Candlelight wavered over the wood-slat walls; logs crackled with flames in a great, wide fireplace whose log bed was nearly as long as the wall. No one else seemed to be in the room.

To hail with this, Bozman finally surfaced from his trauma, but when he tried to get up, he couldn"t.

He"d been tied to the chair.

Eventually his eyes noticed a Dutch oven hanging atop the burning logs.

A door clicked, then a shadow crossed the room. Bozman couldn"t see the figure.

"Where am I?"

The silence seemed to echo, then the figure said, "You"re in a very special place. Few gentiles ever receive the opportunity to enter here."

"Untie me! Ya got no right!"

"I have every right by every law ever written," the figure said, and then stepped forward.

I knew it, Bozman thought.

Gavriel Lowen.

"Your name is Henry Bozman, and you work for Conner as a charcoaler. You"ve done murder for him as well-"

"I ain"t done no such thing!" Bozman lied.

"-and just last night you burned one of our docks." "You"re accusing me falsely, only "cos Jews don"t like Christians!"

"I suppose that is why your venerable Mr. Conner refused my offer, because I don"t like Christians." Lowen chuckled.

"What offer?"

"I offered jobs to Conner and all of his clan, to fell trees for my mill. My mill generates much more profit than simple charcoaling. I offered twenty-eight dollars per month, per man."

Even in his predicament, Bozman jolted. All"s Conner pays me is twenty... "And he turned it down?"

"He turned it down, Mr. Bozman, because he said he"d rather starve than work for Jews."

Aw, he"s probably lying, Bozman had to reason. "Which brings us to our next problem: you."

"Untie me now, d.a.m.n it! This ain"t legal. I know the sheriff in the next town, and, G.o.d d.a.m.n it, I served in the War."

"You deserted in the War, Mr. Bozman." Another chuckle. "Not what anyone would call a national hero, hmm?"

How could this Jew know that? Bozman simmered. "You don"t know what you"re jabberin" about, and I didn"t burn no dock last night."

"Ah, but the Zemu"im tells me you did."

"The what?"

"Certain formulae buried in the secrets of the Calling of the Seals...they never lie." Lowen swung the Dutch oven out of the fire and opened its lid with tongs. Steam drifted up, along with a meaty odor. Lowen closed his eyes and inhaled some steam. When his eyes reopened, he looked blankly at Bozman. "Yes, Henry Bozman. You deserted Company K in 1862 along with your cohorts William Tull and Thomas Parker. While real men died fighting the Confederate scourge you took up with Conner and his clan-"

Bozman stared. How could he know ?

"-and you"ve raped three Lowensport women, the third, Jana Zlato, not even a woman at all, but a child of eleven."

Bozman gulped.

"And last night you set fire to our dock with a can of slurry that you stole from our lampmaker, Silah Srenc."

Bozman shivered. His nose began to run. "How could you know all"a that just from breathin" steam?"

"I know it because the Zemu"im of the great Kischuph tells me it is so."

"The hail you talkin" about! It"s deviltry you"s talkin" about, ain"t it? Jew black magic!"

Lowen seemed more and more amused. "No, Mr. Bozman. It"s simply faith, and I suspect that faith is something your spirit sorely lacks."

Bozman was getting sick, but in his contempt he tensed against his bonds and confessed, "All right! So what? I done all"a what you said"n more! And it"s only proper "cos it"s you Jews who"re makin" money off"a our land!"

"I bought this land, Mr. Bozman."

"Aw, I don"t give a hoot "bout what ever deal you cut with the county! And you"re killin" our people!"

Lowen smiled, half his face divided by shadows. "Really now..."

"Polten and Corton! They was good men, and we found their bodies in the woods just yesterday!"

"You may have, but they were not good men. They were not even men at all, but scoundrels, sc.u.m. Like yourself, they were deserters and rapists."

"So you admit it!"

"I never lie, Mr. Bozman," came another chuckle. "And two more"a our men have disappeared to boot! Nickerson and Lem Yerby! You killed them, too, didn"t ya?"

"How sure are you of this claim? In fact"-Lowen came around behind Bozman-"I"ll take you to them now."

"They"re-they"re here?"

"They are my guests."

In his terror, Bozman hadn"t noticed that the chair he"d been tied to was a wheelchair. Lowen released the stops and pushed it toward the six-paneled door he"d entered from. The wheels shimmied and keened. As he rolled past the roaring fireplace, Bozman was able to glimpse, only for a second, the contents of the Dutch oven: the steaming head of a mongrel dog.

The rich, meaty odor sickened Bozman all the more, but his attention snapped alert when he was pushed into a dark, narrow room lit by oil lamps and candles. Bozman guessed his daze hadn"t quite worn off yet, for the candle flames seemed to flicker with a slight bluish tint.

The wheelchair stopped.

What Bozman noticed first was an odd framing of stained gla.s.s the size of a typical portrait. Two triangles joined at the base so that the bottom triangle was upside down. A weird foreign letter existed at the top and bottom points, and in the center of each triangle was a face. The gla.s.s that composed these faces was crystalline black, save for the eyes, which shined blue.

Something about the look of the two faces made Bozman"s skin crawl.

"So you see, I haven"t lied, Mr. Bozman. Your friends are indeed here, Hiram Nickerson and Lemuel Yerby..."

The dark scene riveted Bozman"s gaze. Lying atop a pair of wooden tables were two things that were no longer men at all. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds done hacked all the flesh off "em! Bozman"s head began to reel.

The little bit of muscle that remained stuck to the bones seemed partially burned. And while the flesh of their faces had been sc.r.a.ped off, their scalps and hair had been left, and so had their genitals. But what Bozman could understand least was what the two others in the room-twoofLowen"s Jews-weredoing.

Several buckets sat on shelves and it was into the buckets that the hands of these two other rabbis delved. Wet sounds crackled when each man removed handfuls of what appeared to be mud.

Then they commenced to pack the mud over the flesh-stripped bones of the two corpses.

Lowen seemed concerned; he approached the two others and the ghastly act on the tables. "Ahron, are you certain there"s enough?"

One of the others smiled in the tinted dark. "More than enough, Gaon-we"ve been packing it very thinly. It looks now that we shall have a little bit extra."

"Glorious," whispered Lowen.

And the other man: "With the extra we can repack the joints more thickly."

Lowen sighed as if in bliss. He whispered something in a language Bozman didn"t know, then uttered, "S"mol is with us, the melech and deliverer of the Eleventh Sefriot..."

"Amen," the other two replied with bowed heads, and then they returned to their evil work.

Bozman began to sob, for what ever this devilish act was, he could only suspect the same was about to befall him.

"What in the name of Heaven-"

"Not Heaven, Mr. Bozman, but the Ten h.e.l.ls to mirror the Ten Emanations..."

Bozman could at least be happy that he would not, as feared, suffer the same fate. Instead, Lowen pushed the wheelchair back out to the first room- "Nooooo!" bellowed Bozman.

-and then right into the great roaring fireplace. Bozman went face-first into the flames.

II.

The Present "What do you guys want?" the auburn-haired woman said with an insulted smirk.

WHACK!.

Rosh slapped her right across the face.

The woman squealed; she covered her face with her hands.

In the driver"s seat, Rosh wagged a reprimanding finger. "Manners, please, Carrie. Not *what do you guys want." It"s *what do you officers want." " Rosh glanced back to Stein, who sat in the cruiser"s rear seat. "Can you believe the rudeness of people today?"

"Sure can"t, Captain."

"Hopefully by the end of our little interview with Carrie, she"ll learn better manners."

Carrie"s hands slid down her cheeks, revealing teary eyes and a sharp pink slapmark. "My name"s not Carrie."

"Really?" Rosh acted dismayed. "You"re not Carrie Whitaker, alias Lazy?"

She paused. "No..."

Rosh held up a fax and read off it, "Whitaker, Carrie, aka *Lazy." Twenty-five years old, auburn hair, brown eyes. Wanted on three counts of escape, suspected drug trafficking, multiple open warrants, and first-degree armed robbery in Jacksonville, Florida." He showed her the picture on the fax. "Isn"t that you, Carrie, in that picture right there? Robbing a Circle K store in Florida with a handgun?"

Carrie looked fretfully at the picture. "No..." "Sergeant Stein?" Rosh showed him the picture. "Doesn"t that look like our friend here?"

"Sure does, Captain."

"And the fella in the background in the baggy pants and Red Sox hat-doesn"t that look like Jary Robinson, aka Jary *Kapp," brother of Caddy *Kapp" Robinson?"

"By golly, it does, Captain."

Suddenly Carrie looked very sick.

Rosh nodded and crossed his arms. "So. Carrie. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. We know that you"re the top-shelf gal for the Robinson Brothers"- Rosh sighed-"aka the Cracksonville Boyz. d.a.m.n, Stein, I"m getting tired of all these aka"s!"

"I hear ya, Captain."

Rosh looked back at the whimpering girl. d.a.m.n good-looking in a hard-knock kind of way... A pert bosom pushed against the trashy, ice-pink halter. "We know that you make the runs with the Robinson Brothers every month. That"s all I want to know, Carrie. I need you to tell me about the Robinson Brothers...and, remember, there"s an easy way and a hard way. Jive me, and you get the hard way. But if you level with me, we"ll let you go."

Even in her sobbing defeat she managed some cynicism. "You guys got me cold. You"ll never let me go..."

Rosh shrugged. "You"re small potatoes, Carrie."

"Hey, Captain," Stein objected. "Words hurt. How would you feel if someone called you small potatoes?" And then Stein laughed.

"I"m sorry, Carrie," Rosh mocked. "I meant no offense. I hope that doesn"t topple your self-esteem or cause you mental anguish. I want Jary *Kapp" Robinson. Give him to me, and you walk."

Carrie sniffled, puffy eyed. "I-I don"t know where he is-"

"Sergeant Stein?"

In a split second, Stein got a leather cord around her neck and was quickly cranking it down, tourniquet-style, with his nightstick. Carrie"s tongue shot out and her back arched out of the seat. m.u.f.fled gagging sounds could be heard in her throat.

"This, Carrie, is the hard way," Rosh pointed out. When her face began to darken and swell, he flicked a finger to Stein, who relieved the pressure.

Carrie fell back lax in the seat, breath whistling as she inhaled.

"Calm down, Carrie." Rosh eyed her bosom again. "Got anything to say now?"

She hacked, then burst into tears. "All right! I make the runs with them every month. We rip off a car in Jacksonville and drive the crack up here-"

"Good, good! Now we"re getting somewhere! But I hope you have more to tell us. And don"t tell us Jary left town because we know he"s not stupid enough to do that with all the heat on since his brother got whacked. You do know that Jary"s brother was murdered the other night on Pine Drive, don"t you?"

She nodded.

"Does Jary know?"