I know I worked overtime that night; I made it to the synagogue with bare minutes to spare before the rabbi started singing L'khah dodi to welcome in the Sabbath. Judy was sitting so close to the front on the women's side that she didn't even see me come in. I didn't manage to nod at her - let alone say hello - until the service was done.

"I was afraid you weren't coming," she said after we hugged.

"Work." I made it sound like the four-letter word it was.

"Listen, have you eaten yet?" I grimaced when she nodded.

"All right, you want to come along with me anyhow? I'll get you pie and coffee or something. I flew straight here from the office."

"Sure," she said. "Where do you want to go?"

We ended up at a Lenny's not far from the synagogue: a step up from the Golden Steeples, a step down from a real restaurant. I just wanted to feed my face - and they do have pretty fair pie.

And besides, I thought, remembering Henry Legion, it wasn't a place that was likely to have a Listener planted in it.

I hadn't called Judy back to tell her about the spook: by the time he got out of my flat, I was imagining people (and Things) listening to my phone calls. When I was through, she stared at me for a few seconds. Then she said, "You're not making that up," in a tone of voice that meant she'd been wondering right up to the end.

"Not a bit of it." I was a little hurt she had trouble believing me, but only a little, because I would have had trouble believing a story like that from anybody else. I mean, people don't just start having visits from spooks with threatening manners… except I did. I added, "From what he said, maybe I shouldn't be telling you any of this."

"David Fisher, if you even thought of keeping me in the dark, I'd show your picture to a mirror and then break the mirror," she said indignantly.

"I sort of expected as much," I said. "Thing is, from what Henry Legion said, it's liable to get dangerous."

"You didn't worry about that when you took me to the Thomas Brothers fire-"

I tried to interrupt: "I didn't take you there; you invited yourself."

She rode over me like the demon horses of the Wild Hunt. "-and you invited me to the swap meet with you day after tomorrow."

"I did that before the spook showed up," I muttered.

"Do you want me not to come?" she said. "Do you want me not to go back to your flat with you tonight? Do you want, me not to bother going ahead with the arrangements for the;. wedding? Do you think I'm afraid? Don't you see I want to' get to the bottom of this as badly as you do?"

I did the only thing I could possible do at that particular moment: I surrendered. I did it literally - I took a white handkerchief out of my pocket and waved it in the air between us. Judy, bless her, went from furious to giggling in the space of a second and a half. The waitress who'd been about to refill my coffee cup undoubtedly figured I'd gone out of my mind, but that was a small price to pay for keeping my fiancee happy.

Only trouble was, I was land of afraid myself.

After sunset Saturday, I flew up to St. Ferdinand's Valley to pick up the heavy-duty constabulary spellchecker. An advantage of dealing with the constabulary is that they never close (given human nature, they'd better not). A disadvantage is that their parchmentwork is even more cumbersome than what the EPA uses (and if you didn't think that was possible, you're not the only one). By the language of their forms, they figured I'd abscond with the gadget the second their backs were turned unless I promised not to in writing ahead of time.

"Why don't you just lay a gear on me?" I asked sarcastically.

"Oh no, sir," said the clerk who kept shoving parchments at me. "That would be a violation of your rights." Apparently signing away my life wasn't.

Because I spent so long signing forms, I didn't get back to my place until going on ten. I lugged the spellchecker upstairs (it was nominally portable, but being part troll didn't hurt if you wanted to carry it more than a few feet), put it down so I could open the door, picked it up again with a grunt, and set it down in the middle of the front room.

"It's about time you got back," Judy said. "I was starting to worry about you."

"Forms," I said, and tried to make it sound as blasphemous as one of your more usual maledictions. I must have managed, because Judy laughed. I stretched. Something in my back went pop. It felt good. I suspected I'd lost about half an inch of height manhandling the spellchecker up to my flat. Maybe the pop meant I was getting it back again. I glared at the gadget "Miserable thing."

"Twenty years ago, there weren't any portables," Judy reminded me. "Ten years ago, one with the capacity of the 'checker in your closet would have been bigger and heavier than this beast. Ten years from now, they'll probably pack even more microimps into a case you can cany around in your hip pocket." "Too bad they haven't done it yet," I grumbled, and stretched some more.

Judy gave me a sidelong look. "Are you trying to tell me you want me to get on top tonight?"

"If that's what you'd like," I said. Far as I can see, it's wonderful either way, or any others your imagination conjures up.

She asked her watch what time it was. A tiny vertical frown line appeared between her eyes.

"Whatever we do, let's do it soon. We're going to have to get up early to make it to the Valley when the swap meet dealers start coming in."

So we did it soon, and it was fine. Judy is one of the most thoroughly pragmatic people I've ever met, but that doesn't keep her from being able to enjoy herself. It just means she makes sure she blocks out the time in which to enjoy herself.

My alarm clock woke us up much too early on an otherwise perfectly good Sunday morning, then laughed at us as we staggered around like a couple of the not-quite-living dead. I swore I'd have to get a new clock one day soon. I think I've said that before, but this time I really meant it.

I showered, then shaved while Judy went in after me. I was dressed by the time she came out, and fixed breakfast while she got that thick, wavy hair of hers dry. Scrambled eggs, toast, coffee - very basic. I threw the dishes in the sink for later, did my he-man weightlifting routine with the constabulary spellchecker, and offwe went They hold the Sunday morning swap meet at the Mason Fly-In. By night it's the biggest outdoor light-and-magic house in the Valley. By day it's just an enormous parking lot, so they get some extra use - and some extra crowns - out of the space.

Because we were good and early, we got to park dose to the dealers' entrance, for which my overworked back was heartily grateful. The only people there were a couple of guards drinking coffee from a big jug. They looked like (and turned out to be) sunlighting off-duty constables.

Their names were Luke and Pete; I had trouble remembering which one was which. They both had the same short, dark hair, the same watchful eyes, the same big shoulders. They'd been told we were coming - somebody was on the ball there. They helped set up the spellchecker at the side of the gate, then poured more coffee for Judy and me. It was nice and hot; the jug must have had a tiny salamander in the base.

Some of the new storage vessels have a salamander on one side and an ice elemental on the other, so they can keep hot things hot and cold things cold. The only problem is, you don't want to drop them. If the partition between the two elementals breaks, they fight like cats and dogs.

I explained what I was looking for, and why. Both guards looked grim. Pete - or maybe it was Luke - said, "I hope you nail the bastard. I got three kids at home; I don't like thinking about anything like that happening to one of 'em." Luke - or was it Pete?-pointed to the spellchecker and said, "I wish that thing could spot theft along with sorcery. It would sure make the department's life a lot easier."