He listened at the door and then very gingerly unlocked it and opened it an inch. He could hear an exchange from below, which seemed to be led by Eppstadt. Jesus -- of all people to be up here amongst Katya's mysteries: Mister Bottom-line himself, Gary Eppstadt. There was no sign of an opinion from Maxine, which was unusual. She was normally vocal in any debate, however little she knew about the subject. Then Todd remembered her phobia about quakes. She always fled for the open air at the first sign of a trembler, and no doubt she'd done exactly that. He was tempted to go onto the balcony and see if he could spot her in the back yard -- just to see the bitch in a state of agitation -- but there wasn't time. There was too much going on downstairs. He ventured out of the bedroom a step, and peered over the rail, in time to see somebody -- it was a young man, either a waiter brought from the party, or one of Maxine's new boys (or both), heading down the spiral into the darkness down there, where a door was banging.

Next he heard footsteps, and felt certain that Eppstadt was about to appear from the kitchen door. Before he was spotted, Todd slid back into the bedroom, and gently closed the door. It made a barely perceptible click; certainly nothing audible with so much else going on in the vicinity.

He knew what that banging door was all about. The earthquake had thrown open the door to the Devil's Country, and it looked as though Eppstadt had convinced some dope to go down and close it. Idiots! Didn't they have any instincts? Didn't something whisper at the back of their heads that when a door slammed in this house, you let it slam, you let it slam till it chose to stop. What you didn't do was head on down the stairs to close it. That was suicide, or the next best thing.

He put his head around the corner and peered into the bedroom. Katya was still fast asleep. He briefly contemplated waking her, then thought better of it. All her life she'd had men following her around asking what they should do next. He wasn't going to be numbered amongst them.

No, he would deal with this on his own. After all, the house was going to be his home as much as it was hers. His word should be law here. He just had to work out how best to proceed, and without a shot of espresso to quicken his sluggish thoughts, it might take a while. No matter, the answer would come to him, in time.

He sat with his back against the wall, and tried to put out of his head the image of the innocent stranger heading down the spiral staircase to close the door to the Devil's Country.

FOUR

Todd stayed put behind the door for several minutes, his thoughts describing vague circles. In truth he was still hoping that it would not take any action on his part to fix the problem. The preferable solution would be this: somebody (perhaps Maxine, out there in the back yard) would encounter something that would raise the panic-level in the house, and there would be a mass exodus. Perhaps it was too much to hope for, but every other option (diversions, locating keys to side exits) required a higher degree of wit than he possessed in his present exhausted state.

He finally got up from behind the door and returned through the bedroom, past his sleeping beauty, to the balcony. He stepped out. The dull dawn had ushered in a dull day. Later, perhaps, the marine layer would burn off and they'd have some sun, but for now, the sky was a wall of dead cloud. He looked down into the greenery, hoping to spot Maxine, but the thickness of the jungle all around the house-especially the gigantic bird-of-paradise trees-made it virtually impossible to see very much.

And then, out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a motion. Somebody was running through the thicket, throwing panicked backward glances as he went. It wasn't Maxine, it was her assistant Sawyer, who'd been with her for the last three years. He wasn't any more than thirty, but he'd let his body get out of shape. Too many hurried lunches, snatched because Maxine had more work for him than he could ever possibly finish; too much after-work socializing, knocking back his single malts and beluga at fancy premieres; not to mention the Bavarian creme-filled donuts he would bring into the office in boxes of six, to help him through his day with a well-timed sugar rush.

Thanks to the donuts and hamburgers, and his neat scotches, he couldn't run very fast. And he certainly couldn't yell for help while he was running: he didn't have enough breath for both. All he could do was sob between gasps, throwing panicking glances over his shoulder. His pursuers were closing on him. Todd could see the bushes thrashing around immediately behind him; and something else-something smaller and more nimble-was throwing itself from branch to branch overhead, to keep up with its quarry.

"M ... Max ... Maxine!" He managed to get out, in between gasps.

"I'm over here!" Maxine yelled. "Sawyer! I'm at the cages!"

Todd followed the sound of Maxine's voice, and located her. She was a considerable distance from the house, and had clambered up on top of one of a series of cages. There she was kneeling, with a gun in her hand. She'd always kept guns around the house, Todd knew, but this was the first occasion he'd seen her using one.

"Keep following my voice," she yelled to Sawyer. "Look for a tree with bright yellow flowers, like big bells -- "

"I'm looking!" Sawyer sobbed.

From his vantage point on the balcony, Todd felt like a Caesar at the Coliseum, watching the lions and the Christians. He could see the Christians perfectly clearly, and now-as the gap between the pursuer and the pursued closed-he began to glimpse the lions too.

In the bushes no more than a yard or two behind Sawyer was one of dead's children: a foul hybrid of ghost woman and-of all things-jaguar. The latter must have been a prisoner in Katya's menagerie, but the marriage of anatomies had turned its sleek perfection into something rougher, uglier and entirely more bizarre. The human element had been female; no doubt of that. The face-when Todd glimpsed it-was two-thirds humanoid. The high cheekbones, the icy stare: it was surely the face of Lana Turner. Then the creature opened its mouth, and the bestial third showed itself: vast teeth, top and bottom, a mottled throat, a black tongue. It let out a very unladylike roar, and pounced on Sawyer, who threw himself out of its path with inches to spare.

"Are you okay?" Maxine yelled.

All that Sawyer could manage was: "No!"

"Are you close to me?" Maxine said.

"I can't see you," he cried. The branches over his head were shaking violently.

"Look for the yellow flowers."

" ... yellow ... flowers ... "

It would have been easy for Todd to direct Sawyer through this maze, but that would have taken all the fun out of it. Better to keep his silence and let the man find his own way. It was the kind of game he knew Katya would love. He was tempted to wake her, but it would be over in the next few seconds, he guessed. Sawyer was a few yards from the cages, and safety. Having failed to catch its victim on its first pounce, the Lana, as Todd had mentally dubbed the creature, had returned to her stalking. Todd caught glimpses of her mottled back as she slid through the thicket. Her intentions were clear, at least from Todd's point of view. She was moving to cut Sawyer off from the gallery of cages. Sawyer and Maxine kept a banal exchange going meanwhile, so that Sawyer could find his way to her.

"You're getting louder."

"Am I?"

"Sure. You see the yellow flowers, yet?"

"Yeah. I see them."

"You're really close."

"I'm under them -- "

He stopped talking because he heard the low growl of the Lana. Todd could hear the creature too, though he couldn't see it. He silently willed Sawyer not to make any sudden moves; just stand still, shut up, and maybe the animal would lose interest. Sawyer could stand still without any problem, but could he shut up? No, he could not. Sawyer was a gabber. "Oh God, Maxine. Oh God. It's close to me."