the increasing numbers of starving, new-born children being found abandoned in trash dumpsters ("Where the hell are the 'right-to-lifers' when that happens?" Valerie had once asked scornfully); and from the continuing war on drugs to the continuing war in the jungles of Central America, where "Communist forces are still executing our Christian brethren in an effort to spread Satanic atheism throughout the world," as the male reporter had read. According to an article Valerie had once read in an underground newspaper, it was right-wing government troops--sponsored and supplied by the Foundation--who were shooting dissidents and the indigenous, whose only crime was in trying to resist further subjugation.

Valerie gazed at the screen with a dark expression. God, this is such shit, she thought. News, my ass; it's just more of the same old Foundation propaganda. These reporters sound no different from televangelists.

She suddenly shivered as an icy hand squeezed her heart.

"What's the matter?" Tony asked.

"I don't know." She looked nervously around the room and slowly rubbed her arms through her gray wool sweater. For a moment, she felt as though the priest had stepped from her dream and was coming toward her, with a Bible in one hand and a flaming torch in the other. "Must've been a draft or something."

"I didn't feel anything."

"Must be nerves, then," she said, and then wondered what she might have to feel nervous about.

"Oh, hey. I just remembered: Jeff Hastings and a friend of his are going to be here in a little while. I asked Jeff if he could maybe put you under and get to the bottom of this nightmare of yours."

Anger began to well within her once again as she thought, Nice of you to consult with me first, and then began to do a slow burn. What right does he have to go calling people over to mess with my mind? And to not even ask me about it first? And with some stranger hanging around? Typical macho male horse shit, she thought. What am I, some piece of property or something? It seemed to her that he was always doing something like this, and she was getting tired of the arguments. Christ, if it isn't his damned gambling, then it's bringing people over when all she wanted was a nice quiet evening at home . . . Man--even sex with him was getting to be more and more one-sided; she was tired of being harpooned almost every night, and the last good orgasm she'd experienced had been self-induced. He was always . . . Aw, shit. Well, he's concerned, she silently admitted with a sigh, but damn it, she wished to hell that he would just once check with her first before doing something like this . . . She had thought seriously about leaving him on several occasions, but where could she go?

Tony glanced at his watch. "As a matter of fact, they ought to be here any minute. I hope you don't mind . . . Val?"

"Hm? No, it's okay," she lied. "What does Jeff know about hypnosis? And who's this friend of his?"

"I don't know."

Terrific.

"But if Jeff knows him, then he must be okay. And as for his knowing how to hypnotize people, I heard he learned it from his dad, who used to be a shrink."

Well, that certainly qualifies him, she thought. "How well does he know this other guy?"

"I don't know."

This just keeps getting better and better, she thought with a sigh. "Great," she said softly.

"Hm?"

"Nothing."

The scent of patchouli incense soon replaced that of the grass, and shortly after that there was a knock at the door. Tony answered it and found two men standing on the porch. Jeff Hastings was a little under six feet tall, and was thin and had sandy blond hair that was tied back with a rubber band. He was dressed in faded jeans, well-worn hiking boots, and a blue work shirt covered by an old Army jacket to keep the rain off, and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses to which some small drops of rain clung. The other man was slightly over six feet tall and wore black Western-styled boots, dark blue jeans and a black leather blazer. He had hair as dark as Valerie's own and a little on the long side, and a moustache that curled slightly downward at the coroners of his mouth. He had an unnerving, piercing look that seemed to see through people, and very few had the nerve to steadily return his gaze. Except for the expression in his eyes, Valerie thought he looked a little like a young, dark-haired Robert Redford.

"Hi guys, come on in."

"Hi ya Tony, Valerie . . . I want you to meet a friend of mine. Keller, this is Tony, and that's Valerie."

"Hi," Keller said, ignoring Tony for a moment to focus his attention on Valerie, and his warm smile softened his features.

Not bad, she thought off-handedly as she returned his smile. I'll bet he doesn't treat women like chattel.

Jackets were shed and hung near the wall furnace to dry. "Keller's an ex-business partner of mine. We used to work together until I decided there were safer lines of work to get into."

"Oh, yeah? I thought you said he could be trusted." She and Jeff grinned at each other. She had liked Jeff immediately since the first time they met, and the two would frequently kid each other. She turned to Keller and asked, "So what kinds of work are you into these days?"

"All kinds." He spoke with a low, relaxed voice that had a very slight southern accent.

Tommy Lee Jones soundtrack, Valerie thought with an inward smile. Louisiana, I'll bet.

"Yeah?" Tony asked, trying to divert Keller's attention away from his woman. "A sort of, what? Jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none?"

Keller shrugged. "Pretty much."

"You been at it long?" Valerie asked.

He shrugged again. "A good while, I guess."

And you've never been caught? she was about to ask, then thought better of it. For a few moments the room was uncomfortably quiet. Getting this guy to talk is like prying open an oyster with your fingernails, she thought. What's he got to hide?

"Valerie, ol' buddy, did Tony tell you why we were coming over?"

She turned to look at him. "Yeah; I didn't know you could hypnotize people."

"Sure--it's part of my hypnotic personality."

"You mean, when you walk into a room you put people to sleep?"

In the background, Keller grinned.

"Keep it up, girl, and when I have you under I'll make you dance like a chicken."

Valerie laughed. "Okay, truce."

"I still say this hypnosis stuff is a lot of bullshit," Keller said as he settled into the recliner chair with a creaking of vinyl.

Jeff grinned. "My dear friend, the uncompromising skeptic."

"No, I used to be a skeptic," Keller said with a slight smile. "Nowadays I'm a cynic; I've graduated."

"Right," he said with a soft chuckle. "Valerie, come on over here and have a hit off this, and lie back." He produced a small hash pipe from his shirt pocket. "It'll help you to relax." He lit it for her, and she hit long and deep on it. Exhaling, she lay back on the sofa. Jeff turned down three of the oil lamps to small blue dots and held the fourth, turned down not quite as low as he sat on the edge of the sofa. He held it before Valerie's gaze. "Okay, all you have to do is just relax," he said as he began passing it slowly back and forth before her. "Relax completely, let all of those tensions flow out through your feet and your fingertips, and just watch the flame. Look at the colors, and how they blend together . . . Concentrate . . . watch the blue arc turn to yellow . . . watch the blue arc . . . " His voice was getting softer and softer, and Valerie's eyes followed the lamp. The hashish did make it easier for her to relax; there was that, and the fact that she trusted Jeff. She had known him for a little over a year, and he was about the only one of Tony's friends that she really liked.

She watched the flame as it moved slowly from side to side, and soon all she could see was the blue arc of the flame as the rest of the darkened room faded from view in a field of tiny, vibrating red spots that shimmered in the dark.

"You hear only my voice," Jeff said softly. "You see only the blue flame. But your eyes are getting tired, so tired. You want to keep them open but you can't. Let them close. You are so, so tired . . . "

Watching the scene before him, and because of the grass he had smoked earlier, even Tony felt a little like going under. He leaned back in the rocker and snapped his eyes wide open, and shook his head to clear it. Keller was watching with keen interest from across the room, shifting slightly in the worn brown vinyl recliner, and showed no signs of wanting to go under. As he watched, absent-mindedly stroking his moustache, he suddenly saw her for a brief moment dressed in black velvet and white lace. Have I maybe met this lady somewhere before? he wondered. He didn't think so . . .

Valerie's eyes slowly closed.

"When I count to three you will be in a deep, comforting sleep. One . . . two . . . three." She sighed deeply and was completely relaxed.

"Raise your right hand if you hear me."

Her right hand slowly came up.

"Good. You can put it down."

It went down.

"You are going into a very deep, relaxing sleep. You can feel yourself sinking into the sofa, sinking deeper and deeper, and you feel warm and safe. Nothing can harm you. Sink deeper and deeper . . . " He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He watched Valerie for a moment, then very carefully took her wrist and checked her pulse. It was slow and regular, as was her breathing. "Now, Valerie? We're going on a voyage through time. You are perfectly safe; nothing can harm you. It's all in the past, and the past cannot come back to harm you. We're going back ten years. Think back, now. Ten years. Where are you?"

Valerie was quiet for nearly half a minute. Then, in a faint voice she said, "I . . . I'm at my Uncle Vince's ranch."

"What are you doing there? Do you live there?"

"Yes . . . We're harvesting crops . . . "

"What kinds of crops?"

"Corn . . . tomatoes . . . beans, string beans . . . pot . . . "

Keller smiled to himself as he was suddenly reminded of the time he had tried going into his own private marijuana business. It was in an effort to become self-employed, as it were, by getting out of the smuggling-for-hire biz; but there seemed to be someone out there who didn't want him to retire just yet. Keller's entire crop had gotten wiped out. He had borrowed a lot of money to get his own business going, a lot of money from some people for whom he had done some highly illegal jobs. People who could be very dangerous if they thought they were being ripped off. So in order to pay that money back, he had to spend the next six months of his life working for those people for free--which meant he had to go back into smuggling. Evidently, that was the price for being too good at what he did.

"Your Uncle Vince," Jeff said, disrupting Keller's thoughts. "Is he your father's brother or your mother's?"

"My mother's."

"Tell me about him. What's the last thing you remember about him?"

"He . . . he's fighting with soldiers . . . oh God, Uncle Vince! They're beating him! They're killing him! God, Uncle Vincent!" She began to rise from the sofa, and her voice was rising to near hysteria. "Uncle Vince!"

Jeff held her down. "It's okay!" he said, calmly but forcefully, and gently yet firmly pushing her back. "It's all right, we're not there anymore . . . We're not there anymore. We're going back further, much further back . . . "

Valerie slowly relaxed and lay back.

"We're now going back to a time before you were born into this life; we are now back in a time before you were known as Valerie St. James. Tell me what you see."

Valerie lapsed into silence again, this time for over a full minute. The muscles of her face seemed to shift and change as she took on another personality. At last she whispered, "Wasichun."

Jeff and Tony stared at her, and then at each other. Even Keller sat up a little straighter, and puzzlement was plain on their faces. Jeff asked, "What do you mean?"

"Soldiers," she whispered. "Many soldiers . . . "

"Where are you?"

There was another short moment of silence before she finally replied. "Outside my tipi," she said in the same soft whisper. "There are soldiers everywhere . . . horses are running . . . there are gunshots . . . " Tears formed in her eyes and began to trail from their corners, and her voice tightened. "Women and children are screaming and crying," she sobbed. "The soldiers are killing us . . . "

"Why?"

"I don't know." She sniffled once and regained her composure. "Yesterday one of the soldier chiefs told us our warriors could go hunting for buffalo, so most of them are gone. We are friendly Cheyenne; we want to be friends with the white people! We were told that as long as we fly the flag of the Great Father in Washington soldiers would never attack us. We are gathering under the flag, and still they kill us! Why do they do this to us?"

Something tugged uncomfortably at Keller's memory. There was something he had read once . . . To Jeff he said, "Ask her what's the name of their chief."

"Can you tell me your chief's name?"

"His name is Motavato," she said in a choked voice as she wiped the tears from her eyes with both palms. "The whites call him Black Kettle."

Keller sighed deeply, his suspicions confirmed.

"Ask her what the date is," Tony suggested.

"November twenty-eighth, eighteen sixty-four," Keller told him. "It's the massacre at Sand Creek, Colorado. One of the blacker chapters of American history that never seems to get mentioned in the public schools." Pre-Foundation history books could still be found out there, if one looked for them hard enough . . . she must have read about it somewhere else before . . . He sure as hell didn't believe it had anything to do with reincarnation. These memories were just fantasies. They had to be.

"Listen to me closely," Jeff told her. "We're going further back in time. We are no longer in the Indian village, we are going much further back. Can you tell me who you are now?"

Her face seemed to change again as yet another personality manifested itself in her body. Her hand raised to brush a strand of hair from her forehead and her face wore an expression of bewilderment. "Que quiere usted?"

Jeff leaned back, and with a surprised look he asked Tony, "She doesn't speak Spanish, does she?"

"Not that I know of. I've never heard her speak it."

I don't think so, Keller thought skeptically. There could be a dozen logical and rational explanations for this. He . . . just couldn't think of any.

Jeff looked back at the sleeping figure on the sofa. "Speak English, please. I don't understand Spanish."

"What do you want?" the girl asked. It was not a demand; it was merely a polite and curious question.

"Please tell me your name."

"I am Elena Carrera."

"Where are you from, Elena?"

"Viella."

"Where is that?"

"The north of Spain, of course," she said with a curious smile. "Do you not know where you are?"

Jeff smiled. "I'm a stranger here. Can you tell me what year it is?"

Her smile widened even more. Not only did he not know where he was, he didn't even know what year it was. Out of politeness, she replied, "It is the year . . . of our Lord . . . " she sounded a little disdainful of that phrase " . . . fourteen-hundred and ninety."

"Elena, I want to assure you that you are perfectly safe; you are among friends here, and there is nothing that can harm you. What's done is done. Can you tell me, please, how you died?"

The woman's smile slipped away as she remembered. "I was burned at the stake."

***

"Dear God!" the young woman screamed as raw terror twisted her face. "I was helping the child, not harming her!"

"Be silent, lying witch!" the priest shot back. "You were condemning her immortal soul to Hell!"

The thick, bristly hemp rope bit into the flesh of her wrists as she was led staggering in exhaustion along the muddy road that wound its way through the small Spanish village. The other end of the rope was tied to the saddle of the priest's horse, which nearly dragged the dark-haired woman along the road. She screamed and cried, and fought desperately to free herself from her captors as the mob of surrounding villagers threw mud and stones at her while shouting curses and demanding that she redeem her soul.

"Why are you doing this?" she cried as the icy night air burned in her raw throat. "The child was ill! I was only trying to help her!"

The priest quickly turned in his saddle and lashed at her face with his riding crop. A streak of bright, glistening red appeared across her cheek. "I said be silent!" he roared. "We will not be tricked by your lies! You were seen in the forest with her; it was you who made her ill with your curse! And you were going to damn her as one of the Devil's own!" He gave the horse a sharp jab in the ribs with the heels of his boots, and the animal lurched forward to pull the woman into the mud once more, where she was dragged writhing and screaming in the filth and slime. Mud and manure plastered her dark brown hair to her face; her white dress, now stained with wet brown, stuck to her like a second skin. She tried in vain to get to her feet so that she could use her arms to try to wipe the filth from her eyes and mouth while the mob continued to curse and assault her; when she finally managed to struggle to her feet, a large stone flew from the crowd and struck her in the back of one thigh, causing her to stumble and fall into the mud once again.

Burning torches illuminated the icy night. They waved near the woman's face, singeing her hair and blistering her skin, while the children waved crosses and brooms and spat on her. They, like their parents, wanted to see the evil destroyed; they knew she was evil because their parents had told them so.

The priest's horse broke through the mob of angry men and women and children. They parted slowly before it like a sea of hate to reveal what the woman previously could not see. There was a large pile of straw, branches, firewood and broken furniture; she recognized the furniture and clothing as her own. Sprouting from the center of this mound was a square platform, and standing erect through a hole in this was a tall, thick stake.

"Dear God, no!" she screamed, her shrill voice nearly piercing the eardrums of the closer bystanders, almost like an ice pick. She tried to dig her heels into the slick mud, as though this small amount of extra leverage might help her hold the horse back, but it was all in vain. She screamed again, fighting hysterically and trying to release herself from the rope that bit into her wrists. There were no words left in her now; there were just the pure animal screams of a woman who was about to be burned alive.

The priest--who was also the local magistrate--climbed from his horse and was quickly joined by three other men. Together they dragged the woman, who was now reduced to biting at her executioners, and tied her wrists to the stake with her arms bound high above her head. In an extra effort to degrade her, the priest tore the wet and stained dress from her to leave her standing naked at the stake, bound with thick ropes and spattered with mud. She fought and thrashed at her bonds, but eventually she slumped against them as the fight finally drained out of her. She was exhausted and aching from the bruises that had been inflicted on her from being dragged and pelted with stones, and her wrists were raw and bleeding. Rivulets of red, looking more black against her pale skin in the firelight, ran the length of her arms. "Listen to me, please . . . " she sobbed.

"All we want to hear from you is your confession!" shouted the priest, his face a mask of self-righteous wrath. The torch he held threw flickering orange light on his face to reveal his sharp features, and some detached part of the woman's mind told her he resembled a smug-looking rodent with a piece of discarded bread crust. "Confess to the crimes of witchcraft and heresy, and beg the Almighty Lord to forgive you! The noose will be quicker than the flames! Confess that you are a Devil worshiper, and save your soul!"

Certain that the woman could not escape from her bonds, the other men backed away and held their torches high to illuminate the grisly scene. "Any last words, witch?" the priest asked. "This is your last chance to save your immortal soul, if not your earthly life."

She would have collapsed from terror and exhaustion had the ropes not been holding her to the stake. She sagged against the restraints, all of the fight now drained out of her. She wearily raised her head, with her wild, dark hair partially concealing her face and with trails of tears shining on her face. She gazed in defeat at the crowd, which had fallen silent and was waiting for her to speak. Her eyes--a bright, clear shade of pale amber, like those of a forest animal--roamed over the hateful faces of children and adults that were so eager to see her die. "What have I to say?" she asked, her voice raw and hoarse. "Is this how you repay someone for helping one of your children?"

"You were condemning her immortal soul to Hell!" the priest shouted, cutting her off. "You were-"

"Shut up, Priest!"

The crowd was shocked into silence.

Something had come over her . . . or perhaps had taken possession of her. She was no longer afraid; instead, she was suddenly enraged. She stared hard at him for a long moment, and suddenly she seemed to know him. "No escape next time, witch!" his voice echoed from the depths of her memory as she . . . She could not remember where or when, but somehow she knew him.

"You are about to kill me in the name of your Savior, and you ask me if I have any last words! Why won't you let me finish? Are you afraid of me? Even now, as I am tied here?" She regarded him with a cold and contemptuous smile. "Don't worry, you will be rid of me soon enough."

The crowd was aghast. No one had ever dared to speak to a priest, a man of God, in such a manner! The mob was convinced that this was a further sign that she was in league with the Devil.

"All you people call yourselves good Christians," she said with a derisive sneer. "You read your Bibles and pray in your churches . . . but how many of you came to me when your children were ill?" She paused for a long moment, watching them as many shifted uncomfortably. "You asked for my help and I gave it . . . and I never passed a collection plate before you! Many of you came to me for advice when your crops failed, and you came to me to have your fortunes read . . . "

The priest looked sharply over his flock as the woman spoke these words, and few dared to return his gaze.

"But your priest tells you that it is wrong for you to come to me for help," she continued. "That it is evil that I try to help you because I am an outsider, and because I do not share in the beliefs of your Church. He calls me a Devil worshiper and a witch. How many of you have I harmed? I can tell you know the answer to that as well as I do. But because I cannot be controlled by your Church I have been condemned to die in the name of your Savior. You have all been taught to believe the lies that your Church tells you, and it used your fear to--"

"Enough blasphemy!" the priest shouted. "She tries to trick you with the Devil's words! Do not listen to her!"

"I'll be back!" she shouted to the crowd. "When you are all dead and gone to dust and bone, I will come back!" She looked directly into the priest's hate-filled eyes. "A curse on you, Priest! We will meet again, you and I. In another life and another time, we will meet again . . . only next time it will not be me who burns!"

Some of the crowd appeared to have lost its lust for bloodshed, and those people merely stood silently as the woman's words sank in. They remembered how she had helped them, and they supposed that perhaps they should do something to stop this. But what could they do? If they took any action to stop this madness, they too would stand accused.

But the vast majority paid no attention to her, and again they began shouting for her death. Even the children joined in the shouting as her words were lost on them. They were not interested in words; they had come to watch the witch burn.

The priest threw in the first torch. The fire caught in the dry straw and spread quickly, its smoke wafting up to ride the night wind. "Confess!" the priest shouted again as more torches flew like fireflies attracted to the flames. The blaze grew larger and stronger, and gray smoke drifted upward from the inferno and was blown into the faces of the onlookers, causing their eyes to burn and water. People coughed and moved from one side to the other so they could watch, but the smoke seemed to follow them as the wind shifted. The priest shouted something about the devil guiding the wind so that the good Christian people would not be able to see the evil witch die. "The Devil wants no witnesses to his failures!" he shouted.

She would not scream. The flames crept closer and closer, and she could feel their heat against her skin, but she would not scream. She could smell her hair as it began to singe, and still she would not scream. She would not give them the satisfaction. Instead, she silently swore once more that she would return from the dead, she would meet the priest again, and--

***

"Why?"

"The Priest. The priest of our village said I was a witch. All I did was help cure a child of a fever that would surely have killer her," she explained. "I mixed an herbal brew and cast a Circle for her in the forest, and by sunrise her fever had broken. For this"--and here her voice suddenly chilled--"and because I was not a member of their Church, I was accused of witchcraft."

"That's it," Tony said. "This is the nightmare she told me about."

"Holy shit," Jeff said softly. "Then it wasn't just a dream; it was a real past-life experience!"

Keller shook his head. How easily they can be fooled, he thought. "It's just a dream, man," he said. "This is no proof."

Sweat had broken out on his brow. He was scared and excited at the same time, knowing that he had just seen and heard the most incredible things that he had ever experienced. He was afraid to take Valerie back any further, but the possibility of finding out how many times she had lived was too tempting for him. "Let's go further back, okay? We're going back--"

"Hey, don't you think this is enough?" Tony asked, concerned.

"We're going back further," Jeff said, ignoring him. "Back to a time before you were known as Elena Carrera. Please tell me who you are."

Once more, Valerie's face changed in character as yet another personality came through her. "Ich heisse Gretchen," she replied. "Und wie heissen Sie, bitte?"

There was a stunned silence in the room. And now the question on everyone's mind was . . .

"I know she doesn't speak German," Tony said in awe.

But Jeff did. "Ich heisse Jeff. Where are you from, Gretchen?"

"München, in Bavaria."

"Can you tell me what year it is?"

"Dreizehnhundert und sechsundvierzig."

"What the hell was all that?" Keller asked.

"The year she lives in--lived in--is thirteen forty-six," Jeff told him.

Naw, Keller thought with growing uncertainty. No way.

"Gretchen," Jeff said, "mein freunden sprechen nur Englisch. Wollen Sie, bitte, auf Englisch sprechen?"

"Sehr gut."

"You say the year is thirteen forty-six?"

"That is correct," the woman on the sofa replied, still retaining her German accent.

"Gretchen, how did you die?"

She was quiet for a long moment. At last she said, "I leapt from a cliff to escape being captured by the witch-hunters."

"You took your own life?"

"It was either that or be tortured and beheaded. I was not going to let myself be captured."

"Then you were accused of witchcraft. Why?"

"A group of us was arrested in the woods while we were celebrating Hallows."

"Hallows? What's that?"

"It's the Harvest Festival. In our Circle, it is the coming of Winter, when the Mother Goddess rests and the Father God comes to provide us with game when the weather is too cold for growing crops."

"You were not worshiping the Devil?"

She looked puzzled. "Devil?" she asked. "Was ist ein . . . oh, you mean the Church's Devil? Certainly not! We do not believe in such a horrible and preposterous thing! Except," she added a moment later, "perhaps, for the Devil that tells the Christians to hunt us down and kill us."

"What do you believe in?"

"Nature," Valerie/Gretchen replied. "The duality of Nature, and that all acts of love gain favor with the Goddess. We believe in kindness and compassion, and in the practice of magic to help our loved ones and the needy."

"And for this you were arrested?"

"I was the coven's priestess. We all tried to explain, but the Christian priest would not listen to us."

"Sounds like religion hasn't changed much in nearly seven hundred years," Tony remarked softly.

"You said you escaped from your captors," Jeff said to her. "How?"

"We broke and ran in all different directions before they had a chance to bind us. I have no idea of how many--if any--escaped. I had run off alone, with three men chasing me. I fell and twisted my ankle, and I knew then that I was about to be caught. I managed to get to my feet again and I hobbled my way to the edge of a cliff . . . and I had to make a decision. I had heard stories about what had happened to people who were accused of witchcraft, and I decided I was not going to be taken. Then I turned again and . . . consigned my soul to the Goddess." As the image of the three men hung in her mind she scrutinized the face in the middle; it was the same face that appeared over a hundred years later in Spain. "Next time!" he had shouted, pointing at her and placing his curse upon her as she fell toward the massive boulders and sharp-edged rocks below. "No escape next time, witch!" Why? she wondered. She didn't know him, nor had she ever seen him or any of the hunting party before . . . Why had he cursed her?

"You don't think she's just imagining all this?" Keller asked, not quite sure of what to believe. Not only had he never believed in reincarnation, he also didn't believe in God, Heaven, Hell, Santa Claus, the bogeyman, the Easter Bunny or the Great Pumpkin. All that religion stuff was just a crock of shit, and so were ESP and Ouija boards and reincarnation. There just wasn't anything to it.

But on the other hand . . .

What about that time when . . . jeez, when was it? Five or six years ago, at least. Michael and Jesse had been on their way to see the Baron about a job, and they had wanted Keller in on it. The Baron had half a ton of goods that needed to be moved from Chicago to Philadelphia, and he would have paid each man $25,000. It was a simple job, really, just a simple night flight to the outskirts of the city with the chopper's running lights off. Keller had done dozens of jobs like this one. But for some reason, he hadn't wanted to go this time; something hadn't smelled right, but he wasn't sure of what. He had worked for the Baron before, and the Baron had always paid him off quite handsomely; the Baron could be trusted. But there was still something that was nagging at him, telling Keller to stay the hell away from this run. He had tried to warn Jesse and Michael, but they laughed at him and told him he must be getting old or something. Maybe so, Keller had replied, but something is all wrong here, guys, don't do it. They went anyway, and wound up landing in the middle of an ambush. The Baron had been caught and bought, and for a reduced sentence he was to hand over three professional smugglers. The soldiers had killed only two, and since the original deal had been for three the Baron himself had been used to make up the difference. He was shot on the spot.

Smuggler's instinct, that's all, he told himself.

But what about that other time, when--

"I don't think so," Jeff replied, breaking into Keller's train of thought. He turned to Valerie and said, "Listen to me very carefully now. It is time for you to come back up through the years. I want you to return to the year twenty-oh-nine. You can feel yourself floating upward in the darkness . . . you are now Elena Carrera and you are floating further upward, gently upward . . . you are coming toward the light; the darkness is slowly giving way to the light. Do you see it?"

"Yes." A soft whisper.

"Come further up now. From Spain to Sand Creek, and from Sand Creek to the present. You are still rising, and the light is much closer. You are now know as Valerie St. James, and you can feel the sofa under you now, can't you?"

"Yes," Valerie replied, and her voice was stronger.

"When I count to three you will awaken. You will feel refreshed and mellow. One . . . two . . . three."

Her clear amber eyes fluttered open as she took a deep breath, and then let it out in a long sigh. She recognized Jeff immediately. "My God," she said. She had heard stories about people supposedly having lived once before, but three times? And meeting the same people in two of those lives? It was just too hard to believe.

She could still see the face of the priest before her. "What did I ever do to him?" she asked.

"To who?"

"That bastard who called himself a priest." The first time they met, he had placed a curse on her, vowing that they would meet again. The second time, she had cursed him. Would they meet again? Or was it all simply a series of dreams, as Keller's skepticism suggested? The latter sounded more logical and acceptable to her. And more comforting, too.

But what about the foreign languages she spoke? She couldn't speak Spanish or German, and she sure as hell couldn't speak Cheyenne . . .

And then she felt that cold hand of terror clutching slowly around her heart again.

"I wish I knew what to tell you, kid," Jeff said.

"Well, look at it this way," Tony offered. "It's all in the past, right? And the past can't come back to hurt you."

"Yeah," she said uncertainly. She sighed deeply, and then forced a smile. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

***

Shortly after Warren's visit to the bookstore, rapidly printed posters began to appear all around town. They were nailed to telephone poles, stapled to grocery store bulletin boards, and slipped under wiper blades on car windshields with the urgency of a major manhunt. The posters consisted of enlarged photocopies of Valerie's picture, made from a print taken from the videotape, and the legend below offered a substantial reward for any information that could lead the Foundation to this dangerous and seditious practitioner of the Black Arts. Below the reward offer was the informers' hotline phone number.

At 12:45 that night, Warren had been in bed for less than half an hour, his mind in turmoil and in terror. His portly wife lay next to him, snoring gently and dead to the world. But the Colonel was unable to sleep; he kept thinking about the witch's curse, and every few minutes he would cast a quick glance at the telephone that rested next to his side of the bed, expecting it to ring. Every so often he would lift the receiver and listen to the dial tone, just to be certain that the line was working.

He put the receiver down as he had a dozen times this evening, then rolled onto his side. It won't ring tonight, he told himself. Maybe tomorrow or the next day, but not tonight.

The phone did ring, and he snatched at it. "Yes?"

"Colonel Warren? Private Dirksen here."

"Yes, what is it?"

"We've just gotten a possible lead on this witch. A woman just called a few minutes ago, from 12012 Walnut Avenue. She thinks this witch might be her next-door-neighbor."

Chapter Four

The oil lamps were turned back up, and the television set was turned on to add more light and sound to the room in order to lighten everyone's mood. Keller had produced his own hash pipe, and it was passed around; but this time Valerie abstained. She had other things on her mind.

" . . . a reasonable explanation," Keller was saying, still trying to rationalize what he had just witnessed.

"Okay," Jeff said, "then what do you think happened here?"

"I'm not sure . . . "

He pointed a finger at him. "A-ha!"

"'Aha,' my ass. Just because I haven't got an explanation, that doesn't mean there isn't one. I'm sure a good shrink could explain all this. You said your old man used to be a shrink, right? What did he have to say about this kind of thing? I'm sure he's run across it before."

"Oh, yeah," Jeff said. "Several times. He thinks there's something to it; he's seen it too often to just write it off as nothing."

Keller leaned back in his chair with a disgusted, "Shit."

Valerie rose silently from the sofa and went into the bedroom. She returned a moment later with the Tarot deck. "Anybody want his fortune read?" she asked. She looked at Keller. "How about the ol' cynic here? You up for it?"

"No thanks."

"Coward."

His sharp look quickly softened. She didn't know him, and he quickly held back his first response. Instead, he said, "No one gets away with calling me a coward. Deal 'em out." He went to kneel with one knee on the floor by the coffee table, and he rested his forearms across the other knee.

She studied him for a long moment as she slowly sifted through the cards. Without looking at them, she suddenly stopped at the Knight of Swords. It showed a determined young man riding a horse, sword held high and charging forward as if either to do battle or rescue someone. Perhaps both. It seemed to fit him, so she placed the card to face her on the table, and then shuffled the rest of the deck four or five times. Placing it on the table face down she said, "Cut. Right to left into three stacks." He cut the cards and Valerie picked them up again. Despite never having studied the Tarot before, she dealt the cards out as though they were self-explanatory.

She covered the Knight of Swords with the first card off the top. "The Six of Pentacles," she said. It showed a man, evidently a merchant of some kind, giving coins to one of the two kneeling men in front of him. In his other hand he held a set of scales. Six five-pointed stars surrounded the picture. "It would seem you're quite a generous person," she said. She turned up the next card. "This crossing card," she continued as she laid it across the first, "shows the opposing forces at work." The Five of Cups. It showed a man with his head bowed, looking at three overturned cups and ignoring the two behind that stood upright. "Perhaps you've shown a little too much generosity. It seems that you've suffered some losses, although you still have something left over."

Keller kept his eyes on the cards, studying them intently, and said nothing as he thought about the man to whom he had loaned a great deal of money; money that had never been repaid. Keller didn't get ripped off often, but it did happen.

She turned up the next card and placed it below the others. "This is a part of your past." It was the Ten of Swords. It showed a man, lying face down with ten swords in his back and his blood soaking into the ground. "A death." There were endless possibilities, but she was certain Keller had killed someone.

"This is behind you, something that is just passing away." She flipped up the next card. The Three of Swords, which showed three swords piercing a heart. Keller thought of his dead sister and said nothing. He looked back at the Ten of Swords and thought about the undercover soldier who had tried to set him up for an assassination. He had always been wary of the man, and . . . Needless to say, the assassination attempt had failed, and Keller was still alive--unlike the undercover operative.

"This is above you," Valerie went on. "It represents an influence that may come to happen." She turned up a major key card, the Fool.

Jeff chuckled. "Suits 'im."

Keller smiled good-naturedly at his friend and casually flipped him off.

Valerie didn't notice their antics; the cards had her full attention. "As is shown by the bag tied to the pole and the accompanying little white dog, it would seem that you are about to embark on a journey, but you don't know where you might be going."

Yeah, right, he thought.

"This is before you." She turned up another card, the Six of Swords. It showed a man, a woman and a child in a boat with six swords. "A voyage. Either arriving or departing." She looked at Keller for the first time during the reading. "Seems like you're headed somewhere in the near future."

The cards formed a cross. Valerie turned up the next four in rapid succession off to the right, from bottom to top. "The Seven of Wands here shows your own fears in the matter. You may have to go alone against your enemies."

"I've been doing that a long time."

The next card was the Wheel of Fortune, upside down. "You may be in for some bad luck. At least, that's what others think."

"I never really cared much about what others thought of me," Keller said, mildly surprised at the way he was beginning to get into this.

"Yes, I know," Valerie muttered to herself as she studied the cards with keen interest.

The next card up showed a nude man and woman standing with what appeared to be an angel hovering above them. "The Lovers," she said. "It seems that you're hoping for some companionship on a permanent basis. It's not surprising, after seeing these other cards that have shown you to be doing a lot of traveling around."

The final card up was the Six of Wands. It showed a man riding a horse, apparently into a town. One of the wands had a green wreath tied to it. "Success," she said.

He looked the cards over, and refused to admit--even to himself--how well she had nailed his past.

She looked the cards over again. "You've had some rough times and narrow escapes," she said.

"Haven't we all?" he asked.

"You've suffered losses, yet you always manage to stay one step ahead in the game."

"See previous question," he drawled.

She sighed with mild exasperation. "The cards indicate that you are tired of always being on the road and that you want to settle down to a lasting relationship with someone. And it seems to me that you'll succeed."

"Yeah," Keller said as he looked up from the cards to regard her. While she seemed to have described his past with surprising accuracy, his future seemed a little . . . "Me and about fifty zillion other people. Could you possibly be more vague?"

"Hey," she replied, somewhat sarcastically as she scooped up the cards, "if you want something more specific--like you're going to find true love next Thursday evening at ten-oh-seven with a green-eyed blonde at Kelly's Tavern, and with an air temperature of fifty-six degrees and a four mile per hour wind coming out of the southwest while you're suckin' on your third bottle of Bud--I'm afraid you're shit out of luck."

He looked at her with a sharp scowl. How did she know he had a weakness for green-eyed blondes? And how the fuck did she know about Kelly's Tavern?

"I want to go next!" Tony said, quietly pleased with her shooting Keller down. "I want to see if we strike it rich in the near future."

Valerie shuffled the cards again as she studied Tony. The card she chose to represent him was the Knight of Wands. She had him cut the cards the same way Keller had, then dealt them out one at a time, evaluating each as it turned up. "The Ten of Cups," she said. "Contentment, happiness . . . these are your current surroundings."

"So far, so good."

She turned up the second card and laid it across the first. "The Moon. Hmm. Despite the happiness you now enjoy, there may be hidden enemies about. There may even be some danger." She turned up the third card and placed it below the others. "The Lovers again," she said.

"Must be us," Tony observed with a smile. Valerie smiled back at him, but he couldn't tell the smile was forced. Valerie was worried.

The fourth card up was placed to the left of the others. "The Seven of Swords. This represents what you have to work with. In this case it's your self-confidence, hope, whatever . . . " She turned up the next card. It was the Six of Swords, another of the cards that had shown up in Keller's reading. "You've been on a long journey from somewhere. Perhaps an escape."

"The Guards were after me for a speeding ticket," Tony said. He was trying to make light of the situation; this card reminded him of the time he had escaped from a prison farm in Florida three years ago, where he had been incarcerated on a marijuana possession charge.

The next card was Justice, upside down. "This shows what may lie ahead. Unfairness, unjust or excessive punishment."

"Terrific," he said dryly.

Valerie looked at the cross that she had formed with the cards, then turned up the next three, off to the right again, repeating the Celtic Cross method of divination. The card at the bottom was the Ten of Swords, the same that had shown in Keller's past. Only now it was in Tony's future. The second card was the Tower, which showed a tall stone tower being struck by lightning. Flaming bodies were falling to the craggy rocks below. The third card was the Devil. In this position it showed Tony's own fears in the matter, and the card itself represented ravage, violence, and possible fatality. Valerie turned up the final card and looked at it. It showed a skeleton with a scythe, reaping a bloody field of human heads; it was number thirteen, the card of Death. To keep him from seeing it, she let the deck slip from her hands to the floor, scattering around her feet. "Aw, shit!" she said, feigning clumsiness.

"Oh, way to go, Val!" Tony said irritably. "Now I'll never know if I make it rich!"

"I'm sorry, Tony," she said as she bent to retrieve the cards. She didn't want to tell him the cards were saying he was going to die. On the other hand, it may not be true after all; but this reading had frightened her. A lot.

She reached under the table to get the last few cards, and suddenly she stopped. She sat frozen, her face just inches from the table.

Keller watched her for a moment, wondering what she was doing. And then he suddenly he felt a rush of adrenalin; his smuggler's instinct was warning him that something was about to go down.

"What's the matter, Valerie?" Tony asked, still sour over not having his reading completed. "You throw your back out or something?"

She said nothing. She didn't even move, not a twitch.

"Val?" Tony asked.

No answer.

"Valerie?" Jeff asked. "You okay?"

Her eyes were focused on the dark wood grain of the coffee table. There were images moving in it; images of black-and-white cars with flashing blue and red roof lights. Screaming sirens echoed in her mind, and the cold hand of terror once more clutched at her heart. She saw men in black fatigues and helmets, armed with automatic weapons and approaching the house, kicking in the door . . . "We have to get out of here," she muttered.

"What?" Jeff asked.

She finally looked up at him, and there was fear in her amber eyes. "We've got to get out of here," she said again. "Soldiers are coming."

"I think we'd better do as she says," Keller agreed. His hand instinctively went to the small of his back and he thought, Damn!

And then they all heard the sirens. They were faint and far away, but they were rapidly coming closer.

Leaving the cards scattered on the table, she joined Tony and Jeff in moving quickly through the small house, packing what they could into small backpacks. Keller was the first one out the door.

"Sure moves fast for a skeptic," Tony remarked.

"Don't worry," Jeff told him, "he's not going far."

***

He was leaning through the open car door with his hand in the glove compartment. Toward the rear his hand found the small toggle switch that re-connected the starter. He had installed this small security device after having two other cars stolen from him when he had been on some smuggling runs, and so far no one had ever found this switch. The car had been broken into on several occasions, and things had been stolen--registration slips (forged, of course), spare change, small amounts of currency, cigarettes, flashlights, and an old Army .45 semi-auto, but never the car itself.

He reached into his jacket pocket and found his car keys. He slid the proper one into the ignition, and then reached into the pouch on the bottom of the driver's door to find the Desert Eagle .44 Magnum, which usually rested snugly in the small of his back. He hadn't thought he would be needing it when visiting friends of Jeff's.

He looked up once and spotted the beams of approaching headlights. He pulled his other foot into the car, closed the door, and lay into the passenger's seat. A moment later a Guardian car came around the corner and pulled up behind the bronze convertible. A spotlight swept over the back of the car, found nothing, and snapped off. The two soldiers headed for the front door of the house and Keller cautiously peered over the top of the door to watch them.

***

Jeff reached for the contraband .32 pistol that he had found in Tony's bedroom a fraction of a second too late. The soldier already had his Beretta 92F out and he fired five times, hitting Jeff in the chest. The impact of the nine millimeter hollow-points slammed him against the wall and he slid to the floor as blood oozed from his wounds. The soldier went over to him to make certain he was dead, then looked up when he heard another noise. The baseball bat in Tony's hands came down on top of his head, and while it didn't split his helmet it did break his neck with a major compression fracture. The sound of it exploded in the soldier's ears, and everything went black.

Valerie came out behind Tony as the second soldier came in. He turned to push her back into the bathroom and the soldier fired a short burst from his M-16 into Tony's back; steel-jacketed slugs pierced both lungs and exited through his chest. Another burst, also meant for his back, hit him in the back of the head. Tony fell against the wall next to the bathroom and slumped to the floor, leaving a wide smear of blood next to the bathroom door.

Valerie ran to the bathroom window. She flipped the lock open and pushed at the window, but it was swollen with moisture and wouldn't budge. Glancing over her shoulder with terror-stricken eyes, she pounded against the bottom of the old wood-frame window, but it was jammed tight.

"Stay where you are, witch!" the soldier shouted as he raised the muzzle of his rifle and pointed it at Valerie's back.

WHAT??

The word hit her like a blow from a sledgehammer, stunning her with disbelief and terror. How the fuck did he know about--? Oh, my God, she thought as she turned slowly to face the soldier. She fell with her back against the wall, slipping into hysteria and shock. It can't be! The dream of Spain, and the memory of Bavaria . . . Please, God, she thought, please, please, dear God, don't let it be true! Her legs started to give way, and she began to slide to the floor, slowly shaking her head in futile denial as she stared with wide, terrified eyes down the barrel of the automatic rifle. This can't be happening, it just can't be! she told herself again. Please, dear God, no?not . . . not again!

He took careful aim at a point below her throat, and at the sound of the gunshot she jumped violently as the soldier's head exploded in a spray of blood and bone and brain matter.

Standing in the doorway, Keller lowered his hands with his arms still fully extended, and in his hands he was holding his Desert Eagle. "We haven't got any time," he said as he thumbed the hammer down and put the gun away. "We've got to get out of here now. Tony and Jeff are dead."

"Dead?" Her voice was small and quavering, like that of a terrified child.

"Come on," he said, approaching her in two quick steps. "More of those fuckers'll be here any minute." He took her hand and led her back through the living room.

Tony lay in a heap, crumpled in the hall by the bathroom, and Jeff lay sprawled by a far wall in the bedroom. Their blood soaked into the blue shag carpeting. "Jeff?" Valerie said with a tremor in her voice. "Tony? Oh, God, Toneeee!" she screamed. "Oh, God! No!" She started to reach for his ravaged body, but Keller pulled her back. Not knowing what to do, he put an arm around her shoulders, and she turned to sob against his chest.

"We've got to get out of here. I know how you feel, but we don't have time for this. You've got to keep your head clear, okay? More cops are on their way, and we've got to run." He shook her to get her attention. "You with me?"

Valerie nodded as she stepped back from him, and wiped tears from her face.

"Good girl." He picked up an M-16 that lay next to a dead soldier, and with his other hand he took Valerie's and led her outside.

In the car, Keller rested the automatic rifle between the bucket seats and started the engine just as another black-and-white unit rolled around the corner. He popped the clutch and the rear tires screamed against the asphalt as the car took off, leaving a trail of exhaust and burned rubber. The Guardian cruiser made a fast U-turn, bumped over a curb, and went off after the convertible. Valerie was trembling in fear as she watched the unit behind them, and her mind was in shock with the realization that she really had lived three times before, and had died twice because of a witchcraft charge--and it was all happening again.

Keller reached above the windshield and said, "Hit that roof release!" He glanced at her and saw that she was still looking behind them with shocked and tearful eyes. He slapped hard at her shoulder with the back of his hand to get her attention, and snapped her out of her stunned torpor. "The roof release!" he shouted at her. "Hit it! Now!"

Valerie stared blankly for a moment, and then reached up and snapped open the chrome release. The slipstream of air caught in the canvas roof and tore it off, sending it flying back toward the Guardian car. The black-and-white swerved to one side, barely avoiding having the roof land across the windshield. Valerie watched the car slip back into pursuit, and then her eyes fell on the M-16. She reached for it.

"Leave that alone, woman!" Keller shouted.

"I'm gonna stop those fuckers!" she shrieked back at him.

"You know how to use one of those?" He shouted as much in anger as necessity to be heard over the roaring engine and air.

"Yes, I know how to use one!" she snapped back at him. Then, muttering angrily to herself, she said, "Where's the goddamned safety on this thing?"

With a growl of exasperation, Keller reached over and snapped it off for her. "That's the barrel," he said as he gave it a hard tap. "You point it that way"--he jerked a thumb backward--"and pull the trigger."

She gave him a look of cold rage, then turned in her seat and aimed the rifle at the Guardian cruiser. She braced the stock against her shoulder, sighted down the barrel (hoping she was doing this right; in reality, she had never fired a gun in her entire life), and pulled the trigger. A long burst frosted the front windshield of the cruiser, and it exploded and sent shards of glass into the faces of the two soldiers inside. The driver lost control of the car and slammed on the brakes, but he was too late to avoid slamming into a telephone pole. The pole snapped and came crashing down to smash the cruiser's roof, and sparks erupted and sputtered all around it as the electrical lines pulled free and exploded in a brilliant electrical shower.

Keller spun the wheel hard, whipping the convertible around a corner. The car fishtailed from side to side and threw Valerie against the door. The door held, but the M-16 flew from her hands and landed clattering in the street. Another Guardian car sped toward them from the left and swerved to avoid hitting them; it slid to one side and smashed against the side of a blue van with a loud crunching of metal and shattering glass. It took off after them, and Valerie picked up the Desert Eagle that was resting near Keller's thigh. She turned in the seat again and aimed it with both hands at their pursuers.

"Be careful with that!" he shouted. "It's got a lot more of a--"

BLAM!! The explosion blasted at her ears, and she found herself pointing the big Magnum straight at the sky. Her eyes widened in shock as she thought, Jesus!

"--kick!"

This is no gun, she thought, it's a fucking cannon! She aimed the big gun again, gripping it more tightly. With its wide grip, it was almost too big for her to hold; but now that she knew what kind of recoil it had, she was more prepared to deal with it. She clenched her teeth and aimed carefully, but reflexively she squeezed her eyes shut as she fired off two more shots. The Guardian car swerved to the right as one of the stray bullets caused a front tire to explode, and the black-and-white slammed into the rear of a parked Pinto. The two cars exploded into flames that shot twenty feet into the air, momentarily illuminating the darkness into full daylight. Valerie could hear the screams of the two soldiers as they ran from the car with their uniforms on fire, but she thought nothing of them. Keller could hear them, too, and he cast a quick glance at Valerie. She still sat with her knees on the bucket seat, staring back at the burning wreckage and still holding the gun. Her face showed neither fear nor remorse . . . just emptiness. Not bad, Keller thought in surprise, for a woman. When backed into a corner, this Valerie St. James could be one tough lady.

He gently took the gun from her hands, thumbed the hammer down, and set the safety on. Setting the gun down on the seat, he yelled, "Hang on!" and yanked the wheel hard to the left. The car slid around another corner and almost tumbled Valerie against the door again. He floored the accelerator again and guided the car to the nearest freeway on-ramp. Valerie sat back in the seat and thought this had to be the fastest car she had ever been in. She had seen pictures of cars like this in some of Tony's old hot rod magazines, but she had never expected to ever see the real thing. And now here she was, riding in one. The body was mid-sized, much the same as many cars that were seen on the roads these days because of the high cost of gasoline. It took her a moment to recognize it as a museum piece 1964 Pontiac; and above the padded glove box were three little chrome letters--GTO. The old bronze paint on the outside was pock marked with gray primer spots, dents, and scratches. Empty beer cans rattled and clinked in the back seat, and the roar of the engine was deafening. She thought back to some of the articles that Tony had shown her concerning this model; it was equipped with a 389 cubic-inch engine and a trio of Holly two-barrel carburetors, and a four-speed stick. All this stuff about cubic inches and transmission gear ratios had held no interest for her before; they were just a lot of meaningless numbers to her. The old, beaten-up looking car blended in perfectly with the mid-sized and smaller models that were seen on the road these days, what with the cost of gasoline, repairs and new cars being what they were. But God, it could move! It was the perfect smuggler's road machine.

She glanced at Keller. His eyes were narrowed and fixed on the road, and there was a faint, grim smile on his lips. He was in his element now, and Valerie could tell he was mentally snarling, Come and get me, motherfuckers. Once they got to the freeway, she figured, nothing would be able to touch them. Guardian cars today were mostly larger models; Lincolns and Cadillacs and the like. Gasoline was always in good supply for all military/law enforcement vehicles, and as usual it was the taxpayers who were stuck with the bills--so why not go in comfort? After all, the soldiers never had to chase down anything other than small, fuel-conscious cars or ancient relics that were about the only thing that most people could afford, and it was against Foundation law to have anything faster than a police car. I bet the soldiers are shitting in their pants right now, Valerie thought as she watched the speedometer needle make a steady, rapid climb from the 50 mph mark to the 80.

Their only problem now was that first they had to get to the freeway . . .

***

Two Guardian cars were parked in front of the on-ramp. The two formed a wedge, with the noses pointing toward the ramp, and four soldiers stood behind them with their rifles and pistols ready. With his dying breath, the passenger of the first car to lose the GTO had radioed that the convertible was probably headed for the nearest freeway out of town, and these two cars had responded by getting to the freeway ahead of the fugitive. The soldiers were ready; the Devil's agent would not escape them. They waited, and waited . . . and waited. Any moment now, and the Pontiac would be in sight. Yes, any minute now.

They waited some more.

"Where the hell is she?" one soldier muttered.

"Be patient, she'll be here," replied the sergeant.

No bronze convertible showed.

"Come on, dammit," the first soldier muttered to himself.

"Watch that language," ordered the sergeant.

"Yes sir."

Still, no Pontiac showed up.

"You suppose maybe she headed somewhere else?" a third soldier asked.

"Maybe," said his partner.

"Blake," the sergeant said, "You and Sanchez take one of the cars and go look around. We'll stay here in case she shows up after all."

"Right." He and Sanchez got into one of the cars and sped off. They headed south, passed by an alley, and went off toward the center of town. No one heard the high-powered engine come to life in the alley.

The two remaining soldiers relaxed a little. One of them lit a cigarette. "I don't think she's gonna come this way," he said.

"You could be right," said the sergeant.

"Shouldn't we go help look for her?"

"Nah. She might come by this way after all. Besides, if we go looking for her we stand a better chance of getting zapped. Which would you rather do?"

The soldier with the cigarette smiled. "I see your point," he said. Get zapped? he thought to himself. What exactly was that supposed to mean? Get blown apart? Turned into a frog? Sent into another dimension, maybe? He had no idea of what it meant. But as long as his sergeant did, well, that was good enough for him.

He dragged on his cigarette and looked down the road at nothing in particular. The rain had let up some time ago; the garbage that had been in the streets was now plastered down firmly in the gutters, the water gurgled noisily as it struggled to spiral into the sewer drains, and the city air almost smelled fresh and clean.

Something moved about a hundred yards down the road. The soldier with the cigarette wasn't quite sure of what it was; faint light from the street lamps gleamed from its darkened features. It seemed to be coming from out of an alley, and it turned toward them, grumbling deep in its throat. It moved slowly, like some ominous beast that was getting ready to move in for the kill.

"Sarge . . . "

"What?"

"You see that?"

The sergeant looked down the road. Suddenly the beast's eyes blazed to life on high beam, blinding the two soldiers, and the engine roared as radial tires tore into the asphalt with a wild scream. The sergeant yelled, "OH, SHIT!!" and dove for the ground as the bronze GTO bore down on them like a Bengal tiger leaping from out of the night. The other soldier stood frozen for a moment, unaware that his cigarette was hanging stuck to his lower lip. His paralysis broke, and he jumped aside a mere two seconds before the GTO came on and rammed the front end of the Guardian cruiser at a diagonal, brutally shoving it aside and roaring on up the on-ramp.

The sergeant rose from the small grassy knoll on which he had landed, and wiped a wet brown mess from his face and fatigues. "Goddamnedsonofafuckinbitch!!" he roared.

The other soldier wasn't sure if his sergeant was cursing the driver of the convertible or the dog that had left the chunky brown pile; he was damn sure, however, that he wasn't going to say a word about the sergeant's language--language that officially no Holy Guard was allowed to use (but most did anyway). No sense in getting beaten up or shot, and as mad as the sergeant was right now, he'd probably do it.

"Don't just stand there, asshole--let's get after her!" They got into their dented Buick and began to climb the on-ramp. Or rather, it tried to. The front of the car bounced crazily up and down with a prolonged metallic shriek, and the tire went ker-thump, ker-thump, ker-thump. The car stopped again with a jolt and another screech of metal on metal, and the sergeant got out to inspect the damage. The tire was flat because a piece of the front fender was gouging through the rubber sidewall, and the axle was bent. The sergeant swore violently, kicked the car, and swore some more as he was forced to lean against the unit so he could clutch his injured foot in both hands. "Just one crack out of you," he growled at the other soldier with a malevolent glare, "and your ass is dead!"

The other man turned to reach for the radio's microphone and called for assistance. "Car Twelve to control. Vehicle down, need assistance. Over." He turned his back to the sergeant as he listened to the dispatcher, and held the mike close to his lips so the sergeant wouldn't be able to see his broad grin.

***

The GTO lay by the side of the road as its oil gathered in a spot on the ground beneath it like a pool of black blood. After ramming the cruiser, it had traveled another thirty miles or so at 140 miles per hour before the last of the radiator coolant had leaked out through a small hole in the grill. The engine had overheated to the point of causing several gaskets to rupture; the engine itself seized with its pistons jammed tight, and the car could go no further. It lay quietly, abandoned on the muddy roadside, and the engine clicked occasionally as it gradually cooled in the lonely post-midnight air.

Chapter Five

Six Holy Guards stood rock-steady at attention in Colonel Warren's office. They stood silent and sweating, and moved only to blink their eyes. None of them dared to speak.

Warren paced slowly behind them from one end of the line to the other while reading the contents of the file folder in his hand. Tarot cards had been found at the witch's house, scattered on the table in the living room; she had been in the middle of practicing her heinous art when the Guards had arrived. He sighed and closed the folder. "How could ten Holy Guards allow a lone witch to escape?" he wanted to know. "What were you men doing, anyway? Was she too much for you? Did your weapons fail to function properly? Do any of you have anything to say for yourselves?"

One of the Guards blinked nervously, and apprehensively said, "Permission to speak, sir."

"Denied!" He glared silently at his men. "You men are pathetic," he growled softly. "Ten men . . . ten of you went out to arrest one woman. You were well armed, you had the fastest cars in the county, you had the element of surprise, and what happened? I now have three men dead, one critical, and six more of you who simply say" --here his voice changed to a sarcastic whine-- "'She got away, sir.' Good Lord, you men are trained soldiers! What were you all doing out there?"

Sergeant Walters, with his foot still throbbing from a possible fracture, wanted desperately to clear his throat--but was afraid to. He didn't want to make a sound. But he could feel, as he stared straight ahead, a wad of phlegm gathering at the back of his throat, and it began to slide uncomfortably down. He fought the urge, but ultimately he could control himself no longer. Very quietly, he cleared his throat with a soft " . . . ahem . . . "

"Shut up!" Warren snapped in his ear with a near scream, making Walters flinch violently. He came slowly around the end of the line and started again, this time in front of his men. He walked slowly and deliberately, watching them for the slightest movement, and then came to a stop in front of Walters. He stared hard at him. "And what," he asked at last, his voice a soft growl, "in God's name, happened to you?"

"I . . . I fell, sir."

"And just what was it that you fell into?" Then the odor reached his nostrils. He stepped back. "Never mind. Get out of here and clean yourself up."

"Yes sir." The sergeant executed a perfect about-face and headed quickly out the door, relieved to be out of there. In the hall he turned to look at the closed door that bore Warren's nameplate. "Son of a bitch," he quietly called him.

"Miller!"

"Sir!"

Warren fixed his eyes on the soldier who had been with Walters. "You say she rammed your blockade of the freeway. Which freeway was it?"

"Highway 36, sir," Miller replied. "Southbound. Dispatch has already been notified, and units are searching the area right now, sir."

Probably headed into the city itself, Warren told himself. Once she got there she could go anywhere. "Get to Communications and have them put the posters on the wire to all offices," he said. "I want every office in the country to be on the lookout for her. Notify Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco . . . all major cities. I want this witch. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. Get moving."

"If I may, sir . . . "

Warren sighed impatiently. "What is it?"

"We have good reason to believe she isn't alone, sir."

His eyes narrowed. "Not alone?"

"Begging the Colonel's pardon, but there was no way she could handle a car the way she did and shoot at us at the same time. She had to have had some help, sir."

Witches could do just about anything with the power of Satan, he told himself, but even the Devil had his limits. Help from an accomplice? Another witch, perhaps? Or maybe a Familiar? Witches always had them; demons that could assume any shape the witch wanted. "Put all of this information on the wire."

"Yes sir." Miller turned and left.

"As for the rest of you," he went on, "I want full reports in triplicate on my desk before you go off duty tonight. Dismissed."

Once alone, Warren sat behind his desk and sighed again. He flipped open his well-worn copy of Malleus Maleficarum and skimmed over the pages. These people knew how to handle witches, he thought. None of this rights-of-the-accused crap. The book was mostly an instruction manual, written in the fifteenth century by two German monks, on how to identify and prosecute a witch. It recommended several ways on how to obtain confessions from them; there was the lash, of course, and the boot--a device for crushing the foot on which it was placed; the thumbscrews and the eye-gouger, the branding iron and the forehead tourniquet (extreme measures were necessary, it was claimed, when dealing with someone whose unholy Master could grant such great strength and power to his followers); and then there was Warren's favorite method: to have them stripped naked and stretched on the rack.

God, how he longed for those old days.

His mind kept wandering away from the book and back to his current problem. He knew what this witch could do to him, to his men, and to the rest of society. If he should allow her to escape, it would be the same thing as encouraging others to break The Law. Besides, he had a personal score to settle with her now.

Threaten me, witch, he thought. I'll show you who burns this time.

Chapter Six

Matthew Gordon had never introduced himself to anyone as just Matt. He liked the idea of having been named after one of the saints in the Bible, and he would never even dream of degrading that fine man by thinking of him as just "Saint Matt." He had never introduced himself that way to children when he was in school, not to new neighbors, co-workers, his ex-wife, nor to the two hitchhikers that he had picked up when heading west on Interstate 70 early this morning, coming out of Denver.

"You two look like you been out in the rain," Gordon told them. "Bet you're glad it's cleared up, eh?"

"Yeah," said the man with the dark hair and moustache. "It hasn't been a lot of fun."

"What're you doing out here, anyway?"

"Our car broke down," said the dark-haired woman in the aviator-style sunglasses. "The genius here forgot to buy oil with the last tank of gas."

Keller raised an eyebrow as he looked back at her. Her eyes were unreadable behind the dark gold lenses, but her slight shrug said, "Well, I had to tell him something." At least it sounded like a logical reason for being out on a rain-soaked highway; and Valerie had figured that he would pick up on the false story and go with it. As long as she could keep Gordon thinking they had been having a fight, he would understand their long silences. And as long as they didn't talk very much--or even at all--their chances of slipping up would be even smaller yet.

Keller could think of no reply, so he simply returned his eyes to the road ahead without comment. Some fuckin' gratitude, he thought with an inward grumble. I haul her ass out of the fire, and this is what I get for it. He figured she could have thought of something else to tell Gordon, but . . .

And then he slowly smiled a wry little smile. She's probably still pissed about me telling her which way to point the rifle.

Valerie leaned back in the cargo bay of the old white Dodge van, and rested against one of several wooden crates. "What've you got in here, anyway?" she asked.

"Bibles," Gordon replied.

That isn't all, she thought as she ran one hand over a smooth wooden lid.

Keller noticed just how big the crates were. That's a lot of Bibles, he thought. "You a collector or something?"

"Naw," Gordon replied. "I sell 'em. I got Bibles, study guides, tracts, you name it. I supply most of the Christian bookstores in southern Colorado; I sell 'em at bargain prices. Sure beats getting them from some big publishing company back east, as far as my customers are concerned."

Oh, God, Valerie thought, not another one of these guys.

"Yeah, I supply stuff for the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Seventh-Day Adventists, the Baptists and the Lutherans, and even your bleeding-heart liberal Catholics," he proudly rambled on. "There's good money in it, you know. Personally, I like the Foundation's way best. They don't twist the Lord's word around to suit themselves like everyone else does."

"Where've I heard that before?" Valerie muttered softly in disgust.

"Huh?"

"Nothing. Just thinking out loud."

Gordon reached forward and turned on the radio, and blipped the dial from one station to the next. He finally settled on the Foundation's news.

" . . . radical terrorists, sacrilegiously calling themselves the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, have been arrested and are expected to receive prison terms of no less than ten years," the newscaster was saying.

"Praise Jesus!" Gordon exclaimed in triumph. "They oughtta lock up the whole damn bunch of them Godless Commie bastards and shoot 'em!"

Valerie and Keller exchanged a quick, surreptitious glance. Right, they thought. We dump 'im.

" . . . with the seemingly increasing number of dangerous terrorist groups, so the authorities are asking for the full cooperation of the people in reporting any person or persons who are particularly critical of the policies of the Foundation for Law and Morality. Remember, it is your morals they are protecting.

"In other news, there is still no word on the witch who is responsible for the deaths of three Holy Guardians during an attempted arrest last night. She is believed to be on her way out of Denver on Highway 70, and a partial description of her is tall with dark brown or black hair. She was last seen accompanied by a possible Familiar in a bronze Pontiac convertible. If anyone has any information they should immediately contact Colonel Elias Warren of the Denver Holy Guardian's office . . . "

Valerie leaned farther back in the van, hoping Gordon wouldn't look back at her. Not that it made much difference; he had already had a good look at her.

"Hell of a terrific description," he said dryly. "'Tall with dark brown or black hair.' I wonder how many people fit that description." He craned his neck to look over his shoulder at his passenger. "I mean, hell--" he grinned a wide, amused grin "--that could even fit you!"

Valerie smiled a weak smile in return.

Keller stared ahead and said nothing. Up ahead he saw the small self-serve gas station and mini-market, and thought that this just might be the perfect place to get rid of ol' Matthew Gordon. "Listen, are you hungry?" he asked. "I was just thinking that since you were kind enough to give us a lift, we could buy you lunch."

Gordon turned his grin on him. "Well, that's real nice of you! Now that you mention it, I am a little hungry." Without another word, he guided the van to the small parking lot.

"Why not pull up to the pumps?" Valerie suggested. "We may as well get you some gas while we're here."

"Now, that's downright neighborly of you!" Gordon beamed. He pulled up next to the pump marked supreme (Get the good stuff, as long as they're payin', he told himself) and shut off the engine. He handed Valerie the keys. "It's got a locking gas cap," he explained. "Nobody rips me off."

Valerie watched him head off toward the store, and then jingled the keys with a wry smile. She climbed out through the side door and went around to the pumps. As she unlocked the gas cap, she noticed a man sitting in an old wooden chair, leaning back against the wall in the shade of the long porch. He rubbed his dark and stubbly chin and narrowed his eyes, watching Valerie as she bent over slightly to insert the nozzle and squeeze the handle. The man slowly leaned forward and stood, then started for the pumps. He pushed his cowboy hat further forward with the heel of his hand (just as he had seen all the cowboys do in the movies), and his pointy-toed boots kicked up small clouds of dust. The girl seemed familiar to him somehow, but he couldn't quite place the face. The sunglasses she wore didn't help any.

He suddenly leaned against the side of the van with one hand, startling her. "You're supposed to pay first," he told her with a gravelly voice, a result from smoking too many unfiltered cigarettes.

"My . . . boyfriend has the money," she said. "He's inside buying groceries. He'll be out soon."

"Boyfriend, huh?" He ran his eyes over her, feeling her up with his gaze. "Hope you're not havin' too much trouble with that thang," he drawled, indicating the hose with a slight nod. "Course, I bet you're good at handlin' . . . big hoses." There was a lascivious gleam in his bloodshot eyes.

Oh, shit, she thought with an inward groan.

***

A pair of old wooden ceiling fans spun slowly as the store's clerk sat behind the counter, ignoring the cash register and watching Valerie as she pumped the gas. The only other customer in the store stood in front of the counter, and he, too, was watching Valerie. Gordon picked up a red plastic shopping basket and began making his way down the aisles while Keller headed for the refrigerated section to get some soft drinks; he figured it would be better to avoid buying beer, considering Gordon would probably disapprove of that sort of thing. But getting the soft drinks was only a secondary reason for approaching the fridge--his main reason for coming here was to disable the pay phone, which was right next to it. In the glass of the refrigerator's doors, he watched the reflection of the store behind him and saw that everyone was preoccupied. He quickly flipped out the five-inch blade of his camouflage-handled switchblade knife, dropped into a crouch, and cut the line near the floor where he hoped no one would soon notice it. He folded the knife, slipped it into a back pocket, and then got a six-pack of Pepsi. Then, just to make things look good, he grabbed a few bags of corn chips and potato chips, a few bags of cheese puffs, and a variety of cold sandwiches.

While Keller was doing all the shopping, Gordon was at the magazine stand and reading up on all the latest Hollywood gossip; even after all the death and desolation of the Plagues, government and society--and the yellow press--had to continue with the illusion of business as usual.

On his way to the counter, Keller saw the wanted poster that bore Valerie's picture hanging near the magazine rack. Oh, shit, he thought. If he sees it . . . "Hey, Matthew?"

Gordon turned in Keller's direction, away from the poster.

"My wife has the money; I'll be right back."

"Take your time," Gordon replied. He was in no hurry to finish the article he'd just started. How can they be allowed to print such filth? he wondered disapprovingly as he excitedly flipped to the next page.

Keller stepped out into the warm muggy air. He saw Valerie topping off the gas tank and the man standing close to her. The cowboy struck a wooden match with his thumbnail and lit the cigarette that dangled from his lips. Goddamn fool, Keller thought as he removed his jacket. He started toward the van, and he could hear Valerie saying, "Look, just leave me alone, okay? I don't want any trouble."

"There won't be no trouble at all," the cowboy said. "Let's just go on back to my place and . . . " And then he remembered where he might have seen her. She looked a lot like the woman in the posters; he'd know for sure if it wasn't for those damned glasses, but he thought he'd try a bluff. " . . . and I won't turn you in."

Valerie stiffened, and the cowboy thought he heard a faint gasp of fear. It is her, he thought. Now I gotcha.

Instead of pleading for mercy, as the cowboy expected any woman to do, Valerie suddenly pulled the nozzle from the gas tank and squeezed the handle again. Chevron Super-Unleaded splashed all over the cowboy's crotch.

That ought to cool the asshole off, Keller thought with an amused grin.

The cowboy jumped backward with a panicked, "Goddamn it, bitch!" He hastily snapped the cigarette away. "Watch what the fuck you're doin'!" Then he clenched his fists and took a threatening step forward. "You stupid cunt," he said dangerously, "I'm gonna--"

"Gonna what?" Keller asked him from behind.

"This stupid jerk doesn't seem to have anything better to do than hassle me and get this place blown off the map," Valerie told him.

"Oh, yeah?" he asked with a quiet voice. He tossed his jacket to Valerie, who instinctively caught it. This was the first time she noticed how hard and lean he was; like a middleweight boxer, without a visible trace of fat. He took a step closer to the cowboy, looking very relaxed. "What's the hassle, tough guy?"

The cowboy was at least four inches taller than Keller, and a good thirty pounds heavier. He had taken on many men his own size, and some even bigger; but there was something in this man's eyes that made the cowboy think twice. There was no fear or anger, no challenge . . . just a flat, expressionless look. Like that of a shark.

He backed off. "No hassle here. I just thought the lady was havin' trouble with the gas hose, thass all." He stepped back a couple of paces, then turned and headed back for the store.

"Uh huh," Keller said.

Valerie sighed in relief. "Thanks, Keller, I--"

"Get in the van. Now."

***

Matthew Gordon was in the midst of a very detailed article about sex and murder in one of those pulp detective magazines when the clerk yelled, "Hey!"

Startled, and with a guilty look on his face, Gordon hastily closed and dropped the magazine with a rumpling of its flimsy pages. He glanced at the clerk and saw that he was running for the door. "Hey!" he yelled again. "Come back here! Stop!"

Gordon's confusion cleared when he heard the engine of his van roar to life. "Shit fire!" he shouted, and followed the clerk out the door. He got outside just in time to see his van roar on down the road, leaving a trail of dust and exhaust hanging in the air behind.

***

She relinquished the sunglasses to the driver, and now sat with her elbow on the windowsill and one booted foot on the dash. "So how long do you think it'll take us to get to the coast?" she asked.

"A couple or three days, I guess," Keller replied. "What's on the coast?"

"My uncle's ranch."

"Oh, yeah. Mendocino, right? I was through there once or twice. Pretty place."

"Yeah." She sat quietly for a few minutes, thinking about the chase out of Denver, and about Tony and Jeff. Tony was dead. Jeff was dead . . .

And then, seemingly from out of nowhere, she suddenly asked, "Hey, what was that crack supposed to mean?"

Keller pulled his eyes from the road for a quick look at her. "What crack?"

"You know. 'Not bad, for a woman.' That crack."

Keller's eyes returned to the road as he thought, and he looked genuinely puzzled. He looked back at her. "What are you talking about?"

"When I was shooting at the soldiers with that machine gun and that fuckin' cannon of yours. Remember? You were being a smartass, showing me which way to point it, and then you said, 'Not bad, for a woman,' when I shot out their windshield."

Keller frowned in thought as his eyes returned to the road. It seemed familiar, now that she mentioned it. "I never said that," he told her. "I may have thought it," he mumbled, "but--" He cast her a quick, unobtrusive look through the corner of his eye, and shut up.

"Have you always been such a sexist?"

"I'm not a sexist."

"Yeah, you are. You're a male sexist porker."

"I am not!"

"Oink, oink."

"I'm not, goddamn it!" he said, genuinely angry. "I just happen to think there are some things that should be left for men to do, that's all."

"Yeah. Like handling guns, driving a car, and voting. Come on, I thought I did pretty well back there, and so did you. Come on, admit it."

He said nothing.

It doesn't matter, she thought. She knew what he really thought; she'd already proven her point. He was just being stubborn, that's all.

Keller drove in silence, thinking and watching the gray asphalt speed toward them and disappear under the van. Valerie turned her attention to the scenery as it sped by, and squirmed uncomfortably in the seat. She looked at him through the corner of her eyes to make certain he wasn't watching her, then plucked her shirt away from her chest and surreptitiously sniffed at it. Oh, man, she thought. She looked over her shoulder into the storage compartment to see if there were any clothes hanging there, since the van was owned by a traveling salesman who would need an occasional change of clothes, and crawled into the back and pushed a few crates out of the way to make room for herself. She curiously eyed them as she ran her hand along one of the wooden lids, and felt . . . not clothes, but something most definitely not of a religious nature. She glanced around the floor for a moment, found a jack handle that lay near the sliding door, and used it to pry open the lid. "Bibles aren't the only things that ol' Matthew Gordon's into."

"Yeah, so what . . . " Keller grumbled, still stung by the remark about him being a sexist. I am not a sexist, he told himself again. I'm not.

The lid came away with a squealing of metal nails being ripped from the wood, and she tossed it aside. The crate seemed to be filled with Bibles, all bound in black leather and with gold lettering stamped into each front cover and spine. She dug deeper into the crate and shoved a number of Bibles aside, and found a false bottom. Using the jack handle again, she pried out the bottom and tossed it next to the lid. "Oh, shit." A pause. "Oh, my God . . . " she said in shocked amusement, and then she laughed. "How sick!"

"What? What's sick?"

"Matthew Gordon's a dirty old fart!"

Keller began to smile a little. "Oh, yeah?"

"Either that, or he doesn't know he's been smuggling sex toys." She faced forward with one arm across the back of the driver's seat. "Exhibit A," she said as she waved a battery-powered vibrator in front of him. "This is no electric zucchini." She tossed it onto the passenger seat, then turned back to the crate and poked around in it some more. "Ohmigod . . . here's Exhibit B: the 'Portable Plastic Pussy Pal.' Jesus Christ, do you guys really use these things? What do you do if you forget to clean it out right away? How do you get the crust out?"

"God," he groaned as his face twisted in disgust. "Leave it to a woman to ask a question like that."

"Oink! Oink!"

"Yap, yap," he muttered, smiling in spite of himself.

"It's a perfectly logical question. And if you don't like it, then how'd you like to wind up wearing this thing on your nose for the rest of your life?"

"No thanks," he said, and then quietly added, "Not if it smells like a tuna fish sandwich . . . "

She smacked him, not too hard, across the back of his head with the sex toy with a laughing, "God, you're disgusting!" She tossed it onto the passenger seat where it lay next to the vibrator, and rummaged around in the crate some more. "Uh oh."

"What's the matter?"

"I just found a two-headed snake."

"A what?"

Her hand came forward, and in it she held a fourteen-inch dildo with a head at each end. "The man certainly does cater to all tastes."

"Can you imagine the looks on the faces of all those prudes who get these things as their surprise prizes at their Saturday night bingo games?"

"What are you, kidding? This is probably what packs 'em all in at the church bazaar each week."

"Wouldn't surprise me." He drove on, thinking. Of course it was possible, he supposed, that someone else had slipped all that stuff into those crates along with the Bibles; but he didn't believe it for a second. He'd had too much first-hand experience with people like Matthew Gordon. They were the kind of people who would cut you off in traffic and then flip you off, screw you over at work, and even stand on your own front porch and condemn you to Hell if you didn't let them into your home to spew their crap and try to convert you. They would pull all this shit on you and then hide behind their religion, secure in the knowledge that "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven," so they had no reason to change, and that it was all okay. Some of these people even had gone so far as to bomb women's health centers and family planning centers, which the Foundation and its supporters preferred to call "abortion clinics," and even shoot a few people who worked in them.

He heard her moving around again. "Now what're you doing?"

"I'm trying to find something in here to wear," she replied. "A spare shirt, or a sweater or something. I've been wearing the same shirt for almost two days; it's sweaty, and I smell."

"No lie," he mumbled, and then immediately wished he hadn't. He could feel a pair of eyes, as cold as a sniper's stare, boring through the back of his head. He waited for a moment or two, and then glanced in the rear-view mirror. What he saw was Valerie with her back to him. She had peeled off her shirt, and was now unhooking her bra and slipping its straps from her shoulders. His eyes remained on the mirror instead of the road as he hoped that she might turn around.

She did. Her eyes suddenly widened in shock, and she yelled, "Look out!"

Huh? he thought, and at the same time his eyes snapped back to the road just in time to avoid running the van into a ditch. He spun the wheel hard to the left, throwing the contents of the van--and Valerie--hard against the right panel. Valerie yelped in pain as the side of her head connected with the windowsill, and then she quickly straightened and slipped into the black leather vest she had found. She tried to pull it shut as the van stabilized, and found that it wouldn't close all the way. Even if it did, it wouldn't have mattered very much because there were no buttons. There was only a long lace that held it barely in place, revealing bare skin between her high, round breasts and all the way down to her navel. Oh, great, she thought, he's gonna love this. It was either this vest or a red lace teddy, and the vest was only a little warmer. She tied it as near to closed as she could, and then rubbed the sore spot on the side of her head as she asked, "What the hell were you doing, trying to get us killed? What the hell were you looking at?"

"Nothing!" he said defensively. "I'm . . . just tired, that's all."

Her voice softened. "You want me to drive for a while?"

"Yeah, that's a good idea," he said. Then he noticed the vest and his eyes widened. "Where's that come from?"

"One of the crates. I think ol' Matthew moonlights in the porno supply business. It's not very comfortable, but at least it's clean and dry." Then she saw the way he was looking at her, and her eyes chilled again. "Don't say it."

Ever the picture of innocence, Keller said, "Me? Say anything? I was just thinking you look very . . . "

"I'm warning you, buster . . . "

" . . . attractive . . . "

"Sure . . . "

"You do." He smiled and glanced at her as she moved the sex toys out of the way and settled into the front seat once more. She didn't seem to be having a good time. He shrugged inwardly. Oh well, he thought, you just can't please some people.

He pulled the van over to the side of the road and stopped. He got out and stretched with a popping of several joints, and yawned. He realized for the first time how tired he really was--they had been on the road for more than fifteen hours, according to his black digital sports watch; fifteen hours since the raid at Tony's house. Seems more like fifteen days, he thought. He walked around the front of the van and climbed into the passenger seat as Valerie got behind the wheel. He reached into the glove box and searched until he found what he was hoping for--a road atlas. He studied it briefly and said, "Wake me up when we reach Highway 13. I got an idea."

"What is it?"

"There's a friend of mine who lives in the area. If we're lucky, we might get us a new set of wheels." He leaned back in the seat with a deep sigh as Valerie pulled the van back onto the road, and continued to guide it toward the Utah border.

Chapter Seven

"One more time, Mr. Gordon," Colonel Warren told him. "How did you come to meet them?"

"I've already gone through all this," Gordon replied with increasing animosity. "I gave my statement to the two patrolmen and to your lieutenant, and I don't see how jabber-jawin' with you is going to get my van back any quicker. I'm tired of trading words; I want some action. I am a taxpayer, y'know. What am I payin' your salary for, anyway? Free coffee and doughnuts?"

Warren snapped his report book shut as he cast a hard look at Gordon. "Let's go, men," he said. "Mr. Gordon isn't interested in having his van returned." He turned and started for the Huey 204 helicopter that had delivered him to Clyde's Mini-Mart after the local office had been notified of the occurrences at the market. A messenger had to be sent to report the theft of Gordon's van and, as Gordon later discovered when the cowboy informed him, his encounter with the witch, Valerie St. James.

Too bad everyone isn't like George, Warren thought. This man should be down on his knees before me, begging me for the Lord's help.

"Hey!" Gordon said. "Where you goin'? What kind of Law enforcer are you, anyway? I'm filing a complaint with your superior. What's his name?"

Warren unexpectedly whirled around, causing Matthew to jump in both surprise and sudden apprehension, and he impaled him with a fiery stare. "God is my superior, Mr. Gordon! I answer only to Him! Now, if you want your van recovered I suggest that you give me your full cooperation; otherwise the Devil can keep it!" His eyes continued to bore into Gordon's until the latter finally looked away. Trying to slow his racing heart, Gordon went through his story one more time.

"So they probably continued west on Interstate 70," Warren said, more to himself than to anyone else. He turned to his lieutenant. "Get on the radio and notify the Denver office that I'll not be returning for some time; I'll personally be in charge of this search. I want two more helicopters to search in as wide a pattern as fuel capacity will allow. Day searches will be conducted by air and night searches by ground. Ground crews will report their positions by dawn and the choppers will take over from those positions until sunset. I don't care how long it takes or how many people it takes to find this witch; I want her. Alive, if possible, to stand before a televised trial. I want to make an example of her." It would be a very good way to make an example of her; but he also thought it would probably be best just to burn her once she was caught. He was flexible; he could always change his mind. After all, the sooner she was destroyed, the better.

"What about her accomplice?" the lieutenant asked.

"Her Familiar? Destroy it, of course. What else would you do?" Before the lieutenant had a chance to ask how one destroys a Familiar, Warren turned away and thought, Let's see you escape me this time, you Devil's whore. Within a week I'll have you burning at the stake.

He took out Valerie's picture again and looked at it. It was a shame, in a way. She was such a lovely girl. But that was the strongest weapon these witches had. Those hypnotic amber eyes, and her glossy and luxurious hair the color of black coffee . . . Warren wondered what she must look like under those clothes of hers . . .

"No!"

"Sir?"

"What? Oh! Nothing?" He sternly put down his feelings of arousal, knowing without question that the Devil had planted those thoughts in his mind. He must not let that happen again, or all would be lost.

Within an hour and a half, twenty patrol cars and three trucks had arrived at the small market. Two more Huey gun ships, armed with rockets and .50 caliber machine guns, were parked several yards away. The three supply trucks, loaded with telecommunications equipment, sleeping and eating facilities, and an arsenal of automatic weapons and other small arms that could supply a small insurrection, were parked not far from the helicopters. With nearly fifty men and this much equipment, Warren told himself, there was no way that the witch could escape him. All this was needed to capture a man and a woman who were armed only with a single handgun.

"In the name of our Savior," Warren announced to the rest of the column. He sat in the passenger seat of the lead car and motioned with a slow wave of his arm, as though he was commanding a 19th century cavalry unit. "Let's move out!"

Clouds of dust rose as the vehicles began to move. The propellers of the helicopters began to spin as the engines roared to life with an ear-splitting whine, and blasted dust and litter in all directions. The convoy moved off toward the mountains in the west as Warren told himself once more that the witch had to die. There just wasn't any other way. She was much too dangerous to society and morality, and there was no way of telling how many people she might lead away from the Lord. She might even be out to start a coven.

It's my God-given duty to protect the poor, innocent, and unsuspecting people of this great nation, he thought as he rested his copy of Malleus Maleficarum in his lap. "God's will be done."

Chapter Eight

Joe and Harold were tinkering around under the hood of Harold's old and well-beaten red Toyota pick-up. They worked under the light of a single, bare, 100-watt bulb that hung on a drop cord that had been tossed over a roof-beam of the garage, and it's light made the oil and grease stains on their hands and faces glisten wetly. Several newspapers, similarly stained, lay scattered around them in wads, surrounding the two men and ready to move in for the kill. Tobacco fumes hung in the air and moved slowly with the slight air currents. As the men worked, they discussed current events.

" . . . what the whole thing boils down to is that the Foundation is fulla shit," Joe was saying.

"Oh, come on. That isn't true at all," Harold countered. "The FLM doesn't lie to the people like all the other politicians used to. It doesn't have to lie. It makes its points truthfully, and they're all proven in the Bible."

The Bible, he thought, always back to the Bible. "Oh, bullshit," Joe muttered. "The FLM is just the latest version of the Moral Majority, Operation Rescue, the Christian Coalition, HUAC, the Salem witch trials, the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, and the rest of that ilk--and they've got the weapons and technology to be even more repressive than their forefathers. I mean, they tell people how to conduct their private lives, for God's sake! Nothing pisses me off more than when some clown with a Bible under his arm comes along and starts telling me that I should live the way he wants me to. That kind of thinking is what got World War II started. Remember Hitler?"

"Nonsense," Harold said. "There's absolutely no comparison between the Foundation for Law and Morality and the Nazis."

"Oh, no? What about the trashing and burning of rock and roll records, and--"

"Rock and roll is the Devil's underground music."

"--and book-burnings? Last week they were burning copies of 'All The President's Men' because it shook people's faith in government, and the writings of Thomas Paine were burned because they were considered radical and anti-religious. Paine was one of the founders of this country, for God's sake! If it weren't for his writings, we'd all still be singing 'God Save the King.' They even burned Shakespeare, 'cause they said he was obscene! Shakespeare? How the hell did they figure that?

"And as if that wasn't bad enough, now people are even informing on each other; they use those damned anonymous tip phone numbers--you know, the ones they originally set up to nail gang-bangers and crack dealers?"

Harold looked up at him. "Don't you think crack dealers should be arrested?"

"That's not the point," Joe replied as he rested his arms on the fender, and tapped the handle of a screwdriver against his palm. He lowered his voice, as though he thought someone might be secretly listening in on their conversation. "The point is, there's too much of this 'law and order' and anti-drug hysteria going around; it's like the Red Scare of the nineteen-fifties, and the drug thing is just an excuse. Thanks to all this damned narco-McCarthyism, people are using those numbers to inform on each other for reading the wrong books or asking the wrong questions . . . questions like, 'Does he really deserve twenty years for calling the President a crook?' People are abusing those numbers. They anonymously turn in their neighbors because they criticize the government, but they charge them with being drug dealers or something. And the cops don't need warrants anymore, or even probable cause for that matter, to bust in your front door and ransack the place looking for dope, thanks to this 'war on drugs'; and if they find something else they don't like, like 'questionable' books by Paine or Jefferson, or 'All The President's Men,' then they bust you for being a subversive instead. And the informant gets paid cash, and is told what a 'good American' he is.

"Look, I could show you dozens of comparisons. But my original point is this: who are these fundamentalist bozos to tell you or me how to live? Whatever happened to the freedom of choice? Whatever happened to the Constitution?"

"A person shouldn't have free choice if he's always going to make the wrong choices," Harold said, ignoring the question about the Constitution. "Hand me that ratchet, willya?"

Joe handed it over, handle first. "Oh, that's great, really terrific. The 'wrong' choices. As opposed to the 'right' choices, I assume you mean. Answer me this: whose definitions of right and wrong do you go by? Not all people agree to what's 'right' and what's 'wrong.' I mean, what's right for you isn't necessarily right for me."

"That isn't true. There are certain pre-set definitions of right and wrong."

"According to whom?"

"According to the Bible."

Joe snorted in disgust. "There you go again, back to the Bible. What if you're a Hindu or a Buddhist? The Bible isn't right for them."

Harold smiled a smug smile. "If you're a Buddhist or a Hindu, then you're wrong."

"Shit. You can be so goddamned closed-minded at times . . . "

"I'm not closed-minded; you're just a sore loser." Harold smiled again. "You'd know the truth if you knew the Lord, you know. There is no truth but in Jesus. Don't you see how simple it all is? All you have to do is give yourself to the Lord, and everything will be taken care of--that way, you wouldn't have to think for yourself." Somehow, even he didn't like the sound of that statement, and he quickly added, "So much." He still didn't like the sound of that, so he worked quietly for a moment, and tried to think of a way to change the subject. He pretended to have some difficulty with the spark plug he was trying to fit into its socket. "I think these plugs are the wrong size. I'm going to call the parts shop and see if they're still open so I can exchange them."

"You need some new leads, too. These three are shot. And as long as you're on the phone, order us a pizza. I'm buying."

"They don't deliver after ten. Curfew."

Joe sighed. "Right, the damn curfew." He looked at him. "So why are you calling the parts shop?"

"Because it's twenty minutes to curfew, and I can be there and back in fifteen. Pizza takes an hour."

"Okay." He sighed. "I guess I'd better get home, too. You're probably tired of having me stay over so much."

"Not at all," Harold said. "But if you do leave, don't forget to lock up."

"Right." He watched his friend go into the house and he shook his head sadly. "You poor, brainwashed fool," he whispered.

Inside, Harold punched out a series of numbers on the telephone. The voice at the other end of the line said, "Guardian Building one-eight-seven."

I'm sorry you made me do this, Joe, he thought, but someday you'll see the light and you'll thank me for it. "Yes, hello. I'm calling from 15818 East Edgewood Drive. There's a man here by the name of Joe Wyman that I think you people would like to talk to. Could you send a car, please?"

Chapter Nine

The junction of Highways 70 and 13 brought them to a small town known as Rifle, Colorado. They were higher in the mountains now, and the air had turned much colder. Patches of ice could be seen in the shadows of the tall trees, and low, gray clouds crept slowly across the darkening sky. Far below the bridge they had just crossed, what seemed to be a discarded piece of Christmas tree tinsel was in reality the Colorado River. Some thirty miles farther north, Highway 13 led them into Meeker, where it intersected with Highway 64. Another ten miles of asphalt brought them to a small, isolated auto repair shop.

"This is it," Keller said. Valerie was currently wearing his black blazer over her vest, but even with the heater blowing she was cold. "There--pull around back so we can't be seen from the road." After she did, he leaned close to her and beeped the horn; one short, one long, and then two more shorts.

The back door of the shop opened, and a beefy man in oil-stained bib overalls came out, wiping his hands on an old dishtowel. He looked puzzled at first; the horn signal had sounded familiar, but he knew no one who owned a white van. But when he saw Keller get out of the passenger seat, his face erupted into a broad grin. "Keller!" he shouted. "You old shit-kicker, how the fuckin' hell are ya?" He crushed him in a bear hug that nearly snapped his spine. "Damn, but it's good to see you! How ya been, man? What the hell are you up to these days?"

"Getting chased around by the cops," he said with a slightly strained voice as he tried to get his wind back.

"Same old shit, huh?" He grinned and hugged him again with a muffled laugh. "Damn, you're a sight!" Then he saw a dark-haired woman, dressed in faded jeans, brown boots, and a black leather vest and matching blazer. She climbed from the driver's seat and buttoned the coat against the cold air, and came forward, crunching across the loose gravel. She stuffed her hands into the coat pockets and bunched her shoulders slightly against the cold, and an icy breeze teased at her hair as she shivered uncontrollably.

For a moment, Dutch was in love. "Well, boy," he finally said, "aren't you going to introduce us?"

"Huh? Oh. Valerie, I want you to meet an old friend of mine. Valerie St. James, Dutch Jackson."

Dutch wiped off his hands again and offered one. He took hers and kissed it, and asked (as he remembered to clean up his language--there was a lady present), "And what's a charming lady like you doing hanging out with the likes of this ol' horse thief?"

Valerie couldn't help but grin at him. Despite his bearish build, unkempt graying blond hair and beard, and his oil-stained overalls, this Dutch Jackson could certainly turn on the charm, she thought. And then she suddenly had a mental picture of Keller actually stealing horses. She could see and hear him, dressed like a nineteenth-century outlaw and whistling shrilly, as he waved a coiled rope while horses thundered out of a corral amid a massive cloud of dust--and he seemed to be having a hell of a lot of fun doing it.

"Like the man said," she said at last, "we're getting chased around by the cops."

Dutch's gray eyes studied her for a moment. "Hey, I recognize you. You're that so-called witch that everyone's after, aren't you? I should've known Keller would be involved. Come on in, you two must be freezing. From the looks of that vest, at first I thought you might be another one of his weird bimbos." He slipped a strong arm around her shoulders. "Come on, Nancy's got some soup on the stove, and you guys could probably do with a bowl or two."

Valerie glanced at Keller with a raised eyebrow at the mention of his weird bimbos, and Keller looked off toward the mountains, whose tops were already showing signs of snow. "Yeah, it's a little nippy out here," he said.

With her lips slightly parted, Valerie smiled a small, amused smile, and said nothing.

It was warm and comfortable inside the small house. It was easily kept warm because of its size, and its main source of warmth was the black cast-iron wood stove that sat in one corner of the kitchen. A hand-made oak table rested in the center of the room, and was surrounded by four matching chairs. Nancy, a large woman with bright red hair, ladled out steaming vegetable soup into wooden bowls, and then found a flannel shirt and a large goose-down vest for Valerie. "So how did the two of you get thrown together?" she asked as she settled down across the table from her. "They're saying you killed a bunch of soldiers; I don't believe it."

"I shot one of them," Keller said. "The others were victims of their own poor driving. You remember Jeff Hastings? He was a friend of Valerie's boyfriend."

"Son of a gun," Dutch said. "Small world, huh?"

"Yeah. Anyway, he needed a ride over there, so I took him after I unloaded forty kilos of weed that . . . well, never mind that. Jeff was practicing his hypnotic skills on Valerie while the rest of us were getting buzzed, and the next thing we knew Valerie was telling us that the soldiers were coming."

"Oh, shit," Nancy said in soft horror.

"They killed Jeff," Valerie said. "And Tony, my boyfriend."

"Jeff? Oh, my God, no. Not Jeff," Dutch said as his face paled. "Oh, God."

Nancy gave her arm a comforting squeeze. "Valerie, I'm so sorry."

"Tony managed to take out one of them before he was shot," she went on, fighting to control herself. "If Keller hadn't been there, I'd probably be dead, too . . . Oh God, Tony . . . " And then she broke and cried, and buried her face in her hands. Nancy moved to put a comforting arm around her shoulders and held her.

"We've been on the run ever since," Keller said softly. "That old GTO of yours really came in handy. Valerie was firing blind at the cops, and managed to take out the two cars that were after us."

"Valerie," Dutch said gently, "what makes the soldiers think you're a witch?"

She sniffled and wiped at her eyes, and shook her head. How could they possibly have known about her dream, or whatever it was? "I . . . " She shook her head slowly. "I'm not even sure I know," she replied with a shuddering sigh. And then she suddenly remembered the bookstore. All of this had begun soon after she had been there, and it made her think back to some of the rumors she had heard about Nazi Germany, and how people there had informed on other people--usually out of a desire to be held in good standing by the authorities. Neighbor turning in neighbor. Child turning in parent. The accused was usually reported for making negative remarks about the government, or for harboring a family of Jewish refugees, or for reading the wrong books. But dear God, Americans didn't inform on each other.

Did they?

"Come on," Nancy said. "Let's go check the news and see if they're still after you."

"Oh, I'm sure they are."

As they settled down in the small and cozy living room, Dutch used the remote control to hunt through the stations. After a few moments he found a news program, then dropped the remote on the sofa and began stuffing a pipe. He sat next to Nancy on a large stuffed chair and she curled up under his arm. Valerie and Keller shared the sofa.

" . . . price of gasoline will be up to four dollars and seventy-five cents per gallon," the newscaster was saying. "And we'll be right back with the weather and sports after we take a short break."

The picture suddenly changed to a big face with blond hair and a toothy grin. "Hi there, folks! This is your old pal Honest Joe Bob saying come on down to Honest Joe Bob's Used Cars for some great once-in-a-lifetime savings! Look at this beauty over here." He pointed to a 1976 Lincoln Continental, on which a fresh coat of maroon paint did next to nothing to hide the dents. "Now, you might expect to pay up to twelve thousand for a beauty like this. It's got your power steering and power brakes, and it's got your power windows--"

"Jesus, can you believe this guy?" Keller muttered in disgust. "Looks like something I junked once." He lit a cigarette and tossed the match into an ashtray. Valerie gently waved the smoke away; it reminded her too much of the smell at the stake.

"--but I'm letting it go for only ten thousand, nine ninety-five. Didn't I tell you this was a once-in-a-lifetime deal?" he went on, and Keller suddenly leaned toward the screen for a better look at the car. A slow, amused smile of recognition spread across his lips. "Now, I know what you're saying to yourself. 'But what kind of mileage does it get?' Friends, for under eleven thousand dollars, this is a great deal! You'll be able to afford all the gas you want, since there's no more shortages! And here's another great deal! How's this for a great deal? It's a 1979 Chevy Chevette. Now, I know it ain't got your power steering and power brakes, or power windows, but it's got a stereo tape player! And talk about mileage! Do you now how much this little honey is worth? And I'm letting it go for--"

Honest Joe Bob was suddenly replaced with a "Special Bulletin" picture, and a deep voice that said, "We interrupt this program for a special news bulletin."

"Thank God," Keller said. He'd had enough of Honest Joe Bob and that Lincoln.

"What happened?" Nancy wondered. "Did some lunatic general finally hit the Big Red Button?" These Special Bulletins, with their ominous tones, always worried her.

Another face appeared on the screen. He was dressed in the black uniform of a high-ranking officer in the Holy Guards. "My friends, my name is Colonel Warren of the Holy Guardians."

Valerie's face suddenly paled with the shock of sudden recognition. "Oh, my God!" she whispered. And then, with a near scream, she said, "It's him!" She leaned forward to study the face. "It's him! The Priest!"

The other three looked at her, then at the screen, and then at her again.

"We still need your help," Warren said. "We still haven't been able to find the stolen van that belongs to Brother Matthew Gordon. We understand that some of you may be hesitant to come forward, since there is a witch involved, but Mr. Gordon--Brother Matthew--needs to have his van returned. My friends, Brother Matthew is a distributor of Bibles, the literal Word of God. I know you people out there are good Christians and good Americans. Wouldn't you like to help Brother Matthew recover his van so he can continue to do the Lord's work? If any of you out there have any information at all, please notify your local office of the Holy Guardians. Your help will be greatly appreciated, and Jesus will love you for it. Please, help us find Brother Matthew's van, and help us find the vile witch who stole it." The picture cut to a color photo of Valerie. "This is the witch, known as Valerie St. James."

Oh dear God, she thought, on the edge of panic as a thousand thoughts swirled through her mind like a tornado. Oh God, oh God, they know who I am! Her heart was pounding as though she had just run a marathon, and suddenly she shivered uncontrollably as she broke out in a cold sweat. After five hundred years, it was all happening again; it had, indeed, been more than just a mere dream, and she didn't know what to do or how to cope with it.

"And this is what she has done!" The picture changed again, this time to a close-up shot of the Tarot cards that lay scattered on the coffee table. "This is just a small example of her black art--the reading of Tarot cards, which came straight out of the Devil's own unholy book! And this is the result of it!"

The scene shifted again, this time to a close-up shot of Tony's body as it lay in the hall. "This is what she did to her own fiancée after he found out that she was a witch!"

"What!?" she half-shouted and half-screamed in rage and shock.

"This is the man she was going to marry! Do you see, my friends, what kind of evil Devil worshipers she is? And here"--there was another close-up shot, this one of Jeff--"is an old and trusted friend of hers. Look at how this Devil's disciple treats those who love her!"

She leapt to her feet and screamed in rage at the television set. "You lying son of a bitch! You bastard!!"

"And here, worst of all"--there was a close-up of the soldier that Keller had killed--"is one of your own Holy Guardians who had come to rescue these two innocent souls from the clutches of this seditious Devil's whore! There is no end to the evil of this woman!" And now there were scenes of the two Guardian cars that lay smashed and burned on the road, offering further evidence of her Satanic power.

"Please, good people, help us find her before she can cause more of this kind of harm and misery to any more innocent souls. The Lord will love you all the more for it. God bless you, and good night."

Valerie didn't even realize she was sinking to her knees as a low, terrified moan of despair came from the bottom of her soul. That icy fist of terror clutched at her heart again as she stood at the edge of panic and horror.

"This has been a Special Bulletin . . . "

Oh God, she thought. With that kind of propaganda being aired, appealing to so many "law-abiding citizens" and "good Christians," there was no question in her mind that there were hundreds of people out there who would be perfectly willing and even happy to turn her in. They would be everywhere; the cowboy at the gas station was the first to come to mind. She was a known criminal now, and They would be out looking for her.

Oh, God, she thought again as she felt herself beginning to fall over the edge. Dear God, what am I going to do?

She could feel the flames of the burning stake licking at her already.

And then Keller was there, seemingly from nowhere, helping her up and back to the sofa. "Come on, it'll be okay," he said reassuringly. "You'll be okay."

"Lady, you've got yourself one mean enemy," Dutch said. "I've heard of this guy--he's a one-man Inquisition." He turned to Keller and said, "Come on, let's go dump the van--we've waited too long already."

***

It was well after midnight when they returned. Dutch went to the closet in his bedroom and produced a spare box of .44 Magnum hollow points that would fit the Desert Eagle, then took Keller out to his workshop. "It's getting too cold out to do any traveling around anyway," he was saying. "Looks like we're in for an early winter. And since the human population has been so drastically cut by the bio war, the animals around here have grown in numbers--including the wolves. They ain't just in Alaska anymore, they're all over the place. From what I've heard, they're even taking to wandering through a lot of dead cities looking for food. And I know what a poor shot you are."

Keller looked offended. "Hey, I hit what I'm aiming at, man. Remember who still owes who a hundred bucks from last May."

"Dumb luck, that's all it was," he said with a teasing grin. He knew very well how good Keller really was with a wide variety of firearms; Dutch himself had taught him to shoot. He was also one of the very few people who knew the full story of Keller's life and various activities. They weren't at all legal, but that meant nothing; Keller had a strong sense of honor, which was far better than any law spawned by the Foundation and its rabid mob of Theocrats. As a matter of fact, Dutch had been with him during that two-week escapade down in that Central American jungle when--

"Just kidding you, son," he said. "Hey, wait till you see what I got down here." They reached the bottom of the stairs and Dutch flipped on a light switch, and long fluorescent lights flickered to life overhead. They revealed Dutch's workshop; there was a workbench off to the left, grinders and buffers lay off to the right, and a computerized diagnostics dynamometer rested against the back wall. Most of the tools were neatly arranged by size on a pegboard near the bench, but some were also scattered on the bench itself--Dutch was almost always working on something. And in the center of the shop there was an amorphous shape made of grease-stained white canvas. With a flourish, he whipped away the car cover and revealed what was underneath.

Keller's heart raced when his eyes fell on the shiny, black 1984 Dodge Charger. Thin red trim was shot along the sides, giving the car a sinister elegance, and a small chrome plate on the lower left front fender read "Turbo." A chill raced up Keller's spine. The light gleamed and sparkled from the fresh black paint and the chrome around the door handles and wheel covers. "My God," Keller whispered in awe.

Dutch grinned at his friend. "Like her?"

"Are you kidding?" Keller asked, also grinning. "I'm about to come in my pants."

Dutch laughed. "You always did seem to like cars better than girls," he said. "Makes me wonder about you sometimes. Anyway, I saved this one from a scrap yard--she was about to be converted into a bunch of manhole covers. The suspension is just as good as anything that ever came out of Stuttgart, if I may say so myself; even I was surprised by how well she handles. I widened her wheelbase just a bit, and she's still got her front-wheel drive and transverse mounted engine and trans. And yes, she is turbo-charged."

"Incredible," Keller said as he continued to admire the car. He stepped a little closer and gently ran a hand along its smooth lines. It felt as though it had about five coats of wax. Sliding his hands into his pockets, he walked slowly around the front end.

"And now for the real kicker."

Keller raised his eyebrows. "Such as?"

Dutch nodded toward the car. "Open the hood."

He returned to the driver's door. He reached in through the open window and found the hood release, popped it open, and returned to the front to find the second release under the hood. He raised it and set the support in place. The first thing he noticed was that there wasn't a speck of grease on the engine. The second thing he noticed was . . . "That's no 2.2 liter engine."

"Well, I see you haven't forgotten everything I've taught you about engines." Dutch grinned, drawing out his friend's suspense.

"Well?"

"Well what?" He felt as though he was toying with a child, and having a lot of fun doing it.

Keller rested a hand on the hood and shifted his weight to one foot. With mildly forced patience, he asked, "Are you gonna tell me what you got under there?"

Dutch shook his head sadly. "Maybe you have forgotten everything I've taught you . . . You spend way too much time drivin', and not enough time mechanic-in'."

"Oh, gimme a break . . . " he grumbled.

"Okay. You remember those old 327s that Chevrolet used to stick into their '64 Corvettes? That's a half of one under there. I also bored out the cylinders a little, stuck in some bigger pistons, and I installed a four-barrel carburetor. I also made some changes in the gear ratio of the tranny, so you'll have to experiment with the shift a little to find the best shifting points. I seriously doubt you'll ever need the overdrive, but it's in there for just in case."

Keller stared at him in disbelief.

"Yeah, she's yours."

Keller's jaw dropped. "I can't take this," he said. "Not after all the work you put into her."

"Sure you can. Remember those ten kilos of Lebanese hash you got me? I made quite a tidy little bundle on 'em. Besides, I got another of these in the works. Only it's gonna be better."

"I don't think you're gonna be able to top this," Keller told him. "Damn. I am definitely gonna come in my pants."

"Wait till you get inside her. For a test drive, I mean," he added, and they both laughed. He went to the driver's side and opened the door. "Get in."

Keller eased into the contoured bucket seat, and the gray leather creaked under him. He lovingly wrapped his fingers around the black sport-grip on the steering wheel and turned it gently a few times. He adjusted the seat so his legs fit comfortably, and then tilted the seat back a bit. Dutch closed the door and leaned on it. "Start 'er up." Keller depressed the clutch and stepped lightly on the gas once, and let it up. He twisted the key in the ignition. Grrr . . . rrr . . . rr . . . r . . .

Dutch returned his blank look with one of his own. "Don't worry, it'll be charged by morning."

Keller let his eyes wander over the gray vinyl dash. The original speedometer had shown a top speed of only eighty-five miles per hour, but it had been replaced with one that top-ended at 140.

"Got a real nice sound system in there, too," Dutch went on. "Four channel CD stereo and Dolby cassette system, and a bunch of bootleg digital tapes in the glove box. 'Course, the sound may have a little trouble keeping up with you."

"I don't know what to say, Dutch."

"Just keep healthy, man. Both you and the lady."

***

The next morning the battery was holding a full charge. Dutch slipped his bulk into the car, turned the key, and the engine purred immediately to life. With a throaty rumble, the car eased out of the shop and came around to stop in front of Valerie and Keller, who were standing on the porch with Nancy. They held two small nylon day packs and a pair of sleeping bags. Dutch got out of the car. "Well guys, you're all set. Remember: the door's always open if you're ever in the neighborhood." He gave Keller another of his spine-crushing bear hugs, and then hugged Valerie more gently. "You guys take care, okay?"

"You too, Dutch," Valerie said. She turned and hugged Nancy and said, "Blessed be."

***

The small black Charger was roaring down Highway 64 at around ninety miles an hour, and while he drove Keller thought about the Tarot cards, and what they'd had to say about going on a long journey. In under an hour they got on Interstate 40 and crossed over the border into Utah. Now out of the mountains again, Valerie had taken off the down vest and laid it in the back seat. She watched the scenery for a while and would glance at Keller every once in a while. Keller had not spoken a word since they left Dutch's and Nancy's home.

"You and Dutch go back a ways, don't you?"

"Yeah, he's an old friend of the family. My sister and I went to live with him when I was about twelve or so, after our folks got killed in an airline accident. He's the one who taught me how to drive and how to shoot."

"Nancy told me some interesting things about you."

Uh oh. "Oh, yeah?" he asked nonchalantly. He was silent for a minute or two. "What'd she say?"

"Not a whole lot. But she did say you were a man of honor. How does a 'man of honor' get into smuggling drugs?"

"He doesn't. I've run grass and hash and peyote, but I don't hold those in the same category as some of the shit that a lot of people are into. I never ran crack or heroin or dust or any shit like that; that shit'll kill you."

"I heard you've smuggled people across the border. What do they call those guys? Coyotes, I think."

He gave her a sharp look. "Hey, I was never a coyote! Those guys are thieves--they take advantage of people and rip them off. All I did was help a couple of kids into the States so they could have a slightly better life, that's all." There wasn't any more liberty here than at home, but at least they weren't being shot at by government troops anymore, he reminded himself.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to be insulting or anything."

Keller sighed as he returned his attention to the road. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't've come down on you like that. It's just that I have a strong disliking for 'coyotes.'"

I guess so, she thought. "Sorry," she said again. She was quiet for a short time. "You know, I never did thank you for helping me out. I appreciate it, and I want you to know that I don't expect you to keep on sticking your neck out for me."

"That's okay. After all, we are in this together. Besides, I've got a score of my own to settle with those pigs."

"For Jeff? I guess you guys were pretty close."

"I'm close with all my friends. But it's not only for him, though. There's my sister, too."

"Yeah, you said you had a sister. Is she in the same line of work as you? 'Keller & Keller, Illegal Import & Export Trade?'"

"She's dead."

In the stunned silence, Valerie wished she could kick herself in the ass. "Keller, I'm sorry."

He shook out a cigarette and punched in the dash lighter. When it popped out, he inhaled deeply and sighed smoke. "It happened ten years ago," he said at last. "She was seventeen then, when she was raped. As a result, she got pregnant and she wanted an abortion, but the doctor she went to wouldn't do it. According to that goddamned 'Right To Life' amendment, he said that fetus had even more of a right to live than she did 'cause while she could protect herself there was no one to protect that fetus. And there wasn't a doctor around that would be willing to perform an abortion; the penalty for it was too stiff."

She was watching him intently. She couldn't see behind his sunglasses, but she thought she might have heard a slight catch in his voice.

He dragged on the cigarette. "She couldn't stand the idea of having a rapist's kid. The rape itself was bad enough, but the thought of having a part of him growing inside her and feeding off of her like a parasite was a hundred times worse. And the goddamned authorities were forcing her to have it!" He took a deep breath to calm himself. "She just couldn't deal with it. So she bought thirty reds from a third-hand connection and downed them. There was no way in hell she was going to have the kid of the man who raped her . . . so she killed herself."

"My God, Keller, I'm so sorry . . . "

"The cops investigated, of course, and they said the doctor had been right in doing what he did, and that it wasn't his fault that Lisa killed herself. Denying her an abortion was the legal 'Christian' thing to do, and they told me the Devil had taken over her soul and had forced her to sin by either getting an abortion or taking her own life. The 'Christian' thing to do would have been to have the rapist's kid."

Valerie snorted in disgust. "Bastards."

"But have you ever noticed how the Foundation's concern for these 'pre-born' kids doesn't seem to extend to the environment that they're going to be growing up in? After passing the Right To Life Amendment, the dumb fuckers went and gutted every local, state, and federal law that had ever been passed to protect the environment because all the pro-environment laws had supposedly been supported by all those 'leftists' and 'pro-abortion communist liberals.'" He hit on his cigarette again. "Later on, they admitted the possibility that they may have been slightly responsible for her killing herself," he went on, "but they added, 'We Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven.' Man, every time I see that on a bumper sticker it makes me want to open fire." He found himself squeezing the steering wheel with one hand, crushing into its padding. "Their parting shot was, 'Well, it was her own choice to kill herself,' and then they started to lecture me on the evils of free choice."

"There was something I heard a long time ago," Valerie said. "There were some of those pro-lifers running around and saying that abortion had to be stopped because the souls of those fetuses were in danger; if they were aborted before knowing Christ, their souls would burn in hell." She shook her head. "They couldn't jam their Jesus down the throats of the adults, so maybe they figured they'd have a better chance of doing it to the next generation of kids." She turned in the seat so she could face him more easily. "Do you think they'd really go so far as to force people to have kids they really don't want, judge them to be unfit parents because their politics aren't correct, and then seize those kids and raise them in religious foster homes to be the next generation of religious wackos? I mean, I know it sounds a little far-fetched--even to me--but some of those people are pretty nuts, and a lot of their sympathizers do hold positions of power. I mean, if they're willing to kill abortion providers and lie about family planning clinics to advance their own agendas . . . "

"Wouldn't surprise me a bit," Keller said. "I got a lot of close friends running around, but the only people I consider family that I have left are Dutch and Nancy. I just keep working underground, and with any luck I might be able to find a resistance group to join up with. I figure your uncle's place in Mendocino is as good a place as any to get started." He tried to lighten the mood by adding, "Besides, I like helping pretty ladies in distress."

Valerie smiled, and accepted the compliment without any further cracks about male chauvinists. "Well, I kind of like you, too," she replied.

He smiled faintly, and kept his eyes on the road. He could still see in his mind the image of his sister's body lying on that cold porcelain slab in the morgue, and tried to force his mind onto other thoughts.

Continued...