n Wednesday, May 11, they were back in the house. They put Regan to bed, installed a lock on the shutters and stripped all the mirrors from her bedroom and bathroom.

"...fewer and fewer lucid moments, and now there's a total blacking out of her consciousness during the fits, I'm afraid. That's new and would seem to eliminate genuine hysteria. In the meantime, a symptom or two in the area of what we call parapsychic phenomena have..."

Dr. Klein came by, and Chris attended with Sharon as he drilled them in proper procedures for administering Sustagen feedings to Regan during her periods of coma. He inserted the nasogastric tubing. "First..."

Chris forced herself to watch and yet not see her daughter's face; to grip at the words that the doctor was saying and push away others she'd heard at the clinic. They seeped through her consciousness like fog through the branches of a willow tree.

"Now you stated 'No religion' here, Mrs. MaeNeil. Is that right? No religious education at all?"

"Oh, well, maybe just 'God.' You know, general. Why?"

"Well, for one thing, the content of much of her raving--- when it isn't that gibberish she's been spouting--- is religiously oriented. Now where do you think she might get that?"

"Well, give me a for instance."

"Oh, 'Jesus and Mary, sixty-nine,' for ex---"

Klein had guided the tubing into Regan's stomach. "First you check to see if fluid's gotten into the lung," he instructed, pinching on the tube in order to clamp off the flow of Sustagen. "If it..."

"...syndrome of a type of disorder that you rarely ever see anymore, except among primitive cultures. We call it somnambuliform possession. Quite frankly, we don't know much about it except that it starts with some conflict or guilt that eventually leads to the patient's delusion that his body's been invaded by an alien intelligence; a spirit, if you will. In times gone by, when belief in the devil was fairly strong, the possessing entity was usually a demon. In relatively modern cases, however, it's mostly the spirit of someone dead, often someone the patient has known or seen and is able unconsciously to mimic, like the voice and the mannerisms, even the features of the face, at times. They..."

After the gloomy Dr. Klein had left the house, Chris phoned her agent in Beverly Hills and announced to him lifelessly that she wouldn't be directing the segment. Then she called Mrs. Perrin. She was out. Chris hung up the phone with a mounting feeling of desperation. Someone. She would have to have help from...

"...Cases where it's spirits of the dead are more easy to deal with; you don't find the rages in most of those cases, or the hyperactivity and motor excitement. However, in the other main type of somnambuliform possession, the new personality's always malevolent, always hostile toward the first. Its primary aim, in fact, is to damage, torture and sometimes even kill it."

A set of restraining straps was delivered to the house and Chris stood watching, wan and spent, while Karl affixed them to Regan's bed and then to her wrists. Then as Chris moved a pillow in an effort to center it under Regan's head, the Swiss straightened up and looked pityingly at the child's ravaged face. "She is going to be well?" he asked. A hint of some emotion had tinged his words; they were lightly italicized with concern.

But Chris could not answer. As Karl was addressing her, she'd picked up an object that had been tucked under Regan's pillow. "Who put this crucifix here?" she demanded.

"The syndrome is only the manifestation of some conflict, of some guilt, so we try to get at it, find out what it is. Well, the best procedure in a case like this is hypnotherapy; however, we can't seem to put her under. So then we took a shot at narcosynthesis--- that's a treatment that uses narcotics--- but, frankly, that looks like another dead end."

"So what's next?'"

"Mostly time, I'm afraid, mostly time. We'll just have to keep trying, and hope for a change. In the meantime, she's going to have to be hospitalized for a..."

Chris found Sharon in the kitchen setting up her typewriter on the table. She had just brought it up from the basement playroom. Willie sliced carrots at the sink for a stew.

"Was it you who put the crucifix under her pillow, Shar?" Chris asked with the strain of tension.

"What do you mean?" asked Sharon, fuddled.

"You didn't?"

"Chris, I don't even know what ybu're talking about. Look, I told you. I told you on the plane, all I've ever said to Rags is 'God made the world' and maybe things about---"

"Fine, Sharon, fine; I believe you, but---"

"Me, I don't put it," growled Willie defensively.

"Somebody put it there, dammit!" Chris erupted, then wheeled on Karl as he entered the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. "Look, I'll ask you again," she gritted in a tone that verged on shrillness: "Did you put that crucifix under her pillow?"

"No, madam," he answered levelly. He was folding ice cubes into a face towel. "No. No cross."

"That fucking cross didn't just walk up there, damn you! One of you is lying!" She was shrieking with a rage that stunned the room. "Now you tell me who put it there, who---"' Abruptly she slumped to a chair and began to sob into trembling hands. "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm doing!" she wept. "Oh, my God, I don't know what I'm doing!"

Willie and Karl watched silently as Sharon came up beside her and kneaded her neck with a comforting hand. "Hey, okay. It's okay."

Chris wiped at her face with the back of a sleeve. "yeah, I guess whoever did it"--- she sniffled--- "was only trying to help."

"Look, I'm telling you again and you'd better believe it, I'm not about to put her in a goddam asylum!"

"It's---"

"I don't care what you call it! I'm not letting her out of my sight!"

"Well, I'm sorry."

"Yeah, sorry! Christ! Eighty-eight doctors and all you can tell me with all of your bullshit is..."

Chris smoked a cigarette, tamped it out nervously and went upstairs to look in on Regan. She opened the door. In the gloom of the bedroom, she made out a figure by Regan's bedside, sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair. Karl. What was he doing? she wondered.

As Chris moved closer, he chid not look up, but kept his gaze on the child's face. He had his arm outstretched and was touching it. What was in his hand? As Chris reached the bedside, she saw what it was: the improvised ice pack he had fashioned in the kitchen. Karl was cooling Regan's forehead.

Chris was touched, stood watching with surprise, and when Karl did not move or acknowledge her presence, she turned and quietly left the room.

She went to the kitchen, drank black coffee and smoked another cigarette. Then on an impulse she went to the study. Maybe... maybe...

"...an outside chance, since possession is loosely related to hysteria insofar as the origin of the syndrome is almost always autosuggestive. Your daughter must have known about possession, believed in possession, and known about some of its symptoms, so that now her unconscious is producing the syndrome. If that can be established, you might take a stab at a form of cure that's autosuggestive. I think of it as shock treatment in these cases, though most other therapists wouldn't agree, I suppose. Oh, well--- as I said, it's a very outside chance, and since you're opposed to your daughter being hospitalized, I'll---"

"Name it, for Gods sake! What is it?!"

"Have you ever heard of exorcism, Mrs. MacNeil?"

The books in the study were part of the furnishings and Chris was unfamiliar with them. Now she was scanning the titles, searching, searching....

"...stylized ritual now out of date in which rabbis and priests tried to drive out the spirit. It's only the Catholics who haven't discarded it yet, but they keep it pretty much in the closet as sort of an embarrassment, I think. But to someone who thinks that he's really possessed, I would say that the ritual's rather impressive. It used to work, in fact, although not the reason they thought, of course; it was purely the ¬force of suggestion. The victim's belief in possession helped cause it, or at least the appearance of the a syndrome, and in just the same way his belief in the power of the exorcism can make it disappear. It's--- ah, you're frowning. Well, perhaps I should tell you about the Australian aborigines. They're convinced that if some wizard thinks a 'death ray' at them from a distance, why, they're definitely going to die, you see. And the fact is that they do! They just lie down and slowly die! And the only thing that saves them, at times, is a similar form of suggestion: a counteracting 'ray' by another wizard!"

"Are you telling me to take her to a witch doctor?"

"Yes, I suppose that I'm saying just that: as a desperate measure, perhaps to a priest. That's a rather bizarre little piece of advice, I know, even dangerous, in fact, unless we can definitely ascertain whether Regan knew anything at all about possession, and particularly exorcism, before this all came on. Do you think she might have read it?"

"No, l don't."

"Seen a movie about it sometime? Something on television?"

"No."

"Read the gospels, perhaps? The New Testament?"

"Why?"

"There are quite a few accounts of possession in them; of exorcisms by Christ. The descriptions of the symptoms, in fact, are the same as in possession today. If you---"

"Look, it's no good. Never mind, just forget it! That's all I need is to have her father hear that I called in a bunch of..."

Chris's index fingernail clicked slowly from binding to binding. Nothing. No Bible. No New Testament. Not a---

Hold it!

Her eyes darted quickly back to a title on the bottom shelf. The volume on witchcraft that Mary Jo Perrin had sent her. Chris plucked it out from the shelf and turned to the table of contents, running her thumbnail down the...

There!

The title of a chapter pulsed like a heartthrob: "States of Possession."

Chris closed the book and her eyes at the same time, wondering, wondering....

Maybe... iust maybe...

She opened her eyes and walked slowly to the kitchen. Sharon was typing. Chris held up the book. "Did you read this, Shar?"

Sharon kept typing, never glancing up. "Read what?" she answered.

"This book on witchcraft"

"No."

"Did you put it in the study?"

"No. Never touched it."

"Where's Willie?¬"

"At the market."

Chris nodded, considering. Then went back upstairs to Regan's bedroom. She showed Karl the book. Did you put this in the study, Karl? On the bookshelf?"

"No, madam."

"Maybe Willie," Chris murmured as she stared at the book. Soft thrills of surmise rippled through her. Were the doctors at Barringer Clinic right? Was this it? Had Regan plucked her disorder through autosuggestion from the pages of this book? Would she find her symptoms listed here? Something specific that Regan was doing?

Chris sat at the table, opened to the chapter on possession and began to search, to search, to read:

Immediately derivative of the prevalent belief in demons was the phenomenon known as possession, a state in which many individuals believed that their physical and mental functions had been invaded and were being controlled by either a demon (most common in the period under discussion) or the spirit of someone dead. There is no period of history or quarter of the globe where this phenomenon has not been reported, and in fairly constant terms, and yet it is still to be adequately explained. Since Traugott Oesterreich's definitive study, first published in 1921, very little has been added to the body of knowledge, the advances of psychiatry notwithstanding.

Not fully explained? Chris frowned. She'd had a different impression from the doctors.

What is known is the following: that various people, at various times, have undergone massive transformations so complete that those around them feel they are dealing with another person. Not only the voice, the mannerisms, facial expressions and characteristic movements are altered, but the subject himself now thinks of himself as totally distinct from the original person and as having a name--- whether human or demonic--- and separate history of its own....

The symptoms. Where were the symptoms? Chris wondered impatiently....In the Malay Archipelago, where possession is even today an everyday, common occurrence, the possessing spirit of someone dead often causes the possessed to mimic its gestures, voice and mannerisms so strikingly, that relatives of the deceased will burst into tears. But aside from so-called quasi-possession--- those cases that are ultimately reducible to fraud, paranoia and hysteria--- the problem has always lain with interpreting the phenomena, the oldest interpretation being the spiritist, an impression that is likely to be strengthened by the fact that the intruding personality may have accomplishments quite foreign to the first. In the demoniacal form of possession, for example, the "demon" may sneak in languages unknown to the first personality, or...

There! Something! Regan's gibberish! An attempt at a language? She read on quickly....or manifest various parapsychic phenomena, telekinesis for example: the movement of objects without application of material force.

The rappings? The flinging up and down on the bed?...In cases of possession by the dead, there are manifestations such as Oesterreich's account of a monk who, abruptly, while possessed, became a gifted and brilliant dancer although he had never, before his possession, had occasion to dance so much as a step. So impressive, at times, are these manifestations that Jung, the psychiatrist, after studying a case at first hand, could offer only partial explanation far what he was certain could "not have been fraud"...

Worrisome. The tone of this was worrisome....and William James, the greatest psychologist that America has ever produced, resorted to positing "the plausibility of the spiritualist interpretation of the phenomenon" after closely studying the so-called "Watseka Wonder," a teenaged girl in Watseka, Illinois, who became indistinguishable in personality from a girl named Mary Roff who had died in a state insane asylum twelve years prior to the possession...

Frowning, Chris did not hear the doorbell chime; did not hear Sharon stop typing to rise and go answer it.

The demoniacal form of possession is usually thought to have had its origin in early Christianity; yet in fact both possession and exorcism pre-date the time of Christ. The ancient Egyptians as well as the earliest civilizations of the Tigris and the Euphrates believed that physical and spiritual disorders were caused by invasion of the body by demons. The following, for example, is the formula for exorcism against maladies of children in ancient Egypt: "Go hence, thou who comest in darkness, whose nose is turned backwards, whose face is upside down. Hast thou come to kiss this child? I will not let the..."

"Chris?"

She kept reading, absorbed. "Shar, I'm busy."

"There's a homicide detective wants to see you."

"Oh, Christ, Sharon, tell him to---"

She stopped.

"No, no, hold it." Chris frowned, still staring at the book. "No. Tell him to come in. Let him in."

Sound of walking.

Sound of waiting.

What am I waiting for? Chris wondered. She sat on expectancy that was known yet undefined, like the vivid dream one can never remember.

He came in with Sharon, his hat brim crumpled in his hand, wheezing and listing and deferential. "So sorry. You're busy, you're busy, I'm a bother."

"How's the world?"

"Very bad, very bad. How's your daughter?"

"No change."

"Ah, I'm sorry, I'm terribly sorry." He was hulking by the table now, his eyelids dripping concern. "Look, I wouldn't even bother; your daughter; it's a worry. God knows, when my Ruthie was down with the--- no no no no, it was Sheila, my little---"

"Please sit down," Chris cut in.

"Oh, yes, thank you," he exhaled, gratefully settling his bulk in a chair across the table from Sharon, who had now returned to her typing of letters.

"I'm sorry; you were saying?" Chris asked the detective.

"Well, my daughter, she--- ah, never mind." He dismissed it. "You're busy. I get started, I'll tell my life story, you could maybe make a film of it. Really! it's incredible! If you only knew half of the things used to happen in my crazy family, you know, like my--- ah, well, you're--- One! I'll tell one! Like my mother, every Friday she made us gefilte fish, right? Only all week long, the whole week, no one gets to take a bath on account of my mother has the carp in the bathtub, it's swimming back and forth, back and forth, the whole week, because my mother said this cleaned out the poison in its system! You're prepared? Because it... Ah, that's enough now; enough." He sighed, wearily, motioning his hand in a gesture of dismissal. "But now and then a laugh just to keep us from crying."

Chris watched him expressionlessly, waiting....

"Ah, you're reading." He was glancing at the book on witchcraft. "For a film?" he inquired.

"Just reading."

"It's good?"

"I just started."

"Witchcraft," he murmured, his head angled, reading the title at the top of the pages.

"What's doin'?" Chris asked him.

"Yes, I'm sorry. You're busy. You're busy. I'll finish. As I said, I wouldn't bother you, except..."

"Except what?"

He looked suddenly grave and clasped his hands on the table. "Well, Mr. Dennings, Mrs. MacNeil..."

"Well..."

"Darn it," snapped Sharon with irritation as she ripped out a letter from the platen of the typewriter. She balled it up and tossed it at a wastepaper basket near Kinderman. "Oh, I'm sorry," she apologized as she saw that her outburst had interrupted them.

Chris and Kinderman were staring.

"You're Miss Fenster?" Kinderman asked her.

"Spencer," said Sharon, pulling back her chair in order to rise and retrieve the letter.

"Never mind, never mind," said Kinderman as he reached to the floor near his foot and picked up the crumpled page.

"Thanks," said Sharon.

"Nothing. Excuse me--- you're the secretary?"

"Sharon, this is..."

"Kinderman," the detective reminded her. "William Kinderman."

"Right. This is Sharon Spencer."

"A pleasure," Kinderman told the blonde, who now folded her arms on the typewriter,, eyeing him curiously. "Perhaps you can help," he added. "On the night of Mr. Dennings' demise, you went out to a drugstore and left him alone in the house, correct?"

"Well, no; Regan was here."

"That's my daughter," Chris clarified.

Kinderman continued to question Sharon. "He came to see Mrs. MacNeil?"

"Yes, that's right"

"He expected her shortly?"

"Well, I told him I expected her back pretty soon."

"Very good. And you left at what time? You remember?"

"Let's see. I was watching the news, so I guess--- oh, no, wait--- yes, that's right. I remember being bothered because the pharmacist said the delivery boy had gone home. I remember I said, 'Oh, come on, now,' or something about its only being six-thirty. Then Burke came along just ten, maybe twenty minutes after that."

"So a median," concluded the detective, "would have put him here at six-forty-five."

"And so what's this all about?" asked Chris, the nebulous tension in her mounting.

"Well, it raises a question, Mrs. MacNeil," wheezed -Kinderman, turning his head to gaze at her. "To arrive in the house at say quarter to seven and leave only twenty minutes later..."

"Oh, well, that was Burke," said Chris "Just like him."

"Was it also like Mr. Dennings," asked Kinderman; "to frequent the bars on M. Street?"

"No."

"No, No, I thought not. I made a little check. And was it also not his custom to travel by taxi? He wouldn't call a cab from the house when he left?"

"Yes, he would."

"Then one wonders--- not so?--- how he came to be walking on the platform at the top of the steps. And one wonders why taxicab companies do not show a record of calls from this house on that night," added Kinderman, "except for the one that picked up your Miss Spencer here at precisely six-forty-seven."

"I don't know," answered Chris, her voice drained of color... and waiting...

"You knew all along!" gasped Sharon at Kinderman, perplexed.

"Yes, forgive me," the detective told her. "However, the matter has now grown serious."

Chris breathed shallowly, fixing the detective with a steady gaze. "In what way?" she asked. Her voice came thin from her throat.

He leaned over hands still clasped on the table, the page of typescript balled between them. "The report of the pathologist, Mrs. MacNeil, seems to show that the chance that he died accidentally is still very possible. However..."

"Are you saying he was murdered?" Chris tensed.

"The position--- now I know this is painful---"

"Go ahead."

"The position of Dennings' head and a certain shearing of the muscles of the neck would---"

"Oh, God!" Chris winced.

"Yes, it's painful. I'm sorry; I'm terribly sorry. But you see, this condition--- we can skip the details--- but it never could happen, you see, unless Mr. Dennings had fallen some distance before he hit the steps; for example, some twenty or thirty feet before he went rolling down to the bottom. So a clear possibility, plainly speaking, is maybe... Well, first let me ask you..."

He'd turned now to a frowning Sharon. "When you left, he was where, Mr. Dennings? With the child?"

"No, down here in the study. He was fixing a drink."

"Might your daughter remember"--- he turned to Chris--- "if perhaps Mr. Dennings was in her room that night?"

Has she ever been alone with him?

"Why do you ask?"

"Might your daughter remember?"

"No, I told you before, she was heavily sedated and---"

"Yes, yes, you told me; that's true; I recall it; but perhaps she awakened--- not so?--- and..."

"No chance. And---"

"She was also sedated," he interrupted, "when last we spoke?"

"Oh, well, yes; as a matter of fact she was," Chris recalled. "So what?"

"I thought I saw her at her window that day."

"You're mistaken."

He shrugged. "It could be, it could be; I'm not sure."

"Listen, why are you asking all this?" Chris demanded.

"Well, a clear possibility, as I was saying, is maybe the deceased was so drunk that he stumbled and fell from the window in your daughter's bedroom."

Chris shook her head. "No way. No chance. In the first place, the window was always closed, and in the second place, Burke was always drunk, but he never got sloppy, never sloppy at all. That right, Shar?"

"Right."

"Burke used to direct when he was smashed. Now how could he stumble and fall out a window?"

"Were you maybe expecting someone else here that night?" he asked her.

"No."

"Have you friends who drop by without calling?"

"Just Burke," Chris answered. Why?"

The detective lowered his head and shook it, frowning at the crumpled paper in his hands. "Strange... so baffling." He exhaled wearily. "Baffling." Then he lifted his glance to Chris. "The deceased comes to visit, stays only twenty minutes without even seeing you, and leaves all alone here a very sick girl. And speaking plainly, Mrs. MacNeil, as you say, it's not likely he would fall from a window. Besides that, a fall wouldn't do to his neck what we found except maybe a chance in a thousand." He nodded with his head of the book on witchcraft. "You've read in that book about ritual murder?"

Some perscience chilling her, Chris shook her head

"Maybe not in that book," he said. "However--- forgive me; I mention this only so maybe you'll think just a little bit harder--- poor Mr. Dennings was discovered with his neck wrenched around in the style of ritual murder by so-called demons, Mrs. MacNeil."

Chris went white.

"Some lunatic killed Mr. Dennings," the detective continued, eyeing Chris fixedly. "At first, I never told you to spare you the hurt. And besides, it could technically still be an accident. But me, I don't think so. My hunch. My opinion. I believe he was killed by a powerful man: point one. And the fracturing of his skull--- point two--- plus the various things I have mentioned, would make it very probable--- probable, not certain--- the deceased was killed and then afterward pushed from your daughter's window. But no one was here except your daughter. So how could this be? It could be one way: if someone came calling between the time Miss Spencer left and the time you returned. Not so? Maybe so. Now I ask you again, please: who might have come?"

"Judas priest, just a second!" Chris whispered hoarsely, still in shock.

"Yes, I'm sorry. It's painful. And perhaps I'm wrong--- I'll admit. But you'll think now? Who? Tell me who might have come?"

Chris had her head down, frowning in thought. Then she looked up at Kinderman. "No. No, there's no one."

"Maybe you then, Miss Spencer?" he asked hems "Someone comes here to see you?"

"Oh, no, no one," said Sharon, her eyes very wide.

Chris turned to her. "Does the horseman know where you work?"

"The horseman?" asked Kinderman.

"Her boyfriend," Chris explained.

The blonde shook her head. "He's never come here. Besides, he was in Boston that night. Some convention."

"He's a salesman?"

"A lawyer."

The detective turned again to Chris. "The servants? They have visitors?"

"Never. Not at all."

"You expected a package that day? Some delivery?"

"Not that I know of. Why?"

"Mr. Dennings was--- not to speak ill of the dead, may he rest in peace--- but as you said, in his cups he was somewhat--- well, call it irascible: capable, doubtless, of provoking an argument; an anger; in this case a rage from perhaps a delivery man who came by to drop a package. So were you expecting something? Like dry cleaning, maybe? Groceries? Liquor? A package?"

"I really wouldn't know," Chris told him. "Karl handles all of that."

"Oh, I see."

"Want to ask him?"

The detective sighed and leaned back from the table, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his coat. He stared glumly at the witchcraft book. "Never mind, never mind; it's remote. You've got a daughter very sick, and--- well, never mind." He made a gesture of dismissal and rose from the chair. "Very nice to have met you, Miss Spencer."

"Same here." Sharon nodded remotely.

"Baffling," said Kinderman with a headshake. "Strange." He was focused on some inner thought. Then he looked at Chris as she rose from her chair. "Well, I'm sorry. I've bothered you for nothing. Forgive me."

"Here, I'll walk you to the door," Chris told him,, thoughtful.

"Don't bother."

"No bother."

"If you insist. Incidentally," he said as they moved from the kitchen, "just a chance in a million, I know, but your daughter--- you could possibly ask her if she saw Mr. Dennings in her room that night?"

Chris walked with folded arms. "Look, he wouldn't have had a reason to be up there is the first place."

"I know that; I realize; that's true; but if certain British doctors never asked, 'What's this fungus?' we wouldn't today have penicillin. Right? Please ask. You'll ask?"

'When she's well enough, yes; I'll ask."

"Couldn't hurt. In the meantime..." They'd come to the front door and Kinderman faltered, embarrassed. He put fingertips to mouth in a hesistant gesture. "Look, I really hate to ask you; however...''

Chris tensed for some new shock, the prescience tingling again in her bloodstream "What?"

"For my daughter... you could maybe give an autograph?" He'd reddened, and Chris almost laughed with relief; at herself; at despair and the human condition.

"Oh, of course. Where's a pencil?" she said.

"Right her!" he responded instantly, whippeng out the stub of a chewed-up pencil from the pocket of his coat while he dipped his other hand in a pocket of his jacket and slipped out a calling card. "She would love it," he said as he handed them both to Chris.

"What's her name?" Chris asked, pressing the card against the door and poising the pencil stub to write. There followed a weighty hesitation. She heard only wheezing. She glanced around. In Kinderman's eyes she saw some massive, terrible struggle.

"I lied," he said finally, his eyes at once desperate and defiant. "It's for me."

He fixed his gaze on the card and blushed. "Write 'To William--- William Kinderman'--- it's spelled on the back."

Chris eyed him with a wan and unexpected affection, checked the spelling of his name and wrote, William F. kinderman, I love you! And signed her name. Then she gave him the card, which he tucked in his pocket without reading the inscription.

"You're a very nice lady," he told her sheepishly, gaze averted.

"You're a very nice man."

He seemed to blush harder. "No, I'm not. I'm a bother." He was opening the door. "Never mind what I said here today. It's upsetting. Forget it. Keep your mind on your daughter. Your daughter."

Chris nodded, her despondency surging up again as Kinderman stepped outside onto the stoop and donned his hat.

"But you'll ask her?" he reminded as he turned.

"I will," Chris whispered. "I promise. I will."

"Well, good-bye. And take care."

Once more Chris nodded; then added, "Yon too."

She closed the door softly. Then instantly opened it again as he knocked.

"What a nuisance. I'm a nuisance. I forgot my pencil." He grimaced in apology.

Chris eyed the stub in her hand, smiled faintly and gave it to Kinderman.

"And another thing..." He hesitated. "It's pointless, I know--- it's a bother, it's dumb--- but I know I won't sleep thinking maybe there's a lunatic loose or a doper if every little point I don't cover, whatever. Do you think I could--- no, no, it's dumb, it's a ---yes; I should. Could I maybe have a word with Mr. Engstrom, do yon think? The deliveries... the question of deliveries. I really should...."

"Sure, came on in," Chris said wearlly.

"No, you're busy. Enough. I can talk to him here. This is fine. Here is fine."

He had leaned against a railing.

"If you insist." Chris smiled thinly. "He's with Regan. I'll send him right down."

"I'm obliged."

Quickly Chris closed the door. A minute later, Karl opened it. He stepped down to the stoop with his hand on the doorknob, holding the door slightly ajar. Standing tall and erect, he looked at Kinderman with eyes that were clear and cool. "Yes?" he asked without expression.

"You have the right to remain silent," Kinderman greeted him, steely gaze locked tight on Karl's. "If you give up the right to remain silent," he intoned rapidly in a flat, deadly cadence, "anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak with an attorney and to have the attorney present during questioning. If you so desire, and cannot afford one, an attorney will be appointed for you without charge prior to questioning. Do you understand each of these rights I've explained to you?"

Birds twittered softly in the branches of the elder tree, and the traffic sounds of M Street came up to them muted like the humming of bees from a distant meadow. Karl's gaze never wavered as he answered, "Yes."

"Do you wish to give up the right to remain silent?"

"Yes."

"Do you wish to give up the right to speak to an attorney and have him present during questioning?"

"Yes."

"Did you previously state that on April twenty-eighth, the night of the death of Mr. Dennings, you attended a film that was showing at the Crest?"

"Yes."

"And what time did you enter the theater?"

"I do not remember."

"You stated previously you attended the six-o'clock showing. Does that help you to remember?"

"Yes. Yes, six-o'clock show. I remember."

"And you saw the picture--- the film--- from the beginning?"

"I did."

"And you left at the film's conclusion?"

"I did."

"Not before?"

"No, I see entire film."

"And leaving the theater, you boarded the D.C. Transit bus is front of the theater, debarking at M Street and Wisonsin Avenue at approximately nine-twenty P.M.?"

"Yes."

"And walked home?"

"I walk home."

"And were back in this residence at approximately nine-thirty P.M.?"

"I am back here exactly nine-thirty," Karl answered.

"You're sure."

"Yes, I look at my watch. I am positive."

"And you saw the whole film to the very end?"

"Yes, I said that."

"Your answers are being electronically recorded, Mr. Engstrom. I want you to be absolutely positive."

"I am positive."

"You're aware of the altercation between an usher and a drunken patron that happened in the last minutes of the film?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me the cause of it?"

"The man, he was drunk and was making disturbance."

"And what did they do with him finally?"

"Out. They throw him out."

"There was no such disturbance. Are you also aware that during the course of the six o'clock showing a technical breakdown lasting approximately fifteen minutes caused an interruption in the showing of the film?"

"I am not."

"You recall that the audience booed?"

"No, nothing. No breakdown."

"'You're sure?"

"There was nothing."

"There was, as reflected in the log of the projectionist¬, showing that the film ended not at eighty-forty that night, but at approximately eight-fifty-five, which would mean that the earliest bus from the theater would put you at M Street and Wisconsin not at nine-twenty, but nine-forty-five, and that therefore the earliest you could be at the house was approximately five bebore ten, not nine-thirty, as testified by Mrs. MacNeil. Would you care now to comment on this puzzling discrepancy?"

Not for a moment had Karl lost his poise and he held it now as he answered, "No."

The detective stared at him mutely for a moment, then sighed and looked down as he turned off the monitor control that was tucked in the lining of his coat. He held his gaze down for a moment, then looked up at Karl. "Mr. Engstrom..." he began in a tone that was weary with understanding. "A serious crime may have been commited. You are under suspicion. Mr. Dennings abused you, I have learned from other sources. And apparently you've lied about your whereabouts at the time of his demise. Now it sometimes happens--- we're human; why not?--- that a man who is married is sometimes someplace where he says that he is not. You will notice I arranged we are talking in private? Away from the others? Away from your wife? I'm not now recording. It's off. You can trust me. If it happens you were out with a woman not your wife on that night, you can tell me, I'll have it checked out, you'll be out of this trouble and your wife, she won't know. Now then tell me; where were you at the time Dennings died?"

For a moment something flickered in the depths of Karl's eyes; and then was smothered.

"At movies!" he insisted through narrowed lips.

The detective eyed him steadily, silent and unmoving, no sound but his wheezing as the seconds ticked heavily, heavily....

"You are going to arrest me?" Karl asked the silence at last in a voice that subtly wavered.

The detective made no answer but continued to eye him, unblinking, and when Karl seemed again about to speak, the detective abruptly pushed away from the railing, moving toward the squad car with hands in his pocket. He walked unhurriedly, viewing his surroundings to the left and the right like an interested visitor to the city.

From the stoop, Karl watched, his features stolid and impassive as Kinderman open the door of the squad car, reached inside to a box of Klennex fixed to the dashboard, extracted a tissue and blew his nose while staring idly across the river as if considering where to have lunch. Then he entered the car without glancing back.

As the car pulled away and rounded the corner of Thirty-fifth, Karl looked at the hand that was not on the doorknob and saw it was trembling.

When she heard the front door being closed, Chris was brooding at the bar in the study, pouring out a Vodka over ice. Footsteps. Karl going up the stairs. She picked up her vodka and moved slowly back toward the kitchen, stirring her drink with an index finger; picking her way with absent eyes. Something... something was horribly wrong. Like light from a room leaking under the door, a glow of dread seeped into the darkened hall of her mind. What lay behind the door? What was it?

Don't look!

She entered the kitchen, sat at the table and sipped at her drink.

"I believe he was killed by a powerful man..."

She dropped her glance to the book on witchcraft.

Something...

Footsteps. Sharon returning from Regan's bedroom. Entering. Sitting at the table by the typewriter. Cranking fresh stationery into the roller.

Something...

"Pretty creepy," Sharon murmured, fingertips resting on the keyboard and eyes on her steno notes to the side.

No answer. Uneasiness hung in the room. Chris sipped absently at her drink.

Sharon probed at the silence in a strained, low voice. "They've got an awful lot of hippie joints down around M Street and Wisconsin. Pot-heads. Occultists. The police call them 'hellhounds.' " She paused as if waiting for comment, her eyes still fixed upon the notes; then continued: "I wonder if Burke might have---"

"Oh, Christ, Shar! Forget about it, will you!" Chris erupted. "I've got all I can think about with Rags! Do you mind?" She had her eyes shut. She clenched the book.

Sharon returned instantly to the keys of the typewriter, clicking off words at a furious tempo for a minute, then abruptly bolted up from her chair and out of the kitchen. "I'm going for a walk!" she said icily.

"Stay the hell away from M Street!" Chris rumbled at her moodily, her gaze on the book over folded arms.

"I Will!"

"And N!"

Chris heard the front door being opened, then closed. She sighed. Felt a pang of regret. But the flurry had siphoned off tension. Not all. Still the glow in the hall. Very faint.

Shut it out!

Chris took a deep breath and tried to focus on the book. She found her place; grew impatient; started hastily flipping through pages, skimming, searching for descriptions of Regan's symptoms. "...demonic possession... syndrome... case of an eight-year-old girl... abnormal... four strong men to restrain him from..."

Turning a page, Chris stared--- and froze.

Sounds. Willie coming in with groceries.

"Willie?... Willie?" Chris asked tonelessly.

"Yes, madam," Willie answered, setting down her bags. Without looking up, Chris held up the book. ¬"Was it you put this book in the study, Willie?"

Willie glanced at the book and nodded, then turned around and began to slip items from the bags.

"Willie, where did you find it?"

"Up in bedroom," Willie answered, putting bacon in the meat compartment of the refrigerator.

"Which bedroom, Willie?"

"Miss Regan. I find it under bed when I am cleaning."

"When did you find it?"' Club asked, her gaze still locked to the pages of the book.

"After all go to hospital, madam; when I vacuum in Regan bedroom."

"You're sure?"

"I am sure, madam. Yes. I am sure."

Chris did not move, did not blink, did not breathe as the headlong image of an open window in Regan's bedroom the night of Dennings' accident rushed at ¬her memory, talons extended, like a bird of prey who knew her name; as she recognized a sight that was numbingly fair; as she stared at the facing page of the book.

A narrow strip had been surgically shaved from the length of its edge.

Chris jerked her head up at the sounds of commotion in Regan's bedroom.

Rappings, rapid, with a nightmarish resonance; massive, like a sledgehammer pounding in a tomb!

Regan screaming in anguish; in terror; imploring!

Kark! Karl bellowing angrily at Regan!

Chris bolted from the kitchen.

God almighty, what's happening?

Frenzied, Chris raced for the stairs, toward the bedroom, heard a blow, someone reeling, someone crashing like a boulder to the floor with her daughter crying, "No! Oh, no, dont! Oh, no, please!" and Karl bellowing--- No! No, not Karl! Someone else! A thundering bass that was threatening, raging!

Chris plunged down the hall and burst into the bedroom, gasped, stood rooted in paralyzing shock as the rappings boomed massively, shivering through walls; as Karl lay unconscious on the floor near the bureau; as Regan, her legs propped up and spread wide on a bed that was violently bouncing and shaking, clutched the bone-white crucifix in raw knuckled hands; the bone-white crucifix poised at her vagina, the bone-white crucifix she stared at with terror, eyes bulging in a face that was bloodied from the nose, the naso-gastric tubing ripped out.

"Oh, Please! Oh, no, please!" she was shrieking as her hands brought the crucifix closer; as she seemed to be straining to push it away.

"You'll do as I tell you, fifth! You'll do it!"

The threatening bellow, the words, came from Regan, her voice coarse and guttural, bristling with venom, while in an instantaneous flash her expression and features were hideously transmuted into those of the feral, demonic personality that had appeared in the course of hypnosis. And now faces and voices, as Chris watched stunned, interchanged with rapidity:

"No!"

"You'll do it!"

"Please!"

"You will, you bitch, or I'll kill you!"

"Please!"

"Yes, you're going to let Jesus fuck you, fuck you, f---"

Regan now, eyes wide and staring, flinching from the rush of some hideous finality, mouth agape shrieking at the dread of some ending. Then abruptly the demonic face once more possessed her, now filled her, the room choking suddenly with a stench in the nostrils, with an icy cold that seeped from the walls as the rappings ended and Regan's piercing cry of terror turned to a guttural, yelping laugh of malevolent spite and rage triumphant while she thrust down the crucifix into her vagina and began to masturbate ferociously, roaring in that deep, coarse, deafening voice, "Now your're mine, now you're mine, you stinking cow! You bitch! Let Jesus fuck you, fuck you!"

Chris stood rooted to the ground in horror, frozen, her hands pressing tight against her cheeks as again the demonic, loud laugh cackled joyously, as Regan's vagina gushed blood onto sheets with her hymen, the tissues ripped. Abruptly, with a shriek clawing raw from her throat, Chris rushed at the bed, grasped blindly at the crucifix, was still screaming as Regan flared up at her in fury, features contorted infernally, reached out a hand, clutching Chris's hair, and yanked her head down, pressing her face hard against her vagina, smearing it with blood while she frantically undulated her pelvis.

"Aahhh, little pig mother!" Regan crooned with a guttural, rasping, throaty eroticism. "Lick me, lick me, lick me! Aahhhhh!" Then the hand that was holding Chris's head down jerked it upward while the other arm smashed her a blow across the chest that sent Chris reeling across the room and crashing to a wall with stunning force while Regan laughed with bellowing spite.

Chris crumpled to the floor in a daze of horror, in a swirling of images, sounds in the room, as her vision spun madly, blurring, unfocused, her ears ringing loud with chaotic distortions as she tried to raise herself, was too weak, faltered, then looked toward the still-blurred bed, toward Regan with her back to her, thrusting the crucifix gently and sensually into her vagina, then out, then in, with that deep, bass voice crooning, "Ah, there's my sow, yes, my sweet honey piglet, my Piglet, my---"

The words were cut off as Chris started crawling painfully toward the bed with her face smeared with blood, with her eyes still unfocused, limbs aching, past Karl. Then she cringed; shrinking bade in incredulous terror as she thought she saw hazily, in a swimming fog, her daughter's head turning slowly around on a motionless torso, rotating monstrously, inexorably, until at last it seemed facing backward.

"Do you know what she did, your cunting daughter?" giggled an elfin familiar voice.

Chris blinked at the mad-staring, grinning face, at the cracked, parched lips and foxlike eyes.

She screamed until she fainted.