"I knew we chose well," she, he, or it said. "You are all we hoped you'd be."

Tesla glanced back at Tommy-Ray. He was still blanketed in mist, still grieving. But he'd come for the child sooner or later. This was no time to be quizzing her unwanted patrons in depth. Just a few questions, and she'd have to go.

"Who the hell are you?"

"We are Jai-Wai," the creature replied. "And I am Rare Utu. Yie and Haheh you already know."

"That doesn't tell me anything," Tesia replied. "I want to know what the fuck you are."

"Too long a story to tell you now," Rare Utu replied.

"Then I'm never going to hear it," Tesia said.

"Perhaps it's better that way," Yie replied. "Better you go on your way."

"Yes, go on," the third of the trio said. "We want to know what happens next-2' "Haven't you seen enough?" Tesla said.

"Never," said Rare Utu, almost sorrowfully. "Buddenbaum showed us so much. So much."

"But never enough," Yie said. "Maybe you should try getting involved," Tesla said.

Rare Utu actually shuddered. "We could never do that," she said.

"Never."

"Then you'll never be satisfied," Tesla said, and turning from them, she started back towards her bike, casting glances at Tommy-Ray now and again. She needn't have worried. He was still smothered in the mists of his legion.

She broke a couple of bungee cords out of the tool box and carefully secured the baby to the back seat. Then she started the engine, half expecting the sound to bring the legion scurrying to find her. But no. When she rounded the corner the Death-Boy and his ghosts had not moved. She drove on past them, glancing back once to see if the Jai-Wai had gone from the slope. they had. They'd had the pleasure of the triple tragedy here, damn them, and moved on to find some other entertainment.

She felt nothing but contempt for them. Plainly they were of some higher order of being, but their vicarious interest in the spectacle of human suffering sickened her. Tommy-Ray couldn't help himself. they could.

And yet, for all her rage towards them, the phrase they had repeated over and over kept returning, and would, she supposed, until death deafened her.

What next? That was the eternal inquiry. What next? What next? What next?

"Are they planning to crucify you, D'Amour?"

Harry turned from the crosses in front of which he stood, and looked at the monkish fellow who was emerging from the mist. He was a study in simplicity, his dark clothes without a single concession to vanity, his hair cropped until it barely shadowed his scalp, his wide, plain face almost colorless. And yet, there was something here Harry knew, something in the eyes.

"Kissoon?" The man's blank expression soured. "It is, isn't it?"

"How did you know?"

"Untether me and I'll tell you," Harry said. He'd been tied to a stake driven into the ground.

"I'm not that interested," Kissoon replied. "Did I ever tell you how much I like your name? Not Harold; Harold's ridiculous. But D'Amour. I may take it, when you're up there." He nodded towards the middle cross. Gamaliel and Bartho were in the midst of taking down the woman's body.

"Maybe I'll have a hundred names," Kissoon went on. Then, dropping his voice to a whisper: "And maybe none at all." This seemed to please him.

"Yes, that's for the best. to be nameless." His hands went up to his cheek. "Maybe faceless too.You think the lad's going to make you King of the World'?" Harry said.

"You've been talking to Tesla."

"It's not oing to happen, Kissoon."

"Are you familiar with the works of Filip the Chantiac? No? He was a hermit. Lived on an island, a tiny island, close to the coast of Almoth's Saw. Very few people dared go there- they feared the currents carrying them past the Chantiac's island and washing them up on the lad's shore-but those who did came back with fragments of his wisdom-"

"Which were?"

"I'll get to that. The thing is, Filip the Chantiac had been the ruler of the city of b'Kether Sabbat in his time, and he'd been all the things we pray for our leaders to be. But even so there was dissension and violence and hatred in his city. So one day he said, 'I can't deal with the taint of Sapas Humana any longer,' and took himself off to his island. And at the end of his life, when somebody asked him what he wished for the world, he said, 'I dream only of an end to courage and compassion and devotion. An end to human strength, and to human endurance. An end to brotherhood. An end to sisterhood. An end to defiance in grief, and consolation in laughter. An end to hope. Then we may all return to fishes, and be content."'

"And that's what you want?" Harry said.

"Oh yes. I want an end-"

"to what?" "to that damn city for one," Kissoon replied, nodding down the mountain in the direction of Everville. He came a little closer. Harry scrutinized his face, looking for some crack in the mask, but he could see none. "I spent a lot of time sealing up neirica across the continent," he said. "Making sure that when the lad finally came through it would be over thiv threshold they came."

"You don't even know what they are-"

"It doesn't really matter. They're bringing the end of things. That's what's important."

"And what'll happen to you?"

"I'll have this hill," Kissoon said, "and I'll look down from it on a world of fishes."

"Suppose you're wrong?" "About what?"

"About the lad. Suppose they're pussycats?"

"They're everything that's rotted in us, D'Amour. They're every fetid, fucked-up thing that feeds on our sbit, and waits to be loosed when nobody's looking." He came closer still, until he was just out of Harry's range. His hand had gone to his chest. "Have you looked into the human heart recently?" he said.

"Not in the last couple of days, no."

"Unspeakable, the things in there-"

"In you, maybe."

"Everyone, D'Amour, everyone! Rage and hatred an' d appetite!" He pointed back towards the door. "That's what coming, D'Amour. It won't have a human face, but it')] have a human heart. I guarantee it."

Behind Harry, the body of Kate O'Farrell was dropped to the ground. He glanced back at her, the agony of her last moments fixed upon her face.

"A terrible thing, the human heart," Kissoon was saying. "A very terrible thing."

It took Harry a moment to persuade his eyes from the dead woman's face, as though some idiot part of him thought he might learn some way to avoid her suffering by studying it. When he looked back at Kissoon, the man had turned away, and was heading up the slope again. "Enjoy the view, D'Amour," he said, then was gone.

As Joe left the city streets to follow the lad along the shoreto witness, if nothing more, to witness-the ground began to shudder. to his left, the dream-sea threw itself into a greater frenzy than ever. to his right, the highway that ran along the edge of the beach cracked and buckled, falling away in places. The mass of lad, which was now within two hundred yards of' the door, was apparently indifferent to the tremors. It had resembled many things to Joe in his brief time knowing it. A wall, a cloud, a diseased body. Now it looked to him like a swarm of minute insects so dense it kept every speck of light and comprehension out as it seethed towards its destination, The door had grown considerably in the hours since 'd first stepped through it. Though its lower regions were till wreathed in mist, its highest point was now several hundred yards above the beach, and rising even as he watched, cracking the heavens. If there were angels on the other side, he thought, this would be the time for them to show their faces; to swoop and drive the lad back with their glory. But the crack went on growing, and the lad advancing, and the only response was not from heaven, but from the earth on which his spirit stood The rock's convulsions did not go unfelt on Harmon's Heights. The tremors ran through ground and mist alike, causing some measure of alarm amongst Zury's faction. Harry couldn't see them, but he could hear them well enough, their songs of welcome-which they had only recently begun@ecaying into sobs of fearful expectation as the violence in the rock escalated.