"About a couple of cases we"re investigating. It won"t take long. Can we come in?"

More staring. Then she said, "No, I don" t"ink you can do dat. I come out."

She stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door shut behind her. "Now, what you want wit" me?" She had a p.r.o.nounced French-Canadian accent, not uncommon so close to Quebec Province.

"Is there some reason why you don"t want us to come inside, Ms. Levesque?" Fenton asked politely.

"This my house, my property. You got maybe a warrant, something like dat?"

Fenton shook his head.

"No? Den we talk out here. I like da fresh air, you know? Good for my heart."

Annie Levesque looked to be in her early fifties, and the years had not been kind to her. She was somewhere between plump and fat, and her skin had a yellowish cast to it that, in some parts of the world, would have suggested malaria. Limp brown hair hung down, just touching the old gray sweater she wore atop blue polyester stretch pants.

Annie Levesque"s heavy face bore the sour expression of someone who knows that the world has proved a miserable place so far, and it isn"t likely to get any better tomorrow.

"What you people want wit" me? I got work I gotta do."

"What"s that symbol you have painted on your door, there, Ms. Levesque?" Colleen asked. "It"s quite unusual."

Annie slowly turned her head and looked at Colleen as if seeing her for the first time. If so, what she saw didn"t please her-her eyes widened briefly, before narrowing to slits that, if anything, made her look more unattractive than before. After slowly looking Colleen up and down, Annie said, "My cousin Herve, he make the folk art. He asks can he make some on my door, I say sure. Says it bring good luck. Why not?"

"So, your cousin," Colleen said, "he didn"t mention that it represents an ancient demonic curse, calling the powers of h.e.l.l down on anyone who might trespa.s.s?"

Annie"s laugh, like everything else about her, was unpleasant. "Demons? Curse? You make crazy talk, lady." She turned back to Premeaux. "Dat why you come up here? Waste my time with crazy talk?"

"No, we didn"t," the detective said. "We wanted to ask you about dry ice."

More of the stare-this time accompanied by the running of her tongue over thick lips. "Dry ice? I don"t know nothing about no dry ice. You still makin" the crazy talk."

"The seafood manager at Price Chopper says otherwise, Ms. Levesque," Fenton told her. "He told us you"ve bought three kilos of dry ice from him in the past month or so."

Her eyebrows went up in an exaggerated show of comprehension that would have embarra.s.sed a high school production of Our Town. "Oh, you mean da hot ice. Dat what we call it "round here. Hot ice, "cause it like burn when you touch it, eh? Yeah, I get some from the supermarket. So what?"

"So, we"d like to know what you use it for," Colleen said.

The grin she gave Colleen revealed that Annie Levesque"s teeth had not received the attention of a dentist for quite some time. "I use it in one of dem old fashion" ice cream makers, like from da old days. You gotta get it real cold. Some folks use the reg"lar ice wit" rock salt, but da hot ice work better. More cold, eh?"

Colleen nodded as if this made perfect sense to her. "That must be a really old ice cream machine you have."

"Yeah, sure. It belong to my mother. Pretty old, I guess."

"You know, I"m very interested in antiques of that sort-old machinery, and so on. I"d love to see it!"

This time, the reptilian stare went on for the s.p.a.ce of three or four breaths. "Is broke. I had to t"row it away, can"t get parts no more. Sorry." She did not appear in the least contrite.

"What did you do with it?" Fenton asked. "I mean, how did you dispose of it?"

"I take to da landfill, wit" my other garbage, two, mebee t"ree weeks ago. Is in there someplace, you wanna go look." The ugly grin had made a reappearance.

"Probably not worth the trip," Fenton said. "But not everything around here is an antique, is it?" He glanced upward. "I couldn"t help but notice the satellite dish on your roof. You watch much TV, Ms. Levesque?"

"Yeah, sure, I watch." The grin was gone now. "Not too much else out here to do, eh?"

"Do you ever watch any of those CSI shows? They"re very popular, I hear."

"Yeah, I guess I watch dat sometime. So?"

"Well," Fenton said, "if you watch any of those shows, you"ve probably heard of DNA a.n.a.lysis. Every person"s DNA is unique, did you know that?"

"You say so, I believe you. Look, I gotta get back-"

"And DNA can be extracted from almost anything on the human body." Fenton went on as if she had not spoken. "Blood, fingernails, urine. Even hair. Just a single strand of hair can identify the person it belonged to."

Premeaux had been watching Fenton closely, and now said, "The thing is, we"re investigating a couple of murders where DNA evidence could prove very important," he said.

"Murdered? Who got murdered? I don"t know about no murder."

"It was those children," Premeaux said. "Suzanne Wilson and Billy Dufresne. You must have heard about it."

She nodded slowly. "Oh, yeah, sure, I see somet"ing on da news. Terrible, eh? But what dat got to do wit" me?"

"This wasn"t in the news reports, because we withheld it from the press," Premeaux said. "But those poor kids were cut open, and some of their bodily organs were taken-while they were still alive."

"Mon Dieu," Annie said. Then: "How you know they still alive when this happen?"

"The presence of free histamines in the blood," Fenton said. "You only find those levels when someone has died in great pain. The CSI people were able to determine that."

"And they discovered something else, too," Premeaux said. "Inside the body cavity of one of those poor kids, they found a hair. A human hair. And it did not come from the victim. They checked."

"Which means it can only have come from one place," Fenton said. "The head of the person who cut that child open."

"That"s right," Premeaux said. "And since DNA can be extracted from a single hair, we now have a DNA profile of the person that hair belonged to. All we need is something-or someone-to match it to."

"And that"s the main reason why we"re here, Ms. Levesque," Fenton said. "To ask you to voluntarily contribute a hair sample. We only need a couple of strands, and it won"t hurt, I promise." His face grew hard. "Not nearly so much as those kids were hurt. Not even close."

Annie Levesque looked at him. "And what if I say, I don"t wanna do dat? What den?"

"Then we"ll come back with a court order, and take what we need," Fenton said. "Even if we have to place you in cuffs to do it."

Fenton was bluffing like mad, and he was glad that Premeaux had picked up on it and was playing along. There were no hair samples found in either victim, and even if there had been, they had no probable cause on which to base a warrant request. Fenton wanted to see what Annie Levesque would do, or say, when the pressure came on. He had a hunch it would be revealing.

Annie nodded slowly, as if nearly resigned to her fate. She sighed and said, "I wanna call my lawyer, see what he t"ink about this. You wait here." She turned back toward her front door.

Colleen O"Donnell had deliberately not taken part in the tag-team badgering of Annie Levesque. Instead, she was observing the woman carefully, waiting for the darkness that must surely be inside her to emerge.

She watched Annie Levesque reach her front door, then rest her hand on the curse symbol painted there, as if she were about to push the door open but had stopped to think about something. Colleen heard the woman start to speak, very softly and strained to focus her concentration. Finally, she was able to pick up a couple of words. They were neither English nor French. After a second or two. Colleen recognized the language.

It was ancient Chaldean.

That was when she grabbed Fenton"s arm, backpedaled quickly, and shouted, "Get off the porch! Now!"

Premeaux was on the other side of Fenton, so Colleen was unable to reach him, as well. He seemed to have no notion of what was going on.

Which was why he did not immediately follow the two FBI agents as they tumbled off the porch to fall a couple of feet into the dirt.

Which was why he was still standing there, reaching for the pistol on his hip, when the windows in the house exploded outward, all at once.

Which was also why a razor-sharp shard of gla.s.s nine inches long was able to bury itself deep in his throat.

"Libby, come on!"

Libby Chastain looked up from the corpse of Charlie Strom, a dazed expression on her face.

"We"ve got to get out of here," Morris said. "Unless you want to spend the next four days in police custody, making up lies about what just happened."

There were sirens in the distance now, drawing closer.

"But where can we go?" she asked. "Police will be here any-"

"There." Morris pointed at the pub across the street where they were supposed to meet Harry the Wizard. "We"ll go there."

There were concrete steps leading down from the street into the pub. As Morris and Libby made their way inside, carrying their luggage, the few patrons at the tables looked up incuriously then went back to what they had been doing-eating, drinking, talking, or all three.

As they approached the bar, Libby said softly, "My G.o.ddess, Quincey, what is this place?"

"Apart from the obvious, you mean?"

"Look at the layout-thirteen windows, thirteen pillars, thirteen tables."

Morris turned from signaling the bartender and scanned the room. "Hmm. Interesting decorating scheme."

"And the arrangement of those tables is designed to disrupt any magical energy that might be released in here."

"Yeah, Harry told me once that this place is sort of neutral territory for the city"s occult crowd. No magic of any kind allowed on the premises. Kind of like Las Vegas used to be for the Mob."

Behind them, a polite voice said, "Help you folks?"

The bartender was a tall, lean man of indeterminate age; he might have been an old forty or a young sixty. He had a wise look, as if he had seen everything at least twice, and was incapable of being surprised by anything.

"For starters, I think we could use us a drink," Morris said. "Libby?"

Libby Chastain turned from her examination of the room and said, "Double vodka, straight up, please. Ice cold, if you"ve got it."

Morris said, "And I"ll have a bourbon and branch water."

The bartender looked at him. "Sorry? What water?"

"I forgot, that"s what they call it back home. Bourbon and soda, please. Double. And is there someplace we can put our luggage?"

"On any of the empty tables is fine," the bartender said and went to make their drinks.

A minute later, he set their libations down in front of them. "Looks like you folks had some trouble out there," he said, with a head gesture toward the street.

"Did you see it?" Morris asked.

"Saw enough."

"Then you know we were the victims. Or would-be victims, anyway. "

"Yeah, that seemed pretty clear. It was also clear that this lady has one heck of an interesting taste in luggage."

The bartender extended his hand. "I"m Mac. I own the place."

Morris and Libby each shook hands, then Morris said, "We came in here for a couple of reasons. One was, we"re expectin" to meet a fella here. As for the other reason-truth is, we really can"t afford to be dragged into a big police investigation. It might give whoever sent those guys out there another crack at us."

Mac nodded. They had all heard the sirens draw closer and closer, and then stop. "They"ll have detectives canva.s.sing the area soon, asking if anybody saw anything. You figure anybody noticed you folks coming in here?"

Morris and Libby looked at each other. "I don"t think so," Libby said. "There weren"t a lot of people around, and I threw together a cloaking spell as we were crossing the street. Um, what I mean is-"

Mac gave her a smile. "You don"t need to explain, Miss Chastain. I know what a cloaking spell is. Heck, everybody in here would know, if you asked them."

Libby glanced back at the half-dozen customers. "Yes, I expect they would."

"Tell you what," Mac said. "Why don"t you give me your bags, and I"ll stash them in the back room. You might want to visit the restrooms, clean up a little before the detectives get here. Then you can sit down at a table, have another drink, maybe something to eat, and relax, just like you"ve been here for the past half hour. Which you have."

Libby glanced at the other patrons again. "But what about-"

"n.o.body here saw anything, that happened in the street, Miss Chastain, and n.o.body noticed exactly when you folks came in. You can take my word on that."

Morris nodded. "Appreciate that," he said. "But I have to wonder why you"re willing to lie to the law for a couple of perfect strangers."

"You"re friends of Harry"s, aren"t you? He described you pretty good, Mister Morris, and said you"d have a lady with you."

"Where is Harry anyway?" Morris asked.

"He left, about an hour and a half ago. Asked me to give you this."

Mac produced a plain white envelope with "Quincey Morris" written on the front. Morris tore it open and quickly read the single sheet that was inside. "d.a.m.n!"

Libby said softly, "Uh, Quincey, you might want to avoid using words like that in here. You never know who, or what, you might conjure up by accident."

"Yeah, you"re right. Sorry."

"I take it the news isn"t too good."

"Not so"s you"d notice, no. Harry had to leave-not just leave here, but leave town. He said some urgent business came up for the Council, whatever that is, and he had no choice but to go off and attend to it."