It.

"It" was her word for what their lives - her life - had become. She had wanted a daughter who gurgled and cooed, whose eyes shone with recognition of shapes and faces, who delighted in new sounds, who turned her head with interest and excitement at each new experience. Linda had wanted a normal, regular, healthy daughter whom she could dress in pink and take inordinate pride in as the new arrival learned all the simple things babies learn every day.

Once it had become obvious that Linda was never going to have her long-dreamed-of perfect, bright-eyed child, that her baby would not be an accessory to her life, but that she would be one of her baby"s - a constant care giver, the rest of her days devoted to a child who could barely respond to the simplest stimuli - she had begun talking with Albert about placing their daughter in a home. Such was not an option as far as he was concerned. And so it was, after a year and five months of marriage, and twenty-two weeks of parenthood, that Albert had been left alone with his speechless daughter to stare at the numbing future ahead of them.

"This is a friend of mine," Knight said. Giving his companion a moment, he seemed to be allowing the wrinkled black woman time to regain her strength. It had been a long walk, up the front walk from the curb to the car, and she was old, very old. It was obvious to Albert that the woman had been beautiful in her time. Indeed, her black eyes held a shine that seemed to belie the deep wrinkles.

"Madame Sarna Raniella, meet Albert Harper." The old woman nodded in a friendly enough fashion, but did not offer her hand.

Pointing toward the child sitting motionless in the living room beyond, Knight said to Harper, "Madame Raniella is going to sit with Debbie for a few minutes, while we take a walk outside." Knight turned to the old woman, and, seemingly responding to an unspoken question, she said, "As we discussed, I shall talk to her, Piers. Constantly. Fear not - I will keep her engaged."

"Good. As long as she doesn"t answer, everything should be fine."

Without a further word, she made her slow way toward the sofa. Sitting down near Debbie, she began a seemingly endless stream of conversation. She spoke with the girl about cartoons she remembered, the snack cakes her mother had baked her, how fascinating it was that leaves changed colors in the fall - apparently anything that came to mind. Albert noticed that her gaze seemed intently focused on Debbie.

On her eyes, he thought. She"s watching her eyes.

And then he finally responded to the gentle pressure on his arm, allowing Knight to maneuver him out onto his front porch and down the steps. As the two men headed for the sidewalk, Albert said, "Going to tell me what this is all about now?"

"Yes, I am. And I"m not certain how you"re going to react. I have something very disturbing ... well, not to me, but to you...

Knight stopped speaking, obviously at a complete loss as to how to proceed. It was clear something of great importance was clawing at him, demanding release. Suddenly, as if struck by inspiration, he said, "Albert, you once told me the story of the first time you held Debbie. Tell it again, won"t you?" Harper looked at his friend through hard eyes. He started to protest, but Knight cut him off gently.

"I understand your reluctance, my boy. Truly. But I promise you, I have a purpose. I do." Harper turned his head away, his shoulders shaking slightly. After a moment"s silence, however, he closed his eyes and began to speak.

"It was in the delivery room. Debbie"d just been born. I was standing there a little stunned. They"d cut Linda; I wasn"t expecting, no one had warned me ... blood had just flown through the air. *Normal," they said. *Nothing to worry about" - but I wish someone had prepared me for ... anyway, let"s just say I was in a state, you know?"

Knight nodded, listening patiently.

"So, while I"m still reeling from it all, out of nowhere the nurse brings Debbie over to me." Harper"s face softened, the approaching memory so gladdening his heart the air seemed to freshen about him.

"She was so tiny, so fragile, I took her from the nurse, and I was staring at her. Of course, her eyes weren"t open, but I could feel this, this need, you know, spilling out of her, looking for something to grab onto, and before I knew it, I"d raised her up to where I could press my forehead against hers, and when I did that, I swear I felt her inside my mind. I..."

Knight waited, but Harper stopped his thought, choking it back, as if suddenly spent. After a moment"s silence, he muttered, "Anyway, you know all that."

"I wanted to hear you tell it again. I wanted to see if you still believed it."

"Why wouldn"t I believe it? I was there. I know it happened."

"Yes, of course," Knight responded, "but after all these years, with Debbie"s reversal, with no further contact with that mind you swear you felt, it is possible you might start to believe you imagined the whole thing."

Knight let the fall breeze blow about them for a moment, then interrupted its soft whisper. "Have you, Albert? Have you ever been tempted to think you were wrong about that day?"

Harper"s eyes narrowed. When he finally spoke, his voice came out low and growling, bitter with sarcasm. "Sure, all the time. That"s why I let my wife walk out. That"s why I still won"t put Debbie in a home. And that"s why I"m working double shifts, driving my mother and aunts half-crazy baby sitting! How can you ask me that? How, G.o.dd.a.m.nit? You know what Debbie means to me!"

"I do, Albert-"

"I"m telling you..." Harper paused, his voice choking, eyes threatening to betray him, "I know - I know she"s in there somewhere. I felt it. I G.o.dd.a.m.n well felt it, do you understand? You"re not taking that away from me. n.o.body"s taking that away from me!"

"I"m not trying to," Knight told him softly. "And I apologize for upsetting you. But it had to be done." Knight tilted his head down for a moment, running a hand through his hair and then down the back of his neck.

"You see, I"m going to tell you something. Something incredible. Something you may not be able to comprehend. But you must trust me about one thing. I believe what you just said. I don"t just believe that you believe it, I think it happened just as you said.

"And after that," Knight added, his voice going dark and stiff, "I think something monstrous happened. Something I don"t quite know if I will be able to explain or prove to you."

Harper turned to stare at him. The two had reached the end of his neighborhood, and were on the edge of the local business district. After surveying the block for a moment, Knight said, "Over there, I think. Come on."

Knight moved them close to a wall between two storefronts, their large neon signs buzzing "Sarah Jane"s Boutique" and "Hobbies & Crafts" on either side of them. When he looked at Harper again, his expression was grim.

"Albert, I"m going to simply say this as bluntly as possible - I do not believe your daughter has Down syndrome. I believe she is possessed."

Harper gaped, as if his mind could not choose between the hundreds of possible responses that were all occurring to him at once. Before he could speak, Knight went on.

"You must understand, I came across the general idea the first time years ago. It"s an ancient notion, and in older times people were more p.r.o.ne to recognize the signs. But, simply put, oftentimes what we think of today as Alzheimer"s, or Parkinson"s or DS, cancer, all manner of ailments - they"re really cases of demonic possession." Harper shook his head several times, as if trying to drive the idea out of his brain.

"We"ve known each other a long time," answered the younger man, "and a joke this sick is completely out of character for you. So, all right. Let"s say you"re not deranged." Throwing his hands up helplessly, Albert demanded; "If you"re not, then just what am I supposed to do? Call the church? Get a witch doctor? Bring in the Enquirer - what? What?"

"Calm yourself, Albert." As Harper turned away, Knight put up a hand and gently stopped him. "And, please trust me when I say you don"t want to leave this spot, just yet."

Harper made a gesture that took in the wall, the neon, the sidewalk - everything. "Why? What"s so d.a.m.n special?"

"My research has led me to a number of references to priests and shamans, across cultures and throughout history, waiting for thunderstorms, so they could prepare their defenses against such creatures." Pointing to all the pulsing lights behind them, the professor said; "Apparently these *ent.i.ties" dare not approach a barrier of charged electrons. No one knows why, although many mythologies posit lightning as a weapon of the G.o.ds, not their infernal counterparts. In any case, if there is a demon involved here, and it is trying to listen to us, it shouldn"t be able to make anything out through all the interference these signs are putting out."

"You"re serious; you"re really serious. Aren"t you?" Harper snapped, teetering between rage and tears.

"Yes, Albert, I am. And if after all the years you"ve devoted to your daughter, if you"re ready to risk throwing away what time you have left on this Earth in a desperate gamble of freeing her from this thing"s clutches, I may be able to help you."

Harper tried to stop thinking like a protective father and strove instead to actually listen to his friend. Part of his mind had instantly rejected what he was hearing out of hand. Such ludicrous jabber was, obviously, insanity.

New Age grasping at straws. Superst.i.tion.

Nonsense.

On the other hand, a different section of his mind added, knee-jerk reactions were often born from fear. Applying only a tiny bit of rationality to the subject, Albert had to admit the professor had travelled the world to seek out the occult in a thousand dark and terrible places. The older man had told him incredible stories over the years, swearing they were true. And because it was Knight relating the accounts, the younger man had believed them.

Harper knew with utter certainty that the professor would not have come to him that night if they were not friends. Looking into Knight"s eyes, he understood it was time for him to make a decision. The younger man admitted he was not certain what he believed, but he could not think of any reason why the professor would lie about such a thing. Glancing left, then right, Harper looked at the electrical signs supposedly protecting his thoughts, then said; "All right, let"s not waste all this fine wattage. Tell me what you know."

"Demons," said Knight, "in these deceptive cases of possession, are not torturing the souls they possess. Their purpose is far more devious. They torture the care-givers; crippling their lives, disrupting possible futures by diminishing those it was deemed good to distract. Reshaping fate, the monsters terrorize with guilt and duty, forcing those they feared to bleed rather than build. Holy men in every century have been attacked thus, their families set upon by afflictions brought, we have been told, by minions of Satan."

"You"re saying I"m supposed to be some sort of holy man?"

"I"m saying that some thing has taken an interest in you for reasons the two of us will never be able to interpret. The motivations of demons are their own, and a distraction from what is important at this moment."

Knight was careful to look about from time to time. He felt safe from supernatural spies between the glaring neon displays, but he did not relish the notion of their conversation being interrupted by human agents, whether unduly optimistic muggers or an unusually curious police officer.

"Albert, understand - demonic possession is real, and it"s terrible. Then again, so are scorpions. So is bubonic plague. We can get used to anything we can comprehend. But moreover, we can stand up to it, as well."

Having gotten Albert to the point where he was willing to accept the possibility of Debbie"s possession, Knight then explained what he might be able to do about it.

"That day in the hospital, when you placed your head to hers, felt her mind, new and fresh and searching, touching yours, melding with yours - all you need do this time is go further. Go all the way inside..."

Knight paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. His eyes locked with his friend"s, he said, "Once there, you"ll have to find this thing, drag it out of Debbie, and kick its literally G.o.dd.a.m.ned a.s.s until it leaves her for good."

"I just go into her mind and stop this thing, just like that?" Harper"s tone was a mix of incredulity and near-hysteria. "I mean, saying this is all real, this demon I"m going to go after, it"s been doing this kind of thing for thousands of years. How am I supposed to, I mean ... shouldn"t I, I don"t know - what? I..."

The professor made to speak, but Harper cut him off, racing forward with his thoughts.

"I"m not afraid, not of dying - that"s not it. It"s Debbie. If something goes wrong, if I screw this up, I could be destroyed, wind up brain dead, or completely dead - right?" When Knight nodded, Harper went on. "Okay, say it happens. I"m not good enough. I go down. I"m dead. What happens to Debbie then? Who takes care of her?"

"You"re being straightforward," Knight said, "so I"ll return the courtesy. The way Debbie is now, it really doesn"t matter who cares for her - does it? If you die, she becomes a ward of the state. She lives out her vegetable existence and then follows you into oblivion. End of the Harpers."

Albert swallowed hard. Knight darted his head from side to side, checking the air around them, adding, "Madame Raniella has travelled the dreamplane before. She is one of the most reliable dreamwalkers to be found." As his young companion simply stared, the professor added: "She"ll take you inside, help best she can. You"ll find her far more vigorous in that realm than our own. No matter what she and I can do, however, the thing you must concentrate on is that, if you can catch this thing by surprise, you could give Debbie the rest of her life. If you can"t, then really..." Knight paused for a moment, then in a voice filled with nothing but cold practicality, he asked, "Is it actually going to matter to her how much time she has left ... or if you"re there or not?"

The inside of Harper"s head fizzled with an anger tempered by practicality. Knight was correct, of course. He hated to admit it, but at present there was no connection between himself and his daughter. She was a lump of breathing meat that he cleaned and fed and dressed and put to bed. She could not b.u.t.ton b.u.t.tons, take herself to the bathroom, brush her teeth - none of it. She did not know who he was. If he was dead, she would not care.

She did not know how.

A tear on the verge of breaking free from his left eye, Harper growled, "Tell me one thing. If you"ve known all this for so long, why"d you wait? Why"d you f.u.c.king wait?"

"I"ll be honest," answered Knight, his voice low, "yes, I did need to find someone like Raniella to a.s.sist, but also ... I got distracted ... and ... please understand-" The professor coughed, excused himself, then went on.

"Listen, I"m certain if I were to go from hospital to hospital, I could find hundreds, thousands of cases like yours. I don"t go looking for horrors to combat. I"m not some supernatural policeman. Or demon hunter. I"m just a man. But you"re my friend, and once I was certain I was correct about Debbie, then I had to pull my courage together and act like your friend."

"Yeah." Harper spat the single word, his mind still reeling from all it had been asked to accept. Finally, after several seconds that dragged on for hours, he said, "I"d call you a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but you"d still be right. So, okay, since you"ve got me in the mood where I"d like to kill something, let"s go see if I can."

Twenty minutes later, it began. Upon returning to his home, Harper took Madame Raniella into the master bedroom while Knight remained with Debbie. Knight had started in with the same kind of distracting chatter the old woman had thrown at her, keeping the girl"s attention while the a.s.sault was prepared in the next room.

Giving Harper an opened bottle, Raniella told him, "Hold it under your nose. Breathe the fumes deeply."

The pungent vapors began to relax him immediately. Then, while Harper stretched out on his bed, the old woman sat in a chair next to it, cautioning him not to wander off into his own dreams.

"You must stay focused. Wait for me to arrive. Once we find each other, we will then search for your quarry." Harper nodded. Then, just as he was sinking into unconsciousness, Raniella added; "And remember, dear boy, this is the dreamplane where we go. If you can imagine something, you can will it to be - as real as anything around you."

"Meaning what?" Harper asked groggily.

"Meaning," Raniella told him, "Whatever this thing throws at you, you just throw it right back..."

Everything worked as Knight had said it would. In seconds Harper was asleep. Remembering what he was supposed to do, he searched his memory, bringing the image of Madame Raniella clearly into his mind. The drawn face, silvered hair, delicate hands, stiff, slender body- And then, suddenly the two were together, the scenery within Albert"s mind taking on a disturbingly real substance. The two stood on a vast and open plane, a red and purple expanse stretching in all directions. As vague bits of crimson dust swirled about them, she said; "Concentrate, Albert. Return yourself to that first moment you saw your daughter, back in the delivery room - remember it, take yourself back to it - be there..."

Time shattered into millionths of a second. In each pa.s.sing fraction Harper saw pieces of his most cherished memory reconstructed. Bit by bit, it fell into place - the unexpected cut, the gushing blood, his shock, the a.s.surances, and then the nurse, walking forward- "Would you like to hold your daughter, Mr. Harper?"

He took the bundle without hesitation. Held her for the briefest of instants, then raised the tiny, fragile body upward, touched his head to hers- -flash- Albert Harper fell to his knees, screaming. Bolts of pain shattered his chest and ricocheted off his nerves, blasting his senses, spinning him around, slamming him onto his back- "Look at the maggot come to hold his little freak."

Harper tried to drag himself away from the a.s.sault. Molten metal poured over him, searing flesh from bone, evaporating his skin, boiling his blood, dissolving him- "I just knew I was going to meet you in here some day."

The taunting voice did not issue from a mouth of any kind. It rode the electric jolts pummeling Albert, crawling into his organs and ripping them open one after another. It had a female lilt to it that somehow managed to be both familiar and frightening.

"I wish I could say it was good to see you again."

That voice was one he knew. Recognizing notes, Harper began to identify its pattern. Despite the furious pain lashing every fiber of his essence, still he began to pull a face together within his mind.

"Linda?"

"Very good." The voice chuckled. "Now I suppose you"re going to pull yourself back together and, how did he put it ... kick my d.a.m.ned a.s.s until I leave for good. Is that next, Albert, dear?"

Harper strained to open his eyes. Madame Raniella was nowhere to be seen. He was no longer in the delivery room, but further back in the past, sitting in a movie theater, the voice of the creature snarling behind him.

"This is where we met, isn"t it, darling? This is where you fell in love with me."

Exactly as he remembered it.

"Is it all coming back to you, sweetheart? Is it?"

Harper remembered it all - being in a bad mood, going to a movie alone, not caring what he saw. He remembered throwing himself into the middle of the emptiest section of the theater. Remembered two women coming in and sitting directly behind him. The two talked throughout the film, but having his theater-going experience interrupted by the pair did not bother Harper for long. He was too busy falling in love with one of them.

"It never did dawn on you, did it, Al? A beautiful woman, with an interest in mystery novels, and gaming, and comics ... a beautiful woman who voted the same way you did, who couldn"t wait to leave the theater and go to that new Vietnamese restaurant ... how vain are you?"

Harper turned in his seat.

"Do you think I"m going to believe anything you tell me?"

"Baby," the form of his wife said sweetly, lifting a hand to point a single finger at him, "do you think I care?"

An arc of blue-white flame erupted from her hand, cascading over Albert, roasting his skin, boiling his eyes. Remembering himself whole, inside his shower, he drenched himself, regenerating his body as he screamed: "I don"t give a rat"s a.s.s what you care about, what you think, or what you have to say. Just get out of my daughter"s head!"

"Al, sweetie," the familiar thing smiled. "What makes you think I"m in her head anymore?"

The Linda-like thing waved its hand and boils flooded forth from every pore of Harper"s body. Hundreds, thousands of them, they burst open, pus and blood bubbling up from each of them. Harper endured the torment for a moment, then rejected the plague, throwing it off as he had the earlier torments. As he did, the ever-changing landscape settled once more into the red and purple wasteland he first encountered. As Harper steadied himself, the Linda thing strode purposely into his field of vision.

"Very slow, sweetheart," it told him. Hands on its knees, body bent to show all its parts off to their best advantage, the thing told him, "Too slow, really. I mean, seriously, what do you think can really come of all this?"

Before Albert could answer, the ground opened and swallowed him. He tried to leap away, but he could not compensate for the slam of crushing gravity sent to shovel him into the latest torment. As he fell below the surface of the dreamplane, the ground rushed in, sand and gravel and choking dust, not just piling atop him, but grinding against him, digging its way into his skin - tearing it from his body, shredding it. First one layer, then the second, hair torn away, scalp b.l.o.o.d.y, nails being etched, eye brows and lashes ripped out by the roots- "No!"

Albert clawed his way to the surface, breaking the ground open with his back and shoulders. His head felt cracked; blood sluiced over his ears, down his forehead. His hands ached from clawing his way free. The Linda thing cackled as he gasped for air.

"You can"t do it, you know."

"Do what?" Albert"s voice was a ragged, panting thing, weak and feeble.

"Beat me. Can"t be done."

"Bulls.h.i.t," Harper said weakly. "Human beings been ... kicking the a.s.s of your, your kind for centuries."

"True, perhaps." Sitting on a large violet rock seemingly carved to resemble a great, rolling tongue, the Linda thing added, "But that takes actual faith."

With a snap of its fingers, the thing unleashed a ravenous horde of insects to devour Albert. As quickly as he could shield himself, regenerate his flesh, the overwhelming waves of chittering creatures would find their way to him once more, begin chewing again, ripping again, tearing, slicing, stinging, gnawing- "The moment Linda first sat down behind you," the thing snickered, "you had no faith in your chances with her."

Albert cleared his mind enough to summon a great wind to carry the horde away from him. He had nearly a full second"s respite before the Linda thing turned his body to gla.s.s and began tossing shards of rock at him.