I gave him one of the juice glasses and set the one meant for Jenny on a table at the end of the couch, where magazines had been arranged in a tasteful fan. It occurred to me that I might have entered Astrid’s body for the first time on the very spot where that table stood. Hold still, honey, she’d said, and then, It’s wonderful.

Jacobs raised his drink. “Here’s to—”

I tossed mine off before he could finish.

He looked at me reproachfully, then swallowed his—except for one drop that dribbled down the frozen side of his mouth. “You find me odious, don’t you? I’m sorry you feel that way. More than you’ll ever know.”

“Not odious, scary. I’d find anyone scary who’s monkeying around with forces beyond their comprehension.”

He picked up the drink that had been meant for Jenny. Through the glass, the frozen side of his face was magnified. “I could argue, but why bother? The storm is almost upon us, and when the skies clear again, we’ll be done with each other. But at least be man enough to admit you’re curious. That’s a large part of what brought you here—you want to know. Just as I do. As Prinn did. The only one here against her will is poor Jenny. She came to pay a debt of love. Which gives her a nobility we cannot share.”

The door behind him opened. I caught a whiff of sickroom odors—pee, body lotion, disinfectant. Jenny closed it behind her, saw the glass in Jacobs’s hand, and plucked it away. She swallowed with a grimace that made the tendons in her neck stand out.

Jacobs bent over his cane, studying her closely. “May I assume . . . ?”

“Yes.” Thunder boomed. She gave a little scream and let go of the empty juice glass. It hit the carpet and rolled away.

“Go back in to her,” Jacobs said. “Jamie and I will join you very shortly.”

Jenny re-entered the sickroom without a word. Jacobs faced me.

“Listen very closely. When we go in, you’ll see a bureau on your left. There’s a revolver in the top drawer. Sam the security guard procured it for me. I don’t expect you’ll need to use it, but if you do, Jamie . . . don’t hesitate.”

“Why in God’s name would I—”

“We spoke of a certain door. It’s the door into death, and sooner or later each one of us grows small, reduced to nothing but mind and spirit, and in that reduced state we pass through, leaving our bodies behind like empty gloves. Sometimes death is natural, a mercy that puts an end to suffering. But all too often it comes as an assassin, full of senseless cruelty and lacking any vestige of compassion. My wife and son, taken in a stupid and pointless accident, are perfect examples. Your sister is another. They are three of millions. For most of my life I’ve railed against those who try to explain that stupidity and pointlessness with prattlings about faith and children’s stories about heaven. Such nonsense never comforted me, and I’m sure it never comforted you. And yet . . . there is something.”

Yes, I thought as thunder cracked hard enough and close enough to shake panes of window glass in their frames. Something is there, beyond the door, and something will happen. Something very terrible. Unless I put a stop to it.

“In my experiments I’ve glimpsed intimations of that something. I’ve seen its shape in every cure the secret electricity has effected. I even know it from the aftereffects, some of which you have noted. Those are trailing fragments of some unknown existence beyond our lives. Everyone wonders at one time or other what lies beyond the wall of death. Today, Jamie, we’ll see for ourselves. I want to know what happened to my wife and son. I want to know what the universe has in store for all of us once this life is over, and I intend to find out.”

“We’re not meant to see.” Shock had stolen most of my voice, and I wasn’t sure he’d hear me over the rising wind, but he did.

“Can you tell me you don’t think about your sister Claire every day? That you don’t wonder if she still exists somewhere?”

I said nothing, but he nodded as if I had.

“Of course you do, and we’ll have answers shortly. Mary Fay will give them to us.”

“How can she?” My lips felt numb, and not from the alcohol. “How can she, if you cure her?”

He gave me a look that asked if I were really that clueless. “I can’t cure her. Those eight diseases I mentioned were picked because none are amenable to cure by the secret electricity.”

The wind rose to a shout, and the first erratic bursts of rain struck the west side of the house, hitting so hard they sounded like thrown pebbles.

“Miss Knowlton turned off Mary Fay’s ventilator as we were coming here from the resort. She’s been dead for almost fifteen minutes. Her blood is cooling. The computer inside her skull, wounded by the disease she carried from childhood but still marvelous, has gone dark.”

“You think . . . you actually think . . .” I couldn’t finish. I was flabbergasted.

“Yes. It’s taken years of study and experiment to reach this point, but yes. Using lightning as a road to the secret electricity, and the secret electricity as a thoroughfare to potestas magnum universum, I intend to bring Mary Fay back to some form of life. I intend to learn the truth of what’s on the other side of the door that leads into the Kingdom of Death. I’ll learn it from the lips of someone who’s been there.”

“You’re insane.” I turned toward the door. “I won’t play any part in this.”

“I can’t stop you if you really mean to leave,” he said, “although to go out in a storm like this would be the height of recklessness. Would it help if I told you that I’ll proceed without you, and that would put Miss Knowlton’s life at risk, as well as my own? How ironic it would be if she were to die so soon after Astrid was saved.”

I turned back. My hand was on the knob; rain was pounding against the door on the other side. Lightning printed a brief blue rectangle on the carpet.

“You can find out what happened to Claire.” His voice was low now, soft and silky, the voice of Pastor Danny at his most persuasive.

The voice of a coaxing devil.

“You might even be able to speak with her . . . hear her tell you that she loves you. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Always assuming she’s still there as a conscious entity, of course . . . and don’t you want to know?”

There was another flash of lightning, and from the mahogany box, a poisonous greenish-purple wink of light shot through a gap in the latch, there at one second, gone the next.

“If it’s any comfort to you, Miss Fay agreed to this experiment. The paperwork is in apple-pie order, including a signed affidavit giving me power to cease so-called heroic measures at my own discretion. In return for my brief and entirely respectful use of her remains, Mary’s son will be taken care of with a generous trust fund that will see him well into adulthood. There are no victims here, Jamie.”

So you say, I thought. So you say.

Thunder roared. This time, just before the stroke of lightning, I heard a faint clicking sound. Jacobs did, too.

“The time has arrived. Come into the room with me or go away.”

“I’ll come,” I said. “And I’ll be praying nothing happens. Because this isn’t an experiment, Charlie. This is hell’s work.”

“Think what you want and pray all you like. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I ever did . . . although I really doubt it.”

He opened the door, and I followed him into the room where Mary Fay had died.

XIII

The Revival of Mary Fay.

There was a large east-facing window in Mary Fay’s death chamber, but the storm was almost fully upon us now, and all I saw through it was a tarnished silver curtain of rain. The room was a nest of shadows in spite of the table lamp. My left shoulder brushed the bureau Jacobs had mentioned, but I never thought of the revolver in the top drawer. All my attention was taken up by the still figure lying in the hospital bed. I had a clear view, because the various monitors had been turned off and the IV pole had been pushed into the corner.