Mystery Walk

and write in a completely different handwriting style. I've heard a little girl, also in a trance, speak in a man's voice. What does it mean? Simply that we have reached the edge of a new unknown, and we don't understand what lies before us.'

Dr. Hillburn took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She was suddenly very tired, and she'd so hoped this young man from Alabama would be the one she was looking for 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I don't disbelieve what you've told me about yourself and your family. Your friend Mr. Merkle was certainly convinced. But . . . how can we test that black aura you say you see? How can we test someone who feels he can calm the dead? I don't know. Until we come up with new, verifiable test procedures, we cannot. So I'm going to send your file around to some other parapsychologists. In the meantime . . . I'm sorry, but I've got a list of people waiting to come in. I'm going to have to ask you to vacate your room.'

'You . . . want me to leave?'

'No, I don't want you to; but I'm afraid you'll have to. I can give you until the end of the week, and we'll put you on a bus back home. I'm hopeful one of the other parapsychologists who get your file can ...'

Heat pulsed in Billy's face. He stood up abruptly, thinking of all the money he'd spent to come up here. 'I'll leave tomorrow,' he said. 'And nobody has to see me off. I thought you were going to help me!'

'I said we'd put you through some tests. We have. I'm groping through the dark, just as you are, and I wish I had room for everyone here who has psi potential, but we don't. It's not that I don't believe in your abilities. But right now there's only your word for them.'

'I see,' Billy said, confused and angry. All this time, wasted! 'I shouldn't have come up here. I was wrong, I know that now. You can't understand or help me, because you look at everything through machines. How can a machine know what's in my mind and soul? My mother, and her mother before her, never needed machines to help them do their work—and I don't, either.' He glowered at her and then stalked out of the office.

Dr. Hillburn couldn't blame him. She turned her chair toward the window to look at the park in the gray midafternoon sunlight. She hated to let Billy Creekmore go, because she sensed something about him—something important that she couldn't quite understand. But she needed the space he was occupying, and that was that. She drew in a deep breath and turned to her next priority, Bonnie Hailey's dream diary. Bonnie was still having dreams about a burning building, and her messenger was still trying to impress a word on her. Something that sounded like 'spines'? She reread Bonnie's latest dreams—all of them similar except for minor details—and then took a Chicago street map from a bookshelf behind her desk.

53

They came for Henry Bragg at a quiet hour, just before three in the morning, and turned on all the lights in his mirrored bedroom.

Niles was standing over the bed when Bragg got his eyeglasses on. 'Mr. Krepsin would like to see you,' Niles said. 'You won't need to get dressed, just your robe and slippers will do.'

'What's going on? What time is it?'

'It's early. Wayne's repaying a debt to Mr. Krepsin. It's important that you be there.'

Niles and a sturdy blond bodyguard named Dorn escorted Bragg into the east wing of the house, Krepsin's private domain. In the week since George Hodges had been gone, Bragg had felt as pampered as a prince. He was getting a good suntan and becoming addicted to pina coladas. When the young girls that Niles introduced to him fawned over him, he conveniently forgot about his wife, children, his house and legal practice. He'd begun wearing a chain around his neck with his zodiac sign on it. He was doing his job: staying close to Wayne. If there just happened to be one hell of a lot of fringe benefits, was it his fault?

Niles pressed the button outside Krepsin's study. The doors unlocked, and Bragg stepped into the room. Track lights were aimed on him, and the mounted skeletons threw dark slats upon the walls. Krepsin sat behind his desk, his hands folded before him, his head in a pool of light.

Bragg had to visor his hand over his eyes because the light in his face was almost painful. 'Mr. Krepsin? Did you want to see me, sir?'

'Yes. Step forward, will you?'

Bragg did. The feel of the Persian carpet under his feet changed. He realized he was standing on a wide piece of thin, clear plastic that had been laid down over the carpet.

'That's fine,' Krepsin said. 'Right there, if you please.'

'What's going on?' Bragg grinned.

'Wayne?' Krepsin looked to his left, at the figure sitting in a high-backed chair 'Are you ready?'

It took Bragg a few minutes to recognize Wayne. The boy's face was pallid, haunted-looking. It had been several days since he'd last seen Wayne, and the boy looked like a stranger. Wayne held a small box in his lap and was rubbing something between his fingers. Was it . . . hair? he wondered.

'I don't know,' Wayne said softly.

'What did I tell you before, son? You're either ready or not for your test.'

'Hey,' Bragg said, 'is anybody going to tell me what's going on?'

Dorn was covering some of the skeletons nearest Bragg with clear plastic sheets. He moved a coffee table and chair to the far side of the room. Wayne sat staring at the hair in his hand; most of it was gray, and it had a luster that shone like starlight. He got a strange feeling from holding it. The Creekmore boy's face was fresh in his mind, and for an instant it didn't look evil at all. But then he remembered what his father had told him, about things of the Devil not always looking black as sin. 'I'm ready,' he said, and let Ramona Creekmore's hair slip back into the box. He could call it up from deep within, he knew he could. He rose to his feet, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides.

'Let's begin,' Krepsin said.

Before Bragg could turn, Dorn gripped his wrists and pinned his arms behind him. Bragg cried out in pain as Dorn held him so tightly he could barely breathe.

'Mr Niles?' Krepsin said softly.

Niles had taken what looked like a set of brass knuckles from a black leather pouch. He slipped the weapon on his right fist, and Bragg whined with fear as he saw the wicked glint of broken razor blades studding the weapon's surface.

'Wayne!' Bragg screamed, his glasses hanging from one ear. 'For God's sake, don't let them kill me!' He tried to kick out at Niles, but the other man neatly sidestepped. Niles gripped his hair and jerked his head back while Dorn increased the pressure on his lockhold.

And then Niles's arm swept outward in a blurred arc, across Bragg's exposed throat. Fountains of bright red blood leaped into the air, jetting upon the plastic sheets. Niles leaped aside, but not in time: his gray suit was splattered with scarlet. Bragg's face had gone marble white.

'Let him go,' Krepsin ordered. Bragg crumpled to his knees, his hands clasped around his throat, blood streaming between the fingers. Krepsin had clicked a stopwatch on when Bragg's throat was slashed, and the seconds were running; he inclined his head toward Wayne. 'Now heal him,' he said. 'You have about three minutes before he bleeds to death.'

Wayne had had no idea what the test was going to be. He was transfixed by the sight of all that blood.

'Please,' Bragg whispered, and reached a gore-covered hand out for him. 'Oh Jesus, oh Jesus don't let me die . . .'

'Hurry, Wayne,' Krepsin urged.

Gripping the man's slippery hand, Wayne got on his knees beside him. Red tides rippled across the plastic. Wayne clamped his free hand over the gushing, ragged wound. 'Be healed,' he said, his voice shaking. 'I . . . command you to be healed!' He tried to visualize the veins and arteries melding together as if by a cauterizing torch, but fie knew it wasn't working. 'Please,' he whispered. 'Please be healed!'

Bragg moaned hoarsely and fell on his side.

The stopwatch on Krepsin's desk continued to ticktickticktick.

Wayne felt trapped in rust. He had felt the healing fire when he'd touched Toby; he had felt it when he'd healed a little girl's numbed legs; he had