"Really? Even... there? Well, that would explain your own variety, which is often insufferable."

Pardee smiled without displaying any teeth. "And yet you continue to suffer it."

"But not for much longer. I won"t be requiring your services after the thirtieth. You can take your money and go."

"Truly "a consummation devoutly to be wished," as Marlowe might put it."

Grobius frowned. "What are you talking about? That"s Shakespeare, from Hamlet."

"True, Shakespeare got the credit, but it was Christopher Marlowe who wrote it," Pardee said. "But, at least, Marlowe is recognized as the author of another worthy piece of drama-Dr. Faustus."

Grobius looked at him sharply, as if waiting for Pardee to say more on that subject. When he didn"t, the old man returned to watching the work below.

"I"ve been thinking about the security problem those men represent."

Pardee understood immediately. "There is no need to kill the workmen once they are finished. That many deaths would bring unwanted attention, at a very inauspicious time for us. In any case, it is quite unnecessary. They have been told that they are digging a series of barbeque pits, for a very large party that is planned for the end of the month."

"And the altar?"

"A special table for the guest of honor."

Grobius"s smile was a few degrees below that of the wind-driven air. "I see. And is this charade of yours working?"

"Completely. The workers have accepted it without question. They are largely indifferent, in any case. They think mostly of their wages, sports, beer, their families and what they invariably refer to as "p.u.s.s.y.""

"And you know this, how?"

"I have eavesdropped on some of their lunchtime conversations. From a distance of course. And I"ve read the thoughts of a few of them. They suspect nothing."

"Good." After a brief pause, Grobius quoted, ""A special table for the guest of honor."" He shook his head. "Now I know what you meant about wit."

Pardee sketched a bow. "I do my humble best."

"And let us hope that the guest of honor shows up, after all the trouble we"re going through."

"He will. I am sure of it."

"And he"ll keep the bargain I will offer?"

"Most certainly. He always keeps his bargains, as long as the other party acts in, pardon the expression, good faith."

"Well, you can vouch for that, should it be necessary."

"I can," Pardee said softly. "I can, indeed."

II EXODUS.

Chapter 6.

As one of America"s busiest airports, O"Hare International is well equipped to meet the weary traveler"s every need. It has, for instance, six different bars, of various sizes and decors, in which the voyager can drown his or her sorrows while hoping that a delayed flight to Kansas City or Pasadena won"t be cancelled altogether. Quincey Morris had chosen a watering hole in the international terminal, the one without any "No Smoking" signs.

He had been nursing a bourbon and water for almost twenty minutes when a man slipped into the empty chair beside him, immediately pulling a box of Dunhill cigarettes from the pocket of his wrinkled, but elegant, sport coat. "h.e.l.lo, Quincey, mate. How"s tricks?" Morris signaled for the bartender. "Not too bad, John. Yourself?" John Wesley Hester had a thin, square-jawed face that was saved from starkness by his emerald-green eyes; they gazed out at the world with an air of innocence that utterly belied his twenty-odd years" experience as a criminologist specializing in the occult. He held a chair at one of the elite Cambridge colleges, but preferred to spend most of his time, as he put it, "in the field." The revenue from several popular forensics textbooks he"d written allowed Hester to indulge his tastes in fine clothing and cheap women.

As the barman approached, Morris"s visitor said, "I"m having Scotch, if you"re buying. The good stuff. The beer in this b.l.o.o.d.y country"s a disgrace, always has been."

"At least we serve it cold," Morris said mildly.

"My point, exactly," Hester said. He ordered Chivas Regal, straight up, then lit up a Dunhill.

"I appreciate you meeting me at such short notice," Morris said.

"No problem at all, mate. I"m on my way back to the UK, anyway. Might as well pa.s.s through Chicago as anyplace else."

"Where you coming from?"

"Washington. The state, that is."

"Seattle?"

"Nah. Some people were having a bit of bother in the North Woods. Pretty country up that way."

Morris nodded. "I"d heard there was some trouble around those parts, recently. Dead cattle, even a couple of dead people. The papers were being cautious, for once, but it sounded like werewolf activity to me."

"Which is exactly what it was," Hester said. "You won"t be hearin" of any more, most likely." A gla.s.s of Chivas was placed in front of him, and he hoisted it in Morris"s direction. "Cheers."

Morris lifted his own gla.s.s in return. "Cheers." He noticed that the tip of Hester"s left pinky was missing, truncated at the first joint by a small ma.s.s of fresh-looking scar tissue. He wondered how Hester had lost the fingertip, and whether it had been cut off-or bitten.

After a sip of his scotch, Hester said, "So, all right, Quincey. What"s on your mind?"

"Someone"s killing pre-adolescent children. Abducting them and removing vital organs-while the kids are still alive. It reeks of black magic, John."

"That it does. f.u.c.k." Hester squinted through a haze of cigarette smoke. "Thought that wicked business was all settled last year, when that b.i.t.c.h Cecelia Mbwato started her all-expense-paid tour of h.e.l.l."

"You knew her?"

"We crossed paths a couple of times. Nasty bit of work. Ugly as sin, too. You"re not tellin" me she"s been resurrected, somehow?"

"There"s no evidence that she has. For one thing, it looks like that more than one person"s involved. There"s been abductions taking place at more or less the same time, hundreds of miles apart."

"b.u.g.g.e.r." Hester stubbed out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray and immediately lit another. "Who"s your client, then?"

Morris made a face. "The FBI."

"Get on! Quincey Morris, working for the Feds?" Hester laughed briefly. "Did they give you a badge, an" all?"

"No, I wasn"t exactly recruited," Morris said. "It"s more like blackmail"

"Blackmail? What"ve they got, pictures of you and some cute little heifer gettin" a bit frisky? I"ve heard about you cowboys."

"Go s.h.a.g your mother, John. No, they found out some stuff about my last job. Pa.s.sed on to the wrong party, it could cause me no end of trouble. Maybe even the lethal kind."

"Well, that sucks, don"t it? How"s it going, so far-turn up anything?"

"Not much. I"m still trying to pick up a lead. I figure, something like this, it can"t stay secret forever. So I"m asking around, talking to people who might"ve heard something I can use. Like your own self."

Hester shook his head slowly. "Haven"t picked up a thing, sorry. Although..." He drained his gla.s.s and signaled for a refill. "I don"t know if this has got anything to do with your business, but I did hear that a curator at the National Museum over in Baghdad has figured out that the Book of Shadows is missing. They haven"t a clue about how it was lifted, or by who, or even when."

"The one supposed to"ve been written by the mad Arab, what"s-his-name, Alhazred? I thought that was bulls.h.i.t, just like the Necronomicon."

"Don"t be too sure about that one either, mate. But I know the f.u.c.kin" Book of Shadows is real-I saw it with me own eyes, years ago. They were keepin" it under real tight lock and key, in a vault under the museum. A bloke I knew who worked there, he owed me a favor. So I had him give me a tour of the stuff that the tourists never see. Just as well Saddam never heard about that little episode, or my mate would"ve been in for a trip to the acid baths, most like. Jealous of his secrets, Saddam was."

"Okay, let"s say that the book"s real, and that somebody"s ripped it off. What"s that got to do with my problem?"

"Don"t be thick, Quincey. You know what kind of stuff"s supposed to be in that b.l.o.o.d.y thing. Imagine an adept of the Left-Hand Path with that book, along with all the magical power gained from those nasty kiddie sacrifices you"ve been talking about."

Morris looked at him, then reached for his own gla.s.s and drained it in one gulp. "Something pretty d.a.m.n scary, most like."

"You got that right." Hester shrugged, wrinkling his thousand-dollar sport coat even further, if that were possible. "Course, that don"t mean the two things are connected, at all. We got no reason to believe they are."

"I know," Morris said. "But, still..."

"Yeah," Hester said, and took another drag off his cigarette. "But b.l.o.o.d.y still."

The two men were silent for a bit until Hester said, "You didn"t come out to Chicago just to chat me up, did you? I"d have stopped off in Austin, if you asked me to."

"No, I"m meeting Libby Chastain. She"s due in on a flight from New York in a couple of hours."

"Ah, the fair Libby. How"s she doing, then?"

"Not bad, except when people are trying to kill her."

"Christ, what the h.e.l.l for?"

Morris sketched the details, as he knew them, of the attempt on Libby"s life.

Hester shook his head. "And she"s got no idea who"s trying to snuff her? Not even a guess?"

"She says no. We"re going to try to sort it out, as soon as I get this thing for the FBI finished. She"s going to help me out on that, and I"ll watch her back in the meantime."

"So, why Chicago?"

"I want to look up a guy I know who lives here. He"s in the business, too, and we"re hoping that maybe he"s heard something."

"You can"t just ring him up, and ask him?"

"This guy doesn"t do too well around machinery. It tends to malfunction."

"Right, okay, I know who you mean, now. Chicago"s resident wizard."

"The very same. And if we come up empty with him, there"s a couple of other fellas in town I can talk to. They don"t much like telephones, either."

Hester nodded, frowning. "If I didn"t have a couple of mates who need me in the Big Smoke, right quick and real bad, I"d stick around and help you with this mess."

"I know you would, podner, and I appreciate that."

"Next round"s mine," John said, reaching for his wallet. "Besides, I need a full gla.s.s, to make a toast I have in mind."

After Hester ordered another round, Morris said, "You know, I"ve always wondered how you fit in among the dons of Cambridge, talking like, uh..."

"A diehard product of the workin" cla.s.s?" Hester smiled at Morris with half his mouth, then said, in a posh accent that Prince Charles might have envied, "In point of fact, I do possess the ability to speak in a manner more befitting my station, on those occasions when I so choose." The smile became a grin. "I just don"t b.l.o.o.d.y well choose to," he said. "Irritates the pompous b.a.s.t.a.r.ds of academe no end, that does."

When the drinks came, John raised his gla.s.s with curiously delicate, nicotine-stained fingers. "Here"s to luck, mate," he said solemnly. ""Cause you"re gonna b.l.o.o.d.y well need some."

Sandra Jenkins was in a p.i.s.sy mood as she opened the door to her apartment. She"d started her d.a.m.n period, and had a pounding headache, besides. And when she"d dropped her car off at the garage on the way to work this morning, the idiot behind the service counter had a.s.sured her that the cracked wheel bearing that had been causing so much trouble would be fixed by 4:30pm, with the oil and filter changed, to boot. After work, she"d cadged a ride to the garage with one of her co-workers, who"d offered to wait while Sandy made sure that her car was ready.

"No, it"s fine, you go ahead," Sandy had told the woman. "They"ve had it all day, and they promised me it would be all set. Thanks for the lift!"

And of course Mister "It"ll-be-ready-today-I-promise-lady" had said, with no trace of embarra.s.sment or contrition, that the replacement wheel bearing had turned out, mirabile dictu, to be neither in stock nor available locally, but would almost certainly arrive tomorrow in plenty of time to be installed by the end of the workday. Probably.

Sandy had been trained, patiently and well, never to lose her temper. For a woman adept in witchcraft, even of the benevolent variety, maintaining emotional control was essential, lest something both unfortunate and embarra.s.sing take place. As she"d called for a cab, Sandy had found herself wishing that there was a spell that could induce machinery to fix itself. She"d have to bring it up at the next meeting of the Circle, to see if her Sisters had any ideas.

But some clouds actually do have silver linings. The increased adrenaline flow that accompanied her bad mood had made Sandy"s reactions just a hair faster than they might otherwise have been. So when she walked into her apartment and saw the man rising from his seat on her sofa, a man she had never seen before and had certainly never invited inside, her response was a tad quicker then it would normally be. She was moving even before the man behind her, who had been hidden by the open door, snaked his arm around her throat.

As a kid, Sandy had been enamored of a short-lived TV series ent.i.tled, improbably, T.H.E. Cat. The t.i.tular character, a former cat burglar turned professional bodyguard, used to wear a dirk concealed up his sleeve. When he was threatened, moving his arm a certain way would cause the weapon to drop into his hand, usually ruining some bad guy"s day.

All of that had long been forgotten, until Sandy had come upon a re-run of the show on TV Land a couple of months ago. Although she did not find T. Hewitt Edward Cat quite as cool as she"d remembered (and the plot, truth be told, seemed pretty lame), she still thought the trick with the knife was a good one. She"d wondered if it could be duplicated with a magic wand.

It could. With a slim, pressure-sensitive sheath worn on her right forearm, Sandy was able, by flexing some muscles just the right way, to cause the wand to fall free and into her hand. True, she had dropped it the first twenty or thirty times she"d tried, but had eventually become quite proficient. All she had lacked was somebody to impress with her new skill.

Until now.

In the instant she had seen the intruder, Sandy had known he was an enemy. And if he had been skilled enough to get past the wards protecting her home, he was dangerous. The magically charged wand was dropping into Sandy"s hand, even as the other man tightened his grip around her neck.

You can"t work a spell if you can"t speak, but Sandy was able to gain a few seconds" grace by the distinctly non-magical technique of stomping on the attacker"s instep with the heel of her right shoe. The man grunted, and his grip around her throat loosened, just a little. That was all the edge that Sandy needed.

Using the tip of her wand to trace three invisible symbols in the air, she muttered, very quickly, the words of a spell designed to reverse negative energy. The anger and malevolence of her two attackers was suddenly directed back at them in the form of a sudden, debilitating pain. Sandy"s spellcraft instructor had explained, years ago, that the pain was purely psychosomatic. White magic did not allow the deliberate harming of another, but it did permit, under some circ.u.mstances, convincing someone that he was being harmed.

Sandy stepped clear of the man behind her just as he collapsed to the floor, moaning. A moment later, his companion across the room did the same. She then carefully laid down a freezing spell, which would hold each man motionless until the police could arrive. As soon as the two were immobilized, Sandy relieved their perception of pain, even though part of her did so reluctantly.

She called 911 to report the attack, and was a.s.sured that officers would respond posthaste. Putting the phone away, Sandy considered using a truth spell to find out who the men were, and why they had wished her harm. But in order for them to tell her, they would have to be unfrozen, and that could be dangerous. Better to let the police handle the interrogation, and try to kibitz the information from them later.