Music Of Change #8: Mother Of Invention free porn video

Music of Change #8: Mother of Invention By Valerie Hope Joshua Little was devastated. It had been a terrible fight, to say the least. No yelling, no screaming, just a calm, icy conversation that sliced through him like a cold scalpel, baring his emotions to the bone. Grace had never even raised her voice. If she'd yelled at him, screamed, called him a liar and an asshole, at least he'd have known there was some heat there, something left of the fire he'd felt with her. But she gave him nothing. She'd even called him 'Dr. Little,' at the end. That had hurt him worse than if she'd drawn her gun and shot him through the guts. And without a second look, she'd turned on her heel and walked out of his life. He poured the latest in a long line of bourbons and sucked it down, wishing the burn in his esophagus would provide some warmth to the cold, dead space where his heart had been. He'd meant to tell her - honestly he had - but the time was never right. And he'd certainly never meant to fall in love with her. He looked at his hazy reflection in the glass tabletop where he sat, drinking and smoking and wishing that a meteor would fall from the heavens and put him out of his misery. A strong jaw, covered with a little stubble, topped with a shock of wavy sand- colored hair. A ready smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes and little-boy dimples. All the things he'd found attractive in a man when he'd been Jocelyn Little, a doctor fresh out of med school who was trying her best to save the world from itself. She'd been through what most doctors had been through - great triumphs and great tragedies, losses and gains, saving lives and losing them as she found her stride and figured out the place she fit in the vast machinations of the world. Until the night that Dr. Karl Renfro had brought his daughter into the ER. The girl had been dead by the time she hit the table - there was nothing Jocelyn or any of the other doctors could have done. But they tried anyway - they felt obligated, massaging her heart and pumping her drained body full of blood in an attempt to revive her, all the while wondering what a pretty girl like her was thinking trying to take her own life like that. Her father - the man who would change Jocelyn's life - had walked in with a numb, shocked look. He'd looked at his daughter's pale, waxen face and taken her hand in his own, and then there was nothing left but sound. Such a sound - Jocelyn had never before heard its like. It beat like the blood in her temples, seemed to somehow invade her and turned a mirror on her soul. She looked and found all the places where she wished it could have been different, all the things she hated about herself and the few things she desperately loved and clung to. And when she'd woken, she was on the floor beside the girl's deathbed. But she was different. Everything was different. The man's wife - Jocelyn had just been speaking to her when the sound had reached her ears - was not the same - her curves seemed riper, somehow, and the way she moved was incredibly sensual, like a woman who'd just awakened from a long and difficult sleep. The mousy brown hair in the severe bun had turned into flowing, silken gold, which caressed her face and the warm, inviting lips. And Jocelyn had felt - for the first time - her penis rise in response to the gorgeous creature she saw. It had been the worst week of her life. Dr. Renfro did all that he could, signing a death certificate and canceling the old identity. He kept going on and on about some way to change her back to her old body, but it was no avail - not because the Doctor didn't have the knowledge or even the ability to use the Music, but because Jocelyn didn't want to change back. That was the most powerful aspect of the Music. It gave you what you wanted. Granted, what you wanted typically came with its own set of problems, which no one could foresee, but the desire is what locked the changes in place, and made them irreversible. Nothing could talk Jocelyn Little out of the broad, tall, powerful frame she'd awoken in. She felt a vast, incredible potential for happiness inside herself that she'd never felt before. It had been the Doctor's formerly-prim and priggish wife, Claudette, who'd finally found a way to help. Between bouts of frantically fucking all her friends and neighbors and having the time of her life doing it, she'd contacted a friend who'd arranged to help out with a new identity. Apparently it was some kind of shady character - which was a mystery in and of itself as to how Claudette Renfro had even known a shady character, being the kind of woman she was until a few weeks back - who had no small experience in forging new identities. Jocelyn ran with it, contacting this LaPaglia character and becoming Joshua Little in a space of days. Renfro had helped with a place to live and some money until he could get on his feet - which, contrary to all the feminist rhetoric of the day, was no more easy for a man than it was for a woman - and they'd agreed to not have any contact with one another until the furor had died down. The last time Joshua had seen Renfro had been at his daughter's funeral. They parted ways from there, but even the agreement couldn't keep Joshua from keeping very close tabs on Karl Renfro's work, even as he was working under an assumed name in Europe at the time. It wasn't until four years had passed that he'd made contact again with Doctor Renfro, now armed with a slew of degrees, which LaPaglia had doctored up for him. It had cost a fortune, but it was well worth it - Joshua was now eminently qualified to assist Renfro with his work on the Music of Change, a remarkable discovery which blended psychology, advanced musical composition, shamanistic magic and something that no amount of science or reason could explain away. Joshua tended to think that they'd stumbled into one of the primal forces of the universe, the most powerful force for change that the world had ever known. Karl Renfro was the man it had chosen to be its appointed steward, and Joshua Little - formerly Jocelyn Little - wanted to be a part of it. Dr. Renfro had reluctantly agreed, and Joshua had assumed his place at the good doctor's side, using the powerful music to help and heal those who had no recourse to medicine or therapy. It made Joshua feel proud to be a part of something so beneficial. It reminded him constantly and strongly of why he'd gotten into medicine in the first place. And then Grace came into his life. Because of his looks, which had been patterned after Jocelyn's ideal of masculine desire, and his innate knowledge of things feminine, Joshua had been irresistible to women since his transformation, and he'd no lack of female companionship. He'd enjoyed it all, loved sharing pleasure and happiness with the women in his life since the change, but he'd never felt so strongly, so passionately about anyone until the sharp-as-nails detective with the no-nonsense attitude and the dancers' legs came barging into Corporate Rewards and started rearranging things to suit herself. She had stolen his heart without his even knowing it, and now that his 'dirty little secret' was brought to light, she was angry beyond even her not-inconsiderable reason. She would hear no explanation at all about his behavior or the choices he'd made - including her refusal to hear the truth: The only reason that Joshua had not said anything about his own transformation was because Dr. Renfro had asked him personally, the day before he became Karla. Joshua had nearly worshipped the man, and thought nothing of the request at the time - he was quick to believe that Dr. Renfro had his reasons for everything, and that all would be adequately explained in due time. But for the first time, Joshua allowed himself to question the motives of Karl Renfro and ask himself why the doctor would ask him not to mention the transformation. It didn't make any sense at all. *** "You've got to snap out of it, Gracie," Hope begged, taking her friend's hand. Grace didn't even look up. There was a haunting lack of tears and something very chilling about the calm control that Grace Kincaid was exhibiting. Like a part of the stunning detective had somehow died. "You'll figure this out," Hope tried again, chafing her friend's hand between her own. Grace closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, which she exhaled in a soul-deep sigh. "I know I will. I guess I have to, now," Grace said without a touch of life or animation in her voice. "Honey, you don't have to be this way," Hope said. "What way? Am I supposed to be crying, or shouting or screaming? What? Dammit, Hope, tell me what I'm supposed to be doing and I'll do it." Hope deflated a little. "I don't know," she said. "But it sounds like you're trying really hard not to feel anything, and I don't think that's healthy." Grace's eyes were flat as iron. "I don't feel anything, Hope. Not a goddamned thing. And that's what scares me." *** Tiffany Dayton felt a little weird, sneaking around and spying like she was, but it was - according to Grace and Taylor - part of her job. She'd managed to talk her way into a maintenance key from the apartment office, which hadn't been hard when she'd allowed the young man at the desk a teasing glimpse of cleavage and the lacy tops of her stockings. Watering the plants and getting the mail, she'd told him, her friend was out of town for a few days and needed somebody to look after the place. A little squeeze when she'd shaken his hand and he was hers. She suppressed a giggle. Sometimes it was so much fun to be a beautiful woman, she could hardly stand it. The right kind of smile, the perfect choice of clothes, and men all over the country were bending over backwards trying to help her. She'd made herself as comfortable as she could waiting for the girl to get home, taking a little time to have a cigarette or two in the front room as she waited for her mark to get home from work. Once she'd seen the little white Miata pull up in the parking slip outside the apartment, she'd squeezed herself into the linen closet just off the master bedroom and waited. Annaliese LaPaglia was a real fox, Tiffany noted as she got a better look at the young, tan brunette that opened the door. A long, curly curtain of thick sable hair spilled down her back, tied in place by a white bandanna. She pitched her keys, purse, cigarettes and sunglasses on a little table by the doorway and turned to be gathered up into the strong arms of her chosen companion for the evening, a tall young black man with a shaved head and a musculature that made Tiffany's mouth water. Annaliese pressed her firm, overalls-clad body against his as she languorously fed him her tongue and ran her long-nailed hands over his unparalleled body. With deft fingers the young man unhooked the shoulders of her overalls and let them slide to the floor. She continued to caress him and grind herself against his firm legs, standing as she was in the tighter-than-sin white tank top and shiny orange shorts that comprised her uniform as a waitress at Hooters where she worked with Tiffany's new friend Heather. Kissing all the way down, she began unbuttoning the man's fly and finding a comfortable position on her knees. She freed the man's massive appendage - the biggest Tiffany in her limited experience had ever seen - and began to bestow a very loving and practiced attention on him. The man uttered a low groan and propped himself against the wall with his outstretched hands as Annaliese - obviously loving every second of what she was doing - showed off her impeccable skills. Tiffany felt completely dirty, watching like she was, but she couldn't deny her own powerful arousal. She tried to shove the sights and sensations out of her mind with an effort and concentrate as she looked long and hard at Annaliese, massaging her temple with a slow circular motion. Contact. With a little jolt that stole her breath in a silent hiss, Tiffany Dayton accessed her ability, the one she'd had ever since she could remember, even in her altered memories of being a ten-year-old young man named Timothy. It was a sense - somewhere beyond sight, sound or touch - but a very clear impression of the other woman's mind in all its complexities and strata. With a little concentration borne of years and years of practice, Tiffany sorted through all the background noise in the girl's mind (which was surprisingly little - she was concentrating almost solely on what she was doing to her lover) and peeked into the darker corners, trying to find some shred of memory of what she sought, some little raggedy tidbit tucked away in some forgotten shelf of awareness that Tiffany could use to help sort out this case. Back, back she looked, through the pain and eventual glory of her transformation, through the dark and stinging shadow of her criminal life, deeper and deeper into the details of what a dead man named Arturo LaPaglia did in his occupation. Past memories of old jobs and old girlfriends, past the dark, cloying secret memories of hate and vengeance against those who'd done him wrong, down further into the long catalog of the mundane, the little day-to-day details which humans so quickly forgot that they even knew. Past passwords to computer systems and PIN numbers to bank accounts, past numbered parking-spots and phone numbers... And she finally found a name. It wasn't long until the young man - Tyrone was his name, she'd found in Annaliese's mind - had taken Annaliese into the bedroom and conducted an orgasmic symphony of screams, squeals, grunts and gasps that they'd changed clothes and gone out to dinner. As soon as Tiffany was sure they weren't coming back for something forgotten, she moved to the window and watched the white Miata pull away. Only then did Tiffany gather her things and walk towards her own car, letting her long white cigarette dangle from thick, lush lips as she pressed her little cell-phone to her ear. "Hey, Stacey," she said in her chirpy soprano once the line had been answered. "Is Grace there? I need to talk to her." A pause. "Oh, God. Is she okay?" Another pause. "No, no, don't bother her. Is Taylor there? I just need to get somebody started tracking this guy down. I got a name from Annaliese. Find everything you can on somebody named Michaelis. Sam Michaelis." *** "I still don't think that pure science is the way to go," Matthew Proudwing said, leaning back from the outdoor table where the Terrible Three had decided to make a very healthy and nutritious meal of tacos at an all-night Mexican place. "Not this again," Pedro said, stuffing another quesadilla in his mouth. "Look, Karl's stuff has gotten us this far. He has the first three phases mapped out, and it's all been strictly scientific. Certain tonalities evoking certain responses. So far we've managed music that instantly puts someone to sleep, or calms them into a trance state, wakes them up and nulls out the effects of pain and drugs. It's only a matter of time before we figure it out." "And I'm saying that the piece that's missing isn't going to be found in any mathematical equation," Proudwing said sternly. "I know we've been over it and over it, but nature isn't just mathematics, gentlemen. There has to be something more - something mystical, for want of a better word - before the ultimate goal can be reached." "It's sounding like you have something definite in mind," Karl Renfro said, sipping a soda and rummaging through his half-gone plate of nachos. "Keep talking." "When Heammawihio made the world, gentlemen, it was divided into earth and sky. We are all the children of Aktunowihio, the Soul of the Earth who lives below us all. We eat the world, drink the world, walk the world and die on the world's back. For us, the world is the whole world. But we only know half of what's out there - there's the other half that we know nothing about - what the Cheyenne called the sky, but I think that it's more than just the sky. I think it's everything that earth-bound man is unaware of, all the unseen and hidden things that science and common sense can't explain away." "So our answer - our missing piece - you think it's in the 'sky?'" Renfro asked. "I believe you could be right. I'm willing to believe anything at this point. But my question to you is, how do we reach the sky? If it's beyond our awareness, then how do we access it, find out what it is and touch it and feel it and taste it?" Proudwing smiled. "First we have to discard our perceptions as we know them, acknowledge that there's a world beyond us and kept apart from us." "I think that I was forced to make that admission a long time ago," Renfro said. "Absolutely," Pedro said, casting a look at his ravaged left hand. An automobile accident - drunk driver - had crushed that hand years ago, and kept him from ever communing wholly with his first and foremost love, the cello. Since then, Pedro had dedicated himself to the use of music in healing, perhaps in an attempt to gain back that which he'd forever lost. "So, then we are humbled and in a good position to seek the next step," Proudwing said. "Which is?" Pedro asked. "If we want to seek our answers in Heammawihio's realm, then we have to first ask his permission to enter," Proudwing said. "And I only know one way to do that." *** "Grace makes this look so easy," Taylor grumped, tapping her ash in the ashtray beside the computer and pouting in that sexy way she had. "That's because she knows people," Stacey replied, raking a long- nailed hand through her thick brunette hair, styled elaborately in a 60's 'retro' style, like one of the old Rowan and Martin go- go dancers. "CIA and NSA have nothing on this guy, but that's not too surprising," Taylor said, typing in the latest of yet another series of log-ins and passwords. "Unless he's a threat to national security, they wouldn't keep track. Let's see what the Fucking Bunch of Idiots has to say about him." "Fucking Bunch of Idiots?" Stacey asked. "The FBI, dear, the FBI. Let's see, here. Michaelis, Samuel Richard. Aha! What have we here?" Taylor traced a long list on her screen with a square-cut nail. "Seems our Mr. Michaelis was a very naughty boy. We have a two kidnapping charges and one attempted kidnapping, and a slew of state charges. Pornography, illegal substances, trafficking in stolen goods... very slimy fellow." "Where is he now? Tiff seems to think that he was connected to Arturo LaPaglia." "Let's see, let's see, let's see. Current location is right here in this city," Taylor said. "Cross-reference him through the board of paroles, and let's see what we get." Stacey peered at the screen. "Should've known." "Consultant for Exosource? What the hell does that mean?" Taylor asked. "It means he's an errand boy, and he's working for a local wholly-owned subsidiary of Global Ventures. I'll lay you ten-to- one that he reports directly to Aaron Kendall," Stacey reported. Aaron Kendall was the ex-lover of Claudette Renfro before she changed into the woman she was now, the Chief Financial Officer for Global Ventures and was somehow connected with the plot against Karl Renfro's life. "The list of bad guys is growing," Taylor said. "So now we have a chain of command. Kendall is pissed at Doc Renfro for making his pure little innocent Claudette turn into a frat house's wet dream. So he calls his old buddy Sam Michaelis, who knows a guy who can dispose of unwanted people - Arturo LaPaglia." "Wrong," Stacey said. "Arturo wasn't a hired gun. He was just a paperwork guy." "Right," Taylor said. "But they knew that LaPaglia was close to the Doc. So maybe they leveraged him, somehow, to do the deed. I mean, Arturo LaPaglia was a lot of things, Stace, but brave wasn't one of them. They must have had something really damn big on LaPaglia to force him to make a try for Renfro like that." "But what? And how the hell does Michaelis fit in to it?" Stacey asked. "I wish Grace was here," Taylor grumped. "Okay, so I'm Aaron Kendall. I've got a serious hardon to put Doctor Renfro in the ground because he ruined my woman's life. Maybe I even loved her. But Renfro is secretive and he's insulated. I need somebody close to him." "And LaPaglia had already been doctoring birth certificates for Renfro for years by then. So you leverage him and try to get him close enough to put a bullet in the good doctor." "Doesn't make sense," Stacey concluded. "Michaelis doesn't fit into this equation anywhere." "So what's missing?" Taylor asked the air. "Motive," Grace's voice answered. They all turned their heads quickly to see the shapely detective coming in. She looked terrible for looking so good - she looked like a million bucks as always, even in her civilian jeans and baseball jersey, but the red-rimmed eyes and the dark circles underneath, the lack of any energy in her walk or carriage, it told the real truth. Grace's heart was one-hundred-and-fifty-percent broken, and she was bound and determined to not let it stop her. "We have motive," Stacey said. "It was Kendall. He hated Renfro." "No," Grace corrected, taking a seat by straddling the back of a chair. She fished a cigarette from Taylor's pack and lit it, blowing the smoke in a long plume above her head. "He didn't hate Renfro. He didn't even know Renfro. Think about it. He was having an affair with the man's wife. He didn't want to be in the same room as Karl Renfro, draw any attention to himself in fear of being found out. I don't think Kendall is the key to anything." "Then who?" Taylor asked. "I checked Michaelis' priors. One of the attempted kidnapping charges was dropped. He'd attempted to abduct a young girl and transport her across the state line. I read the officer's report on it." "And?" Stacey asked. "The charges were dropped when it was discovered that the young girl had actually wanted to run off with Michaelis. They'd been caught on the road to New York in Michaelis' brother's van." "What does that have to do with the case?" Taylor pressed. Grace took another drag from the cigarette. "The girl was Sarah Renfro," she said. "It was in Dr. Renfro's old journals. She'd tried to run away with this kid because she was in love with him. Claudette had called the police, sure that her daughter had been kidnapped. Once Sarah explained, they dropped the charges." "So Michaelis was Sarah's boyfriend?" Taylor said. "Right," Grace said. She flipped open her notebook and leafed through some pages. "Here's the way I see what happened. Sarah Renfro was a typical sixteen-year-old girl. Hormones were on a low simmer and she wasn't exactly thinking with her head. She meets a bad-boy type - somebody real dangerous and exciting - named Sam Michaelis and falls ass over apple-cart in love with him. Follows him everywhere. "What she doesn't know is that Michaelis was into drug dealing and making stag films in his brother's basement. He was a little more dangerous than Sarah even suspected. Claudette, ever the protective mother, decides that she doesn't like this new boy and forbids Sarah from seeing him. Sarah flips and tries to run away. Mama catches her and decides that she will never speak to this boy again as long as she's living under their roof." "Sounds kinda typical," Stacey said. "My sister went through something a lot like that when she was a teenager." "Right," Grace said. "But there was something that Claudette didn't factor in. Sarah was already addicted to heroin by this point - I pulled her tox screen from the night she committed suicide and she was loaded with it. I imagine that Michaelis had her hooked and was two steps away from getting her on film. But Sarah was a really good girl. She didn't know how to get smack without Sam's help, so she started detoxing and it got so bad that she took her own life." "Damn," Taylor said. "So then what?" "Well, here it gets really hazy. I'm not sure. Maybe Sarah was keeping Michaelis supplied with prescription pads or maybe the little scumhole actually loved her. For whatever reason, once Sarah kills herself Michaelis is pissed. I mean, really pissed. He blames Claudette and Karl - even though Karl really didn't have much to do with it. So he follows them around, tries to find some way to get them both back." "And he catches Claudette - now the Miss Slut America - with Aaron Kendall. Maybe he gets pictures or video... god knows he had the equipment. Something like this would look really bad for somebody as fine and upstanding as Aaron Kendall, the CFO of a gazillion-dollar multinational corporation," Taylor supplied. "Bingo," Grace said. "So he shows Kendall the pictures and says 'if you don't want to see this splashed up on the front page of the paper, you're going to do whatever I say. And first on the agenda is I want you to kill Karl Renfro.' Why should Kendall mind, after all? Wasn't it Karl who turned her into God's Own Tramp?" Taylor sat back. "I'll be damned." "So Kendall puts Michaelis on the payroll and puts him in touch with LaPaglia, a guy he knows is close to Renfro and they start trying to figure an angle. LaPaglia does a little extra work on the weekends for the Doc, snoops around a little, asks a few questions. He attacks poor Heather in the parking lot, scores her keycard and then calls his buddy Kyle Harrison to get a clean gun, a clean car and a place to hide out for a few days," Grace concluded. "So Michaelis is our pony," Taylor said. "I'd be willing to bet on it," Grace said. "Which is why I sent some boys from Homicide over to his condo to bring him in. I should be getting the call any second." Taylor looked thoughtful. "Pretty impressive, Grace," she said respectfully. "I don't know of many people who could have pulled this one off." "It's still a hypothesis," Grace admitted. "We'll know a lot more once we've talked to Michaelis. And I shouldn't get all the credit, Taylor. If it wasn't for you and Tiff, I'd still be interviewing custodial staff." "Still, you should be proud," Stacey said. "Thanks, Stace," Grace said. "How are you doing otherwise?" Stacey asked carefully. "I'm okay," Grace said unconvincingly. "My soul hurts, but I'm managing. I cry a lot for the smallest, most insignificant reasons. That's the reason my eyes are red right now. For some reason, hearing my own answering machine message set me off." "It's normal to be this way," Taylor said. "I mean, I know we don't have much experience being women, but I've known enough women in my life to know that this is all to be expected." "So have I," Grace said. "Joyce was just like this when she got upset about something. But it doesn't make it a damn bit easier. I mean, the part of my mind that's still male is screaming at me to stop this nonsense. Nothing is the least bit logical or makes any sense at all and it's driving me completely around the bend." "Nobody ever accused women of being logical creatures," Stacey said. "I've only been one for a couple months, sure. But just trying to keep up with all Hope's mood swings and little hang-ups is nearly impossible. And she used to be as male as I was, for chrissakes." Grace laughed. "Thanks, guys." The companionable silence - poised for another woman to begin speaking, since it was obviously helping their friend to overcome her grief, or at least to forgive herself for grieving as a woman would - was interrupted by the sharp trilling chirp of Grace's cellphone. She picked it up and pressed it to her ear over a large, dangling gold hoop. "Kincaid. What? Holy shit. No. Goddammit! I'll be right there." She stuffed her phone back in her purse and stood in a flurry. "Taylor, are you carrying?" she asked briskly. "Always," Taylor said, patting her purse. "What's up?" "I need you to drive. Sam Michaelis just shot his way through the cops I sent to bring him in." "Oh my God," Stacey breathed. Grace drew out her own sidearm and checked the chamber, ejecting the clip to see that it was full. "I don't care if he's behind this thing or not," she said icily. "Because if that sonofabitch turns out to be a cop-killer, I'm going to drill him." *** "Ho, ho, ho, bendigan, bendigan. Ho, ho, ho, bendigan, bendigan. Ho, ho, ho, bendigan, bendigan." The chanting had been going on for a long, long time. The old man - the tchissakiwinini - sat very still in the kushapatshikan - the shaking-tent. Maybe it was the magnitude of the event, or the mood of the gathering, or possibly it was the incredible amount of what they'd smoked, but Karl Renfro almost felt like that he could feel the man's manitushiun - his spiritual power. Proudwing looked both fearful and honored. Matt Proudwing was a Cheyenne shaman, but his tradition didn't have such a communion with the forces of nature as strong or direct as did the Cheyenne's ancient enemies, the Ojibwe. So they'd found Lame Wolverine, an ancient and weather-worn Ojibwe Indian living in the southern Manitoba province of Canada. Rumor had it that he was one of the last surviving and practicing kakushapatak in the world, those who knew the ritual of the shaking-tent as passed down through generations. Although Lame Wolverine had not been overly pleased by the addition of two 'white men' (no matter that Pedro Hernandez hadn't been technically white) to the ceremony, but the reverence that they treated him with and the urging of Matthew Proudwing had been enough to win the old man over. That, and the generous sheaf of cash that the Cheyenne had passed him before they'd journeyed up the hill to the waters of the Goose River and sat around the fire while the tribal apprentices set up the tent. The air around Karl Renfro had seemed to be alive and swimming with the otherworldly, as though the curtains that separated the worlds of Earth and Sky were very, very thin here. Although the drugs that Renfro had ingested and smoked were doubtlessly altering his perceptions greatly, he was still more than lucid enough to know that there was something happening in that tent that science and rationality couldn't explain. "Ho, ho, ho, bendigan, bendigan. Ho, ho, ho, bendigan, bendigan." The old man began to chant rapidly, his voice halfway between a song and a shout, the words a disconsonant haze of sound that leant itself not so much to pronunciation as to raw emotion. Karl felt the words as much as heard them, and although he did not speak Ojibwe or begin to understand the strange cadences and inflections, he felt that he had a very intimate and visceral knowledge of what the old man was saying. "They are here. We sing to the manidoo, to the spirits of Sky. We ask your leave to enter. They are here. They are here." Almost on cue, Matt Proudwing took up the long, elaborately carved pipe that they'd used around the fire outside the tent and stuffed the bowl with the sacred tobacco. He touched it alight with a burning taper and took a long puff. He held it in and passed it to Pedro, who did the same. Karl accepted the bowl last and filled his lungs with the sweet, acrid smoke and passed it to the old man. The old man took a generous pull as well, setting the pipe aside. The tent bounced and swirled and bobbed around them like a living thing, a womb of hides and cattails, and the drums and chanting of the apprentices outside the tent sounded like a heartbeat. In unison, all the men inside the shaking-tent exhaled the smoke from their lungs into a dense cloud which hung in the center of the tent, hovering as the dim, diffuse firelight played across it. Slowly, patiently, the smoke began to swirl and take shapes - a turtle, a wolverine, a caribou and a man's head. It turned slowly but did not dissipate. "You see?" Proudwing asked. "I do," Karl said, unable to look away from the head, which now had the features of a beautiful but sad woman. The old man laughed and spoke again. Proudwing translated in Karl's ear in a harsh whisper. "We ask leave to enter your lands," he whispered in time with the old man. "We ask leave to hunt in the Sky." There was a pause, as if the old man was waiting for the head to answer, and then, "We have leave to hunt." The old man rocked back and forth, singing and chanting, his eyes closed tightly and a look of purest joy on his old and lined face. Karl closed his eyes and let his mind drift on the powerful current inside the tent, letting the sound and the words and the heartbeat of the drums carry him away. There was something - a presense, a force, something - in the tent with them. It simply appeared between seconds, one moment gone and the next minute there in its entirety. Karl's eyes snapped open and saw the smoke-head had transformed into the form of a large owl, who was looking at him with large and all-too- knowing eyes. "The Sky Hunter speaks to you," the old man said through Proudwing's whispers. "He asks you what you seek." "The secret of the Music," Karl whispered, his throat raw. The owl seemed almost to smile. And then the old man's eyes rolled into his head and he began to sway back and forth powerfully, hugging his frail arms around himself tightly. His mouth parted, revealing yellowed stumps of teeth, and he exhaled a cloud of dense blue smoke which filled the tent. In the smoke Karl could see only vague shapes, but he could recognize them. His mother and father, his wife and his daughter, the face of his son who would have been eighteen this past month if not for spinal meningitis. And the old man began to sing. It was a raw sound, but infinitely complex. Like the heartbeat of the world. It covered Karl like water and leached into his bones and blood, flowing into his eyes and ears and nose and penis, engorging him until he thought he could hold no more. And just inside it, beyond the thinnest of curtains, there was a bright glowing kernel of - something. Something unnamable, something ancient when the world was only a babe. So close, so tantalizingly close. Karl stretched out his hand towards the glow, but it dodged around him. It danced out of his grasp a hundred times, avoiding him, teasing him with its nearness. Karl fought the urge to cry. He wanted to hold it, to take it into him like breath, but it was always just beyond his hand. His hand. His hand. "My hand." Karl turned his head in a blank fog, only half aware. "My hand," Pedro whispered again. "My God, Karl. Look at my hand." The cellist held up the ravaged hand, the useless appendage which kept Pedro forever separated from his true calling and art, the manipulation of the human soul through the strings of his instrument. The unnatural angles and raw redness of his deformity were fading, straightening and smoothing before their eyes. With a gasp of purest childlike delight, Pedro flexed his fingers and they responded perfectly, as delicate and dexterous as they'd been when he was only a child learning scales. Bright, glistening tears streamed down Pedro's brown cheeks and he could only stare, open-mouthed, as joy overtook him to the exclusion of all other sensory input. Karl looked back to the center of the tent. The glowing kernel was gone. The old man was sitting slumped, exhausted, and the smoke was slowly dissipating out of the tent. Outside, the drums had stopped. The heartbeat was dead, the pulse gone. Karl squinted his eyes, trying to catch one last and final glimpse of that glow that assured him, somehow, that it was the answer to everything. But it was gone, like a will-o'-wisp just out of the corner of his eye. But something, deep within the soul and heart and energy of Karl Renfro, told him that he knew where that glowing seed was. He only had to seek for it like any other man on the spinning world. He had to find it inside himself. And he knew that the first step in finding it was the song that the old man had sung. The song which resounded in his ears like the wind, the song Karl Renfro knew he would never forget. *** "How are they?" Grace asked as soon as she'd ducked under the crime scene tape, not even caring who was the officer in charge of the investigation. The young uniformed officer nearest the tape didn't have to ask who 'they' were. "Shaken up," he responded. "It got kinda hairy in there. But they were both wearing. One of them took a nasty one in the thigh and another lost a toe, but they're breathing." "Where's Michaelis?" "Fled south on foot. The car isn't in the parking slip. Description, make and model are going out on the wire right now, Detective." "Who's in charge?" "Ned White," the younger cop said, pointing to the slightly balding, overweight man standing near the forensics van. Grace sidestepped a couple of EMTs and made a beeline for him, Taylor behind her like a shadow. "Ned," Grace said. "Talk to me." "We moved in just like you said, Gracie. Michaelis was just getting back from somewhere, walking up the sidewalk. Garcia over there stepped up and identified himself, his partner Elliott moved in to restrain, and the next thing they knew Michaelis had a .40 caliber in hand and was unloading it on both of them. Both the boys got hit, but they're going to pull through." "Nobody shoots at cops in my town," Grace growled. "Ned, I swear to Holy Christ, I'm going to nail this sack of shit. Give me all you got." Ned nodded grimly, accepting a cup of coffee from a Starbuck's tray which one of the forensics techs was bringing around. Grace and Taylor did the same. "Who's your friend, Gracie?" Ned asked suspiciously. "She's helping me with the Corporate Rewards investigation. Taylor Beauchamps, Ned White," Grace said distractedly. "Taylor," Ned said. "We don't have much, unfortunately, Gracie. Michaelis kept a real low profile. But we did manage to get a make, model and tag off the car - sweet little Mercedes, too, I don't know why the bad guys get all the nice cars - and a license picture from the DMV." He passed over a folder and turned to talk to some of the crime scene unit. Grace leafed through the folder quickly, finally stopping at one page. "I think I just found motive," Grace said. "How? I thought we had motive," Taylor asked. "We just found more," Grace said. "Now I know that Michaelis is the one trying to kill Doctor Renfro." "How do you know?" Taylor asked. "Because this is Samuel Richard Michaelis," Grace said, passing over an enlarged photo of a wide-eyed, very pretty blonde girl. *** "That was very, very stupid, Samantha," Aaron Kendall said in clipped tones, setting his scotch down on the table in a clink of ice cubes against expensive crystal. "I told you not to call me that," the girl hissed, looking through the vertical blinds at the street far below. "And I don't give a shit what you think of what I did. I made that call, not you. Now bring me a goddamned car around and get rid of my old one. Do you understand?" "It's being done as we speak," Kendall said. "But I warn you, Sam, that my patience for this little game you're playing is coming very quickly to a close." "You said you wanted Renfro dead as much as I did," Michaelis shot back in her breathy alto. "I took you at your word." "I do want him dead," Kendall said, "but not at the expense of getting what I want. You, of all people, should know the value of that marvelous music of his. I don't want Renfro dead until I know all his secrets." Sam snorted. "His secrets? I'll tell you his fucking secrets. It's the secret of the latest lipstick colors for fall. I told you, he's a damn bimbo now. Just like his daughter was. Stupid sonofabitch even looks like her." Kendall sighed. "Then I want his notes. Computer records. Lab results. I want to know how he makes that Music. And until I have it, then you're going to stop playing like this is your show to run, do you understand?" "I don't take orders from anybody," the young woman growled. "Or would you like to see pictures of you and Renfro's whore of a wife plastered all over the business section of tomorrow's paper?" Kendall actually smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "Do you have any idea what happens to pretty little things like you in Latin American army camps, Samantha? Any idea at all?" To emphasize his point, he picked up the phone on his polished desk. "I bet you fifty dollars that I can get in touch with my people faster than you can get those insignificant pictures to the newspaper." He put the phone down once Sam deflated a little bit. "Better," he said. "We're on the same side, here, Sam. There's no reason for us to be at one another's throats. I propose that we stop this silly leveraging of one another - I'm no more bothered by your pictures of me banging that stupid slut than you are. So I fucked Claudette Renfro. Me and half the damned city. Big deal. "What does bother me, Samantha, is your lack of vision here. Don't you understand what we would be able to accomplish with Renfro's technology well in hand? The kind of money we'd be able to make?" "Fuck that. Just as long as Renfro's dead." "Tell me something, Samantha," Kendall said. "What would you give to have your old body back? Hm?" Sam's big blue eyes, which could have been very attractive in such a baby-doll face, widened as she realized the implications of what Kendall was saying. "I didn't even think about that," she breathed. "I didn't suspect so. You were very committed to your thoughts of revenge," Kendall said. "Think about it, Sam. What the Music changed, it can change back. You can go back to being the way you were, and then you'd be in a position to have a very specific kind of revenge on Dr. Karl Renfro." Sam's eyes narrowed evilly. "I think I get your jist," she hissed. "Good," Kendall said. "Because you're still the go-to player in this game. We can't do anything until we can milk that information out of Karl Renfro." "Forget Renfro," Sam snorted. "I told you, she's as big a bimbo as LaPaglia is now. She's even a fucking cheerleader now, out shaking her moneymaker at the basketball games. She's useless. If you want to know how that Music works, then the person you're looking for is Renfro's old assistant." "Assistant?" Kendall asked. "Yeah... Something Little. Jack... no, Joshua. Joshua Little. There's your man." The phone rang on Kendall's desk and he picked it up. "Thank you," he said into the receiver. "Your car is ready downstairs, Samantha. I suggest you find a hotel room and get some rest. Dye your hair and have it cut - Linda outside will give you the corporate credit card. Buy yourself some new clothes, something nice." "Why?" Sam asked. "First, because the police know what you look like. And second, because you need to look presentable when you introduce yourself to Joshua Little." *** "Are you sure about this, Grace?" Taylor asked, looking through the little collapsible binoculars at the tall downtown skyscraper. Beside her, Grace was typing frantically on a laptop, a lit cigarette dangling from her lips. "No, not completely," the stylish detective shot back, a stray lock of her long auburn hair dangling like a lustrous curtain in front of her face. "But patrol found Michaelis' car outside this building half an hour ago. It only makes sense." "Bingo," Taylor said quickly, pointing through the windshield. "There." Sam Michaelis strode quickly out of the lobby of Global Ventures and towards a waiting car - a nondescript silver Ford Taurus, obviously some kind of company vehicle. The smallish woman clutched a black coat around herself tightly against the windy evening, looking back and forth nervously before she lowered herself into the car. The coat flew open, revealing the Music's work on the former street punk - now a short, curvy woman with breasts any stripper would kill for, long shapely legs and a billowing streamer of long, honey-blonde hair which flapped behind her in the wind. "He - I mean she - is probably headed for a safehouse," Taylor said. "She'll be looking for a tail. We can't use any of the unmarked units, she'd spot them a mile off." "Got a better idea?" Grace asked. "As a matter of fact, yes," Taylor said. "I took the liberty of calling my field office. I have tails on him - I mean her - already." "Really?" Grace said, looking around. "Where?" Taylor smiled. "And you said government agents were just a bunch of hacks," she said smugly. "Watch and learn, policeman." Michaelis pulled into the heavy evening traffic - just towards the end of 5.00 rush - and started towards the freeway. Beside Grace and Taylor's car, a large delivery van full of office supplies passed by, and for the barest hint of an instant the passenger seemed to nod and smile to Taylor. She gave a little wave of her two fingers - nothing overt - as the truck grumbled past them. "Is there anybody in this country you don't have on the payroll?" Grace asked. "Your tax dollars at work, Gracie," Taylor chuckled. "Now we just sit back and wait for her to go to ground." *** In the office above, Aaron Kendall looked down at the street below for a long, pensive moment before picking up the phone on his desk. He waited only a few moments after pressing a speed- dial before speaking. "It's Kendall. Yes, I heard... the idiot girl almost ruined everything. Michaelis has become far too much of a liability. Something needs to be done with her." A short, very tense pause later: "See to it. You'll be paid double if it's done tonight." Kendall placed the phone very gently back into the cradle, almost as if it would break if he set it down too roughly. Sitting heavily in his leather chair, he opened a desk drawer and pulled out a small photograph. It was a cheap photo, one that could be bought from vendors at amusement parks for spare change. Another world, another Aaron Kendall. He was sunburned and happy, laughing and smiling, his arms around a huge teddy bear and beyond that, the body of a slender, innocent-looking woman in a shapeless dress. Her hair had escaped in feathery tendrils from her customary severe ponytail, but she was smiling her special smile, the one reserved only for him. They'd spent the day there, together, away from the troubles and worries of the world, riding roller coasters and eating cotton candy and playing the games on the arcade. He'd won her that bear by ringing the bell by hitting the ridiculous "Test of Strength" contraption with the cartoon hammer. How she'd laughed when he spit in the palms of his hands and did an execrable impersonation of Popeye the Sailor. The way the sunlight kissed her hair and her tanned skin, the whiteness of her teeth against the pink lips, the little liquid dance of the light in her eyes of bottomless blue... He ran a finger across the image of her laughing face. "Soon, my little love. It won't be long now," he whispered. *** Sobriety had hit Joshua like a hammer. The world was no brighter for him than it was before he'd gone on his drinking jag, except now he had a mother of a dehydration headache and his mouth tasted like the inside of a well-used gym shoe. Levering himself up with a deep sigh and tossing his smoked-down Marlboro into the overflowing ashtray, he grabbed his keys from the table by the door and made his way down to his car. There was no point in continuing now - his work was important, he believed, but it was all for nothing without Grace in his life, in his arms, in his bed and in his heart. It had call come to nothing. Perhaps the Music wasn't the instrument for healing he'd originally thought it to be. Maybe it was an instrument for destruction wrapped in the guise of a healer. He sat behind the wheel, started the engine and threw the old car into gear. Only a few minutes to gather up the last two years of his life from the office at Corporate Rewards and then he could be well on his way to parts unknown. Somewhere, he hoped, where he wouldn't see a glittering smile and a toss of red-gold hair every time he closed his eyes. *** Karl Renfro had searched everywhere, like a man obsessed. Meditation in all its forms - T'ai-chi Ch'uan, Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism, Zen and Taoist, New Age sensory deprivation, LSD and marijuana, peyote and psilocybin. Navajo spirit journeys and Algonquin sweat tents. Hindu asceticism and Roman Catholic pilgrimages - not even the hallowed and sacred stones of St. Patrick's Purgatory had held any answers. Every conceivable method he could find for self-discovery and analysis had come to naught - the glowing kernel of knowledge he'd seen in the shaking-tent was as elusive as the Fountain of Youth. It had been too difficult, after the first session with the tchissakiwinini, for the group to hold together. Matthew Proudwing had experienced a rebirth of his belief and had returned to his tribe in southern Wyoming to serve as a doctor and shaman, rededicating himself to the development and guidance of his tribe. Pedro Hernandez would not have even considered not returning to performance. He'd scarcely been away from his beloved cello for the last eight months. Not that Karl could blame him - it was a total recovery. As if the injury to his hand had never even happened. Which left the search for the Holy Grail to Karl alone. He'd traveled the world, seeking for the answers inside himself all over India and Tibet, the Middle and Far East, the Indians of both Americas and six months among the Australian aborigines. But he was no closer to his goal now than he had been when he'd left the shaking-tent on that chilly day in southern Canada a year before. As with all men who travel, the time came for Karl Renfro's thoughts to return to home and family. He needed some time around his wife and daughter, to simply recharge himself and fortify his soul for the continuation of the search. He had only one more stop to make before he could sleep a night in his own bed and wake to the touch of the woman he'd sworn to love above all others. The little run-down ranch house in South Texas had seemed a very unlikely place to find a kensei - one of the near-legendary swordmasters of the ancient Japanese martial tradition. Kensei roughly translated out to 'sword saint,' one who had mastered both the physical and mental aspects of kenjutsu - the ancient way of the blade. The healthy-looking man in the corral outside the large barn quickly tied the reins of his quarterhorse to the fence rail when he saw Renfro's rental car pull up into the dusty drive. The man leaped the rail as if age weighed him down not at all. His face was a healthy map of wrinkles, weathered by years and years of sun and rain and toil. "You must be Dr. Renfro," he said in a friendly baritone, one work-toughened hand extended. "I'm John Sullivan. Did you have a good trip?" "I did," Renfro said, shaking the hand. The grip was firm but gentle, with the promise of power enough to crush hidden beneath the friendliness. "Last stop before home." "You had that look about you," Sullivan said. "I just have to put Suzie Q up for the evening and then I'll be able to talk with you." He returned to the patient horse, leading the animal through the open gate and toward the stables. Karl followed tentatively, wondering if he was intruding on anything. "You ever work around horses, Dr. Renfro?" "Call me Karl, please," Renfro said. "And no. I never have." "Shame," Sullivan said. "Beautiful animals. You can learn a lot from them." "I have to confess, I'm a little taken aback by my surroundings. Not exactly the place I'd expect to find someone with your reputation." Sullivan smiled a secret smile. "You said it yourself, Karl. Home calls to a man, no matter where he is. I've traveled the world, seen a whole lot of things. Served three tours in Vietnam and crossed swords with more men than I can really remember. But this place is my home. And there just came a time in my life when I needed to go home." "I understand," Renfro said. "So tell me," Sullivan said, pulling the saddle from Suzie Q with one swift, practiced motion. "What brings you out here to the ass end of nowhere?" "Looking for something," Renfro said. "Something I lost. It's inside me someplace, and I have to get back to it somehow. I've talked to wise men all over the world who I thought could help me discover where to start looking, but no one ever could. I was hoping that maybe you could give me some guidance." Sullivan shook his head, chuckling. He took the curry-comb and brush from a rack beside the door and began to groom his horse. Suzie Q made a very happy sound, deep in her exquisitely-muscled throat. "I wish I could, Karl, I really do," Sullivan said. "But I wouldn't bet the farm on it. I'm just a man, like you. I scratch my ass in the morning and sing in the shower and I fart when I eat cabbage just like you do. I barely have enough answers for myself - I guarantee that I don't have enough answers for you." Karl shook his head. "I'm not looking for answers. I'm looking for a place to start digging. 'X' hasn't marked the spot for me in a long, long while." Sullivan appraised him carefully with a sidelong glance. He motioned the doctor over and put a companionable hand on his shoulder. "Put your hand right here," he said, guiding Karl's fingers to the broad chest of the quarterhorse. "Tell me what you feel." "I feel her heartbeat," Karl said. "Tell me something, then," Sullivan said. "Why do you think it's beating?" Karl stopped before he spoke. He had the sense that John Sullivan was looking for a specific answer that had nothing to do with electrical impulses from the medulla oblongata passing down the spinal column and causing muscular contracture in the cardiac muscle. "Why?" Karl asked. "It's nothing complicated," John said. "Just tell me why you think that heart is beating." "Because if it didn't she would die," Karl said before thinking too much about it. John smiled. "True," he said, patting the mare's nose fondly. "And why is that important?" "Not dying?" Karl said. "I don't know. Life is a gift, at least that's what I believe. I don't think anything wants to die. Knowing we have to someday is what makes us alive." "Perhaps," John said consideringly. "But do you think there might be more to it than that?" "I don't follow you," Karl said. John leaned against the wall. "We live, and we die. All of us, no matter who we are. We can't stop it, we can't change it, we can't avert it or make it pass us over. From the greatest to the least of all living things, death is a certainty. It's the only thing in our lives that's preordained. If it's so unavoidable, then why does that heart even bother beating? What is life, after all, but a waiting room for death? Why the hell do we bother at all?" "I don't know," Karl said. "You don't have to know," John said. "You only have to think. Stop killing yourself looking for certainty. This isn't 'two plus two equals four.' This is above that. Why do you think we bother?" Karl closed his eyes and thought of his wife and his daughter, of home. "Because we find things to live for." John patted Karl on the shoulder. "Exactly. For old Suzie Q, it's all those apples and carrots I give her in the mornings, it's getting to run with the sun on her back and the wind through her mane. For us, it tends to get a little more complicated at times, but the bottom line is the same. We find things worth living for and we dedicate ourselves to them. All the rest we make up as we go along." Karl massaged the back of his neck. "But how does that help me find a place to start?" "Well, for one thing, it tells you that looking for something definite is a waste of your time," John Sullivan said, leading the horse into her stall for the evening. "What you do with that knowledge is up to you." Karl sighed. "It just seems so damned far away." John put a very warm arm around his shoulder and gave him a friendly shake. "Well, Karl, if the journey's as long as you're thinking, it'll probably be a lot easier to deal with if you have a good meal and a glass of top-notch whiskey in your belly. That much wisdom of the ages I can impart to you. Free of charge." *** "She's out of her fucking mind," Taylor said, accelerating around a corner at a hairsbreadth less than unsafe speed. The tires squealed in protest over the basso growl of the engine. Strange enough that Sam Michaelis had gone to her apartment - where there had been cops crawling over every single square inch of the place not an hour ago - and sneaked in through the window. She left wearing different clothes - a pair of skintight vinyl pants and a black midriff-baring top with spaghetti straps - and her hair pulled back into a tight horsetail. She also had a thick tote bag over one shoulder. She got back into the silver Taurus and took off downtown - back towards Global Ventures. Her name and picture were all over the law enforcement wires, and the entire metropolitan police force was after her as a wannabe cop- killer. If she'd had an ounce of brains to call her own, she would have been on the straightest road out of town. The CIA unit that Taylor had called in to tail Michaelis had reported that she'd parked her car in a downtown lot about ten minutes ago. Right across from Corporate Rewards. Taylor screeched to a stop in a spray of gravel that set off several car alarms in the lot. Grace was out the door before the slender Oriental girl could even get it in 'park.' Dimly, over the street noise, Taylor could hear the sirens of incoming units coming to support it. Grace put her back against the wall just to the side of the glass doors to the lobby, her pistol drawn and her neck craned around to see inside. The lobby was dark and no movement was visible. Grace - ever the streetwise cop - waited for Taylor to get into position, gun drawn, before she slipped around and tried the lobby door. The handicapped-accessible door (they called it the one-way door, since no one who came into Rewards in a wheelchair ever left in one) was open. She motioned Taylor across and they entered the darkened lobby. Taylor, her nerves on high alarm, trailed Grace across the floor after kicking off her heels. They moved in cover formation easily, gliding soundlessly from the cover of the planters near the entrance to the receptionists' desk, then back to the entrance to the day spa. The door was locked and no forced entry was visible. It wasn't until Taylor noticed that the line of light around the door to the business office was a little brighter than it should have been were the door closed that she knew where Sam Michaelis had gone. "She's in the offices," Taylor whispered, pointing. Grace nodded and made her way over, nosing the door open with the muzzle of her pistol. They ghosted down the hallway like they'd done in the lobby, opening doors with the muzzles of their pistols as they moved. Heather's office, Jenna's, the 'war room' where Taylor, Grace, Hope and Stacey were working on the case, Marc's office and the little office and storeroom which Kylie and Tiffany shared - all empty. There were only two more rooms left to check - the medical and control rooms for the Music and Joshua's office, which he'd appropriated from Dr. Renfro after the transformation. Taylor was just about to peek into the control room when she heard Grace's voice from across the hallway, speaking with years of law enforcement authority that belied her young and beautiful face. "Drop it, Michaelis. There's nowhere left to run." Taylor moved instantly to back up her friend who was facing the open door to Joshua's office. Inside, in a clutter of paper and computer media, Sam Michaelis held a .40-calibre pistol firmly against Joshua Little's temple. "Put it down or you'll be picking his brains up with blotter paper," Michaelis growled in her high, bubbly soprano. "I swear to God I'll do it." "He won't be on the floor two seconds before you join him," Grace hissed. "Now put that gun down. You're under arrest." "Back the fuck up!" Michaelis screamed, pushing the gun harder into Joshua's temple. The tall doctor didn't flinch. In fact, there was a mixture of calm determination and fatal acceptance of the situation on the handsome face that was near-terrible to watch. "What do you hope to achieve by this, Michaelis? Where the hell are you going to go?" "I'm not here for him. I'm not here for any of you. All I want are all the doc-boy's papers and his computer files and then I'm out of here. Understand?" "I don't think so," Grace said. "You can't win. Put the gun down." "Fuck you," Sam said. "Put it down!" Grace repeated, much more forcefully. The sounds of sirens were intense now, and there were the sounds of people entering the lobby behind them. "There's nowhere left to go, Michaelis. You're caught. Don't make this worse for yourself," Grace attempted calmly. "Wrong, there, bitch," Sam said. "I can certainly take all of you to hell with me. Starting with the cute little doctor boy here." "I'm going to count to three, Michaelis," Grace said, thumbing back the hammer of her pistol. "And then I'm going to put a bullet in your head." Grace was trying with an effort not to look at Joshua - the last thing she needed right now was to see the horrible acceptance and yearning in his eyes. She kept her stare locked on Michaelis and didn't let herself concentrate on anything else. "One," she said. "You're bluffing," Michaelis said with an air of triumph. Grace's long-nailed finger slid from the trigger guard and onto the trigger. "Two." Michaelis' body tensed for a leap, her grip on the pistol tightening. "Thr..." In a flash, the door from the back offices opened and a large- breasted blonde bounded in, saying, "Josh, did you know there's a bunch of cops out..." Michaelis' face was an instant blank. "Oh my God," she breathed. "Sarah. You're alive." Karla's face shrouded a little, searching for some kind of recognition. Grace's finger began to tighten towards the eight-pound pressure which would discharge her weapon. Joshua's left hand flared out towards his phone. Michaelis turned. Grace fired. Joshua's finger found the hidden button beneath his phone. The world erupted in Music. *** The meal was excellent - without any kind of fanfare or presentation. Karl had bellied up to the boiling pot on the stove and filled his own plate, waiting in a line with John and his children - John, Jr., Michael and Laura, all carbon copies of their father without the lines and hard use of age - and sat quietly at the table, wolfing down the hot and filling food and mopping it up with fresh, home-baked bread. Such a normal family - hardworking and earnest, honest and kind to one another and very prone to laughter. They said a quick prayer to whatever higher power each believed in for their lost mother, a beautiful woman who smiled down from a picture over the fireplace and then talked sporadically between huge mouthfuls of the wonderful food. They treated Karl like family, right down to the tacit understanding that he would help with the dishes. John, Jr. was off to auction in the morning and talked mostly about cattle and prices. Michael and his twin sister, Laura, talked mostly about high school and going off to college,