When I failed to answer Viola's question at once, she thought that I'd seen something wrong with her daughters, and she took a step toward the bed.

Gently I gripped her arm and held her back. "I'm sorry, Viola. Nothing's wrong. I just wanted to be sure the girls were safe. And with those bars on the windows, they are."

"They know how to work the emergency release," she said.

One of the entities at Nicolina's bedside appeared to rise out of its swoon and recognize our presence. Its hands slowed but did not entirely stop their eerie movements, and it raised its wolfish head to peer in our direction with disturbing, eyeless intensity.

I was loath to leave the girls alone with those five phantoms, but I could do nothing to banish them.

Besides, from everything that I have seen of bodachs, they can experience this world with some if not all of the usual five senses, but they don't seem to have any effect on things here. I have never heard them make a sound, have never seen them move an object or, by their passage, disturb so much as the dust motes floating in the air.

They are of less substance than an ectoplasmic wraith drifting above the table at a seance. They are dream creatures on the wrong side of sleep.

The girls would not be harmed. Not here. Not yet.

Or so I hoped.

I suspected that these spirit travelers, having come to Pico Mundo for ringside seats at a festival of blood, were entertaining themselves on the eve of the main event. Perhaps they took pleasure in studying the victims before the shots were fired; they might be amused and excited to watch innocent people progress all unknowing toward imminent death.

Pretending to be unaware of the nightmarish intruders, putting one finger to my lips as if suggesting to Viola and Stormy that we be careful not to wake the girls, I drew both women with me, out of the room. I pushed the door two-thirds shut, just as it had been when we'd arrived, leaving the bodachs to slither on the floor, to sniff and thrash, to weave their patterns of sinuous gesticulations with mysterious purpose.

I worried that one or more of them would follow us to the living room, but we reached the front door without a supernatural escort.

Speaking almost as quietly as in the girls' bedroom, I said to Viola, "One thing I better clarify. When I tell you not to go to the movies tomorrow, I mean the girls shouldn't go, either. Don't send them out with a relative. Not to the movies, not anywhere."

Viola's smooth satin brow became brown corduroy. "But my sweet babies… they weren't shot in the dream."

"No prophetic dream reveals everything that's coming. Just fragments."

Instead of merely sharpening her anxiety, the implications of my statement hardened her features with anger. Good. She needed fear and anger to stay sharp, to make wise decisions in the day ahead.

To stiffen her resolve, I said, "Even if you had seen your girls shot… God forbid, dead… you might've blocked it from your memory when you woke."

Stormy rested her hand on Viola's shoulder. "You wouldn't have wanted those images in your mind."

Tense with determination, Viola said, "We'll stay home, have a little party, just ourselves."

"I'm not sure that's wise, either," I said.

"Why not? I don't know what place that was in my dream, but I'm sure it wasn't this house."

"Remember… different roads can take you to the same stubborn fate."

I didn't want to tell her about the bodachs in her daughters' room, for then I would have to reveal all my secrets. Only Terri, the chief, Mrs. Porter, and Little Ozzie know most of the truth about me, and only Stormy knows all of it.

If too many people are brought into my innermost circle, my secret will leak out. I'll become a media sensation, a freak to many people, a guru to some. Simplicity and quiet hours will be forever beyond my reach. My life will be too complicated to be worth living.

I said to Viola, "In your dream, this house wasn't where you were gunned down. But if you were destined to be shot at the movies, and now you aren't going to the theater… then maybe Fate comes here to find you. Not likely. But not impossible."

"And in your dream, tomorrow is the day?"

"That's right. So I'd feel better if you were two steps removed from the future you saw in your nightmare."

I glanced toward the back of the house. Still no bodachs had ventured after us. I think they have no effect on this world.

Nevertheless, taking no chances with the girls' lives, I lowered my voice further. "Step one-don't go to the movies or the Grille tomorrow. Step two-don't stay here, either."

Stormy asked, "How far away does your sister live?"

"Two blocks. Over on Maricopa Lane."

I said, "I'll come by in the morning, between nine and ten o'clock, with the photo I promised. I'll take you and the girls to your sister's."

"You don't have to do that, Odd. We can get there ourselves."

"No. I want to take you. It's necessary."

I needed to be certain that no bodachs followed Viola and her daughters.

Lowering my voice to a whisper, I said, "Don't tell Levanna and Nicolina what you're going to do. And don't call your sister to say you're coming. You could be overheard."

Viola surveyed the living room, worried but also astonished. "Who could hear?"

By necessity, I was mysterious: "Certain… forces." If the bodachs overheard her planning to move the kids to her sister's house, Viola might not have taken two safe steps away from her dreamed-of fate, after all, but only one. "Do you really believe, like you said, that I know about all that's Otherly and Beyond?"

She nodded. "Yes. I believe that."

Her eyes were so wide with wonder that they scared me, for they reminded me of the staring eyes of corpses.

"Then trust me on this, Viola. Get some sleep if you can. I'll come around in the morning. By tomorrow night, this'll have been all just a nightmare, nothing prophetic about it."

I didn't feel as confident as I sounded, but I smiled and kissed her on the cheek.

She hugged me and then hugged Stormy. "I don't feel so alone anymore."

Lacking an oscillating fan, the night outside was hotter than the warm air in the little house.

The moon had slowly ascended toward the higher stars, shedding its yellow veils to reveal its true silver face. A face as hard as a clock, and merciless.

TWENTY-SEVEN

LITTLE MORE THAN AN HOUR BEFORE MIDNIGHT, WORried about a new day that might bring children in the line of gunfire, I parked the Mustang behind the Pico Mundo Grille.

When I doused the headlights and switched off the engine, Stormy said, "Will you ever leave this town?"

"I sure hope I'm not one of those who insists on hanging around after he's dead, like poor Tom Jedd out there at Tire World."

"I meant will you ever leave it while you're alive."

"Just the idea gives me hives on the brain."

"Why?"

"It's big out there."

"Not all of it is big. Lots of towns are smaller and quieter than Pico Mundo."

"I guess what I mean is… everything out there would be new. I like what I know. Considering everything else I have to deal with… I can't at the same time handle a lot of new stuff. New street names, new architecture, new smells, all new people…"

"I've always thought it would be nice to live in the mountains."

"New weather." I shook my head. "I don't need new weather."

"Anyway," she said, "I didn't mean leave town permanently. Just for a day or two. We could drive to Vegas."

"That's your idea of a smaller, quieter place? I'll bet that's a place with thousands of dead people who won't move on."

"Why?"

"People who lost everything they owned at the craps tables, the roulette wheels, then went back to their rooms and blew their brains out." I shivered. "Suicides always hang around after they're dead. They're afraid to move on."