“It was. Very hard! But instead of losing, I just kept raking it in.

And do you know why, Ralph?”

He did, but shook his head so she would tell him. He liked listening to her.

“It was their auras. I didn’t always know the exact cards they were holding, but a lot of times I did. Even when I didn’t, I could get a pretty clear idea of how good their hands were. The auras weren’t always there, you know how they come and go, but even when they were gone I played better than I ever have in my life. During the last hour, I began to lose on purpose just so they wouldn’t all hate me.

And do you know something? Even losing on purpose was hard.”

She looked down at her hands, which had begun to twine together nervously in her lap. “And on the way back, I did something I’m ashamed of.”

Ralph began to glimpse her aura again, a dim gray ghost in which unformed blobs of dark blue swirled. “Before you tell me,” he said, “listen to this and see if it sounds familiar.”

He related how Mrs. Perrine had approached while he was sitting on the porch, eating and waiting for Lois to get back. As he told her what he had done to the old lady, he dropped his eyes and felt his ears heating up again.

“Yes,” she said when he was finished. “It’s the same thing I did… but I didn’t mean to, Ralph… at least, I don’t think I meant 1111 to. I was sitting in the back seat with M-na, and she was starting to go on and on again about how different I looked, how young I looked, and I thought-I’m embarrassed to say it right out loud, but I guess I better-I thought, shut you up, you snoopy, envious old thing.”

Because it was envy, Ralph. I could see it in her aura. Big, jagged spikes the exact color of a cat’s eyes. No wonder they call jealousy the green-eyed monster! Anyway, I pointed out the window and said ’Oooh, Mina, isn’t that the dearest little house?” And when she turned to look, I… I did what you did, Ralph. Only I didn’t curl up my hand. I just kind of puckered my lips… like this She demonstrated, looking so kissable that Ralph felt moved (almost compelled, in fact) to take advantage of the expression-and I breathed in a big cloud of her stuff.”

“What happened?” Ralph asked, fascinated and afraid.

Lois laughed ruefully. “To me or her?”

“Both of you.”

“Mina jumped and slapped the back of her neck. ’There’s a bug on me!” she said. ’It bit me! Get it off, Lo! Please get it off!” Of course there was no bug on her-I was the bug-but I brushed at her neck just the same, then opened the window and told her it was gone, it flew away. She was lucky I didn’t knock her brains out instead of just brushing her neck-that’s how full of pep I was. I felt like I could have opened the car door and run all the way home.”

Ralph nodded.

“It was wonderful… too wonderful. It’s like the stories about drugs you see on TV, how they take you to heaven at first and then lock you in hell. What if we start doing this and can’t stop?”

“Yeah,” Ralph said. “And what if it hurts people? I keep thinking about vampires.”

“Do you know what I keep thinking about?” Lois’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “Those things you said Ed Deepneau talked about.

Those Centurions. What if they’re us, Ralph? What if they’re us?”

He hugged her and kissed the top of her head. Hearing his worst fear coming from her mouth made it less heavy on his own heart, and that made him think of what Lois had said about loneliness being the worst part of getting old.

“I know,” he said. “And what I did to Mrs. Perrine was totally spur-of-the-moment-I don’t remember thinking about it at all, just doing it. Was it that way with you?”

“Yes. Just like that.” She laid her head against his shoulder.

“We can’t do it anymore,” he said. “Because it really might be addictive. Anything that feels that good just about has to be addictive, don’t you think? We’ve got to try and build up some safeguards against doing it unconsciously, too. Because I think I have been.

That could be why-” A scream of brakes and sliding, wailing tires cut him off. They stared at each other, wide-eyed, as outside on the street that sound went on and on, grief seeming to search for a point of impact.

There was a muffled thud from the street as the scream of the brakes and tires silenced. it was followed by a brief cry uttered by n either a woman or a child, Ralph could not tell which.

Someone else shouted, “What happened?” and then, “Oh, cripe There was a rattle of running footsteps on pavement.

“Stay on the couch,” Ralph said, and hurried to the living-room window. When he ran up the shade Lois was standing right beside him, and Ralph felt a flash of approval. It was what Carolyn would have done under similar circumstances.

They looked out on a nighttime world that pulsed with strange color and fabulous motion. Ralph knew it was Bill they were going to see, knew it-Bill hit by a car and lying dead in the street, his Panama with the crescent bitten out of the brim lying near one outstretched hand. He slipped an arm around Lois and she gripped his hand.

But it wasn’t McGovern in the fan of headlights thrown by the Ford which was slued around in the middle of Harris Avenue; it was Rosalie.

Her early-morning shopping expeditions were at an end.

She lay on her side in a spreading pool of blood, her back bunched and twisted in several places. As the driver of the car which had struck her knelt beside the old stray, the pitiless glare of the nearest streetlamp illuminated his face. It was Joe Wyzer, the Rite Aid druggist, his orange-yellow aura now swirling with confused eddies of red and blue. He stroked the old dog’s side, and each time his hand slipped into the vile black aura which clung to Rosalie, it disappeared.

Dreamy of terror washed through Ralph, dropping his temperature and shrivelling his testicles until they felt like hard little peachpits. Suddenly it was July of 1992 again, Carolyn dying, the deathwatch ticking, and something weird had happened to Ed Deepneau.

Ed had freaked out, and Ralph had found himself trying to keep fielen’s normally good-natured husband from springing at the man in the West Side Gardeners cap and attempting to rip his throat out.

Then-the cherry on the Charlotte russe, Carol would have said-Dorrance Marstellar had arrived. Old Dor.

And what had he said?

I wouldn’t touch him anymore… I can’t see -your hands.

I can’t see your hands.

“Oh my God,” Ralph whispered.

He was brought back to the here and now by the feeling of Lois swaying against him, as if she were on the edge of a faint.

“Lois!” he said sharply, gripping her arm. “Lois, are you okay?”

“I think so… but Ralph… do you see.

“Yes, it’s Rosalie. I guess she-”

“I don’t mean her,-I mean him!” She pointed to the right.

Doc #3 was leaning against the trunk of Joe Wyzer’s Ford, McGovern’s Panama tipped jauntily back on his bald skull. He looked toward Ralph and Lois, grinned insolently, then slowly raised his thumb to his nose and waggled his small fingers at them.

“You bastard!” Ralph bellowed, and slammed his fist against the wall beside the window in frustration.

Half a dozen people were running toward the scene of the accident, but there was nothing they could do; Rosalie would be dead before even the closest of them arrived at the place where she lay in the glare of the car’s headlights. The black aura was solidifying, becoming something which looked almost like soot-darkened brick. It encased her like a form-fitting shroud, and Wyzer’s hand disappeared up to the wrist every time it slipped through that terrible garment.

Now Doc #3 raised his hand with the forefinger sticking up and cocked his head-a teacherly pantomime so good that it almost said attention, please.” right out loud. He tiptoed forward-an unnecessary, as he couldn’t be seen by the people out there, but good theater-and reached toward Joe Wyzer’s back pocket. He glanced around at Ralph and Lois, as if to ask them if they were still paying attention. Then he began to tiptoe forward again, reaching out with his left hand.