"Blessed be," she muttered in a breathless old voice. "Kasmira!" The shout sounded like a gunshot.

The girl entered quickly.

"Fetch me two orange candles and the large purple one. Remember to mark them down as office use in the inventory."

Kasmira nodded and whirled about to leave. Even in her haste, she maintained an air of otherworldliness.

"Over here," the crone said, making her way to the altar. Her cane tapped against the wooden floor like a skeleton's heel. She eased down, took a moment to adjust her dress, then began to arrange things on the top of the low table. She made with small talk all the while.

"What do you do for a living, Mr. Ammo?"

I shrugged noncommittally. "Find missing movie stars, prevent world wars, calculate batting averages-the usual."

She set a couple of white candles on the table around a chalked-in star. The five-pointed variety. She harrumphed and continued.

"The aura of death that you radiate-is that the usual, too?"

That made me frown. I never thought of myself as a particularly transparent person.

"A living soul projects many aspects," I said. That ought to amuse her.

"So it does, Mr. Ammo. So it does. On this plane and others. I see death in Malkuth-the sphere of Earth. Higher in the Tree of Life I see-other manifestations."

"I see." I didn't see.

Kasmira stepped in with the three candles. Bridget took them and thanked her. "Now watch the store, dear, and don't let anyone-or anything-disturb us."

"Yes, Grandmother." The girl tipped her head and ducked out of the room. The door swung shut, closing with a muted whoosh.

"It would appear, Mr. Ammo," the old dame said, "that you have an impressive destiny awaiting you."

"Mom will be thrilled."

"Yes, Mr. Ammo," she said, putting an orange candle on one of the points of the star. "She will be."

The old sorceress threw more incense into the dragon's belly. The room faded in a microcosm of L.A. smog.

Ann took a deep breath, savored it with a smile, and let it out slowly. I tried not to choke.

The lights dimmed. She probably had a switch under the altar. A dull red glow from the censer illuminated our faces.

"I must ask silence now, until you are requested to speak."

Ann and I nodded.

She struck a long wooden match, flooding the room with a surprisingly bright light. The flame touched the purple candle to ignite the wick. She lit the two orange ones next and finally the white ones. Five bright flames flickered at the points of the star.

She mumbled phrases that sounded like the echoes of a dying race's last words-or like the whispers of a new race's first. Sweet smoke wafted and swirled around her to catch orange light and black shadow. Her age-ravaged face became a harsh, angular mask mouthing her chant.

She broke the cadence of her invocation to say, "Join your hands." She resumed her mumbo-jumbo. Ann reached out, and I took her hands in mine. They felt smooth and lusciously warm, like ivory left in the sun. Our fingers entwined into a kind of quadruple fist and remained tightly bound between us.

Bridget's right hand reached out to clutch our fist. Her skin felt feverishly hot where I'd expected the cool touch of old age. Fingers like talons gripped the mass of locked knuckles and held on tightly.

A cloud of smoke from the dragon blew into my face, stinging my eyes. I blinked and tried to stop the irritated tears from flowing.

Bridget took a sudden sharp breath. In a loud, trembling voice, she mispronounced Ann's name-calling her "Anna Perrenina," as if she were Russian or something. The old woman's face grew placid, though her hand retained its iron grasp. She spoke in English now.

"The blood you see is the blood of the Maiden. The first blood. Blood of the Virgin, the Moon's tide. The tail of the Dark One points the way out and down, running near full circle."

She paused, her eyebrows wrinkling above sealed lids.

"The paradoxical one is the gambit. A thousand men, yet none. The obsidian blade is poised, the blood to flow greater."

Her voice rose in pitch, sped up. "Beneath the Earth is the realm of monsters born of fire who shun both day and night. The time of the Number is nigh! Two great forces must join, and two great forces must clash!" Her hand snapped away from ours and pointed at me.

I felt that terrible cold envelope me again.

"The storm is in your center!"

She seemed to be staring at me right through her shut eyes. Her finger wavered, drifted away from its target. She moaned.

Without warning, the candles fell over-knocked by something unseen. In the sudden, chilling darkness, I yanked my hands away from Ann and struggled to rise, listening for intruders.

Bridget breathed wearily somewhere on the floor to my left. Ann held her breath, made no sound.

From outside the room came the sounds of shattering glass. Kasmira's screams drifted through the walls and curtains with muted intensity, like a dim, nightmarish memory.

I made it to my feet and felt my way toward the door. Even the glow from the embers of incense had died out. I heard more glass breaking.

Ann found the light switch and turned it on. The bright glare of the overhead fluorescent tubes nearly blinded me. I saw her turning to attend to the fallen crone.

"Thanks, angel," I said, rushing to the door.

The crowd busting up the store stopped the second I stomped in. They were a strange lot-mostly young, mostly well-dressed. Trim, shaven, shorn. The black, leatherbound books they used to swat at the merchandise were like badges on cops. The crosses they swung as swords to smash bottles and panes told me the whole story. Or so I thought.

"Knock it off, kids. Go show your religious tolerance somewhere else."

They stared at me. I felt colder than ever.

The cleanest, most upright looking of the bunch-an auburn-haired boy in a blue serge suit-stepped to the front of the crowd and ogled me with the look of a rabid gopher.

"We know what you witches are up to." His voice trembled with rage. "God told us you're the one. You and these devil-worshippers have made a pact to-"

"Look, kid." I raised my voice to carry across the crowd. "I don't care what personal revelations you get in the bathtub, but I'm just a normal man doing normal things in a normal place of commerce. Scram before I call an atheist."

The kid held up his crucifix. The others followed his lead. I must have disappointed them when I didn't burst into flames or transmute into a bat. I made the mistake of letting loose with an appropriately derisive snort.

The youngsters took a collective step forward, broken glass crunching under their heels.

"Now you've done it," Kasmira said from behind the counter. "Jesus Chr-"

The ringleader's voice exploded. "A witch profanes our Lord's name!"

"Thanks, Kas," I said.

A cross spun through the air, whirring till it bounced off the steel edge of a shattered display.

I resorted to my parole officer image. "Can it, punks. You're not giving your faith much of a public relations boost."

"We're ready to die for our Lord," shouted a voice from the back.

"Right," I said, "and ready to kill for your Prince of Peace. You dopes give me a pain where I put chairs. For the second time-scram!"

The kids looked at one another nervously. The one with the loud mouth spoke in a voice that quavered with anger.

"There shall come a Rapture when all true Christians will rise unto Heaven, leaving you and your scum to the Earth and its Tribulation" "Well," I said, looking several of them in the eyes, "`the dead in Christ shall rise first.' Anyone want to get at the head of the line?"

The loudmouth in front suddenly looked as if he'd been struck in the face with a brick. He stared at a point somewhere behind me. So did the others, with varying degrees of alarm.