The vampire's eyes glittered. I knew that if I looked into them for very long I'd be fascinated, and then the bloodsucker could do whatever it wanted with me. I reached under my shirt, pulled out something on a chain round my neck.

The vampire must have drought it was going to be a crucifix. Its fanged mouth opened in a scornful laugh. A lot of vampires, especially the ones that survive for very long in Christian countries, are of Balkan Muslim blood, and so immune to the skin of the cross.

But I didn't pull out a cross. What I wore instead was a mystic Jewish amulet, a seven-by-seven acrostic prepared by the same Mage Abramelin Works that made my blasting rod.

I yanked it off over my head and direw the kaballistic missile at the vampire.

He had quick reflexes - he caught it before it hit him in the face. But that didn't do him any good. His cry of pain turned to an anguished howl. The Hebrew term for vampires is kepiloth - "empty ones" - and it's a good description.

Because they've lost so much humanity, they're extremely vulnerable to magical countermeasures. When the acrostic based on the Hebrew word for "dog" hit this one, he had no choice but to transform.

"Get out of here, you son of a bitch!" I yelled, and drew back my foot to give him a good lack. He fled, yelping, tail between his legs.

I picked up the amulet, hung it back around my neck, and trudged upstairs to my flat. Only later, when I was lying down and trying to sleep, did it occur to me that if I hadn't been emotionally drained from what had happened to Judy, the vampire might have made me panic and drained me in the literal sense before I thought of the amulet. As it was, I just took him in stride and did the right thing without even thinking about it Every so often, lying there, I'd ask my watch what time it was. The last answer I remember getting was 2:48.

Going to work on three hours' sleep is one of those nightmares everybody has once or twice. A lot of the time, a new baby in the house is the reason. Not for me. Thinking about a baby made me think about Judy. We'd had so many plans - I didn't want to think about throwing them all away.

A cup of coffee with breakfast. Another cup of cafeteria mud the minute I got in, and another one right after that One more half an hour later. I felt myself wind tighter and tighter. By God, I'd get through the day. If tonight ever came, I'd probably be too buzzed to sleep then. One things at a time, though. Get through the day first. That meant more phone calls. I didn't feel the least bit guflty about using my office; my personal affairs and those of the toxic spell dump case had become inextricably intertwined. First I called Saul Klein upstairs.

"Saul, this is David Fisher down in the EPA again," I said. "I want - no, I don't want to, but I have to - report a kidnapping."

"This is the report that we received from the Long Beach constabulary last night?" he asked. When I said yes, he went on, "Is dus connected with the minisingers case you were telling me about a little while ago?"

I'd forgotten the minisingers. I discovered that, along with tired and worried, I could be embarrassed, too. "No, it doesn't have anything to do with dial. If you've received that Long Beach report, Saul, does that mean you'll be on the case?"

"I'll be involved, yes," he answered. "Is it convenient for you that I come down and discuss matters now? You're on the sevendi floor, is that right?"

"Yes, and sure, come on down. Can you stop at the cafeteria and bring a couple of cups of coffee? I'll pay for them."

He came; we drank coffee; he asked all the same questions Johnson had the night before. Numbly, I gave the same answers. He scribbled notes. When I was done, he said,

"We'll do everything we can for you, David, and for Mistress Ather. I promise you that" I noticed he didn't promise they'd get her back alive and unhurt; he must have known belter than to make promises he might not be able to keep.

When he left, I called Henry Legion. The spook said, "I shall be there directly." He was, too, faster crosscountry than Saul Klein had been from two floors up. Of course, Henry Legion hadn't had to stop for coffee.

I told my story for the third time. Repetition made it feel almost as if it had happened to someone else - almost but not quite. The CI spook said, "This is disturbing. Events are moving faster than crystal-ball projections had indicated. My opinion is that your scanning around the toxic spell dump may well have been the precipitating factor."

"But except for a little stardust, we didn't find anything," I said, nearly wailing, as if I were I kid who got caught and walloped for peeking in a bedroom window witthout even seeing anything interesting.

"You may know third " the spook said. "I would doubt the perpetrators do." Then he disappeared on me. I hate that. It always gives him the last word.

Two down. My next call was to Legate Kawaguchi. I wondered if he'd still be off on his other case, but no, I got him. "This is in relation to the kidnapping of Mistress Ather whom I met at the Thomas Brothers fire?" he asked when he heard it was me, so the Long Beach constables must have already talked with him.

That's what this is in relation to, all right," I said heavily.

"I can't imagine any other reason for kidnapping Judy, especially when whoever did it also tried to kill me a few days ago."

"I can imagine other reasons," Kawaguchi said. Before I could start screaming at him, he went on, "I admit however, that your scenario appears to be of the highest probability. As you will have surmised"-and as I had surmised-"I have discussed this matter with the Long Beach force. I would, however, also be grateful for your firsthand account" I gave it to him. One more repetition, I thought one more movement out of the realm of reality and into that of discourse. In a way, it was a sort of anti-magic. Magic uses words to realize what had only been imagined. I was using them to turn tragedy and horror into memory, which is ever so much easier to handle.

When I was through, Kawaguchi said, "Did you learn from the forensics man what sort of sleep spell he detected at your fiancee's flat?"

"You know, I didn't," I answered. "His plainclothesman - Johnson - and I went down to the Long Beach station so I could make my sworn statement there, and the forensics fellow didn't stick his head into Johnson's office while I was giving it."

"I shall inquire," Kawaguchi said. His words were spaced a little too far apart, as if he was writing and talking at the same time.

I said, "I wanted to check with you, too, Legate, to see if you have any new answers that would help dear up who did this to Judy." Whoever it was had also undoubtedly arranged to have the earth elemental dropped on my flying carpet. At the moment, that seemed utterly unimportant to me.

"New answers, no," he said. "I have some new questions, however: there has been vandalism relating to the Garuda Bird project at the Loki plant in Burbank, vandalism behind a hermetic seal."

"That is supposed to be impossible," I said, now speaking slowly myself - I was scrawling a note to call Matt Arnold.

"Many things once supposed impossible have come true," Kawaguchi said. "Take virtuous reality, for example."

"Thank you," I exdaimed. "That reminds me of something else I wanted to ask you: what's the more usual name for Pharwnachrus mooinno?"

Kawaguchi actually laughed; I hadn't been sure he could.

"My apologies, Inspector; I should not have read the name to your secretary straight off the laboratory report. The common name for the bird in question is the quetzal."

"Quetzal?" I slammed into that head on, as if my carpet had run into a building. "Are you sure?' 

"Confirmed by an ornithologist and an Etruscan ornithomancer," Kawaguchi said.