THIRTY-ONE

WHEN I WAS VERY YOUNG I ONCE SAW A VARIETY ACT on TV. A man put a bunch of plates on the end of a series of supple rods, and kept them up in the air by whipping the rods around to spin the plates. And if he slowed down or turned his back, even for a moment, one of the plates would wobble and then crash to the ground, followed by all the others in series.
That's a terrific metaphor for life, isn't it? We're all trying to keep our plates spinning in the air, and once you get them up there you can't take your eyes off them and you have to keep chugging along without rest. Except that in life, somebody keeps adding more plates, hiding the rods, and changing the law of gravity when you're not looking. And so every time you think you have all your plates spinning nicely, suddenly you hear a hideous clattering crash behind you and a whole row of plates you didn't even know you had begins to hit the ground.
Here I had stupidly assumed that the tragic death of Manny Borque had given me one less plate to worry about, since I could now proceed to cater the wedding as it should be done, with $65 worth of cold cuts and a cooler full of soda. I could concentrate on the very real and important problem of putting me back together again. And so thinking all was quiet on the home front, I turned my back for just a moment and was rewarded with a spectacular crash behind me.
The metaphorical plate in question shattered when I came into Rita's house after work. It was so quiet that I assumed no one was home, but a quick glance inside showed something far more disturbing. Cody and Astor sat motionless on the couch, and Rita was standing behind them with a look on her face that could easily turn fresh milk into yogurt.
“Dexter,” she said, and the tromp of doom was in her voice, “we need to talk.”
“Of course,” I said, and as I reeled from her expression, even the mere thought of a lighthearted response shriveled into dust and blew away in the icy air.
“These children,” Rita said. Apparently that was the entire thought, because she just glared and said no more.
But of course, I knew which children she meant, so I nodded encouragingly. “Yes,” I said.
“Ooh,” she said.
Well, if it was taking Rita this long to form a complete sentence, it was easy to see why the house had been so quiet when I walked in. Clearly the lost art of conversation was going to need a little boost from Diplomatic Dexter if we were ever going to get more than seven words out in time for dinner. So I plunged straight in with my well-known courage. “Rita,” I said, “is there some kind of problem?”
“Ooh,” she said again, which was not encouraging.

Well really, there's only so much you can do with monosyllables, even if you are a gifted conversationalist like me. Since there was clearly no help coming from Rita, I looked at Cody and Astor, who had not moved since I came in. “All right,” I said. “Can you two tell me what's wrong with your mother?”
They exchanged one of their famous looks, and then turned back to me. “We didn't mean to,” Astor said. “It was an accident.”
It wasn't much, but at least it was a complete sentence. “I'm very glad to hear it,” I said. “What was an accident?”
“We got caught,” Cody said, and Astor poked him with an elbow.
“We didn't mean to,” she repeated with emphasis, and Cody turned to look at her before he remembered what they had agreed on; she glared at him and he blinked once before slowly nodding his head at me.
“Accident,” he said.
It was nice to see that the party line was firmly in place behind a united front, but I was still no closer to knowing what we were talking about, and we had been talking about it, more or less, for several minutes-time being a large factor, since the dinner hour was approaching and Dexter does require regular feeding.
“That's all they'll say about it,” Rita said. “And it is nowhere near enough. I don't see how you could possibly tie up the Villegas' cat by accident.”
“It didn't die,” Astor said in the tiniest voice I had ever heard her use.
“And what were the hedge clippers for?” Rita demanded.
“We didn't use them,” Astor said.
“But you were going to, weren't you?” Rita said.
Two small heads swiveled to face me, and a moment later, Rita's did, too.
I am sure it was completely unintentional, but a picture was beginning to emerge of what had happened, and it was not a peaceful still life. Clearly the youngsters had been attempting an independent study without me. And even worse, I could tell that somehow it had become my problem; the children expected me to bail them out, and Rita was clearly prepared to lock and load and open fire on me. Of course it was unfair; all I had done so far was come home from work. But as I have noticed on more than one occasion, life itself is unfair, and there is no complaint department, so we might as well accept things the way they happen, clean up the mess, and move on.
Which is what I attempted to do, however futile I suspected it would be. “I'm sure there's a very good explanation,” I said, and Astor brightened immediately and began to nod vigorously.
“It was an accident,” she insisted happily.
“Nobody ties up a cat, tapes it to a workbench, and stands over it with hedge clippers by accident!” Rita said.

To be honest, things were getting a little complicated. On the one hand, I was very pleased to get such a clear picture at last of what the problem was. But on the other hand, we seemed to have strayed into an area that could be somewhat awkward to explain, and I could not help feeling that Rita might be a little bit better off if she remained ignorant of these matters.
I thought I had been clear with Astor and Cody that they were not to fly solo until I had explained their wings to them. But they had obviously chosen not to understand and, even though they were suffering some very gratifying consequences for their action, it was still up to me to get them out of it. Unless they could be made to understand that they absolutely must not repeat this-and must not stray from the Harry Path as I put their feet upon it-I was happy to let them twist in the wind indefinitely.
“Do you know that what you did is wrong?” I asked them. They nodded in unison.
“Do you know why it is wrong?” I said.
Astor looked very uncertain, glanced at Cody, and then blurted out, “Because we got caught!”
“There now, you see?” said Rita, and a hysterical edge was creeping into her voice.
“Astor,” I said, looking at her very carefully and not really winking, “this is not the time to be funny.”
“I'm glad somebody thinks this is funny,” Rita said. “But I don't happen to think so.”
“Rita,” I said, with all the soothing calm I could muster, and then, using the smooth cunning I had developed in my years as an apparently human adult, I added, “I think this might be one of those times that Reverend Gilles was talking about, where I need to mentor.”
“Dexter, these two have just-I don't have any idea-and you-!” she said, and even though she was close to tears, I was happy to see that at least her old speech patterns were returning. Just as happily, a scene from an old movie popped into my head in the nick of time, and I knew exactly what a real human being was supposed to do.
I walked over to Rita and, with my very best serious face, I put a hand on her shoulder.
“Rita,” I said, and I was very proud of how grave and manly my voice sounded, “you are too close to this, and you're letting your emotions cloud your judgment. These two need some firm perspective, and I can give it to them. After all,” I said as the line came to me, and I was pleased to see that I hadn't lost a step, “I have to be their father now.”
I should have guessed that this would be the remark that pushed Rita off the dock and into the lake of tears; and it was, because immediately after I said it, her lips began to tremble, her face lost all its anger, and a rivulet began to stream down each cheek.
“All right,” she sobbed, “please, I-just talk to them.” She snuffled loudly and hurried from the room.
I let Rita have her dramatic exit and gave it a moment to sink in before I walked back around to the front of the couch and stared down at my two miscreants. “Well,” I said. “What happened to We understand, We promise, We'll wait?”
“You're taking too long,” said Astor. "We haven't done anything except the once, and besides, you're not

always right and we think we shouldn't have to wait anymore.“ ”I'm ready,“ Cody said. ”Really,“ I said. ”Then I guess your mother is the greatest detective in the world, because you're ready
and she caught you anyway.“ ”Dex-terrrr,“ Astor whined. ”No, Astor, you quit talking and just listen to me for a minute." I stared at her with my most serious face,
and for a moment I thought she was going to say something else but then a miracle took place right there
in our living room. Astor changed her mind and closed her mouth. “All right,” I said. “I have said from the very beginning that you have to do it my way. You don't have to believe I'm always right,” and Astor made a sound, but didn't say anything. “But you have to do what I say. Or I will not help you, and you will end up in jail. There is no other way. Okay?”
It is quite possible that they didn't know what to do with this new tone of voice and new role. I was no longer Playtime Dexter, but something very different, Dexter of Dark Discipline, which they had never seen before. They looked at each other uncertainly so I pushed a little more.
“You got caught,” I said. “What happens when you get caught?” “Time out?” Cody said uncertainly. “Uh-huh,” I said. “And if you're thirty years old?” For possibly the first time in her life, Astor had no answer, and Cody had already used up his two-word
quota for the time being. They looked at each other, and then they looked at their feet. “My sister, Sergeant Deborah, and I spend all day catching people who do this kind of stuff,” I said. “And when we catch them, they go to prison.” I smiled at Astor. "Time out for grown-ups. But a lot worse. You
sit in a little room the size of your bathroom, locked in, all day and all night. You pee in a hole in the floor. You eat moldy garbage, and there are rats and lots of cockroaches.“ ”We know what prison is, Dexter,“ she said. ”Really? Then why are you in such a hurry to get there?“ I said. ”And do you know what Old Sparky is?“ Astor looked at her feet again; Cody hadn't looked up yet. ”Old Sparky is the electric chair. If they catch you, they strap you into Old Sparky, put some wires on
your head, and fry you up like bacon. Does that sound like fun?“ They shook their heads, no. ”So the very first lesson is not to get caught,“ I said. ”Remember the piranhas?“ They nodded. ”They look
ferocious, so people know they're dangerous.“ ”But Dexter, we don't look ferocious," Astor said.

“No, you don't,” I said. “And you don't want to. We are supposed to be people, not piranhas. But the idea is the same, to look like something you are not. Because when something bad happens, that's who everyone will look for first-the ferocious people. You need to look like sweet, lovable, normal children.”
“Can I wear makeup?” Astor asked. “When you're older,” I said. “You say that about everything!” she said. “And I mean it about everything,” I said. "You got caught this time because you went off on your own
and didn't know what you were doing. You didn't know what you were doing because you didn't listen to
me.“ I decided the torture had gone on long enough and I sat down on the couch in between them. ”No more doing anything without me, okay? And when you promise this time, you better mean it."
They both looked slowly up at me and then nodded. “We promise,” Astor said softly, and Cody, even softer, echoed, “Promise.”
“Well then,” I said. I took their hands and we shook solemnly. “Good,” I said. “Now let's go apologize to your mom.” They both jumped up, radiating relief that the hideous ordeal was over, and I followed them out of the room, closer to feeling self-satisfied than I could remember feeling before.
Maybe there was something to this whole fatherhood thing after all.

THIRTY-THREE

DEBORAH HURLED US THROUGH TRAFFIC AT EVEL Knievel-over-the-canyon speeds. I tried to think of a polite way to point out that we were going to see a dead body that would probably not escape,
so could she please slow down, but I could not come up with any phrase that would not cause her to take her hands off the wheel and put them around my neck. Cody and Astor were too young to realize that they were in mortal danger, and they seemed to be
enjoying themselves thoroughly in the backseat, even getting into the spirit of things by happily returning the greetings of the other motorists by raising their own middle fingers in unison each time we cut off somebody.
There was a three-car pileup on U.S. 1 at LeJeune which slowed traffic for a few moments and we were forced to cut our pace to a crawl. Since I no longer had to spend all my breath suppressing screams of terror, I tried to find out from Deborah exactly what we were racing to see.
“How was he killed?” I asked her. “Just like the others,” she said. “Burned. And there's no head on the body.” “You're sure this is Kurt Wagner?” I asked her. “Can I prove it? Not yet,” she said. “Am I sure? Shit yes.” “Why?” “They found his car nearby,” she said. I was quite sure that normally I would understand exactly why somebody seemed to have a fetish for the
heads, and know where to find them and why. But of course, now that I was all alone on the inside there was no more normal. “This doesn't make any sense, you know,” I said. Deborah snarled and hammered the heel of her hand on the steering wheel. “Tell me about it,” she said.
“Kurt must have done the other victims,” I said. “So who killed him? His scoutmaster?” she said, leaning on the horn and pulling around the traffic snarl into the oncoming lane. She swerved toward a bus, stomped on the gas, and wove through traffic for fifty yards until we were past the pileup. I concentrated on remembering to breathe and reflecting that we were all certain to die someday anyway, so in the big picture what did it really matter if Deborah killed us? It was not terribly comforting, but it did keep me from screaming and diving out the car window until Deborah pulled back into the correct lane on the far side of U.S. 1.
“That was fun,” said Astor. “Can we do that again?” Cody nodded enthusiastically. “And we could put on the siren next time,” Astor said. "How come you don't use the siren, Sergeant

Debbie?“ ”Don't call me Debbie,“ Deborah snapped. ”I just don't like the siren.“ ”Why not?“ Astor insisted. Deborah blew out a huge breath and glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. ”It's a fair question," I
said. “It makes too much noise,” Deborah said. “Now let me drive, okay?” “All right,” Astor said, but she didn't sound convinced. We drove in silence all the way to Grand Avenue, and I tried to think about it by myself-clearly enough
to come up with anything that might help. I didn't, but I did think of one thing worth mentioning. “What if Kurt's murder is just a coincidence?” I said. “Even you can't really believe that,” she said. “But if he was on the run,” I said, "maybe he tried to get a fake ID from the wrong people, or get
smuggled out of the country. There are plenty of bad guys he could run into under the circumstances." It didn't really sound likely, even to me, but Deborah thought about it for a few seconds anyway, chewing
on her lower lip and absentmindedly blasting the horn as she pulled around a courtesy van from one of the hotels. “No,” she said at last. “He was cooked, Dexter. Like the first two. No way they could copy that.” Once again I was aware of a small stirring in the bleak emptiness inside, the area once inhabited by the
Dark Passenger. I closed my eyes and tried to find some shred of my once-constant companion, but there was nothing. I opened my eyes in time to see Deborah accelerate around a bright red Ferrari.
“People read the newspapers,” I said. “There are always copycat killings.” She thought some more, and then shook her head. “No,” she said at last. “I don't believe in coincidence. Not with something like this. Cooked and headless both, and it's a coincidence? No way.”
Hope always dies hard, but even so I had to admit that she was probably right. Beheading and burning were not really standard procedures for the normal, blue-collar killer, and most people would be far more likely simply to clonk you on the head, tie an anchor to your feet, and fling you into the bay.
So in all likelihood, we were on our way to see the body of somebody we were sure was a killer, and he had been killed the same way as his own victims. If I had been my cheerful old self, I would certainly have enjoyed the delicious irony, but in my present condition it seemed like just another annoying affront to an orderly existence.
But Deborah gave me very little time to reflect and become grumpy; she whipped through the traffic in the center of Coconut Grove and pulled into the parking area beside Bayfront Park, where the familiar circus was already under way. Three police cruisers were pulled up, and Camilla Figg was dusting for

fingerprints on a battered red Geo parked at one of the meters-presumably Kurt Wagner's car.
I got out and looked around, and even without an inner voice whispering clues, I noticed right away that there was something wrong with this picture. “Where's the body?” I asked Deborah. She was already walking toward the gate of the yacht club. “Out on the island,” she said. I blinked and got out of the car. For no reason I could name, the thought of the body on the island raised
the hair on the back of my neck, but as I looked out over the water for the answer, all I got was the afternoon breeze that blew across the pines on the barrier islands of Dinner Key and straight through the emptiness inside me.
Deborah jogged me with her elbow. “Come on,” she said.
I looked in the backseat at Cody and Astor, who had just now mastered the intricacies of the seat-belt release and were trickling out of the car. “Stay here,” I said to them. “I'll be back in a little while.” “Where are you going?” Astor said. “I have to go out to that island,” I said. “Is there a dead person there?” she asked me. “Yes,” I said. She glanced at Cody, then back at me. “We want to go,” she said. “No, absolutely not,” I said. "I got in enough trouble the last time. If I let you see another dead body your
mother would turn me into one, too." Cody thought that was very funny and he made a small noise and shook his head. I heard a shout and looked through the gate into the marina. Deborah was already at the dock, about to
step into the police boat tied up there. She waved an arm at me and yelled, “Dexter!”
Astor stomped her foot to get my attention, and I looked back at her. “You have to stay here,” I said, “and I have to go now.” “But Dexter, we want to ride on the boat,” she said. “Well, you can't,” I said. “But if you behave I'll take you on my boat this weekend.” “To see a dead person?” Astor said. “No,” I said. “We're not going to see any more dead bodies for a while.” “But you promised!” she said. “Dexter!” Deborah yelled again. I waved at her, which did not seem to be the response she was looking
for, because she beckoned furiously at me.

“Astor, I have to go,” I said. “Stay here. We'll talk about this later.”
“It's always later,” she muttered.
On the way through the gate I paused and spoke to the uniformed cop there, a large heavy man with black hair and a very low forehead. “Could you keep one eye on my kids there?” I asked him.
He stared at me. “What am I, day-care patrol?”
“Just for a few minutes,” I said. “They're very well behaved.”
“Lookit, sport,” he said, but before he could finish his sentence there was a rustle of movement and Deborah was beside us.
“Goddamn it, Dexter!” she said. “Get your ass on the boat!”
“I'm sorry,” I said. “I have to find somebody to watch the kids.”
Deborah ground her teeth together. Then she glanced at the big cop and read his name tag. “Suchinsky,” she said. “Watch the fucking kids.”
“Aw, come on, Sarge,” he said. “Jesus Christ.”
“Stick with the kids, goddamn it,” she said. “You might learn something. Dexter-get on the goddamn boat, now!”
I turned meekly and hurried for the goddamn boat. Deborah strode past me and was already seated when I jumped on, and the cop driving the boat headed for one of the smaller islands, weaving between the anchored sailboats.
There are several small islands on the outside of Dinner Key Marina that provide protection from wind and wave, one of the things that makes it such a good anchorage. Of course, it's only good under ordinary circumstances, as the islands themselves proved. They were littered with broken boats and other maritime junk deposited by the many recent hurricanes, and every now and then a squatter would set up housekeeping, building a shack from shattered boat parts.
The island we headed for was one of the smaller ones. Half of a forty-foot sports fisherman lay on the beach at a crazy angle, and the pine trees inland of the beach were hung with chunks of Styrofoam, tattered cloth, and wispy shreds of plastic sheeting and garbage bags. Other than that, it was just the way the Native Americans had left it, a peaceful little chunk of land covered with Australian pines, condoms, and beer cans.
Except, of course, for Kurt Wagner's body, which had most likely been left by someone other than Native Americans. It was lying in the center of the island in a small clearing, and like the others, it had been arranged in a formal pose, with the arms folded across the chest and the legs pressed together. The body was headless and unclothed, charred from being burned, very much like the others-except that this time there had been a small addition. Around the neck was a leather string holding a pewter medallion about the size of an egg. I leaned closer to look; it was a bull's head.
Once again I felt a strange twinge in the emptiness, as if some part of me were recognizing that this was

significant, but didn't know why or how to express it-not alone, not without the Passenger. Vince Masuoka was squatting next to the body examining a cigarette butt and Deborah knelt down beside him. I circled them one time, looking at it from all angles: Still Life with Cops. I was hoping, I suppose,
that I would find a small but significant clue. Perhaps the killer's driver's license, or a signed confession. But there was nothing of the kind, nothing but sand, pockmarked from countless feet and the wind. I went down on one knee beside Deborah. “You looked for the tattoo, right?” I asked her. “First thing,” Vince said. He extended a rubber-gloved hand and lifted the body slightly. There it was,
half covered with sand but still visible, only the upper edge of it cut off and left, presumably, with the
missing head. “It's him,” Deborah said. “The tattoo, his car is at the marina-it's him, Dexter. And I wish I knew what the hell that tattoo meant.”
“It's Aramaic,” I said. “How the fuck would you know that?” Deborah said. “My research,” I said, and I squatted down next to the body. “Look.” I picked a small pine twig out of the
sand and pointed with it. Part of the first letter was missing, cut off along with the head, but the rest was plainly visible and matched my language lesson. “There's the M, what's left of it. And the L, and the K.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Deborah demanded. “Moloch,” I said, feeling a small irrational chill just saying the word here in the bright sunshine. I tried to shake it off, but a feeling of uneasiness stayed behind. “Aramaic has no vowels. So MLK spells Moloch.”
“Or milk,” Deborah said. “Really, Debs, if you think our killer would tattoo milk on his neck, you need a nap.” “But if Wagner is Moloch, who killed him?” “Wagner kills the others,” I said, trying very hard to sound thoughtful and confident at the same time, a
difficult task. “And then, um…” “Yeah,” she said. “I already figured out 'um.'” “And you're watching Wilkins.” “We're watching Wilkins, for Christ's sake.” I looked at the body again, but there was nothing else on it to tell me more than I knew, which was almost
nothing. I could not stop my brain from going in a circle; if Wagner had been Moloch, and now Wagner
was dead, and killed by Moloch… I stood up. For a moment I felt dizzy, as if bright lights were crashing in on me, and in the distance I heard that awful music beginning to swell up into the afternoon and for just that moment I could not

doubt that somewhere nearby the god was calling me-the real god himself and not some psychotic
prankster. I shook my head to silence it and nearly fell over. I felt a hand grabbing my arm to steady me, but whether it was Debs, Vince, or Moloch himself, I couldn't tell. From far away a voice was calling my name, but it was singing it, the cadence rising up to the far-too-familiar rhythm of that music. I closed my eyes and felt heat on my face and the music got louder. Something shook me and I opened my eyes.
The music stopped. The heat was just the Miami sun, with the wind whipping in the clouds of an afternoon squall. Deborah held both my elbows and shook me, saying my name over and over patiently. “Dexter,” she said. “Hey Dex, come on. Dexter. Dexter.” “Here I am,” I said, although I was not entirely sure of that. “You okay, Dex?” she said. “I think I stood up too fast,” I said. She looked dubious. “Uh-huh,” she said. “Really, Debs, I'm fine now,” I said. “I mean, I think so.” “You think so,” she said.
“Yes. I mean, I just stood up too fast.” She looked at me a moment longer, then let go and stepped back. “Okay,” she said. “Then if you can make it to the boat, let's get back.”
It may be that I was still dizzy, but there seemed to be no sense in her words, almost as if they were just made-up syllables. “Get back?” I said. “Dexter,” she said. “We got six bodies, and our only suspect is on the ground here with no head.”
“Right,” I said, and I heard a faint drumbeat under my voice. “So where are we going?” Deborah balled up her fists and clenched her teeth. She looked down at the body, and for a moment I thought she was actually going to spit. “What about the guy you chased into the canal?” she said at last.
“Starzak? No, he said…” I stopped myself from finishing, but not quite soon enough, because Deborah pounced.
“He said? When did you talk to him, goddamn it?” To be fair to me, I really was still a little bit dizzy, and I had not thought before I spoke, and now I was in a somewhat awkward spot. I could not very well tell my sister that I had spoken to him just the other night when I had taped him to his workbench and tried to cut him up into small neat pieces. But the blood must have been flowing back into my brain, because I very quickly said, “I mean, he seemed,” I said. “He seemed to be just a…I don't know,” I said. “I think it was personal, like I cut him off in traffic.”

Deborah looked at me angrily for a moment, but then she seemed to accept what I had said, and she turned away and kicked at the sand. “Well, we got nothing else,” she said. “It won't hurt to check him out.”
It didn't seem like a really good idea to tell her that I already had checked him out quite thoroughly, far beyond the boundaries of normal police routine, so I just nodded in agreement.

THIRTY-FIVE

IT WAS WELL PAST FIVE O'CLOCK BY THE TIME WE GOT BACK to headquarters and so, in spite of some very sour looks from Deborah, I loaded Cody and Astor into my own humble vehicle and headed for home. They remained subdued for most of the ride, apparently still a little bit shaken by their encounter with the scary guy. But they were resilient children, which was amply demonstrated by the fact that they could still talk at all, considering what their biological father had done to them. So when we were only about ten minutes from the house Astor began to return to normal.
“I wish you would drive like Sergeant Debbie,” she said.
“I would rather live a little longer,” I told her.
“Why don't you have a siren?” she demanded. “Didn't you want one?”
“You don't get a siren in forensics,” I said. “And no, I never wanted one. I would rather keep a low profile.”
In the rearview mirror I could see her frown. “What does that mean?” she asked.

“It means I don't want to draw attention to myself,” I said. "I don't want people to notice me. That's
something you two have to learn about,“ I added. ”Everybody else wants to be noticed,“ she said. ”It's like all they ever do, is do stuff so everybody will look at them."
“You two are different,” I said. “You will always be different, and you will never be like everybody else.” She didn't say anything for a long time and I glanced at her in the mirror. She was looking at her feet. “That's not necessarily a bad thing,” I said. “What's another word for normal?”
“I don't know,” she said dully. “Ordinary,” I said. “Do you really want to be ordinary?” “No,” she said, and she didn't sound quite so unhappy. "But then if we're not ordinary, people will notice
us."
“That's why you have to learn to keep a low profile,” I said, secretly pleased at the way the conversation had worked around to prove my point. “You have to pretend to be really normal.” “So we shouldn't ever let anybody know we're different,” she said. “Not anybody.” “That's right,” I said. She looked at her brother, and they had another of those long silent conversations. I enjoyed the quiet,
just driving through the evening congestion and feeling sorry for myself.
After a few minutes Astor spoke up again. “That means we shouldn't tell Mom what we did today,” she said. “You can tell her about the microscope,” I said. “But not the other stuff?” Astor said. “The scary guy and riding with Sergeant Debbie?” “That's right,” I said. “But we're never supposed to tell a lie,” she said. “Especially to our own mother.” “That's why you don't tell her anything,” I said. "She doesn't need to know things that will make her
worry too much.“ ”But she loves us,“ Astor said. ”She wants us to be happy.“ ”Yes,“ I said. ”But she has to think you are happy in a way she can understand. Otherwise she can't be
happy."
There was another long silence before Astor finally said, just before we turned onto their street, “Does the scary guy have a mother?” “Almost certainly,” I said.

Rita must have been waiting right inside the front door, because as we pulled up and parked the door swung open and she came out to meet us. “Well, hello,” she said cheerfully. “And what did you two learn today?”
“We saw dirt,” Cody said. “From my shoe.” Rita blinked. “Really,” she said. “And there was a piece of popcorn, too,” Astor said. "And we looked in the microphone and we could tell
where we had been.“ ”Microscope,“ Cody said. ”Whatever,“ Astor shrugged. ”But you could tell whose hair it was, too. And if it was a goat or a rug.“ ”Wow,“ Rita said, looking somewhat overwhelmed and uncertain, ”I guess you had quite a time then.“ ”Yes,“ Cody said. ”Well then,“ Rita said. ”Why don't you two get started on homework, and I'll get you a snack.“ ”Okay," Astor said, and she and Cody scurried up the walk and into the house. Rita watched them until
they went inside, and then she turned to me and held onto my elbow as we strolled after them. “So it went well?” she asked me. “I mean, with the-they seemed very, um…” “They are,” I said. "I think they're beginning to understand that there are consequences for fooling around
like that.“ ”You didn't show them anything too grim, did you?“ she said. ”Not at all. Not even any blood.“ ”Good," she said, and she leaned her head on my shoulder, which I suppose is part of the price you have
to pay when you are going to marry someone. Perhaps it was simply a public way to mark her territory, in which case I guess I should be very happy that she chose not to do so with the traditional animal method. Anyway, displaying affection through physical contact is not something I really understand, and I felt a bit awkward, but I put an arm around her, since I knew that was the correct human response, and we followed the kids into the house.
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I'm quite sure it isn't right to call it a dream. But in the night the sound came into my poor battered head once again, the music and chanting and the clash of metal I had heard before, and there was the feeling of heat on my face and a swell of savage joy rising from the special place inside that had been empty for so long now. I woke up standing by the front door with my hand on the doorknob, covered with sweat, content, fulfilled, and not at all uneasy as I should have been.
I knew the term “sleepwalking,” of course. But I also knew from my freshman psychology class that the reasons someone sleepwalks are usually not related to hearing music. And I also knew in the deepest

level of my being that I should be anxious, worried, crawling with distress at the things that had been happening in my unconscious brain. They did not belong there, it was not possible that they could be there-and yet, there they were. And I was glad to have them. That was the most frightening thing of all.
The music was not welcome in the Dexter Auditorium. I did not want it. I wanted it to go away. But it came, and it played, and it made me supernaturally happy against my will and then dumped me by the front door, apparently trying to get me outside and-
And what? It was a jolt of monster-under-the-bed thought straight from the lizard brain, but… Was it a random impulse, uncharted movement by my unconscious mind, that got me out of bed and
down the hall to the door? Or was something trying to get me to open the door and go outside? He had told the kids I would find him when the time was right-was this the right time? Did someone want Dexter alone and unconscious in the night? It was a wonderful thought, and I was terribly proud to have it, because it meant that I had clearly
suffered brain damage and could no longer be held responsible. Once again I was blazing new trails in the territory of stupid. It was impossible, idiotic, stress-induced hysteria. No one on earth could possibly have so much time to throw away; Dexter was not important enough to anyone but Dexter. And to prove it, I turned on the floodlight over the front porch and opened the door.
Across the street and about fifty feet to the west a car started up and drove away. I closed the door and double-locked it. And now it was my turn once more to sit up at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and pondering life's great
mystery. The clock said 3:32 when I sat down, and 6:00 when Rita finally came into the room. “Dexter,” she said with an expression of soporific surprise on her face. “In the flesh,” I said, and it was exceedingly difficult for me to maintain my artificially cheerful facade. She frowned. “What's wrong?” “Nothing at all,” I said. “I just couldn't sleep.” Rita bent her face down toward the floor and shuffled over to the coffeemaker and poured herself a cup.
Then she sat across the table from me and took a sip. “Dexter,” she said, “it's perfectly normal to have reservations.”
“Of course,” I said, with absolutely no idea what she meant, “otherwise you don't get a table.” She shook her head slightly with a tired smile. “You know what I mean,” she said, which was not true. “About the wedding.”
A small bleary light went on in the back of my head, and I very nearly said Aha. Of course the wedding. Human females were obsessive on the subject of weddings, even it if wasn't their own. When it was, in

fact, their own, the idea of it took over every moment of waking and sleeping thought. Rita was seeing everything that happened through a pair of wedding-colored glasses. If I could not sleep, that was because of bad dreams brought on by our upcoming wedding.
I, on the other hand, was not similarly afflicted. I had a great deal of important stuff to worry about, and the wedding was something that was on automatic pilot. At some point I would show up, it would happen, and that would be that. Clearly this was not a viewpoint I could invite Rita to share, no matter how sensible it seemed to me. No, I had to come up with a plausible reason for my sleeplessness, and in addition I needed to reassure her of my enthusiasm for the wonderful looming event.
I looked around the room for a clue, and finally saw something in the two lunch boxes stacked beside the sink. A great place to start: I reached deep into the dregs of my soggy brain and pulled out the only thing I could find there that was less than half wet. “What if I'm not good enough for Cody and Astor?” I said. “How can I be their father when I'm really not? What if I just can't do it?”
“Oh, Dexter,” she said. “You're a wonderful father. They absolutely love you.”
“But,” I said, struggling for both authenticity and the next line, “but they're little now. When they get older. When they want to know about their real father-”
“They know all they'll ever need to know about that sonofabitch,” Rita snapped. It surprised me: I had never heard her use rough language before. Possibly she never had, either, because she began to blush. “You are their real father,” she said. “You are the man they look up to, listen to, and love. You are exactly the father they need.”
I suppose that was at least partly true, since I was the only one who could teach them the Harry Way and other things they needed to know, though I suspected this was not exactly what Rita had in mind. But it didn't seem politic to bring that up, so I simply said, “I really want to be good at this. I can't fail, even for a minute.”
“Oh, Dex,” she said, “people fail all the time.” That was very true. I had noticed many times before that failure seemed to be one of the identifying characteristics of the species. “But we keep trying, and it comes out all right in the end. Really. You're going to be great at this, you'll see.”
“Do you really think so?” I said, only mildly ashamed of the disgraceful way I was hamming it up.
“I know so,” she said, with her patented Rita smile. She reached across the table and clutched at my hand. “I won't let you fail,” she said. “You're mine now.”
It was a bold claim, flinging the Emancipation Proclamation aside like that and saying she owned me. Still, it seemed to close off an awkward moment comfortably, so I let it slide. “All right,” I said. “Let's have breakfast.”
She cocked her head to one side and looked at me for a moment, and I was aware that I must have hit a false note, but she just blinked a few times before she said, “All right,” and got up and began to cook breakfast.
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The other had come to the door in the night, and then slammed it in fear-there was no mistaking that part.

He had felt fear. He heard the call and came, and he was afraid. And so the Watcher had no doubt about it. It was time. Now.

THIRTY-SEVEN

AS I KNOW VERY WELL, THE WORLD IS NOT A NICE PLACE. There are numberless awful things that can happen, especially to children: they can be taken by a stranger or a family friend or a divorced dad; they can wander away and vanish, fall in a sinkhole, drown in a neighbor's pool-and with a hurricane coming there were even more possibilities. The list is limited only by their imaginations, and Cody and Astor were quite well supplied with imagination.
But when Rita told me they were gone, I did not even consider sinkholes or traffic accidents or motorcycle gangs. I knew what had happened to Cody and Astor, knew it with a cold, hard certainty that was more clear and positive than anything the Passenger had ever whispered to me. One thought burst in my head, and I never questioned it.
In the half a second it took to register Rita's words my brain flooded with small pictures: the cars following me, the night visitors knocking on the doors and windows, the scary guy leaving his calling card with the kids, and, most convincingly, the searing statement uttered by Professor Keller: “Moloch liked human sacrifice. Especially children.”
I did not know why Moloch wanted my children in particular, but I knew without the slightest doubt that he, she, or it had them. And I knew that this was not a good thing for Cody and Astor.

I lost no time getting home, swerving through the traffic like the Miami native I am, and in just a few minutes I was out of the car. Rita stood in the rain at the end of the driveway, looking like a small, desolate mouse.
“Dexter,” Rita said, with a world of emptiness in her voice. “Please, oh God, Dexter, find them.” “Lock the house,” I said, “and come with me.” She looked at me for a moment as if I had said to leave the kids and go bowling. “Now,” I said. "I know
where they are, but we need help.“ Rita turned and ran to the house and I pulled out my cell phone and dialed. ”What,“ Deborah answered. ”I need your help,“ I said. There was a short silence and then a hard bark of not-amused laughter. ”Jesus Christ,“ she said. ”There's a
hurricane coming in, the bad guys are lined up five deep all over town waiting for the power to go out, and you need my help.“ ”Cody and Astor are gone,“ I said. ”Moloch has them.“ ”Dexter,“ she said. ”I have to find them fast, and I need your help."
“Get over here,” she said. As I put my phone away Rita came splattering down the sidewalk through the puddles that were already forming. “I locked up,” she said. “But Dexter, what if they come back and we're gone?”
“They won't come back,” I said. “Not unless we bring them back.” Apparently that was not the reassuring remark she was hoping for. She stuffed a fist into her mouth and looked like she was trying very hard not to scream. “Get in the car, Rita,” I said. I opened the door for her and she looked at me over her half-digested knuckles. “Come on,” I said, and she finally climbed in. I got behind the wheel, started up, and nosed the car out of the driveway.
“You said,” Rita stammered, and I was relieved to notice that she had removed the fist from her mouth, “you said you know where they are.” “That's right,” I said, turning onto U.S. 1 without looking and accelerating through the thinning traffic. “Where are they?” she asked.
“I know who has them,” I said. “Deborah will help us find out where they went.” “Oh God, Dexter,” Rita said, and she began to weep silently. Even if I wasn't driving I wouldn't know what to do or say about that, so I simply concentrated on getting us to headquarters alive.

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A telephone rang in a very comfortable room. It did not give out an undignified chirping, or a salsa tune, or even a fragment of Beethoven, as modern cell phones do. Instead, it purred with a simple old-fashioned sound, the way telephones are supposed to ring.
And this conservative sound went well with the room, which was elegant in a very reassuring way. It contained a leather couch and two matching chairs, all worn just enough to give the feeling of a favorite pair of shoes. The telephone sat on a dark mahogany end table on the far side of the room, next to a bar made of matching wood.
Altogether the room had the relaxed and timeless feel of a very old and well-established gentlemen's club, except for one detail: the wall space between the bar and the couch was taken up by a large wooden case with a glass front, looking something like a cross between a trophy case and a shelf for rare books. But instead of flat shelves, the case was fitted with hundreds of felt-lined niches. Just over half of them cradled a skull-sized ceramic of a bull's head.
An old man entered the room, without haste, but also without the careful hesitance of frail old age. There was a confidence in his walk that is usually found only in much younger men. His hair was white and full and his face was smooth, as if it had been polished by the desert wind. He walked to the telephone like he was quite sure that whoever was calling would not hang up until he answered, and apparently he was right, since it was still ringing when he lifted the receiver.
“Yes,” he said, and his voice, too, was much younger and stronger than it should have been. As he listened he picked up a knife that lay on the table beside the telephone. It was of ancient bronze. The pommel was curved into a bull's head, the eyes set with two large rubies, and the blade was traced with gold letters that looked very much like MLK. Like the old man, the knife was much older than it looked, and far stronger. He idly ran a thumb along the blade as he listened, and a line of blood rose up on his thumb. It didn't seem to affect him. He put the knife down.
“Good,” he said. “Bring them here.” He listened again for a moment, idly licking the blood from his thumb. “No,” he said, running his tongue along his lower lip. “The others are already gathering. The storm won't affect Moloch, or his people. In three thousand years, we've seen far worse, and we're still here.”
He listened again for a moment before interrupting with just a trace of impatience. “No,” he said. “No delays. Have the Watcher bring him to me. It's time.”
The old man hung up the telephone and stood for a moment. Then he picked up the knife again, and an expression grew on his smooth old face.
It was almost a smile.
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The wind and the rain were gusting fiercely but only occasionally, and most of Miami was already off the roads and filling out insurance claim forms for the damage they planned to have, so the traffic was not bad. One very intense blast of wind nearly pushed us off the expressway, but other than that it was a quick trip.

Deborah was waiting for us at the front desk. “Come to my office,” she said, "and tell me what you
know.“ We followed her to the elevator and went up. ”Office“ was a bit of an exaggeration for the place where Deborah worked. It was a cubicle in a room with several others just like it. Crammed into the space was a desk and chair and two folding chairs for guests, and we settled in. ”All right,“ she said. ”What happened?"
“They…I sent them out into the yard,” Rita said. “To get all their toys and things. For the hurricane.” Deborah nodded. “And then?” she prompted. “I went in to put away the hurricane supplies,” she said. "And when I came out they were gone. I didn't-it
was only a couple of minutes, and they…" Rita put her face in her hands and sobbed.
“Did you see anyone approach them?” Deborah asked. “Any strange cars in the neighborhood? Anything at all?” Rita shook her head. “No, nothing, they were just gone.” Deborah looked at me. “What the hell, Dexter,” she said. "That's it? The whole story? How do you know
they're not playing Nintendo next door?"
“Come on, Deborah,” I said. “If you're too tired to work, tell us now. Otherwise, stop the crap. You know as well as I do-” “I don't know anything like it, and neither do you,” she snapped. “Then you haven't been paying attention,” I said, and I found that my tone was sharpening to match hers,
which was a bit of a surprise. Emotion? Me? “That business card he left with Cody tells us everything we need to know.”
“Except where, why, and who,” she snarled. “And I'm still waiting to hear some hints about that.” Even though I was perfectly prepared to snarl right back at her, there was really nothing to snarl. She was right. Just because Cody and Astor were missing, that didn't mean we suddenly had new information that would lead us to our killer. It only meant that the stakes were considerably higher, and that we were out of time.
“What about Wilkins?” I demanded. She waved a hand. “They're watching him,” she said. “Like last time?” “Please,” Rita interrupted, with a rough edge of hysteria creeping into her voice, "what are you talking
about? Isn't there some way to just-I mean, anything…?" Her voice trailed off into a new round of sobs,
and Deborah looked from her to me. “Please,” Rita wailed. As her voice rose it echoed into me and seemed to drop one final piece of pain into the empty dizziness inside me that blended in with the faraway music.

I stood up.
I felt myself sway slightly and heard Deborah say my name, and then the music was there, soft but insistent, as if it had always been there, just waiting for a moment when I could hear it without distraction, and as I turned my focus on the thrum of the drums it called me, called as I knew it had been calling all along, but more urgently now, rising closer to the ultimate ecstasy and telling me to come, follow, go this way, come to the music.
And I remember being very glad about that, that the time was here at last, and even though I could hear Deborah and Rita speaking to me it didn't seem that anything they had to say could be terribly important, not when the music was calling and the promise of perfect happiness was here at last. So I smiled at them and I think I even said, “Excuse me,” and I walked out of the room, not caring about their puzzled faces. I went out of the building, and to the far side of the parking lot where the music was coming from.
A car was waiting for me there, which made me even happier, and I hurried over to it, moving my feet to the beautiful flow of the music, and when I got there the back door of the car swung open and then I don't remember anything at all.

THIRTY-NINE

THE BUILDING WAS ABOUT THE SIZE OF A LARGE MIAMI Beach house. I prowled cautiously through a long hallway that ended at a door similar to the one I had just played bull-in-the-ring with. I tiptoed up and put my ear against it. I didn't hear anything at all, but the door was so thick that this meant almost nothing.
I put my hand on the knob and turned it very slowly. It wasn't locked, and I pushed the door open.
I peeked carefully around the edge of the door and saw nothing that ought to cause alarm other than some furniture that looked like real leather-I made a mental note to report it to PETA. It was quite an elegant room, and as I opened the door farther I saw a very nice mahogany bar in the far corner.
But much more interesting was the trophy case beside the bar. It stretched along the wall for twenty feet, and behind the glass, just visible, I could see row after row of what seemed to be assorted ceramic bulls' heads. Each piece shone under its own mini-spotlight. I did not count, but there had to be more than a hundred of them. And before I could move into the room I heard a voice, as cold and dry as it could be and still be human.
“Trophies,” and I jumped, turning the gun toward the sound. “A memorial wall dedicated to the god. Each represents a soul we have sent to him.” An old man sat there, simply looking at me, but seeing him was almost a physical blow. “We create a new one for each sacrifice,” he said. “Come in, Dexter.”
The old man didn't seem very menacing. In fact, he was nearly invisible, sitting back as he was in one of the large leather chairs. He got up slowly, with an old man's care, and turned a face on me that was as cold and smooth as river rock.
“We have been waiting for you,” he said, although as far as I could tell he was alone in the room, except for the furniture. “Come in.”
I really don't know if it was what he said, or the way he said it-or something else entirely. In any case, when he looked directly at me I suddenly felt like there was not enough air in the room. All the mad dash of my escape seemed to bleed out of me and puddle around my ankles, and a great clattering emptiness tore through me, as though there was nothing in the world but pointless pain, and he was its master.
“You've caused us a great deal of trouble,” he said quietly.
“That's some consolation,” I said. It was very hard to say, and sounded feeble even to me, but at least it made the old man look a little bit annoyed. He took a step toward me, and I found myself trying to shrink away. “By the way,” I said, hoping to appear nonchalant about the fact that I felt like I was melting, “who are us?”
He cocked his head to one side. “I think you know,” he said. "You've certainly been looking at us long

enough.“ He took another step forward and my knees wobbled slightly. ”But for the sake of a pleasant conversation,“ he said, ”we are the followers of Moloch. The heirs of King Solomon. For three thousand years, we have kept the god's worship alive and guarded his traditions, and his power."
“You keep saying 'we,'” I said.
He nodded, and the movement hurt me. “There are others here,” he said. “But the we is, as I am sure you are aware, Moloch. He exists inside me.” “So you killed those girls? And followed me around?” I said, and I admit I was surprised to think of this
elderly man doing all that.
He actually smiled, but it was humorless and didn't make me feel any better. “I did not go in person, no. It was the Watchers.” “So-you mean, it can leave you?” “Of course,” he said. "Moloch can move between us as he wishes. He's not one person, and he's not in
one person. He's a god. He goes out of me and into some of the others for special errands. To watch.“ ”Well, it's wonderful to have a hobby," I said. I wasn't really sure where our conversation was going, or if
my precious life was about to skid to a halt, so I asked the first question that sprung to mind. “Then why did you leave the bodies at the university?” “We wanted to find you, naturally.” The old man's words froze me to the spot. “You had come to our attention, Dexter,” he continued, "but we had to be sure. We needed to observe you
to see if you would recognize our ritual or respond to our Watcher. And, of course, it was convenient to lead the police to concentrate on Halpern," he said.
I didn't know where to begin. “He's not one of you?” I said. “Oh, no,” the old man said pleasantly. “As soon as he's released from police custody he'll be over there, with the others.” He nodded toward the trophy case, filled with ceramic bulls' heads.
“Then he really didn't kill the girls.”
“Yes, he did,” he said. “While he was being persuaded from the inside by one of the Children of Moloch.” He cocked his head to one side. “I'm sure you of all people can understand that, can't you?” I could, of course. But it didn't answer any of the main questions. "Can we please go back to where you
said I had 'come to your attention'?" I asked politely, thinking of all the hard work I put into keeping a
low profile. The man looked at me as though I had an exceptionally thick head. “You killed Alexander Macauley,” he said.
Now the tumblers fell into the weakened steel lock that was Dexter's brain. “Zander was one of you?” He shook his head slightly. “A minor helper. He supplied material for our rites.”

“He brought you the winos, and you killed them,” I said.
He shrugged. “We practice sacrifice, Dexter, not killing. In any case, when you took Zander, we followed you and discovered what you are.”
“What am I?” I blurted, finding it slightly exhilarating to think that I stood face-to-face with someone who could answer the question I had pondered for most of my slash-happy life. But then my mouth went dry, and as I awaited his answer a sensation bloomed inside me that felt an awful lot like real fear.
The old man's glare turned sharp. “You're an aberration,” he said. “Something that shouldn't exist.”
I will admit that there have been times when I would agree with that thought, but right now was not one of them. “I don't want to seem rude,” I said, “but I like existing.”
“That is no longer your choice,” he said. “You have something inside you that represents a threat to us. We plan to get rid of it, and you.”
“Actually,” I said, sure he was talking about my Dark Passenger, “that thing is not there anymore.”
“I know that,” he said, a little irritably, “but it originally came to you because of great traumatic suffering. It is attuned to you. But it is also a bastard child of Moloch, and that attunes you to us.” He waved a finger at me. “That's how you were able to hear the music. Through the connection made by your Watcher. And when we cause you sufficient agony in a very short time, it will come back to you, like a moth to a flame.”
I really didn't like the sound of that, and I could see that our conversation was sliding rapidly out of my control, but just in time I remembered that I did, after all, have a gun. I pointed it at the old man and drew myself up to my full quivering height.
“I want my children,” I said.
He didn't seem terribly concerned about the pistol aimed at his navel, which to me seemed like pushing the envelope of self-confidence. He even had a large wicked-looking knife on one hip, but he made no move to touch it.
“The children are no longer your concern,” he said. “They belong to Moloch now. Moloch likes the taste of children.”
“Where are they?” I said.
He waved his hand dismissively. “They're right here on Toro Key, but you're too late to stop the ritual.”
Toro Key was far from the mainland and completely private. But in spite of the fact that it's generally a great pleasure to learn where you are, this time it raised a number of very sticky questions-like, where were Cody and Astor, and how would I prevent life as I knew it from ending momentarily?
“If you don't mind,” I said, and I wiggled the pistol, just so he would get the point, “I think I'll collect them and go home.”
He didn't move. He just looked at me, and from his eyes I could very nearly see enormous black wings

beating out and into the room, and before I could squeeze the trigger, breathe, or blink, the drums began to swell, insisting on the beat that was embedded in me already, and the horns rose with the rhythm, leading the chorus of voices up and into happiness, and I stopped dead in my tracks.
My vision seemed normal, and my other senses were unimpaired, but I could not hear anything but the music, and I could not do anything except what the music told me to do. And it told me that just outside this room true happiness was waiting. It told me to come and scoop it up, fill my hands and heart with bliss everlasting, joy to the end of all things, and I saw myself turning toward the door, my feet leading me to my happy destiny.
The door swung open as I approached it, and Professor Wilkins came in. He was carrying a gun, too, and he barely glanced at me. Instead, he nodded at the old man and said, “We're ready.” I could barely hear him through the wild flush of feeling and sound welling up, and I moved eagerly toward the door.
Somewhere deep beneath all this was the tiny shrill voice of Dexter, screaming that things were not as they should be and demanding a change in direction. But it was such a small voice, and the music was so large, bigger than everything else in this endlessly wonderful world, and there was never any real question about what I was going to do.
I stepped toward the door in rhythm to the ubiquitous music, dimly aware that the old man was moving with me, but not really interested in that fact or any other. I still had the gun in my hand-they didn't bother to take it from me, and it didn't occur to me to use it. Nothing mattered but following the music.
The old man stepped around me and opened the door, and the wind blew hot in my face as I stepped out and saw the god, the thing itself, the source of the music, the source of everything, the great and wonderful bull-horned fountain of ecstasy there ahead of me. It towered above everything else, its great bronze head twenty-five feet high, its powerful arms held out to me, a wonderful hot glow burning in its open belly. My heart swelled and I moved toward it, not really seeing the handful of people standing there watching, even though one of those people was Astor. Her eyes got big when she saw me, and her mouth moved, but I could not hear what she said.
And tiny Dexter deep inside me screamed louder, but only just loud enough to be heard, and not even close to loud enough to be obeyed. I walked on toward the god, seeing the glow from the fire inside it, watching the flames in its belly flicker and jump with the wind that whipped around us. And when I was as close as I could get, standing right beside the open furnace of its belly, I stopped and waited. I did not know what I was waiting for, but I knew that it was coming and it would take me away to wonderful forever, so I waited.
Starzak came into view, and he was holding Cody by the hand, dragging him along to stand near us, and Astor was struggling to get away from the guard beside her. It didn't matter, though, because the god was there and its arms were moving down now, outspread and reaching to embrace me and clasp me in its warm, beautiful grip. I quivered with the joy of it, no longer hearing the shrill, pointless voice of protest from Dexter, hearing nothing at all but the voice of the god calling from the music.
The wind whipped the fire into life, and Astor thumped against me, bumping me into the side of the statue and the great heat coming from the god's belly. I straightened up with only a moment of annoyance and once more watched the miracle of the god's arms coming down, the guard moving Astor forward to share the bronze embrace, and then there was the smell of something burning and a blaze of pain along my legs and I looked down to see that my pants were on fire.
The pain of the fire on my legs jolted through me with the shriek of a hundred thousand outraged

neurons, and the cobwebs were instantly cleared away. Suddenly the music was just noise from a loudspeaker, and this was Cody and Astor here beside me in very great danger. It was as if a hole had opened up in a dam and Dexter came pouring back in through it. I turned to the guard and yanked him away from Astor. He gave me a look of blank surprise and pitched over, grabbing my arm as he fell and pulling me down onto the ground with him. But at least he fell away from Astor, and the ground jarred the knife out of his hand. It bounced along to me and I picked it up and holstered it snugly in the guard's solar plexus.
Then the pain in my legs went up a notch and I quickly concentrated on extinguishing my smoldering pants, rolling and slapping at them until they were no longer burning. And while it was a very good thing not to be on fire anymore, it was also several seconds of time that allowed Starzak and Wilkins to come charging toward me. I grabbed the pistol from the ground and lurched to my feet to face them.
A long time ago, Harry had taught me to shoot. I could almost hear his voice now as I moved into my firing stance, breathed out, and calmly squeezed the trigger. Aim for the center and shoot twice. Starzak goes down. Move your aim to Wilkins, repeat. And then there were bodies on the ground, and a terrible scramble of the remaining onlookers running for safety, and I was standing beside the god, alone in a place that was suddenly very quiet except for the wind. I turned to see why.
The old man had grabbed Astor and was holding her by the neck, with a grip much more powerful than seemed possible with his frail body. He pushed her close to the open furnace. “Drop the gun,” he said, “or she burns.”
I saw no reason to doubt that he would do as he said, and I saw no sign of any way to stop him, either. Everyone living had scattered, except for us.
“If I drop the gun,” I said, and I hoped I sounded reasonable, “how do I know you won't put her in the fire anyway.”
He snarled at me, and it still caused a twinge of agony. “I'm not a murderer,” he said. “It has to be done right or it's just killing.”
“I'm not sure I can see a difference,” I said.
“You wouldn't. You're an aberration,” he said.
“How do I know you won't kill us all anyway?” I said.
“You're the one I need to feed to the fire,” he said. “Drop the gun and you can save this girl.”
“Not terribly convincing,” I said, stalling for time, hoping for that time to bring something.
“I don't need to be,” he said. “This isn't a stalemate-there are other people on this island, and they'll be back out here soon. You can't shoot them all. And the god is still here. But since you obviously need convincing, how about if I slice your girl a few times and let the blood flow persuade you?” He reached down to his hip, found nothing, and frowned. “My knife,” he said, and then his expression of puzzlement blossomed into one of great astonishment. He gaped at me without saying a thing, simply holding his mouth wide open as if he was about to sing an aria.
And then he dropped to his knees, frowned, and pitched forward onto his face, revealing a knife blade protruding from his back-and also revealing Cody, standing behind him, smiling slightly as he watched

the old man fall, and then looking up at me.
“Told you I was ready,” he said.