Grillo and Hotchkiss were in the office. They'd brewed hot coffee. They'd also washed, though not as thoroughly as she, instead scrubbing masks of clean skin out of the surrounding muck. They'd also stripped off their sodden sweaters and found jackets to wear. Both were smoking.

"We got it all," Grillo said, his manner that of a man profoundly embarrassed, and determined to brave it out. "Coffee. Cigarettes. Stale doughnuts. All we're missing's serious drugs."

"Where's Jaffe?" Tesla wanted to know.

"Don't know," Grillo said.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" Tesla said. "For Christ's sake, Grillo, we shouldn't let him out of our sight."

"He came this far, didn't he?" Grillo replied. "He's not going to walk away now."

"Maybe," Tesla conceded. She poured herself coffee. "Is there any sugar?"

"No, but there's pastries and cheesecake. Stale but edible. Somebody had a sweet tooth. You want?"

"I want," Tesla said. She sipped the coffee. "I suppose you're right—"

"About the sweet tooth?"

"About Jaffe."

"He doesn't give a fuck for us," Hotchkiss said. "Makes me sick to look at him."

"Well, you've got reason," Grillo said.

"Damn right," said Hotchkiss. He gave Tesla a sideways glance. "When this is done with," he said, "I want him to myself. OK? We've got scores to settle."

He didn't wait for a reply. Taking his coffee he headed back out into the sun.

"What was that about?" Tesla said.

"Carolyn," Grillo said.

"Of course."

"He blames Jaffe for what happened to her. And he's right."

"He must be going through hell."

"I don't think the trip's anything new to him," Grillo said.

"I suppose not." She emptied her mug of coffee. "That's wired me for a while," she said. "I'm going to find Jaffe."

"Before you do—"

"Yeah?"

"I just want to say...what happened to me down there...I'm sorry I wasn't more use. I've always had this thing about being buried alive."

"Sounds reasonable to me," Tesla said.

"I want to make it up to you. Want to help any way I can. Just say the word. I know you've got a take on all of this. I haven't."

"Not really."

"You persuaded Jaffe to come with us. How'd you do that?"

"He had a puzzle. I solved it."

"You make it sound real simple."

"Thing is, I think maybe the whole thing's simple. What we're facing's so big, Grillo, we just have to go on instinct."

"Yours was always better than mine. I like facts."

"They're simple too," she said. "There's a hole, and something coming through it from the other side which people like you and me don't even have the capacity to imagine. If we don't close the hole, we're fucked."

"And the Jaff knows how?"

"How what?"

"To close the hole."

Tesla stared at him.

"At a guess?" she said. "No."

She found him, of all places, on the roof, which was literally the last place in the motel she'd chosen to look. Surprisingly, he was engaged in the last activity she'd have expected from him. He was staring at the sun.

"I thought maybe you'd left us to our own devices," she said.,

"You were right," he replied, not looking at her. "It shines on everyone, good and bad. But it doesn't make me warm. I've forgotten what it was like to feel warm or cold. Or hungry. Or full. I miss that so much."

The sour self-confidence he'd evidenced in the caves had entirely drained from him. He was almost cowed.

"Maybe you'll get that back," she said. "The human stuff, I mean. Undo what the Nuncio did."

"I'd like that," he said. "I'd like to be Randolph Jaffe of Omaha, Nebraska. Turn the clock back and not go into that room."

"What room?"

"The Dead Letters Room at the Post Office," he said, "where all this began. I should tell you about that."

"I'd like to hear. But first—"

"I know. I know. The house. The schism."

Now he did look at her; or rather, beyond her, at the Hill.

"We have to go up there sooner or later," she reminded him. "I'd prefer we do it now, while it's light, and I've got some energy left."

"And when we get there?"

"We hope for inspiration."

"That has to come from somewhere," he said. "And we've neither of us got gods, have we? That's what I've traded on all these years, people being godless. That's us now."

She remembered what D'Amour had said when she'd told him she didn't pray. Something about praying making sense once you knew how much there was out there.

"I'm coming round to being a believer," she said. "Slowly."

"A believer in what?"

"In higher forces," she said, with a faintly embarrassed shrug. "The Shoal had their aspirations, why shouldn't I?"

"Did they?" he said. "Were they guarding the Art because Quiddity had to be preserved? I don't think so. They were just afraid of what might break out. They were watch dogs."

"Maybe their duties elevated them."

"Into what? Saints? Didn't do much for Kissoon, did it? All he worshipped was himself. And the Iad."

That was a grim thought. What more perfect counterpoint to D'Amour's talk of faith in mysteries than Kissoon's revelation that all religions were masks for the Shoal; ways to keep the hoi-polloi distracted from the secret of secrets.

"I keep getting glimpses," Jaffe said, "of where Tommy-Ray is."

"What's it like?"

"Darker and darker," Jaffe replied. "He was moving for a long while, but now he's stopped. Maybe the tide's changed. There's something coming, I think, out of the darkness. Or maybe it is the darkness, I don't know. But it's getting closer."

"The moment he sees anything," Tesla said, "let me know. I want details."

"I don't want to look, with his eyes or mine."

"You may not have any choice. He's your son."

"He's failed me over and over. I don't owe him anything. He's got his phantoms."

"Perfect family unit," Tesla said. "Father, Son and—"

"—Holy Ghost," Jaffe said.

"That's right," she replied, another echo coming back to her from the past. "Trinity. "

"What about it?"

"That was what Kissoon was so afraid of."

"The Trinity?"

"Yeah. When he brought me into the Loop the first time, he dropped the name. It was an error, I think. When I challenged him on it he was so damn flustered he let me go."

"I never took Kissoon for a Christian," Jaffe remarked.

"Me neither. Maybe he meant some other god. Or gods. Some force the Shoal could invoke. Where's the medallion?"

"In my pocket. You'll have to get it for yourself. My hands are very weak."

He took them from his pockets. In the guttering light of the cave their mutilation had been sickening, but here in bright sunlight they were more disgusting still, the flesh blackened and dewy, the bone beneath crumbling.

"I'm coming apart," he said. "Fletcher used fire. I used my teeth. Both of us suicides. It's just that his was faster."

She reached into his pocket and took the medallion out.

"You don't seem to mind," she said.

"What about?"

"Falling apart."

"No, I don't," he admitted. "I'd like to die, the way I would have done if I'd stayed in Omaha and just got old. I don't want to live forever. What's the use of going on and on if you can't make sense of anything?"

The rush of pleasure she'd experienced solving the medallion's enigmas came back to her as she studied it. But there was nothing in the design, even when examined in daylight, which could be interpreted as a Trinity. There were quartets, certainly. Four arms, four circles. But no trios.

"This is no use," she said. "We could waste days trying to work it out."

"Work what out?" said Grillo, emerging into the sunlight.

"The Trinity," she said. "Have you any idea what that means?"

"Father, Son and—"

"Besides the obvious."

"Then no, I don't. Why?"