• 8:20 P.M.

Marten crossed the square to join a group of English tourists as they walked up a series of stone steps and entered the cathedral.

The atmosphere inside the fifteenth-century building's vast and ornate interior was hushed, its muted lighting broken by the flickering of hundreds of votive candles resting on tables on either side of the nave.

Marten lingered as the group moved forward, his eyes scanning the room for Demi or Beck or the woman in black. Here and there people sat in silent prayer. Others walked respectfully around, gazing up at the architecture. At the far end of the nave was a high, elaborate altar. Above it towered Gothic arches that rose toward a ceiling he guessed was eighty feet high.

A raspy, echoing cough from someone near his sleeve brought him back to the purpose at hand and he moved forward, carefully, slowly. If Demi and her companions were there, he didn't see them. He kept walking. Still nothing. Suddenly, he wondered if Beck or Demi had said something to the hotel doorman as they left, and the man had purposely sent him on a wild goose chase and in reality they had gone somewhere else and not come here at all. It was enough to trigger a sense that he should go back to the hotel now and-suddenly he stopped. There they were, the three of them, standing on the far side of the nave, talking with a priest.

Marten crossed it cautiously, using tourists as screens, moving closer to where they were, praying they wouldn't suddenly turn and see him.

He was almost within hearing distance when the priest gestured off, and together the four moved in that direction. Marten followed.

A moment later he was in an inner hallway that ran alongside a large interior garden. Ahead he saw the priest lead the three around a corner and down still another hallway. Again, Marten followed.

Thirty paces and he was there, cautiously entering a chapel of some kind. As he did he saw the priest usher Demi, Beck and the woman in black through an ornate door near the rear. Seconds later the door closed behind them. Immediately Marten went to it and tried its wrought-iron handle. It didn't move. The door was locked.

Now what? Marten turned. An elderly priest stood not ten feet away looking at him.

"I was hoping to find a restroom," Marten said innocently.

"That door leads to the vestry," the priest replied in heavily accented English.

"The vestry?"

"Yes, señor."

"Is it always locked?"

"Except in the hour before and after services."

"I see."

"You will find a restroom that way," the old man gestured toward a hallway behind them.

"Thank you," Marten said, and with no choice, left.

• 8:45 P.M.

Five minutes later he'd walked through as much of the main church as he could, trying to see where they might have gone. Other doors were either locked or opened onto corridors that led to still more corridors, but none seemed to take him in the direction of the chapel where they had been.

He retraced his steps and went out through the main entrance, then walked around the cathedral to the far side where he guessed the chapel was, looking for a doorway Demi and her friends might have come out of. There was none. A hike around the rest of the massive building's exterior revealed only entrances that were darkened and closed and locked. That left only the main entrance, where he'd only moments before come out. That was where he went, blending in among the tourists and passersby on the square in front of the cathedral, to take a table at an outdoor café across from it where he had a clear view of the entryway. He ordered a bottle of mineral water and later a cup of coffee. An hour passed and they still hadn't come out. At ten the doors closed for the night. Frustrated, angry with himself for losing them, Marten got up and left.

• RIVOLI JARDÍN HOTEL, 10:20 P.M.

Marten came off the noisy street jammed with pedestrians and bumper-to-bumper traffic and into the relative quiet of the hotel lobby. Immediately he crossed to the front desk to ask for calls or messages.

"Neither, señor," the clerk said politely.

"Did anyone come in asking for me?"

"No, señor."

"Thank you," Marten nodded then crossed to the elevator that would take him to his room on the fourth floor. A push of a button, the door opened, and he stepped into the empty car. Another push of a button, the door closed, and the elevator started up.

That he had no calls or messages and that no one had come looking for him was a distinct relief. It meant whoever had sent Salt and Pepper had yet to find a replacement who might have tracked him to the Rivoli Jardín. Demi, Peter Fadden, and Ian Graff at Fitzsimmons and Justice in Manchester had his cell phone number and would have gotten in touch with him that way. So for the moment, at least, he had a chance to breathe. No one knew where he was.

Demi.

His thoughts were suddenly on her and what she was doing or not doing. Obviously she was back in Beck's good graces or she wouldn't have gone off with him as she did. Where either of them was now and who the woman in black was, was anyone's guess. The fact was Demi remained a conundrum. It was true she had provided him with considerable information, especially as it related to the witches, the thumb tattoos, and the sign of Aldebaran, and that she had come to Barcelona hoping once again to meet with Merriman Foxx. On the other hand, and even though they were more or less after the same thing, she clearly wanted nothing to do with him. It made him think again of his impression of her when they had had lunch at the Four Cats; that as focused as she seemed, everything she was about seemed to have to do with something other than what was at hand. Whether that something was her missing sister, or if that story was even true, he had no way to know. What he did know was that a whole lot about her troubled him. It was as simple as that.

The elevator stopped at the fourth floor, the door opened and Marten stepped out into a deserted corridor. Twenty seconds later he reached the door to his room and swiped the coded electronic key through the lock. The tiny light turned from red to green and the lock clicked open. Bone weary, wanting only to shower and go to bed, he went in, turned on the hallway light, then closed the door behind him and locked it. To his left was the bathroom. Beyond it was the room itself. Dark with only the ambient glow from the street giving it any illumination at all. He walked just past the bathroom door and started to reach for the light switch to the room.

"Please don't turn the light on, Mr. Marten," a male voice sprang from the darkness of the room.

"Christ!" Marten felt ice run down his spine. Instantly he looked behind him. It would be impossible to get to the door, unlock it, then open it and get out before whoever was in the room had him. His heart pounding, he turned back, peering into the darkened room in front of him.

"Who the hell are you? What do you want?"

"I know you are alone. I watched you cross the street to the hotel from the window." The voice was calm, even quiet. This wasn't someone like the baggy-jacketed kid who had tailed him from Valletta to Barcelona or the German civil servant who had fled the instant he was challenged and then panicked and ran into the path of a truck.

"I said who the hell are you? What do you want?" Marten had no way to know if the man was alone or if there were others with him. Or if he was there to kill him or simply take him to Merriman Foxx.

Suddenly there was movement and he could see a lone male figure come toward him in the dark. In a swift move Marten undid his belt buckle and ripped the belt from his pants, wrapping it around his hand as a makeshift weapon.