Incubi

carry an umbrella, if you catch my drift.”

“Noted,” Jack said.

“How’s the state researcher working out?”

“Good. She’s only been on it a day and she’s already digging up a lot of stuff. She’s trying to get a line on the ritual.”

Olsher’s eyes thinned in the frame of the great black face. “How come you don’t look hung over?”

“Because I’m not.”

“Keep it that way, Jack. And get a haircut.”

“Which one?”

“That joke’s older than my grandmother.”

“Yeah, but it’s not as close to retirement as you. Har-har.”

“You look like something that walked out of Woodstock.”

“My hair is my strength, Larrel. You know, like Samson.”

“Samson doesn’t work for this department, and if you don’t bust the Triangle case, you won’t have to worry about hair regulations anymore. If you catch my drift.”

“Noted,” Jack repeated. Who tinkled in his cornflakes? he wondered.

Olsher began to thump off. “Oh, and you have a visitor.”

Jack went into his office. Dr. Karla Panzram sat primly before his desk, her nose crinkled above a Styrofoam cup. “I helped myself to your coffee,” she said. “It’s terrible.”

“Bad coffee fortifies the soul.” Jack poured himself a cup. “I’m living proof, right?”

Karla Panzram offered the most indecipherable of smiles. “I just stopped by to tell you I finished checking the recent psych releases and background profiles. Nothing.”

“I figured as much,” Jack said, and sat down.

“I’m getting some feedback from some of the out-of-state wards and lockups, too. But don’t get your hopes up.”

“I never get my hopes up, Doctor. It’s always the outer angles that let us into a case like this. But at least we know more about our man, thanks to you and TSD, and we’re getting closer to the ritual element. Knock on wood.”

“That’s Druidic.”

“What?”

“Knocking on wood. The Druids believed that knocking on wood appeased the gods and brought luck to the faithful.”

“I better start carrying a two-by-four around. No wonder things haven’t been going well.”

Karla Panzram crossed her legs. “How are the other things going?”

Jack wanted to frown. “What do you mean?”

“I think you know. You’ve been in the office several minutes already and you haven’t even lit a cigarette.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” Jack said, and lit a cigarette. “But believe it or not, I haven’t had a drink in over a day.”

“Good. You’ve decided to quit?”

“No. I’ve just been too busy to drink. Besides, my liver is like the Rock of Gibraltar.”

“Oh? A healthy male liver weighs three pounds. The average alcoholic’s liver weighs fifteen. Alcohol clogs the hepatic veins with cholesterol; the liver distends from overwork.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when I order my next Fiddich.” Jack snorted smoke. He didn’t like the idea of having a fifteen-pound liver. “Did you come here just to tell me about livers?”

“No. I have an additional speculation about Charlie. It didn’t occur to me until last night.”

“I’m ready,” Jack said.

“Charlie probably has a magnificent physique. We know he’s attractive in a general sense; Shanna Barrington was an attractive woman. But I also suspect he’s obsessed with his own physique.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Charlie’s obsessed with female beauty. Seeing is as important to him as doing. This is a commonplace trait for sex killers on a fantasy borderline. It’s called bellamania or beau-idee- fixe. He’s seeking an ideal of female beauty in his victims. Therefore he must be beautiful himself or else he won’t be worthy to offer — and to sacrifice — his victim’s beauty to whatever structural basis his ritual exists in. Physical beauty is what propels him. His victim’s and his own.”

Jack stubbed his butt. “Sounds pretty complicated.”

“Actually it’s not. Like I said, it’s a commonplace trait. It’s something to consider, at least.”

Magnificent physique, Jack pondered. At least no one will be accusing me of the murders.

The phone shrilled, like a sudden alarm.

“Cordesman. City District Homicide,” Jack answered. But he felt sinking even before the voice replied.

“Jack?” It was Randy. The pause told Jack everything, its emptiness fielding a root of dread. Aw, Jesus, Jesus…

“We’ve got another one,” Randy said.

Jack scribbled down the address. “I’ll be there in ten,” he said. He hung up. All he could see for a moment was red.

“Come on,” he said to Karla Panzram.

* * *

“I know,” Khoronos claimed. “I heard you screaming too.”

But how could he have? Veronica knew he hadn’t been in the house when she had her nightmare. He couldn’t have heard.

“But it’s something else that’s bothering you,” he observed.

She’d come in after leaving Amy at the pool. Instead of finding Khoronos, he’d found her in the library. She hadn’t asked where he’d been all night, though her curiosity still itched. “You look…discomposed,” he’d said almost immediately. “You look separated from yourself. Why?”

The living room was quiet, dark. Khoronos’ presence made her feel sequestered. “I can’t work,” she said.

“Before you can be one with your art, you must become one with yourself.”

Why did he always suggest her spiritual self was not intact? It seemed like a distant insult. “Tell me what to do,” she said half sarcastically. “You have all the answers.”

“The answers are within yourself, Ms. Polk, but to reveal them you must realize the full weight of the questions. You haven’t done that, you never do. You have profound convictions about your art, but you haven’t applied that same profundity to yourself. This, I believe, is your greatest failure.”

She felt like shouting at him, or giving him the finger. Who the hell was he to imply her failures?

“Your sense of creation runs deep, so why does your sense of self remain so impoverished? Synergy, Ms. Polk, must exist between the two. What you create comes from you, yet if you don’t know yourself, how can you expect to create anything of worth?”

Veronica couldn’t decide if that made sense.

Then he said: “What are you running from?”

She sat back in the couch and frowned.

“Synergy is balance,” he continued. “It’s equanimity between what we are and what we create. Do you understand that?”

“No,” she said.

“All right. Creation is born of desire. Do you agree?”

She shrugged. “I guess.”

“To know ourselves as artists, we must know our desires first. Any desire, even potential ones. Desire is the ultimate stimulus of what we are creatively, and the authenticity of the impetus can only dawn on us through an unyielding love of ourselves.”

Veronica contemplated this, then thought of what Amy Vandersteen and Ginny had said at the pool. They