"You want me to go and see that everything's okay?"

"They may have come back already," I said. He went to check. Two minutes later he was back, having picked up a flashlight, reporting that there was no sign of Marietta about the house. She and Alice were presumably still outside.

We set off; and we needed the flashlight. The night was dismal; the air cold and clammy.

"This is probably a complete waste of time," I said to Dwight as we made our way toward the dense screen of magnolia trees and azalea bushes which conceals the stables from the house. I very much hoped this was the case, but nothing about the journey so far had given me any reason for optimism. The unease which had got me up from my desk in the first place had escalated. My breathing was quick and jittery; I was ready for the worst, though I couldn't imagine what the worst could be.

"Are you armed?" I asked Dwight.

"I always carry a gun," he replied. "What about you?"

I brought out the Griswold and Gunnison revolver. He trained the flashlight upon it.

"Lordie," he said. "That's an antique. Is it safe to use?"

"Luman told me it was fine."

"I hope to God he knows what he's talking about."

I could see the expression on Dwight's face from the light splashing up from our pale hands, and it was plain he was just as unnerved by the atmosphere as I was. I felt more than a little guilty. I'd instigated this adventure, after all.

"Why don't you give me the flashlight?" I said. "I'll lead on."

He made no objection to this. I took the flashlight off him, trained it on the bushes ahead, and we began our trek afresh.

We didn't have much farther to go. Ten yards on and we cleared the shrubbery: the stables were fifty yards from us, their pale stone visible even in the murk. As I've pointed out before, the place is remarkable; an elegant building of some two thousand square feet, which might be mistaken for a classical temple, with its modest pillars and portico (which is decorated, though we couldn't see it in the gloom, with a frieze of riders and wild horses). In its glory days it was an airy, sunlit place, filled with the happy din of animals. Now, as we came into its shadow, it seemed like one immense tomb.

We halted in front of it. I splashed the flashlight beam over the enormous doors, which were open. The light barely penetrated beyond the threshold.

"Marietta?" I said. (I wanted to shout, but I was a little afraid of what forces I might disturb if I did so.)

There was no answer at first; I called again, thinking if she didn't answer on the third summons we could reasonably assume she wasn't there, and retreat. But I got my answer. There was the sound of somebody moving inside the temple, followed by a bleary who is it? Reassured by the sound of Marietta's voice, I stepped over the threshold.

Even after all these years, the stables still smelled of their tremendous occupants: the ripe scent of horse sweat and horseflesh and horse dung. There had been such life here; such energies contained in stamping vessels of muscle and mane.

I could see Marietta now. She was coming toward me, buttoning up her vest as she approached. There was no doubting what she and Alice had been up to here. Her face was flushed; her mouth seemed swelled with kissing.

"Where's Alice?" I asked her.

"Asleep," she said. "She's exhausted, poor baby. What are you doing here?"

I was a little embarrassed now; I'm certain Marietta knew I had indulged my voyeuristic instincts where she was concerned, and probably suspected I was here doing the same thing. I didn't protest my innocence; I simply said: "You're both okay?"

"Fine," Marietta said, plainly puzzled. "Who's out there with you?"

"Dwight," came the reply from the darkness behind me.

"Hey, what's up?" Marietta called back to him.

"Nothin' much," Dwight said.

"I'm sorry we disturbed you," I said.

"No problem," Marietta replied. "It's time we were going back to the house anyhow…" _,

As she spoke, my gaze moved past her into the darkness. Despite the ease of the exchanges going on, there was still something troubling me; drawing my eye into the murk.

"What is it, Eddie?" Marietta said.

I shook my head. "I don't know. Maybe just memories."

"Go on in if you want to," she said, stepping aside. "Alice is quite decent-" I stepped past her "-you'll be disappointed to hear." I threw back an irritated glance, then ventured into the stables, leaving Marietta and Dwight behind me. My sense that there was a presence here was growing apace. I let the beam of the flashlight rove back and forth: over the marble floor, with its gullies and drains; across the stalls, with their intricately inlaid doors; up to the shallow vaults of the ceiling. Nothing moved. I couldn't even find Alice. I advanced cautiously, resisting the urge to glance back at Marietta and Dwight for the comfort of it.

The place where we'd laid the body of Nicodemus, along with all the belongings he'd wanted buried with him (his jade phalli; the white gold mask and codpiece he'd worn in his ecstasies; the mandolin he'd played like an angel)-was in the center of the stables, perhaps twenty yards from where I now stood. The marble floor had been lifted there, and not replaced after the burial. Mushrooms had grown from that dirt, in supernatural profusion. I could see their pale heads in the gloom; hundreds of them. More phalli, of course. His last joke.

A motion off to my right; I halted, and looked round. It was Marietta's lady love, rising from the spot where she'd been sleeping.

"What's going on?" she said. "Why's it so cold, honey?"

I hadn't noticed until now, but she was right: my breath was visible before me.

"It's not Marietta, it's Maddox," I told her.

"What are you doin' here?"

"It's okay," I said. "I just came to-"

I didn't finish the sentence. What halted me was a sound from the darkness beyond my father's grave. A clattering on the marble floor.

"Oh my Lord…" Alice said.

Emerging from the shadow, its hooves making a din this place had not heard for almost a century and a half, was a horse. Nor was it any horse. It was Dumuzzi. Even at this distance, even in this gloom, I knew him. There had never been an animal so splendid, nor so certain of his splendor. The way he pranced as he came, striking sparks off the marble, which flashes lit his gleaming anatomy, and made his eyes blaze. Whatever wounds had been visited upon the animal by Cesaria-and though I wasn't conscious to witness her slaughter, I'm certain she reserved her greatest cruelties for Dumuzzi, the ringleader-all of them had been healed. He was perfection again.

Somehow, he had been revivified, lifted up out of the pit into which his body had been dispatched, and returned to glorious life.

I had no doubt who had performed this handiwork.

Just as it had been the hand of Cesaria Yaos which had slaughtered Dumuzzi so it had been the hand of her husband, my father, who had resurrected him again. Nothing was more certain.

Never in my life was I seized with such a boundless supply of contrary feelings as at that moment. Dumuzzi's living presence before me-indisputable, irresistible-was proof of a greater presence in this melancholy place. Nico-demus was here: at least some portion of him, piercing the veil between this world and the kingdom to come. What was I to feel about that? Fear? Yes, in some measure; the primal fear that the living inevitably feel when the spirits of the dead return. Awe? Absolutely; I'd never had more certain proof of my father's divinity than I did at that moment. Gratitude? Yes, that too. For all the trembling in my belly, and in my legs, I was thankful that my instincts had brought me here: that I was able to witness this omen of Nicodemus's return.

I glanced back toward Alice, intending to tell her to retreat, but Marietta had come to join her, and wrapped her arms around her. Alice was looking at Dumuzzi, but Marietta was looking at me. There were tears in her eyes.