"Where'd you train?"

"In my homeland—Viet Nam."

Jack wondered if he'd been a Cong.

"Army?"

His dark eyes never left the living room. "Special Forces."

Knew it!

"What's in the bag beside the billy?"

Ba glanced at him, his eyes searching his face for a moment, then he handed the bag to Jack.

Jack took it and loosened the drawstrings. From its weight he guessed there wasn't much more than the billy inside but he checked anyway. He pulled out the club and stared dumbfounded at the hundreds of tiny, gleaming, glass-like teeth protruding from the final ten inches of its business end.

"Good Lord," he whispered. "These are teeth from those—" What had Glaeken called them? "—chew wasps."

Ba said nothing.

Jack gave the club a few short test swings. He'd seen what those little teeth could do. A billy club studded with them made one hell of a weapon.

"How many did you kill?"

"A few," Ba said.

"How about the glob things? Get any of those?"

Ba shook his head.

"Watch out for them," Jack said. He lifted his partially eaten-away sneaker for Ba to see. "The glop in their bellies does this to rubber. It's even worse on skin."

Ba's eyes flicked to Jack's bandaged arm, then away.

Jack slipped the club back into the sack and held it out to him.

"Think you could make me one of those?"

Ba pushed the sack toward Jack. "You may have this."

Reflexively, Jack began to refuse. He didn't accept gifts from strangers. He didn't like to be indebted to anyone, especially someone he'd just met. But he caught himself. They'd met only a few moments ago, had spoken only a few words—Ba hardly any at all—yet he sensed a kinship with the other man. Something like this had happened only a few times in his life. A good feeling. Ba must have sensed it too. The big Oriental was making a gesture. Jack could not refuse.

"What about you? Won't you be needing it?"

"I will make myself another. Many, many teeth where I live."

"All right. I accept." Jack hefted the bag and tucked it under his arm. "Thank you, Ba. I have a feeling this might come in very handy."

Ba nodded silently and watched the living room.

Alan glanced over at where Ba was standing with the dark-haired, quick-eyed man who had been introduced simply as Jack. Something going on between those two, communication on a level he was not privy to. Odd…Ba related to almost no one outside the household.

Alan hauled his attention away from the pair and directed it toward Sylvia and Jeffy.

"He's here, isn't he, Mommy?" Jeffy was saying. He was bouncing on the seat cushion, his head swiveling this way and that. "Isn't he?"

"Yes," Sylvia said patiently. "That's what we were told."

"I bet he's in one of those rooms back there," he said. "Can I go back and see if he's—"

"Jeffy, please sit still," Sylvia said. "It's very bad manners to go wandering around someone's house."

"But I want to see him!"

She put an arm around the boy's shoulders and hugged him against her.

"I know you do, sweetie. So do I. That's why I'm here."

Poor Sylvia. She'd been having such a hard time with Jeffy since Veilleur had shown up two days ago. And now that he was here in the old man's home, the boy was like an overwound spring.

Alan could understand it. He too felt wired. Maybe it was the stress of last night, maybe it was all the coffee he'd poured down his throat this morning. But he had a feeling they were just a small part of it.

Veilleur was the major factor. For no good reason, something within Alan responded positively—no, enthusiastically—to the man. It had to have something to do with the months Alan had played host to the Dat-tay-vao. After reducing him to a comatose vegetable, the power—entity, elemental force, whatever it was—had deserted him. But it must have left some sort of residue within, whether clinging to his peritoneum, coating his meninges, or riding the neural currents along his axons, he couldn't say. All he knew was that he was drawn to this old man, trusted him; he still remembered the warm glow he'd felt at first sight of him.

And if that's how I feel, what must Jeffy feel?

For Alan had no doubt that the Dat-tay-vao had chosen Jeffy as its new residence.

He saw the priest, Father Ryan, return from the rear of the apartment. Mr. Veilleur followed him, wiping his hands on a towel as he walked in. And Alan felt that warmth again, glowing at his center, seeping throughout his torso and into his limbs.

And Jeffy…Jeffy was on his feet. He ran to the old man and clasped his leg in a bear hug. Veilleur stopped and smiled down at him as he smoothed the boy's hair.

"Hello, Jeffy. It's good to see you again."

The boy said nothing, merely looked up at Veilleur with glowing eyes.

Alan glanced over at the sofa where Sylvia, alone now, sat with a rigid spine and a tight, tense expression, chewing her lower lip as she watched the scene. Her eyes flashed with hurt—and anger. Alan knew the core of anger that coiled within Sylvia like a living thing. It had been quiescent in the past few months, but he vividly remembered how it used to bare its fangs and strike out at the unwary. He sensed it waking and stirring within her now.

His heart went out to her. She had taken Jeffy in when he'd been abandoned at age three by unknown parents who had been defeated by his autism. She had slaved over him with psychotherapy, physiotherapy, nutritional therapy, occupational therapy, butting her head and heart against the unyielding barricades of his autism without ever once entertaining the thought of giving up. And then, a miracle: the Dat-tay-vao smashed through his autistic shell and released the child trapped within. Sylvia at last had the little boy she had been seeking.

But now all that little boy seemed to care about was the mysterious old man who had appeared on her doorstep just two days ago.

Alan felt her hurt as if it were his own. He wanted to go to her side and put an arm around her to let her know he understood and was with her all the way, but he couldn't reach her with his hand and his wheelchair couldn't squeeze by the coffee table to get to where she was and these damn legs wouldn't carry him the lousy half-dozen feet to her side.

His legs. They infuriated him at times. Yes, they were getting stronger; slowly, steadily, he'd progressed to the point where he actually could stand for a few seconds. But that wouldn't help him now when Sylvia needed him. So he had to sit here, trapped in this ungainly, wheeled contraption and watch the woman he loved suffer. At times like this he—

A harsh voice broke through his thoughts.

You!

Alan twisted in his chair, searching for the source. He saw a tall, stoop-shouldered man with unruly dark hair standing in the hallway that led to the kitchen. His head was in constant motion, twisting back and forth, up and down, but his wild-eyed gaze remained pinned on Mr. Veilleur.

All around him was frozen silence. Even Jeffy fell quiet. The room had become a tableau.

"He hates you!"

Father Ryan came up behind him and gently took his arm, saying, "It's all right, Nick. Come back here with—"

"No." The man snatched his arm out of the priest's grasp and pointed a trembling finger at Veilleur. "He hates you so! He wants you to suffer!" He pointed to his head. "Here!" Then to his heart. "And here! And then he plans to make you suffer the tortures of the damned!"

Alan glanced at Veilleur and saw no sign of shock or fear in his wrinkled features. He looked like a man who was hearing exactly what he'd expected to hear. But his clear blue eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

"Come, Nick," Father Ryan was saying, trying to turn the man back toward the kitchen. "You're making a scene."