I don't get any sleep; the bed-clothes are too hot, the air is too cold, and when I don't actually hear Dr. Barg and Arabella talking downstairs, I'm hearing a replay of their conversation at the back of my skull. I give up after a febrile bout of napping around 2 p.m., and settle for drinking myself relaxed from about 2:30 on. No-one comes by, no-one knocks on the door; by dinner time I feel like I could even get used to being alone, but a run to In N' Out scuttles that idea faster than Arabella can smile.

Boys is there at midnight on the nose, curves muffled under a dress and cardigan. Even in the Whistler's Mother outfit she makes eating look like a sin. Paul and I escort her back to the house via a dozen unnecessary side streets, chatting about any subject that'll keep her from getting a sense of direction. She takes it all with an older sister's eye-rolling acceptance, until we turn onto our street; then her cool melts, and she's just a middle-aged hippie with face full of loss and no idea where she is. We hook an arm around each of hers, and forced-march her the half-block to our driveway. She looks with foggy admiration at the signs on the lawn.

"Static barrier," she drools. "Nice...nice moves. Barg teach you that?"

"Classified," Paul says.

She tries to look outraged. "After two years of loyal ser—"

"Classified."

She turns to me, and I just shake my head. I look up at the city-dimmed stars, and enjoy tonight's little stretch of silence.

Barg and Arabella have given the house a coat of garage chic, with a card table in the living room and a week's worth of newspapers tacked up to the walls, winking red ink and highlighter at me as I come in. There are two decks of Tarot cards on the table, three of our chairs set up in a semicircle; Dr. Barg has his office chair in place, and Arabella is over by the fireplace, fussing with a phalanx of candles. Neither of them looks enthused.

"So," Boys chirps, as I shut the door behind her. "The outer sanctum."

"Pretty fuckin' inner if you ask me," Paul chortles. "You imagine what that lawn would be like if we hadn't been steering?"

"She's not food, Paul," Arabella says, flat and empty. "You don't need to antagonize her."

Paul looks daggers at her, but I touch his wrist and get his attention off the poor girl. The flash of scents and shadows I get off that contact leaves me with a scorched feel in the back of my throat. My guts twist in on themselves as I remember our talk in the car.

"You must be Boysenberry," Dr. Barg says, now that the Animal House has cooled down.

"And you must be Dr. Barg," she says, pulling a homemaker's tone from thin air. "I'd shake your hand, but..."

"I understand. Something tells me we'll get that part dealt with." He rests his hands on one of the canes. "You're ready to begin right away? Or do you need something first?"

"She already ate," I say over my shoulder. I catch a cloudy thought from Arabella, just a hint of unpleasant surprise.

Boys smirks at me, but otherwise doesn't respond. "Your co-worker's right though. I'm as ready as I'll get."

Dr. Barg nods. "And if you're indisposed at the end of it, anywhere special you want to go?"

"Call me a cab and send me to a Motel Six. After what I'm doing tonight I'm going to ground big time for at least a week."

"Motel Six," Dr. Barg remarks. "Everyone got that? Paul? Randy?"

"Aye aye," I say, in eerie time with Paul.

The doc gives us a quarter-inch of smile. "Right" he says. "Guess we'll get started then." He looks right at me as Boys and Arabella make a move for their seats. "Gentlemen?"

I head back out the front door, Paul in tow, as I hear the doc slap out the Tarot cards. The streetlight across from us chooses that moment to fail.

"Can I just go on the record," I say, "as having said that this plan is fucking insane?"

"Pretty sure you're the one who proposed it," Paul says with a smirk. "Besides, you'd rather have the Inquisition back?"

I shove my hands into my pockets. "'Surely, none of you wishes Jones to come back!'"

Paul's mouth goes crooked. "Sorry friend." He strolls over to the nearest sign, and yanks it hard out of the ground. "My body didn't read a lot of literature." For all his usual, Paul's a master at hiding his sarcasm.

I walk a few signs down from Paul, and uproot a portrait of Bram Stoker. Paul's got one under each arm as he walks past me, so I do the same with Ted Bundy's mug shot, and carry them crisscross over my shoulders and drop them behind the house. My brain blooms up in flashbulbs as we come back around to the lawn; our friends and informants must have opened their connection.

"Wonder what it's like for the folks scanning us," I muse. "Think it's like it was in the movies?"

Paul grunts as he pops Syd Barrett out of his place of honor. "Good guys lost the big fight, yeah? Can't imagine that's much like a movie."

Normally, this is where I'd snort.

The read from the house gets stronger the more signs we cart off of the lawn. I get a blooming of vertigo in my inner ear, a sense of overcrowding. Part of me wants to be in there, linked with Boys; if you get a rush of data just from sharing a little blood, imagine the info from a demon who's fucked half the county.

We're down to three signs when the front door swings open; Arabella comes shooting out barefoot, ghosts in the corners of her eyes.

"Tracked him down," she says. "Up in San Carlos."

I tense for a run. "He catch your signal?"

She shakes her head. "Couldn't." Theatrical smirk, one slight arch of the eyebrow. "But his buddy with the flaming hair for an aura locked right onto us."

I do everything in the world but look at Paul. "Right." I reach down, and pull up Van Gogh's self-portrait. "Be right in."

Paul gets the other two signs, and together we carry them down the driveway, toss them onto the pile of whispers and wood. Paul stops once we're back on the street side, cranes his neck back almost to his shoulder blades.

"Anything?" I ask him.

Just a shrug. "Tension in the air. Electricity. Something big is coming south."

We go back inside. Dr. Barg is massaging his ankles, and Arabella's just settling into a nap; Boys is staring into the middle distance, horrified and enraged at where she's been stuck. There are a couple folding chairs in the kitchen, perched just in sight of the door. I look to the doc for the go-ahead, and make sure that we've left the door locked. We head back to our chairs, and sit down; and we wait.

The signal shows up after an eternity in the dark, after my eyes are seared from staring and we've all run out of ways to pretend this will be alright. The house feels like ice water, that horrible knot in the spine and the shoulders. Arabella's the only one pretending to be cool; Dr. Barg is breathing like an asthmatic yogi, Boys is curled up in the office with an LP of Ziggy Stardust to block her signal, and Paul won't stop staring at the door. I start to look at my watch, then at Dr. Barg, and see the silhouette.

The caster's either male or in a heavy coat, mid-range for height, no indication of build. Arabella's cool reaches positively molten temperatures; I catch a squeak on its way out of my mouth.

The silhouette oozes over the front windows, across the frosted glass to the right of the door; I work on quiet breathing as it slips out of view, and start at the chalk-and-ice-cube rattle of someone trying to pick a lock with a paperclip. All I want to do is scream.

There's another rattle, a sudden pause, and a frustrated jerk at the doorknob. The silhouette melts back from the house; footsteps rustle over our lawn. I reach a thought to the outside and get a hint of something regal and pure, under the paranoiac darting of a mind trying to dismiss its fear.

"Took off?" Boys murmurs.

"Back door," Arabella insists, just loud enough I can tell I missed half of what she said. She's knifed up full of adrenalin, scenarios ratcheting through her head like a Viewmaster. Dr. Barg puts a hand on her shoulder, and she whispers again: "He's headed for the back door."

Another rustle outside, faster than previous; I spin and catch a second of movement through the kitchen window. Paul and I both slide out of view as we hear the paperclip against the lock; then there's a stop, and an ironic snicker as the door pops open, unlocked. The kingly mind enters in a swirl of building wrath.

Paul slips over to the dining room table, ducks low beneath it: I prime myself to launch from the chair, and watch through squinting lids as a lanky, shaking body glides out of the laundry room, a dot of metal glinting in one hand.

Paul's mind opens up right as I make the sprint over to the doorway; I feel bile and vertigo, then my shoulder slams into a clavicle and I've got hands snapping up to my throat. There's a surprised shout, an attempt at a punch, but I manage to slam him into the doorframe. I read nightmares coming off his brainpan, internal howls telling him he's failed.

I hear Barg and Arabella shouting my name, falling chairs and movement from somewhere behind me. It distracts me enough for the guy to get one hand on me, press something into my arm—flashes of angels, scriptures come to life—and I collide with a wall, take a fist in the face. My nose fills up with fluid, and I snort as I punch back, grab an arm and swing him all of two inches before he knocks me off-balance.

Then Barg and Paul are on him, grabbing arms and waist and throat. I feel desperation, a five-ton press of faith under his skin; I roll free as they bash him in the head with a cast-iron pan and body-check him to the floor.

His throaty whimper is Arabella's cue to turn on the lights; the guy throws his hands over his eyes, winces as he struggles for a sense of position. It's the man from Carmel's memories, from Caring Tommy's apartment, a battered old man in a thick green overcoat. Barg kicks him when he tries to stand up again, gets the duct tape off the dining room table; the battered man looks at the spool of silver, and decides to give everyone a heart attack.

"Inquisition!" he shouts, as lead balls drop into our stomachs. "Inquisition, damn it, I've got rights!"