The night shift at the Betatron Nuclear Power Station was checking out after one of those nights. You know the kind; where absolutely nothing went right. None of it could be blamed on the storm, either, which some were calling the biggest bitch of a storm to hit this area in nearly half a century. A lot of the workers had been angry as hell; others were scared to death.

"Jesus, Bruce, what happened to you?"

Bruce Winston, the night shift manager, was being helped into his office and eased into his chair behind his desk by two workers. His left shoe and sock were off, and he rested his foot on top of the oaken desk. It was swollen to nearly twice its normal size, and the skin from his toes to the middle of his shin was a dark purple, which gave way to a sickening shade of yellow around the edges. He winced and sucked air through clenched teeth as he tried to relax his leg, which throbbed with even the tiniest of movements. "I think I broke my fuckin' ankle," he groaned. "One of the men wanted me to go down and take a look at intake four; the goddamn thing's leaking again."

"Again?" Bob Fagan asked. "I thought we had that fixed last month, when they came to fix number seven."

"Obviously someone didn't do a very good job of it," Winston retorted. "Otherwise I wouldn't have slipped and busted my damn ankle in that puddle of water, now, would I?" He sighed and winced again. "At least we got a smooth shut down of the core this time."

"Yeah," Fagan said. "I'm going to have all the welds on each intake re-checked."

"We don't have time to re-check all of the intakes. The longer we're off-line, the more it's gonna cost the company. Just have them repair number four and start up the core again as soon as possible."

"Hey, I think--"

"You're not paid to think, you're paid to follow orders," Winston said sharply. "Now get your ass down there and do as you're told!"

Fagan stiffened and looked coldly at Winston. Too bad you didn't bust your fucking head, he thought. But what he said was, "Yes sir." He went down to intake four to supervise its repair, and found something rather peculiar: not only was there no puddle of water on the floor beneath intake number dour, but the intake valve itself was bone dry and completely intact.

***

Hugh Carson was glad to get home after working graveyard shift. The first thing he did when he got home was to go straight to the liquor cabinet and take a good, healthy swig straight from the scotch bottle. Liquid fire burned its way to his stomach, like plutonium melting through the ground below its containment dome. He set the bottle on the counter with a thud, still holding onto its neck, and waited for the fire to subside. Then he took another hit. This one didn't burn quite as much, and the third went down even more smoothly. Carson was not an alcoholic; he never drank to excess. But that just might change after what he had been through last night. He wasn't angry, or depressed; he was scared shitless. He had been a cop and a Holy Guardian for thirty years before he retired, and nothing like this had ever happened to him. And he certainly hadn't expected to see anything like what he saw last night inside a nuke plant, for God's sake. Hell, even the streets hadn't been a place to see ghosts. But, by God, that's exactly what he had seen, and no one was going to tell him anything different. He knew what he had seen.

Carson carried the bottle over to the sofa, and collapsed gratefully on the soft cushions. He leaned his head back, still clutching the bottle, and stared at the ceiling, afraid to close his eyes. He was afraid he might see that face again.

It had begun with the noises. He had been expecting another night of the same old routine; walking up and down the corridors, checking the offices and making certain that they were all securely locked. Bor-ring, he had been thinking to himself. Certainly no action like there had been when he was with the San Francisco Police Department, and later as a sergeant with the Holy Guards. He had transferred to them so he could continue working until he was eligible for retirement; it had its slow and boring nights, like tonight had started out to be, but for the most part he liked it almost as much as being a cop. Of course, he had to take a religious test--not to see how much he knew about religion, of course, but rather to see whether or not it agreed with the new National Party Line--but he didn't mind that at all. After all, he was a loyal Party member, and people who weren't had no business being in law enforcement anyway--and didn't deserve to live in the United States, either. ("If you don't love America, then get the fuck out, you Commie atheist bastard!" was his motto.) The test had been required by federal law since the early days of the Foundation, and had to be passed by all those who wished to work in the Government--civilian, the Holy Guard military (except for draftees, whose numbers were increasing steadily), the justice system, and especially by those who wished to run for public office.

He tested another office door, mumbling to himself, and found it securely locked. He went on to the next, and the next, and the next. Bor-ring.

Something at the end of the corridor caught the corner of his eye. He looked up from the office door, but whatever it was wasn't there anymore. Just the old imagination kicking up, that's all, he told himself. Just tired. Working too many nights, that's the problem. And this damn storm wasn't helping matters any, either--Christ, it was a big one! He ought to get back down to Admissions, where that thermos full of coffee is waiting. Ray's there, too, and right now he didn't care much for the idea of being alone.

He tested one last door, and then turned to leave. That was when he heard the footsteps. They seemed to be coming from the end of the corridor, from where he had just come. They were faint and slow, and stealthy. "Hello?" he called out, expecting to be answered by another guard. "Anyone there?"

No answer.

But the footsteps continued, growing louder. And then Carson heard the breathing. Wheezing, actually, a deep and strained wheezing that was coming from someone or something invisible, sharing the corridor with him…and coming closer.

Carson began to slowly back away, retreating toward the elevator. "Who's there?" he called out again, this time demanding as he unsnapped the holster that held his Colt Python .357 Magnum. He withdrew the revolver and cocked its hammer back. "Whoever the hell you are, you'd better start answering me, or there's going to be hell to pay."

The footsteps continued to approach, and the wheezing grew louder and harsher. The very air in the corridor seemed to be turning colder, and Carson could see his breath as puffs of white vapor as a nervous sweat broke out on his face. He backed up a few more steps, then holstered his gun and ran for the elevator. There were no formed words in his mind; it was instinct that told him to get the hell out of here, and he wasted no time in doing it.

The elevator stood open and empty at the end of the hall. He wondered if he would be able to reach it or if it would slam shut in his face, only inches from safety. He lengthened his strides and increased his speed, hoping against hope that it would stay open just long enough for him to get inside. He leapt the last few feet, throwing his body forward, and hit the floor with his shoulder, rolling to safety. He scrambled to his feet, and slammed his open palm against the ground floor button.

The doors stayed open.

A cold chill raced up his spine as he stared in sudden horror at the control panel. What?? he thought. Oh, God! No! What's happening here? Panic writhed in his belly like a snake, threatening to consume him from the inside. He slammed his palm against the ground floor button again and again, and still nothing happened.

The footsteps were coming down the corridor, coming closer and closer. They were no longer stealthy; whatever was out there knew that its prey was aware of it, and it didn't care anymore because the grinning unseen knew that the chase was over.

The harsh wheezing grew louder and louder . . . and closer. And then the moaning began. It, too, grew louder as the invisible footsteps grew closer, and it took a moment for Carson to realize that the moaning was coming from his own lips--a moaning of absolute terror.

The footsteps were almost at the door. Carson beat at the control panel with the bottom of his fist, and suddenly realized that he might have damaged the controls, and that the doors would not close. "Close!" he screamed. "Close! Close, goddamn it, close! Please, oh God, please, CLOSE!" and the footsteps and the wheezing continued until they were right outside of the elevator . . . and then they were cut off as the doors slid casually shut.

Carson sagged against the control panel in relief, his forehead pressed against the cool, cool steel. Oh, thank God, he thought as sweat ran down his face and neck and back. Thank you, Jesus, thank you, thank you . . .

With a gentle hum and a tiny jolt, the elevator began a smooth and steady descent as Carson took a deep breath. He didn't know what the hell was going on around here, and right now he didn't even care. He just wanted to get out of this place. He was going to turn in his badge and his gun, and just get the hell out of here.

The overhead lights flickered alarmingly, and then the elevator suddenly jerked to a bone-jarring stop.

Oh Jesus, he thought as he looked at the ceiling and then the control panel as though they might tell him something. Now what's going on? This can't be happening, God, it just can't! He reached for the lobby button again, and the lights went out. Oh, great! he thought. A power failure inside of a fucking nuke plant! Ain't that a kick in the head? Christ, if the anti-nukers knew about this, they'd laugh themselves sick. Please, God, tell me this night isn't happening. It just isn't possible! I'll wake up any second. This is all just some horrible nightmare, and I'm gonna wake up any second now. Any second . . .

He reached for his flashlight and switched lit on. It's beam illuminated the control panel, and he began pressing buttons again, trying to get one of them--any of them--to work so he could get this damn thing moving. He pushed one, then another, and another. But none of them worked. He reached for the emergency phone and put it to his ear.

The line was dead.

And then the breathing began again. With a sudden and terrifying realization, he knew that the invisible something, which he thought he had left safely behind him in the corridor just a few moments ago, somehow had slithered into the darkened elevator with him.

He spun around and flashed the beam quickly over the walls of the small cubicle. Please, God, he thought in despair, not again. Please . . .

The light fell flush on the dead man's face. His skin was a ghastly pale gray, and the eye sockets were empty except for the white maggots that roiled inside them. The jaw fell open and the lips stretched back in a putrescent grin, and hundreds of spiders--big and brown, with snapping horizontal mandibles--came rushing like a flood of vomit from between the cold, decaying lips. They fell to the floor and began skittering toward Carson's feet and up the insides of his trouser legs. He stumbled backward and tried to shake them from his legs as a strangled scream escaped from him. The beam of his flashlight danced madly over the corpse, shining on its chest and illuminating the roaches and fat black beetles that crawled and squirmed inside its rib cage. Its skeletal hands, sparsely dotted with bits of decayed flesh, came up and reached for him as it grinned at him once more, revealing stringy strands of thick, yellow mucus that hung between its gray lips.

And then the corpse began to gently glide toward him. In a soft, moist voice it whispered, "Come to me . . . "

Carson screamed in terror. He pulled his revolver from its holster again and fired at the face and chest, spraying blood and pus and rotted flesh all over the rear wall. He fired until the Magnum clicked empty in his hand, and he still squeezed the trigger uselessly. The flashlight fell from his nerveless fingers to shatter on the floor, plunging the elevator into total darkness. He threw his arms in front of his face and screamed again, for all he was worth. His legs gave way and he slid to the floor, and he huddled in a corner and continued to scream until his voice was gone.

Two other security guards heard the gunshots and the screams, and they ran down the corridor to the elevator. One of them hit the button to open the doors, and they looked into the brightly lit elevator. It was empty except for Carson, who was sitting in a corner with soiled pants and trying to scream. There were six bullet holes in the opposite wall, and nothing else.

Hugh Carson shuddered at the thought of the night's events and took another hit from the scotch bottle. Almost empty, he thought as he eyed the level. Well, I guess it's time for the bourbon. Hell, why not? It wasn't like the plant could fire him or anything; they were too late for that.

***

Walter Franklin sat alone in the control room. He thought that there should be more people here as he began his routine checks of the meters--coolant intake and discharge rates, generator and turbine speeds, core temperatures and the rest. Everything was going along just fine. Perfectly, as a matter of fact, which was unheard of. Under normal conditions, there was always some kind of a problem. Last month's little "problem" had been a real doozie--they had nearly lost the plant, not to mention the entire northern half of the state. That goddamn earthquake had given them all one hell of a jolt, Franklin thought. The support structure under the pump at Intake Three had held, but just barely. Franklin had suggested that the plant be shut down while the support was being replaced, but Winston had said no. "Too expensive," was his constant excuse. So instead of replacement, Winston opted for having four welders repair the support. Franklin didn't like the idea, but he was not the manager--Winston was. Franklin knew that he should have stood up to Winston, but that kind of thing could get you fired real quick, and Franklin had a family to support.

After finishing his check, he returned to his magazine. But for some reason he couldn't make out any of the words on the pages in front of him. The cover was indefinable, but that didn't really matter because he wasn't really reading a magazine anyway. His six-year-old daughter was there with him, and he wondered what she was doing here. This was a restricted area--authorized personnel only. His eight-year-old son was there, too, standing before him. But he, like his sister, was barely recognizable because of the burns and deformities. They looked like questionable survivors rising from the smoldering ashes and molten slag of Nagasaki. Their skin was burned black, and oozing abscesses had erupted on their once beautiful faces. Hair had fallen out in clumps until there were only a few dried strands left, and their hands and feet were twisted into grotesque, blackened claws.

"Why, Daddy?" the boy asked.

"Why are you killing us, Daddy?" the girl asked.

"They said the earthquake would cause the meltdown, Daddy," the boy said. "But you didn't do anything. Why?"

"You knew it could happen to us, Daddy. Why did you let it happen?"

Walter Franklin leapt from his chair and ran for the door. I had no choice! his mind screamed. Didn't they understand? It wasn't supposed to happen this way! He had to stay . . . to earn a living, to send his children to school, to put food on the table and a roof over their heads . . . They had told him that the plant was safe, that this could never happen!

They lied!

I know they lied! he finally admitted to his children. But I didn't mean for this to happen! What could I do? I'm just one man! I just did what I was told; I was just doing my job! I was just . . . following orders!

His running footsteps were painfully slow. His arms and legs felt as though they had suddenly turned to lead, and the very air had turned thick and syrupy, like protoplasm, and forced the breath out of his chest. Each step forward brought him no closer to the door. He groped for it in slow, blind panic, and finally reached the control panel that opened it. The door slid open, and outside--where he hoped to find fresh, clean air and escape--he found more children. Hundreds, thousands of children, all with their festering flesh dripping from their bones like oozing blobs of molten rubber, all blood-red and pus-yellow, puke-green and ash-gray, and charcoal-black. They floated toward him, reaching for him, wanting to share their death of radiation poisoning with him. Nooo! his mind shrieked. He turned away from then and tried to outrun them, but they kept coming closer and closer. Their hands clawed at him, grabbing at him. He could see his children standing by his desk in the control room. Help me! he sobbed. Help me, please, I didn't want this to happen! Please, help me . . . help me . . . And his children watched sadly, pointing accusing skeletal fingers at him.

And the others grabbed him, shaking him, shaking him. "Your fault," they said. "Your fault . . . fault . . . ault . . . "

" . . . alt, wake up! Walt!" Michelle nearly shouted as she shook him.

He sat up on the sofa with a lurch, his face a metal etching of pure terror. He looked frantically around himself, and suddenly realized that he was in his own living room. Bright sunlight shone through the open drapes. He was panting and sweating like a panic-stricken man being pulled back from the edge of a cliff. He slumped against his wife, exhausted.

"My God, Walt, what was it?" Michelle asked. She knew that he had been having something more horrifying than a nightmare, but still she wondered what the hell had been chasing him.

"Michelle, where are the kids?"

She looked puzzled. "The kids? What…"

Franklin grabbed her by the shoulders. "The children!" he shouted desperately. "Where are the children??"

"They . . . they're out in the backyard, playing . . . Why? Walt, what's wrong?"

He bolted from the sweat-soaked sofa and ran for the back door. He banged it open and ran outside, then stood frozen on the porch. From there he could see Dennis and Lisa climbing all over the jungle gym. When they saw him, they jumped down and ran for him. "Hi, Daddy!" Lisa shouted.

"What're you doin' up?" Dennis asked.

Walt fell to his knees and hugged his children, burying his face between them. Michelle had come outside, and even from this distance she could tell he was sobbing. Dear God, she thought, what happened? What had terrified him like this?

Walt took a few minutes before he managed to get himself under control. At last he looked into their beautiful, unmarked faces and said, "Do you two remember that house we saw in Arizona last summer? The little one in Flagstaff? Near the forest?"

"Yeah?" they both said.

"How'd the two of you like to live there?"

"Really?" they asked excitedly. "You really mean it?"

"I really mean it."

"HECK YEAHHH!!!"

Walter Franklin kissed his children, then straightened and turned to his wife. He put his arms around her and held her, and shook with silent sobs. Once he could control himself well enough to speak, he finally said, "The first thing I have to do, before we move, is write a couple of letters. The first one is a letter of resignation from Betatron, and the second one is for the Times. Even if it doesn't get printed, there are a few things that I want to tell them about that plant."

***

The switchboard at Betatron was jammed with phone calls all day--employees from the night shift were all calling in to quit. The stories were all different, each as terrifying as the last, but they all had the same conclusion: there was absofuckinglutely no way that anyone was ever going back. And all through the day, people were being inured. Not seriously--Winston's ankle turned out to have been severely sprained, not broken. Another leak was reported at Intake Three, and this time there was water there--it was everywhere, although there were no signs of a leak anywhere in the pipes themselves; just water all over the floor. The support structure at Intake Three was showing signs of weakening again, and this time the reactor had to be taken off-line. And a stairway had collapsed under Ben Paulson; he had fallen some six feet and sprained a wrist when he landed. Harve Beckworth had reported seeing thousands of rats scurrying and squeaking all over the pump at Discharge Nine, and no one would have believed him if it hadn't been for his seven witnesses. A loose light fixture had swung down and bashed Tony Mendoza across the back of his head, giving him a minor concussion and a nasty scalp laceration. Leroy Knott said he heard something big wheezing inside his office, and it had a stench like something two weeks dead.

By the end of that day, there was no one left to run the place. There were only a few die-hards around, one of them being Bruce Winston. But there weren't nearly enough people to do the job. Word had spread so fast through the telephone lines to neighbors and friends that not one qualified person in all the surrounding towns would go there.

"It's the Devil who's doin' it all!" Winston had shouted. He could now be seen wearing a crucifix, a St. Christopher's medal, and--just to play it extra-extra safe--a gold Star of David. He had never worn such things in his entire life. "We're Christians, goddamn it! We don't let the Devil win! We can whup his ass!"

"Yeah?" said Gary Cruz. "If it's the Devil that's in there, then he can fuckin' have it! I ain't goin' back in there!"

An emergency crew was eventually put together, and they wouldn't go in for anything less than triple overtime. And the only job they would do was to remove the plutonium core. While they worked, they saw no specters, heard no noises, smelled no mysterious smells, and suffered no injuries.

By 9:00 that night, the entire plant was completely shut down and abandoned.

Chapter Twenty-One

Valerie enjoyed being able to go outside wearing nothing more than her pentacle. She had always wanted to try nude sunbathing back in her old neighborhood, but she had never had the guts; she had always worried about having some neighbor leering at her with a pair of binoculars as she lay naked on the low-walled, flat roof. There was absolutely no privacy in that small apartment complex. But now she had her own private yard, her own private home, practically her own private forest, and she was finally getting rid of her tan lines as she dug in the soft, damp soil with a gardening trowel, yanking weeds in an effort to start a vegetable and herb garden. (The only reason why she was wearing the pair of denim cut-offs that she had found upstairs, and which had been trimmed down to not much more than just a bikini bottom, was because sitting on uncovered ground with a bare derriere made it itch.) The storm clouds from the night before had cleared away, but sitting just beyond the western horizon there were more that were threatening to move in; but for now, brilliant sunlight glowed warmly on her back as she worked in the rain-softened soil, and sweat beaded and ran down her back and chest, and down her face and into her eyes, making them sting. She wiped slowly at her brow with the back of one dirt-encrusted hand that left a dark smear, then jammed the trowel into the ground and sighed wearily.

She had slept well the night before. She wasn't sure if she would or not, considering her close encounter with the guards at Betatron. And she still could not understand why the dog had not reacted to her presence; it had to have known she was there. Maybe, she thought with an amused smile, it was smarter than the two guards with it, and it had wanted her to continue with her mission. And then she had considered the possible payback for using black magic on the power station. She had no idea of what kind of effect her spell would have on the people who worked there--other than that of driving them out--and she had half expected to be plagued with bad dreams as a way of working off some possible spiritual debt; instead, she had slept soundly and peacefully.

But now she was tired and hot. She wiped at a trickle of perspiration that ran down her side, leaving another dark smear of soil, and she thought to herself, Valerie, m'dear, you are one sweaty mess.

She surveyed the ground before her. More weeds. Oh, man, this was turning out to be a bigger job than she had thought. She brushed her hands against each other to rid them of some of the encrusted dirt that clung to them, then closed her eyes and emptied her mind of all conscious thoughts. As she meditated in the warm morning sun, she could hear the merry chirping of several nearby birds, and about a hundred yards away she could hear the flowing river as it beckoned to her. She could see the cool, clear water in her mind as it invited her to come for a long, relaxing swim, and she smiled at the temptation. She opened her eyes again and looked around her. Yeah, the weeds were still there. Dang. Still too much work to be done. With a sigh, she reluctantly pulled the trowel from the ground and held it for a moment, thinking. Yeah, there was a lot of work to do, but . . . what was the rush? It wasn't like the garden was about to go off anywhere; it would still be here when she got back. And it was so damn hot out here, too. What was it, anyway? Ninety-five degrees? Ninety-eight? It was a scorcher for this time of year--and especially so soon after that cold and monstrous storm last night. And the humidity was almost as bad as the heat; she felt as though she were sitting in a sauna. It would be a good way to clear out the pores, but she didn't feel like taking a steam bath right now.

Sure, why not go for a swim? a small voice asked temptingly. Just a short little skinny-dip. She could already feel the gentle caress of cool water sliding sensuously over her bare skin, gliding deliciously between her legs and caressing her breasts, and stroking her nipples to full, throbbing erection as she floated on her back, and then moving up to envelope her as she sank into cool, refreshing comfort. It would be so much nicer to be floating gently in the cool, cool water . . . to quench her burning thirst, and just to be in the water . . . Yeah, why not?

She jammed the trowel into the ground again and looked at the encroaching army of weeds. "I'll see you guys later," she told them. She rose with a swift and graceful movement, and with a mild thrill of excitement she tugged her shorts open with a short and muted burst of popping buttons, and let them drop from her hips to the ground. She stepped out of them and kicked them up onto the back porch, and with a wide grin of anticipation she quickly headed off naked toward the trees.

Following the cables that led from the house to the waterwheel--and suddenly feeling like a forest animal, as the breath of her woodland habitat and the sun's warmth gently stroked her in places it had never touched before--she picked her way between the tall redwoods and brushed lush green ferns and shrubs aside. The thick, spongy moss and the bed of dry pine needles that carpeted the forest floor felt soft and cool against her bare feet, and after a few minutes of stepping over a number of fallen, moss-covered tree trunks and swiping at buzzing insects that danced before her eyes, the trees seemed to suddenly part before her like a pair of stage curtains to reveal a wide, majestic waterfall. It stood maybe twenty feet high and maybe thirty feet wide, and fell into an even wider pool. Across from the waterfall, the pool narrowed and flowed into the river itself, which gently wound its way to the Pacific Ocean.

Standing near the edge of the water, and leaning with one hand against a sturdy redwood, she gazed in wide-eyed wonder and delight at the beauty of it. "Sweet Goddess," she softly breathed. As she beheld the pure, blue-green water with its white caps of foam that washed up on the gray stones, and the rich, brown and moss-covered shore, the surrounding firs, pines and massive redwoods and the pale blue sky with its brush strokes of white clouds and warm brilliant sun, she wondered if a male god could ever have created something of such beauty. Well, yeah, she thought, but not without the help of a Goddess. As she stood here, naked and silent and unmoving, she could feel its warm life-energy passing up from the ground and into her, and she happily accepted it and let it saturate her every molecule.

She approached the edge of the pool. On its near side, next to the waterfall, she found a wide, flat slab of pale gray stone that slanted at a very slight angle toward the water, and which would provide her with what she concluded to be a perfect place to work on her tan. This is gonna be great, she told herself as another thrill of exhilaration ran through her every nerve. She approached the waterfall and stepped carefully down a short, natural set of slick, wet stepping stones, and went to stand under the fresh, pure and cool water that fell on her like a heavy shower. She ran her hands through her long, dark hair again and again as she luxuriated in the refreshing coolness that sluiced down her body, while bright sunlight sparkled from her wet skin and hair, and from her silver pentacle. She opened her mouth to let it fill, and she drank thirstily. She couldn't believe how good it tasted; there were none of the chemical or sedimentary impurities to foul its flavor as there had been with the stuff that came out of the tap back in her old neighborhood. There was no chemical taste of chlorine or God knows what else to add any artificial flavor--just pure, natural, clean water. She laughed in sheer exhilaration.

She carefully stepped down the slippery stones and away from the shower as she brushed her wet hair back behind her ears, and then eased herself into the clear, azure pool. Finding it to be about chest-deep--quite satisfactory for swimming and floating, yet also shallow enough to stand in--she pushed away from the shore, and with powerful kicks she glided across the sparkling surface. Angling downward, she slipped beneath the surface and grabbed onto some stones to pull herself along the bottom, then grinned as a rainbow trout--at least a five pounder--swam past her and darted quickly away as she reached out to touch it. She pushed off from the bottom and swam beneath the surface some more, then angled upward and broke the surface. Leisurely rolling onto her back, she slowly back stroked as the warm sun and the cool water continued to caress her, and made her way back across the pool to the shore.

She pulled herself out of the water to sit on the stone slab. Dripping wet and staining the warm stone beneath her a darker shade of gray, she brushed her wet hair back with her fingers and leaned back on her hands with one leg stretched before her and the other bent at the knee, and with a contented sigh and narrowed eyes she surveyed the scenery before her. She had forgotten just how beautiful this place was over the last ten years, and how much she loved it. She was Home now, and she would never leave it again.

And then she thought, as she continued to survey her surroundings with a grin, This place is going to be great for swimming on hot summer nights under a full moon. She couldn't wait.

She lay back on the stone and raised her arms to rest above her head, and closed her eyes to bask in the warm sunlight. Boy, this is the life, she thought with another deep, contented sigh as the warm and gently pulsating life-energy of the forest continued to caress and saturate her. No clothes, no shame, no guilt trips. This was absolute, total freedom! Freedom to live her life and worship her Goddess and God any way she wanted; freedom to cast her spells and work her magic for the betterment of all; freedom to swim naked in the river any time she wished, or lie naked in sun-washed meadows; freedom to make love to whomever she wished . . . freedom to do anything she wished, and without having to answer to anyone but her Gods. Not to society and its repressive rules and regulations, not to those gun-toting and Bible-thumping FLM wackos and their so-called "morality," where sex and nudity were evil, filthy and sinful while the rape of the natural world and genocidal wars in the name of religion were perfectly acceptable, so long as they served their purposes . . . not to anyone, as long as she harmed no one. With an almost jarring shift somewhere deep within her psyche, she suddenly broke through the last vestiges of religiously induced guilt, shame and repression, and boldly seized in both of her fists the spiritual freedom and her absolute right to be who she was--a Witch, a free woman, and a child of Nature.

"An' ye harm none, do as ye will," stated the Wiccan Rede; and as she offered her thanks to her gods, Valerie thought, Good rule to live by.

Between the heat of the stone under her and the sunlight above as it sensuously caressed her bare skin with its warm rays, she was quickly becoming deliciously aroused. With her arms still resting above her head, and spreading her legs wide to fully expose herself to the sun and to welcome its pulsating and caressing warmth like a celestial lover, she found herself longing for someone smooth and soft and warm with whom she could share this special place. But since there was no such person, she decided with a lazy smile that the next best thing to do was to just take matters into her own hands. As she absorbed even more of the forest's life energy, she moaned softly as she began to gently and thoroughly squeeze and stroke and caress her high, full breasts and gently squeeze and pinch her throbbing and stiffening nipples, and run her fingertips lightly over and down her sloping belly to send circular, fluttering waves of pleasure throughout her entire being; and it wasn't long before one hand finally slid down to send rippling currents of sensual delight into her very core as it slowly and thoroughly went to work between her thighs. With gasps and groans of quickly increasing urgency, she squeezed her eyes shut; and then, with her second and third fingers buried inside herself, she suddenly arched her back and cried out in ecstasy as she climaxed with the force of a volcano. Completely out of control, with one hand ablaze against her mound and the other playing with first one breast and then the other as she writhed passionately against the warm granite beneath her, and with another sudden gasp and cry and a thrust of her hips, she could actually see in her mind's eye the Earth's red-hot lava spurting and oozing from its molten core through a steaming and swollen, vagina-like crevice even as she felt it overflowing from her own.

And then she saw that Asian woman from the concert. Her face seemed to just come out of nowhere; and the vision swept her on to another, even higher, cresting peak and crashing wave of nearly blinding rapture. In sweet, euphoric surrender, she gasped like a desperate diver coming up for air, and ecstatically cried out to her nameless lover as she suddenly released all of that absorbed energy back into the forest in a mind-shattering orgasm. With that woman's face still in her mind's eye, she gasped and panted, and then gasped again as she climaxed a third time, erupting against her hand with the longest, loudest and most powerful orgasm that she had ever experienced.

She collapsed against the granite slab. Exhausted and tingling all over, and shimmering with perspiration, she finally relaxed with her arms above her head, to lie in the brilliant sunshine and to catch her breath as she basked in the warm, mellow afterglow. Satisfied for now, she rolled onto her stomach and stretched luxuriously with a wide and lazy grin, and spread her legs once more as she pillowed the side of her face on her folded arms. With a deep sigh and soft moan of contentment as the warm sun continued to sensuously lick and caress her nude form, and as the reassuring sounds of the forest--the gentle rustling of the wind in the trees, the steady rushing of the waterfall, and the harmonious songs of birds--glided serenely through her mind, she soon drifted off to sleep.

***

She was startled awake by a sharp metallic clang! and the shrill, screaming cry of an animal in brutal agony. Jesus! she thought as she bolted upright. She scrambled to her feet and leapt from the stone to land on soft soil, and ran off into the woods in the direction from where the cries were coming. Dear Goddess, she thought, someone's dog got caught in a trap! Not even considering whether or not she ought to return home to dress first, she ran as fast as she could, leaping over fallen logs and dodging under overhanging branches, and dashing through shrubs and ferns. Somebody was about to get an eyeful, a part of her mind was telling her, when they came to find a naked woman trying to free their dog from a trap. But that wasn't important. What was important was trying to help the poor trapped animal. Gods, she thought, who the hell would be stupid enough and mean enough to be setting steel traps around here? True, there weren't many pets in this area, and they certainly didn't run loose through the woods; but damn it, no one had a right to be setting steel traps around here, she believed. No one had a right to be setting them at all. There had been so many times when Valerie, upon hearing of incidents like this, had wished that the bastards who set these spring-fed steel jaws would fall victim to them themselves; it would serve them right.

The snarls and cries were growing louder as she drew nearer. She pushed aside some shrubs and found the animal that had been screaming in such agony: it wasn't someone's dog, but a massive, gray-and-tan timber wolf. One of its front paws was caught, and the animal was biting furiously at the trap. When it saw Valerie, it flattened its ears against its head and snarled menacingly at her, warning her off.

"It's okay, I'm here to help." She began to move toward the wolf, and with a snarling bark and a snapping of its jaws, it lunged at her. Had the trap not been securely staked to the ground, the wolf would have had her by the throat.

Startled, she fell backward from the sudden movement. She recovered quickly, though, and crouched out of the wolf's reach. "Easy," she said, trying to sound reassuring. She slowly extended a hand, palm up, as one would try doing with a strange dog. "I'm here to help you. Honest."

The wolf lunged at her again, its teeth barely grazing against her fingertips.

She reflexively yanked her hand back. "Damn it, please!" she said, her voice soft yet desperate as she found herself choking back a sob. "I want to help you, dammit! Come on, let me help." She watched the wolf for a long moment, frantically wondering how she could possibly get it to understand that she was a friend, and the wolf stared back at her with a dangerous look in its eyes and a low, rumbling growl deep in its chest.

Valerie stared into its eyes; an unwise move on her part, because while she was trying to send whatever thoughts it might understand that she was here to help, the wolf took such a direct and open stare as a challenge and a threat. And then she suddenly noticed that its eyes were the same shade of pale, clear amber as her own…

"Please," she said again, very softly. Down on one knee now, naked and defenseless before the wolf and with her dark, damp hair hanging limply about her shoulders, she spread her arms wide to show that she was no threat. "No weapons, okay? I'm here to help you. Please trust me. I know you don't have any reason to, but give me a chance, okay?"

The wolf continued to stare back at her with its own amber eyes locked onto hers. It wasn't growling at her now, but it was still watching her carefully and dangerously, with blood all over its muzzle; it had cut its lips and gums on the steel while trying to free itself.

Now on her hands and knees, she slowly took a cautious step forward, and then extended her hand again. This time, the wolf let her approach--but it never took its suspicion-filled eyes from her. "It's okay," she said again with a soothing voice. She continued to approach in this submissive posture until she was within easy striking range, right in front of it. She reached forward and slowly wrapped her fingers around the jaws of the trap and pulled hard, trying to separate them. For a moment, she thought that the trap might be too strong. "Easy, pal, I'm going to have to relax here for a second." She relaxed the trap's jaws, and they began to bite into the wolf's leg again. The animal whined once and wrinkled its lip in warning, but didn't move as Valerie shifted her grip for a better hold. She took a deep breath and tried again, and this time the jaws slowly came apart. Not far, but just far enough so that the wolf could draw its leg out. Valerie tossed the trap as far as its chain would allow.

The leg wasn't bleeding too much; the blood vessels around the wound had been crushed, pinching off most of the blood flow, but the wound would have to be treated. "There's no way you're going to be able to get around on that," she said, "so it looks like I'm going to have to carry you home. Now, take it easy--I'm not going to hurt you." The wolf, still suspicious but now also curious, watched her as she cautiously moved around to the side, always staying in its line of vision so it wouldn't get too suspicious, and slid one arm around its chest and the other behind its hind legs. She slowly straightened from her crouch, lifting. Jesus Christ, he's fuckin' huge! she thought. She hoped she would be able to carry him all the way home.

It wasn't easy. Sometimes she had to turn and step backward through a bush as its branches scratched at her bare skin and left red, raw marks on it, and sometimes she used the wolf's hindquarters to hold the shrubs back as she stepped through them. There were a couple of times when she thought she might drop him when she had to step carefully over a fallen tree and support the wolf's weight on one leg at a time. Through remarkable strength born of sheer desperateness, she did manage to get him home.

She carefully set him down and gave him a gentle pat on the head. "You're a good lookin' kid, you know?" she asked. Then she went in search of a first aid kit. She couldn't find one, but in a medicine cabinet in the upstairs bathroom she did find an old tube of antibiotic cream (she hoped this stuff was still good after ten years) and some sterile gauze pads, and a roll of white bandaging tape. She carried the supplies downstairs and left them near the wolf, then went back upstairs to get her craft supplies. She set out her candles, censer, chalice, pentacle, and athame, and quickly cast a Circle; in only a few moments, they were enveloped by the now familiar, opaque and blue-white energy that blotted out the rest of the living room. "I'll try not to hurt you," she said as she reached for the medical supplies. "Just bear with me, okay?" She uncapped the tube and squeezed out a glob of white goop onto a gauze pad, then placed it gently on the wound. The wolf flinched slightly. "Sorry," she said. "I'm not too used to this kind of thing. It isn't every day that I pick up strange wolves--you're my first, believe it or not. I suppose it shows, doesn't it?" She slowly pulled off three long strips of tape, then thought she better add a couple more gauze pads. She gently taped them into place, then carefully took the wounded leg in both hands and guided the energy to the injured area. Through it all, the wolf watched her with a combination of keen interest, mild disbelief, utter puzzlement, and pleasant surprise.

Now sitting on the floor with her legs folded beneath her, she looked back at him. "Do you do this kind of thing a lot so you can get picked up by naked chicks?" she asked.

The wolf watched her for a moment longer, and then it leaned heavily against her and reached up with its muzzle to zealously lick her face, throat and chin.

"Well, you're welcome!" she said with a surprised chuckle. Sliding her arms around the animal, she hugged the big wolf against her breasts to enjoy the feel of its surprisingly soft coat against her bare skin, and kissed the top of its head.

The wolf's eyes softened, and its lips parted as it began to pant slightly. The expression on its face looked almost like a contented smile, similar to the look one sees in the face of any domestic canine. For a brief moment, she thought this wolf looked a hell of a lot like Gus.

"Listen," she said as she stroked it a couple of times, "you stay here and take it easy, okay? I'm going to go back and get rid of that trap. I don't want whoever planted it to use it again."

She opened a doorway with her athame and stepped through it to leave the injured wolf within the protective Circle, and then without bothering to dress she went out and found the place again with little trouble. She found the trap and followed its short chain to a steel spike that had been driven into the ground, and she took a firm hold of the chain and pulled. It didn't even budge. She tugged the chain from one side to the other, hoping that by doing this she could loosen the spike's hold on the ground. She dug with her fingers around the spike to clear away the soil and exposed more of the steel, and then jerked the chain left and right, again and again, to loosen the soil around it. She dug again, tugged some more, and suddenly the spike came free. She had been pulling so hard at it that she fell backward and landed on her rear, with the spike in her hand. "Gotcha, y'fucker," she said with a satisfied smile. She stood with the trap in one hand and got ready to leave. Deciding to keep the trap, she swore that she would find its owner and clamp the thing on his fucking head.

And then saw something else on the ground. She knelt for a better look.

It was one of the wolf's teeth. A long and pointed canine had broken loose, just above the gum line, when the wolf had been trying to free itself. She picked it up and held it in her palm, and as she ran the index finger of her other hand over it she could feel the tooth begin to vibrate. Her attention instantly became enraptured by it, and as she examined it more closely it began to pull her into it. Nocturnal visions flashed through her mind; she saw the forest at night, with the land bathed in the light of a full moon, and she could suddenly feel herself running through the woods, accompanied by half a dozen more wolves and immune to the cold, and leaping easily over fallen trees and sliding under thick shrubs as they ran and played and hunted.

And then the sun and the warmth were back. She grinned as she tossed the tooth lightly into the air and caught it in her palm, and closed her fingers around it. This is gonna make a really neat earring, she thought.

When she got home, the wolf was still lying inside the Circle. It raised its head from its paws, fully alert with its ears up and eyes wide, but once it recognized Valerie it settled down once more and relaxed. It began to pant softly with that smile-like expression in its eyes again.

"How're you doing, kiddo?"

The wolf's tail thumped against the floor a couple of times.

She stepped inside the Circle once more and knelt beside the wolf, and it nudged its cold wet nose against her hand. She grinned and draped an arm around him, and scratched him behind an ear. "You're not such a big bad ol' wolf after all, are you?" she asked softly as she leaned against him. "Well, you're certainly big"--she corrected herself as she looked it over--"but you're not a bad guy at all."

The wolf groaned pleasurably, and turned its head slightly. Valerie sat on the floor, supporting herself on one hand and with her legs folded beside her, and began to scratch it behind the other ear. The forest predator closed its eyes and sighed deeply and contentedly as it settled down to rest its head on her thigh.

"You and I have a lot in common, y'know?" she asked in her soft, throaty voice. "We've both been lied about, and we both got hunted down to near extinction; you guys got hunted down and shot, and we got burned alive. The same damn dumb people who've called us Witches 'evil devil-worshipers' throughout the centuries are the same uneducated jerks who called and still call you wolves 'ravenous, slavering demons of the woods.'"

The "ravenous, slavering demon of the woods" rolled onto its back with a drawn out groan of contentment, and the "evil devil-worshiper" began to scratch its belly. In reflex, one hind foot began to kick at the air.

"Yeah, you're a friendly guy, aren't you?" she asked with a grin and a chuckle as she slowly ran her fingers through the wolf's soft coat, gently scratching his chest. "I'll bet you'd like something to eat. Well, let's see if I can get something. My uncle used to have a rifle around here somewhere, unless the feds confiscated it. I'll try not to be gone too long." She got up and finally banished the circle, and then went to look for the rifle. She found a scoped Sauer 200 bolt-action hunting rifle in a dark corner of the closet by the door. She pulled the dust cover from the end of the barrel and opened the bolt, and peered into the breech to see if the weapon was loaded. It wasn't, and after another moment's search she found a box of cartridges resting on an upper shelf. She took it down, opened it, and loaded five rounds into the built-in magazine. She ran the bolt home and set the safety. She headed upstairs and dressed in jeans, moccasins and a t-shirt, then came back down and told the wolf, "You stay here and rest up, okay? I'll be back in a little while."

Favoring its injured leg, the wolf rose quickly and hopped lightly onto the sofa. He settled down on the soft cushions with a grunt, rested his chin on one armrest, and with a sigh of contentment he made himself at home.

Okay, she thought once she was outside. Where do I find a rabbit? Do I even have the guts to kill it once I find it? Gods, I don't want to kill a bunny . . . A cute, fuzzy gray little bunny . . . But I told him I'd try . . . Maybe I'll be lucky and I won't find one.

The more she thought about it, the less she liked the idea. But then another idea occurred to her: Wasn't that how the cycle of life went? Some die so that others may live? Sure, we could all become vegetarians, she thought, but what good would that do? Plants are living things, too. Death is just part of the circulating life force, she decided, and if this life force really does move in a constant cycle, then nothing is ever really dead. After all, the body is not all there is to the being, she told herself; everything has that spark of life in it, whether it's called the life force or spirit or soul or personality, everything has that spark that makes us who and what we are as individuals. It also made her think more seriously about the idea of reincarnation. Since we are all a part of Nature, she told herself, and if everything else in nature is recycled, then why not that spark of individuality that gives life to the physical body?

There was no rabbit to be found. Of course, Valerie was no professional huntress, either. Any potential game in the area undoubtedly had heard her come stomping along, in their sensitive ears, from a hundred miles away. She sighed resignedly, slung the rifle over her shoulder, and returned home. "Sorry, guy," she said as she went in through the front door, "but I couldn't find any . . . " Her voice trailed off as she looked around the living room.

The wolf was gone.

***

It would be dark soon, and Keller's butt was killing him. It had been a long time since he had done this much horseback riding; back down in Central America it was just about the only way to get around. But that had been three or four years ago, and he was terribly out of practice. The insides of his thighs were killing him, too, from squeezing them against the horse's ribs for so long. He had been running it at nearly a full gallop most of the time, with a part of his mind thinking about Central America. That was where he had developed a true love of horseback riding. Odd, that he had never thought much about it back home. He had always enjoyed fast cars and fast boats; boats like that Cigarette 35 that he and André had used for smuggling weed from Jamaica to the tip of Florida. God, how he had loved that boat! It had a pair of fuel-injected Mercruiser engines that cranked out over 800 horsepower and propelled the boat to speeds in excess of 140 knots. The soldiers never did catch up with them in that. Not that they couldn't--they had just been too afraid to drive that recklessly fast, and he was sure that they were still mad at him, even now. He also liked fast cars and fast planes, but it had been in Nicaragua where he had grown to love horses, and now riding one was the only time when he felt really at peace, even at a full gallop.

And he was galloping now, mostly because the rest of his mind was thinking about how dark it was getting, and how he didn't like the idea of being out here at the mercy of the wolves. God, the cynical atheist had been half-heartedly praying all the way back, just let me get home, that's all I ask. He finally relaxed when he spotted the lights on at the Ryan ranch. Home at last, he thought, what a relief.

He rode into the barn, dismounted, and lit a lantern that hung next to the door. He pulled the saddle off and, with a soft groan of fatigue, slung it over a sawhorse. The reins and bridle came next. Then he went to the hand pump and got a drink of water to rinse the dust from his dry throat, then filled a large pan for the horse. Going through the routine of feeding and watering a horse after a long ride reminded him again of Nicaragua and those two kids. Kids and horses, he thought with a smile; he learned to like both of them in a Central American jungle, and he wondered what Luís and Angela were doing right now. He hadn't seen either of them in years, not since their parents had been killed by--

Back off from that, son, he sternly told himself. You weren't going to think about that any more. There was nothing else you could have done. That's what Roberto and the others said, anyway, and they seemed to be truly sincere about it. After all, he had gotten the rest of them out before the choppers had come, hadn't he?

Yeah, I know, he told himself, but still . . .

He tossed half a bale of hay into the horse's feed pan and added a couple of scoops of oats. "Here y'go, pal," he said. "Don't eat too fast--I don't want you gettin' sick on me."

He went back to the barn door and retrieved the lantern, pulled the doors shut one at a time, and walked tiredly to the house and went in through the back door. He walked quietly across the kitchen to the refrigerator and eased its door open. It was well stocked now, but he found that he wasn't really hungry. He closed the door and headed into the living room. The last time I came in through here she damn near tore my head off, he told himself. I hope she isn't reading about more damn ghosts.

With one leg tucked beneath her, she was sitting on the sofa, wearing a long white t-shirt and reading a book on herbalism. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the kitchen door swing open, and she looked up. Then she grinned and said, "Keller!" She lay the book down and rose. "How're you doing, stranger?" She greeted him with a warm hug.

He slid his arms around her, surprised and relieved. No ghosts, he thought. Thank God. "Not too badly," he replied. "I even had some minor luck with the car."

She released her hug on him, rested her hands on his shoulders, and looked into his eyes. "Yeah?"

"The guys at the shop managed to scrounge up a radiator, but we still can't find a sending unit anywhere. It's driving me nuts." Then he noticed something different about her. Was it her hair? It still framed her face and cascaded about her shoulders like soft ebony, but it seemed a little more . . . well, natural. Healthier. Shinier. There was something about her eyes, too; there seemed to be a much more friendly and compassionate inner glow to them. Even her smile was different; it was slow and relaxed, and it seemed to come more easily. It looked as though there was a hint of something sly and playful in it.

And then he remembered their earlier antagonistic exchanges, and he suspiciously wondered, Why's she being so nice? She's got to be up to something no good.

"Well, hey. There's plenty of time for that, so why not slow down and relax for a while? Are you hungry? I finally got the fridge stocked."

"Yeah, I saw. Actually, I'm just plain tired."

"I know just what'll fix you up." She tugged his blazer off and tossed it across the back of the sofa. "Lay down on the sofa; what you need is a good massage." She took his hand and led him to the sofa. "Kick off your shoes, lie down, and relax."

He lay on the sofa, belly down, and she straddled him and started to work on his shoulders. He was still suspicious, but jeez, the massage sure did feel good. "Man, you're tense. Long ride?"

"Mhmm." The side of his face was pressed against the sofa cushion, which muffled his voice.

"Well, you just relax and take it easy, and I'm going to see how much I know about you."

That shouldn't take long, he thought as the built-up tension flowed out of him like a thick, dark ooze draining from a clear container. "Fire away."

"Let's see . . . you're name's Garrett Keller . . . "

"So far, so good," he said, and then tried to remember when, or even if, he had ever told her his first name.

"And you're from Louisiana . . . "

"Wrong."

"Wrong? Are you sure?" Then she grinned at the absurdity of her question.

Keller grinned lazily. "Well, I'm pretty sure. Last I can remember, ah'm from Austin, Texas." As he relaxed, his southern accent became more noticeable.

"You can't be."

"Oh, yeah?" He tried to look at her questioningly, but he was so tired, and her massage felt so good . . . He just didn't have the strength to move. "Why's zat?"

"There aren't any swamps in Austin."

"Well, that's true . . . Swamps?"

"I keep seeing a swamp, and the southern accent and swamps kind of led me to think of Louisiana," she replied. "There's a swamp and . . . and kids. Two little children, a boy and a girl . . . " Her eyes glazed over slightly as the vision swept through her mind, and she unconsciously began to slow her movements. "Black hair and dark skin . . . and fear . . . "

Luís and Angela, he thought He could remember slogging through the murky, knee-deep water, carrying the girl in one arm and leading the boy by the hand. And all three of them had been plenty scared. It still woke him at night sometimes, but at least now the shakes and the cold sweats were gone.

To change the subject, he said, "Hey, did you hear about what's happening with Betatron?"

"No. What?" She moved from his shoulders to the middle of his back, between his shoulder blades.

"Word's going around that the place is haunted."

She stopped and looked at him. "Haunted?"

"That's what I heard," he replied as she started once more. "People are bailin' out of there like it's a plane on fire. No one is sure of what's gonna happen with the place 'cause they can't . . . find anyone who's willing to work in it. It sounds like it's . . . gonna be . . . decommissioned . . . " he finally managed to finish as his concentration slipped away. God that massage felt good . . .

Valerie grinned. "No shit?"

"No ma'am."

"Well, son of a gun . . . " I'll have to remember to cast another Circle and thank the Goddess, she said to herself.

Keller took a deep breath and moaned. "Boy, this is great. I oughtta go away and come back more . . . more often . . . "

"Not too often. Otherwise, I'll have to charge you." She grinned at him as an idea came to mind, and she stopped her massage again. He certainly wasn't her idea of someone soft and warm, she thought as she remembered being out by the river earlier, but he still might be kind of fun. Grinning with delight and in the spirit of her newfound freedom, she reached for the bottom of her shirt and peeled it off over her head, and tossed it across the room. "Oh, Gar-rett," she moaned seductively as she cupped and then gently squeezed her breasts.

Keller said nothing.

Naked and horny, Valerie leaned down on top of him to rest her full weight on him. She pressed her breasts against his back, and began to slowly and sensuously grind and squirm against him as she brushed her lips softly against his ear. "Garrett?" she breathed softly.

He snored.

She froze. She sat up. "Keller?"

He snored again.

She folded her arms beneath her breasts and scowled at him with a combination of annoyance and disappointment. At last, she snorted with chilled contempt. "Men."

***

It was dark and quiet throughout the house. In the living room, the only light came flickering from the fireplace, and the only sounds were those of the fire gently popping and crackling, and Keller's quiet snores; everywhere else was calm, silent, and dark.

Valerie's scream of terror came from upstairs, shattering the peace. Keller was awake in an instant and half way up the stairs before he was even conscious of his movements. He took the steps three at a time and slammed doors open until he found her sitting up in bed, screaming and thrashing wildly.

"Valerie! Jesus, what's wrong?" He rushed to her bed, and in the dim moonlight that came in through the slightly parted white lace curtains he could tell that she was fighting with something--but it was grabbing at her with invisible hands.

She screamed again as she tried to grab at them and pry them loose, but there was nothing there for her to get hold of. Keller could see the long, ugly red welts that rose on the bare skin of her breasts, raking across her like dull talons. "Stop it!" she screamed. "Stop it!"

And then the hands were gone. She was surprised for a moment at the results of her command, and she ceased her struggles. She sat in bed and held herself, and cried.

He didn't know what to do. He felt completely helpless; he wanted to do something to help, but he just didn't know what the hell to do. He went to sit next to her, and put an arm around her and held her close. "God, Valerie, what can I do?"

"Leave me alone!" she screamed.

He flinched at her rage.

"God damn you, Priest, leave me alone!"

***

More than four hundred miles away, Colonel Elias Warren lay awake on his cot as he gazed at Valerie's picture. He held it above his chest, studying it and wondering again what she must look like under all those clothes. He could see her in his mind, dancing naked in the dead of night around a huge bonfire, glistening with sweat and desire, and calling up demons and sending them forth to corrupt good men's souls. He saw her as a succubus, flying through the night and wafting into the bedrooms of good Christians, seducing the men and draining them of their thick, sticky white life's fluids while their wives slept peacefully beside them. And he could see her coming after him, offering him her breasts to kiss and stroking herself between her quivering thighs, with her dark hair flowing around her shoulders and her skin shimmering with sweat and lust.

And he wanted her so much.

God, how he wanted her! He longed to bury his face between her luscious breasts and to lick the warm, salty sweat from her flesh. Squeezing painfully at his erection through one pocket of his trousers, he longed to inhale her scent and thrust into her. He wanted so badly to cast off his clothes and be wrapped in her arms and legs, and to grind and thrust into her, and thrust, and thrust, and to finally release!--

"No!" he shouted. His voice was nearly a scream.

Satan was here. Satan was planting those vile, evil, filthy thoughts in Warren's brain. The Devil was clever, oh God he was so very, very clever . . . but he couldn't fool Elias Warren. "Get thee behind me, Satan!" he commanded as he quickly jerked his hand from his pocket. And then his eyes widened in terror as his heart suddenly jack hammered in his chest. He dropped the picture onto his chest and began slapping frantically at it as, at the same time, he tried to leap from his cot. "Protect me, Jesus!" he begged, shouting. "Dear God, help me!" He rolled from the cot, fell to the canvas floor, and rose to his knees. Sweating profusely and trying to catch his breath, he groped his way toward the flap of his tent. Gaining his footing at last, he stumbled outside in near panic.

Valerie's picture had suddenly burst into flames.

Chapter Twenty-Two

A cold but gentle breeze drifted in from the northwest. The sun was just beginning to come up in the eastern horizon, and its golden rays peered between the branches of the tall redwoods to bring a soft glow to the outlines of the distant mountains. In the distance, a cry of a single egret broke the silence of the new dawn to accompany the gentle rushing sounds of the river, and the soft whispering of the forest.

A fire was burning in the fireplace, and Valerie and Keller sat before it on the low sofa, close together. With her arms folded across her chest, she gazed into the fire; but the fire in the grate was nothing compared to that which burned in her eyes and drew closer to the end of her fuse.

"Oscar's got one more call out, and a meet is all set up. It dawned on me yesterday that the reason why I've been having so damn much trouble finding replacement parts is because I was thinking about Chrysler parts, and that's a split 327 Chevy engine in there. If I'd remembered, I would've had it fixed and we could have gotten out of here."

She scratched slowly at an itch on her upper arm through her wool sweater. "I'm not running away again," she said softly. "I'm going to kill that bastard."

Keller turned to face her more easily, and rested an arm across the top of the sofa. "No one's talking about running away," he said. "Call it a temporary tactical retreat. Hell, even the best generals know when to fall back and regroup."

"I am not going to abandon this house," she said with a soft snarl. "If they kill me, then I'll see to it that I take some of them with me."

"And what good will that do you?"

"At least I can face my gods knowing that I kept my promise. I am not going to just stand by or cower, or run off like some damn pacifist." While she sincerely believed that peaceful means to settle conflicts were always far more preferable, she no longer believed in or even respected the concept of peace above all else. Not after what she had been through. "And I'll be damned if I let those storm troopers in here again without a fight."

Keller sighed. At one time he had been brash and aggressive and impetuous, and as filled with rage as Valerie was now. But all of that changed after . . . Even though he had killed in self-defense, that first death still had affected him deeply. He had learned his lessons the hard way; and it seemed that Valerie was going to have to learn her own lessons. He just didn't want her to have to share his experiences.

She's angry and tired, he thought, and I can't blame her a bit.

"Look," he said. "I'm going to meet with this guy, but I want you to promise me that we'll talk later. Okay?"

"I've made up my mind, Garrett."

"I'm not going to try to make you change your mind," he said. "Just promise me we'll talk, that's all I ask."

She watched him for a moment as she wondered what he might be up to, and then slowly nodded. "Okay."

***

The small gift shop was nestled comfortably in the foothills, surrounded by tall redwoods and firs on three sides, and shaded from the midday sun. Inside the rustic shop, it was cool and dark, and the air was scented with the vapors of various oils, perfumes, candles and incenses. Dust motes floated lazily on the soft currents of air, and were illuminated momentarily by the shafts of sunlight that fell through the windows and disappeared again in the shadows. Trinkets and bric-a-brac rested quietly in display cases constructed of old wood on the bottom and glass on the front, back and top, showing potential customers what was available.

It was quiet in the gift shop. Nineteen-year-old Jasmine Tanaka sat behind one of the low display cases facing the door, resting an elbow on the thick glass top as she supported her head in her hand, palm against chin, and drummed the fingers of her other hand gently against the counter-top. Man, she thought as her almond eyes gazed on nothing in particular, days like this are not going to get me a raise. She puffed out her cheeks slightly as she sighed heavily.

She thought back to when she had first moved to the mainland, some eight months ago after escaping from Hawaii, and she sometimes wondered if she might have been better off if she had stayed there and been shot to death with the rest of her family. On many nights, she lay awake in bed with the tears spilling from her eyes, feeling as though she had been cast adrift on a turbulent sea of life, without family or friends. She felt lost and abandoned, and very much alone.

A state of emergency had been declared after the outbreak of the Plagues, and it had never been rescinded. Many of the military personnel stationed at Pearl Harbor had been called back to the mainland, and for a long time there had been no indication that they would ever return. Since there were so few people left on the islands, Hawaii had been left with a reduced military force; no one had been overly worried about an enemy attack here in those days because the enemy itself was being devastated by the Plagues. The people of Hawaii had begun to revert to their own ways, returning to their own culture and religion. Paganism and fertility rites had once again become widespread, and strict capitalism--as had been practiced mostly by the mainlander immigrants that the native islanders called haoles--was being replaced with a form of cooperative anarchy. Hawaii had almost returned completely to its old ways when the government troops returned--only now the uniforms were all different. Gone were the olive-green and the camouflage fatigues, replaced with black fatigues and black helmets. Gone were the shoulder insignia that designated various military units, replaced with the American flag with the superimposed crucifix. They were all one unit now, and they called themselves the Holy Guardians.

The first action undertaken by the FLM's new government was to outlaw the old ways by declaring them to be pornographic and inspired by the Devil. The Islanders thought it was some kind of a joke, so they continued with their ways. After all, who were these white people to come from so far away and to start telling the natives what they could and could not do in their own homeland?

The authorities responded by smashing their temples and shrines, and on top of that came the surveillance, secret and electronic. Taps were placed in the phone companies; it was easy enough to do, since the Foundation had already seized control of all communications, and conversations were recorded and used as evidence. Telephone company records were used to hunt down suspected subversives to their homes; soldiers arrived en masse to break down doors, search for incriminating evidence and smash religious shrines, and the people found there were arrested for possessing subversive materials, pagan idols, and for practicing idolatry. What the hell was this? Many wondered. Idolatry? They can't be serious . . . But after a long, unending series of examples, they realized that a fanatical and iron-fisted religious body had seized power, and they had made it abundantly clear that there would be no tolerance whatsoever of any Devil-inspired pagan practices. Those who didn't like it could rot in jail, die by execution for sedition and witchcraft, or keep their goddamn mouths shut.

Jasmine's family--her parents and only sister--had been killed before they could even try to escape. Jasmine had not been there at the time; she had been on her way home from the Big Island after visiting several friends when she had heard the gunshots. She stayed low for a few minutes, then cautiously approached a neighbor to find out what had happened. It was there she had learned that a former mainlander, trying to prove how loyal and patriotic she was, had turned in her family for being involved with a pagan group that was highly critical of the Foundation's government. Jasmine hid in her neighbor's attic until the next night, and then managed to sneak back into her home.

All around the house was the yellow plastic tape on which was stenciled "Police Line--Do Not Cross." Then she saw, taped to the battered remains of the front door, an official notice of asset forfeiture and seizure. Angrily, she ripped it down and went inside.

There were no bodies in the house, but there was blood everywhere. She rushed from room to room, and her anger transformed itself into an ever-growing horror that gnawed at her heart as she searched for signs of life--any signs--and found none. There was blood in the living room and all over the sofa, and in the girls' bedroom one of the beds was soaked with blood. A paperback book rested like a tent on the floor nearby. Denise had been shot while she laid reading in bed.

Jasmine sank to her knees, buried her face in her hands, and cried.

She couldn't stay here. The soldiers might come back, maybe looking for her and maybe not, and she couldn't take that chance. Come on, said a voice inside her head, get up and move. Now! She got to her feet and went to her closet where she found her sister's beige Alpine backpack, and began stuffing clothes into it. From the shelf above, she pulled down a tightly rolled sleeping bag and tied it to the bottom of the pack's aluminum frame. From there she went to the kitchen. She found several packages of granola bars and crackers, dried nuts and a few cans of beans and mixed vegetables, and several bags of freeze-dried fruits, and stuffed them all into the pack, then slung it over her shoulder and went into her parents' bedroom. Inside the closet, hidden safely above the door, was her father's dai-katana--a traditional Samurai's sword--and this she tied to the side of the pack. Then she went quietly to the back door and peered carefully into the yard to be certain that there was no one there. She went to the edge of the woods and left her pack on the ground behind a tree, and then tied her hair back with a thin leather lace before heading back toward the house. She returned to the house and went into the garage.

She saw the power mower first. She remembered the day her father bought it. She had begged and pleaded with him not to use it because its exhaust fumes were bad for the environment; his smiling reply had been, "Push-mowers are bad for my back." She smiled in fond memory at this exchange, and then she remembered that he was dead--brutally wrenched from her loving embrace by a fanatically religious government and a soldier's bullets--and the jarring memory reminded her of why she had come to the garage.

Sitting next to the power mower she found the gas can. It was still full. She picked it up and carried it into the house. She poured gasoline all over the sofa and the carpet, and trailed it through the kitchen and bedrooms. She took the can back to the garage (I will not litter the house with gardening stuff, she thought, combining past and present, and not realizing just how much her grief was affecting her thinking) and returned to the living room. Here she struck a wooden match with her thumbnail, and let it flare to life. God damned Foundation pigs, she thought as she was suddenly consumed by cold, black rage. They're not going to seize this home!

She tossed the match. Bright flames enveloped the sofa with a soft whoosh! and started for the wood-paneled wall behind it. She turned quickly and went out through the back door.

She retrieved her backpack, grabbing it in one fist by both shoulder straps, and slung it over her shoulder. She started into the woods…then paused and turned to look at what used to be her home. The flickering orange light of the growing flames danced against her, illuminating her tanned face in the dark, and fresh tears glistened on her cheeks. "Good bye," she said to the memories of her family and home. "I love you." She turned once more toward the woods, and disappeared into the night.

***

She managed to sneak aboard a ship that was bound for the mainland that same night, and eventually she wound up in San Francisco. Cold and sore from sleeping under the canvas cover of a lifeboat for so many nights, she went in desperate search of a job. She didn't have any formal identification on her--no driver's license or National Tax Identification card (a long time ago, she had heard, they used to call it a Social Security card), so the only work she could get was house-cleaning in a couple of cheap motels she had found, and some part-time work in one of the few remaining nude bars as a dancer and waitress. The pay was next to nothing, but she got good tips from many of the customers, which helped her to pay the rent on her one-room apartment and keep her fed. At least until one of the customers offered her fifty dollars for a blowjob.

"I don't do that kind of thing," she said coldly.

"Aw, come on," he said with a cold, alligator's smile. "It's an easy fifty. What do you say?"

"I said no." She turned to leave, determined to go on to the next table.

The man's hand lashed out like a whip, and caught her around her upper arm--and it was about the biggest mistake of his life.

She turned and twisted out of his grip. Her hand grabbed his wrist and pulled hard, yanking his arm out straight and twisting it inward. She threw her pent-up rage into the blow as her other hand came up and then down, smashing against the now exposed outside of his elbow as she pulled up on his wrist. The crack of a snapping bone sounded like a small caliber gunshot, and the man screamed. With her right side facing him, her own elbow quickly came forward and then slammed back, smashing his nose. He staggered backward, with one arm dangling uselessly at his side while his other hand clutched at his face as blood gushed from his nose and between his fingers, dripping onto the floor and staining the front of his expensive white silk shirt with large streaking droplets of red. Then her foot lashed out twice; the first blow caught him in the abdomen, and the second hit him in the groin. Then she leapt into the air, spun in a 360 degree arc to add more force to the blow, and lashed out with her foot once more in a reverse roundhouse-kick that caught him across one shoulder (she had been aiming for his head, but missed), and knocked him clean off his feet.

A couple of dancers would have applauded and cheered, had it not meant losing their desperately needed jobs.

The gathering crowd suddenly parted to let the club's owner through. He was a large man with greasy red hair, a severe weight problem, and even worse skin. "What the fuck's goin' on here?" he bellowed. Then he looked at the fallen customer, who was sitting on the floor, groaning and sobbing in agony, and not knowing whether to cradle his broken arm or try to staunch the flow of blood from his nose. His jaw dropped and his eyes bulged in speechless, dumfounded shock.

He turned on Jasmine. "What the fuck did you DO to him?!"

"The son of a bitch propositioned me!" she shouted back. "He tried to buy me, like I was some cheap whore, and then he grabbed me!"

"Ya shoulda let him do it! You're fired! I got no need for a bitch who beats up on my customers!"

She was stunned into silence by rage and the injustice of this treatment. She wanted to kill him so much that she almost gave in to the urge. Instead, she took a deep breath and said, "If I'm fired, then pay me for the week you owe me."

The club's owner stepped closer to her. His sour, moist breath wafted into her face as he said, "That little stunt you pulled just cost you that week's pay."

Jasmine stared at him in trembling, mute fury.

"Now get your gear and get the fuck outta my club."

Blazing rage burned within her, but there was nothing she could do. With a muttered oath, she turned and headed for the dressing rooms.

"Awright, awright, show's over," he said to the crowd. "Let's have some music and some dancin', okay?" He made his way to the bar and settled on one of the stools. "Next round's on Jasmine!" he declared with a mocking laugh. The music started again, and a pair of women reluctantly came out on stage for the next dance. They were good friends of Jasmine's, and they were certainly in no mood to dance after what had just happened, but what could they do?

Conversations picked up again, most of them concerning what had just happened, as a pair of the club's bouncers carried the man out. There was much joking and laughing, and the clinking of glasses accompanied the music. But some five minutes later it became very quiet again, as though someone had turned the volume down with the slow twist of a control knob. The club owner turned from the bar to find out what was going on, and he suddenly found the razor edge of something cold and silver lying gently against his throat.

"You owe me a week's pay," said Jasmine's quiet, determined voice.

The club owner's eyes bulged as they fell on the gleaming and gently curving blade of the katana. They flicked to Jasmine's cold, determined eyes, and then they returned to the sword. Very slowly and carefully, not daring to make any sudden movements, he reached for his back pocket. "Okay, Jasmine, just take it easy," he whispered in a thin, terrified voice, as though any more volume might accidentally startle her. And if he startled her she might flinch, and if she flinched she might cut!

He found his wallet. He took it out very carefully and, very slowly, handed it to her.

"I don't want it all; just the hundred you owe me. Put it on the bar." She shifted the sword to a one-handed grip and took the money with the other, and stuffed it into a back pocket. Then, once again using both hands to point the sword at him, she slowly backed her way toward the door and out. Once she was outside, she dashed down the sidewalk to retrieve her pack, which she had stashed behind a couple of trash cans, and then ran like hell.

From San Francisco she walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, then managed to hitch a ride to San Rafael, and from there to Santa Rosa. She spent the night there, sleeping in an abandoned warehouse, then in the morning she headed on foot for Highway 116 and made for the coast. Alternately walking and hitching rides along Highway 1, she passed through Jenner, Gualala, and Point Arena, and finally wound up in Mendocino, where she found this small gift shop. Vernon, the owner, took her in and gave her a place to stay above the shop, letting her stay there as long as she worked for him. She had been on the road for nearly two weeks; she was tired, in desperate need of a good meal, and covered with dirt and mud from the road. And smelling, as Vernon had put it, very ripe.

She started her job by doing minor repairs here and there. Display cases were popping at the corners of their wooden frames, and some had cracked glass, while others just needed some sanding and a new coat of varnish.

Then she began making jewelry. She worked mostly with silver; she made rings and bracelets and chains, all in complex, swirling patterns, and decorated with turquoise, amber, amethyst, onyx and obsidian, and put them all on display on black velvet under fluorescent lights. Word had gotten around, and the jewelry sold quickly; but after a while business tapered off again, and now it was about ready to die altogether. Now she didn't have enough money to fix her recently-acquired bike--a stripped-down Triumph 650 motorcycle. She was able to fix it herself; she liked tinkering around with engines. This one had thrown a rod, and since she couldn't afford the needed parts it now sat around back, covered with a dusty gray canvas tarp.

Right now there was nothing to do. She was sitting on a stool behind one of the counters, gazing disinterestedly at the home-made jewelry that decorated her tanned, slim and well-manicured fingers, and thinking about nothing in particular as she minded the shop in case someone should happen to come in. Then she studied the silver ring on her left-hand ring finger; it was a wide band, made of a group of thin silver strands braided together with a swirling pattern, with a large, oval piece of buffed turquoise in the center. The ring on her left pinkie was similar in style, but smaller, and with a small, round chunk of shiny black obsidian. The rings on the same fingers of her other hand were of different patterns in the silver, but with similar stones.

She looked out the window. She sighed again, and her right hand came from under her chin to finger the black rawhide laces that hung around her neck. From beneath her olive-green tank top she pulled a silver pentacle on one lace and the small, dark wooden figure of a woman with her arms raised and outstretched in invocation on the other. She gazed at them for a long moment without thinking about anything in particular, and then tucked them back under the tank top again.

The small bell tinkled merrily above the door, announcing the arrival of a customer. Jasmine's eyes snapped toward it, and her heart suddenly raced like a high-powered engine as she recognized the woman who came in. The white jeans and blue sweatshirt had been replaced with faded blue denim and a red blouse and dark brown moccasins, but she was easily recognizable by her glossy, brown/black hair and her pale amber eyes. "Well, hi!" she said with a warm smile.

For a moment, Valerie just wanted to melt into a puddle of mush and right through the floor. I don't be-lieve it! she thought. She stared at her in stunned and pleasant surprise for a moment or two before she finally found her voice. "The concert!"

"Right!"

"Yeah, you got me out on stage after I made a fool of myself." She approached the counter where Jasmine was sitting. Seeing her again reminded her of how delightfully soft and warm her hand had felt on her arm.

"What are you, kidding? You didn't make a fool of yourself. You got those people to chase the clouds away, didn't you?"

Valerie shrugged shyly. "Yeah, well . . . I'm not so sure that flashing the audience was such a good idea . . . "

Jasmine's smile widened into a dazzling grin as she remembered. "Hey, whatever works," she said with a chuckle. She reached a hand across the glass-topped counter and introduced herself. "I'm Jasmine Tanaka."

Dear Goddess, she has beautiful eyes! she thought. They were almond-shaped, denoting her roots in what Valerie liked to call the "exotic Far East," but instead of the usual brown they sparkled a deep, captivating shade of pure, emerald green. For a moment, she found herself struck absolutely speechless.

"Va--" she croaked, and then she cleared her throat and tried again. "Valerie Ryan," she finally managed to say. She took her hand and shook it. It was as soft and warm as she remembered; and suddenly she had a flash of those erupting volcanoes that sent a thrill of delight through her. And then she realized that, with no drum set between them this time, Jasmine seemed to be in no more of a hurry than she to break the contact.

"So . . . What can I do for you?"

All kinds of things, was Valerie's first thought as she continued to gaze into those incredibly beautiful eyes.

And then she thought the question could be interpreted on two levels. On the one hand, it seemed both friendly and business-like; yet there might also have been something cautiously sly and suggestive in it, as though the Asian woman might be testing the waters. What she finally said was, "I'm not sure." Even as she spoke, she realized while drawing her hand back and digging into her blouse pocket, that even her own vague response could be interpreted on two levels. "I was told that there was a custom jewelry shop around here, and I was wondering if there was some way that this could be rigged up as an earring." She handed her the wolf's tooth.

Jasmine studied it for a moment with a professional eye. "Sure, no problem at all," she replied at last. "You want a clip or a pierce?"

"Oh, pierce me, please," Valerie thought with a lascivious, inward grin.

"'Scuse me?" Jasmine asked, uncertain if she had heard right.

Valerie suddenly realized that she had just spoken out loud. "Piercing!" she was quick to amend. "I mean, a piercing. I . . . " She floundered slightly as she fought to conceal her embarrassment. "I lose clips . . . "

Jasmine struggled to control her own urge to smile. "I know the feeling," she said quite honestly, while hoping that she didn't sound too sly or suggestive; she could feel her own thighs beginning to quiver a little. "I tend to lose clips, too. Silver okay?"

"Silver would be perfect," she said. "Um . . . how much will this cost?"

"It shouldn't run you too much. Twenty-five bucks?"

Valerie grinned. "Deal."

Jasmine grinned, too. "Terrific!" she said brightly. "Let me close up; business has been pretty slow today, and I don't think anyone'll mind or even notice if I leave early." She stepped from behind the counter to reveal the smooth, tanned legs of a dancer below a pair of faded cut-off jeans from which she had been trimming the constantly growing white fringe. There wasn't too much of the jeans left. She went to the door to lock up and draw the blind, on which a sign read "Closed--Please Come Again." Valerie turned to watch her with a smile, and once again she thought, Gods, she's so cute! Before Jasmine turned back, she flipped her hair back over one shoulder with a slight toss of her head, and with a sudden urge to gently brush her lips and tongue over that absolutely gorgeous ass and slowly make her way up her spine to the back of her neck, her hand came up under its own will to quickly unbutton a couple of buttons on her blouse. She had never, in her entire life, felt this way about another woman before; nor did she know why these feelings were suddenly coming over her. But she decided right then that she wasn't going to try to suppress them, or even waste any more time analyzing them; she was going to just go with the flow.

Nor did she know that Jasmine was surreptitiously watching her reflection in the glass, and also smiling as she slowly drew the shade down.

"Come on in back," she suggested. "I've got a workshop there." She led the way through a gently rattling curtain of multi-colored plastic beads that separated the main shop from the workshop.

Valerie looked around in pleasant surprise. "Wow! Look at all this stuff! How neat!" She approached a display case and leaned forward with her hands on her knees to peer in through the glass front. In the case were all kinds of silver jewelry; bracelets with mystical markings and earrings, rings and crystals and pentacles, all laid out on black velvet, gleaming and sparkling brilliantly under fluorescent lighting.

"I sometimes get a little worried about displaying that," she heard Jasmine say as the latter went over to her workbench, and suddenly she could almost feel her eyes roaming over her. Had she been talking about the jewelry? Or was she making a comment about the way Valerie was subtly displaying herself as she bent at the waist to look into the glass case? Ever since she had come into this shop, she felt that both actions and words seemed to subtly shift back and forth from one level to another. It made her feel both self-conscious and a little excited.

"Every once in a while someone will come looking for it, but mostly I get a bad feeling and I tell them they're out of luck. I don't know if they're informers or not, but I prefer not to take any chances." She sat on an adjustable stool and dropped the wolf's tooth into a paper cup, and glanced around her bench for a moment as she muttered to herself, "Now, where the hell did . . . ah." She reached for and uncapped a brown plastic bottle, and poured some hydrogen peroxide into the paper cup. The peroxide began to fizz, removing the traces of blood and tissue on the tooth, and then she went hunting through a drawer for some extra silver.

"That's a shame," Valerie said as she slowly straightened and folded her arms. "Sweet Lady, this stuff is beautiful. Where'd you get it all?"

Jasmine grinned appreciatively and replied, "I made it."

She looked at her, clearly impressed. "No kidding?"

"Nope."

She went back to admiring the jewelry. "Wow . . . So, you're into the Craft too, huh?"

"Yeah." She pulled a long leather lace from a back pocket and tied her long, satiny, and jet-black hair back with it, then went to sit at the other side of the counter where Valerie stood. She brushed her bangs away from her forehead, and then pulled the two charms from under her tank top as she rested her elbows on the glass counter. She leaned forward to give Valerie a better view of not only the talismans. "I made this pentacle," she said, fingering it delicately. "And this little figure"--she indicated the small wooden charm--"is Pele, the Goddess of Fire and Volcanoes."

Feeling as though she might have just found her own volcano goddess--and then suddenly wondering if those visions of volcanoes by the river yesterday had been some kind of a premonition--she reached forward and let the talismans rest gently against her fingertips so she could admire them a moment longer. "You're from Hawaii?" she asked, her voice almost hopeful.

"Born and raised," Jasmine replied as she laced her fingers together and rested her hands on the glass counter top.

She mentally grabbed a fistful of air and pulled it in. Kismet! she thought. Yes!!

Smiling a little bit, and perfectly happy to let Valerie take all the time she wanted to admire her . . . jewelry . . . the Asian woman said, "Paganism used to be pretty popular back home before the Foundation moved in."

"Yeah, they're pretty good at screwing up a nice way of life." She moved to lay the jewelry back against Jasmine's breast, and with her fingers less than an inch from her skin she slipped them from beneath the talismans to let them drop back against her. Reluctantly, she pulled her gaze away from Jasmine's charms, then knelt in front of the counter to admire the jewelry inside the case. Luckily for her, she could also see through it to admire the Hawaiian's legs.

"See anything you like?"

She thought that one over for a second or two with a sly, inward smile. "Oh, yeah," she said quite audibly, still pretending to admire the jewelry. Then she shifted her eyes over to a leather headband that lay nearby. On it, made of pure sparkling silver, were the three phases of the moon: waxing on the left, full in the center, and waning on the right. There was no price tag on it. "How much are you asking for this headband?"

"Which, the Triple Moon?" She slid the case open and took it out. "Well, let's see now," she said. She stepped from behind the counter. "Here, turn around." She tied the band into place, then guided her to a mirror. "Let's see how it looks." She rested her hands on Valerie's shoulders and, looking at her in the mirror at almost eye level--Valerie was two or three inches taller than the Hawaiian's five-foot-six--she said, "Beautiful. That looks so good on you I'd feel guilty about charging you for it. It's yours."

"Hey, no," she said with a look of surprise as she began to turn. "I can't just take this, I--"

"Sure you can; call it a free bonus gift for a new customer. I insist."

She grinned appreciatively. "Well, thank you! That's really nice of you!"

Jasmine waved her off. "Not at all. Excuse me--I have to go check on your tooth." For a moment, she sounded a little like Valerie's dentist as she turned and went back to her bench.

The peroxide had stopped fizzing, and she poured it carefully out and held the cup under running water. She swirled it around and poured it and the tooth into her hand. "Perfect," she said to herself. She dried it on a worn hand towel, then set it down on a foam rubber pad. "Let's let that air dry for a few minutes." Looking up at her she continued, "You know, that was a pretty impressive demonstration at the concert." She went back to rummaging around for some spare silver in the open drawer of her bench.

"Yeah, I guess it was. But they changed the weather, not me."

"You helped."

"I just showed 'em how to do it; they did the rest."

She found a good-sized chunk of silver and began cleaning it. "You and I know that," she said, and she continued speaking as she worked. "But the people who were there will never believe it. A lot of people never seem to want to take credit for themselves in anything; they'd rather believe a Witch changed the weather rather than themselves. Then on the other side you've got the Christers and the God Squad types who say that God did such-and-such when things go right for them, and the Devil did such-and-such when things go wrong. When what it all boils down to is the fact that people are responsible for their own actions, and not some evil or benevolent deity. It's a shame that they'd rather believe in something else than in themselves." She paused and looked up at her. "Sorry," she said with an apologetic smile. "I didn't mean to rattle on like that."

"Don't worry about it. Besides, I agree with you. A lot of people don't want that kind of responsibility. That way, whenever they fuck up, they've always got someone else to blame.

"Not to change the subject, but . . . how long have you been on the mainland?"

"Ooh, about eight months, I guess." She put the silver down and proceeded to light a small torch, similar to the kind used by people who made small glass figurines. She turned on the gas, clicked the igniter a couple of times, and the flame caught. "My mom's family came from a long line of healers and ritual magicians," she went on as she adjusted the flame, and then donned a pair of dark goggles. "My dad's family is from Japan, and has always been into warfare and martial arts, so I guess they sort of naturally attracted each other to balance out. My dad's great-great . . . " She paused in her work as she thought for a moment. " . . . great-great grandfather . . . " She began working again. " . . . was supposed to have been a Samurai, and he passed the training down from one male descendant to the next. I never had a brother, and I had shown a lot of interest in karate and kendo, so my dad taught me."

"Kendo?" She'd never heard the word before.

"Same thing as Samurai sword fighting, only with sticks. It's for practice. That way the students don't wind up dismembering each other. I got into ritual magic at the same time, and when I came here I found a book on neo-paganism and Witchcraft; and it's damn near identical to what I've been brought up to believe! The names are all different, of course, but many of the rituals are quite similar; the Spirits of the Four Directions are each represented by the same elements--east for air, south for fire, west for water and north for earth--and even the casting of a Circle is just about the same. It's pretty amazing when you think about it. Europeans didn't bother with Hawaii until about the . . . what, about the eighteenth century? And long before then, we and the pagans of Europe, Asia and the Middle East were worshiping the same ancient gods and goddesses, and in the same ways, without ever having met before." She pulled the goggles down to hang around her neck.

"Except that in North America we don't have volcano goddesses."

Jasmine turned from her work to look at her with a little bit of a smile. "So who do you think set off Mount St. Helens back in the eighties?"

Valerie laughed. "Good point!"

She worked in silence for a few minutes as she melted the silver once more, making certain that the root of the tooth was securely enveloped, then leaned back. "There! Done." She pulled the goggles off over her head and shut off the torch.

Valerie approached her and looked at the earring. It was still hot to the touch, so she held it at eye-level with the small pair of forceps that Jasmine had been using. "Jasmine, you're amazing," she said approvingly. "I love it."

"Thank you. Listen, my piercing gear is upstairs; why don't I put some tea on, we'll let this cool for a bit, and then we'll poke a hole through your ear while we compare notes. Okay?"

"Poke a hole through my ear? Sounds barbaric."

Jasmine grinned and shrugged.

Valerie grinned back. "Let's do it."

***

" . . . so whenever you feel like it, just stop on by. I'd love the company," Jasmine was saying. She stood next to the horse, gently scratching its neck.

Valerie untied the reins from the weathered wooden rail and slipped a foot into a stirrup. "And the same goes for you, too. The door's always open." She hoisted herself into the saddle, and the new earring, hanging from a tiny gold hoop that now pierced her right ear lobe, bounced against the corner of her jaw. Sunlight sparkled brilliantly from the gleaming silver and polished white enamel. "Listen, why not come on over right now? I've got some books on the Craft that I think you'll like."

"Sure. You got room for one more up there? My bike's out of commission."

"Sure."

"Great! I'll be right back." She dashed inside, and Valerie smiled as she wondered what she must look like as she pedaled around on her bicycle, with her tanned legs pumping at the pedals and her round, cute derriere swinging back and forth. Naw, I don't think she's a bicycle-type person, she suddenly thought. She pictured her straddling a Harley Davidson or something instead.

She reappeared a moment later. She locked the front door, pocketed the keys, and went to the horse. She reached for the hand Valerie offered, jumped, and swung a leg over. She wasn't quite certain of what to do with her hands, though; should she just rest them on her thighs, or hold Valerie's waist? She didn't want to seem too forward or anything. She still couldn't be certain as to how Valerie might react. The problem was solved for her when Valerie snapped the reins and jabbed her heels into the horse's ribs, and the horse took off at a gallop. To avoid falling from behind, she threw her arms around Valerie's waist and held tight.

Valerie was grinning as the horse raced down the dirt path. Ever since her return home and her self-initiation ritual, she just didn't feel like the old Valerie St. James from Colorado anymore. She felt new, and rather than wanting to suppress new feelings and experiences she now wanted to open herself to them. And the more she spoke with this woman and enjoyed her company, the more she found herself wanting to find out what she would be like in bed. She finally gave up on wondering what was coming over her and simply accepted it. Sure, she had admired attractive women before, in an objective way, but the feelings she had now were much different. Jasmine's face was almost girlish in its youth and apparent innocence, especially when she smiled; but her body--Gods, what a body!--was built like that of a bikini model in a fitness magazine. Not only did Valerie think this woman was hot, exotic and drop-dead gorgeous, but for the first time in her entire life she was actually getting turned on by another woman. She didn't need to be running the horse this fast, with the trees and low-hanging branches whipping by them; she just wanted to know what it would be like to have Jasmine's arms around her waist and her breasts pressed firmly against her back--and she liked the feeling. A lot.

Jasmine watched the trees and low branches, too. Nervously. "We're not gonna crash, are we?" she asked over the thundering of the horse's hooves.

She slowed the horse. "Naw, of course not. I know these woods like . . . well, actually, it's been a good while since I've been here . . . " She felt her arms relax, and then slowly--perhaps reluctantly--remove themselves. "I think you'd better hang on," she said with a slight smile. "If you're not used to horseback riding, or if the horse suddenly gets spooked, you might accidentally slip off. Even at this slow pace." And with an inward smile, she felt Jasmine's arms slip almost eagerly around her once more.

That sounds like a pretty good excuse, the Hawaiian woman thought with her own sly and inward smile, as she laced her fingers together. "Hey, I've got a question for you," she said.

"Okay."

"You're the first person I've met on this continent who's into the Craft, and I've been dying to talk to someone about all this. Anyway, it has to do with personal responsibility for one's own actions versus the Wiccan belief in a deity. I mean, it's easy for us to expose the self-contradictions that the Bible-thumpers believe in, right? But how do we as Witches justify our belief in a deity, whether male or female?"

"Hmm . . . " Valerie thought that one over for a moment or two. "In response, I can only speak for myself, and not for the whole religion." She thought it over some more. "I kind of like the idea of a female deity. As to whether or not there really is a Goddess, well . . . I like to think so. And I have reason to believe there's someone or something out there who actually responded to my appeal to a Goddess; I base that belief on an experience I had during my self-initiation. Call it a personal revelation or whatever. The point is, I don't feel any need to prove it to any outsider; it's just something that I accept.

"But I also have faith in myself," she went on. "I like to think that when I cast a Circle or work a spell, the Goddess is watching and maybe even guiding me to help me accomplish a goal, and not just doing it for me. On the other hand, when a spell goes wrong and it blows up in my face, maybe I'm doing something I shouldn't be doing, or maybe She's reminding me of something that I did to someone and it's payback time. I guess that's where Karma comes in. Is there a God or Goddess of Justice? And if so, is He or She out there somewhere?" She motioned with a hand to indicate all of creation. "Or in here?" She tapped her chest. "Inside of each of us? All I can say is that I'll live my life the best I can, and do the best I can to help others and to protect this planet we call Home, and hope for the best when my time comes to move on out of this life. What happened to me one time was I got sent back, or came back, because of a promise I made.

"But I can see your point. The Christians have their beliefs, and they're convinced that theirs is the only true way. We have ours. There are some Christians out there who are good people, but the down side is that there are a lot of wacko Christians running loose who are not only crazy and self-destructive, but are perfectly willing and even happy to drag the rest of us with them, kicking and screaming, down the road to global suicide--in war or in environmental destruction--in the name of Jesus."

"On the flip side, when was the last time you ever saw a Witch proselytizing?" Jasmine said. "I mean, we don't go running around metaphorically twisting everyone's arms and telling them that they have to believe our way or suffer eternal punishment and damnation--and we sure as hell never tortured or burned anyone at the stake for not following the Pagan way. I mean, I never felt so insecure in my faith that I had to try and actually force it through threats and coercion onto someone else, just so I could tell myself that I was right."

"That's because you're spiritually stronger than they are," Valerie said.

Jasmine smiled warmly at the compliment. With a sigh she said, "Yeah, I think I'd have to agree with you there," and she could hear Valerie's soft chuckle. "But it would be kind of funny to see Witches going door-to-door, with their Books of Shadows in one hand and broomsticks in the other, trying to tell people all about the Goddess and trying to convert them."

Valerie laughed. "Hecate's Witnesses!"

Jasmine also laughed. "Pagans For Pele! Care to join 'Pagans For Pele?' Just sign here and make a biiiig donation!"

While they rode, laughed and talked, Jasmine studied the trail and the trees, and made mental notes of the route they took so she could come back out here by herself. She took a deep breath to enjoy the scent of pines, firs, redwoods, and the faint scent of sandalwood in Valerie's hair. A warm, dry breeze rustled the trees and shrubs and caressed her bare skin, and the sun warmed the land into the high 70s. It made her feel warm and sensuous, and she wanted to give her a gentle squeeze and nuzzle her face in her hair--but what she did instead was ask, "Do you think it's okay to kill in self-defense? I mean, the Rede says, 'An ye harm none, do as ye will,' but when someone's trying to kill you . . . "

Valerie replied with a slight shrug. "Hey, you gotta defend yourself. I think that if I had no other choice I'd do it, and face the consequences of my own actions."

"If you had no other choice, you wouldn't be able to act otherwise," Jasmine said. "I know what you mean, though. I threatened to kill someone once, but it was a bluff."

"What happened?"

"He was a shmuck I worked for when I lived in San Francisco. He tried to stiff me for a week's pay, and I threatened to take his head off with my sword."

"What'd he do?"

"He paid me."

"Smart man," Valerie said with a wry grin.

Jasmine grinned, too. "Yeah, I relied on his common sense to see the error of his ways. I wouldn't really have killed him over something as trivial as money; I just wanted him to believe I would."

"And he didn't turn you in?"

She shrugged. "He couldn't. He managed this nudie joint I was working in, back in San Francisco's old Tenderloin district. In the eyes of the FLM, topless bars are no different from brothels, so if he turned me in he'd be cutting his own throat by getting himself busted for pimping. On the other hand, I couldn't turn him in, either, because being a nude dancer would have gotten me busted on a prostitution charge."

Valerie couldn't help grinning a wry and delighted grin. "You were a nude dancer?"

"Yeah. I was the best one there, too, by golly, judging by the tips I got. I mean, money would come raining on the stage. I really liked it, too, for the most part; I've always had an exhibitionist's streak inside of me. But every once in a while there's some jerk who comes along . . . " She let the thought go unfinished.

She could imagine what Jasmine must have looked like; up there on stage, and dressed in nothing but a pair of glittering red high-heels, and shimmering with perspiration under the hot lights as she gyrated in a slow, sensuous rhythm around a pole to the pounding beat of heavy metal music in front of dozens of outrageously horny men who so desperately wanted her but couldn't have her.

She could feel herself breaking out into a sweat of her own.

"Just me and my glittering red high heels," Jasmine said with a sigh as she fondly thought back. "But anyway, to take a life in self-defense . . . to actually kill someone . . . I don't know. The whole idea gives me the willies. I just hope I never get into a situation where I have to make that kind of decision."

"Well, I sure as hell won't let myself get caught and killed again."

Jasmine gave her a puzzled look. "Again?"

"I was burned at the stake in a previous life."

Her eyes widened. "No shit?" Based on her own admittedly limited reading, she had no reason to doubt the theory of reincarnation. She would like to have read more about it, but nearly all of those books had been burned. Whether they jabbered from their pulpits about the pits of Hell or dragged people off to the execution stake, or burned books they didn't like, there was something about Christian zealots and fire that always seemed to go hand in hand.

The horse came around a bend in the path, and through the thinning trees the two riders could see the house. "Here we are," Valerie said. "Home sweet home."

"Whoa--big place! You live here all alone?"

"For the most part, yeah. A friend of mine stays here off and on, and has been helping me fix the place up. His name's Garrett Keller--you'll like him."

"Oh, yeah?" she asked as she gently forced a smile. "You two have a thing going?"

"No, he's just a good friend of mine. Actually, a little more than that--he saved my life. If it hadn't been for him I'd be lying dead in Colorado, so yeah, I'd call him more than must a good friend. We're not lovers or anything like that, though; the only time I thought about making it with him he fell asleep on the sofa, so I guess it wasn't meant to be. Besides, we've got nothing in common; I'm a Witch who doesn't believe in sexism, and he's a sexist who doesn't believe in Witchcraft."

They slid from the horse and Valerie removed the saddle, pad and bridle, and let the horse wander free in the corral. They went inside through the kitchen and into the living room.

"Wow!" Jasmine exclaimed as her eyes widened when she saw the wall that was lined with books. "What a fantastic library! Where'd you get all these?"

"I inherited them. This used to be my uncle's place until my family was killed."

The combined looks of shock, compassion and pain in Jasmine's eyes asked the question without her having to speak.

"Yeah," Valerie said softly. "Foundation goons."

Jasmine chilled with contempt and disgust at the mention of the FLM forces. "I should have known," she said. "Those bastards have been busy little shits, haven't they? I'm surprised they didn't get these books."

"So am I. Maybe they were on a tight schedule or something, and had other people to shoot. Listen, you make yourself at home--I'm going to go get those books." She went up the stairs and left Jasmine free to examine the library.

Wow, she thought, look at these . . . "Fahrenheit 451," by Ray Bradbury; "Common Sense" and "The Age of Reason," by Thomas Paine; "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee," by Dee Brown; "In The Spirit of Crazy Horse," by Peter Matthiessen; "Black Elk Speaks," by John G. Neihardt; "Of Utmost Good Faith" and "Custer Died For Your Sins," by Vine Deloria, Jr.; "A World of Ideas" and "The Secret Government," by Bill Moyers; "Kent State," by James Michner; "Steal This Book" and "Revolution For The Hell Of It," by Abbie Hoffman; "One Life At A Time, Please," by Edward Abbey . . . In the fiction section there were other titles by Abbey: "Fire On The Mountain," "The Monkey Wrench Gang," and "Hayduke Lives!" . . . There were titles by Dean Koontz and Stephen King . . . She took down "Age of Reason" and settled into the sofa.

Up in her bedroom, Valerie quickly got out of her clothes and slipped into her skimpy cut-off jeans and a black knit sport top, and then went bare-footed up to the attic to get her mother's Craft books. She piled one on the other, then lifted the stack and balanced it against her chest as she made her way downstairs. "I think you're gonna find these interesting," she said as she came into the living room.

Jasmine looked up from the book she was reading and saw with a pleasant tingle inside that Valerie, while still wearing the headband, had changed into clothes that were much more casual and a lot more revealing. While maintaining her outward cool, inside her desire was growing stronger moment by moment.

She set the books down on the coffee table and sat next to her. "My mom left me these books," she said as Jasmine took the top one. "Until recently, I didn't even know that she'd been a Witch."

"She never told you?"

Valerie shrugged. "I don't know why, she just never did. Maybe she wanted me to find my own way to the Craft and didn't want to influence me. Maybe it was for security reasons; I don't know. I wish I had known . . . Listen, you want some wine?"

"Sure, I'd love it. Want to share a joint?"

"Sure. I'll be right back." She got up and headed for the kitchen. She reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a green, 750-ml bottle of red wine, then turned and blew the dust from the bottoms of a pair of wine glasses that she removed from a cupboard. She returned to the living room, casually swinging the glasses by their stems in one hand and the bottle by its neck in the other. She found Jasmine still reading Thomas Paine.

"This guy was a genius, y'know? We could sure use a few hundred people like him nowadays."

"I've only read a little of his stuff," Valerie confessed as she again sat next to her and set the glasses on the table. "Back in Colorado"--she pulled the cork--"none of his works were available." She began pouring. "And I haven't really had the time here to get into them because I've been trying to get caught up on all this Craft material. But what little I have read about him has got me convinced that if he were alive today, he'd get a bullet in the back of his head, compliments of the FLM."

"Which," Jasmine said as she accepted a glass, "in a strange way, would be a kind of a compliment." She noticed her puzzled look and went on to say, "I mean, if there's anything that the Foundation is afraid of, it's anything that opposes their weird little mind set. They would consider him to be dangerous enough to warrant a hit on him because they would be afraid of him, and they would fear him because they would know that he's right."

"True enough," Valerie agreed. She raised her glass is a toast. "To Thomas Paine."

Jasmine raised her own glass. "To Citizen Paine."

They clinked their glasses and sipped.

"Mm. Good wine," Jasmine said. She set her glass down and began to dig into a front pocket. She pulled out a small wooden box in which she kept a couple of joints, some wooden matches, and a resin-stained alligator clip.

"It's imported," Valerie said, almost apologetically. "California used to make the best wine in the world--in my own humble opinion--until the Idiots In Power went and sprayed herbicides all over the vineyards. The damn stuff still isn't safe to drink." While she was speaking, Jasmine was lighting the joint and fixing the clip to it. She handed it to Valerie for the first hit. She accepted and took a long, deep hit, expanding her chest to take in as much smoke as she could, and Jasmine couldn't help but notice the way her shoulders went back and how her breasts rose beneath the tank top, and how her nipples strained against the material. She tried not to be too conspicuous while she enjoyed the show.

"Wow! It tastes like lemons!" Valerie said, constricting her throat as she spoke so she could keep the smoke in. "How'd you do that?"

"I just keep a little piece of lemon peel in the stash. Good, huh?" She accepted the joint and hit big on it. The end was slightly damp with Valerie's saliva, and with an inward smile she gently brushed it against her lips and licked them.

Valerie slowly exhaled smoke and sipped at her wine. "Yeah," she said at last. "The first thing that came to mind was gene-splicing and cross-breeding pot with lemon trees. Just a chunk of lemon peel, huh?"

Jasmine grinned and nodded. She passed the joint back to Valerie and exhaled twin streams of smoke.

Valerie took another hit and asked, "So what brought you out to California?" The grass was already beginning to creep up on her, and she gave herself over to the mellow buzz. She studied the way the light fell on Jasmine, and how it shined from her long and straight black hair. She studied her green, almond eyes and deep, bronzed tan, and listened to the rich quality of her voice. She kept expecting to hear a trace of an accent, perhaps Japanese or Chinese, but her voice was thoroughly west coast American. Gods, she's so lovely, she kept thinking, over and over again, until the phrase echoed through her mind. With a little concentration, she turned it into a reverse-echo. Neat, she thought. Good weed.

"Those damned Feds. They didn't approve of the way we were living--we had pretty much gone back to our own religion, and they kinda frowned on that. Who were we hurting?" She shrugged and hit on the joint again, and passed it back. "We hadn't heard a thing about the new regime and what they were into," she said, trying not to lose too much of the smoke, "and we thought they were just a bunch of wackos." She finally exhaled and continued. "Until they started smashing our temples. When we tried to stop them, they started swinging their clubs and even fired a few shots." She paused for a moment as she sipped her wine, and its flavor exploded pleasantly in her mouth. "Then we made the mistake of taking our protests out into the streets and made a big public demonstration. We hadn't heard that martial law had been invoked on account of the bio-war, and that the Constitution had been suspended. Hmph . . . I keep saying 'we.' I wasn't even there; I was off visiting a friend of mine at the time. But they're my people. They jailed a whole bunch of them for 'idolatry' and with 'charges pending.' Can you believe that? Some weren't even charged with anything, they just held them in jail! The rest of my people decided they weren't going to take it; after all, this is America, right? Not Nazi Germany. Dear Lady, how little we knew . . . " She set her wine glass on the table, rested her elbows on her knees, and laced her fingers together. "I was told they held a huge ritual, after which they were going to bust our people out," she went on, and here her voice took on a somber quality. "And that was when the shooting started." She took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out, fighting for control while staring at the table. There was a soft tremor in her quiet voice as she went on. "When I got to my neighborhood, I saw that the front door of my house had been kicked in, and there were soldiers all over the place. I ducked down behind some hedges and went to a neighbor's house down the road to find out what had happened. They told me my family had been turned in by an informant for practicing paganism, as defined by Foundation law, and shit like 'idolatry' and 'black magic.' They never even had anything to do with the demonstrations; the informant turned out to be a pissed-off neighbor who didn't care for my dad's political beliefs. We Tanakas have never thought very highly of the authorities--" She lowered her face and made a sound that Valerie thought might have been a short chuckle, but when the Asian woman looked up at her there were tears streaming down a tanned and beautiful face that was twisted in agony. "They shot my family, Valerie!" she said, her voice choked. "They shot them!" And then she lost it, and she broke down and cried.

Valerie set her own glass next to Jasmine's and put an arm around her shoulders. Jasmine came up and her arms went around her, and she sobbed against her chest. "God damn Feds!" she cried. "God damn their fucking bastard souls to Hell!" She gasped and sobbed again, completely out of control.

Not knowing what else to do, Valerie held her close as her own chest tightened with emotion. She knew how Jasmine felt, and the feelings that she thought she had held so tightly under control were now coming back to the surface. "I'm sorry, Jasmine," she said as tears rose in her own eyes. "I'm so sorry . . . " She held her for a long time, gently stroking her long black hair and rocking her gently back and forth.

"Hold me . . . "

"It's okay, babe, I've got you . . . it's okay," she whispered, and her own voice was tight. She kissed her forehead and then her cheek. "I wish I could make the pain go away . . . "

"Just hold me . . . please . . . " Her voice was quiet but still strained.

They sat quietly together for nearly twenty minutes, just holding each other and sharing their pain. And in that time they formed a bond that, no matter what came their way, would never be broken.

***

"I really am sorry for falling apart like that," she said later as she wiped at her eyes with a tissue from a box that Valerie had found. "God, I feel like such a wuss . . . "

"There's nothing to be sorry for," Valerie replied as she dabbed at her own eyes. "I know how it feels to lose so many people that you love; that goddamn Foundation killed my folks, too. It really does help to have a shoulder to cry on."

Jasmine sniffled once and forced herself to smile through her tears. "I hope it doesn't put you off too much in case it happens again." She reached for her wine glass and took a healthy gulp to steady herself, and set it down again.

Valerie took her hand and squeezed it comfortingly. "Not at all. As a matter of fact, I want you to stop by here any time you feel like it." She gave her hand a little shake. "Okay?"

She took a deep breath as she regained control of her emotions, and let it out quickly. "Okay," she said, and this smile was sincere. "I hope you don't mind frequent visits; things are so slow at the shop, I'm probably going to get laid off. My room over the shop is part of my pay, and if Vernon's place goes under . . . well . . . so will mine."

"Okay, so move in here with me. I've got plenty of room, and I'd love the company."

She gave her a surprised look of controlled elation. "You really mean that?"

Valerie grinned at her reaction. "Of course I do! We can do rituals and cast spells, and have all kinds of fun. After all, we sisters in the Craft do have to stick together. Right?"

Jasmine grinned right back at her. "Right." She suddenly threw her arms around her neck and hugged her warmly, and Valerie was only too happy to reciprocate.

They sat closely for a moment, just looking at each other. Then Valerie kissed her cheek and said, "You know what? You need to be cheered up. And I know just the place that'll do it." She took her hand again as she stood. "Come with me." She led her outside. At the back door she pointed at the two cables that led from the roof and into the trees. "See those wires? All you have to do is follow them. Come on." Still holding her hand, she led her through the woods, and a few minuets later they stood at the river's shore. "Well? What do you think?"

Jasmine grinned like a child with a new puppy. "Holy sweet Pele! It's just like my private lagoon back home!"

Now it was Valerie's turn to look surprised. "You had your own lagoon? What are you, rich or something?"

"I always called it 'my' lagoon because I never saw anyone else around there, day or night, and I could go skinny-dipping whenever I wanted." She surveyed the area again, taking in the scenery with a sigh of longing. "Yeah, just like back home. Except for the redwoods, of course."

Valerie gestured toward the river with one hand and a wide grin. "Hey, go for it." With a sudden desire to show herself off, and with her heart pounding in excitement, she pulled her sport top off over her head.

Jasmine grinned as she slipped out of her sandals and pulled off her own top. They left their clothes piled together on the stone slab and carefully made their way over the wet, slippery stones to the waterfall. Jasmine stuck a hand under it. "Yow, shit! That's cold!"

Valerie grinned. "It only takes a second or so to get used to it; come on, don't be a chicken." She went ahead of her and slid into the water.

Bracing herself against an outcropping of stones, Jasmine stepped carefully into the pool until she was waist-deep, and then leapt away from the shore. "This is great!" she called out as she slowly turned over to backstroke. "But what if someone comes by?"

"Don't worry about it!" Valerie called back over the roaring of the waterfall. "I've only had one set of visitors since I moved in, and they're too scared to come back. And if anyone else does come by . . . " She thought it over for a moment, and then finished with a cheerful, "then I guess they'll get an eyeful!"

Time had no meaning as they swam and played, splashing cold water at each other and playing tag and hide 'n' seek. At one point Jasmine was "it" and had to face the rocks with her hands over her eyes while Valerie went off to hide. Counting by fives, she went to a hundred, calling out the numbers. At last she said, "Ready or not, here I come!" She turned quickly away from the stones and looked around.

Valerie was nowhere to be seen.

"Okay," she said softly to herself as she cautiously stepped a few feet away from the shore, "now where're you hiding at?" She shaded her eyes with one hand as she carefully scanned the woods and the shore, wondering if she might be hiding behind a tree or some of the rocks that lined the shore, struggling to suppress the giggle that threatened to give her away. I don't think she made it that far, she concluded. She'd have to be damned fast. Hmm . . . I'll bet she's . . . With a slight smile, she folded her arms beneath her tanned breasts and waited patiently, humming softly to herself. Then she began to examine her fingernails. She ran a thumb across them as she inspected them, and then nibbled at a tiny, slightly ragged corner.

The water behind her suddenly exploded as a pair of arms wrapped themselves tightly around her hips and lifted her half way out of the pool. The explosion was accompanied by a wild, shrieking laugh that was joined by Jasmine's as the two women fell back into the water. They surfaced together, laughing hysterically.

"I almost drowned under there! You were just standing here while I was turning blue!"

"Patience always pays off," Jasmine said, also laughing.

Valerie threw her arms around her again. "I oughtta pull you under again," she said, breathing heavily to get her wind back.

Jasmine's hands rested on her shoulders. "How about I just push you under?" she asked, grinning impishly.

Their breathing slowed a little as they stood watching each other. She was still pretty buzzed from the weed, and for a long moment all she did was just stand there with her arms around her as she gazed into those captivating emerald eyes, and watched the way the sun shined on her wet, black hair; how the light was refracted into all the colors of the spectrum as it shined through the tiny droplets on her dark eye lashes. Her sun-bronzed skin felt so soft, and so smooth . . . so sleek and wet as the drops clung so lovingly to her and sparkled as they trickled down her face, arms, shoulders and breasts. Sweet lady, she thought, you are so beautiful. Valerie suddenly wanted so very much to kiss her, and her heart began to pound hard with excitement at the idea. Should I? she asked herself. Or maybe I shouldn't . . . Gods, I don't know . . .

And Jasmine was watching her with her hands still on her shoulders and her lips slightly parted. She was still pretty stoned herself; and she was acutely aware of the crossroads at which they suddenly found themselves standing. Or maybe because of the weed it just seemed like they were gazing at each other for such a long time. She wondered apprehensively what was going to happen next. It would be too embarrassing to suddenly turn away, after the closeness they had already shared; she couldn't just turn away, because then everything would be ruined. She didn't know what to do, but for God's sakes she knew she had to do something. And the more she thought about it, the more those incredible amber eyes held her spellbound . . .

"So . . . are you gonna kiss me, or what?" one of them suddenly found herself asking. She hadn't really meant to, but . . .

Valerie gently pulled her close as Jasmine's arms slid around her neck, and as their high, round breasts mashed together their lips met in a soft kiss. It lasted only two or three seconds, and when they parted their eyes met again in pleasant surprise. It was like those sensations that Valerie had felt yesterday; that feeling of absorbing all of that life-energy from the forest to be suddenly released through her climax. Those same sensations were back, only now she seemed to be absorbing that increasing energy from Jasmine. And at the same time, she could feel Jasmine absorbing her own expanding energy, in a sweet exchange and sharing of pure sexual energy. With boldly growing smiles and the sudden dawning of new understanding, they gently and firmly melded their wet bodies together again to prolong and deepen that exchange, and kissed a second time.

So soft, Valerie thought again as she felt Jasmine's nipples stiffen and burn against her own. Oh, sweet Goddess, she's so soft . . . She could feel Jasmine's lips part against her own, and the warm, moist tip of her tongue came out and gently caressed her upper lip. Oh, yes, Valerie thought with a soft moan as her own lips parted. Oh, sweet Goddess, yes . . . Jasmine's tongue slipped gently between them and sensuously caressed the inside of her lip; Valerie's own lips parted even farther and, as another soft moan escaped her, her own tongue slipped out to caress the underside of Jasmine's. After perhaps fifteen seconds--or was it an hour?--their lips parted with a soft sound, and the kiss left them both feeling a little breathless and light-headed, and quivering with delight.

"Wow."

"Yeah."

They grinned at each other and then kissed again, this time more urgently. Valerie gently broke it off a moment later, and gazed into those exotic emerald eyes. "I want you," she whispered, her breathy voice shuddering with lust.

Jasmine indicated the large stone slab with a sideways nod of her head. "Let's go topside."

They swam together toward the shore and climbed up onto the slab. They lay together in a tangle of arms and legs, kissing and stroking and caressing. Compared to her solo flight yesterday, and even to her self-initiation into the Craft, this was the most exquisite sensation of sheer bliss that Valerie had ever felt. Jasmine's smooth skin and soft warmth were so deliciously arousing that after maybe only a minute she found herself approaching an orgasm that promised to make those incredibly forceful peaks of ecstasy the day before absolutely pale by comparison.

"Ready . . . or not . . . " she gasped, already on the brink.

And Jasmine finished for her, " . . . here . . . I come!" And their desperate gasps and unrestrained, screaming cries of passion merged with the roaring of the waterfall. The combination of the sweat from their skin and the pulsating heat of the stone beneath them and the sun above that matched the rhythms of their hearts, and the roaring of the waterfall and the breeze that breathed across them with gentle, feathery touches, and the surrounding, pristine essence of all of Nature thoroughly swirled together in a vortex of pure life-energy to bring on the wettest and most powerful series of orgasms that either woman had ever known. With each climax more intense than the last, they kept on gasping and cresting higher and higher as each absorbed the other's energy, and then would cry out in sheer, shuddering ecstasy as she plunged deeper and deeper as she released that energy back into her partner once more in one surging, roller-coaster wave after another as these two women completely and unhesitatingly gave themselves to each other.

"I'm yours, baby," one of them said to her new lover, gasping and groaning between rippling waves of ecstasy. It was impossible to tell who had spoken. Or perhaps it was a shared and unspoken psychic pledge to each other as their bodies, minds and souls all melded into one glowing, transcendent spirit. "I am completely and totally all yours."

Neither of them knew how long they had lain on the stone and in each other's embrace when they arose from their final, downhill plunge. Sweating and exhausted, and panting together with their legs entwined and their bodies pressed together, it took them a moment or two to realize that they had both passed out from their throes of passion.

"Dear Goddess, that was sweet," Valerie said softly as her heartbeat and her breathing began to slowly return to normal. "I've never . . . "

" . . . come like that before," Jasmine finished, hardly hearing her. With her eyes slightly glazed and her lips smiling dreamily, she sighed with the deepest satisfaction she had ever known.

They squirmed slowly and gently together, caressing each other with their entire bodies, until Jasmine finally laid back and stretched alluringly, inviting Valerie's conspicuous gaze. "I've never felt anything like that in my entire life!" she panted softly.

"Me neither." She was quiet for a few moments, contemplating this new discovery as she draped one leg over Jasmine's, and let her eyes wander over her to take in every rich, glistening, tanned and naked detail. Letting her gaze slide farther down, she finally settled it on the tattoo that lay high inside her left thigh near her crotch. It was a green Chinese dragon, some ten centimeters long and the same shade of emerald as the Asian woman's eyes, with ferociously glaring red eyes, bared fangs, and extended claws. She gently traced an index finger over it to send a rippling wave of delight through Jasmine's thigh. "What a neat tattoo! Is this supposed to be some kind of a warning or something?"

Jasmine glanced down at it and grinned. "My sister and I got stoned one night, and we started tattooing each other. She did the dragon on me as a good luck charm, and I gave her a black panther. She had a thing for jungle cats."

"Cool." She regarded her with a hopeful, questioning smile. "You think you could do a dragon on me?"

Jasmine smiled back. "I'd love to, whenever you want."

Her smile widened. "All right!" she said. She looked into her eyes for a long moment and then asked, "You want to spend the night with me?"

Jasmine looked around uncertainly. "Out here?"

Valerie giggled. "No, silly, at my place."

"I know," she said with an impish smile as she moved in a little closer. "I'd love to."

They were quiet again for another long moment, just enjoying each other's gaze and touch.

"See anything you like?" Valerie asked with a sly grin.

"Oh, yeah . . . " Jasmine replied with a grin of her own, imitating Valerie's response when they had been checking each other out at the jewelry shop.

"Well, come on," Valerie said at last as she began to rise. She'd had quite enough sun over the last couple of days, and she didn't want to burn. "Let's go on inside."

Jasmine forced a very pretty frown. "But it's so beautiful out here," she said.

"Yeah, but I'm burnin' out here. Besides," she added with a smile, "there's a nice big, comfy bed at home."

Jasmine grinned. "You talked me into it."

***

Crickets chirruped! in the darkness, and the soft sounds of the rushing river could be heard in the distance. The silvery stars shone clear and sharp in the black night sky, and far away there was the howl of a single wolf.

A comforting fire was crackling in the fireplace in Valerie's bedroom, casting flickering orange light and dancing shadows on the walls and on the two glistening women as they made love. With the covers kicked away to the foot of the wide bed, Valerie was lying comfortably between Jasmine's spread legs, resting her full weight on top of her and melding their heaving and sweating bodies together, pinning Jasmine to the mattress while the Asian woman's arms encircled her, firmly yet gently trying to pull her deeper into her very being. Drenched in sweat and panting softly against each other's lips, they gasped and groaned and shuddered together as each woman strove to drive the other on to new heights of ecstasy; and when they finally did come down from another shared and unbridled climax, still they slowly squirmed together while they panted for breath as the sweat glistened on their bronzed skin and ran in rivulets down their bodies.

Valerie wore another wide, satisfied grin. "Wow," she panted softly, and then gently kissed her lips, her cheeks and her throat, letting her lips nibble gently and her tongue lick softly and wetly against the salty, tanned skin. She gazed once more into those exotic, almond-shaped, emerald eyes of her volcano goddess. "You are wild!"

Panting and perspiring as she lay against the pillows, and with her arms gently encircling her as she spread her warm thighs open a little more, Jasmine regarded her with a wanton grin of her own as she sensuously ground herself against her a couple more times. "You're pretty wild yourself, wolf girl," she said breathlessly. She licked and kissed her again with a soft moan. "You're an animal, y'know that?"

"You bring out the beast in me," she said with a husky voice and a lazy grin. As she gazed into her sparkling emerald eyes, she suddenly thought about how those poor shmucks at the nudie joint where Jasmine used to work had no idea of what they were missing. Tough shit, guys, she thought with another grin of delight, she's all mine! She squirmed deliciously against her with a soft moan, savoring the feel of their naked, sweat-dampened skin as they slid together. She wanted more of Jasmine's deliciously soft skin against her own; she wanted her high, proud breasts against her own, her soft and smooth belly against her own, she wanted her glistening, warm and wet sex against her own . . . the two of them fit together perfectly, as though they had been created exclusively for each other by a lusty pagan goddess.

Rolling slowly and moving together as one, Jasmine gently worked her way between Valerie's legs, and Valerie spread them wide and raised her knees slightly to welcome her. She gently pinned Valerie's wrists to the soft mattress above her head as she settled her weight on top of her, flattening her breasts against hers as she began to slowly grind herself against her some more; and suddenly, Valerie found herself wishing she had pilfered that two-headed snake from Matthew Gordon's van. "You know, I could get used to this very easily," she said. She raised her head from the pillow and savored the salty taste of her lover's sweat as she began to kiss Jasmine's perspiring breasts.

"So could I," Jasmine replied as she watched her with a grin. She gasped suddenly, softly, and moaned gently as one turgid nipple was gently captured between a pair of soft, moist lips, and as her breathing quickened she happily surrendered again to her new lover. For the first time, since the deaths of her family had plunged her into that turbulent, bitter sea of life, Jasmine felt as though she had finally reached the shore and safety.

Finally relaxing and lying warmly and cozily between Valerie's legs and against her breasts, she softly kissed her lips. "Thank you, Valerie," she whispered.

She gazed into those seductive, feline emerald eyes with a faintly puzzled expression. "For what?"

"For making the pain go away. I was so afraid I'd be alone . . . "

With her eyes suddenly stinging with tears, she gently stroked the side of her face as she softly kissed her again. "You'll never be alone again, babe," she promised. With a sigh and a moan, they sank together a little more deeply into the soft mattress and pillows, with Jasmine's head on her breast as they held each other close. She kissed the top of her head and gently stroked her satiny, black hair, and sighed softly as they settled down to sleep. "Never again."

***

They went back to Jasmine's place the next day, barefoot and dressed again in tank tops and shorts. Jasmine was keeping her arms around Valerie's waist all during the slow, casual ride as Valerie told her about what had brought her back to northern California.

"Why can't they just leave us alone?" Jasmine asked. "Why do they always think they have to wield some kind of power over us?"

"Fear," Valerie replied. "Fear that even more people will prove them wrong, and a fear of anything different. They want everything to be all nice and neat, and under their domination. It's the same old story: what they don't understand they fear, and what they fear they destroy. And just like the Nazis of Germany, they absolutely refuse to tolerate anyone different from themselves. One thing that they're really afraid of nowadays is the fact that we might all get fed up with them one of these days and throw the bastards out at gunpoint." She sighed. "Yeah, fear is a great motivator; the more they fear us, the more they clamp down on us. You remember 'manifest destiny'--the excuse the government used in order to wipe out hundreds of thousands of American Indians so they could steal their land? It's back."

"Good old manifest destiny," Jasmine said. "They weren't satisfied with slaughtering the Indians, the European pagans and all the Islanders. Now they want to kill the whole planet because their lord is due back any time now, and they've still got all these natural resources to waste." She sighed wearily. "And I'm afraid it looks as though the fuckers are winning."

"They've got to be stopped," Valerie said. "We've got to stop them. The sooner, the better."

"That's going to be kind of tough to do, though, since they've got all the guns."

"Not all of them, babe. Most of them, but not all."

They arrived at the gift shop. Jasmine went to unlock the door as Valerie tied the reins to the rail, and they went inside and up to Jasmine's room. Near the wide window that faced west, there was a wide, traditional futon bed, black with a single Japanese character printed in white; the lone top sheet was a pale shade of blue, and the cover was an old sleeping bag, deep brown and fully unzipped; at the head, there were two pillows covered in velvet of burnt orange. Across the small room was a short dresser with a low coffee table next to it that Jasmine used as an altar, and next to the bed was a low table with a single small oil lamp and a notepad and pen. Hanging above the bed was Jasmine's katana, it's scabbard covered in bright blue velvet with intricate silver designs. A faint scent of jasmine incense hung in the air.

"Is that thing real?"

"Sure, it's real," Jasmine replied. "That's the sword I was telling you about." She went and took it down. "It's one of the few objects that I have left from my family; I took it the night they were killed. Denise did my tattoo and gave me my Pele talisman, and all I have from my mom is the knowledge of healing and herbalism that she taught me. I guess I treasure that the most; objects can be lost or destroyed, or taken away from you. But not knowledge."

"It's a beauty," Valerie said as Jasmine handed it to her, using both hands. The weapon felt surprisingly light in her hands; she drew it part way from its scabbard, and sunlight glinted from the razor-sharp, gently curving stainless steel blade. She slid the blade back home and handed it back with both hands, holding it like the treasured object that it was.

"Yeah. And they made things to last back then, too." She hung it back on the wall. Then she turned to Valerie and smiled That Smile again as she said, "This time, I want you in my bed."

She put her hands on her hips, and looked at her with a wry grin on her lips and a mock challenge in her eyes. "Come on and take me," she said, and offered no resistance whatsoever as Jasmine's hands slipped up inside the back of her top and down inside the back of her shorts.

***

Careful not to awaken her, Valerie gently peeled back the sleeping bag, drew up her leg, and grinned again as she checked out the ten-centimeter-long snarling red dragon that was now permanently inked high inside her left thigh. She had expected the green Chinese dragon, like Jasmine's, but the Hawaiian had decided to surprise her with a different style and color. She found that she liked this one even more because it was her own personal tattoo rather than just a copy of her new lover's. Distinctly more reptilian, and crouching dangerously with glaring yellow eyes and sharp fangs and claws, it was ready to spring into swift and deadly action as it "guarded her treasure," as Jasmine had explained with a sly grin. It didn't even sting anymore ("Yeouch! You didn't tell me it was gonna hurt that much!" she had declared as she lay naked before her with her legs spread wide. "Don't be such a baby," Jasmine had replied, also naked and with a patient grin, as she lay between her legs and continued to work, "I'm almost done . . . "), not after Jasmine had taken the pain away. "Lie back and relax," she had said as she placed her warm, soft hand over the tattoo. "Close your eyes, and visualize the pain. What does it look like?"

"A big flaming red ball."

"Okay, concentrate on that and make it get smaller. Watch it shrink until it's gone." She did as Jasmine instructed, acutely aware of the warmth radiating from her soft hand (That feels nice, she thought), and after about five minutes or so she said, "Okay the ball's gone."

"How's the leg feel?"

Valerie paused for a second, then grinned. "The pain's gone, too! That's a pretty neat trick--I'll have to remember that one!"

"It needs one last finishing touch, though," Jasmine had told her, "before I can let you go."

Valerie smiled with curiosity and anticipation. "Yeah? What's that?"

With a thoroughly carnal look in her eyes, Jasmine had gently spread Valerie's legs even further apart, and with a thoroughly lascivious grin and a wide, flat tongue, she had given the tattoo a slow, sensuous lick and a soft, gentle, yet firmly smacking kiss. "To complete it," she had explained, her voice a breathy whisper. But the kisses had not stopped there . . .

She reached for the pad and pen on the nearby table, and began to write a note.

Darling Jasmine,

I'm sorry I couldn't stay to see you wake up, but there are important things that I must do, things that may be dangerous, and I cannot allow you to be placed in any danger. My invitation for you to come live with me is still open, if things work out the way I hope. Again, I'm sorry I didn't stay until you woke up, and I pray to the Goddess that we see each other again soon.

Love, Valerie

She left the notepad where she would find it, then slowly dressed. She knelt next to the bed and kissed her again, then quietly left the room.

We have so much in common, she thought as she rode home. They both had their families destroyed by the Foundation, and had been left as orphans. They were both into ritual and magic, and they had a particularly strong interest in the Craft--and they both needed comforting at a time when everything seemed to be falling apart. She was madly, passionately in love with Jasmine, and there was no doubt in her mind that Jasmine felt the same way about her. She wanted Jasmine not only as a friend and ally, but also as a lover and partner for life. She had never thought of herself as a lesbian before; and upon further reflection, she wasn't even all that certain if it really was a question of being a lesbian, or even bisexual. All she did know was that it was Jasmine Tanaka who had awakened a flaming passion within her that she had never felt before.

Maybe it's a soul mate thing, she thought, with gender being completely irrelevant. And then, with a rakish grin, she squirmed deliciously against the saddle as she mentally replayed their activities of yesterday, last night and this morning. Then again, maybe it is a bi- thing after all, she thought, because that hot and juicy girl had felt really, really good against her . . . She found herself fantasizing about the day when Jasmine finally moved in with her.

And as these warm and comforting thoughts floated tranquilly through her mind like soft white clouds on a summer day, she suddenly gasped in terror as Warren's icy hand reached out, like cold demonic claws from the black depths of Hell, to clutch hatefully at her heart.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Stagger On Inn was one of those small, unkempt and out-of-the-way taverns that catered mostly to truck drivers, bikers, and out-of-work cowboys. It was a land version of a longshoreman's tavern, with songs of the road, instead of the sea, coming from an ancient jukebox that had been shoved into one corner. The walls were festooned not with harpoons, anchors, fishing nets, abalone shells and dead sea stars, but with posters of Harley Davidsons, Peterbilt trucks, rodeos, and bare-breasted women dressed in jungle-camouflage bikini bottoms and clutching assault rifles. An assortment of eighteen-wheelers, pick-ups, vans, four-by-fours and motorcycles was parked haphazardly in the gravel parking lot, decorated with mud and debris from the road, while their drivers were inside, taking a much needed rest from their long journeys.

The atmosphere of the inn was dim and choked with hazy white tobacco and marijuana fumes. It took a few minutes for Keller's eyes to adjust to the lack of light before he could cautiously wind his way between pool shooters and tables to the bar and order a beer. He picked up a brown long-neck, left a couple of dollars on the bar, and politely wove his way around a number of men you didn't want to mess with, and found an empty corner booth where he could easily keep an eye on the door. He eased himself down, took a sip from the bottle, then lit a cigarette and settled back to wait. Man, he thought as he surveyed the room while some country western record with a nasal singer screeched across his eardrums like fingernails on a chalkboard. Man, the shit I have to go through sometimes . . .

He breathed a sigh of relief when the record ended, and for a while he eavesdropped on the various conversations that buzzed around him.

" . . . confiscated his hog just 'cause he was carryin' a lousy joint . . . "

" . . . got shot by the soldiers just for mouthin' off to 'em . . . "

" . . . when I was jailed for punchin' out a Holy Guard . . . it was worth it, too."

" . . . just hangin' there, man, in mid-air and with blood all over his face . . . "

" . . . flashin' her tits like that at the concert; I seen 'em myself!"

How many places like this had he been in over the years? It didn't seem to matter whether he was in northern California or Nicaragua, Morocco or Australia, or even Afghanistan or Singapore--there always seemed to be at least one place in each of those countries just like this one, and he had always managed to find it. It was a hell of a place for conducting business, but it sure beat the hell out of being in jail, didn't it? Or did it? There was that time in Mexico, for example, in that little cantina in Baja, when jail would have been considerably more desirable . . .

He'd had a cache of guns hidden in the hills, brand new and slick with cosmoline, waiting comfortably in their crates. A man known only as Arturo had come to take delivery. "Let's see the cash first," Keller had told him.

Arturo reached into his sweat-stained shirt and withdrew an envelope, and dropped it on the rough wooden table with a plop. Keller opened it and began counting the bills. They were damp with Arturo's sweat.

"Half of it is there," Arturo said with a thick Spanish accent. "You get the other half when I see the goods."

Keller folded the envelope closed. "Fair enough," he said, wanting to wipe his hands off on his jeans. "I have a jeep parked right outside."

"No," Arturo said. "We take my trock."

Something besides Arturo had smelled really, really bad. "What's the matter?" Keller asked. "You don't trust me or something?"

Arturo grinned, and revealed a wide black gap of decay between two of his upper teeth, the remainders of which were stained yellow with years of unfiltered tobacco. "Don't you trost me?" he'd asked.

Keller couldn't afford to blow this deal. "Sure," he said with a forced grin. "Sure, I trust you."

"Good! Bueno! We are amigos, si? Amigos trost each other, si?"

"Sure," Keller said again, only this time his voice had been laced with muted sarcasm.

The old, rusty Ford pickup was in desperate need of new springs and shocks, but at least it got them to the cave where the guns were hidden. Arturo had been drinking steadily from a bottle of tequila, wiping his arm against his thick lips, and Keller could hear the thick black stubble on his face as it rasped against his arm. He didn't want to accept the bottle that was offered to him, but what could he do? Some people were known to cancel their deals just on the refusal of a sociable drink between two businessmen. He reluctantly accepted the bottle as he hoped Arturo wasn't carrying any communicable diseases, and then had something else to worry about as he saw something floating in the bottle. Oh, God, he'd thought in dismay, please, don't let me get the worm.

"Ah, muy bien," Arturo said as he looked over the rifles in their now open crates. He reached in and took out one of the M-16s. "Yes, these will do very nicely."

"You like, eh?"

"Oh, si. I like very moch."

"Good. So where's the rest of the money?"

"Under the seat in the trock," Arturo replied. "Help yourself, amigo."

Don't mind if I do, Keller thought as he hoped that the keys were there, too. He didn't want to be around when Arturo found out that all of the firing pins had been removed. The money with which he was paying Keller had been stolen from a small, run-down clinic in southern Baja, and the doctor who ran it was a good friend of Keller's. Keller had gone to a lot of trouble to set up this scam to get his friend's money back, and the sooner he got out of here the better.

"And here's your final payoff," he heard Arturo saying, and he heard the click of a pistol's hammer being drawn back. He turned and saw the barrel of a Colt King Cobra .357 Magnum pointed at his face. "You won't need no focking money where you're going . . . "

No, Keller thought, it can't end like this. Not out here, alone. No, dammit, no . . . He tried to bolt and run, but his legs had turned to lead. In favor of a much larger target, the barrel dropped from his head to fix on his chest, and everything that happened next happened in painfully slow motion; the fall of the hammer, the explosion of the gunshot, and the hollow point bullet coming slowly toward him, closer and closer, and slamming into his chest--

He awoke with a jarring start. He glanced around quickly with a racing heart, and he realized he was sweating. He was no longer in a Mexican desert, but back in the Stagger On Inn, and he couldn't believe how glad he was to be back in this beautiful, beautiful dump. Compared to that Mexican cave, this place was paradise.

And in His spare time, he thought dryly as he sighed in relief and ran a hand through his hair, God created Kevlar.

Someone dropped a quarter into the jukebox, punched some buttons, and more nasal country music twanged from the speakers. It never sounded so good in all of Keller's life. Laughter roared and billiard balls clicked, and with these reassuring sounds he knew that everything was okay again. He reached for the ashtray and found that his cigarette was dead and cold. Unlike himself. Still trying to shake off the feelings of the dream, he reached for the beer and took a sip, then lit up another smoke.

There was another click from a nearby table, more laughter, and then anger. " . . . hit my elbow . . . "

"Aw, bullshit. It was just a lousy shot."

"Bullshit yourself, man, the guy hit my elbow, and I want the shot over."

"Fuck you, man, you blew it."

"Oh, yeah? Well, fuck you!" And then there was the whoosh of a cue stick, another shouted obscenity, and the next thing Keller knew was he was being entertained by a good old barroom brawl. He had been in enough of these over the years, and he was quite content to just sit back and watch someone else collect some bruises for a change. The sudden activity pushed the memory of Mexico from his mind, and he grinned like a spectator at a ball game as he sipped his beer again. A fist swung, smacked against a face, and with a wince Keller thought, Yeowch! Good shot! The two men knocked each other back and forth, smashing rickety tables and chairs to splinters, and the other players and drinkers quickly backed away to give them room as they rolled against pool tables and knocked over other people's beers and screwed up their games. No one seemed to mind, though, as money continued to change hands; only now the bets were shifted from the games to the fight.

The two men cursed and grunted as they threw and received punches, and slowly made their way toward the door and outside where there was more room. But before they got outside, a large man with long gray-blond hair and beard came in through the door, and nearly caught a stray fist in his face. With a glare of surprise and sudden rage, he grabbed the hand, twisted it behind its owner's back, and shoved the man into a table to scatter multi-colored ivory balls across the green felt in a wild chain reaction. He then grabbed the other man by his denim jacket and belt, lifted him over his head, and threw him across the bar to smash into the mirror behind it. "All bets are off!" a voice shouted. "All bets are off!" A few others complained about the fight being interrupted, but no one was going to take on the new arrival; he was pretty big, and no one felt that lucky.

Ignoring the rest of the crowd, he went over to the jukebox, dropped in a couple of quarters, and punched some buttons. "Let's have a little peace and quiet in here, shall we?" he asked softly. "Didn't your mothers ever teach you it isn't nice to fight in bars?" There were a few chuckles and soft laughs, and conversations rekindled as people went back to their games. "Back Door Stranger," by .38 Special, came blasting from the stereo speakers. The big man left some bills on the bar and said in a loud voice, "Next round's on me!" This was greeted with a round of cheers and thanks, and he added another hundred to the pile already on the bar. "And that's for the mirror," he told the bartender. "Sorry."

"Hey, no sweat," said the bartender as he eyed the money. The mirror had originally cost him only twenty, and the rest of the money could help replace some of the shattered furniture.

I don't believe it, Keller thought as he grinned in surprise. He raised his beer in a salute and called out, "Yo, Dutch! Over here, man!"

Dutch Jackson turned with a look of mild surprise on his face at the sound of the familiar voice, and then returned the salute with a wave and a grin of his own. He sauntered over to Keller's table as a couple of men went to help the bartender clear out the two unconscious bodies, and he shook his friend's hand with a firm grip. "When I heard about a call from Mendocino for a sending unit on a Charger with a split 327," he said loudly over the music as he sat, "I knew it had to be you." He sipped at Keller's beer. "So what did you do to my baby?"

"I had a run-in with the soldiers out in the desert," Keller told him, and then went through the entire story. "By the time we got out here the sending unit gave out, and the radiator cracked. Thank God it didn't blow out in the desert, or Valerie and I would be dead meat right now."

"Yeah, that's the last damn time I'm relying on a cooling-on-demand system," he said. "I had a fuck-up with it once before, but I thought it was just a fluke. Hey, how is Valerie, anyway?"

"She's fine, just . . . great . . . " Something began to nag at the back of his mind. It was a familiar feeling; it reminded him of the time he went rushing back to the Ryan ranch with Oscar and Rob, when he felt as though he had been receiving some kind of signal . . . It's nothing, he told himself. Nothing at all . . .

The song was just fading to an end when the springs of the wooden screen door squealed faintly over the buzz of talk, and then the door banged shut again. A few pairs of eyes went toward the door to see who had come in, and a moment later people nudged each other with elbows or tapped shoulders, and more people turned toward the door as nods of heads and thumbs pointed that way. The buzz of conversations fell silent and pool games stopped in mid-shot.

Standing at the door were two FLM soldiers, dressed in black fatigues and black Kevlar vests. Their cold, hard features surveyed the tavern and its occupants disdainfully, and a soft voice could be heard asking, "What do these fuckers want?"

With an air of supreme authority, the two troopers approached the bar. "Bartender," one of them said as he took a pair of photographs from a breast pocket, "have you seen either of these two people?"

The bartender fixed the soldiers with a stony expression. He then took a quick glance at the pictures. The woman was a complete stranger, someone he'd never seen except in some wanted posters. The man's picture was a composite drawing, the descriptions having been supplied by Matthew Gordon and the owner of the Clyde's Mini Mart. The bartender flicked his eyes toward the dark-haired man sitting in a corner booth, then roamed around the bar. He had no idea of what his customer had done, nor did he really care. He might be a killer, a burglar, or a drug dealer, but at least he wasn't some fascist mercenary. The bartender didn't like FLM mercenaries. "Nope."

"Are you certain?"

"I said I ain't seen 'em." His voice was low with a hint of menace.

The merc watched him a moment longer, then turned and approached three men at a nearby table. "What about you men?" he asked, showing them the pictures.

The three men ignored him.

Growing more frustrated and angry by the moment, the soldier went over to one of the pool tables where a man was lining up for a double bank-shot. The stick drew back smoothly, and the soldier snatched the white ball from the blue felt-covered table. "What about you?" he demanded, thrusting the pictures under the man's face.

The pool player straightened slowly and deliberately, and fixed him with a chilling, silent stare. Eyes of a falcon focused on an unsuspecting field mouse.

"Damn it, I want some cooperation!" the soldier shouted. "If I don't start getting some answers, I'm going to have this place shut down and you'll all be imprisoned for obstruction of justice and for refusing to cooperate in a legal investigation!"

The pool player continued to watch the soldier with cold eyes. "How'd you like to have this cue stick shoved up your ass?" he growled.

"He'd probably like it," said another voice. "A lot."

The sound of low, threatening laughter rumbled throughout the tavern like the growing thunder of an approaching storm.

The soldier reached for his baton while his partner started for his pistol. Then they froze when they heard the scraping sounds of chair legs against the wooden floor. They looked quickly around the large room, and for the first time they had the impression that they just might be a little bit out of their depth. They had grown too accustomed to getting away with harassing and intimidating innocent people, and they had enjoyed the power they exercised when they dealt with kids, speeders and protesters, or with people who feared the power of an authoritarian State that could incarcerate citizens without reason other than that of simply wanting to make an example of them.

But it didn't work with outlaw bikers.

Nearly every man in the place rose threateningly to his feet. There was the clinking sound of a length of chain, and across the room three men gently tapped cue sticks against their open palms. In another corner, two more men were menacingly tossing billiard balls up and down, while back across the room there was the stealthy snick of a switchblade. At the bar two men held beer bottles by their necks, ready to crash their bottoms against the edge of the bar . . .

The two soldiers glanced uncertainly at each other, and suddenly they felt the dreadful, chilling realization that they were in it up to their necks. They slowly backed toward the door with their hands resting on their side arms, yet not daring to draw them and possibly provoke an attack. They headed out the door and into the cooling air of the late afternoon. "Scum of the earth," one of them said. "That's what those people are, those . . . those heathens . . . "

They continued toward their car. They heard the tavern's screen door open with a squeaking of rusty springs, and when they turned toward the sound they saw that just about every man in the place was coming outside.

And they were carrying weapons.

One man threw a black eight ball at the soldiers and caught one of them on the shoulder. It was a well-placed shot; the pain was so intense and paralyzing that the soldier couldn't use that arm to draw his sidearm. The blue two-ball was next, thrown by another man, and it smashed into the police cruiser's windshield, leaving a round hole and a fractured spider web pattern in the glass. The soldiers ran for the car in a sudden torrent of billiard balls and beer bottles, closely followed by men in black leather and cowboy boots and worn, faded denim and battered brown leather, all shouting curses and waving cue sticks and a couple of chairs. One of the soldiers got behind the wheel while the other leaped in through the open window. The engine roared to life and the rear tires sprayed gravel as the car rapidly backed away from a row of motorcycles, then took off like a shot down the dirt and gravel road. The tavern's customers chased them on foot for a few moments, and then gave up. Laughter roared as people settled down on bumpers and hoods and open tailgates, and hoisted beer bottles to their lips.

Keller and Dutch stood at the porch of the Stagger On Inn and watched the tail end of the cruiser disappear as it rounded a bend in the road. They watched in stone silence for a moment, then looked at each other. Unable to think of anything to say, the two men looked down the road again, and then cracked up in laughter.

Chapter Twenty-Four

"Well, if you're so damned hungry, why don't you start diner yourself?" Maggie shouted back as she continued to take down the day's laundry from the clothesline. She dropped the last of the shirts into the straw basket that rested on the ground, then bent to lift it. Half way up, the right handle came off in her hand and tilted the basket, and dumped clean laundry onto the dusty ground. "Shit!" She wanted to kick the basket across the yard, but she controlled the urge. Why take it out on the basket when she really wanted to kick Scott? Instead, she glared back at the house where her husband stood. He wants his dinner, she thought angrily, and he wants his clothes washed, but will he fix the damn laundry basket?

"Hey, what's your problem?" Scott Preston shouted back across the yard. He stood at the back door and had to shout to be heard over the distance. "I was just asking if Lori's dinner was ready, that's all. Where is she, anyway?" He shouted a little louder. "Lori? Dinnertime! Come on in and get cleaned up!"

"Coming, Daddy!" the girl replied. A moment later the muffled hooves of two horses could be heard coming from the other side of the house. They came around the corner an few moments later, and each was being ridden by a black-clad FLM soldier. Lori was sitting astride the second horse, grinning happily and waving.

Scott slowly stepped down from the porch and started toward them while Maggie let the basket drop to the ground as she approached the soldiers from the opposite direction. Apprehension was growing inside of her as she called out, "Lori, you come down from there. These men have important work to do."

Lori began to slide from the saddle, but the soldier quickly slid an arm tightly around her waist to pull her back up. "Whoa there!" he said, looking at Maggie. He forced a smile that didn't look at all friendly or reassuring. "Don't slip and hurt yourself--it's quite a drop."

Scott's heart was racing. You bastards, he thought, what are you doing with my little girl? He tried not to show any fear as he remembered the stories he had heard; stories about how some of these soldiers treated people they were questioning. He tried to be calm as he asked, "What can I do for you?" His voice sounded nervous even to himself, and he was pretty sure the soldiers noticed it, too.

The soldier on the first horse didn't bother to dismount. It was much easier to intimidate a civilian by looking down on him or her from up here; and he enjoyed intimidating civilians. He pulled a photograph from his pocket and stretched his arm toward Preston. He wouldn't go out of his way to lean forward to reach down to him; he wanted to make this peasant come to him instead. "We're looking for this woman; we're checking with all the locals to see if anyone has seen her."

"Yeah?" he asked innocently as he reached for the picture. "What's she done?" And then he immediately wished he hadn't asked. He expected the soldier to tell him that it was none of his damned business. Or, worse yet, he could be accused of questioning the authority of a Holy Guard or of interfering with the performance of their duty or obstructing justice. FLM soldiers were very touchy about people questioning their authority.

"She's wanted for sedition, witchcraft and murder."

Scott looked at the picture as the Guard spoke. Yeah, he'd seen her a few days ago, over at Oscar Corey's place. He had taken Lori there because Kelly Corey was her best friend, and at the end of the day Lori had been filled with Kelly's stories about "the good witch lady." Of course, Scott didn't believe any of them--at least, not until he mentioned them to Oscar.

"No, I can't say that I have," he lied. He had spoken with Valerie himself, once, and he had taken an immediate liking to her. He had heard some of the other stories about her, too, but after having met and spoken with her he had found them difficult to believe. She had seemed like such a nice person . . . how could she have killed two soldiers?

He didn't believe it.

"Are you certain you haven't seen her?" the second soldier asked, still holding Lori close. "Think carefully." There was a hint of a threat in his voice.

Scott and Maggie, standing close together, both picked up on the thinly veiled threat. "Lori," Maggie said, trying hard to control her voice, "you come down from there right now."

The soldier's arm tightened around her waist again. "Oh, that's okay," he said, his voice falsely reassuring. "She's fine up here, just fine. I'll make sure she doesn't fall."

You mean escape, you bastard, Maggie thought in both fury and terror.

Even Lori was beginning to sense that something was wrong, and she was getting scared. The soldiers had told her that they were going to take her home where it was safe; it was dangerous for little girls to wander alone through the woods, no matter how well they knew them. But now that they were here, why wasn't he letting her down?

Scott watched him. Loathing for these fascists filled him, but what was he to do to get his little girl back? He pretended to study the photo again as his mind raced, and suddenly he thought of that old deserted place about nine or ten kilometers west of Oscar's place. Since Valerie was staying with the Coreys, he decided to send these two off on a wild goose chase. "Now that I think of it, she does look a little familiar. I think I once saw her out near the old Ryan place, about ten klicks or so off that way." He waved a hand in the general direction. Let's see these two go by themselves to a haunted house, he thought.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah."

The first soldier glanced uncertainly at his partner, and the other watched Scott and Maggie; the expression in his eyes plainly told them that he knew how to find this small farm again, and would be back if they found out they had been lied to. "Okay, honey, pony ride's over." He finally let Lori slide to the ground. "We have to go back to work."

Maggie rushed forward to gather the girl in her arms. The first soldier took the picture back and slid it into his pocket. With a cold look he said, "It's amazing, what people can remember . . . with the proper motivation." He tugged at the reins and the two soldiers rode back the way they had come.

***

"Colonel? Sergeant Greene is reporting in, sir."

Warren straightened in the car seat and opened his bleary eyes. Heavens, he thought, did I sleep all day? The sun was rapidly dropping behind the mountains, and the tall trees cast their long shadows that increased the darkness. He didn't like being out here; there were too many unknowns. Too damn many trees, too much wilderness. It wasn't safe out here for a God-fearing Christian, and he firmly believed that some four hundred years ago the original Pilgrims had had the right idea when they first began clear-cutting all the trees in their war against Nature. Well, it can still be taken care of, he thought. One torch would certainly make this place safe and livable for decent people.

He pushed the door open and got out on tired, heavy legs, and went to the radio truck.

The convoy was stopped at the mouth of a narrow trail that wound its way through the thickly wooded forest, and Warren thought again that it had been a good thing that they had confiscated as many horses from the surrounding farms as they had. Government business, he had told the owners, we need the horses. We'll return them when we're through. He had invoked the Foundation's Imminent Domain clause which, he claimed, applied not only to land in these times of crises, but to all property.

He stepped into the back of the large truck, donned a pair of headphones, and picked up the microphone. "Colonel Warren here. Report."

"Sergeant Greene, sir." Static burst and crackled in Warren's ears, interference caused by the poor range of the old-style walkie-talkie that Greene was using. " . . . may be at . . . ch about . . . les or so . . . here . . . "

"Say again, Sergeant, your signal is weak." A loud burst of static exploded in his ears, and he turned up the gain, trying to pull in the weak signal. "Say again, I'm not reading you well."

"We think we may have found the witch, sir," Greene said, almost shouting into his handset to be heard over the static. "We have good reason to believe that she's up at the old Ryan ranch."

Warren's face paled. "I knew it," he muttered to himself. He didn't like the idea of going back to that house; he had been hoping against hope that she wouldn't go there, but the Lord had seen fit to send her there to test Warren's faith. He, too, had recently heard the rumors about the ghosts and other unseen things that dwelled in that house of the damned. Demons had taken possession of it, he concluded, after that fateful day when it seemed that the shooting would never stop. The girl on the horse, escaping through the woods so many years ago, was the witch he now hunted! Demons or no, he had a God-given mission to perform--and no demon or spirit, or even the fucking Devil himself, was going to prevent him from carrying it out! God Himself had sent Colonel Warren, and Warren would not fail Him.

"Are you certain?" he asked Greene.

"Absolutely, sir. We have several eyewitnesses. A woman calling herself Valerie St. James, who matches the photos we have, has definitely been seen in the same vicinity as the Ryan ranch." He didn't tell Warren that Scott Preston had been the only witness with whom he had spoken. But that didn't matter, because good news to the Colonel always had its rewards.

"Excellent work, Sergeant. You stay where you are and remain out of sight; we don't want her running off. We'll be there as soon as possible."

"Yes sir."

***

"Oscar?" Scott's voice came over the citizen's band radio. "That St. James girl is in big trouble. A couple of soldiers have just been at my place looking for her. Tell her to stay clear of the Ryan ranch, 'cause I just sent them over there. I don't--"

"What?" He nearly shouted into the microphone.

"I told them she's hanging out at the old haunted Ryan place. What's wrong?"

"That's where she's living now!"

"I thought she was living at your place!"

"She was, but she said the old house belonged to her now, and she moved in!"

"Oh, Christ!" Scott said, realizing what he had done. His own microphone nearly fell from his fingers. "Oh, God, I didn't know! Can you get her on her C.B.? Warn her--"

"She hasn't got a radio!"

"Oh, God. Oh, Christ, what have I done?"

***

"Charlie? This is Ross in Delta sector. Two soldiers on horseback are just leaving the area. They look like they're headed for Alpha sector."

Charlie Bachman consulted his map. "According to our intelligence, there aren't any other soldiers in that area," he said. "We had a couple a few days ago, but it's been quiet since then."

"Charlie?" said another voice, this one inside the communications room with him. "Boone's got another update on the Feds' communications."

"Stand by, Ross." He hit a couple of buttons. "Go ahead, Boone."

"We've got a convoy of soldiers on their way to Alpha. Several people have gotten a look at it, and the reports are conflicting--but still, compared to the patrols we've seen so far, it sounds like it could be a fairly sizeable one."

"How big?"

"Some say there are only about fifteen men, and others say it could be a platoon--forty or fifty men. There may or may not be more on the way; so far, nothing indicates there are, but you never know. Several vehicles were seen left behind; they couldn't get them down the trail, so they've picked up some horses, no doubt confiscated from some surrounding homes . . . Stand by." He paused for another moment. "I've just received another update--that patrol is headed for us."

Bachman sighed, rested his forehead in his hand, and rested that elbow on the desk. He wearily shook his head. "Shit," he said. Great. A patrol of soldiers--no matter how large or how small--headed right for us. So much for the idea of hiding headquarters near a reputed haunted house. When they find us, the game's up. "See if you can get a chopper airborne to have a look around. Have you heard anything about them finding us? Are we going to have to bug out again?"

"Negative," Boone replied. "It sounds like they're looking for some girl."

Bachman couldn't help smiling. "Aren't we all?"

"Charlie, I don't think they know we're here."

"Good," said Charlie Bachman, the leader of this small Resistance group. "But they might stumble onto us. How long do you think it'll take to mobilize the rest of our people?"

"Hard to say. Couple of hours, maybe three. Not many of us have radios, and we're spread out pretty thin."

"Yeah, I know. That's what I told my boss."

"Maybe we can talk a few locals into helping out; after all, nobody around here likes Feds."

"Maybe," Bachman said. "Stand by." He switched back to Ross. "How long before the soldiers get here?"

"I figure an hour at most."

Bachman sighed again. "Stand by." He switched back to Boone. "Okay, work as fast as you can. Work on some of the locals, and see if you can get some to help out--hell it's their fight, too."

***

Most of the people who lived in this area had pets. Dogs, cats, rabbits, you name it. There was one cat, though, that didn't seem to belong to anyone. It was medium-sized, mostly black with white paws, chest and belly, and with short hair and bright amber eyes. It was seen frequently in the area, but no one could ever get near it. It was believed to be just one more stray gone feral, one of the remainders of many litters that had been born and split up to either be taken in by a friendly family or left on its own to survive or die. It had begun to spend a lot of time around the Ryan ranch because there was always food out on the front porch, and because the human who lived there was not like the others; they shared a far less limited communication than was usual between humans and felines.

It sat in the shade beneath one of the many tall evergreens that lined the narrow dirt trail and watched curiously as the men and horses slowly made their way through the woods. As the column passed, the cat bounded off and ran ahead, then sat and watched some more, its eyes bright with curiosity, and listening to the men's voices, the jingling of equipment, and the slow, steady hoof beats. Then it took off once more when it recognized where the convoy was heading. It ran at full speed, dodging between trees and leaping over ferns and slipping quickly under shrubbery until it reached Valerie's home. Without hesitation, it leapt up on the porch and through an open window to land on the back of the sofa. It bounded from a cushion, landed on the slick wooden floor, and slid into her side, barely missing one of the burning candles that rested on the living room floor.

Valerie picked the cat up and scratched its ears. On her altar there was a small crystal ball into which she had been gazing. She looked into the cat's eyes. "I know, Sam," she said with a sigh of reluctant acceptance. She put the cat down and quickly banished the Circle, then dressed in white running shoes, faded jeans, and a black sweatshirt. Pulling the sleeves to her elbows, she went to the closet by the front door, and picked up her uncle's hunting rifle. She slung it over her shoulder and then began to make her rounds, making certain that the doors and all of the lower windows were securely shut and locked. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves and to slow her pounding heart, and said to the cat, "Well, Sam, I guess this is it." She headed back upstairs for the best vantage point, with Sam following closely at her heels.

***

The sun had dropped almost completely behind the mountains and into the cold Pacific by the time the convoy had quietly arrived at the Ryan ranch. In response to their commander's hand signals, the men fanned out; seven of them surrounded the house while eight more hid in the woods. The remaining twenty-five, on Warren's orders, had returned some time ago to the surrounding homes to round up as many witnesses as possible for the coming execution. And Warren wanted plenty of witnesses; he meant to set a proper example for those who thought about defying The Law.

Before the last man was in position, a shot rang out and a bullet spat dust on the booted foot of one of the soldiers. He dove and rolled, and lost his grip on his own weapon; it landed in the dust some ten feet away.

"Valerie St. James, this is Colonel Elias Warren of the Holy Guardians," he said, his amplified voice blaring from the bullhorn and echoing through the woods. "You are under arrest for sedition and witchcraft. We have you surrounded. Throw out your weapons and surrender."

Another shot came from the house, and the bullet tore the bullhorn from Warren's hand. He leaped to the ground and hid behind his horse.

"I know who you are, Warren," Valerie shouted. "Get off my land. Now!"

"You don't tell me what to do, witch!" Warren shouted back. "I am here on the Lord's authority, and I order you to surrender to the authority of the people of the United Christian States and to our Lord Jesus Christ!"

A third shot rang out in response, and the bullet tore a chunk out of a redwood a few inches from the face of another soldier. "I said get the fuck off my property! You don't have any authority here!"

Who does this bitch think she is, giving me orders? Warren thought. He raised his walkie-talkie to his lips and spoke to the leader of the team that surrounded the house. "Sergeant Greene, get ready to have your men storm the house on my signal. Corporal Willis's team will provide cover fire for you. And remember, I want her alive. If you pull this off, Sergeant, you may get a promotion out of it."

"Yes sir!" Greene replied, with visions of lieutenant's bars already dancing before his eyes.

"Alive, you understand. So we can put her to The Question." He turned to the others. "On my signal, open fire on those upper windows. Ready . . . now!"

Small arms fire shattered the silence. Bullets smashed the remaining glass in the windows, plucked at the curtains and tore into the wood of the house, ripping out chunks and scattering them on the ground. Bullets ricocheted from the stonework around the foundation as the soldiers fired indiscriminately, and two of them fell from being shot by their own poorly trained draftees; their deaths, of course, would later be blamed on the criminal inside. Five men made it to the porch where they were protected from overhead fire by the porch roof.

Valerie dropped the rifle to the floor and followed it almost immediately, covering her head. Her heart pounded in her chest as terror consumed her, setting her nerves on fire with adrenalin. Dear Goddess, I don't want to die, she thought. Please, don't let me die . . . Bullets tore through the window and wall above her, sprinkling her with shards of glass and wood, and she fully expected to be hit any moment by at least a dozen rounds. She remembered how easy it had been for her to tell Keller that she would be willing to die to protect her home; she remembered promising the Goddess that she would lay down her life to protect Mother Earth, and her sisters and brothers in the Craft. But now that Death stood outside her door, she was afraid and ashamed; afraid of being shot and afraid of dying before doing all the things she wanted to do with her life. It wasn't supposed to happen like this; she was supposed to fill them with fear, chase them off, and make certain they would never return because she was an armed citizen--and nothing frightened a government more than armed resistance against self-appointed authority. And she was ashamed for having talked so big before and for being so afraid now--she felt like a hypocrite. She didn't want to surrender, but she was hopelessly outnumbered, and she couldn't possibly fight all these soldiers. She just wanted this nightmare to end--but she knew it wouldn't.

Without hesitation, it was Sergeant Greene whose shoulder went to the door and crashed it in. The men went inside, sweeping their rifles back and forth, eager to shoot. Frustrated by the order to take the witch alive, they opened fire on the house itself. They blew away the altar and candles that rested on the floor, they shot up the wooden trunk that had once belonged to Valerie's mother, blasting it to splinters; they fired at the glass candle holders and sent razor-sharp, multi-colored shards flying in a mad frenzy, and the small crystal ball exploded into a thousand bits of gleaming shrapnel. Bullets flew in a deadly spray, smashing glass and pottery, tearing holes in the furniture and punching holes in the wood-paneled walls, and shredded the books of the small library into white snow, like feathers scattered from a pillow-fight. And if the bullets had not shattered the glass, the deafening roar of the gunfire surely would have. The firing finally stopped and silence returned once again, but only for a moment. Gun smoke hung in the air, its wisps drifting lazily on the air currents.

"Upstairs!" Greene shouted, and all five men headed for them at the same time. They bolted up the carpeted steps and fanned out once they reached the second floor landing. They made their way from one room to the next, kicking in doors and searching. All of the rooms were empty. One young private cast a glance toward a second, shorter flight of stairs. The attic. He headed up the stairs while the search continued in the other rooms, and crashed the door in with his shoulder. His rifle barrel snagged against the doorway. He pulled at it, but he was too late; Valerie had grabbed up her own rifle and swung its muzzle toward the Guard. If she was going to die, at least now she had a chance to take one of them with her. She sighted through the scope with her finger resting on the trigger, and then she saw the terror in the young man's eyes. He's just a kid, she thought, no older than eighteen.

In an instant, she thought about the chase from Denver, when she had been shooting at the police cars. She had fired blindly at them, hitting windshields and front grills. But upon seeing this man's young and terrified face, she found that she couldn't pull the trigger. Feeling sorry for him--perhaps unwisely--yet at the same time afraid for herself, she lowered the rifle. "Dear Goddess," she groaned softly to herself. "Dear Goddess, I can't do it."

Other soldiers came flooding into the room, and saw Valerie lowering her rifle while the young soldier was raising his with trembling hands. The terror in his eyes gave way to surprise, and he simply could not believe that the witch hadn't shot him. And then he wondered why she hadn't.

Greene raised his rifle and aimed at Valerie. "Valerie St. James, by the authority of the Foundation for Law and Morality, I place you under arrest."

Continued...