She squirmed under him, her tiny fists beating his chest.

"Why wasn"t I good enough?" he asked.

She gave no reply, only continued to squirm.

"You dumped me like garbage. Why? Tell me."

She raked his arm with her nails, drawing bloodless fissures.

Was he actually starting to choke up? Myrmidons don"t cry, he commanded. What was wrong with him? This was his moment of true existential triumph. Nevertheless, his grip slackened. A tear came to his dead eye. "How could you do that to me?"

She tried to claw his face, punch out his eyes.

I know.

"You took my heart," he said. "Now I"m going to take yours."

It was perfect. He would tear her heart out, just as she had done to him. Tear it out and eat it, feast upon it...

He pulled the Ram"s Head shirt up, cast off the pink lace bra. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were much more beautiful than he remembered. When he touched them, the warm contact rifled back images of love. Soon, his hands were shaking...

Do it! Take the b.i.t.c.h"s heart out! Eat her guts and puke them back up into her face! Just DO IT!

His fingers stiffened, lowering...

"No!" she whined. "You can"t!"

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because you love me!"

He expected any reply but this. It silenced his thoughts like wind blowing out candles. Beneath him, her squirmings ceased; her heat flowed up into his dead groin. What could urge her to say such a thing? Suddenly her voice was quiet, soft as silk.

"You still love me," she whispered.

Jervis jittered now. It was truth-the real truth-that summoned these words to her lips. At once, he was as helpless as he"d ever been. There was one thing that wielded even more power than him. She was right. He still loved her.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it," he muttered. He hauled her up, put her car keys in her hand, and shoved her out the door. "Get in your car and drive!" he yelled. "Drive far away, because at midnight, I"ll be gone, and everyone on this campus will be dead!"

Sarah didn"t question this inexplicable revelation. She scampered away, into the elevator, and down.

Jervis watched from the window. He saw her frantic form jump into her car and drive away.

A marshmallow even in death, he thought. Some myrmidon I turned out to be. Yeah, some killing machine. "But, G.o.dd.a.m.n," he griped aloud, "I"ve got to kill something."

He realized the sacrifice even before he turned. From atop the refrigerator, Frid hissed at him, showing little feline teeth. Jervis" smile almost cracked his head. He raised the Webley to Frid"s whiskered cat face and squeezed off one round. The report blew the wicked animal clear across the kitchen, where it splattered grandly against the wall.

"Where are we going?"

"I don"t know," Wade said. "What time is it?"

Wade paid the attendant at DeHenzel"s Texaco, grateful for the full serve option. He wasn"t up to pumping it himself, not so soon after nearly receiving non-anesthetic brain surgery. Small favors were rare these days. But Lydia had made a pertinent inquiry. Where would they go now?

"That note you left me," Lydia recalled. "Didn"t you mention something about a bomb?"

The bomb! he thought. He floored it out of the station, burning rubber. "Jervis has a bomb, and it"s supposed to go off at one minute after midnight."

"What do they want to blow up?"

"I don"t know," Wade said, but he did know one thing...

He pulled onto the Route and pushed the gas to the floor.

"What are you doing?" Lydia complained, her hair a flurry.

"Just be quiet."

"Don"t tell me to be quiet!"

"All right, then. Shut up."

The speedometer rose from 60 to 120 rather quickly. Then 130, 140. "Where are we going?" Lydia screamed over the wind drag.

"As far away as possible," Wade said. "Who knows how powerful that bomb is? When it goes, I want to be as far away from the campus as possible."

"You"re chickening out? We have to do something! Call the state bomb disposal unit, call the National Guard-"

"Right, and tell them what? That aliens are here?"

Wade shut out her complaints. In twenty minutes he covered about fifty miles of Route 13, which was easy when he owned a twin turbo 455. Then he pulled over onto the shoulder and stopped.

Lydia was wearing her p.i.s.sed off look again.

"Get out of the car," Wade said.

"What the-"

"Just get out of the car. There"s something I"ve gotta do."

"What?"

"Find the bomb, disarm it. Jervis is the only one who knows where it is, so I"m going to track him down."

Lydia laughed. "If you go anywhere near him, he"ll drag your dumb a.s.s straight back to the labyrinth."

"No, he won"t. I"ll be crafty."

"Crafty! He"s a homicidal walking corpse!"

"Would you please just get out of the car," Wade implored.

"No," Lydia said.

"Get out of the car!" he yelled.

"Make me."

Wade punched her in the face. It was a hard thing to do, but he had no choice. The blow knocked her silly. He dragged her half conscious from the Vette and set her down on the shoulder.

"I"m sorry, Lydia."

"f.u.c.ker," she mumbled.

"Just head north. There"s nothing you can do. Even if you hitchhiked back to Exham, no one would believe you."

Wade got back in the Vette. He pulled a perfect smoke raising 180 in the road. Lydia was up to her hands and knees, but that was about it.

"One more thing," Wade called to her.

"What!"

"I love you."

Lydia"s eye was already growing a shiner. She smirked in perfect female rage, "You better love me, you a.s.shole!"

Wade laughed. What a woman, he thought. He floored the accelerator, burning rubber and heading south.

CHAPTER 38.

Time to go home, Jervis thought. He drank Kirins and smoked, steering the Dodge Colt downtown. His last night on this world was a s.p.a.cious and beautiful one. What would nights look like on other worlds?

-JERVIS.

His dead heart surged at his master"s beckoning. "I"m coming, lord. I"m coming home now."

-NOT YET, MY SON. A CALAMITY HAS BEFALLEN US.

Jervis stopped in the middle of the road, closed his eyes to see his master more clearly. All he saw was fog.

-YOU ARE ALL I HAVE LEFT.

"What happened?"

-WADE HAS ESCAPED.

But how could that be? Wade had been locked up in the hold; escape from the labyrinth was impossible.

-TIME IS ALMOST GONE. YOU MUST FIND HIM, BRING HIM BACK.

Was it Jervis" deterioration, or had the Supremate"s voice grown weak? The once glorious trumpet in his head was now little more than a wisp of static.

-WE MUST HAVE HIM BACK BY RECHARGE.

"We will, I promise. But-" The dash clock read 10:21 P.M. "I need help! There"s no time!"

-IN MY GRACE, JERVIS, I SHALL a.s.sIST YOU. I GIVE YOU MY BLOOD. USE IT WISELY AND WITH HASTE-TO FIND HIM.

"I will, my lord!"

The Supremate"s voice had all but faded out. The master was indeed bleeding, but Jervis made out his lord"s last ordination: -MY SON. YOU ARE THE FINAL PRAYER OF DESTINY.

Jervis was back on campus in minutes. It was the labyrinth, he knew, and its recharge preliminaries. At midnight, the labyrinth would leave, and that was one bus Jervis didn"t want to miss.

Blood, he thought. Yes, he could feel it, taste it, even hear it. The black pommel of his transceptionrod was turning warm with the Supremate"s blood.

Wade and the girl were probably hightailing it out of town. But that didn"t matter now, for didn"t they have some of the Supremate"s blood too? Blood leads to blood, like lovers in the dark.

His lord"s blood would lead him straight to them.

Wade gunned the Vette back to campus. Lydia had left the UV spotter and Tom"s extromission key on the seat. The spotter would be useless against Jervis-any weapon would be. So even if he did find him, what would he do? And Wade knew nothing of the nature of the bomb. Lydia was right in her objections. Trying to ascertain the whereabouts of an alien bomb from a walking dead man was, at the least, pushing fate. At the most, it was f.u.c.king suicide.

But he needed something, for G.o.d"s sake, some means of defense before he could seriously expect to confront Jervis again. Guns were out-obviously. It had already been proven that shooting Jervis with bullets was as effective as shooting him with rubber bands. Knives and blunt objects were equally useless. But what about corrosives, sulfuric acid or something? Yeah, Wade thought. They had all kinds of stuff like that at the sciences center...

He drove quickly. Several pa.s.sersby headed for a mixer on the Hill. Wade envied their obliviousness. You haven"t seen a dead guy walking around, have you? he felt tempted to ask. He parked at the sciences center. The building stood dark, and, to no surprise, locked. Wade"s lack of reluctance would"ve impressed any criminal. He shattered the front gla.s.s doors with his tire iron and stepped in.

The chemistry wing was just around the corner. Slats of moonlight spread across the shiny labtops. With his flashlight, he found the door to the storage closet. It was unlocked and... "s.h.i.t!" he shouted...empty.

Then a car door slammed outside.

Wade stood stunned, like a figure in a freeze frame. Footsteps tracked across the parking lot. They sounded frightfully casual. Wade peeked out the blinds and saw Jervis" Dodge Colt parked right beside the Vette.

s.h.i.t s.h.i.t s.h.i.t! he thought. He leapt for the door but the footsteps could already be heard in the hall. He glanced around, frantic and quite stupid. Then he slipped into the storage closet and bolted the lock from inside.

He held his breath. Jervis walked right into the lab and turned on the lights. He was whistling as he searched the room. Grimly Wade recognized the tune as Eno"s "Here He Comes."