Introductions over, Ellen held up a plastic bag and pulled out a crumpled tabloid, the Seattle Weekly.“I found this in my recycling bin,” she explained, and opened the paper on the wooden table to the classifieds. A small section had been torn out, about the size of one or two personals. “Virginia might know what it means.”

Ginny turned away, face red.

“No need to be frightened or ashamed,” Bidewell said.

“Of course not. Where isMiriam?” Agazutta asked, looking to the wooden door at the other end of the room.

Farrah continued to stare at Ginny, patient, implacable. Measuring. “The girl knows,” she said softly.

“She’s been there—and escaped.”

Ginny glared at her, then the others, helpless, defiant, like a deer surrounded by tigers. As if on cue, Minimus leaped onto the table and sat by the paper. He lifted a white paw and scratched madly at the tabloid, shredding it.

“There is the question these hunters always ask as they lure their young prey into a trap,” Bidewell said.

“Someone is about to answer.”

“A young man named Jack,” Ellen said. “Another like you, Virginia. A fate-shifter.”

“‘Do you dream of a city at the end of time?’” Ginny whispered.

“We know,” Farrah said. “Our time’s shorter than we thought. What can we do?”

The wooden door at the far end of the library opened and Miriam Sangloss entered. “Finally,” Agazutta said.

“Apologies.” Beneath a dripping brown slicker, Sangloss wore a short white lab coat, blue blouse, and jeans. Under her left arm she carried a black leatherette folio. “Sorry I’m late.” She removed her slicker and looked around the room, sensing the tension, then grimaced and added, in an aside to Ginny, “Glad to know somepeople take my advice.”

Bidewell cleared a space on the table, pushing the shredded tabloid into a wastebasket. Sangloss laid down the folio and untied it. “I’m now a burglar,” she said, and explained how she had just ransacked a young man’s apartment in the Queen Anne neighborhood. “I got the address from his clinic record. I found this, but couldn’t find his sum-runner. He must have it with him.”

Again, Ginny blinked in surprise.

“They’ve collected him and his stone,” the redhead, Agazutta, said, and slapped her hand on the top of a chair.

“Perhaps not yet,” Miriam said. “But soon. He’s a very confused young man.”

“No more confused than the rest of us,” Farrah said.

The rain hissed on the roof. Minimus looked up, pupils round and deep. Bidewell turned to Ginny. “You should not be afraid of us, Miss Carol. We preserve and protect. The ones on the other end of that ad…” He shook his head. “They’re the monsters.”

“Now that that’sclear,” Miriam said, “let me show you what I found in Jack’s apartment.” She opened the folio and laid a short stack of sketched pages before Ginny. The topmost had been executed in watercolor, crayon, and dark pencil, with daubs and sweeps of pastel color. “Anything look familiar?”

Against her will, Ginny angled her head and looked down at the first drawing. Tiadba. The word—a name—just popped into her head. Remembering was difficult. My visitor…Tiadba has seen these. They look like ships surging into a heavy sea. They must be huge, all three of them…whatever they are. And now she’s sorry she ever left their protection.

“That’s a yes?” Miriam asked, eyes bright. She flipped to the next sheet. Ginny covered her mouth and looked away.

What had been sketched there, with crude skill and determination, was the last thing she would ever hope to see. A huge head rising on a weird scaffold over a rolling black land—tiny, fleeing figures giving it perspective. The head was big as a mountain, its one round, dead eye fixed on a distant point, stabbing a sharp gray beam through smoke and fog. A moan seized in her throat and turned into a fit of coughing. The Witness.

“Poor child,” said Farrah. “Get her some water, Conan.”

“I’m sorry,” Miriam said. “It does look grim, doesn’t it? I wish we could put all the pieces together. We’ve never actually seen these things.”

“Neither have I,” Ginny said. “Not personally…I mean.”

“In dreams,” Bidewell said. “Have you met the young man who drew these?”

Ginny shook her head. “Is he the one they’re collecting?”

“Let’s hope not,” Miriam said. “Ladies…”

They all stood.

“We need you to come with us,” Ellen told Ginny. “Conan will stay here, as always.”

“I have no choice,” Bidewell said.

“Where?” Ginny asked, glancing between them.

“We’ll follow the storm,” Miriam said. “Track the lightning. It’s going to get worse, and nobody knows what this young man will do. If he’s as talented as you, he might just survive until morning. Oh, and one more thing.” The doctor reached into her lab coat pocket and pulled out a package wrapped in brown paper. “I found this in a shop near the clinic. Paid quite a lot to convince the pawnbroker to part with it.”

CHAPTER 34

Jack’s thoughts fluttered like a bird in a net. Less than five minutes had passed since he’d made the call. He could climb off the balcony, swing to the porch below…run off down the alley. But a sugary warmth stopped him.

On the other side of the door: friends, thick and sweet as treacle. No need to flee, no need to fear. His feet would not move. Every path equal. Every outcome a good one.

“We are here!” Glaucous cried. “You called, and we are here to give you the answers you need.” Then, almost inaudibly, “I’m afraid I’ve stunned him. You may force entry, my dear.”

Even after the third heavy bang on the door—as if a concrete block were about to shiver the poor wood to splinters—Jack could feel excellent conclusions everywhere.

He recovered enough to step back. The fourth slam bent the door like a piece of cardboard and blew it from its hinges, twirling the jamb’s jagged splinter on a bent dead bolt. Wind blew into the living room. Somewhere, Jack’s rats squeaked. Despite the noise, the rush of wind, and the drops of rain, Jack did not feel afraid; his feet might as well have been glued to the thin carpet. A short, taut, bulky man in gray tweed entered and removed his flat cap with thick, ruddy fingers. His face was flat and pink as a doll’s, a hideous doll—and his eyes, small and efficient, swept the apartment and Jack with a minimum of motion. His instant smile was toothy and broad, like a Toby mug. He radiated sincerity and human kindness. “Good evening,” he insisted. His presence commanded respect—demanded cheer.

“Hello,” Jack said.

Through the frame of the broken door he saw a shadow loom, a heavy arm draw back, and at the end of the arm, an impossible hand—the hand of a comic book hero or villain, square-knuckled, fingers flexing with power and pain. The shadow drew into the light: a woman, very large. She rose up forever. Her face was the white of packed ice or bone china. Raindrops fell along the curves and dips of her whiteness, down to the tip of her blunt, large nose, where nostrils opened like black manholes. Her eyes opened to central, cataract blankness. A quick smile on her thick, greenish lips, glittering with moisture, revealed small, precisely socketed teeth. A scut of hair splayed out beneath her flat, ludicrous hat like dead gray moss.

The rats shrieked like terrified children. Both Glaucous and his companion had to be imaginary, Jack was certain. They had to be symptoms of the final and fatal dropping of all his marbles.

“Shall we come in?” Glaucous asked, though he was already through the opening. Jack used all his will to back off another step. He could almost hear the awful sweet glue pulling up beneath his soles.

The huge woman stooped to pass through.

“This is my partner,” Glaucous said. “Her name is Penelope.”

Jack sucked in his breath and half twisted, but the gnome’s sorrowful disappointment held him. Things seemed to fall into place; gusts of air, flits of dust, turns of tiny events conspired to hold him steady. That was interesting. That interested Jack no end.