Nobody in the diner paid any attention to the little man in the corner. The leggy blonde waitress had given him the once over when he entered. She judged the short, grey-haired man in the drab business suit to be some mid-level manager at one of the computer companies nearby, or maybe a traveling salesman come in to beat the heat. The customers gave him no notice, absorbed in their own concerns. If the little man played an important role in their lives, they showed absolutely no awareness of the fact.

He sat at the far end of the counter, took several deep breaths, and leaned against the wall to which the counter was firmly attached. In a hoarse, rasping voice, he asked the waitress for coffee. He weakly stroked a goatee surrounded by days-old stubble. The skin on his plump hands displayed an odd sheen. In the bright fluorescent lights, it palpitated to motions half-hidden beneath the flesh.

The waitress poured the coffee, eyed him again with her big blues, and moved on to another diner at the far end of the counter.

That insignificant action saved her life.

The small man suddenly looked up, intense agony burning on his face. He seized the arm of a passing customer.

“They’ve crossed the barrier!” he cried out in a terrified voice. “They know what we are!”

The other diners stopped eating and talking to stare at the commotion. Now they noticed the little man. Too late.

“Hey, Mac, get your damn-” The burly construction worker tried to pry the frantic man’s hand from his own sleeveless arm, then jumped back in horror.

The little man’s fingers dissolved into a wet, silvery mess.

The bigger man tried to swab the slime off his arm, watching the other man in shock. He backed into a booth by the window, grabbed a fistful of napkins, and struggled to smear the tingling, viscous fluid off him.

The crumbling man stared at the stump where his wrist ended. He watched the sleeve of his limp jacket bend downward in a sickeningly wet way. Wrist, forearm, elbow softened and liquefied. He looked wildly around him for someone who would comprehend.

“They know what we are!” he shouted again, bits of glistening spittle erupting from his mouth. His wild eyes clouded over. The right arm melted entirely, the sleeve wet and dripping silver liquid on the yellow and grey linoleum squares.

He abruptly sat straight up on the stool, trembling. Suddenly, from somewhere deep inside him, his voice arose resonant and terrifying.

“I am the Angel of Death!”

The voice silenced instantly as the body of the old man collapsed in on itself. With a stomach-churning hiss of gasses, his chest collapsed and his head softened and grew shapeless, like a wax mask melting. The silver liquid gushed to the floor. His suit fell limp, draping wetly over the stool. Then, seconds later, it too disintegrated as if eaten by acid.

The customers ran from the diner in terror.

Some-overcome by nausea-fell to the sidewalk, sick at the curb. The black, muscular cook ran out of the kitchen, mystified at the empty diner until the waitress pointed in mute terror at the gruesome scene.

The silvery liquid drenched the far end of the diner. Worse, the stool on which the man once sat leaned perilously to one side, the chromed steel shaft softening like taffy in the sun. With a squish, the stool fell over into the glimmering slush.

“What the hell happened?” the husky cook demanded.

The waitress, breathless, whispered, “The Angel of Death.”

•

The barricade went up around the diner as soon as the police arrived. The supervising detective put a rookie patrolman in charge of cordoning off the area with the yellow tape that declared

Police Line-Do Not Cross.

Los Gatos was a sleepy suburb of San Jose, California, some of its inhabitants wealthy executives in the Silicon Valley computer industry. Most lived comfortably; a few hung on in desperate straits. Detective R. J. Fleming figured that the victim came from the last group. He ran a hand through his blonde hair and peered in through the door.

“Looks like silver paint, don’t it?” the slender, carrot-topped rookie asked.

“You got that thing tied off?” Fleming demanded, nodding toward the roll of tape in the kid’s hand.

“Yessir.”

“Wrap it once more around your mouth.” Fleming’s gaze turned to the service counter. The section coated in silver appeared withered and sunken. “Baggerly!” he shouted over his shoulder.

“Sir!”

“Get the HazMat team rolling. Tell ‘em we’ve got one dead and another one contaminated.”

“Any idea what it is?”

Fleming shook his head. Turning away from the diner entrance, he observed the two paramedics hovering around the construction worker.

He was a big man, black oily hair and brooding black eyes. He sat on the curb with his left arm in a brace holding it up and out so that the paramedics could examine it easily.

“What do you make of it?” Fleming asked the male medic.

The woman answered. “We can’t figure out if it’s a liquid or a very finely divided powder. Whatever it is, it seems to have penetrated his skin. We can’t wipe it off.”

Fleming lit a cigarette. “Then I’d suggest cutting his arm off before it hits his bloodstream.”

The woman looked at him in professional disgust. “I don’t think we have to be that drastic.”

“Oh, yeah?” The detective jerked his thumb toward the diner. “Did you take a look in there?”

The paramedics shook their heads.

“I didn’t think so.” Fleming looked at their patient. “You want to tell them what happened?”

Terror suddenly filled the huge man’s eyes. He turned toward the woman. “I want you to cut it off. Right now. He touched me. Just like that.” He slapped his hand against the male paramedic’s arm. “And then he melted. Just melted.” He stared up at Fleming, imploring. “You gotta tell them to.”

Fleming looked at the doubting faces, then shrugged. “I’d do it if I were you.”

The female paramedic snorted. “Well, you’re not, lucky for this guy.”

“HazMat on the line,” Officer Baggerly shouted. “They’ll be here in twenty minutes.”

Fleming looked from the worker to the diner to the TV news vans pulling up.

“Twenty minutes,” he muttered.

Leila Weir sat at the computer terminal. Nearly six feet tall, raven-haired with skin the color of fine ivory, and a figure-clad now in a deep navy jump suit-that haunted men forever, her god looks caused a plurality of the automotive damage claims in Southern California.

The screen she watched displayed a false-color image of a man. A riot of carnelian, azure, umber, and violet hues enveloped the body. Around it, loops and spirals of light spun in a crazy rhythm, alternating from red through orange to yellow.

“No ill effects yet,” she noted in the recorder mounted at eye level. She threw a set of switches. A humming sound pervaded the room, electrifying it with an eerie, almost palpable energy. The image on the screen began to throw off points of white light like a child’s sparkler.

“Bozhe moi! Get me out of here!” a muffled voice shouted over the comm set. “Suit is on fire!”

Weir threw a bank of switches, cutting all power to the system. The humming cycled down to nothing. The colors around the figure on the screen descended the spectral scale into darkness.

To her left, a hatchway slammed open with an ear-splitting hiss. Smoke and steam belched outward like fumes from a mine explosion. With a deep breath, the woman leapt from her console to the crimson cylinder on the nearby wall. With practiced skill, she activated the fire extinguisher and blasted her way into the chamber. The white cloud of carbon dioxide and Halon mingled with the smoke and steam to create a dank, thick billowing fog that permeated the room.