He leaned forward, tapping the picture of the wasp.

“Now, there is a variety of orb spider known as Plesiometa argyra, found in Costa Rica. It too is preyed upon by a wasp, but in an interesting way. The wasp attacks the spider, temporarily paralyzing it while it lays its eggs in the tip of the spider’s abdomen. Then it leaves, and the spider’s ability to move is restored. It continues to function as it has always done, building its webs, trapping insects, even as the wasp larvae cling to its abdomen and feed on its juices through small punctures. This continues for perhaps two weeks, and then something very odd occurs: the spider’s behavior changes. Somehow, by means unknown, the larvae, using chemical secretions, compel the spider to alter its web construction. Instead of a round web, the spider builds a smaller, reinforced platform. Once that is complete, the larvae kill their host and cocoon themselves in the new web, safe from wind, rain, and predatory ants, and the next stage of their development begins.”

He relaxed slightly. “Suppose we were to substitute wandering spirits for wasps, and humans for spiders, then, perhaps, we might begin to have some understanding of how seemingly ordinary men and women could, at some point, change utterly, slowly dying inside while remaining unchanged without. An interesting theory, don’t you think?”

“Interesting enough to get a man banned from the local cultural center.”

“Or committed, if he were unwise enough to speak such thoughts too loudly, but this is not the first time that you have heard of such things: spirits flitting from body to body, and people who apparently live beyond their allotted span, slowly rotting yet never dying. Is that not right?”

And I thought of Kittim, trapped in his cell, retreating into himself like an insect hibernating even as his body withered; and of a creature named Brightwell glimpsed in a centuries-old painting, in a photograph of the Second World War and, finally, in this time as he hunted for a being like himself, human in form but not in nature. Yes, I knew of what Epstein was speaking.

“The difference between a spider and R a spider aa human, though, is the matter of consciousness, of awareness,” said Epstein. “Since we must assume that the spider has no awareness of its own identity as a spider, then, the pain of its own consumption aside, it has no understanding of what is happening to it as its behavior alters and, ultimately, it begins to die. But a human being would become aware of the changes in its physiology or, more correct, its psychology, its behavior. It would be troubling, at the very least. The host might even consult a doctor, or a psychiatrist. Tests could be carried out. An effort would be made to discover the source of the imbalance.”

“But we’re not talking about parasitic flies, or wasps.”

“No, we’re talking about something that cannot be seen, but is consuming the host just as surely as the wasp larvae consume the spider, except in this case it is the identity that is being taken over, the self. And something in us would slowly become aware of this other, this thing preying upon us, and we would fight back at the darkness as it began to consume us.”

I thought for a moment.

“You used the word ‘apparently’ earlier,” I said, as in ‘apparently’ they were targeting my birth mother. Why ‘apparently’?”

“Well, if Caroline Carr was their primary target, why then did they return sixteen years later only to die at Pearl River? The answer, it would seem, is that they were not trying to kill Caroline Carr, but the child she was carrying.”

“Again: why?”

“I don’t know, except that you are a threat to them, and you have always been a threat. Perhaps even they do not know for certain the nature of the threat that you pose, but they sense it and they react to it, and their purpose is to extinguish it. They were trying to kill you, Mr. Parker, and they probably believed that they had succeeded, for a time, until they found out that they were wrong, and you had been hidden from them, so they were forced to return and rectify their mistake.”

“And failed a second time.”

“And failed,” echoed Epstein. “But in the years since then you have begun to draw attention to yourself. You have encountered men and women who share something of their nature, if not their purpose, and it may be that whoever, or whatever, dispatched these things has begun to notice you. It’s not hard to draw the necessary conclusion, which is-”

“That they’ll return to try again,” I finished.

“Not ‘will return,’” said Epstein. “They have returned.”

And from beneath the description of the wasp and its actions he withdrew a photograph. It showed the kitchen at Hobart Street, and the symbol that had been painted in blood upon its wall.

“This is also the mark that was found on the body of Peter Ackerman, and on the boy, Dryden, killed by your father at Pearl River,” he said.

Then he added more photographs. “This is the mark that was found on the bodies of Missy Gaines and your birth mother’s killer. It has since R aIt has si been found at three more crime scenes, one of them old, two of them recent.”

“How recent?”

“Weeks.”

“But unconnected to me.”

“Yes, it would appear so.”

“What are they doing?”

“Leaving signs. For each other and, perhaps, in the case of Hobart Street, for you.”

He smiled, and there was pity in that smile.

“You see, something has returned, and it wants you to know it.”

V

For the dead travel fast. -BRAM STOKER (1847-1912), DRACULA (AFTER BURGER’S “LENORE”)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

THE DRUNKS WERE OUT in force. A hockey game had been played that night, and the bar was a magnet for fans because one of the owners, Ken Harbaruk, had enjoyed brief spells with both the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Bruins before a motorcycle accident put an end to his career. He used to say that it was the best thing that could have happened to him, under the circumstances. He was good, but he wasn’t good enough. Eventually, he knew, he would have found himself in the minors, playing for nickels and trying to pick up women who were easily impressed in bars a lot like the one he now owned. Instead, he’d been compensated well for his injuries, and had plowed the money into a half share in a bar that seemed destined to guarantee him the kind of comfortable retirement that would have been denied him had he been able to continue playing. In addition, had he wished, he could still have picked up women who were easily impressed, or so he told himself, but more usually he found himself thinking about his quiet apartment and his soft bed as the long nights in the bar drew to a close. He had a comfortable yet casual relationship with a lawyer who was a well-preserved fifty-one. They each had homes of their own, and they alternated overnight stays from weekend to weekend, although he sometimes wished for something a little more defined. Secretly, he would have liked for her to move in with him, but he knew that wasn’t what she wanted. She valued her independence. At first, he thought that she was keeping him at a remove in order to ascertain how serious he was about her. Now, after three years, he realized he was being kept at a distance because that was exactly how she wanted it, and if he desired something more then he would have to look elsewhere. He figured he was too old to look elsewhere, and he should be thankful for what he had. He was, he felt, reasonably lucky, and reasonably content.

Yet, on nights like this, when the Bruins were playing and the bar was filled with men and women who were too young to remember her or him, or old enough to recall how inconsequential his career had been, Harbaruk experienced a nagging sense of regret at the path his life had taken, which he hid by being even louder and more boisterous than usual.