Bill shrugged and grabbed someone's hand and began repeating the phrase. She noticed that the black woman to her left had taken a young man's hand and was repeating the phrase to him. Carol turned and saw a very grim Jack standing behind her, his arms folded across his chest. Sylvia was beside him, equally stone faced.

"Come on, Jack," Carol said.

He shook his head. "This is nuts. It's—it's hippy bullshit. Like those peaceniks back in the sixties trying to levitate the Pentagon. You can't chant Rasalom away."

"I know that, Jack. But maybe we can put a kink in his plans. His whole thrust has been to isolate us from each other, to use fear to break us up into separate, frightened little islands. But look what's happened here. One little ray of light and we've suddenly got a crowded little island. What if we refuse to play his game anymore? What if we refuse to run screaming in fear back to our hidey holes? What if we stand here as a group and defy him? There's a defect up there, a hole in Rasalom's endless night. Maybe we can keep it open. Maybe we can even widen it. What have we got to lose that's not already lost?"

"Not one damn thing!" Sylvia said. She pulled Jack's arm away from his chest and grabbed his hand. "I won't be afraid anymore!" she said through tightly clenched teeth as she clutched Jeffy's hand in one hand and Jack's in the other. "Do your worst—I won't be afraid anymore!"

Carol felt her throat tighten at the defiance in Sylvia's voice.

"Come on, Jack," Sylvia said. "I'm not a joiner, either. But this is one time you can't hang back. Say it!"

"All right, dammit," Jack said. He looked uncomfortable as he repeated it in unison with Sylvia, but then he reached for a stranger's hand and got her to join in.

The chant was becoming more organized, picking up a rhythm as it spread through the crowd, growing in volume as more and more voices chimed in…

And then the light around them brightened. The increase was barely noticeable, but it was noticed. A cheer rose from the crowd and suddenly everyone was a believer. The chant doubled, tripled in volume.

Carol laughed as tears sprang into her eyes. She heard Jack's voice behind her.

"It's working! I'll be damnedl It's working!"

Everyone in the crowd was involved now, shouting at the tops of their lungs. And the light continued to brighten. Carol had no doubt of that now. The light was growing stronger. Even the light in the bright channel that had trailed Glaeken into the Park was growing brighter.

But more than that, the cone of brightness was growing wider, inching across the pavement toward the Park, pumping pulses of brightness along the luminous channel that led to the Sheep Meadow hole.

And more people were coming, running to the light, swelling the crowd, swelling the sound of defiance.

Something was happening.

Rasalom had been uncharacteristically silent. And his huge new form did not lie quiet in its amniotic sack. The membrane rippled now and again, like a chill running over fevered skin, and occasionally it bulged in places as Rasalom shifted within.

Glaeken closed his eyes and tried to sense what was happening. He stood perfectly still, listening, feeling.

Warmth.

Light…there was light above. Not visible here, but he sensed it. Light and warmth, seeping into the earth above the cavern. And behind…

He turned and looked down the passageway. Where there had been perfect darkness, there was now the faintest glow. An illusion? Or the harbinger of a tiny dawn?

Glaeken turned back to his ancient enemy.

"What's happening upstairs, Rasalom? Tell me!"

But now it was Rasalom's turn to be silent.

Sylvia watched the scene from a second-floor window. The noise, the press of people had begun to frighten Jeffy so she'd brought him inside.

The cone of light had returned to noontime brightness and was widening steadily now, creeping uptown and downtown along the street, invading the Park. The crowd, too, was swelling steadily, the light and the noise attracting thousands more. The Manhattan mix was there, red, yellow, Central African ebony to Norwegian white and every shade between.

The chant Carol had started still reverberated loud and clear, but here and there in the crowd Sylvia noticed pockets of people singing and dancing. A couple of ghetto blasters had appeared and different kinds of music, from rap to salsa, were each attracting their own fans. A couple of guys were singing "Happy Together." She guessed that was just as effective. You didn't have to proclaim your lack of fear when you were singing and dancing. How could you sing and dance if you were afraid? And from directly below her window, uncertain doo-wop harmonies drifted up as a rag-tag group tried to find a comfortable key for "The Closer You Are."

Sylvia thought of Alan then and how he'd loved the oldies and suddenly she was crying.

Oh, Alan. My God, how I miss you. You belong here, not me. You loved people so much more than I. I should be dead and you should be here.

Alan…after he'd pulled out of the coma he'd been left in by the Dat-tay-vao, she'd come to think of him as indestructible. An indisputable assumption: Alan would be around forever. She'd never even considered the possibility of life without him. And now he was gone—no body, no grave, no trace, just gone—and she hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye.

She hugged Jeffy closer. It was all so damn unfair.

For a while she had blamed Glaeken, but she knew now that he, too, was paying a terrible price. She'd seen it in his eyes as he'd picked up the hilt and told her to get Jeffy clear—the anger, the frustration, the vulnerability, the weary resignation. All in a single glance. The weight of the responsibility he once more was reluctantly shouldering had struck her like a blow. She'd instantly regretted the all angry things she'd said to him.

And now maybe he was gone too.

She watched the arc of light edging through the Park. It was well into the Sheep Meadow now, almost to the rim of the hole. Did that mean they were winning, or was this just a false hope?

Sylvia closed her eyes and hugged Jeffy tighter.

If you're still alive down there Glaeken, please know that you're in our thoughts. If there's anything you can do, do it. Get him, Glaeken. Don't let him get away with what he's done to us. GET HIM!

Yes, there was light down the tunnel. Glaeken was sure of it now. Growing steadily. And Rasalom…Rasalom was thrashing about in his amniotic sack.

What was happening up on the surface? The weapon was here, useless, encased in hardened fluid from the sack. What in the name of anything could exert such a disturbing effect on Rasalom?

Suddenly a thunderous rumble from the tunnel behind him. The support shuddered beneath Glaeken's feet. He twisted and saw the growing glow disappear as the roof of the tunnel collapsed, choking the passage with rubble. As the tunnel mouth belched a cloud of dust, Rasalom's voice returned.

"Once again you've chosen a vexing group of friends, Glaeken."

A warm glow of pride lit within him, along with a glimmer of—did he dare?—hope.

"They're a tough bunch. What have they done?"

"Nothing that will matter in the long run, but for the present they've created an annoyance, an inconvenience."

"What?"

"They've enlarged the pinhole in the night-cover made by your puny little weapon."

Glaeken steadied himself, choked down the shout of triumph that surged against his vocal cords. He maintained a calm exterior.

"How?" he said.

"How is irrelevant. Their success is irrelevant. The entire world is in darkness. A single cone of sunlight, no matter how bright, is laughably insignificant."