Colonel Warren was smiling smugly. He had received a telephone call from a concerned citizen in reply to the public appeal for assistance in finding Matthew Gordon's stolen van; the citizen had seen two men pushing a white van over the edge of a steep cliff where it crashed and exploded into flames. The descriptions of the men had not been very good, and no escaping vehicle had been seen. Expecting the information to be misleading, the soldiers were still obligated to check out the report. But after the investigation of the wreckage, Warren was feeling considerably better; a DMV check on the vehicle's license plates proved that this van had indeed belonged to Matthew Gordon--but the men who had destroyed it could not be found.

"Most likely, they're continuing west," Warren said to his aide. "According to this map, there are only two more towns between here and the Utah border, so it shouldn't take long to check them out."

"If you don't mind my asking, sir," the aide said, "what makes you think they're still heading west?"

Warren wasn't sure. A hunch? That's what most would have called it, but Colonel Warren did not believe in hunches; he believed in messages and visions, whether they were from God or the Devil. At first, he thought maybe the witch was influencing him, directing him westward and possibly even throwing him off of her track. But a witch could not control him. As strong as he was in his faith, he would never believe that neither Satan nor any of his unholy minions could ever influence him. He was too strong for that. Instead, he felt the power of God directing him. She could be heading anywhere, but the Lord knew where she was going, so he would have to trust Him. He thought about asking God why He wouldn't just tell him exactly where the witch was, but that would not have been right; the Lord has His plans, and one does not question them. Instead, he would just follow whatever leads the Lord presented, and hope he was strong enough to do God's work.

"She is headed west," he replied at last, with a tone that would not allow any further questioning.

Warren's aide, a junior officer by the name of Carlos Gutierrez, studied the map. "The only two towns between here and the border are Rangely and Artesia," he said. "We could send a chopper out to look for them. Highway 40 meets with 64 in Artesia, and goes west. Or we could contact one of the local offices there and have them set up some roadblocks."

"We don't need any help from any other office!" Warren snapped. "We'll handle this ourselves! Just contact Shipman and Reeves, and have them check it out."

Gutierrez was both stung and surprised by the vehemence of Warren's rebuke. A veil of uncertainty about the man's ability to lead then began to settle over him . . . and then he immediately cast off the doubt. Warren knew what he was doing; he was a full colonel, and he certainly hadn't achieved that high rank through incompetence, Gutierrez concluded. He suppressed his own thoughts, and remembered the advice of his instructors: When in doubt, follow orders. Follow the chain of command.

"Very well, sir," he said at last. "In the meantime, what should we do about Mr. Gordon and those . . . objects that we found in his van?"

"Oh, those . . . those sex things . . . " He shuddered with disgust. "They were probably left by the witch to try and slander him because he sells Bibles. We don't need to hold him any longer."

"Very well, sir, I'll have him released."

"Fine." Warren turned slowly and went to sit in the passenger seat of his black-and-white limousine. "Forgive me, Lord, for ignoring your first Vision so long ago," he prayed quietly. He thought about it, playing it over and over in his mind: the woman being dragged through the muddy streets, being tied to the stake, her speech to the crowd, and her curse. " . . . only next time it will not be me who burns!" she had threatened. Warren sighed and lit a cigarette. He studied the flame that had sprouted from the tip of his butane lighter, and tried to picture the girl in the middle of it, screaming and writhing in agony. She had not gone like that in the Vision, and he remembered how disappointed he had felt. He had wanted her to suffer for the crimes that she had committed against the Lord; she was supposed to have paid grievously for her sins. But now he couldn't see her in the flame, no matter how hard he tried. Instead, he saw himself.

With a nervous jerk of his hand, the flame went out. "We'll see about that, witch," he muttered. He pocketed the lighter and leaned back. There was nothing much to do now but to settle back and wait for the report from the chopper.

***

Shipman and Reeves were racing across the desert to the northwest in their UH-1B helicopter gun ship, the model that had been so popular in the Air Cavalry during the Vietnam War. They flew with the throttle wide open, and had it not been for the miniature transmitters and receivers in their helmets they would have had to shout at each other to be heard over the roaring of the engine and the rapid thump-thump-thump! of the rotors.

"Seems like an awful lot of trouble just to catch one girl," Shipman's electronically distorted voice was saying into Reeves's ears. "I mean, how dangerous can one person be?"

"That's like saying, 'How dangerous can one cancer cell be?'" Reeves countered. "By herself, she can probably do nothing. But if she spreads her ideas around to enough people, we could be in really big trouble. You don't wait for a tumor to get big before you cut it out, you get it as soon as you can."

"Well, when you put it that way, I guess it does make more sense."

"Of course it does." Reeves squinted through the dark visor of his helmet. He motioned with a slight not of his head and said, "Hey, check that out." He pulled back on the throttle to reduce the chopper's speed.

Shipman looked down. "What, that black car? What about it?"

"Looks like one of those old Lasers or Chargers they used to make, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, it does." Shipman smiled fondly. "I haven't seen one of those in years. Want to go down and get a closer look?"

"Yeah." Reeves also had a fondness for old cars; that was one of the reasons why they had selected each other as partners. "Damn, it's really moving, too. I'd love to see what's under the hood." He pushed gently on the control stick and took the chopper into an easy decline.

"Hey, let's go for it. If he wonders why he's being pulled over, we can always say he was speeding."

"Hey, that's no lie; he must be doing at least ninety."

The chopper came down to within fifty feet of the speeding black Charger, and Shipman switched on the PA system. "You there, in the black car," he said, his voice sounding like an electronic God coming from out of the sky. "This is the Holy Guardians. Pull over to the side of the road."

The Charger continued to race down the highway.

"This is the Holy Guardians," Shipman repeated. "I'm ordering you to pull over, right now!"

A cloud of blue-white exhaust poured from the twin tailpipes of the Charger as it picked up more speed. The chopper had been pacing the car at ninety-five miles an hour, and suddenly the Dodge put on a surprising burst of speed, leaving the chopper behind.

"That fucker's asking for it," Reeves said to himself, and then hoped that no one on their frequency had heard him over his open mike. He opened the throttle again and caught up to the Charger, which was now doing 115 and was still picking up speed. Shipman's voice blared out over the speakers again. "This is your last chance. Pull over!"

The Charger continued to accelerate. Now both vehicles were doing 130.

"That tears it," Reeves said. "Get on the radio and tell the Colonel what's going on. I'm going to nail this sucker, but good." He reached forward and armed a rocket. "Now, you son of a bitch," he said, "let's see you outrun this!"

***

"Colonel Warren! Captain Shipman is on the radio--he thinks he's in pursuit of the witch!"

Warren ran over to the communications truck and picked up the microphone. "Warren here. Report!"

"Colonel, we're in pursuit of a black '84 Charger, westbound on Highway 40. We've just crossed the Utah border. We think it's the witch. We're going to . . . oh, Jesus, NO!"

The radio went dead.

Chapter Eleven

A couple of grams of hash had been found along with an assortment of contraband rock and roll tapes that Dutch had mentioned were in the glove box of the Charger, and Keller was now quite pleasantly buzzed. Valerie had plugged in a Grace Slick tape and was softly singing along in harmony with it, and Keller quietly listened to the similarity between the two voices as he concentrated on his driving. After a while, Valerie became quiet and just listened to the music, and thought about Keller.

He was so completely different from Tony. She had been fond of Tony in her own way, at one time, though at other times that fondness had been strained almost to the breaking point. But she found herself liking Keller, too. Sort of. She didn't feel sexually attracted to him or anything; maybe it was because of her recent loss, or maybe because--despite his good looks--he just didn't affect her that way. No chemistry. And there was little that she knew about him and his past. Not that it was really any of her business. When asked, he spoke openly about some of the things he had done over the years, but he never volunteered any information. Tony, on the other hand, was unpredictable and constantly changing. He was always trying to be someone different, almost as though he were constantly trying to win approval from others by trying to be someone else. In bed, he seemed almost indefatigable; even there, it seemed, he was trying to prove something. It seemed that he had always been trying to prove something, but to whom?

Keller seemed to be more of an adventurer. Not for money (although that, no doubt, frequently came in handy, she believed), but for the sake of his friends when they needed him--regardless of the risk. He often put himself in severe danger, and almost always won out; and he also knew that he could always rely on his friends when he needed their help. And he enjoyed the pure spirit of adventure; he enjoyed living on that dangerous edge of life, where the slightest nudge either way could send him to that final great adventure, perhaps because it made him feel really alive, and not merely existing. Some who didn't know him might have thought he had a death-wish, and others may have thought he was just plain crazy, but it was through some of these outrageous escapades of his that he met and kept most of his friends.

Valerie touched his arm once, and she had received such a tremendous input of images that it was hard to separate them. He'd had a number of failures: he had once been shot by a soldier during a raid and had nearly died; a girlfriend had left him because she didn't approve of his lifestyle; he had been arrested three times on a wide variety of charges (and had organized successful escapes from jail each time, freeing not only himself but also those who had been incarcerated with him, thereby making several more valuable, life-long friends); and a few barroom brawls could have turned out a little better if he hadn't been so damned plastered at the time. But his failures were far outweighed by his successes. And he wasn't out to prove anything to the world like Tony had been. Keller was secure in the knowledge of who he was, how he lived, and he didn't give a damn about what anyone thought of him.

The Grace Slick tape ended, and Keller reached forward to plug in "Special Forces" by .38 Special. He cranked up the volume, and "Back Door Stranger" came blasting from the four speakers. "Want to light me up another pipe?" he asked loudly over the music.

"No. You've had enough." She reached for the pipe that was resting on the dashboard, with the intention of putting it away, and then she froze.

Keller looked at her suspiciously. Oh no, he thought, not again.

"Company's coming."

Shit . . . He checked the rear-view mirror. "There's no one there," he said, but his smuggler's instinct felt it, too.

"They're coming. I can feel it."

He killed the tape player and checked the mirror again. All he had seen in it was a speck in the sky, probably just a piece of dirt or something on the glass itself. The speck had grown. "Shit," he said softly as the speck grew quickly into a military helicopter. A moment later, it was only about a hundred feet behind and maybe twenty feet above them. The roar of its engine filled the car, and the down blast of air from its blades threatened to tear the Charger from the road.

"You there, in the black car. This is the Holy Guards. Pull over to the side of the road."

"Fuck you," Keller softly growled.

"This is the Holy Guards. I'm ordering you to pull over, right now!"

Keller downshifted to third and punched the gas pedal to the floor. The car leapt forward as the tachometer needle shot up to 4500 rpm, and the speedometer needle went to and passed the 115 mark. My God, we're still accelerating! What the hell did Dutch build here? For the first time in his life, he felt a twinge of fear from a machine that he was driving, feeling not quite in control. But he was even more afraid of what would happen to him and Valerie if the soldiers caught them, so he decided that from here on out they were already dead as he shifted back to fourth. The tach needle dropped while the speedometer showed 130, and with a slow smile he said to himself, Okay, li'l Charger, show me what you can do.

"This is your last chance. Pull over!"

Keller reached out through his window, made certain that the pilot could see his hand, and flipped him off.

The chopper shifted over to the left side of the car. The metal towers that supported the power lines on the side of the road zipped by like slats on a picket fence, and Keller regarded both them and the chopper with a nervous glance. And then he noticed the rocket launchers. "Shit!" He shifted to overdrive as the first rocket launched; the car lurched and bucked madly for a moment, and the engine died. "Oh, shit!" The car began to slow, and he tugged the wheel to the left. With the power suddenly cut, it felt dead in his hands, yet he still managed to swerve wide. The rocket flew over them and exploded in the road to the right and just ahead of the Charger, right where it would have been had the engine not died. The crater it left was about six feet deep and maybe twelve feet wide. Keller hit the clutch, restarted the engine, and shifted to fourth. The tach needle sprang back to life, hovering at almost 6,000 rpm. Redline. The turbo was screaming like a raging demon, and the speed showed 140. This engine is gonna blow if this keeps up, he thought. What kind of a gear ratio was in this thing? The gas pedal was on the floor, and the tach now sat at 6,500; it could go no higher. Gotta try once more, he thought, and he shifted into overdrive.

The demon's scream suddenly became a tiger's purr. The ride was smooth, as the front and rear spoilers used the car's slipstream to force it lower to the ground, and for a frantic moment Keller thought the engine had died again. He glanced at the tach needle and saw it resting at 2,600, while the speedometer needle was jammed hard against the pin at 140. It could go no higher.

The chopper was falling behind, and for a few insane seconds Keller thought they might actually outrun it. Then the helicopter overtook the Charger, this time on the right, and then Keller could tell that another rocket was being armed and aimed. He yanked the wheel to the right, clutching and downshifting and braking, and the second rocket blew a hole in the road, narrowly missing the Charger again. Chunks of molten asphalt pelted the car, leaving dents in the hood and scorch marks along the sides. Too damn close, he thought as he watched the chopper pass overhead. It swung around in a wide turn, and Keller punched the gas again, bringing the speed back up to 140. The chopper came at them again; this time going in the opposite direction, and a burst of machine gun fire erupted and left a trail of bullet holes in the road alongside the car. Keller began weaving the Charger back and forth across the road, trying to become as difficult a target as possible. He shifted back up to the modified overdrive once more, and glanced in the mirror. The chopper was growing smaller and smaller, and then it came around in another wide, sweeping arc and began chasing down the Charger again. The gently curving road, which at 70 miles per hour seemed almost straight, had at 140-plus become a twisting gray serpent, and Keller felt as though he was back on the racing circuit with his old buddies before the Air Force, risking life and limb for that all-important gold trophy.

The chopper no longer seemed to be gaining on them, nor did it seem to be falling any farther back. There was no way that Keller was going to outrun a helicopter, so it was definitely time for a change in tactics. His eyes fell to the fuel gauge; it showed a little under a quarter tank. There were an additional five gallons of gas in the back, but he didn't think the soldiers would let him take the time to stop and refuel. There was nothing in sight in the middle of this damn desert, just road and power lines and a whole lot of dirt and dust. Nowhere to hide. Just road and . . . dust and . . . and an idea came to him.

The helicopter was coming up from behind at full speed. Keller shifted to neutral and hit the brake just as the chopper opened fire again. He pulled the car to the left and another line of bullets spat up asphalt a few feet from Valerie's side, and he heard her yelp in fright. The chopper roared over them and Keller continued to let the car slow down. The speedometer needle dropped to 120, then to 100, and continued on down as the car continued to decelerate.

The .50 caliber machine gun opened fire again, strafing Keller's side of the road, and missed the Charger by scant inches. It swung around once again, and Shipman was about to fire another long burst when he noticed the car was losing speed. Looks like he's finally giving up, he thought. Bright boy.

"Reeves! You can slow down; he's had it! We've got him!"

***

"Why are you slowing down?" she screamed. "Are you fucking crazy?"

"We can't lose him on the road! Besides, we've got a bit of a fuel problem, so this calls for a change in strategy!"

"Stopping isn't going to help!"

"Who said anything about stopping?" He let the speed drop to fifty miles per hour, and then pulled the car off the road and into the dirt. "Roll up your window! It's gonna get real dusty around here!"

***

Thinking the Charger was going to finally stop, Reeves began chopping power. Instead, the car went off the road and began leaving a trail of dust in the air. "What the hell is he doing?" he wondered. He pulled the control stick to the right and began following the car again, then pushed it forward to take them into a dive as Shipman opened fire again. Shipman shouted excitedly into his microphone, "We've got him right where we want him! Let's dust him; he can't see where he's going!" Reeves replied with a nod and took the helicopter farther down. Then they saw the Charger do something totally unexpected--it took straight off into the desert, where there was no road, no asphalt, no real traction…nothing. Just a lot of loose sand and dirt and rocks. And the chopper, not wanting to lose it, continued after it with another strafing run. Then the car turned, and instead of heading straight off again it began to run in circles, with its tires spitting clouds of dirt and dust into the air. First it would circle to the left, and then to the right, and then it began doing figure eights. What the hell is he doing? Reeves wondered. The car continued with its erratic driving pattern, and the chopper stopped and hovered so it could observe the car's antics. There was so much dust being kicked into the air that soon the car was completely hidden from sight, and the chopper had to go down into the giant dust cloud to clear it away with the down blast of its rotors.

The Charger was gone.

"Where'd he go?"

Shipman strained to turn and survey the ground below them. "What the hell? How'd he--" He looked out his own window and looked backward. "No, wait--! There he is! Shit, he's headed back for the highway!"

The gun ship swept around in another wide arc and went in pursuit.

Keller whipped the car back and forth, zigzagging it toward the road and kicking up more dust. He drove in circles again, letting the helicopter overshoot him again, and circled again and again. Although he could barely see where he was going, he managed to bring the Charger a little closer to the highway with each circle. He's out of rockets, he thought, so he's making strafing runs. Well, come on, sucker, do it again. Just one more time, nice and low. You don't want to miss.

***

The only objective in Reeves's mind now was to kill the driver of the Charger. As his co-pilot/weapons engineer brought the other set of machine guns on line, switching from empty to fully loaded, the pilot struggled to get a radar lock. "Gotcha this time, motherfucker," he muttered. "Gonna gitcha this time."

The chopper went after the car again. Reeves could barely see the car through the trail of flying dust that it was leaving, but as he gained on the dust-coated Charger he could see it more clearly as both car and helicopter drew closer to the highway. "Gotcha," Reeves muttered again as he guided the gun ship in for the kill, hanging right on its tail and coming in low. He adjusted his microphone in front of his lips and prepared to radio back to Warren to inform him of the situation.

The car was almost to the highway. Reeves went straight for it. "Oh, this is going to be soooo good," he said as he prepared for another strafing run. "You son of a whore, you're mine!" He switched on his mike with a malevolent grin. "Colonel Warren! We're in pursuit of a black 1984 Dodge Charger, westbound on Highway 40. We're somewhere near the Utah b . . . border . . . " His voice trailed off, and his grin slowly slipped away. He peered through the thinning dust and saw . . . the power lines. He was flying right into them. "Oh Jesus, NO!" He yanked back hard on the stick, but he was too late; the helicopter hit the lines and tangled them in its rotors. The drive shaft to which the rotors were attached suddenly jammed with a wrenching jolt as another black, serpentine cable wrapped itself around it. It snapped and lashed against the helicopter's fuselage with a shower of sparks, and suddenly twenty-one thousand volts of raw, unreleased power surged through the helicopter to short out its electrical systems and set off the fuel in its tanks. With a thunderous blast that shook the earth, the helicopter exploded into a massive fireball of orange flames and thick black smoke, and the Charger roared away from under it as flaming wreckage went flying everywhere.

Keller guided the car back onto the highway, and finally brought it to a screeching stop, sliding its tail around nearly 180 degrees. Sweat had broken out on his brow, and his hands were soaked and cramped from gripping the wheel so hard. The car's cabin was filled with hot humid air and the smell of sweat, so he cranked his window down. A hot breath of fresh desert air blew gently across their faces, and Keller took a deep breath and let it out as he turned to look at the flaming wreck. Black oily smoke rose in snake-like coils into the pale blue desert sky to mark the death of the FLM gun ship.

He looked at Valerie. "You can open your eyes now."

She let them open, but she still gripped the armrest and the side of the bucket seat. Her nails were sunk into the leather and corduroy.

Keller flashed her a grin. "Beats the hell out of any ride at Disneyland, doesn't it?"

She let out a long, long breath. "I thought for sure we were goners."

"What are you, kidding?" he asked with a smug smile. "I know what I'm doin'."

Valerie released her grip and stared in awe and disbelief at the smoking wreck. "I never would have believed it," she said. "Not in a million years."

Neither would I, Keller thought. But he never would have admitted it to anyone. He turned away from the smoking helicopter and said, "I love you, darlin'."

Surprised by this sudden admission of such emotion, Valerie turned to look at him. True, they had been through a lot together, and had nearly died on several occasions; but what really surprised her was seeing Keller kissing his fingertips and pressing them gently against the Charger's padded dashboard. "I absolutely love you," he told the car again.

Valerie just sat there, staring at him in stunned silence and not really knowing what to say, or do, or even think.

With victorious contempt, the Charger turned its back on the defeated FLM chopper and pulled onto the road. It stopped again, and Keller got out from behind the wheel to refuel it.

Valerie didn't even try to suppress the laughter of combined relief and incredulity that suddenly bubbled out of her. "You're really something, y'know?" she said.

He approached the passenger window. With a smug, satisfied smile, he leaned on the door, looked inside, and said, "Yeah, that's what everybody tells me."

***

The sun had disappeared beyond the distant horizon, and a suddenly cold twilight wind began to stir the dry dust of the Utah desert around Colonel Warren's black leather boots. He was gazing in silent fury at the distant mountain range as he thought about how yet another full day had gone by, and he still had not caught the witch. The convoy had arrived at the final location where the black Dodge had been seen, and there was nothing here but the scorched and smoldering pile of wreckage that had once been a two-million-dollar helicopter. For a long time it had been impossible to talk to him; he had raved for over an hour, pounding on the hood of his cruiser and screaming almost hysterically at his men, asserting that this was positive proof that the Devil was aiding her. Her slave--the Familiar that had been driving the car--had used some kind of black magic to bring down the chopper. What better evidence was there, he had shrieked, than these charred remains?

"I'm really starting to worry about the Colonel," one of the soldiers later remarked. "I've never seen anyone act like that before. Did you see what he did to the hood of his car?"

"He's got a right to," replied another. "After all, Ted, how would you feel if you had lost so many men on account of one person?"

Ted thought for a moment. "He's obsessed, Mike," he said at last. "He's obsessed with the idea of capturing a witch. How can we even be sure that she is a witch?"

"Look at how many men she's killed--"

"All we know is what Warren's telling us."

"Are you defending her?" Mike asked, his eyes wide with shock. He pointed to the wrecked helicopter. "How the hell do you suppose that happened?"

"Pilot error. I don't believe it was 'black magic.' Look, I didn't say I was defending her, I'm just saying you and I and probably the rest of this entire unit doesn't have all the facts. Warren says she's a witch, right? What does he base this on? He's got a picture of some girl, and he says he saw her in a 'vision.' That's not evidence. When I was a kid, I was taught that I should always examine all sides of any given question before making up my mind on it. So far, all I have is his side. You and I don't know for certain that she's a witch at all. Hell, I'm not even all that sure that witches even exist."

Mike took a step toward him. "Don't you ever say you don't believe in witches or the Devil," he said, his voice low and threatening. "They used to burn people at the stake for speaking such heresies. Talk like that can get you into some deep, deep shit."

"I'm just trying to learn the truth, that's all. That's what being a cop is supposed to be about, isn't it? To examine facts, and to get to the real truth about a person before deciding whether or not to make an arrest? From what I can tell, lately there have been a lot of innocent people thrown in jail--and I thank God I never put any of them there."

"There are no innocent people in jail," Mike replied. "'If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect.' A US attorney general once said that; and only suspects are arrested." He regarded him carefully. "Look, I'm going to do you a favor: I'm going to forget that we had this conversation."

Ted stared at him for a short moment. "Ahh, I don't know," he said at last. "Maybe you're right." He smiled a thin smile. "I guess this'll give me something to think about while I'm on guard duty."

"You drew guard duty tonight? You poor soul."

"Believe it or not, I'm actually volunteering for it."

"You've been out in the sun too long," Mike told him as he finally permitted himself a small smile. "But I'll still buy you a cup of coffee."

"Thanks. I'll need it."

"And no more doubtful thinking, okay? Thinking too much isn't good for you. It's a lot easier if you let someone else do your thinking for you."

***

Later that night, while the rest of the men were asleep, Ted quietly pushed a patrol car down the slight incline of the road until he was certain that he was far enough away to start the engine without anyone hearing it. No, Mikey, he thought, I'm not crazy for volunteering for guard duty.

He sat behind the wheel for a few minutes as he let his tired muscles relax. Then he started the engine and drove off toward the Colorado border. Let them report him for desertion; he didn't care. At least, he wouldn't care until they managed to salvage enough parts to get one of the radios working so they could call in for repairs for their sabotaged cars. Warren's so whacked out on catching this "witch" of his that he won't even bother coming after me, he told himself. When he managed to sneak back into Denver, he told himself (and he hoped to God he would have enough time), he would ditch the car and return home on foot via a circuitous and unseen route through several back yards and alleys. Once he got home, he and his wife would use the connecting door between the kitchen and the garage to secretly pack the Jeep Wrangler with food and clothes and his weapons, and then they would bundle up their daughter and head straight for the Canadian border.

Chapter Twelve

Valerie leaned against one fender of the Charger and deeply inhaled the fresh, pure air of Mendocino, and let her breath out slowly. Almost home, she thought. If it hadn't been for Keller, who was at the moment engrossed with activities under the hood, she would never have made it. She folded her arms and watched him as he worked. He had remained behind the wheel all night and all the following day, driving at a steady 100 miles per hour and stopping only for fuel and calls to nature, right on up until the car broke down on this lonely mountain highway that was surrounded on all sides by massive redwoods, pines and firs. The sky was slightly overcast and made the colors of the forest look deeper and richer than in bright sunlight, and a chilly breeze teased at her dark hair. She stuffed her hands into the pockets of the down vest and shivered slightly.

How does he do it? she wondered. Keller had hardly slept at all since their flight from Colorado, and she hadn't seen him take any stimulants; he didn't even appear tired. He just looked a little scruffy and unshaved. She supposed that as a smuggler he either must be accustomed to making such long runs like this one, or he was running on adrenalin. Or both.

In some ways she kind of reluctantly admired him, and maybe even liked him a little bit. She admired him for being an individual, and not someone who changed with the fashions, styles, and attitudes just to keep up with what was considered to be popular or trendy. ("I don't follow trends," he told her. "I set them.") And she admired him as a human being--a true human, one who believed in helping people when possible because he believed it was the right thing to do. Even though it seemed, sometimes, that doing the right thing was far more difficult than doing what was convenient for himself. Nancy was right; Keller was a man of honor.

His slightly muffled voice came from under the hood. "Shit," he grumbled. "Miserable goddamn 'cooling-on-demand' system. Why couldn't he have put in a real fan, one with a belt?" He grumbled and cursed for a few more minutes, then straightened. "It's gotta be the damn sending unit," he said at last. "And the radiator's busted."

"Sending unit?"

He rested his hands on the hood, with a ratchet in one and a screwdriver in the other. "The fan that he put in here has its own motor. When the engine reaches a certain temperature, an electronic signal from the sending unit turns on the fan; that way, there's no belt to pull horsepower away from the drive train. It's gotta be the sending unit in here that's kaput. The engine overheated, and now we got us a cracked radiator. And maybe a cracked block, too. If that's the case, then this car is dead."

"So we walk."

He transferred the ratchet to his left hand and pulled down the hood support, and let the hood drop into place with a loud bang! as he said, "Unless we can flag down a cab or something." He dug into his blazer for his cigarettes and lit one. He sat on the hood and groaned. "Oh, man . . . "

"Aw, come on, Keller, look at the bright side." She turned to face him, and leaned against the fender with one hip as she re-folded her arms. "We've got fresh air, a chance to stretch our legs after all those hours of sitting . . . Wouldn't you like to go for a nice walk in the woods?"

He thought about what Dutch had told him; about the return of a lot of wildlife, now that so many people were gone. About all the bears and cougars and wolves…

"No, not really," he said with a sigh. "But it's not like we've got any choice, though, is it?" He dragged on the cigarette and dropped it, and ground it out under the toe of his boot.

"Hey!"

He looked at her with wisps of smoke trailing from his nose and mouth. "What?"

"Whaddaya mean, 'What?' Do you have to start dropping garbage around here already? This isn't the city, y'know."

He looked at the mashed cigarette butt. "What're you complaining about? It's only one butt--it's not like I unloaded a garbage truck or something."

"Yeah, well, the place isn't an ashtray, either."

He sighed in exasperation. "Oh, good God," he muttered. He bent and picked up the butt. He slid into the car, pulled out the ashtray, and dropped the butt in. He slammed it shut and got out again. "There," he said, dusting his hands together. "Happy?" He went around to the hatch and together they took out the sleeping bags and the small packs. He shut the hatch again, and then locked the doors.

"I don't think there are a lot of car thieves around here."

"Yeah, I know. It's just a habit . . . Besides, I feel kind of bad about abandoning her out there like this. This puppy saved our lives."

After a moment's reflection, she thought maybe she had come down a little hard on him about the cigarette. Come to think of it, she didn't know why she had acted that way; maybe she simply thought that this place deserved a little more respect. "Personally, I'd like to believe it was the driver who did all the work," she said, trying to smooth things over.

He thought it over for a moment, not looking at her, and then nodded slightly. "Yeah, you're right." He pulled the Desert Eagle from the back of his jeans and chambered a round, set the safety, and put it back. "Listen, it's going to be dark in an hour or so--we'd better get moving." And with that, they picked up their gear and started down the road.

***

They were captured some forty-five minutes later. Wolves had been howling off in the distance, and Keller had been feeling uneasy about them, so he decided to keep the Eagle in one hand and Valerie's hand in the other in case they had to run for it. He had been concentrating on the wolves so hard that he had never noticed they were being followed by two human figures until one of them shouted "Freeze!" and they stopped immediately.

"Put the gun down gently," said a voice, and Keller complied. "Step away from it. Now both of you, turn around slowly and keep your hands in sight."

Keller's mind raced, trying to think of an escape plan, as he and Valerie turned to face their captors. It was a minor relief to find that these two people were not soldiers. "Who're you?" he asked.

"We'll ask the questions, if you don't mind," replied a female voice that was filled with suspicion and tinged with a trace of fear.

"Sorry."

"We want to know who you are. We've never seen you around here before; what do you want with us?" She was pointing a scoped Parker-Hale 2100 hunting rifle at Keller's chest.

Not a bad sniper's rifle, he thought. "No, we don't live around here. My name's Keller, and this is Valerie. Our car broke down three or four miles from here." He paused for a moment. "Care to give us a lift?"

Dead silence.

"What are you doing out here?" the woman asked a moment later.

Keller rolled his eyes as he sighed in exasperation. "I just told you--"

"I'm trying to find a friend of mine," Valerie said, cutting in. "His name's Oscar Corey. He used to know my uncle, Vincent Ryan. It's his ranch that I'm trying to get to."

The man and woman lowered their weapons. "We know Oscar," he said, and Valerie breathed a sigh of relief. He cast a quick glance at his partner and asked, "But why do you want to go to the old Ryan place?"

"I used to live there. Why? Is there something wrong?"

"You mean, you haven't heard?"

"Heard what?" Keller wanted to know. "Are there soldiers there? Have they taken it over?"

Julie and Rob looked at each other, and decided it would be best not to tell them the truth about the strange noises that had been heard coming from the old house; the noises and the lights that shone in the old house in which no one dared to live. Some people said they saw things on the grounds after midnight, things that were uncanny and terrifying . . . white and luminous things that wafted across the cold, damp ground and through the bullet-shattered windows. Faint, white shapes that moaned in the dead of night and moved through the walls as though the walls didn't even exist. One legend had it that a squad of soldiers had once gone to the old place to investigate these occurrences. Ten men had gone in, and none of them had ever been heard from again. People who lived in the area had their own ideas as to what had happened to them. There had been a lot of talk and speculation, but no one actually had ever dared to go up to the house and find out what had really happened.

"The wolves," Julie said. She was not about to stand out here and waste her time trying to convince these two strangers that the old Ryan place was haunted. They wouldn't have believed her anyway, and she had no desire to have these people believe she and Rob were a pair of superstitious fools or, worse yet, crazy. The wolves were a convenient excuse, though, even though they had never been known to attack anyone. Actually, throughout the entire recorded history of the United States, there had never been a documented attack of a wolf on a human. Nor, for that matter, had there been any in Europe--those attacks had been by wolf-dog hybrids. But it had always been the voice of the wolf that had terrorized so many people over the centuries; and the accusations of being demons and devils by the religious ruling class throughout medieval Europe hadn't helped any. The wolves had always been misunderstood, and their ferocity exaggerated, so they were a convenient scapegoat. And false rumors, repeated often enough by a sufficient number of people, had eventually become popular beliefs and generally regarded as facts.

"The wolves around here are vicious bastards that'll rip you to shreds. At least four people have been killed by them up at the ranch." This, of course, was a lie, but she wanted to encourage Valerie and Keller to get moving. "There's a pack of them that lives there. Come on, we're taking enough of a chance just standing out here. We'd better get moving."

"Do you know where Oscar is?" Valerie asked. "It's important that I find him."

"We'll take you to him," Rob said. "Come on--the horses are this way."

***

"Oscar!" she shouted in unrestrained delight. She ran to him and threw her arms around his neck.

"Munchkin?" he said with equal shares of delight and amazement as he hugged her tightly. "My God, is it really you? You're all grown up!" He finally released her, and with tears of joy in his eyes he added, "How have you been?"

"Fine," Valerie replied, with tears in her own eyes, "just fine. Until recently, anyway. Oscar, this is Keller. Keller--Oscar Corey, my uncle's best friend."

Oscar extended a welcoming hand, and Keller accepted it. "That name sounds familiar," he said. "You wouldn't happen to be related to the guy who snuck that escaped reporter out of Chicago and into San Francisco, would you?"

"What, you mean that reporter who dug up all the dirt about the Foundation giving tax money to that company that built the nuke plant in Newark?" Julie asked. "The one that melted down? People around here are still talking about that escape."

Keller hooked his thumbs in his belt, glanced down at the toes of his black boots in greatly embellished modesty, and only partially suppressed another of his smug smiles.

Now Valerie was looking at him again. "That's one you didn't tell me about." He had told her a few other stories when asked, and some were more difficult to believe than others. For being only thirty-two years old, it seemed he had gotten around quite a lot--and she hadn't been certain if the stories were incredible braggadocio or merely some good-natured leg pulling.

"You didn't ask," he finally said. "Besides, smuggling people isn't really all that hard."

"Hey, come on!" Oscar said. "I read about that guy in the underground press." He turned toward Valerie, still keeping his eyes on Keller for only a moment longer. "There was this newspaper reporter who found out that the plant wasn't safe. The thing had been thrown together so quickly that a lot of the safety features were ignored because the Feds were always yelling 'America needs the energy!' and other propaganda crap like that after the Arab oil imports got cut off during the bio-war. Someone in the plant got him the original blueprints, and in the tradition of the New York Times and the Pentagon Papers he was going to publish them--the informant knew the plant was going to melt.

"The Foundation, of course, called these guys a 'group of Communist terrorists' who were violating national security by publishing what they called plans for a terrorist group attack on a nuke plant to 'hold the nation as a hostage.' Damn near every major highway and airport was blocked off." He turned back to Keller. "How the hell did you get him across the country in just a couple of hours?"

Keller shrugged bashfully . . . and then he finally dropped his pretense. "It ain't hard at mach two."

"Mach two?" Valerie and Oscar asked together.

"Yeah. Well, I . . . " he regarded them for a moment or two, wondering if they would believe him, before continuing. He decided to go for broke. "…I also stole an F-117."

The room had grown so quiet you could hear a feather drop.

"I was still in the Air Force at the time, so it was no sweat," he went on to explain. "I was stationed at Strategic Air Command headquarters down in Homestead, Florida. When I heard about him through a sympathetic contact of mine in Intelligence, I decided that was the right time for me to split and start doing something good. I told the tower I had some files to take to the Pentagon; they couldn't radar track me, and I went to Chicago instead, where my contact told me the guy would waiting for me in an old warehouse in a corner of O'Hare International. I picked him up, flew him to San Francisco--by the time my CO and everyone else found out what happened, it was too late. No sweat." He smiled in fond memory; it was his first smuggling job.

Valerie gave him a skeptical look as she folded her arms. "You stole an F-117?"

"Yes ma'am."

"You stole a Stealth fighter jet, deserted the Air Force, and flew a fugitive reporter across the country . . . and you never got caught?"

He allowed himself a slight smile.

"That's just a little hard to believe," she said. And then she remembered that this was the guy who had recently downed a helicopter with a car--and without ever firing a single shot. A slow grin spread across her own face, and she shook her head. After all, she had told him herself that he was really something.

She turned to Oscar. "So how are things with you, Oscar?"

"Not bad. A little chubbier, a little grayer. Got married and had a kid. Come on, I'll introduce you."

***

"This is quite a place you've got here," Keller said as he eased back into the sofa that he shared with Valerie. He took a hit from the joint and passed it to her, but she waved it on. "You could have one hell of a nice growing operation here."

"We used to," Rob said. "But customers were getting pretty scarce because of informant paranoia, so we eventually gave it up. There weren't a lot of informants, but just enough to start making us all doubt each other back during the early years. What really gets me is that most of them were just average people, not soldiers, who believed all the bullshit that the government was handing them. They're gone now; once an informer is spotted, well, it's tough to get by, y'know? Especially when you're living in a rural community. So they decided it wasn't worthwhile to stick around."

"However, even with the lack of manpower and technological resources," Oscar said, "the FLM still manages to continue with some aerial surveillance. And they've started spraying again."

"I thought that was outlawed," Valerie said.

"Yeah," Keller agreed. "Wasn't there some major screw-up once? Instead of spraying the pot fields, they hit a vineyard or something?"

"The government doesn't have to stop doing anything that it wants to do," Oscar said, "but you're right about the other thing. What happened was this: back about seven or eight years ago, there was a small group of people who got the idea of growing pot next to a vineyard. They figured no one would take the chance of spraying carcinogenic herbicides around there because a lot of people in the wine industry had a lot to lose if they had their crops wiped out. The Foundation went ahead and sprayed anyway, saying the stuff wouldn't affect the grapevines. They also said the pot fields were down wind of the vineyards." Here he chuckled sarcastically. "But a funny thing happened. On the day of the spraying, the wind shifted and blew the shit all over the place. As the grapevines began to wither and die, the Foundation came in again and said the grapes were perfectly safe . . . "

"Typical," Keller muttered in disgust.

" . . . and all you had to do was just wash them off really well before processing them into wine. As a result, there was a real piss-poor harvest. Not only that, but the herbicide had actually gotten into the grapes themselves. They were used anyway because the Foundation's so-called experts then said they were perfectly safe . . . And never mind that they'd lied once before.

"So people drank the wine. Some of them did, anyway; anyone who advocated a boycott got thrown in jail for being seditionists or some damn thing, and that right there told us all something. Those who did drink it got sick. Liver cancer, renal failure, sterility in some people and birth defects in others, miscarriages, you name it. The Foundation first said there was no proof of any connection to these and the herbicides, but they decided to stop spraying for the time being anyhow so they could really study the problem. Then, after a lot of bad press from the last few remaining independent newspapers, the Foundation apologized to the victims and promised not to spray the stuff around anymore. And they made this really moving plea to the people through the media--'The Lord forgives us our trespasses, so won't you?' That really alienated a lot of people; you won't find much support for the Foundation around here."

"So now that a lot of time has gone by, and they figure everyone's forgotten about it," Rob said, taking up the story, "they've decided to start spraying again because a couple of kilos have been sold from around here. They said it's far more important to stop this 'Satanic drug problem' than it is to worry about the health of a few wine drinkers who really shouldn't be drinking anyway."

"Someone was saying they started the spraying again because some federally subsidized oil company was making the stuff," Julie added, "and that this oil company was making a shitload of money from it and splitting it with members of Congress who had invested in that oil company and had pushed those laws through."

"So nowadays we just grow a little weed," said Karen Corey, Oscar's wife. "We use it for barter when we're low on cash--which is pretty frequently--and we only trade with people that we know really well. Soldiers still come through here every once in a great while, but not as often as they used to."

"As a matter of fact, we just recently picked up a report from some guy from Denver who's looking for you," Rob said.

"It's Colonel Warren," Valerie said. "Did they say where he is?"

"Somewhere in Utah was the last I heard."

Valerie sighed. "Even if he is that far away, I really should be moving on. You know what the penalty is for harboring a fugitive?"

"No worse, I imagine, than it is for having a concealed pot garden," Oscar replied. "Look, it's dark out and it's cold, and no one really wants to go through the woods at night. It may not be very likely that any soldiers would pick you up, but the wolves'll get you for sure."

She was anxious to get to her uncle's ranch, but Oscar was probably right. There was little that could be done tonight, so she might as well stay here for the night. Besides, she finally admitted to herself, she was exhausted and she desperately wanted a hot bath and a good night's sleep.

And then there was Keller. No doubt he would be leaving as soon as he could. He had helped her get to Mendocino, and now that she was here he would probably be in search of a resistance group. After all, he had told her that was what he wanted to do, and now that they were here it was probably time for them to go their separate ways. She wasn't sure of how he'd get around without the car, but Keller was a resourceful man; he would find a way. It was too bad, in a way, because she had grown to like him. Even if he was a sexist oinker, as she had called him several times, she thought there was a lot to like about him. She smiled at the thought, and at the way he had reacted to her accusation.

She watched him through the corner of her eye when he went to speak with Rob to discuss the possibility of finding a group that was fighting against the Foundation's forces. "We're just set up mostly for self-defense," Rob was saying. "Not very well, but it's the best we can do. The Foundation has been drafting people to work in the munitions factories to keep them supplied with arms and ammo, and we've managed to sneak a small number of people in there to try and get us a few arms. We aren't as well equipped to repel or launch a full-scale attack as we'd like to be, but there are a lot of people in the area who could be interested in getting together. I'll take you to meet some of them tomorrow."

Valerie stretched her legs in front of her, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes. She could see Oscar's farm again in her mind as she had seen it when they had first arrived. The main building was good sized, with two stories and seven rooms that housed three men, four women and three children. There was a barn next to the house where there were two cows and a bull, and next to the barn was a chicken coop that housed about thirty chickens that sat on their nests or wandered aimlessly about and cackled endlessly. On the other side of the house was a stable with five horses and their own corral. Behind the house was a large garden where they grew tomatoes, squash, lettuce, cabbage, corn, and a wide variety of beans, and in a secret plot in the woods, about three hundred yards away and well-hidden from view, was the marijuana patch.

"You must be tired," Julie said, and Valerie snapped her eyes open. She had nearly fallen asleep. "There's a spare room upstairs at the end of the hall where you can get some sleep."

"Thanks, I could use some." She realized just now that she was too tired even to take a bath; all she wanted to do now was crash for the night. "I'll see you guys in the morning. G'night."

There was a lively fire already ablaze in the fireplace. Valerie pulled the covers back from the wide four-poster bed, then sat on its edge and took off her boots with a sigh of relief, and massaged her feet. God, it was good to get out of those things at last. She unbuttoned her shirt, slipped it off and draped it over one of the bedposts, then hung her bra on top of it. She left her jeans and underwear in a pile on the hardwood floor next to the bed, and then slid gratefully between the clean, cool sheets that felt so good against her bare skin, and let herself sink against the firm mattress with a deep, satisfied sigh. Almost immediately, visions of the chase swarmed inside her eyelids, and she forced them out. Go 'way, she told them, and it was only a few minutes before she began to doze.

There was a soft knock at the door. "Valerie?" said Keller's voice. "You still awake?"

She pulled the covers up over her shoulders. "Yeah, come on in."

He stepped quietly into the room and closed the door behind him. He approached the bed and sat on its edge. "I just came in to see if you were okay, and to say good night."

"Everything's fine, thanks," she replied, her voice almost a whisper.

"Good . . . " He could think of nothing to say for a moment. The fire popped and crackled in the silence, and the flames cast dancing shadows and orange light on the walls. "Well, it looks like we finally made it," he said. "It's been a long time since I was in this area. It's a beautiful as I remembered it."

"Yes, it is."

More silence.

"Mind if I ask you a question?" she asked.

"Go ahead."

"What was someone like you doing in the Air Force? You sound to me like a guy who's never been too fond of authority."

"I was there to observe, and to learn," he replied. "When I was a kid, I always had this thing about cars and boats and planes and stuff. Dutch is the one who taught me to drive, but there wasn't a lot he could teach me about flying--even though he's a hell of a pilot himself--because he didn't have the equipment. So I joined up with the Air Force and acted like a loyal Party member, and learned as much as I could. I never lost sight of why I was there, though, and I never let those bastards brainwash me. God knows they tried, though, what with their subliminal messages in all that religious music they always played in mess hall and at lights out, and the constant Bible study when we weren't out in the field. And when I heard about that reporter, I figured that was probably the best time for me to make my move and desert . . . and I've never regretted it."

"I imagine the feds are pretty pissed off at you."

"You better believe it," he agreed with a sardonic smile.

For a few moments there was more silence.

"So . . . What are you going to do?" he asked. "Got any plans?"

"I guess I'm going to fix up Uncle Vince's place and move in. It's my home now." She paused for a moment. "What about you?"

He shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "Nothing definite right now. Oscar said he was going to send a couple of his friends out to pick up the car and tow it to a garage somewhere, but he doesn't know how long it'll take them to hunt up the parts for it. It could be a few days, and it could be longer. This isn't quite like L.A., where you can get parts twenty-four hours a day, so I guess in the meantime I'll be hanging around here. Need any help fixing up your new place?"

"I'd like that a lot."

He smiled at her. "Good enough," he said. He looked into her exhausted yet clear amber eyes for a long moment, and then remembered once reading somewhere that the eyes are a window to the soul. In Valerie's eyes, which were usually so expressive and lively but were now falling shut with fatigue, he saw extreme intelligence, compassion, sultriness, and a wry sense of humor . . . and for a moment, he felt as though he was beginning to fall into them.

"You look beat," he said at last. "I think I'd better get out of here and let you get some sleep. I got a sofa waiting for me downstairs." He felt more than a little beat himself.

"You don't like me much, do you?" she suddenly asked. "Is it because I called you a male sexist porker?"

He grinned slowly. "Of course I like you," he said truthfully. "Even if you are one of them uppity feminist broads."

Valerie grinned, too, in spite of her fatigue. "Well, I guess that makes us even," she conceded.

He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "Get some rest; tomorrow we start rebuilding the old family homestead." He rose quietly and went to the door. He turned to look back once more and softly said, "G'night," and closed the door softly behind his back as he left.

Valerie sighed heavily, turned on her side, and was asleep almost as soon as she closed her eyes.

***

He collapsed the telescoping antenna on the hand radio. "Still can't reach them," he said. "Too far out of range, I guess." He put the radio away.

The other soldier, sitting across from him on the other side of the campfire, sighed with relief as he tossed his cigarette butt into the flames. "Good thing, too. He'd probably have us check out that old haunted place that the locals were talking about." He picked up his M-16 and laid it across his knees.

"What's the matter, Art?" he asked with a mocking grin. "You believe in ghosts?"

"I don't know," Art said. He didn't want to think about ghosts too much right now, not out here in the middle of a night-shrouded forest and surrounded by only God knew what kinds of animals that may be out there. The slightest noises made him jump like he had an electric cattle prod shoved two feet up his ass. "Satan is real, right? And demons are real . . . so I guess ghosts have to be real, too. Don't they?"

"I don't know. I kind of doubt it, but I don't know . . . "

A wolf howled in the distance, and a twig snapped nearby. Art jumped like he'd been goosed again, and his partner moved quickly to sit next to him and clutched his rifle close to his chest, and together they stared into the impenetrable darkness.

Chapter Thirteen

It was so different from her neighborhood back in Colorado, Valerie thought as she rode alongside Keller. The air was incredibly fresh and clean, there were birds singing everywhere, and scores of butterflies danced in the sunlight. There were no noisy cars, no blaring horns, no screeching of tires as teenagers raced up and down the streets, and there was none of the toxic stench of automobile exhaust. Just birds and insects and clean, pure air. And it was so very quiet; not absolutely silent, but so very comfortably quiet, with the birds and insects chirping and buzzing, and the soft breeze rustling gently through the treetops. It was even better than she had remembered.

Keller noticed that a subtle change had come over her since they had arrived in Mendocino. She seemed more alive, and more full of energy. It was almost as though just being here had washed away all the fear and grief that she had been feeling before. She still grieved for Tony and Jeff, but she was handling their deaths much better now; she actually seemed to be drawing new strength and energy from the land itself.

She said nothing at first. She just looked at the old house. "Home," she said softly.

"Must've been a nice place before the soldiers shot it all to hell," Keller said as he shifted in his saddle with a creaking of leather. "Makes the place look downright spooky."

Valerie continued to gaze at the house. Except for the addition of the tall weeds growing in front of the porch, the place had not changed much. There had been no one living here for the last ten years, so she didn't even know what kinds of changes she should be looking for, but at least the surrounding landscape looked the way she remembered it. The wooden porch and railing were more rough and weather-worn than she remembered, and bullet holes were visible in the walls and windows; and dried blood could still be seen in the wooden porch, soaked in so deeply that not even ten years of changing seasons could wash it out. The grass was still lush and green, though, and the ferns and redwoods and firs seemed to be much taller than she remembered. Birds sang cheerfully a few yards away, and dozens of butterflies--monarchs, mourning cloaks and swallowtails--danced everywhere. And there was something else here, too; some underlying presence that only she could feel.

"It's not spooky," she said defensively, although she did feel a little . . . "It's just that the place hasn't been cared for in a long time, that's all."

"Uh huh," Keller said quietly as Valerie slid from her horse. He watched her as she slowly approached the wooden steps, and then his eyes returned to the house itself. He slowly dismounted and tied the reins to the porch rail as Valerie went up the steps as though she were in a trance, dimly aware of the hollow sounds her boot heels made on the old wood.

She crossed the porch as Keller moved up slowly behind her, and pushed at the front door. It swung open on creaking hinges, and the two of them went inside.

The house looked as though it had been deserted for a century rather than a decade. The dust on the floor and shelves was thick and gray-white, and occasionally it blew softly about with a slight gust of air that slithered in through a shattered window. Cobwebs hung from the shelves and in corners, and from the heavy brass candlesticks and books and oil lamps, yet there didn't seem to be any musty smell that is usually associated with houses that have been closed off for so long.

Valerie went to inspect the bookshelves while Keller stood near the door. He watched her silently, looking for any signs of . . . he wasn't sure. Delayed shock? It was a good possibility. The last time she had been here was when her family had been killed, and Keller had seen enough of delayed shock himself back in El Salvador. Not to mention that he had once been a victim of it, so he knew what she must have been going through right now.

The bookshelves were constructed of simple rosewood boards and large black decorator bricks, and covered an entire wall. And the books they held were of a wide variety: philosophy, political science, political satire, environmental science, science fiction, non-fiction, anti-nuclear, and anti-Foundation. And hanging in a glassed-in frame on a wall next to the shelves was an old, yellowed replica of a document that, for a brief moment, made Valerie's heart race with pride and respect: it was a copy of the Bill of Rights, a document that did not grant rights to a nation of free citizens but rather recognized them. But rubber-stamped across it, in red block letters, were the words "Canceled by Order of the Foundation for Law and Morality."

Her gaze returned to the books, and she silently read off a few titles. "Hidden Channels Of The Mind," was one of them, by Louisa E. Rhine. "Telepathy," by Sybil Leek; "The Handbook of Psychic Discoveries," by Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder; and another book that she recognized immediately: "Born Again," by Hans Holzer.

(the attic)

What? she thought, shaking her head slightly. It seemed as though . . .

"You okay?" Keller asked softly.

"Sure, I'm fine."

He watched her for a moment longer, and then turned his attention to an expensive Toshiba stereo system on the other side of the room. He went over to it and pushed gently on the receiver's power button. As he pretty much expected, nothing happened. "Did your uncle have a generator somewhere?"

"There's a water-powered generator way out back," Valerie replied distantly.

The attic, the voice whispered in her mind again.

"I'm going to see if I can get it working."

Valerie turned slowly toward the stairs. Massive cobwebs hung from the ceiling to the broken banister and down to the floor. She remembered that several days ago she had been telling herself she had to see what was inside the attic; now, as she headed for the stairs, she felt as though she was being propelled, as if by some outside entity which had suddenly taken possession of her, and which wanted very much to show her something.

***

Keller walked slowly across the kitchen, where he could hear the faint sounds of flowing water. Here he found a heavy wood-burning stove, and across the room was a small refrigerator. A heavy redwood table and six matching chairs commanded the center of the room, and brownish rust-like stains could be seen on the floor--stains of spilled blood. This place is going to take a lot of cleaning, he thought. He crossed the kitchen to the back door and stepped outside. Kinda nice to see a forest from your back porch, he thought with a smile as he stepped down. The woods were only about a hundred feet away. A few tall wooden poles--simple pine 2x4s--formed a line that led from the back of the house and into the forest, and hanging from them was a pair of cables. He followed them through the trees, and they led him to a river that flowed some one hundred yards from the edge of the clearing, its water rushing briskly. At the head of the river was a wide pool that was some twenty yards wide, where one could safely go swimming on hot summer days or on mild summer evenings, and falling into this was a twenty foot high waterfall, whose water fell in a shimmering curtain of white and pale clear blue. At the top of the waterfall was a pipe-frame construction that supported a large waterwheel.

Nice piece of work, he thought with an admiring grin. Free and unlimited electricity. What would the electric companies say?

Many of the wheel's paddles were gone, having fallen and floated down the wide river, and the frame itself was ready to join them, but after a few minutes' examination he came to the conclusion that with some effort he could get it working again. It might take some time, but he was in no hurry. Maybe there was something in the barn he could use. With his thumbs hitched in his belt, he turned and started for the barn.

***

The attic was closed, dark and dusty. The door slowly creaked open on its rusty hinges to reveal Valerie standing in its frame, and she stepped cautiously inside. The first thing that struck her was the fact that this room looked exactly as it had in her vision that night with Tony . . . even though she had never been in here before. She had tried to sneak in several times as a child, but she had always been caught--it had been a game that she and her mother had always enjoyed. She walked slowly across the room, stepping carefully over a collection of assorted junk that had been tossed carelessly up here, to a small, octagonal, blue-tinted window, and pulled it open to let in some light and fresh air. When she turned from the window she found, resting on the floor in a darkened corner, the large brassbound wooden trunk that she had seen in her mind. She knelt in front of it and ran her hands lightly over the old wood and stained metal, and images of her mother--whether they were psychic flashes or merely memories, she couldn't be certain--suddenly came to her mind. It was almost as if those ten long years had never existed, and she suddenly remembered playing in the woods and swimming in the cool river which gave so much relief from the heat of summer. Her brother was there, too, laughing and playing, and tossing a Frisbee for Gus, their big Golden Retriever, to snatch out of the air and joyfully rip to pieces. Valerie smiled at the memory as she gently fingered the massive padlock that held the trunk's lid securely shut.

The lock fell off and hit the wooden floor with a thud.

She flinched and gasped, and her heart seemed to skip a couple of beats. She slowly reached for the lock and examined it. It had been locked, hadn't it? She wasn't sure now. Her attention had been on the trunk itself, rather than on the lock, but it was obvious that the lock wasn't broken or rusted through. It didn't matter now, though, as another question crossed her mind: how could it have removed itself from the closed hasp?

She opened the hasp and slowly lifted the lid, and looked inside.

It was full of her mother's belongings. A feeling of warmth and love washed over her as she examined old jewelry, clothes, and other personal items. She found an old black velvet dress that was still in good condition, and with it a matching jacket and a white silk blouse. They looked as though they would fit her perfectly, and she made a mental note to try them on later. There were also small colored bottles of heavy cut glass that contained perfume and scented oils, and in the bottom there were books on plants and their medicinal purposes. And under those were books of magic. Not the sleight-of-hand tricks practiced by stage magicians, but of real magic. One of them was a hand-made spiral bound notebook; on its dull brown cover were the black letters "Book of Shadows." Valerie opened it slowly and read the first page. "For Valerie, on your seventeenth birthday. Use it wisely, and Blessed Be. Love, Alexa." The book was a combination of a diary and a book of magic spells and rituals; health spells, healing spells, garden spells for healthy crops and successful harvests, and spells of self-defense, to be used in times of desperation and to save a life, and to actively protect one's self and others.

"Oh, Mom," she said. Tears began to well in her eyes as her voice choked. She had never known, until now, that her mother had been a witch--and that she had been saving this book for her for all those years, never even suspecting that she would not have the opportunity to personally give it to her.

"Hey, Valerie?" Keller's voice shouted from the living room. "Where are you?"

She quickly wiped away the tears. "Up here, in the attic," she replied as she heard him coming up the stairs.

"That waterwheel's a mess, and the generator's going to need a lot of work," he said as he stopped and stood in the doorway, "but with some sweat and some cussin' I think we can get them working pretty well . . . Hey, are you okay?" He gave her a concerned look.

"Sure, I'm fine. I found some stuff that my mom left for me."

"Oh . . . " He was silent for a moment, uncertain of what to say as she began to put things back into the trunk. "Well, listen. I was going to head back to Oscar's place and see if I can pick up a few parts somewhere. Want to come along?"

"No, I don't think so. I guess I'll stay here and see if I can get things cleaned up a little."

"You're sure you'll be okay?"

She smiled at him. "Sure--it's my home. Remember? What can happen to a girl in her own home?"

"I guess it depends on whether you're way out here or in the middle of New York," he said to himself. "Okay. I'll be back in a couple of hours or so."

"Okay."

She could hear him as he headed back down the stairs, and a moment later there was the retreating sound of a horse's hooves, and then Valerie was alone. She turned back to the trunk and started looking through it again. Inside, she found a small, handcrafted wooden box that was painted a brownish orange with intricate black markings. She opened it and found something wrapped in blue silk. What she unwrapped was a Tarot deck, identical to the one that she had found at George's bookstore. My God, she thought with wide-eyed wonder . . . She also found a sparkling object that hung from a brown leather lace. It was a silver pentacle; a five-pointed star within a circle, that was about three and a half centimeters in diameter and with its top point toward the chain loop. There was a round, polished piece of obsidian in its center that was topped by the silver horns of a crescent moon. My God, she thought again, even more fascinated now with the idea that her own mother had been a witch. Why didn't she ever tell me? she silently asked herself. She slipped the pentacle over her head and around her neck, and continued to rummage about in the trunk some more. In it she found old clothes, small jars of dried herbs, a couple of pairs of dark-brown moccasins--one ankle-high and unlined, and the other almost knee-high and lined with fleece--and a matching buckskin jacket with a sash but no buttons to hold it closed. There were brightly tie-dyed t-shirts, faded blue jeans--one pair with the legs cut off to make a pair of shorts--and a faded pair of black jeans, a pair of buckskin shorts and matching long pants. Everything looked as though it would fit perfectly.

She took another look at the pentacle she wore. I'll be damned, she thought with an amused grin. I guess Warren wasn't so far off the mark after all, about me being a witch. She picked up the Book of Shadows, then leaned with her back against the trunk and drew up her knees, and rested the book against her lap to study.

***

About an hour later she heard the voices. "Go on in," one of them said. "I'll keep watch out here in case anyone shows up."

"Who's going to show up in a place like this?" asked the other. "I'll bet she's a hundred miles from here. I know I wish I was."

Valerie softly put the book down and crept toward the open window. Quietly and cautiously, she peered over its edge and looked outside…and her heart froze.

Standing outside by a pair of horses were two men dressed in the all-too familiar black fatigues, with their black helmets buckled by their chins traps to their belts. Oh God, she thought, what are they doing here? He's supposed to be in Utah!

"What's the matter--you scared? I thought I'd never see a Holy Guard who was a coward."

"I'm not a coward!" Art said defensively.

"Then why don't you go on in?"

"I just think it'd be wiser to wait for some back-up, that's all."

"Yeah, well, there is no back-up. It's just you and me, kiddo, and we can't wait for God knows how long it'll take for those guys to get here. If they ever get here."

Just these two, she thought as she started for the stairs. Small relief. In a bizarre way, this was almost comical; they sounded like a couple of chicken shit kids, each daring the other to go first. If it hadn't been a couple of soldiers out there, she would probably be thinking of ways of scaring them off.

She was dimly aware of the weight of the talisman around her neck as she came into the living room to look for a weapon. She had to defend the house somehow; it was her home now, and she would not tolerate an invasion by these Foundation bastards that represented the established authority and spread lies about her; the same authority that had destroyed her family ten years ago. But what could she do? God, if only Keller were here! But she was on her own now, and she couldn't go on relying on him; it was up to her to fight off the soldiers.

Art's footsteps began to cross the porch. Call me a coward, huh? he thought. Last night you were more scared than I was. He stepped up to the door and put his hand on the handle.

Valerie's eyes darted to the massive stone fireplace. She quickly went to it and picked up the poker that stood leaning against the stone encasement, then went to crouch behind the sofa, gripping the poker tightly.

The door slowly creaked open. Slightly muffled footsteps walked slowly across the thin rug, then stopped in the middle of the room. There was only silence, for a moment, as the soldier looked around. "Come on in, Dick. You should see this place."

At the sound of his voice, Valerie stood with the poker in her hand. She cocked her arm back and threw it as hard as she could, and it whizzed end over end across the room to strike the soldier in the back of the head. He went down with a grunt.

The other Guard saw him fall, and rushed into the house, pulling his helmet from his belt and clamping it onto his head before Valerie had a chance to retrieve the poker. Their eyes met, and he immediately recognized her from the poster he carried. "You!" He quickly regarded his partner, who lay bleeding on the floor, and let the hatred flare in his eyes as he raised them once more to look back at the dark-haired woman. "Dead or alive, bitch," he said, "I'm taking you in. And I'd just as soon have you dead." He kicked the poker toward the door and far out of her reach, and advanced slowly, like a predator stalking its prey. He slipped the strap of his rifle from his shoulder.

Valerie backed slowly away, trying to feel her way behind her. She edged around the sofa, and glanced frantically around in search of another weapon. She took another two steps backward, and stumbled over the low coffee table behind her to fall sprawling on her back. The soldier quickly came around the sofa, smiling maliciously and drawing out her terror. Valerie knew right then that she was about to die; and then, in the back of her mind, she suddenly remembered something she had once been told so long ago: "If you ever need our help, I mean really need it, you call and we'll come."

She never needed his help more than she did right now; and the twelve-year-old girl inside her suddenly screamed, "Uncle Vince, help me!"

With a sneer of hatred and contempt, the soldier raised his rifle to his shoulder and aimed it at her chest.

The living room door suddenly burst open with a gale-force blast of Arctic wind that nearly tore it from its hinges. Books, magazines and curtains were torn from their resting places and blown about in a raging tempest, and with them the soldier was blown from his feet and thrown against a far wall where he lay, momentarily dazed yet still clutching his M-16. Valerie rolled against the blast of air and lay in the shelter of the sofa, and covered her head with her arms as heavy objects blew about like leaves in a raging hurricane. And then the door slammed shut with a thunderous crash that shook the entire house--and as papers, magazines and the heavy curtains settled and became still, everything was suddenly very quiet once again.

The soldier slowly sat up and looked around as terror etched itself across his face with cold, metal claws. A thousand questions ran through his mind, all having to do with devils and demons, and suddenly he was very much afraid. He looked over at Valerie and asked, "What in God's name was that?"

She slowly pushed herself up to a kneeling position by the sofa, and looked around for a moment in mystified awe at the sudden mess. Her eyes were wide and her jaw hung slightly in sudden astonishment, but suddenly she wasn't afraid any more.

Help had arrived.

***

Keller was carrying a pair of saddlebags filled with parts for the waterwheel toward one of Oscar's horses when a mild feeling of anxiety suddenly washed over him. He slowed as he tossed a leather bag over the saddle, and then stopped.

"What's the matter?" Oscar asked.

"I don't know. Nothing, I guess . . . " He tried to shake the feeling, but it refused to go away. There was no apparent cause for it, but still it continued to nag at him like an unrelenting in-law.

He looked at Oscar. "You think Valerie's okay out there?"

"Sure. Why shouldn't she be?"

"I don't know . . . " He tried again to shrug off the feeling, but his "smuggler's instinct" alarm wouldn't go away. Turning away from the saddlebags, he slid one foot into a stirrup, pulled at the saddle horn, and swung his other leg over. "It's probably nothing," he said, unconvinced, "but I'm going out there anyway." He snapped the reins, kicked with his heels, and took off at a full gallop.

Oscar hesitated for a moment, then started for another horse. He didn't like the idea of running out to that old haunted place, even though it had once been the home of his oldest and closest friend. He had heard some strange and inexplicable things there on his few visits after the shooting had finished, and those horrible sounds had scared him enough to make him swear he would never return.

But now Valerie was there, and she might be in trouble. At least that was what Keller seemed to think, and Oscar didn't think he should go there alone. "Rob!" he called out. "C'mon, we're going out to the Ryan place!" He mounted another horse and took off after Keller. It's nothing, he silently said to himself as his stomach twisted in a nervous knot. We'll get out there and everything will be okay . . . I hope.

***

The soldier stood and stared at the door, with the pistol grip of his rifle still in his hand and the barrel angled toward the floor, the weapon momentarily forgotten. There was nothing there, but he knew he was no longer alone with the witch. The best thing he could do now was to kill her and leave his partner's body, and just get the hell out of here as fast as he could.

He turned back and approached her, and raised the rifle a little higher as he looked into the puzzled--not terrified or even mildly worried, but puzzled--amber eyes of the helpless woman on the floor. I'll put some fear into her, by God, he thought as he brought the rifle's muzzle up and pointed it at her chest once more.

"Die, witch."

Something invisible grabbed the rifle and yanked it out of his hands, as easily as an adult would hastily disarm a small child, and sent it flying across the room to land near the front door.

The soldier stood paralyzed with sudden fear as the room's temperature rapidly plunged to the levels of a walk-in freezer. He was barely aware that his breath was turning to vapor before his terror-filled eyes, and he shivered violently with cold and terror as he tried to comprehend what was happening. Demons? he wondered. Could it really be demons? It wasn't worth it to him to find out. Hiding behind his badge of authority while harassing defenseless civilians was one thing; he could certainly live with that. But he had never been prepared for something like this!

God forgive me, but this just isn't worth it! he thought. His partner was dead--he has to be dead, look at the way he's bleeding!--and he didn't want to die with him; all he wanted to do now was escape. Just run like hell and never look back. His eyes returned to Valerie, and he began to slowly back away from her and move toward the door, unnoticed (he hoped) by the invisible force.

The unseen assailant grabbed him by the front of his coat and threw him violently across the room as though he were nothing more than a rag doll. It slammed him against a far wall with enough force to rattle it and the ceiling, and let him slump to the floor. Sweat broke out on his face and neck, and suddenly he had an urge to soil himself. "Demons!" he whispered to himself as he raised a severely trembling hand to straighten his helmet, which had fallen askew despite the chinstrap. "God help me, it really is demons!" He scrambled to his feet and ran for the front door. The invisible hand caught him by the throat, and threw him against the wall again--and this time it held him pinned there. Valerie watched in horrified fascination as the soldier began to strangle when a set of icy steel fingers sank into his flesh. The air grew even colder, and Valerie could see the frost and ice that were growing on the few remaining windows that had been left unbroken. She could see her own breath now, as large, trailing white clouds of vapor, and she could see the indentations on the Guard's throat as the pressure of the invisible fingers increased. His hands were at his throat in a vain effort to pry them loose, but the feeling in his own fingers told him there was nothing there. The pressure grew even stronger, and the soldier made moist, gurgling sounds. He thrashed wildly, trying to kick at the assailant, but there just wasn't anything there to fight. He kicked with both feet, and that was when Valerie realized he was beginning to rise into the air, held against the wall and suspended by nothing but an invisible pressure at his throat. He rose even higher, and then his helmet was touching the ceiling, and still he couldn't break the hold on his throat. His vision was beginning to fade and his face felt as though it was about to burst with hot pressure. His face went red as his tongue began to turn blue; blood vessels in his eyes ruptured, and crimson tears squirted and fell down his cheeks. He thrashed in wild panic, like a trout on a line, kicking and twisting as something continued to strangle the life out of him. His struggles weakened as his vision faded, but still he fought, even with diminishing strength. His struggles grew weaker and weaker, and then, finally, they ceased.

From the floor, where she was still sitting back on her heels, Valerie could hear the sounds of crackling bones as the soldier's neck was crushed. And then the entire body shuddered for a moment, as if some great effort was being expended to be certain that the Guard was dead.

And then there was only silence.

***

When Keller and the others finally arrived, he was relieved to find her sitting on the porch. But even from this distance he could tell there was something wrong. He drew up to her and dismounted, and approached her quickly. "Are you okay?"

Valerie sat with her elbows on her knees, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. Then she slowly looked up at him, and squinted against the warm, brilliant sunlight. "They're inside," she said. "They're dead."

Keller stared at her as Oscar and Rob went inside. "Dead?" he asked, and then he began to follow them inside. "Who's dead?" Then he tripped over a body. "Oh, shit!"

"Holy Mother of Christ," Rob said, his voice a shocked whisper.

Keller got up and looked over at Rob, and saw the horrified look on his face. Then he looked to where Rob was staring, and his blood ran cold.

The other soldier's body was still hanging against the wall, like a grotesque hunter's trophy. It floated there with its head tilted at a horrible angle, and for a moment it reminded him of a hanging that he'd once seen down in Mexico; the only difference here was that there was no rope, or anything else, that held the body from the ground. Oh my God, he thought, what the hell's happening here?

Oscar's eyes were also wide in terror. "Dear God, it's really true!"

"What?" Keller asked, staring in horror at the floating corpse and slowly backing away. "What're you talking about?"

"This house; it really is haunted!"

The three men stood in paralyzed silence as they stared at the floating body.

"He's back." Valerie's voice came from behind them, and the sound of it made all three men start violently. She was standing in the doorway, darkly silhouetted in its frame against the bright sunlight. "Uncle Vince has come back."

Chapter Fourteen

Colonel Warren checked his watch again as he waited impatiently for the new rotors that were on the way, and as he did he reminded himself once more to deal most severely with that fucking deserter when all of this was over. That bastard had sabotaged the radios, too; they had to scavenge parts from the others to get just one on-line so they could call for help.

Because the Plagues had taken so many lives worldwide, it was hard to keep a strong work force. The American population alone was only about a third of what it used to be, and so was the military, so many highly trained technical people were needed to keep the wheels of the corporate government turning and to turn society into a proper and God-fearing Christian state. But now few of these people were available. They were needed primarily in the military and defense-related industries, and even though there were some true believers in the FLM who would do anything they could--even for free, if they thought it necessary--their numbers were far too small. For some reason, an increasing number of people nowadays seemed to be infected with some nonsense they called "personal conscience," or "personal responsibility," or some other crap like that. Some soldiers, no doubt, even used this dubious excuse as a reason for desertion--the gutless bastard who had sabotaged this caravan was a perfect example, Warren reminded himself. And there was a lot of desertion, too--especially among the draftees--despite the threats of on-the-spot execution. The bastards. They just didn't want to serve their Lord and Nation, that's all, Warren firmly believed.

In the early days of the Plagues, the American people had gone flooding to the Foundation, because when they had tried to question their elected representatives about these tens of thousands of deaths, they received no answers. Fear had mounted and had driven people to their local churches like never before, because in the churches there were answers. Not necessarily accurate or even truthful answers, but they were answers, and any answer was better than the stonewalling that they got from their representatives. And television and radio evangelists of the FLM had claimed over the airwaves that the End Times were upon them; that the world was about to be destroyed by fire, as predicted in the Bible . . . and never mind that once again they had to re-interpret--or alter--the word of their god. The Bible had never foretold of the fires of nuclear Armageddon; now it was claimed that it had accurately prophesied the fires of raging fevers.

They had begged for our guidance! Warren told himself. They elected us to office so that they could be certain that what was being done in their name by their Government was right. But lately, for some reason, they had begun to disagree with the Foundation; they had begun to think for themselves. They were almost becoming what some in the FLM called "devil-worshiping Communist atheists." Dear God, we're losing ground, Warren told himself. It was a good thing that the Foundation was in full control of all the media now, because if they hadn't been in control . . . if the FLM had been unable to synchronize the media . . . if the American people knew how weak the FLM really was . . . dear God, they could overthrow the Foundation so quickly that . . . that . . . Well, it's best not to think about that, Warren concluded. It was a good thing that they had been able to seize all those firearms through the national registry, too, because . . . If even a fourth of the remaining population owned firearms, we'd be in deep sh . . . serious trouble, he corrected himself.

Warren didn't like thinking about this, so to cheer himself up he thought back to his very first arrest. A bust, they used to call it in the old days. A bust? Why did they call it that? The term had always brought to his mind a vision of a pair of breasts, round and full, and eager to be caressed. He tried not to think about that sort of thing; it wasn't proper to think about that kind of thing, because if you did then you would start thinking about other parts of female anatomy, and that would bring on thoughts of lust and sex--two more subjects that were the Devil's traps. Yes, it was always best not to think about such things. Terminology such as that had been banned once the FLM had taken direct control over the military and all law enforcement agencies.

Warren's first arrest (bust) had been in what had once been a middle-class neighborhood that had gradually fallen into decay. Dying trees, old cars junked at the curbs, and graffiti-sprayed fences and houses decorated the area. Everyone had complained about these blights in their city, but the local government did nothing about them because most of the city's money was being spent on the politicians' over-inflated salaries and on law enforcement programs.

A concerned citizen, taking advantage of one of those many anonymous-tip telephone numbers, had called in to report a possible drug deal that was going down in a neighbor's home. There was loud rock and roll music (which was the real cause of the complaint, and the "concerned citizen" wanted to make certain that his neighbor was never heard from again), which, in the minds of many, was a sure tip-off that there was a lot of drug use going on. People were going in and out of the house at random, there were some beer bottles on the lawn, and there was much laughing and singing. With such activities going on, what else could it have been but some sort of a druggies' celebration? They're all out there, all those drug-crazed fiends, just waiting to grab innocent children--just eight, nine, and ten-year-old children!--and turn them into addicts and worse so they could sell their drugs to them, and then use them to sell to their friends at school. That was how drug use spread, wasn't it? the citizen had asked the Guards when he filed his false report. Yes sir, the desk soldier had replied, that was exactly how drugs spread. ("But where does a ten-year-old child get the money to support one of these 'hundred-dollar-a-day' habits that we hear so much about?" another of the citizen's neighbors had once asked. "What are you," the citizen countered with a suspicious snarl, "a Communist druggie yourself or something?") It's a good thing you called us, sir, we'll send some units out there right away.

Warren had been out of the Academy for barely a month, and the prospect of finally being in on an arrest, after those four long years of studying and preparing himself for a career in morals protection, had excited him. He could clearly remember approaching the house with his partner, a six-year veteran, and crawling over the back fence and hunkering down behind the bushes, waiting for the right moment. He was so proud of himself for having been the first to spot two suspects in the back yard--a young man and a woman who had been sitting on a blanket under a tree, gazing up at the stars and touching each other intimately. He had started to move forward when his partner had stopped him. "Not yet," the veteran had whispered. They waited for a few minutes longer, and a match flared, illuminating the man's face. He hadn't been any older than Warren himself, the rookie had noticed as the flame touched the tip of a cigarette. The match went out and the cigarette was passed to the woman, who had also taken a puff. "Now!" the veteran had said. They had needed to wait until the suspects had been engaged in a criminal activity, and the sight of them lighting and passing the joint back and forth was all that was necessary to establish probable cause--and it was up to the arresting officers to determine what "probable cause" was. Warren had leapt zealously to his feet, pointed a quivering pistol, and shouted, "Freeze! You're under arrest!" The man and woman, startled, began to rise to their feet, and Warren shouted, "Go on, try it!" just like he had always heard in the cop movies. "Come on, try it! I'll blow your brains out!" His finger had already begun to tighten on the trigger as he thought about all the children that these two criminals would destroy if he allowed them to roam free. His partner laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder and said, "Calm down, Elias, we've got them."

The "joint" turned out to be nothing but a common cigarette, but that didn't matter. The suspects had not appeared to be under the influence of marijuana, but that didn't matter, either. They had been on the same property with an acquaintance that happened to have had half an ounce of weed, and failure to report known possession of drugs to the authorities was enough to charge them with conspiracy to possess. Warren had been so very proud when they had taken the "addicts" to jail, showing everyone he saw that the handcuffs on the woman's wrists were his. The criminals were booked and sent off to ten-year prison terms.

That morning, when his shift was over, Warren had gone home to his small apartment and prayed for forgiveness for having committed the heinous sin of pride. It had been the Lord, he told himself, who had directed him to those two criminals in the back yard; the Lord had pointed them out to him before his partner had seen them. It had been a sign from the Lord Himself that he had found his calling.

Warren sighed in fond memory.

There was another time, however, when Warren's enthusiasm and indignant self-righteousness had lost him an arrest. There had been a man who had gone to the school board with a fiery complaint about religion being taught in the public school that his daughter attended. "Where the hell does a public school get off teaching creationism?" he had demanded. "I send my kid to school for an education, not to hear a bunch of Bible stories. Have you people ever heard of the First Amendment? The separation of church and state--does that ring any bells?"

"Mr. Winger," the school board president had said, after first calling the authorities--he had expected trouble from Mr. Winger; over the phone he had sounded very pissed off indeed, and the school board president had wanted the Guards there for protection. Warren, a sergeant at the time, had been one of the soldiers present. "Mr. Winger, the teaching of Creation science is standard curriculum these days. The secular humanists and the anti-God evolutionists have had free reign to spout their religion and ideas and theories for years; the Creation scientists simply want equal time to present their views."

"Equal time?" Winger had said, and had wondered how secular humanism--which, as near as he could tell, was defined as non-religious thought or action which was concerned with the interests and ideals of humanity--could be called a religion. It didn't make sense. "I looked through my kid's biology book, and there isn't one word mentioned about evolution. If you're so interested in 'equal' time, how come you don't teach Buddhist or American Indian beliefs about the beginning of life? Why isn't evolution mentioned at all? Hell, you people aren't interested in equal time--you want it all."

"You may feel that way if you wish," the school board president said, "but--"

"Oh, thanks for your kind permission," Winger said sarcastically.

"--Creation science is a part of the school program."

"Religion should be taught at home and in the church, and not controlled by the State!"

"It is not religion!" the president had countered stridently, emboldened by the presence of the soldiers. "And we cannot make exceptions as to who learns what! Your daughter cannot and will not be excused from history or biology classes simply because you do not agree with some of the doctrines being taught."

Winger had glared at the school board president with cold rage. "Then I'll pull her out of school," he had growled at last. "She is still my kid, and--"

"You do that," Warren had said, breaking in and stepping forward, "and you will be arrested as an unfit parent, and your daughter will be taken away from you and placed in a proper Christian foster home."

Winger looked at Warren and said nothing. The glare in his eyes, however, said it all for him. Without another word, he left the office.

"Call the school tomorrow," Warren had told the president. "If his daughter doesn't show up for attendance, give me a call at this number." He handed him a card. It was a standard-sized business card, white with black old-English script.

The Winger girl did not show up for school the next day. It seemed, Warren had thought, that he'd kept his word about taking his daughter out of school. And I shall keep mine, Warren had thought. He and three other soldiers had gone to Winger's rented home that same morning, but when they arrived there the place was empty. Some time during the night, Winger, his wife, and his daughter, and all the possessions that could be crammed into the car on such short notice, had all disappeared.

If only I had kept my mouth shut a little while longer, Warren thought, I could have had him. Vile heretics. His daughter is probably a prostitute by now.

But why hadn't the Lord told him that Winger was planning to leave the city? Sergeant Warren could have had them all! And then he immediately took the question back, because one does not question the Lord, one merely accepts what He does.

He looked at his watch again. Still nothing on those replacement rotors that were supposed to be on their way. Damned slackers. Well, no matter. Time was really of little matter, whether the witch was on the move or not. After all, the Lord was on Colonel Warren's side, and with the Lord on his side nothing could go wrong.

Chapter Fifteen

Valerie rode next to Keller during the trip back to Oscar's commune. Oscar and Rob kept a wary eye on her, and when she would happen to look their way their eyes would quickly shift to the path ahead or to the surrounding trees and sky.

"Come on, you guys," she said at last. "You don't really think I did that . . . do you?"

Oscar and Rob said nothing. They didn't know if she did it herself, or if she had called on outside help to do it, or what. All they knew was that she had inherited a haunted house, and that a soldier had died under really, really weird supernatural circumstances. And now it also made them wonder about the witchcraft charge that was hanging over her head like an executioner's axe; was there something to it after all?

"What about you, Keller? Are you afraid of me, too?"

"Of course not," he replied. "We all know you didn't do that. Right, guys?"

He was answered by an almost palpable silence.

"I don't know what the hell happened in there," Oscar finally said with a soft voice, almost as though he were afraid to be heard. He had known Valerie for years; she was the niece of one of his closest friends, and the daughter of the other. Of course he cared about her, and that was why he had gone with Keller to her aid; she was like his own daughter. But he had also gone for a selfish reason: to prevent the soldiers from reporting the fact that he and his extended family were all guilty of giving aid and comfort to a fugitive of The Law. It had been little surprise to him that Valerie could take care of herself, but it was the way in which she defended herself that scared him so much. What would happen, he could not help wondering, if he should unintentionally offend or anger her? Would he, too, wind up floating in mid-air with his neck crushed to a pulp?

He told himself his fears were groundless. She wouldn't do that to him; they were old friends, and he had truly wanted to help her. He had nothing to fear from her. But the things he now knew she could do did more than unnerve him; they scared him something fierce.

"This is a very weird situation," he said at last. "I mean, I've never seen anything like that before."

"Hey, it's a first for me, too," she said.

My God, Rob was thinking, how the hell did she do that?

"It wasn't me," Valerie said, and Rob suddenly wondered if she was simply trying once more to convince them of that, or if she had somehow read his mind. He was beginning to believe it was the latter. "At least, I don't think it was. I think it was Uncle Vince."

"Ryan?" Rob asked. "I doubt that. He's been dead a long time."

"True," she agreed, and then smiled a little bit as she added, "but that doesn't mean he's gone."

***

"I mean it, Valerie," Julie was saying, "I really don't think it's safe for you to move in there. Why not stay here? There's plenty of room."

"Thanks, Julie, but I can't. It's my home now, and I'm going to live there. Besides, I think Rob's scared of me."

The two women were in Julie's bedroom. Julie was reclining on the bed with one elbow supporting her, and Valerie was sitting in the window and watching the curved sliver of moon come up as an old Moody Blues compact disc--"Nights In White Satin"--played softly in the background. A fire in the fireplace and two oil lamps lighted the room. As they talked, a part of Valerie's mind was outside; she was thinking that it looked as though they just might have themselves a full moon on Halloween this year.

Julie sat up and crossed her legs. "Look," she said. She rested her elbows on her knees and laced her fingers. "Two soldiers have already showed up there. That means someone is expecting to hear from them, right? What do you suppose is going to happen? How long do you think it'll be before they send in a whole platoon to look for those guys? What are you going to do then?"

Maybe someone is expecting to hear from them, Valerie thought. Maybe they had already made their report and then found the place. Maybe they hadn't been sent there at all, but were lost and had simply stumbled over the place. That wasn't too hard to believe, she felt. A lot of unqualified people had joined the Foundation's military because it was easier than going to college, and one could still get a modicum of an education and make a little money. It was a lot of maybes, but she felt that for the time being she was in no danger; the voice that had told her of the approach of the soldiers in Denver and in the desert was silent now. And after what she had been through, she was determined to stop and catch her breath while she could.

And if they did come for her, would Keller stay and help her? Helping to fix the place up was one thing, but possibly laying down his life for it was something else.

She sighed. "I don't know," she said. "I appreciate your concern, I really do. But it's my home now. And if the soldiers are going to come and get me, well . . . they're gonna have a fight on their hands."

"You could get killed."

"I know. But I think I'd rather die fighting for what's mine than get chased across the country again, or get thrown into one of their dungeons. I ran from here once already after they killed my family. Then they killed Tony and Jeff, and they chased me out of Colorado. I'm tired of running, and I figure it's time I start fighting."

"Well, if that's your decision, then I guess that's it. But if you ever need help, you know where to come."

***

She was in the midst of house cleaning the next day when she allowed herself to be distracted by the books she had found in her mother's trunk. She and Keller had returned this morning to perform the grisly job of disposing of the two bodies--to either bury them in the woods or dump them in a pit somewhere. Keller had suggested they just toss them into the river and let the current carry them out to sea, but Valerie had objected to this idea on environmental grounds. "There's already enough shit in the water to worry about," she had said with a grim smile and a disparaging tone that actually made the cynical Keller wince slightly.

But when they got there, the two soldiers were gone. There had been no evidence of military activity in the area; if the soldiers had found the bodies, they would have been out interrogating everyone in the area. No vehicles had been seen on the narrow roads outside of the immediate area, and no horses had been heard trotting along the trails. The bodies had simply disappeared--much to Keller's relief. He'd had no idea of how to deal with them. If the one body was still hanging by some supernatural force, how was he going to move it? Would it suddenly collapse on top of him, like some ghastly bundle of laundry? He was greatly relieved to find that the matter had been taken out of his hands. So with that problem solved, he had gone outside to work on the generator.

She looked around the living room to see how much more work she was in for, and watched the motes of dust as they floated silently through the shafts of sunlight that fell streaming through the windows and displaced by her movements, only to settle again where it would later be wiped away once more. I need a break, she told herself as she tossed the dust cloth onto one of the bookshelves she was cleaning. The seemingly unending dusting, sweeping and mopping would just have to wait for now.

Her down vest and boots were retired to the closet until the weather turned colder, and now she wore faded jeans, the ankle-high moccasins, and a spare tie-dyed t-shirt she had found the day before. She propped her feet on the coffee table as she sat on the sofa, opened her mother's Book of Shadows, and began leafing through its pages. The entire book, perhaps a hundred pages or so, was written in Alex St. James's own hand. The pages were filled with recipes, magic spells, herbal recipes, dreams, charms, rituals, and personal reflections. She stopped at an early page that showed a diagram of the pentacle she wore around her neck, and read the words that were gracefully written below.

"The pentagram, as drawn, or the pentacle, if it is an actual object, represents the five elements of creation," she read softly, "being Spirit, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. The circle around the five points represents the force of Life, or God or the Goddess, or the Great Spirit that connects them all. It also represents a circle of protection, meaning that the wearer of a pentacle is protected by the Powers of the Five Elements. The pentacle is always worn point up; if it is drawn, the pentagram's point is always up, representing the predominance of the eternal Spirit over all. While the physical body dies, it is the divine spirit that lasts forever--and it is this belief that also supports our belief in reincarnation. The pentagram also represents a balance between the five elements, and it also represents humankind--head, arms, and legs--surrounded by the Circle of Protection, and the Circle of Life, Death and Rebirth.

"There are those who claim that it is the sign of the Devil; this simply is not true. Most of those people have been lied to, and are without malice propagating that lie--the rest are liars themselves. In the Craft, there is no Devil; the Devil is a creation of Christian mythology, used by the power-hungry to frighten the uneducated into submission and into the Christian fold. There are people who choose to worship this Devil, but those people were once Christians themselves who, for reasons of their own, became disillusioned with the Christian way. In their own quest for power over others, they choose to worship evil and to use evil to obtain their own goals. Not only have they stolen our symbol and inverted it, supposedly to represent a goat's head (and what's so evil about goats?), but they also invert the crucifix. Yet no one claims the crucifix--a common instrument of torture and execution in ancient Rome--to be a symbol of evil. The Christian faith created its own enemy, drove some of its people to follow it, and then claimed that enemy to be us."

She let the book rest in her lap as she examined the obsidian-and-silver pentacle that now lay against her chest. She studied it for a moment longer and watched the light sparkle from it, then let it drop back against her chest and the purple-and-white t-shirt as she selected another page.

"In true Witchcraft, we do not use what the Christians call 'black magic.' Magic--psychic energy, thought forms, or whatever one wishes to call it--is neither 'white' nor 'black,' it simply is; like electricity or sunlight. Magic is used to achieve a desire or goal. But it does have a boomerang effect; as in the cycle of life and death, and with the cycle of the seasons, what goes around does eventually come around--so the more helpful and constructive energy we as Witches send out, the more it will return to us. And so it is with harmful and destructive energy. But we can and do use protective spells and talismans to deflect malice away from us, and return it to its sender. We let malicious people be responsible for their own actions. It is unwise to use magic for malicious purposes because of its likely repercussions."

She flipped a few pages back, scanning them.

"Above all, Witchcraft is a nature-based spiritual path," she read. "The Earth is our mother, and the Sky our father. We worship Nature, and we recognize the male and female aspects in all that surrounds us. We recognize and worship the Mother Goddess and her consort, the Antlered God of the Hunt and of the Forests. It is the Goddess who gives us the harvests of the fields, and it is the God who provides the hunters with game from the forests. And it is the sexual union of the Goddess and Her Consort that brings Life to the Earth . . . "

Valerie leaned back in the sofa and sighed. Witchcraft, real Witchcraft, was nothing like what the Christian fanatics had been spewing for so many centuries. And it was other books with similar ideas that not only the FLM had been burning, but so had the Inquisition of Europe throughout the Middle Ages, the Puritans of Salem and the rest of seventeenth-century New England, and the Christian extremists of twentieth- and twenty-first century America. All such books had been purged from school libraries, public libraries and bookstores, and had been thrown into funeral pyres to be burned to ashes.

She flipped forward a few pages and found a section that was concerned with ghosts and surviving personalities. Not especially relevant to the Craft, but Alex St. James had apparently thought it important enough to copy some notes from books she had read on the subject.

According to some people, a ghost was defined as being the surviving personality of a person who had died. Some called this a kind of psychic energy that had been expended by the person in question, existing where the person had died. According to some mediums, the living, providing that the person who wished to use it knew how to use it, could use this energy. Sometimes, however, someone could also use the energy unknowingly, especially in times of extreme duress. This energy could also, of its own accord, take possession of another person, or even of an animal. The energy was especially strong if the person in question had been very emotional, or if he or she had died at the hands of another, or by his or her own hand. And sometimes the surviving personality would not go on to the other side of death for reasons of its own; perhaps because the person felt that his or her mission in life had not been completed, and wanted to remain until it was.

She looked at the pentacle again. So, she wondered, had it really been her Uncle Vince who had come back to help her? Or had it been the soldier's own malice, reflected back by the protective talisman, that killed him? There were so many different theories, and no answers.

The stereo suddenly blasted to life with an explosion of static that almost blew out the speakers. Valerie leapt from the sofa with a loud and startled scream, and with her heart suddenly pounding as though it was ready to explode against the inside of her chest. She looked around the room with her eyes widened in terror, but there was no one there. She went quickly to the stereo and turned the volume down, and stood frozen with her hand on it as she scanned the room carefully. "Uncle Vince?" she said quietly, cautiously. "Mom?" She closed her eyes and cleared her mind, and tried to pick up on any vibrations there might be of the unseen presence, but she drew a blank. Then a door slammed at the back of the house, and she heard footsteps. They were slow and not too heavy, and they came closer and closer as they reverberated through the wooden floor. Whatever was causing them didn't care at all about stealth now; it knew where she was. Valerie instinctively began to retreat toward the front door. And as the door to the kitchen began to swing open she held her breath; her heart pounded even harder as her terror mounted . . .

"I got your generator working," Keller said as he came in through the kitchen door. "It wasn't as tough as I thought it would be, so you now have . . . electricity . . . Hey, are you okay? You look like you've just seen a ghost or something."

Her breath exploded from her lungs in a huge sigh of relief, and her hand went to her chest, as if by placing it there she could slow her racing heart. "Jesus Christ, Keller!" she said. "You scared the shit out of me! What the hell are you trying to do, give me a fucking heart attack or something?"

He cringed slightly, with mixed feelings of hurt and puzzlement. "Sorry," he said. "I thought you'd be glad to hear it was working . . . I'll go disconnect it." He shrugged and turned to leave. Women, he thought. Go figure.

Valerie took another breath and forced herself to relax. "No, I'm sorry," she said. "I was reading some stuff about ghosts, and this place and the stereo suddenly coming on like that . . . it all kind of caught me off guard. I'm sorry."

Keller felt a little better, now that he understood. The place had been getting to him a little, too. Especially after having seen that soldier hanging there, and then later vanishing…

And then he suddenly remembered that he had left the stereo on when he tested it that first day here. He wisely decided that he didn't have to remind her of that if he expected to keep his head from getting pulled off.

But somehow he couldn't resist a little dig at her. "Does this mean I'm not going to get kicked in the balls after all?"

Valerie shook her head with a wry chuckle. "Yeah. For the moment, anyway."

"Oh, good, I feel so much better now," he said dryly. "Listen, you need to get out of here for a while. Let's go back to Oscar's and get something to eat, okay? I don't know about you, but I'm starving."

"You go ahead," she told him. "I've still got a little cleaning to do, and I don't want to leave all this stuff lying around. I'll catch up with you later."

He looked at her doubtfully. "Are you sure you're okay here?"

"I'm okay."

He still wasn't too sure. "Okay," he said reluctantly. "It won't be long till sunset. And don't forget about the wolves out there."

"Gotcha. I'll see you in a little while."

"Okay," he said again, still doubtful, and then left.

After watching him ride out of sight, she returned to the sofa and the Book of Shadows, and began reading again. She flipped through some more pages and stumbled across a section that described an initiation ritual. Reading it over a few times, she substituted some phrases here and there that would allow her to initiate herself. She had never even been a student of the Craft, but since her mother had been a Witch--and she had no idea of whether or not the tradition went back any further--she decided that her mother's legacy would provide the foundation on which to begin a family tradition. She picked up the book, got to her feet, and headed for the attic.

It was only late afternoon, but the attic--her mother's old temple room--was already dark. She lit an oil lamp and hung it on a nail next to the door, where it cast a dim glow throughout the room. She approached the trunk where her mother's ritual tools were kept and opened the lid slowly, then began removing from it the items she needed. She set them on the floor next to her, closed the lid again, and placed a large square of black velvet over it so that the trunk could serve as an altar. She set the two solid gold candlesticks at the far corners and placed a tall white candle in each, then lit them. She placed four colored candles in their wooden holders, and set them around her at the cardinal points of the compass; at the east she set a white candle, at the south she set a red one, at the west she placed a blue candle, and at the north she set a green one. Each color represented a different element: white for air, red for fire, blue for water, and green for earth. She lit each in its turn, moving clockwise, and then stepped away into a corner to undress so she could perform the rite "skyclad"--so that a witch's energy could flow unimpeded by clothing. Some said it wasn't really necessary to perform any ritual nude; some witches scoffed at such an idea while others swore by it. Alexandra Ryan's Book of Shadows suggested that there was a time and place to go skyclad, and other times and places not to; for this self-initiation, Valerie chose to go nude because she believed that for her very first ritual she ought to present herself to the Goddess and Her Consort the way they had made her.

She approached the altar and knelt before it, then picked up the tools from the floor and placed them on the altar. The first was her mother's athame--a black-handled dagger with a long and sharp, double-edged stainless-steel blade that flashed like quicksilver. This she placed directly in front of her. Next was a redwood disk on which a pentagram had been carved, and she placed this directly between the two candlesticks. Next was the censer, a clay bowl into which she poured some powdered sandalwood incense, and she placed this to the right. To the left she placed a small yet sturdy silver chalice that she had earlier filled from the kitchen sink. Kneeling again in front of the altar, she lit the two tall white candles. With the flame turned off at the oil lamp, the six candles were her only source of light. She opened the Book of Shadows and read the ritual one more time. She settled back to sit with her legs folded beneath her, then cleared her mind and let her breathing slow. She meditated for some time, considering all of the ramifications of what she was about to undertake; this was a serious matter, and she hoped she would be able to live up to the promises that she was about to make.

She picked up the athame and held it in both hands. She raised its point toward the ceiling and held it there for several minutes as she felt herself drawing energy from the Earth and Sky, and from all that surrounded her. Soon she saw that the blade didn't look so much silver as it did a brilliant shade of bluish-white--and she noticed that as the glow grew brighter, it also began to spread. It crept to the black wooden hilt, and then further downward to her hands, along her arms, and soon her entire body was engulfed. She rose gracefully to her feet in one smooth movement, and as she faced north she brought the dagger down, keeping her arms straight, until it was pointing at the thick green candle that burned in its holder on the floor. A beam of blue-white light suddenly shot from the tip of the athame, starling her. Her amber eyes, shining in the candlelight, were wide with fascination, and in a nervous voice she began to speak.

"I cast this Circle of Power to provide me with a sacred space between the worlds of the physical and the spiritual, so that I may conduct this rite in peace and serenity. As I will, so mote it be." She slowly turned clockwise, and the beam of light left a trail on the floor, connecting the candles in a large circle. When this was done, the beam of light disappeared from the dagger's tip, as though she had switched off a flashlight. She laid the knife on the altar and picked up the bowl of burning incense, and clouds of fragrant smoke rose into the air as she raised the censer high overhead and faced east. "I call upon the forces of Air. I ask that you be here with me now, to attend and to protect this rite. And by your power"--here she began walking clockwise again, staying inside the glowing circle of light and leaving a trail of smoke behind her--"I seal and consecrate this Circle." After completing her circuit, she set the censer back down on the altar and turned to face south. She lifted the red candle that burned there, and called out--not as nervously this time--"I call upon the forces of Fire. I ask that you be here with me now, to attend and to protect this rite. And by your power"--she carried the candle clockwise around the circle--"I seal and consecrate this Circle." She set the candle back at the southern quarter of the circle, and then lifted the silver chalice of water. She invoked the forces of Water and sealed the circle, and then did the same with the wooden pentagram as she invoked the forces of Earth and sealed the circle by their power. She replaced the pentagram on the altar and knelt again, sitting back on her feet once more. She cleared her mind again to meditate for a short time. Orange light flickered on her bare skin, which was now shining with a thin sheen of perspiration and excitement, and she breathed more deeply as she drew more energy from the earth and sky, and all of her surroundings.

"I, Valerie St. James . . . " She stopped. That didn't sound right. As much as she respected her father's family, she thought that if she were going to start a matriarchal family tradition dedicated to a Goddess that was represented by nature, reason and freedom rather than a patriarchal god of artificiality, fear and repression, she may as well do it the way she felt was really right; and the name she chose to use would be the name to be handed down from mother to daughter, generation after generation.

"I, Valerie Ryan, the daughter of Alexandra and granddaughter of Victoria, call upon the Mother Goddess and Father God. I ask you to be here now, and to witness this rite of initiation. I ask you to grant me the power of a sister of the Craft, and in return I swear by my life and all that I hold dear that I will do my best to do your will. I am prepared to lay down my life, if I must, to defend our Mother Earth, and to defend my sisters and brothers in the Craft."

Lightning flashed brilliantly outside, and a moment later an explosion of thunder that shook the house and forest, almost as though the Gods themselves were answering her, followed it. And as she gazed somewhere beyond the ceiling, with her eyes wide and her emotions a swirling blend of anticipation and hopefulness, Valerie was abruptly and unswervingly convinced that they actually were. As she took a deep breath to steady herself, she felt a sudden rush of energy that was both intoxicating and somehow sexually stimulating, that seemed to shoot up from somewhere deep inside the ground to slide up warmly between her legs and pass through her. Thunder clapped again, sending another slow and sensuous wave through her, this time coming from behind and passing through her like a long, soft, pre-orgasmic wave that actually made her gasp and moan softly. She sat for a moment with a surprised smile, wondering what was happening to her and looking forward to finding out with delicious anticipation. And then she could feel another wave coming on, coming up from deep within the earth's molten core and moving through the ground before it even reached her. Oh my God, she thought, grinning broadly in eager expectation as she closed her eyes and let her head fall back, here it comes!

The third wave took her in a nearly blinding, blue-white flash, and she was lifted through the ceiling and into the darkening sky, spinning in a swirling vortex of energy that carried her higher and higher. The house shrank below her and was swallowed by the trees, and there was the roaring of a hurricane wind in her ears. She went higher still, and as she looked upward she could see the stars, so bright and clear, flashing and streaking around her. The moon, a larger sickle of silver than before, grew closer and closer, and she felt that she could actually reach her hand out and touch it. And still higher she rose, with the forest itself shrinking and becoming nothing more than a patch of green on the face of the earth. The Earth itself began to fall away from her, and the higher she went the stronger was the feeling of exhilaration that coursed through her like a jolt of adrenalin.

"My gift to you," whispered a soft voice inside of her mind; a soft and feminine voice that was not her own. "This is my gift to you . . . "

And then she was exploding in ecstasy, and flying off in a thousand directions at once. Concepts of time and distance no longer existed as she raced by thousands of stars and planets in an instant, examining each with spellbound fascination as she passed. There were bright, multi-colored planets of rich hues with multiple moons, and others had binary stars that were linked together with glowing red lemniscates of burning hydrogen, all stark and brightly colorful against the pitch blackness of space. She felt as though she could fly forever in this elated state, streaking across the universe like a meteor clothed in flame or walking naked across the surfaces of barren silver moons. And she suddenly knew that she could come back any time she wished.

But as much as she enjoyed exploring the universe, she wanted very much to return home. And with that thought, she was gently yet quickly falling backward. She flashed past the planets and raced back through time and space, and as she slowly turned over to spread her arms and legs wide like a parachutist in free-fall, the Earth rushed up to meet her. She could see the planet in its entirety; so blue and peaceful, and fragile, spinning its way slowly through the universe . . . And all of a sudden, she was struck with such a strong sense of love for her home planet that it startled her. It really is a spaceship, she thought, a spaceship with a self-perpetuating life support system--a cyclic, constantly self-renewing ecosystem that gave life to billions of forms. A system that now, thanks to mankind's dangerous activities, needed constant monitoring and guarding to be certain that nothing more went wrong with it. Because if it did break down, it would mean the end of all life.

I can't let that happen, she thought. Damn it, I won't let it happen. I'll do all that I can to protect it, whether I have to die or kick ass. I promise.

" . . . as you are my gift to all," that same soft and smiling voice finished with a whisper, both inside of her and outside.

As much fun as it had been to explore the universe, it was still so very good to be home again. The forest appeared beneath her, and then she could see the house with the warm glow that came from its attic.

She was suddenly back in her body and awake. She opened her eyes slowly, surprised to find herself lying on the hard wooden floor, and she slowly raised herself on her hands to look around. Wow, she thought in wide-eyed wonder. She glanced around again and saw how far down the candles around her had burned. How long was I . . . ? She immediately rejected the idea that it might have been a dream. No sirree, she thought, she had been to all those planets. And as beautiful as they were--even more so than the incredible special effect worlds of those space-travel science fiction movies--on none of them had she seen any signs of life. Only on her home planet.

Home . . .

The word had a whole new meaning for her now.

Panting softly and shimmering with a light sheen of perspiration, and luxuriating in a deep, mellow afterglow, she sat cross-legged to face her altar once more. She removed the silver pentacle from around her neck and laid it on the altar, then lit more incense. She picked it up again, and passed it through the smoke as she murmured an invocation of power, appealing to the powers of Air for their protection. Then she passed it through the flame of one of the altar candles and asked the forces of Fire to be with her and to protect her. Then she dipped it into the water in the chalice and touched it to the wooden pentagram, murmuring similar invocations each time for each element represented. She then held it tightly in her fist, closing her eyes and concentrating, and forcing her energy into the talisman. At last she uncurled her fingers again, and saw that the pentacle was glowing and pulsating in rhythm to her own heartbeat with the same blue-white light that had erupted from the athame, and which now emanated from her circle. She slipped the leather lace back over her head and around her neck, and the talisman continued to glow warmly against the glistening, bare skin between her high, round breasts. "Thank you," she said softly, addressing . . . the Goddess? The Guardians of the Four Directions? The Great Spirit? It went by many names; and names, after all, were not that important. What was important was that this Spirit was real. It was real to her. After what she had been shown, how could she possibly not believe it? With her amber eyes shimmering with tears of both joy and gratitude, she softly repeated, "Thank you."

She lit more incense. With her breathing finally slowing to normal and the perspiration drying on her skin, she picked up the wooden pentagram and passed it counter-clockwise around the circle, banishing it by the power of Earth. She did the same with the chalice of water, the burning red candle on the floor behind her and the smoking clay bowl of incense, and then picked up the athame again and stood facing north. "Merry meet, and merry part," she said softly, and then pointed the dagger at the green candle at the north. She slowly turned counter-clockwise to retract the flickering blue energy that made up the circle of light until she returned again to the north, until there was nothing left. "And merry meet again," she finished at last. Having bade farewell to the Spirits, the ritual was over. She blew out all but the two altar candles.

Without bothering to dress, and without bothering to put away her ritual tools--the attic was her temple room now, and her tools would remain left in place for her own private display--she went briskly down the stairs and outside. It was fully dark now, and the cold air made her shiver uncontrollably. But she didn't mind; she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, she felt so good. She spread her legs wide and raised her arms high. "I love you!" she shouted to the forest, the black night sky, and to the thousands of sparkling stars overhead; and her echo sounded as though the Goddess of Nature was answering her. "I love you!" she shouted again, as loud as she could, and again her echo answered her. She slowly lowered her arms and shivered again, but she stayed outside for a short time to star gaze. It was so incredibly beautiful out here . . . It was the absolute opposite of her old neighborhood; no smog, no noise, none of those damned cars with their blaring horns and thudding boom-boxes, no screeching of tires . . . no sirens, no shouting soldiers whose voices were accompanied by gunshots, and no fear . . . Here there was fresh air--it was almost overpowering, it was so sharp and clear--there was beauty, and there was peace.

She rubbed slowly at the gooseflesh on her arms. It was getting colder out here, but it was also so beautiful that she hated to go back inside and dress. But she had to get back to Oscar's place. People were waiting for her, and by now they were probably pretty worried.

She returned to the attic and slipped into her jeans and moccasins, then picked up her brassiere and held it by a shoulder strap with one finger. She regarded it with a cool and mildly disdainful look. Instead of slipping it on, she slipped on her t-shirt and her buckskin shirt, tied it shut, and then went downstairs to the living room where--in an unconscious imitation of the women's liberationists of the 1960s--she flung the brassiere into the fireplace. What with all the clothes around here that were still in surprisingly good condition, she felt she could toss out everything she had brought from what she now disdainfully called "that city."

She went out to where the horse still stood with its reins tied to the porch rail. "Poor you," she said with sincere sympathy. "You've been standing out here all this time, waiting for me to come back so you could go home and eat." She patted its neck. "I'm sorry." She mounted it and started for Oscar's place.

Fortunately, the horse knew the way back. Even though Valerie could see quite well, the area had become unfamiliar to her as her memories of this place dimmed over the years. She had forgotten much about it over the last decade, but she was confident that it all would come back to her quickly.

As her eyes became even more fully adjusted to the dark, she found that it wasn't as difficult to see as she had expected it would be. The night sounds of the crickets and the gentle breeze were much clearer than before, and the silences between the sounds seemed much richer and more profound. She breathed deeply, relishing the seemingly concentrated scents of firs and pines, and she looked up at the night sky above her to wonder where all that lightning and thunder had come from on such a cloudless night . . .

The land brought back so many fond memories of the long after-dinner walks she had taken with her mother, and the talks that she had long ago had with her father and uncle echoed faintly in the back of her mind. And she remembered the secret treasure hunts with her younger brother, and the time she had lost him in the fog, only to find him later crying in fright . . .

A twig snapped.

To anyone else it would have sounded ominously soft and stealthy, but Valerie jumped as though it had been a gunshot. The horse continued to move along at a leisurely pace, but Valerie's eyes and ears were alert. She scanned the path ahead, then looked cautiously behind. She could see nothing, but she knew she was not alone out here. Thoughts began flashing through her mind, thoughts that were not her own; they were of stealth and cunning, thoughts of hunting and running, and of the kill . . . She listened carefully, but heard nothing else.

She turned her attention back to the trail in time to see a huge gray shape lope silently across the path ahead, and into the deeper darkness of the trees. Then she heard a soft growling, and it brought to mind what Dutch Jackson had told Keller a few nights ago. And Julie had mentioned them, too. The wolves were everywhere now, accustomed to the northern California climate after they had spread from their final stronghold in Alaska to reclaim their stolen lands.

The gray shape--or was it another?--seemed to be moving alongside the path, darting deftly through the trees. With her heart hammering in her chest, she leaned forward slowly and reached into one of the saddlebags. She groped around in it for a moment, and then pulled out the black, four-cell flashlight. She pointed it ahead, thumbed the rubber button, and the bright beam of light fell on the wolf. The damn thing was huge; well over a hundred pounds, probably closer to two, and with yellow eyes reflecting in the dark. The ears were up and the sharp fangs gleamed with their points visible above and below the lines of the black lips, and cold narrow chips of amber gazed at her with great interest against the steady glow of the light. Valerie's heart pounded in her chest, and she urged the horse to gallop with a sharp jab of her heels; but it continued to move along at its casual pace, apparently oblivious to the present danger. She swept the beam from side to side, and she caught a quick glimpse of another wolf as it moved quickly from one side of the path to the other. My God, she thought, how many of them are there? There was a pair on each side of her, and she sensed that there were even more behind her, surrounding her and moving in closer. Sweat broke out on her skin, and when she shivered this time it was not because of the cold. Her hands trembled, and sweat from them soaked into the reins.

And then she saw the lights of the commune. She nudged the horse again, and it picked up only a little more speed as it carried her into the clearing at last. One of the wolves ran ahead of her (Oh God, it's cutting me off! she thought in near panic), and stopped at the edge of the clearing to sniff the air. It stared at the lights of the house as she approached, and then it turned to watch her again. Valerie rode past the wolf, expecting to be felled by the whole pack, and already feeling the tearing of fangs as they ripped into her flesh--and she was out here without a weapon, completely defenseless.

The wolf watched her like the predator it was, and growled menacingly as she passed by. When she reached the clearing, she cast a quick, nervous look over her shoulder, and wondered why she hadn't been attacked; maybe they were just warning her not to invade their territory again. Hey, don't you worry, pal, she silently told them as she approached the corral, I won't.

As near as she could count in the darkness, as she reached the safety the gate, there had been half a dozen of them by the time the last wolf had turned and disappeared back into the darkness.

Chapter Sixteen

Seven-year-old Kelly Corey (K.C. to her friends) had been feeling slow and listless all day. When she had awakened this morning her throat had been feeling a little sore and her nose was a little stuffy, and every muscle in her body felt tired. The last thing she wanted to do was get up and move around a lot, but there were things that she had to do today; her chores around the house were not about to take care of themselves, and she took great pride in being a responsible part of the household. She had chickens to feed and eggs to collect (and the hen house needed to be cleaned again--"Pee-ew!" she thought), but this morning she just didn't have the energy for it. She sneezed frequently and her fatigued muscles began to ache and pound with a dull throb, and her sinuses felt as though they were packed with concrete. Her throat now felt as though it had been abraded with the coarsest sandpaper, and every cough was a rasping agony that made her chest rattle horribly. It worried her parents to see her like this; usually she couldn't wait to get outside, but now all she wanted to do was just lie on the sofa and clutch a homemade stuffed doll, and keep wrapped in a heavy blanket. While she drifted in and out of a restless sleep, her worried mother had been keeping a close eye all day, checking her temperature every hour. By dinnertime it had reached 104, and Karen had taken her upstairs and put her to bed, then had tried to get some hot soup down her. It always came back up less than a minute later. Karen told Oscar that he'd better get hold of the doctor on the CB radio.

When Valerie finally got in, still shaking a little from her encounter with the wolves, she saw Oscar sitting at the radio, microphone in hand. Karen was just now coming down the stairs. "Hi Oscar. Is Keller around?"

"He went out with Rob, trying to hunt up a radiator. They ought to be back in an hour or so." Then, into the mike he said, "Three hours?"

"I'm sorry, Oscar," said Dr. Bennet, "that's as soon as I can get there. I'll try to be there sooner, but I can't make any promises. Just keep her warm and quiet, and I'll get there when I can."

Oscar sighed in resignation. "Okay, Pat. We'll be waiting."

As Valerie slowly walked toward the kitchen, her eyes moved from Oscar's worried face to Karen's, and then back again. "Something wrong?"

"Kelly's sick," Karen said. "Pat Bennet, the local doctor, can't get out here for another three hours or so." She looked at Valerie with red, moist eyes. "I'm scared. This thing just flared up today; I don't know if it's some damned virus left over from the bio-war or what. She's burning with fever, she can't keep food down, and-" Her voice choked on a sob.

Valerie went to her and placed a comforting arm around her shoulders. "Easy," she whispered soothingly. "Take it easy. Where is she?"

"Upstairs."

Valerie went up to the girl's bedroom. She gently pushed the door open and poked her head inside. "Hi Kelly," she said. "Can I come in?"

Kelly opened her eyes and looked to see who it was. "Oh, hi Valerie," she said weakly. "Sure, come on in."

She went to sit on the edge of the bed. "Hi," she said again, with a low, soft and throaty voice that would have been perfect for late-night radio on a mellow jazz station. "I heard you weren't feeling well, so I thought I'd come up to see you. What's the matter?"

"I don't know," Kelly replied with a hoarse, weak voice. "I just feel sick. All day it's been getting worse and worse."

Valerie laid her hand across the child's forehead. "Yeah, you do feel kinda hot. Bet you got a tummy ache, too, don't you?"

"Yeah . . . "

"Yeah . . . " She was watching her carefully with a troubled look in her eyes as she gently brushed a few strands of sugar-brown hair from Kelly's forehead. "You know, when I was about your age, maybe a little older, I got really sick one day. I felt just the same way you do right now. Know what it was?"

"Huh uh." She shook her head slightly.

"Some berries I ate. One or two of them tasted really good, y'know? So I ate a whole big bunch of 'em. It turned out they were kinda poisonous. If I had just eaten a couple I would've been okay, but they were so good I went and ate a whole ton of 'em. I don't suppose you got into the same berries I did, huh?"

"No. I didn't eat anything all day."

So much for poisoning, Valerie thought. We've got a real disease of some kind here. "Well, listen. You just take it easy for now, okay? I'll be back in a little while to see you."

"'Kay," she said weakly.

She slowly rose from the bed and headed back down to the living room. As she went down the stairs she suddenly remembered something he had read in the Book of Shadows, something that just might work to break this fever.

"Any idea of what happened?" Karen asked as she met her at the foot of the stairs.

"It's not poisoning, that's for sure."

Karen's anxiety grew even worse. "Poisoning?"

"Poisoning?" Julie asked as she came out of the kitchen. "Someone complaining about my cooking again? And speaking of which, Valerie, where've you been? You said you were going to help with dinner--"

"Not now, Julie, we've got an emergency here. Kelly's burning up with a fever." She turned to Karen. "Karen, I want to try something--is it okay with you if I take her back to my place?"

"Your place? Why? Pat said he'd be here--"

"In three hours, if not longer. I don't think we should wait that long, and everything I need is at my place."

"Why can't you just get your stuff and bring it here?" Karen asked. "It's cold out, and I don't want to expose her to anything out there."

"I understand. But there's too much to bring back, and I can get started a lot sooner if I just take her there."

"What about the wolves?" Oscar asked. "You'd both be pretty dead if one of them got to you."

Damn it, he's right, she thought. Then she said, "The wolves won't bother us." I hope, she added silently. "I just rode through a whole pack of them, and all they did was watch."

"A pack of them? Forget it!"

"Damn it, Oscar, I think I can help her! If we sit here and wait for the doctor she may not survive. Do you know what three more hours of a fever like that can do? I can at least try to treat her. I realize it isn't exactly established professional medicine, but I think . . . No, damn it--" she suddenly amended with a new sense of determination, both in her eyes and in her voice "--I know I can help her! Let me do this, Oscar--right now I'm the best bet you've got."

Karen and Oscar looked at each other, fearfully pleading and dreadfully uncertain. "Okay," he said at last. "Let me get my coat."

"No. I have to take her alone."

"What!?"

"The treatment is . . . It's a private and personal process, and I can't have anyone uninitiated with me."

What the hell is that supposed to mean? he thought, but what he asked was, "You want to take her alone through wolves and . . . and with no protection? No! I won't have it!"

"Oscar, please!" she implored. She turned to his wife. "Karen?"

Karen looked at her husband with pleading eyes. "I think we should let her try. We can always send Pat over to her place when he gets here. It's better than waiting here, isn't it?"

He looked at Valerie again. She wanted to take his little girl out there alone for some secret treatment in a haunted house with wolves all over the place, to a house where she had killed a soldier with magic and left him hanging in mid-air . . . With that kind of power, what other things might she be capable of doing? And she seemed as desperate to give help as he and Karen were to have it, almost as though her own life depended upon it.

"Okay," he said at last. "I just hope you really can help."

"I'll do my best, I promise." She left Karen to wrap Kelly in a heavy blanket while she went outside to saddle a fresh horse. She came back a few minutes later, picked her up, and then they were racing through the darkened forest on her way back to the Ryan ranch--to Home.

No wolves appeared this time--good thing, too, since she had said she wouldn't cross their territory again--but she knew they were out there somewhere, and close by. Had they reappeared, she surely would have expected the horse to react violently to their presence--to probably throw her and the child, and to bolt in blind terror and leave them to the predators. She knew she should be wary of them, but she also knew that she had to get Kelly to her house as quickly as possible. So with one arm tightly wrapped around the girl, she snapped the reins and kicked with her heels, urging the horse on with a loud "Hyah! C'mon!" Cold wind streamed through her dark hair and tore at her face, and the horse's hooves thundered against the dirt path as they raced through the night, weaving and dodging through the trees and being guided by forces that she was still not even beginning to understand.

When they arrived at the house, she quickly dismounted and rushed Kelly inside, and let the panting horse find its own way to the nearest supply of grass and fresh water. She put the girl on the sofa and tucked the blanket under her chin, then went out to the barn where, while cleaning earlier this afternoon, she had found several metal buckets and a large wooden tub. She built a fire in the fireplace in the living room and in the wood stove in the kitchen, and then filled the buckets at the hand pump out back. She brought them in and placed most of them near the fire, and the rest she placed on the wood stove. Then she went back outside to roll the heavy tub up the steps and across the kitchen, and into the living room. Making another trip to the kitchen, she found a teakettle, filled it with water, and placed this on the stove also.

Between the fire and the physical exertion, she was breaking out in a sweat. She took off the buckskin shirt and tossed it onto a nearby chair, then pulled off her moccasins and laid them aside. Moving quickly, she went up the stairs and into the attic, and collected her ritual tools and placed them in the square of black velvet, then gathered the corners to form a bag. She brought the bundle down to the living room and opened it, laying it flat on the floor, and arranged her tools on the makeshift altar. She placed the four colored candles as she had done before, then placed the small mason jars of various dried herbs next to the altar. The Book of Shadows lay open before her so she could read it easily, and she took one more look around to make sure everything was as she wanted it.

"Okay," she said softly. She wiped her brow with the back of one forearm, then went to check the water. At last it was warm enough, and she poured the buckets into the tub, testing the temperature to make sure that it wasn't too hot.

In order to assure the easy flow of her energy, she decided it would be best to perform this rite skyclad. She peeled off her shirt and jeans and tossed them away, then went to the sofa and unwrapped Kelly. She felt it would be safe enough to undress her also, even though she was still burning with fever, because it was now so very warm inside and because she wanted to insure Kelly's ability to receive her energy unencumbered by layers of heavy clothing. She lay Kelly near the altar, and then quickly cast the Circle. Sitting next to her, she began to divide portions of dried dandelion, red clover, ginger, comfrey and several other herbs, and ground them together with a small mortar and pestle. She poured the now powdered herbs into the chalice and added some steaming waster from the kettle that now rested near her, and let the brew sit still for a few minutes as the herbs released their compounds.

Between the flickering light of the candles and the fireplace, the white clouds of incense smoke, and the steam from the tub, Valerie could feel herself slipping into a trance. Not a passive one, where one would sit back and allow things to happen, but rather an active trance, where she was directing and being directed by unseen powers.

She stirred the mixture in the chalice with the tip of the athame, and as she did she suddenly became aware of that same blue-white light from before. Only now it was not just her that glowed, but the entire inside of the Circle; it began at its inner edge and formed a swirling cone of power that spiraled upward and peaked somewhere not far beyond the ceiling. Supernatural forces had indeed answered her desperate call; help had arrived once again. Only this time it was in the form of a warm, loving and comforting presence . . . and suddenly Valerie knew in her heart, and totally without question, that she--like her mother and unknown generations before her--really was a Witch.

A soft breeze brushed at her dark hair, but she didn't notice it. She was barely conscious of her own movements now as she helped Kelly to sit up and brought the chalice to her lips. The semi-conscious girl moaned once before drinking, but said nothing. Valerie could see nothing outside of the circle; the light that formed the Cone of Power was totally opaque now, blocking out the entire room and cutting her off from the physical world. Yet her vision inside the Circle--this other dimension--was perfectly clear.

She laid Kelly down again, and then stretched her arms forward and held her hands, palms down, a couple of inches over the girl's body and slowly rocked back, moving her hands from Kelly's head to her feet. She leaned forward and repeated the movements slowly, rocking back and forth, slowly passing her hands over the girl. She had no idea of how long she did this, and she watched in fascination as energy flowed from the Circle and into her, and then out of her through her hands and into Kelly. Perspiration formed on her bare skin and ran down her sides, and trickled down her chest and back. Please, dear Lady, she silently and desperately called out, not sure of what else to do. Please, let this work.

The light inside the Circle flared brilliantly, like a sun going supernova; it happened so quickly, she almost missed it. And then it and the cone were gone. Only a residual glow surrounded Kelly, and in a moment this, too, was absorbed by the girl. She stiffened for a moment with a short gasp, and then she relaxed, and at the same moment Valerie nearly fell forward. She caught herself as her hands hit the wooden floor with a thud, stopping before she collapsed completely from sudden exhaustion. She leaned back and began to draw more Earth energy, then stood and picked up the athame. With it she opened a doorway in the northeast quadrant of the Circle--the Cone of Power was gone now, and the entire living room was once again revealed to her, but she would not cross the line of the Circle without properly opening a way in and out--and then lifted Kelly in her arms and gently carried her to the tub, and lowered her into it. The water was too deep for a semi-conscious girl her size, so Valerie stepped into it herself, settled down comfortably, and let the girl sit in her lap as she held her close. Together, they soaked for better than half an hour in the warm, comforting water.

When she finally rose with Kelly in her arms and stepped out of the tub, she wrapped her in the blanket again and laid her on the sofa. Dripping water onto the floor, she re-entered the Circle and knelt before the altar. "Powers of Air, I thank you for attending and protecting this Circle and this Rite. Return in peace to your realm, and Blessed Be." She blew out the white candle that burned in the east, then turned south and dismissed the powers of Fire. She did the same with the powers of Water, facing west, and with Earth as she faced north, blowing out each candle in turn. With the athame, she banished the Circle itself, thanked the Goddess, and then went upstairs to the attic. There, she retrieved the hooded black cloak from the trunk and threw it around her damp shoulders, and then started back for the living room. She stumbled once from fatigue, and nearly fell; she reflexively grabbed onto the railing, and proceeded slowly down until she reached the sofa. She sat, threw back the cloak, then unwrapped Kelly from the blanket and held her close to share her unimpeded energy with her patient, as two people would share body heat in the middle of a blizzard. She pulled the heavy cloak back over so it covered both of them, and cradled Kelly's head against her and closed her eyes. In less than a minute, they were both soundly asleep.

***

Brilliant sunlight streamed in through an eastern window to gently warm one side of Kelly's face. The girl slowly twisted and squirmed in Valerie's arms, and stretched languidly, and then opened her eyes. Sleepily, she raised her head and looked around. Puzzled, the first thing she noticed was that this wasn't her home; yet she was not in the least bit alarmed. And then she noticed that the arms she slept in were not those of her mother, and still she wasn't alarmed. Oh yeah, she thought as the memories came back, I know her. She knuckled sleep from her eyes and sighed deeply. She closed her eyes and laid her head against Valerie's breast again as she snuggled against her comforting warmth, and tried to go back to sleep.

Valerie awoke when she felt movement in her arms. Squinting slightly against the morning sun, she looked at Kelly and then smiled. "Good morning," she said with a soft, dry voice. "How're you feeling?" She touched Kelly's brow. Cool skin.

Kelly yawned. "Sleepy. And a little dizzy. Other than that, I feel fine." She yawned again. "What happened?"

"Well, you were kinda sick."

She looked up into Valerie's eyes, mildly surprised. "Really?"

"Uh huh. But you seem to look a lot better than last night. You hungry?"

Kelly grinned drowsily. "You bet," she croaked.

Good sign, Valerie thought as she grinned back at her. "Good. My fridge is empty, so what do you say we get dressed and get you home? Your mom and dad are probably pretty worried about you."

"Okay!" she said cheerfully.

***

Karen and Oscar stood on the porch, holding hands to reassure each other. They were wondering what Valerie was doing with their only daughter, having been gone all night; they had no way of knowing what was happening there, since Valerie had no radio, and they had promised her that they would leave everything to her. But they were still worried. Doctor Bennet hadn't been able to get to the Corey house until well after midnight because of the unfamiliarity of the night-shrouded woods; just about everyone who lived in this area stayed home after sunset, because for the most part they just couldn't see where they were going. And, of course, there were the wolves. But eventually he had arrived, and now--with one haunch on the porch rail, his pipe clenched in his teeth and his arms folded--he waited with the Coreys to find out what had happened.

The horse cleared the edge of the woods. A dark-haired woman, dressed in a black velvet dress and jacket that were trimmed with white lace, and a young girl dressed in blue denim and brown corduroy, could be seen sitting in the saddle. "Hi, Mom! Hi, Daddy!" the girl shouted gleefully as she waved. When the horse drew closer, she jumped down with a dazzling grin, and hit the ground running.

"Hey, not too much running around, okay?" Valerie called out to the quickly retreating figure, but her words fell on joy-deafened ears. Kelly ran to her mother's outstretched arms and jumped into them, and hugged her with surprising strength. Then she jumped and hugged Oscar.

"How ya doin', punkin?" he asked.

"Are you kidding?" she asked, her voice a long burst of machine gun fire. "I'm great! Aunt Valerie the good witch lady cured me! Do we got anything to eat? I'm starving!"

Valerie smiled at the nickname. Still exhausted from the night before, she slid slowly from the saddle, careful not to fall. The ritual had been more of a psychic drain on her than she had expected, but the results were well worth it.

Oscar moved quickly to catch her. She looked pale and weak, and there were dark circles around her eyes. "Are you okay?" he asked, worried that she might have contracted Kelly's virus.

"I'm fine," she replied. "I just didn't ground myself long enough."

He looked at her with puzzled eyes. "'Scuse me?"

She smiled at his puzzlement and hugged him. "Never mind."

Karen came forward with Kelly, and the child hugged the Witch one more time. Karen also hugged her close. "I don't know how you did it," she said with a sob of joy and relief, "and I don't even really care at this moment. Thank you seems so inadequate . . . " She kissed both of her cheeks.

"That goes for me, too," Oscar said as he also gave her a hug. "I'm sorry I ever doubted you."

"Hey, that's okay," Valerie told them. "After all, I really was asking a lot from you."

"Listen," Oscar said. "If you ever need anything from me, no favor's too big. You saved my little girl's life, and I'll always be in your debt."

Dr. Bennet looked from Kelly to Valerie, and wondered who was supposed to be sick. It was hard to imagine this girl, who was now running around and chasing the chickens--she seemed to be so full of energy that she would burst if she didn't burn it off somehow--as being fever-ridden and semi-comatose. On the other hand, it was Valerie who looked pale and drawn. He approached her and said, "Let's get you inside and have a look at you."

Valerie grinned at him. "I'm fine, really. But go ahead, if it'll make you feel better; I'm in kind of a curing mood today."

Chapter Seventeen

The old, two-story house was located off-campus, and resembled something out of a Charles Addams cartoon. The disadvantage of living off-campus in this old tree-shrouded manse was the hassle of biking across town to get to class on time--and here in northern California that tended to be quite a problem during the rainy season. But the advantages far outweighed this inconvenience. Not having a dormitory room meant not having to worry about electronic surveillance by the university's loyalists in the FLM, and it meant no surprise midnight searches for contraband by campus security forces. The university officials described "contraband" as anything that was illegal or forbidden--and quite frequently the terms were used interchangeably--but that was about as far as the definition went. As to what was forbidden, well, that changed from time to time. Without any kind of notification, of course, so no criminals would be warned. Soldiers and security officers would claim to be looking for drugs and guns, which were always mentioned in the same breath in order to keep that almost subliminal comparison in people's minds, or explosives or other materials of this nature, but the items that usually wound up being confiscated were political pamphlets or books of a "subversive" nature. One had to have a special permit to check out certain books from university libraries, and even then these books could be read only with the understanding that they were to be derided in term papers and university publications.

The students who lived here were legitimately enrolled with the university, but they chose to live off-campus for those very reasons. It was cold and dark outside, and a few of them were lounging around in the spacious living room on the two sofas and flopped into some chairs, listening to an old Jethro Tull CD and to the crackling of the flames in the fireplace, and talking about last weekend's football game against UCLA ("God, how we trounced 'em!" one woman shrieked gleefully), and sipping at coffee or hot chocolate.

The discussion was interrupted by an angry young man that burst in through the front door and slammed it shut. With long hair that swept about his shoulders, he wore faded blue jeans and a matching jacket, and an old chambray work shirt. "Did you hear?" he said angrily, almost shouting. "Did you hear that bastard?"

"Hey, calm down," said Allison, a tall and slim blonde woman with a dark tan, who was smoking a joint. "What's your problem, guy? Which bastard are you talking about this week?"

"My problem?" said Scott, the angry student. "It isn't just my problem, man, it's everyone's!"

"Calm down, Scott," said Michael, who was sitting with Allison and sharing that joint. "What are you carrying on about?"

"That fucking pig Slogan, that's what I'm carrying on about! Haven't you heard?"

"Heard what?" Allison asked with growing apprehension. She never knew Scott to be this angry without a good reason.

Scott glanced around the room and his eyes fell on the stereo system that rested text to the small television set. "Here, you can hear it for yourself." He stopped the CD player and switched the selector to AM, and set the amber digital readout to an all news station. The voice of President Ronald M. Slogan, addressing the nation, came on. " . . . by the authority vested in me as the President of the United Christian States . . . "

"United Christian States?" three other people said as one, shocked. "When did . . . "

"That's not all," Scott said grimly.

" . . . and I am announcing that I have just authorized the deployment of ground forces inside the border of Panama . . . "

"What the hell?!"

"He can't do that!"

"What, again?" a cynical voice muttered.

"Who the hell does he think he is?"

"I do not take this action lightly. As Christian Americans, we have never invaded, nor are we now invading, a foreign land merely for our own desires and purposes . . . "

"At least, not without first extorting an 'invitation' from them," said that cynical voice.

" . . . but we must stop the spread of secular humanist communism into Christian nations. Remember that the religion of the communists is atheism, and secular humanism, directed by Satan himself . . . "

"What?" Allison cried.

"What the bloody hell?" Michael asked. He didn't even realize he had dropped the joint.

" . . . since we originally built that canal anyway, and it was tricked our of our control . . . " Slogan was droning on.

Scott nodded solemnly. "That's what I'm carrying on about," he said, his voice matching the now controlled rage that could be seen in his eyes.

"But he can't do that!" Terry, another one of the students, said again. "Congress has to--"

"Congress hasn't got shit to say about it," Scott said.

"This has been a special re-broadcast of . . . " the announcer was saying. Scott shut the radio off. "It's just like when old what's-his-name started sending troops into Cambodia back in 1970. I swear to God, it's the whole Vietnam syndrome all over again. Remember last month, when everyone was wondering why Slogan announced the increase in the number of people to get drafted? Now you know why!"

"My God," Michael said.

"Well, at least we can't get drafted," Terry said. "I mean, when you enroll in college you can get an exemption. Can't you?"

"What?" Scott said with a short, barking laugh. "Where the hell have you been?"

"Hey, when you're in college they give you a . . . what's it called, a student deferment?"

"What are you, kidding?" Michael said, trying hard to stay calm. "They stopped giving those out nearly forty years ago; even before then, you had to fight like hell to get one. We can all get drafted! Unless you're a woman. Or gay. Jesus, first it was Nicaragua, then El Salvador, then Honduras, then Costa Rica, and now this. I'll bet Cuba's next."

"There's nothing to stop us from demonstrating against it," Allison said. "They can't stop us from making a public statement against Slogan's policies. If we can educate enough of the people . . . "

"Demonstrate?" Scott said sharply. "This isn't the Sixties anymore. We're still under martial law, and the President has done nothing to revoke it. Hell, he likes ruling by martial law. And remember what happened at the Betatron nuke plant ten years ago? And how about Kent State and Jackson State back in 1970--remember them? I got an uncle who almost got killed at Kent. Hell, if we tried to demonstrate we'd all get shot down like they were." He paused for a moment, and the room was deadly silent.

"In 1770, there was the Boston Massacre. A bunch of kids made the fatal mistake of throwing rocks and snowballs at some British soldiers, and the soldiers opened fire. Three people were killed. As a result we finally kicked the British out in a little action called the American Revolution. Two hundred years later a bunch of university students at Kent State in Ohio held a rally, a few of them threw some rocks at the National Guard and the soldiers opened fire, killing four and wounding nine others. And what happened? I'll tell you what happened, man: nothing happened! No one ever found out who started the shooting. Oh, sure, there was plenty of finger-pointing--all in a circle--but those who really did know weren't about to offer any information. And there were more protests, lots of shouting and all that, and they had this really big inquiry for the TV cameras. But that's all that happened. American people just don't give a damn anymore. They think they're born with all these rights--they don't understand that freedom doesn't come free, and that it has to be demanded and fought for! They let the Government give them the illusion of contentment--not happiness, just contentment--while it stomps all over them. And the people do nothing, man. Nothing!"

"It wasn't the Boston Massacre that finally got the Revolution started," Michael said. "Allow me to correct your history--it was a bloody tea tax."

Scott forced a thin smile. "I stand corrected," he said. "Maybe if the government made all TVs coin operated, or . . . or maybe if you had to have some federal bureaucrat watch you while you fucked your girl friend to make sure you weren't doing anything illegal . . . maybe then things would get started. People need to be kicked in their self-destructive luxuries to get them off their asses and into the streets."

The room grew quiet, as oppressively quiet as a funeral parlor. Then Terry's voice, sounding very lonely and afraid in the suffocating quiet, asked, "What can we do, man? My God, what are we gonna do?"

Chapter Eighteen

"The streets of our nation are in turmoil. The universities are filled with students rebelling and rioting, communists are seeking to destroy us, Russia is threatening us with her might, and the republic is in danger. Yes, danger from within and without. We need law and order. Without law and order, our nation cannot survive."

Adolph Hitler, c. 1938

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their Constitutional right of amending it, or their Revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."

President Abraham Lincoln

Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861

A gust of cold wind blew through the dark October night, carrying with it the scent of countless wood fires. The weatherman had predicted forty-one degrees for the overnight low, which was unusual for this time of year, but by 10:30 p.m. the temperature in this small southern California town had dropped to thirty-six. Despite it being a Saturday night--a night to blow off a little of that steam that had built up all during the work week, or to have that final chance at going out and having some fun before having to repent in one of the State-run churches the next day--there were very few people out on the streets. Business at the local movie theaters and restaurants was depressed, even though people were encouraged by the Foundation to continue with at least a semblance of normal life in a badly damaged country, but they preferred to stay home with a comforting fire in the grate or the wood stove, and their favorite shows on TV. The gusting winds outside made the thirty-six degrees feel even colder; so most folks had decided hours ago that it was just too damned cold to go out anywhere.

But the explosion sure as hell brought them out.

***

It was a pretty slow night for the soldiers. Colder temperatures meant less general activity, and that meant less suspicious activity. Black-and-white radio cars prowled up and down the boulevards, through quiet residential streets and along damp, dark alleys, like nocturnal predators looking for easy prey. Finding none on one avenue, they would move on to another and another, always searching, searching . . .

Every so often, a youth in an old battered car would be singled out for a routine search. One such youth, the dark-haired owner of a green 1962 Ford Fairlane with an off-white right front fender, let it be known that he was not amused with this "routine search."

"What's the deal, man? I wasn't speeding or anything."

"Step out of the car," said the soldier who had gotten out of the driver's seat. His partner cautiously approached from the other side. "Put your hands on the roof, feet back and spread 'em." To emphasize the order to "spread 'em" he kicked hard at the inside of the suspect's ankle, causing him to go into almost a full split. His ankle exploded in pain, and as he wondered if the cop was wearing steel-toed boots he also wondered if his ankle had just been fractured.

"What are you doing out here tonight?" the other soldier asked as the driver began searching the young man's pockets.

"I was on my way home," the young man replied through gritted teeth as he tried to shift his weight from his injured foot. "Hey, get your hands out of my pockets." He started to turn.

The soldier gave him a hard shove back into position. He then pulled a set of keys out of his right pocket and examined them.

"Did you know that possession of marijuana paraphernalia is now a federal offense? A long time ago, people used to get roach clips that looked just like ordinary keys . . . " He tested them and found that they were all real. He stepped away from the man and headed for the rear of the car. "What are you carrying back here?" he asked as he began to unlock the trunk.

"A spare and a jack. Hey, if you haven't got a warrant you can stay the hell out of there. I didn't say you could search my trunk; this is an illegal search."

"Illegal, huh?" asked the passenger soldier. "So go call the cops." He began searching inside as the youth stood by, in pain, helpless and angry.

The passenger soldier sat in the front seat on the right and shined his flashlight around the floor. A couple of small dead leaves, a little dead grass and a bit of dog shit decorated the worn rubber mat. He looked inside the glove box and found three crumpled boxes of Marlboro 100s, crumpled cellophane, three empty matchbooks, and a plastic flashlight. "What's under the seats, boy?"

"Springs."

The driver soldier came back from the trunk and began searching the back seat. "You're a real comedian, you know that?" he asked. "You'd think it'd be funny if I just happened to find an ounce or two of maryjane in here?"

The young man didn't quite know what to do. Part of him was outraged at the fact that if he stuck up for his rights these soldiers could plant drugs on him and arrest him for it. Another part of him wanted to laugh derisively in the soldier's face. Maryjane? he thought. Good God, what a dork. Only a soldier, trying to sound cool, would refer to marijuana as "maryjane."

"I'm going to call headquarters and check this guy out for any priors," said the passenger soldier as he headed from the Ford's front seat to the radio car.

"You do that," said the young man. "And while you're at it, tell them I'm going to sue your asses off for harassment and illegal search."

The driver soldier came from the back seat, and with both fists he suddenly grabbed the youth by the front of his denim jacket. He slammed him violently down on the hood and brought his face within inches of the young man's. "You listen to me, you fucking little punk!" he roared, with tiny droplets of spittle spraying in his face. "We're still under martial law, so there's no such thing as an 'illegal' search! Now, if you don't want me to bust your ass for obstructing justice and interfering with a Guard in the performance of his duty, I suggest"--he pulled him up and slammed him against the hood again--"you shut your fucking mouth and answer our questions! Got it?" He slammed him once again, his face a mask of barely restrained rage. "Got it?"

The young man nodded quickly in agreement, his eyes wide with terror. Holy shit, he thought, this psycho pig really wants to kill me!

The passenger soldier watched his partner with mild interest as he spoke into the radio's microphone. "Headquarters," he said, "this is four-niner-Charlie."

"Go ahead, four-niner-Char--" said the cool, impersonal female voice of the dispatcher before the explosion cut her off.

***

The local Guardian building sat atop a small hill, squatting low and wide like an ogre before a bridge, surveying all in its domain. It's parking lot held some three dozen black-and-white units, and along with the dish-shaped radio and radar antennae there were two Bell helicopters that sat like grasshoppers on the roof. Occasionally an electronically distorted voice would blare out over the public address system to page one soldier or another, and the cars irregularly pulled into and out of the parking lot in back. And then suddenly, as if by an ironic act of God, the whole place blew up with an earth-shaking roar and spewed flaming debris in all directions.

People in their homes jumped from their sofas and chairs as the shock waves rattled and cracked their windows, and stared at each other as they wondered what in the hell had just happened. They rushed outside to try to see something, and they saw, off in the west, the pulsating red glow in the sky that heralded the destruction of the local Guardian building. They didn't know, at the time, what had gone up--they only knew that it was something big.

The gasoline pumps and the storage tanks added fuel to the growing flames. Men were running back and forth, yelling to one another with questions and suggestions of how to handle the emergency. The whole place looked like it was about to go up, and as they tried to save as many cars as possible from certain destruction the second blast went off. It took out the entire parking lot and the repair garages, along with everyone in them. Several soldiers had run out of the front doors--or what was left of them--with their uniforms and fatigues on fire and screaming horribly. Their pain was short-lived, though, as the third bomb--this one planted in the armory--went off. The stored ammunition there added extra force to the blast; the roof collapsed and brought down the two helicopters, and moments later they, too, exploded into flames. Sirens began to scream in the night, and by the time the fire department arrived with their bright red trucks and canvas hoses the entire building and all of its contents were a total loss.

After sifting through the soaked and charred remains, the arson investigators determined that the explosions were caused by bombs that had been concealed in and around the building--concealed in the same pattern as those that had been found in the local draft board last week and the FLM recruiting office across town the week before that. Sabotage by Communist terrorists was the official report filed by the investigators. A very clever inside job; unquestionably the work of spies.

Those damned Rebels had struck again.

Chapter Nineteen

Cold, gray clouds hung immobile in the autumn sky, and against them, almost obscured by the line of trees that grew in front of its hill, squatted the Betatron Nuclear Power Station. Despite the fact that it sat less than two kilometers from an active earthquake fault--a fault that was capable of delivering better than a 7.5 jolt on the Richter scale--the plant was given its license for a full-power start-up. Arguments over the high probability of a total meltdown were ignored; the construction company that had built it claimed to have taken this detail into consideration, and said that the plant was earthquake-proof, while a former technician from the United States Geological Survey and two former Nuclear Regulatory Commission engineers had disagreed vehemently--and had never been heard from again.

"Let's see if we can move those speakers just a little further back . . . yeah, that's good--right there," said the stage manager, who was directing a team of roadies in setting up the equipment for the concert. "Yeah, the amps can sit on top of them . . . "

People were arriving from as far as Reno, Fresno and Medford for the anti-nuclear concert. Four different rock bands were giving a free concert to get the public exposure they needed to get their careers started. They weren't trying to appeal to the mass public, they just wanted to go from one small gig to the next, and maybe next time they could get paid. They preferred to keep out of the attention of the Foundation, for obvious reasons, so their advertising had been partially word-of-mouth and mostly pamphlet-passing among the various small towns and communes. If they were found out, this could wind up being a very short concert.

Mother Nature didn't seem to be helping matters any. Several panels of photovoltaic cells were connected to a massive collection of 12-volt car batteries, and five aluminum windmills with their three-meter blades were hooked into generators that, in turn, were connected to the amplifiers. The concert's aim was to warn people about the inherent dangers of fission reactors, and to show by practical demonstration that alternative energy sources most definitely could supply all the electricity that was needed. And the only cost of it was in the equipment itself; the energy generated was free and unlimited.

But there wasn't much sunlight on this gray, dismal day. The wind that had brought in the unwelcome nimbus clouds had stopped, leaving them to hang like a thick, gray quilted shroud of melancholy. Some argued that there was enough sunlight to power the vast panels of solar cells, while others said there wasn't. One thing that everyone did agree upon was the fact that there was no wind to spin the blades of the windmills, and the crowd was growing impatient as they wondered when--or even if--the music was ever going to start. So far, solar and wind power were a big bust. There seemed to be only enough power to allow the band members to hear themselves tune their guitars. And, on top of all that, a light drizzle was beginning to fall.

"Damn, will you look at that?" Valerie grumbled under her breath as her amber eyes gazed at the cold, gray sky. "It would have to start raining now."

Earlier this morning, while having breakfast at Oscar's house, she had met some of the people who were putting on the concert, and she had come along to help get things set up. Keller was nowhere to be seen; he was still out trying to meet with some people who might provide a possible lead or two on the replacement parts he needed for the Charger. The engine block had not cracked after all, but the radiator had; and his suspicions about the sending unit had been confirmed. He had no idea if he would be able to obtain the needed parts, or of when he would be back.

She watched the crowd that had gathered in front of the stage. All these people had brought food and wine, and their children had been promised a day of fun and sun and music; and now they all looked around sadly, realizing that the good time they had been promised would not come to be. And it was all because the damned weather had turned bad. Everyone was disappointed, and many of the children's faces were streaked with tears. People grumbled and cursed the lousy weather, and began to gather their blankets and baskets as they prepared to leave.

Valerie felt sorry for all of these people who had come from so far away to indulge themselves in a few hours of fun. Good times were all too rare since the takeover by the FLM . . . Damn, we can't let this concert get washed out, she thought. It isn't fair, damn it, it just isn't fair.

She went to the edge of the stage and placed her hands on it, then boosted herself up and swung a leg over. She walked to the center edge, from where she saw a number of disappointed people beginning to edge their ways through the crowd, baskets in hand and blankets draped over their shoulders. "Hey!" she called out. "Where are you all going?"

Several heads turned and saw a dark-haired woman in snug white jeans and a faded blue sweatshirt addressing them. "You just got here, man; you aren't all going to leave because of a couple of little clouds, are you?"

More and more people were turning to see who was addressing them. One or two of them, thinking she might have looked a little familiar, might have recognized her from the wanted posters they had seen and then tossed away, and then had gone back to packing their baskets. Others had heard some rumors about her; rumors about killing two Foundation mercenaries with black magic . . .

"Come on, people, you just got here. You don't want to go home thinking you wasted a trip out here, do you?" And then it suddenly hit her as to how many people she was addressing. With her heart suddenly racing wildly with apprehension, she asked herself, What the hell am I doing up here in front of all these people? Please, dear Lady, don't let me make an ass of myself.

It was clear from the many grumbling voices that most people wanted to stay, but they didn't think they had much choice in the matter. After all, what could they do? It was cold and gray, and a depressing drizzle was falling on them and threatening to bring even more rain.

"So what are you gonna do about it?" asked a loud voice from somewhere near the front of the crowd. Evidently, its skeptical owner had seen some of the posters that bore her picture. "You gonna change the weather or something?"

There was a strikingly beautiful Asian woman, dressed in leather sandals and faded black jeans, and a white tank top with a worn brown jacket thrown over her shoulders. She was standing next to him, and she not-too-gently jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow. "Hey, shut up and give her a chance, willya?" she growled. She had seen the wanted posters, too.

Valerie saw her, and her heart raced for a moment as their eyes locked. Oh, yeah . . . they both thought as they smiled at each other . . . and Valerie's apprehension suddenly washed out of her.

"No, of course I'm not going to change the weather," she told the man in the crowd. "You are." She raised her eyes to take in the entire crowd. "All of you are."

"Oh, yeah?" asked another skeptical voice. "How?"

"Remember an old childhood chant? How many of you remember 'Rain, rain, go away?'"

Most of the looks she received were blank, and only a few voices responded.

Her eyes fell on the Asian woman again, who was still smiling at her and nodding slightly. She knows, Valerie thought, and again she smiled back. As their eyes held each other's for a moment, she thought, I've got to meet you later. "Well, that's going to be our weather spell.

"You see, there's an energy that is produced by all living things. It's produced by animals, plants, even the soil and the rocks--because we are all alive, and this very planet is alive. And magic is the use of this energy to obtain a desired goal. But we don't want to make a permanent change in the weather, just a temporary one. So it's not exactly a fail safe that we use, but . . . Well, just follow along and you'll get the idea." She took a deep breath for an extra shot of oxygen, and then began clapping her hands together slowly to establish a steady rhythm. She shouted to the sky, "Rain! Rain! Go aw . . . " She stopped and looked at the crowd with mock scorn. "Come on people, how about some help here? You want to put the rain off or not?"

"Yeah!" shouted mostly children's voices.

Smiling at them, she said, "Okay, let's try it again." She began clapping her hands again, with a couple dozen kids and a few adults joining in. "Rain! Rain! Go away! Come again another day! We want to hear the music play!"

A few more people joined in, reluctantly and somewhat embarrassed at first, and the chant gradually grew louder and stronger. Valerie was soon walking across the stage, bouncing lightly with each step, and she increased her rhythm as she continued to clap and chant in time with her steps. She went from one end of the stage to the other, keeping her attention on the crowd and on the gray sky. Please, Goddess, let this work, she thought as she continued to chant. "Rain! Rain!" she shouted.

"Go away!" the crowd responded.

"Come again--"

"--another day!"

"We want to hear--"

"--the music play!"

A cold wind began to blow in from the northwest. Gently, at first, not much more than a light breeze. But it was better than nothing. For a few moments, though, the sky seemed to grow even darker. Children looked up with despair in their eyes, and for that they chanted even louder and more fervently.

"Keep it up! Keep it up!" she encouraged. She had to shout now, because a lot of adults had joined in at the prodding of their children. "Come on, you can do it! Come on!" She increased her rhythm again; not so much in encouragement this time, but rather to keep up with the crowd--they were getting ahead of her. She glanced quickly at the sky and said, "C'mon, louder! I can hardly hear you!"

The crowd responded by chanting louder and louder, their voices roaring.

She looked up again. She wasn't sure, but she thought she saw a lighter spot of gray in the oppressively low clouds. "Louder! Faster! C'mon, let's do it!"

The crowd was on its feet, jumping up and down and clapping and chanting and having a great time, even though there wasn't any music. They got louder and faster, almost in a frenzy, and suddenly the sun began to break through the clouds. The wind grew stronger and warmer, turning the blades of the windmills, and Valerie pointed to the sky. "Look!" she shouted. "It's working! Keep it up--c'mon, you can do it!" Instead of leading the crowd, she was now getting swept away by the white water rapids of its enthusiasm. More energy, she thought. We need more energy . . . She grinned as an idea suddenly came to her. Still bouncing on her toes, she suddenly peeled off her sweatshirt and threw it high, and it landed on top of a speaker cabinet nearby. A new deafening roar of male voices came from the crowd along with shrill whistles and wild cheers, and a few howls. Even the Asian woman, with a wide and surprised grin, threw a fist in the air with an enthusiastic "Woo-hoo!" The crowd's energy level suddenly shot up about ten-fold, and its physical force actually staggered her back a couple of steps--and still she continued to chant and clap and bounce across the stage. Then a sudden gust of wind blew in and set the blades of the wind turbines to spinning in a mad frenzy, and there was a sudden wide tear in the clouds that let in the brilliant sunlight that shone on her like a spotlight, growing wider to illuminate the entire stage. The photovoltaic panels began soaking in the sunlight, producing more electricity than the installers had expected. Several band members plugged in their guitars again, another went to sit behind the massive drum set, and a keyboard player switched on his synthesizer. They broke into a spontaneous and note-perfect rendition of Jackson Browne's "Running On Empty," and the crowd exploded into another wild, hysterical cheer.

Valerie grabbed a microphone from its stand and shouted into it. "Look at that, people!" she said as she pointed at the sky. "You did it, man! YOU DID IT!! Give yourselves a cheer!" And as she thrust the microphone in their direction, the crowd roared again with as much energy as the sun itself. She raised both fists to the sky in victory, then blew a two-handed kiss to the crowd and jogged off the stage. She returned a moment later, retrieved her sweatshirt with an embarrassed grin, and hurried off again, waving once more in farewell. Soon food was being passed around from previously closed baskets, and the adults began passing joints and bottles of wine.

"Jesus Christ!" said one of the roadies. "I don't believe you did that!" He had to shout to be heard over the music and the cheering.

"I didn't! They did it!" Or is he talking about the bit with the shirt? she wondered a moment later. I can't believe I did that! Gods, she dismally groaned to herself, I'll never be able to show my face in public again . . . "All I did was show 'em how!"

The roadie grinned lasciviously. "Yeah, you sure showed 'em, all right!"

Sexist male pig, she thought with a wry grin. She straightened her shirt and shook her hair once more so that it settled the way she liked it, and then parted it slightly to one side. As she did, she suddenly felt a deliciously soft and smooth hand on her forearm. She turned to see to whom it belonged; it was the Asian woman from the crowd. She was smiling at her and urging her to come out on stage again to do a couple of songs. She couldn't be heard over the music, nor could Valerie as she tried politely and unsuccessfully to beg off. She finally let herself be led out, and the other woman went to sit behind the drums.

The crowd cheered again as she came out, and almost immediately the band began to play an old Jefferson Starship song called "Song To The Sun." She had never heard it before, but she felt that somehow everything would turn out all right; the band was putting out loads of energy, and she was tapping into it and picking up the lyrics from the guitar player and the bass player a fraction of a second before they sang them. And it couldn't have sounded better if they had rehearsed for a week. Toward the end of the song, the music got louder and faster, and as it did the wind grew stronger and warmer; and by the time the song came to its abrupt finish, there were blue skies and just a fringe of clouds off to the northwest. Another wild cheer came from the crowd and the band did another song, an older Jefferson Airplane song called "Somebody To Love." They stretched it out and mellowed it a bit, and Valerie sang with a strong, even and low voice that was a seductive and bewitching combination of Alannah Myles and Grace Slick; it exuded a cool, dark sexuality that made one think of dark angels and cold, windswept October nights.

Then they shifted up a gear, and did "Barracuda," by Heart. The music was loud and fast, and the drums sounded like rapid-fire thunder as they pulsated through Valerie and urged her on. Then they shifted down a gear, slowing and relaxing into a couple of jazzy and more whimsical songs: "Trouble Child" and "Twisted," from Joni Mitchell's "Court And Spark" album. The soft drumming and gentle tapping of cymbals had an intoxicating effect on her, and she swayed gently with the music as it softly surrounded and permeated her. She sobered immediately when the songs ended, and belted out "Back In The U.S.A." (Linda Ronstadt, eat your heart out! she thought), and then they finished with Graham Nash's "Teach Your Children." The audience begged for more, but her voice was giving out, and she reluctantly had to call it quits.

She turned to walk off the stage, and bent to pick up a guitar that had been leaning against a speaker cabinet but had slipped to the floor. It was an old Ibenez electric, painted gold with black trim, and she was about to lean it against the speaker again when a pulse of psychic energy came from the instrument and ran up her arm to engulf her. There must have been seven or eight dozen songs in it--energy and talent absorbed from the instrument's various owners--and they flooded into her like a drug rush. She held it for a moment, not knowing to whom it belonged, and then she asked the guitarist, "Do you know the Outlaws' 'Green Grass And High Tides?'"

"Sure do. You play?"

That wry grin spread across her face as she replied, "We'll find out in a second."

Not only did "Green Grass And High Tides" come out perfectly, but so did REO Speedwagon's "Riding The Storm Out," and Robin Trower's "Day Of The Eagle" and "Little Bit Of Sympathy," with the guitar and bass players doing the vocals. And then she traded leads back and forth with the guitarist as they did "Satch Boogie," "Big Bad Moon," and "The Extremist," by Joe Satriani. Close to the end of "The Extremist," she made her way over to the drum set, and the two women watched and smiled at each other in open admiration as they played to and for each other. By now, the rest of the group was ready to take a break, and as the song finished they got ready to unplug their instruments; but Valerie and the Asian woman paused for only an instant, and then they simultaneously broke into Satriani's "War." The other guitarist gave up and walked off with a rueful grin and a shake of his head, but the bass player heroically played on. The two women were barely aware of him, though; as far as they were concerned, they were the only two people in the world--the audience, the stage, and the rest of the band, for the time being, had ceased to exist. But toward the end of the final song the rest of the world returned, and when she went to stand in front of the trio of Marshall stacks through which she was playing, Valerie closed her eyes and turned her face to the sun, and wrenched the volume control on her guitar to full. The sun warmed her and the music blasted through her, and to her the combination of warmth and the pulsating roar was the next best thing to sex. They finished the song, letting the final chord fade out to silence, and for a long moment the audience just sat there in stunned awe. And then they exploded into hysterical, shrieking applause.

Break time, she finally told herself as she shook out the tension that had built up in her picking hand. She waved to the audience once more as she carefully leaned the guitar against the speaker cabinet and shared a couple of high-fives with the band members. "There's a lot of Joe Satriani songs in that thing," she loudly said to the bass player.

"Not surprising; it used to be his guitar."

She went over to the drum set and shook hands with the Asian woman. Sweat was pouring out of the latter and she seemed out of breath, yet she was ready for more. ("God, that was fantastic!" she shouted over the cheering, sounding almost as though she had just had an orgasm. "Let's do it again!") But Valerie was not, and she blew another kiss to the crowd before she finally left the stage.

Yeah, boy, this is what it's all about, she thought as she folded her arms and surveyed the band and the sea of delighted, beaming faces. She felt warm inside; it made her feel so damned good to be able to help these people help themselves have such a good time, and she sent a sincere prayer of gratitude and thanks to her Goddess.

Now another band, with the Asian woman still at the drums, was doing some cuts from an old Who album called "Quadrophenia." First was "The Real Me," then "The Punk Meets The Godfather," and they finished with "Dr. Jimmy." Valerie watched the Asian woman in unabashed awe as she hammered at the drums with a blur of drumsticks. One of the sticks snapped in the middle of a fast roll, and she continued to play with one hand as she casually reached down for another, never missing a beat. Valerie grinned as she thought again, Yeah, I've definitely got to meet you.

As she turned away to get something to eat, her eyes fell on the Betatron Nuclear Power Station. Suddenly, her heart raced with fear at the thought of what that thing could do to the people who lived here if it ever--or when it finally--melted down. And then her eyes narrowed dangerously into cold slits as her mood suddenly darkened and chilled. I'm not afraid of you, she silently told it. A couple of roadies passed by her, and they shivered and wondered where that blast of cold air had suddenly come from; they felt as though they had just passed by the open door of a coroner's freezer.

Valerie didn't notice them. She was staring too hard at the hulking concrete monstrosity to take note of anything else around her. "I'm not afraid of you," she said under her breath, "and I'm going to shut you down, you mother fucker!"

***

Night fell at last, after the conclusion of a long and successful concert, and so did the rain. Thunder rumbled through the heavy clouds as lightning flashed through them in jagged streaks of silver. Rain pounded at the woods, turning the dirt roads to mud, and hammered at those who had not yet managed to find shelter.

She burst in through the front door and slammed it shut. Leaning with her back against it as she tried to catch her breath after the long run, she looked up at the sky through the ceiling. "Couldn't you have waited just a little longer?" she asked the storm. She ran her hands through her wet hair and pulled the soaked blue sweatshirt away from her cold, damp skin. "Oh, man," she said softly. She went over to the fireplace and began stuffing wads of newspaper and small pieces of kindling under the grate. She set them alight with a long fireplace match and watched them burn, then rested a small log on top of the grate and sat back to watch for a moment, making certain that the fire caught. She rose quickly, shivering uncontrollably from the cold and the damp, and then went upstairs to her bedroom to strip out of her wet clothes. She returned to the fireplace a few minutes later, naked and wrapped in her warm hooded cloak, and then spread her clothes out on the hearth to dry. She pulled a wide chair over to the fire and curled up in it, and leaned back to gaze into the fire and think as she toweled her hair dry.

A few people at the concert had referred to her as a witch, and she smiled as she remembered. Not that they had any idea of what a witch really was. Her idea, now always with the upper case "w," was of a healer and a helper; but the common concept was that of someone out of a bad cartoon, with poison apples and warts and foul breath (the way she envisioned television evangelists), and stroking a black cat while hexing innocent people. She felt that now it was up to her to change that image. And she thought she was off to a pretty good start, too, as she remembered that voice that had said something about her curing that "dying kid," as he had put it. She would have to play up that angle, and try to downplay the story about the soldier's body being found floating in mid-air. She really couldn't blame Rob for telling one or two people what he had seen, but God, how word had gotten around!

And then the face of that Asian woman came into her mind again. Damn, she was so cute! she thought, with a sudden and surprising sense of longing. With that dynamite body, her long, black hair, her rich, bronze tan, and those exotic almond eyes . . . She never did get a chance to talk to her again. Now her chances of meeting her again, she figured, were somewhere between zero and nil. She sighed as her hopes were crushed like a bug.

Curtains had been drawn across the broken windows earlier, to keep out the rain and cold drafts, and the living room only slowly grew warmer. With a sigh, she slowly moved from the chair to sit closer by the fire to finish drying her hair. A small pop came from the fire, and created a small shower of glowing orange sparks that landed near her on the stone hearth. She smiled slightly to herself. Sitting here by the fire, wearing only her cloak and the silver pentacle that rested against her heart, and thinking about her recent events--the concert, her self-initiation ritual, and the ritual she had used to save Kelly's life--Valerie was beginning to feel like a Witch. She put the towel down and unfastened the lace from her neck, and let the cloak slip from her shoulders to pool around her like a black liquid shadow. Then she held the pentacle in one hand to examine it; the silver star, with its obsidian center and the stone's silver horns of the crescent moon, was still glowing faintly with that blue-white light. She shifted slightly to sit on one side, with one hand supporting her as orange light flickered and danced against her bare skin, and let the pentacle drop back against her breast.

Word was most definitely going to be circulating about her. Even though it was the concert goers themselves who had actually changed the weather for a while, the credit was most likely going to be hers . . . Between that and the way she had helped Kelly, she would soon have built quite a reputation for herself--and she hoped that all this talk and speculation wouldn't attract the attention of the authorities.

But if it does, she thought, then there are some things that I'd better take care of. And one of them is that fucking nuke plant.

She went back upstairs to dress warmly for her covert mission.

***

The rain had finally let up, but it was still cold. Valerie shivered uncontrollably under her thermal underwear and black jeans, a dark brown wool sweater, and a fleece-lined corduroy jacket and her black hooded cloak, but she was determined to keep the promise she had made at the concert.

There was no way to get past the tall, chain-link security fence that surrounded the plant, not with the five thousand volt current that ran through it. The armed guards and the dogs were another deterrent as they patrolled the grounds inside the fence. That makes things even tougher, she though. So I'll just have to cast a bigger Circle.

She didn't like the idea of using curses. She remembered the old law of the Craft that whatever you do will come back to you--three-fold, some believed. But this had to be done, she thought, regardless of her own personal safety. So she went ahead and placed the four black candles at the four compass points around the power station, lighting each as she stuck it into the ground. When at last she finished, she stood up straight behind a tall bush and stretched her back and legs, and waited for the ache of fatigue to subside. She hadn't thought about how much walking she was going to have to do before she came out of here. It was a damn big place, and she was beginning to wonder just how much longer she was going to be here before she could finally go home and--

Snap!

She silently dropped into a crouch behind the bush, and froze with terror as a pair of guards with a leashed Doberman--patrolling outside of the fence--came toward her. God! she silently cried out as her heart suddenly raced in panic. Oh, shit! They were still forty or fifty feet away, but they were coming straight to where she was hiding--and she could almost swear that if they drew any closer, the fierce and traitorous pounding of her own heart would give her away. The dog would hear her and be unleashed, and she would either be torn to shreds like a demonstrator at a freedom rally or taken prisoner to be later executed for witchcraft--and now also for sabotage, espionage, and terrorism. Or, if she were actually lucky enough, she would simply be shot on sight, like a wolf in the woods.

As they drew closer, the guards could easily be heard joking and laughing. "'So, you want to see a warrant, huh?' I says to this kid," one of the guards was saying. "So I took out my nightstick and whopped him up side the head and says, 'Here's my warrant, punk!'"

As they drew closer, the other guard laughed. "Fuckin' civil rights people," he said. "They all think they can get away with that shit. You'd think they would have learned by now."

They were coming closer; now they were no more than twenty feet away from her. She tried to lean farther back into the shadows and the bushes to better conceal herself . . . and her cloak snagged on a small branch. Oh Dear Lady, she thought in terror as she silently worked to free it while watching the guards as they came even closer. Now they were only ten feet away. Dear Goddess, please, dear Lady . . . And then the branch came free, and swept back into place with a gentle rustling of the bush.

The dog stopped suddenly, and the two guards almost bumped into it. It froze like a statue and raised its ears, alert for any sound as it sniffed the air. She clearly heard one of the guards ask, "What's the matter, boy? You hear something?" He reached for his flashlight and clicked it on, and its bright, white beam swept over the area where she was hiding. The light continued to creep slowly, reflecting from the glossy, broad leaves of the thick shrubbery and disappearing into the shadows between them, as it slowly glided over them, searching . . . It passed slowly across Valerie's heavily shadow-dappled face, and she froze like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding car.

The light continued to pass to her left as the second guard softly said, "I didn't hear anything."

"You ain't got ears like a Doberman, either. I'm gonna cut 'im loose, and we'll see what he finds."

A gentle breeze blew at her back, gently rustling the shrubbery around her and carrying her scent toward the dog's sensitive nose. And she knew now that she was about to be discovered.

"Aw, man! Do you really want to go chasing the damn dog around in the dark?" There was a short pause. "Look, if there was someone out there, don't you think he'd be barking his head off right now?"

The flashlight beam slowly swept back over Valerie's position, and found nothing.

"Come on; it's probably just the wind, or a squirrel or something," the second guard said. He looked at the dog and took note of its now relaxed attitude; it was looking around, not focused on anything. "Come on, even the dog doesn't give a shit now. There's nothing out there."

There was another long, silent pause, and then the first guard's voice said, "Yeah, I guess you're right . . . " The flashlight clicked off, and the patrol team slowly moved on.

She waited until she could no longer hear or see them before she released the breath that she had been holding in a long sigh of relief. And then she waited another five minutes or so for her heart to slow to its normal rate. When she was satisfied that they were gone, she slowly and stiffly rose from behind the bush.

All she wanted to do was just get the hell out of here. To forget the cursing of the power station, and just go home. She knew she couldn't, of course; she had made too many promises. And because of those promises, she was suddenly more determined than ever. Burning with a newly found rage, she dug into her bag (with hands that were still trembling a little) and found her athame, and then began to walk carefully around the outside of the fence a second time, this time keeping a sharp eye out for more patrols as she drew a line of flickering blue-white light around the entire complex.

Standing at the southern edge of the Circle and facing north, she turned her face up to the black, overcast sky. And this time she did remember to ground herself; to absorb as much energy as she could from her surroundings before casting the spell. She wanted all the energy she could get, because this was going to be one motherfucker of a curse (at least, she hoped it would be). Holding the athame's point to the sky in both hands, she said, "I call upon Artemis, goddess of the moon and protector of all things wild and free. Protect us, your children, and defend us against those who work inside this vile, stinking invention of death and destruction. I beg you to neutralize the sheer malice and evil that dwell within it. I want no one to be killed, but these people must learn that what they are doing is wrong and dangerous! Don't let them poison the air with their nuclear vapors, and stop them from contaminating your land and water with their radioactive waste. I call upon you and beg you to stop them before it is too late. So mote it be." She stood, silent and unmoving, and waited.

Lightning flashed brilliantly overhead. It was as bright as the noonday sun, and as the silver light flashed against concrete and steel it illuminated the entire complex, making the unnatural landscape look eerie and foreboding, cold and . . . evil. Thunder exploded like a bomb over the complex, echoing from the walls and through the woods, and gradually died as the wind began to pick up. It quickly grew stronger and stronger, like someone turning up the speed on a gigantic fan, and in a moment it was blowing with nearly hurricane force. It tore at her cloak and billowed it behind her like a rippling black shadow, and still she continued to stand motionlessly as she held the dagger in both hands toward the sky.

A jagged bolt of silver lightning flashed down from the sky, and struck the tip of the knife. As her long dark hair streamed in the wind and whipped around her face and shoulders, she absorbed the energy through the athame and let it permeate her; she became a blinding orb of solid blue-white energy as more deafening thunder exploded around her like a series of nuclear devices. She slowly lowered her arms until they were pointing the athame at the containment dome of the plant, and as another blast of thunder rolled across the sky the energy she had absorbed suddenly shot out of her through the dagger, and blasted into the concrete dome in a rippling beam of cold, blue lightning that showered acetylene sparks in every direction. Thunder exploded again and again, one rapid-fire blast after another, as the energy struck the building and began to spread, engulfing the entire complex. The containment dome, the cooling stacks, and the main offices all glowed with the pulsating blue-white light.

The glow around her finally dimmed and faded as the energy finally exhausted itself, and the energy beam itself faded and died as its power supply emptied. The winds and the lightning gradually died down as the thunder tapered off, and as the rain began to fall she slowly lowered her hands as the energy was absorbed into the concrete and steel structure. Exhausted yet still standing, she held the athame clenched tightly in both fists, a dagger that was ready to be thrust into the underbelly of an enemy, and she visualized the plant as being nothing but a dead, empty, and harmless shell that would soon crumble and turn to dust. She slowly sank to her knees on the damp ground, tingling and trembling in the aftermath of all that energy that had passed through her as though she had been an electrical connector between two terminals, and slowly collected her tools. She hoisted the bag over her shoulder, and left the candles--which surprisingly had not been blown out by the gale force winds--to finish the spell by gradually burning down and extinguishing themselves. It was all she could do; now only time would tell if the curse had been successful.

Continued...