He's another would-be individual, another San Francisco college kid in a flannel and battered Converse. He sits at a crowded picnic table in the dirt yard behind a dive bar, pouring beer after beer and watching the colors dance around the other drinkers.

There's the dying-sun crimson from the couple sharing a cigarette, the rich white of a wide-eyed girl searching for her keys. There's the sharp orange from the scowling woman in the corner, and the constant, surrounding blue, the color of the drunk and stoned and sleepless. He writes every color down in his notebook, catalogs of faces and movements, and on the opposite page go his notes, long lines of question marks as he guesses what colors mean.

He stops at his third attempt to describe the old woman with the mustache, and claps the notebook shut. His pitcher is almost empty, just a muddy wash of foam at the bottom; he grunts to himself and shuffles inside, into the wall of Danzig tunes strangling the bar. He forges through the crowd, twenty in hand, one eye on the extra colors among the blue. He's ordering a Bloody Mary when he sees the man by the front door.

He's nothing the boy hasn't seen before: grey hair to the shoulder, laugh lines, a pot belly under a tweed jacket. Another hippie professor gone to pot. But there's no color surrounding him; no hint that the man is even there. And as the boy stares at him, he sees the man with no color staring back.

The boy takes his Bloody Mary, leaves the ten in a puddle of beer; he nods to the old man in passing acknowledgement and swims back upstream toward the yard, one hand on his messenger bag and all his attention on the crowd.

"Randall?"

The voice is rough but cultured, the question an experiment. The boy just tries to keep walking.

"Randall Chatham?"

The boy stops, closes his eyes. He takes a long, peppery drink of his cocktail and puts on an ironic smirk as he turns around.

"I swear I turned that paper in, Professor. No need to come all this way."

The old man snickers without actually sounding amused. "So you are Randall?"

"That's what they call me when I'm at home."

He gets a stare like a punch, but the old man puts out his hand. "Doctor Barg. Pleasure to meet you."

Randall's pulse judders. He shakes himself, claps his hand into the old man's before he thinks again; his breath catches as he feels almost nothing, just a brief flash of a lake and the ripples over the bow of a canoe. Now Doctor Barg's the one smirking.

"Like what you see?"

Randall's thoughts wash white and empty. He backs up a step, almost collides with a pair of hipsters; he mumbles an apology over his shoulder, and busies himself with drinking.

"So you know?"

Dr. Barg nods. "Quite well, really. Shall we sit down?"

Randall leads the way with vague expertise, negotiating the chic drinkers and parka-clad stoners. He finds an empty table in the far corner, under the mural of the pink elephants; he can't help shaking his head as they sit.

"So," Randall asks, placing his drink between them. "How did you know?"

Dr. Barg folds his hands together, smiling over his fingers. "You're poorly shielded, Randall. Every psychic and parasite you've passed this week has known what you are."

Randall's eyebrows dance. "I'll just skip the obvious questions and move on to why the hell you care."

"Because, as I said, you're poorly shielded." There's condescension waiting in the wings. "Because you're lucky you haven't had an astral parasite attach itself to you and suck half the dimensions out of your emotions." He unfolds his hands, sits back. "And because you're educated."

"You starting a new degree program?"

"I think Telepathy 101 is a bit far off yet." The joke is hollow in Doctor Barg's mouth. "No. I mean you were a graduate student for two semesters. You're above the average cut for intellect."

"Because I'm in grad school? Have you ever taken a History class?"

That gets a sniff out of Dr. Barg. "The History department may disprove my thesis, but you just lent it strength."

Across the yard, a glass explodes, and both of them jerk around to look. Young hands clap mock approval, and one lost, red-faced patron finds it in herself to bow. Her friends shake their heads as a bartender comes lumbering out with a broom. Randall tsks in dark disapproval.

"People can be cruel," Dr. Barg says, pregnant with subtext. He folds his hands again, hides his mouth.

"Red in tooth and claw," Randall allows. "You were saying. Educated? Thesis?"

Dr. Barg nods in remembrance, looks hard at Randall. His eyes are pure earnest. "I want to offer you a job."

"I'm straight."

Barg doesn't even blink. "You were attacked, weren't you? In New Orleans?"

Randall's joints lock up; his nostrils flare despite his scoff. "Are"—he wipes a hand over his face—"are you reading my thoughts?"

The old man shakes his head. "You're shut up tight. Or tight for you." He leans back, studying the boy. "What did you see in the woman who attacked you? What did you see when you looked at her?"

Ice clinks in Randall's glass. He looks past Dr. Barg's shoulder, watches the colors of a young man playing air guitar. Nothing in the yard has changed; and yet it has.

"There was something inside her," he murmurs. His words glaze over with lead. "I thought I saw..." His fingers twiddle for the words. "Like a camel spider. A neon camel spider with human teeth instead of mandibles."

Dr. Barg nods. Behind him, someone crows in victory. "And when you saw that, did it occur to you to run to the Church for help?"

The din of conversations mutes; Randall's fingers get a death grip on his drink.

"That's—really?" His forehead wrinkles. "Really. Really?"

"Really, Randall. Very much really. Those are the things the '91 Inquisition was looking for, the things Malcolm Bona claimed were talking to him. They're real, and they never stopped being real."

"You're fucking with me." The boy's head thrashes side to side. "No way, you're fucking with me. You have to be. Fuck."

"There's one inside right now," Dr. Barg says, thumb hooked over his shoulder. "He was ordering when I found you. Do you want to go look?"

"I don't"—the ice clinks again; Randall stiffens his hand—"I don't..." He looks across at Dr. Barg, and pushes up from the table.

Dr. Barg stays where he is, hands folded, as Randall makes his way through the crowd. The old man studies the pink elephants as he waits, the rich magenta of the paint, the elegant locking of their trunks. Someone proposes a toast at the top of his lungs, and is echoed from across the yard one step ahead of the people shouting "Shut up!" Barg listens with a sad smile, and fades blank again as a pale-faced Randall dumps back into his seat. The boy's hand claps right to his drink.

"That..." He tugs at his collar. "That one looked more like an octopus. Attached to the face of Richard Nixon."

Barg's laugh lines deepen. "Apt description. That one calls himself Dirk, actually. He's relatively harmless. Eats exhaustion."

Randall blinks hard. "Again, skipping the question. But why do you bring it up?"

"The job I want to offer you..." Dr. Barg picks at a splinter on the table. "Involves keeping men like Dirk safe."

Randall squinches up. "Men like Dirk?" His lips curl in understanding. "You mean demons?"

"Astral parasites," Dr. Barg corrects, "though colloquially you're right."

Randall leans back. "But still, not human? Monsters? Eat your emotions"-Something clicks; he mouths a name, shrugs it off—"Your emotions, right?"

Dr. Barg nods. "Yes."

A man with no shirt on whoops at the top of his lungs. Randall doesn't see him.

"Why the hell would I want to keep them safe?"

"Because it will keep you safe too."

Randall's brow furrows.

"We made a deal," Dr. Barg says, "Psychics like me, like you, we agreed that we'd protect each other: confuse the Inquisitors, offer alibis, crash space, excuses for any talents who might be targeted by the Church. It was working." He stops." But it worked better when the demons wanted in."

"They've got juice we don't?" Randall manages to keep a straight face.

"If they're orange juice," Barg rumbles, "we're Tang. But they lack rules, restraint"—he gropes for a term—"social nicety. And we can provide them things they lack. Keep them under wraps." His tone brooks no questions. "It took root here, but it's spread across the continent. I hear things about France, the U.K., Canada..."

"Are they out in the Middle East yet or is it still too hot?" Randall face twists. "I can't believe I just asked that..."

"It's almost as though you change your world-view based on evidence." Dr. Barg allows himself a smirk, peels his chosen splinter free of the wood.

"Yeah, but sometimes too much evidence confuses the jury. Okay, that fell flat..."

"Quick-witted. Good." His mirth shuffles away again. "Of course, the system doesn't just work on trust. There are parasites whose tastes are less than subtle, young psychics calling attention to themselves..."

"I was bushwhacked into panic mode," Randall fires back. "So you're saying I'd be like, what, a Satanic cop?"

Dr. Barg sniffs. "Think of it as the preservation of wonder."

Randall leans back, drink held to his chest. Two tables away, a rousing round of the Penis Game swings into audibility.

"Why the hell do you want me?" He slaps the beer on the table, crosses his arms. "I mean, of all people, why me? Ever?"

"Because you're young," Dr. Barg says, "and with youth comes ingenuity, which we need if we're going to keep things under wraps."

"Via things like talking about it in a bar?" Randall drawls.

"Do you think anyone here believes us?" Dr. Barg points at the hunched-over stoners. "We need you, Randall. It's a sadly unique opportunity."

"Well you paint such an appetizing picture."

Dr. Barg shrugs, and looks across at him, not bothering with more words. Randall looks away, drinks. Silence prevails. A woman screams in glee as a man spins her about on his shoulders, and a hoarse voice barks "Order Up" over the crowd. Randall takes his time with eye contact.

"Preserving wonder, huh?" he says.

"It's a living," Dr. Barg replies.

Randall puts his drink down, and again leans back. He looks over Dr. Barg's head, scanning the throng of people. Then he comes back to the old man, seated firm and confident across from him, a smirk primed at one corner of his mouth. Randall puts a hand on his glass, removes it again, and shakes his head.

"I want to go back to school next semester," he says. "I've got a career I want to start on, I need to get ready for credential work..."

"Next semester," Dr. Barg says. "And this semester?"

"This semester..." Randall shakes his head. "This semester, I'm a hobo."

"Or maybe a peacekeeper?" the old man suggests.

"Peacekeeper." Randall raises an eyebrow. "They have internships in Hell?"

"The astral plane, Randall. It isn't entirely for my benefit that I offer, you know."

"Of course it isn't," Randall says. "It's never entirely for your benefit, except for how it really is. What's in it for me, Doctor Barg? Besides 'preservation of wonder'."

"You insist on pretending that doesn't entice you," the old man remarks. He forges ahead while the boy is busy stammering. "I used to be a teacher, Randall. You need help and experience, fast, and at your age our usual tutors aren't going to be so interested..."

"And again we gloss," Randall says, flailing a hand at Doctor Barg. "What does it pay? Do your demonic overlords give room and board?"

"It's all they give. Unless we need strings pulled at City Hall."

"Which City Hall?"