Koko

shadowy hootch, and for a second he thought he heard wingbeats in the cold air above his head.

“Stand up and come toward us,” Conor said, taking a step forward with his own hand held out.

Beevers squealed in pain or outrage.

Then Poole heard the sound of men thudding down the iron staircase. He looked at Dengler’s calm empty face in horror. “Stop!” he yelled. “We’re all alive! Don’t come any further!”

Almost before he stopped shouting at the policemen, Poole saw Dengler move up off the floor in a fluid, uncoiling motion. In his hand was a long knife.

“Dengler, put the knife down,” Underhill said.

As Dengler stood and moved closer to the light bulb, the startling innocence and youthfulness of his face disappeared like a mirage. He smashed the bulb with the handle of his knife, and the room went dark as a mineshaft. Poole instinctively crouched.

“Are you okay in there?” called a voice from the stairs.

“Dengler, where are you?” Underhill whispered. “Let’s all get out of this alive, all right?”

“I have work to do,” came a voice that Michael did not immediately recognize. The voice seemed to come from everywhere in the room.

“Who’s inside that room?” shouted Lieutenant Murphy. “I want to know who’s in there, and I want to hear everybody’s voice.”

“Poole,” called Poole.

“Underhill.”

“Linklater. And Beevers is in here, but he’s injured and gagged.”

“Anybody else?” the lieutenant yelled.

“Oh, yes,” came a quiet voice.

“Lieutenant,” Poole called out, “if you come in here shooting, we’ll all die. Go back up the steps and let us come out. We’ll need an ambulance for Beevers.”

“I want each man to come out alone. He will be met by an officer and escorted up the steps. I can offer the services of a hostage negotiator, if the man holding you will deal with one.”

Poole steadied himself by putting his hand on the floor. That too was cold and wet, even sticky, and Michael realized that he was touching Harry Beevers’ blood.

A high-pitched terrified squeal came to him from everywhere, bouncing from wall to wall.

“We’re not hostages,” Poole said. “We’re just standing around in the dark.”

“Poole, I’m sick of talking to you,” Murphy yelled. “I want to hear from this Koko. After we get you out of there, Doctor Poole, that’s when I’m going to be interested in talking to you. Then I’ll have a lot to say to you.” His voice grew louder as he bawled out the next words. “Mister Dengler! You are in no danger as long as you do exactly what I say. I want you to release the other men in the room one at a time. Then I want you to surrender yourself. Are you clear about that?”

Dengler repeated what he had said when he had put them in darkness. “I have work to do.”

“That’s fine,” Murphy said. Then Poole heard Murphy say to some other policeman, “I have work to do. What the hell does that mean?”

A voice whispered into Poole’s ear, so close and unexpected it made him jump. “Tell him to go all the way up the stairs.”

“He says he wants you to go all the way up the stairs,” Poole shouted.

“Who’s that?”

“Poole.”

“I should have known,” Murphy said in a quieter voice. “If we go back up the stairs, will he release all of you?”

“Yes,” the voice whispered in Poole’s other ear.

“Yes!” Poole shouted. He had not heard the faintest sound as Dengler moved around him. Now he could hear the sound of wingbeats again, which was really the sound of ceaseless movement, as of a large group of people moving all about him, whispering to one another. He could smell blood.

“Any other requests?” Murphy shouted, sounding sarcastic.

“All the police in the courtyard,” the voice whispered directly into Michael’s face.

“He wants all the police in the courtyard.”

“While the hostages are being released,” Murphy said. “He’s got that.”

“Conor, are you okay?” Poole asked.

There was no answer. The others were dead, and he was alone in the no-place with Koko. He was in a pool of his friends’ blood and Koko was fluttering around him like a hundred birds, or bats.

“Conor!”

“Yo,” came Conor’s voice, quieting his dread.

“Tim?”

Again, no answer.

“Tim!”

“He’s fine,” came the whisper. “He’s just not speaking at the moment.”

“Tim, can you hear me?”

Something painful and red hot happened to Michael’s right side. He clapped his hand over the pain. He felt no blood, but there was a long clean cut in the fabric of his coat.

“I went to Muffin Street,” he said. “I talked to your mother. Helga Dengler.”

“We call her Marbles,” came a whisper from somewhere off to his right.

“I know about your father—I know what he did.”

“We call him Blood,” came the whisper from where he had last seen Conor.

Poole still held his hand to his side. Now he could feel the blood soaking through his coat. “Sing me the song of the elephants.”

From different parts of the room Poole heard snatches of unmelodic wordless song, the music of nothing on earth, the music of no-place. Sometimes it sounded as if children were speaking or crying out a great distance away. These were the dead children painted on the walls. Again Poole knew that no matter what he might hear in this room, he was alone with Koko, and the rest of the world was on the opposite side of a river no man could cross alive.

As Koko’s song flew through the dark, Poole could also hear the sound of the policemen retreating up the iron steps. His side flamed and burned, and he could feel blood soaking into his clothes. The room had widened out to the size of the world, and he was alone in it with Koko and the dead children.

Finally Murphy’s voice came crackling through a bullhorn. “We are in the courtyard. We will remain here until the three men with you have come out through the door. What do you want to do next?”

“We waste no part of the animal,” came the hissing voice.

The dying children wailed and sobbed. No, the children were dead, Poole remembered: that was Harry Beevers.

“Do you want me to tell him you waste no part of the animal?” Poole asked. “He can’t hear me anyhow.”

“He can hear you fine,” came the icy whisper.

Then Poole understood. “It was the motto of the butcher shop, wasn’t it? Dengler’s Lamb of God Butcher Shop. I bet it was painted right under the name, WE WASTE NO PART OF THE ANIMAL.”

The voices all stopped, the nonsense song and the cries of the dead children. For an instant Poole felt violence gather in the cold dead air about him, and his heart nearly froze. He heard the rustle of heavy clothing— Underhill must have moved toward the door. Koko was going to stab him again, he knew, and this time Koko would kill him and tear his face from his skull, as he had done with Victor Spitalny.

“Do you think he killed your real mother?” Poole whispered. “Do you think he arranged to meet Rosita Orosco on the river-bank, and murdered her there? I do. I think that’s what he did.”

A low voice whispered a wordless exhalation from far off to Poole’s left.

“Conor?”

“Yo.”

“You knew it too, didn’t you?” Poole said. He felt like crying now, but not from fear. “Nobody told you, but you