But who were the voices and what did they mean about “preparing the way”? What was the “everything” that depended on her, the One?

She had to find out. Maybe she’d learn tonight. But she had to do a couple of things before then. One of them was gettin her other eye-shell back. But first…

“I’m changin my name, Luke.”

He laughed. “That’s crazy! You can’t just change your name anytime you feel like it.”

“No. I got to. That’s why I was called back here. I thought the lagoon was talking to me when it said it wanted sacrifices, but it wasn’t. It was the lights—or at least the things that live in the lights.”

“Lay back down, Semelee. You’re talkin outta your head.”

“No.” She pushed him away. “Don’t you see? It was all to bring me here, to this place, at this time—to teach me my True Name. And now that I know it, I’m gonna use it.” She rose to her feet and looked out at the lights still flickering up from the hole into the early morning darkness. “Big changes comin, Luke, and I’m gonna be part of them, I’m gonna be right at their heart. And if you and the rest of the clan stick by me, we’ll have our day. Oh, yes, Luke, we’ll have our day.”

“Semelee—”

“Told you: I ain’t Semelee no more. From this moment on you call me—”

The name died on her lips. She realized that she mustn’t tell no one her True Name. It was only for her and those closest to her. Luke was close, but not close enough. The man called Jack, the special one…she could tell him maybe, but not right away. He’d have to prove himself worthy first.

“Call you what?” Luke said.

“Semelee.”

Luke stared at her. “Wasn’t you just tellin me—?”

“Changed my mind. I’m goin to change my name inside, but outside you can keep callin me Semelee.” She rubbed her stomach. “We got anything to eat round here?”

Luke straightened. “I’ll go check by the fire.”

As soon as he was gone, Semelee stepped out onto the deck and looked up at the stars wheelin above her.

“Rasalom,” she whispered, lovin the way it rolled off her tongue. That was her new name. “Rasalom.”

2

The man who was something more than a man opened his eyes in the darkness.

His name…someone had spoken his name. Not one of the many he used in the varied identities he assumed for various purposes. No, this had been his True Name.

He’d been reveling in the continued corporal mutilation of a teenage girl named Suzanne and the spiritual ruination of the family that tortured her.

Poor Suzanne had been chained to the other side of the wall of this Connecticut home for eleven days now. She had been raped and defiled and tortured and mutilated beyond the point of her endurance. Her mind had snapped. She had no more to give. She was dying. Her brain had shut down all but the most basic functions. She barely felt the corkscrew being wound into the flesh of her thigh.

But what was so delicious here was the nature of the one twisting the corkscrew: an eight-year-old boy. For it was not simply the pains of the tortured that nourished this man who was something more than a man; the depravity and self-degradation of the torturers were equally delicious.

He’d returned to this house to bask in the dying embers of a young life’s untimely end.

But now that was ruined, the delicious glow fading, cooled by a growing anger and—he admitted it—concern.

Someone had spoken his True Name.

But who? Only two beings in this sphere knew that name: one was listening for it, and the other dared not speak it. They—

There! There it was again!

Why? Was someone calling him? No. This time he sensed that the speaker was not merely saying his True Name, but trying to usurp it.

Rage bloomed in his brain like a blood-red rose. This was intolerable!

Where was it coming from? He rose to his feet and turned in a slow circle—once, twice—then stopped. The source of the outrage…it came from there…to the south. He would find the misbegotten pretender there.

All his plans were progressing smoothly now. After all these centuries, millennia, epochs, he was close, closer than he’d ever been. Less than two years from now—barring interference from those who knew he was the One—his hour, his moment, his time would be at hand.

But now this. Someone usurping his True Name…

Never!

The man who was something more than a man strode away from the house through the dissipating darkness. He had no time to waste. He must head south immediately, trace his True Name to the lips that were speaking it, and silence them.

He paused at the curb. But what if that was just what someone wanted him to do?

This could be a trap, set by the one man he feared in this sphere, the only man he must hide from until the Time of Change.

Back in the days of his first life, when he was closer to the source, he had enormous power; he could move clouds, call down lightning. Even in his second life he could control disease, make the dead walk. But here in this third life his powers were attenuated. Yet he wasn’t helpless. Oh, no. Far from that. And he could not allow anyone to use his True Name.

He must proceed with caution. But he must proceed. This could not go on.

3

Jack stepped into the front room and found his father fiddling with the French press.

“Don’t bother, Dad,” Jack told him. “I’ll pick up some coffee and donuts in town.”

He’d seen a Dunkin’ Donuts the other day and had awakened with a yen for some of their glazed crullers.

“Donuts? That sounds good. But I don’t mind making coffee. After all, the job has its perks.”

Jack groaned. “What kind do you like?”

“A couple of chocolate glazed would be great.”

Jack headed outside, trying to concentrate on donuts in the hope that would help take his mind off Carl and how he was going to bring him back. The air seemed less humid. Felt like a cool front had come through.

About time. The relentless heat day after day had been wearing him out. Maybe this was Elvis’s doing. If so, thank you, Big E.

A mist lay over the saw grass sea stretching away to the distant hummock. The egret was back in the pond, black legs shin deep in the water by the edge, waiting like a snowy statue for breakfast to move and give itself away.

He headed around the side of his house toward the car. He stopped when he rounded the corner. A woman was seated on the hood of his car. She wore cutoffs and a green tank top. Her white hair had been wound into a single braid. The companion to the shell Jack had found hung at her throat.

Semelee.

“About time you showed up,” he said, moving toward her, wary, eyes scanning the surroundings. Had she come alone? “I’ve been standing out here like some kind of nut announcing to the air that I’ve found your shell. I thought you said you’d know.”

She smiled. “I did know. That’s why I’m here.”

Jack couldn’t pin it down but she looked different. Her hair was just as white as ever, but her eyes held a strange look, as if she’d peeked through someone’s window and seen something she wasn’t supposed to know.

That was it. She looked like she’d discovered some sort of secret no one else knew. Or thought she had.

“Took you long enough.”

Her smile remained. “I had other things to do.”

Jack tensed. “Like what? You better not have hurt Carl.”

“Carl’s fine.” She held out her hand, palm up. “My shell, please.”

Now it was Jack’s turn to smile. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. You give me the shell and I’ll send Carl back.”

“Not likely.”

The smile vanished. “You don’t trust me?”

“Tell you what: You send Carl back, and I’ll give you the shell.”

“No way.”

“What? You don’t trust me?”

Semelee glared at him. “The One don’t lie.”

Jack stiffened. The One? She’d just mentioned the One.