It was that ambition-whether practical or not-that had kept Tesla and Grillo talking to each other in the years since the Grove. Though she had gone wandering, and he seldom left his apartment, they were both engaged in the same search for connections. She had failed to find them in the Americas-it was chaos out there-and doubted Grillo had been any more lucky; but they still had the search in common. And she never failed to marvel at his ability to put two apparently disparate fragments of information together to suggest a third more provocative possibility. How a rumor from Boca Raton confirmed a hint from a suicide note found in Denver which in turn supported a thesis spoken in tongues by a prodigy in New Jersey.

"So what have you heard?"

"People have been sighting Fletcher on and off for the last five years, Tes," he said. "He's like Bigfoot, or Elvis. There's not a month goes by I don't get somebody sending me his picture."

"Any of them the real thing?"

"Shit, I don't know. I used to think His words trailed away for a moment, as though he'd lost track of his thought.

"Grillo?"

"Yeah."

"What did you used to think?"

"It doesn't matter," he said a little wearily.

"Yes it does."

He drew a long, ragged breath. "I used to think it mattered whether or not things were real. I'm not so sure any more...." Again he faltered. This time she didn't prompt him, but waited until he had his thoughts in order. "Maybe the messiahs we imagine are more important than the real thing. At least they don't bleed when you crucify 'em."

For some reason he found this extremely funny, and Tesla was obliged to wait while he got over his bout of laughter.

"Is that it then?" she said, faintly irritated now. "You don't think it matters whether things are real or not, so I should just give up caring?"

"Oh I care," he said. "I care more than you know." He was suddenly icy.

"What the hell's wrong with you, Grillo?"

"Leave it alone, Tes." "Maybe I should come see you

"No! "

"Why the hell not?"

"I just-leave it alone." He sighed. "I gotta go," he said. "Call me tomorrow. I'll see if I can dig up anything useful about Fletcher. But, you know Tes, I think it's time we grew up and stopped looking for fucking explanations."

She drew breath to reply, but the line was already dead. In the old days, they'd had a routine of cutting each other off in mid-farewell; an asinine game, but diverting. He wasn't playing now, however. He'd cut her off because he wanted to be away from her. Back to his grapevine, or to the doubts rotting on it.

Well it was worth a try, Raul said.

"I'm going to go see him," Tesla thought.

We only just got here. Can't we stay in one place for a few days. Kick back? Relax?

She opened the sliding door and stepped out onto the balcony. It was a voyeur's paradise. She could see into half a dozen living rooms and bedrooms from where she stood. The indows of the apartment directly across the yard from her open wide; people were partying there, music and aughter floating her way. She didn't know the hosts: They'd moved in a year or so ago, after the death of Ross, who'd been in residence a decade when she'd moved in. The plague had taken him, the way it had taken so man others in the vicinity, even before she'd left for her travels. But the parties went on, the laughter went on.

"Maybe you're right," she thought to Raul, "maybe it is time I-"

There was a knock on the door. Had somebody seen her listening alone on the balcony, and come to invite her over?

"What is it?" she called as she crossed the living room.

The voice from the far side of the door was little more than a whisper.

"Lucien," it said.

He had come without Kate Farrell or her sidekick Eddie knowing; told them he wanted to look up some friends in L.A. before he rejoined the pursuit of Fletcher. "Where's Kate gone?" Tesla wanted to know. "Up to Oregon." "What's in Oregon?"

Lucien sipped the neat vodka Tesia had poured for him, and looked a little guilty. "I don't know if I should be telling you this," he said,

"but I think there's more going on than Kate realizes. She talks about Fletcher as though he's got all these answers-"

"Fletcher's in Oregon?" Lucien nodded. "How do you know?"

"Kate has a spirit-guide. Her name's Friederika. She came through after Kate lost her daughter. Kate was channeling her when you arrived.

And she picked up the scent."

"I see." "A lot of people still find it difficult to believe-"

"I've believed a lot weirder," Tesla replied. "was, uh, was Friederika specific about this, or was it just somewhere in Oregon?"

"Oh no, she's very specific."

"So they've gone looking for him?"

"Right." He drew a deep breath, swallowed the last of his vodka, then said: "And I came after you." He gazed up at her with those submarine eyes. "was I wrong to do that?" She was very seldom dumbfounded, but this silenced her. "Shit," he said, grimacing, "I thought-maybe something was going on... " The words became shrugs.

"Have another vodka," she said.

"No, I think I'd better go."

"Stay," she said, catching hold of his arm with a little more urgency than she'd intended. "I want you to know what you're getting into."

"I'm ready."

"And drink up. You'll need it."

She told him everything. Or at least everything her increasingly vodka-sodden brain could remember. How she'd first gone to Palomo Grove because Grillo was there writing a story, and how circumstances had elected her-much against her will-as Fletcher's cremator, or liberator, or both. How after his death she'd traveled down to his laboratory in the Misi6n de Santa Catrina to destroy whatever remained of the Nuncio, only to be shot in the attempt by the Jaff s son, Tommy-Ray. How she had been saved, and changed, by the very fluid she'd come to destroy, and then returned to the Grove with Raul-via the apartment they were sitting in-to find it close to destruction, Here she stopped. Getting this far had taken the better part of three hours, and she still had to speak of the most problematic part of the whole story. The party in the apartment opposite had quieted down considerably, the various rock-and-roll of earlier forsaken in favor of ballads for slowdancing. It was scarcely the most appropriate music to accompany what she had to say.

"You know about Quiddity of course," she said.

"I know what Friederika's said." "And what's that?"

"That it's some kind of dream-sea, and we go there three times in our lives. Edward says it's a metaphor for-2'

"Fuck metaphors," Tesla said. "It's real."

"Have you been there?"

"No. But I know people who have. I saw the Jaff tear a hole between this world and Quiddity-4ear it open with his bare hands." This was not strictly true. She'd not been in the room when the Jaff had done the deed. But the story played so much better telling it as though she had.

"What was it like?" "I don't want to live through it again, put it that way." Lucien poured himself another vodka. He'd started to look distinctly queasy in the last few minutes@is face pasty and moist-but if he needed the liquor to deal with what he was hearing, who was she to argue? "So who closed the door?" he asked her.

"That doesn't matter," she said. "Doors open, doors close. It's what's on the other side you need to know about."

"You already told me. Quiddity."

"Beyond Quiddity," she said, aware that the very words carried a palpable menace. He looked at her with his green eyes now bloodshot, breathing rather too fast through his open mouth. "Maybe you don't want to know," she said.

"I want to know," he replied, without a trace of inflection.

"they'rc called the lad Uroboros."