“I left a message,” he said. “Asking him to call the minute he gets in.”

“We’re acting like children,” Linda said. “Waiting for this man as if he were God, or…Why do you think he can help us?”

“I don’t. I just don’t know what else to do.”

“How is your arm?”

“Hurts. It’s not that, nor the fact that I’m bushed. Something’s happened to what passes for my brain. I can’t…I can’t think.”

“Physical exhaustion doesn’t help,” she said, with a briskness that was contradicted by the tenderness of her mouth. They both knew that they could not afford an exchange of sympathies. In a battle, minor wounds must go untended.

“My own brain isn’t working very well either,” she went on. “But one thing is clear, Michael. I can’t spend another night with you.”

“It’s a good thing nobody is listening to this conversation,” Michael said wryly.

She gave him a strained smile.

“I mean it, though.”

“Why is it night you’re afraid of? Isn’t that childish too?”

“Fear of the dark…Maybe. But everything that has happened so far happened at night.”

“When the powers of evil walk abroad…”

“You see? It means something to you. What was it you said, last night-about the dark on the other side?”

Michael twitched uncomfortably.

“Kwame-Joe Schwartz-said that. About Gordon. He was talking about the old Platonic image of the shadows on the wall of the cave, but it turned me cold to hear him, I can tell you. Not the shadows, but the Things that cast the shadows, the Things that prowl the dark, on the other side of the fire. Gordon knows about them, he said. It was pretty obvious that he did, too.”

“Poor Joe.”

“He takes dope,” Michael said. “Some kind of hallucinogenic.”

“But you don’t. Why does the phrase make you so uncomfortable?”

“Racial memory?” Michael offered wildly. “Some hairy, beetle-browed ancestor of mine, squatting in his cave, with his puny fire and his club the only defense against the things that prowled outside in the dark. Saber-toothed tigers and mastodons…”

There was no answering spark of amusement in her face.

“Go on,” she said.

“Well…Too many horror stories when I was a kid. The other side of what? Eternity? The threshold of this world? The doorway that separates the living from the dead? Spiritualists talk about ‘the other world,’ don’t they, to describe the region from which they get their communications?” He was getting interested; he went on, catching the impressions as they floated up into consciousness. “When Kwame talked of the dark on the other side of the fire, he was thinking of The Republic, but also of that other image. This world, narrow and circumscribed as opposed to the spiritual reality of the other side. The dark…That idea is not in Plato, damn it, if I remember my classics, which I probably don’t. For him, the non-material, ideal world was one of light, of true consciousness. A spiritualist would see it that way, too. What do the discarnate entities keep mumbling when they are asked about their world?”

“Sunshine, light, flowers, love,” Linda said promptly.

“Right. So why does this world of light and flowers seem to Kwame to be transmuted into darkness-not empty night, but a place where shadows live? Darkness and light, the primeval symbols of evil and good; the notion of a balance of forces, eternally warring, never ending. There are times, for everyone, when he feels himself the plaything of forces from somewhere outside, forces beyond his control, which strike him when he least expects it. ‘Out of the night that covers me…’”

“Imagery, poetic,” Linda said, as his voice trailed away. “It’s frightening, though, isn’t it? ‘Black as the pit from pole to pole…’”

“Poetic imagery is part of the picture I get. Black as the pit…black as Hell…There’s a nice conventional image of fire and darkness for you.”

“The familiar Calvinist Hell.”

“It’s funny,” Michael went on thoughtfully, “how many of the pre-Christian afterworlds were dark. That terrible twilight place the classical poets describe, where the dead speak with faint voices like the piping of birds… Didn’t the Egyptians go down under the earth into darkness where the sun-god never came?”

“You’re out of my field,” Linda said.

“Darkness and light, black and white; even the colors have symbolism. White is the color of purity, the garments of the Virgin and the priest… What’s the matter?”

“Sorry. It reminded me of Briggs, and every time I think of him I get a chill.”

“Why Briggs?” Michael grinned. “Not the color of purity, surely.”

“Didn’t you know? No, I suppose you wouldn’t. Gordon must have told you about Briggs’s being unfairly dismissed from his job, and all that? He never told you what the job was, though… Briggs is an unfrocked priest.”

“What?”

“I guess that sounds melodramatic. Actually, he was a student for the priesthood. They threw him out. Very politely, I imagine. I can also imagine why.”

“My God…Linda, what is Briggs? I mean, what role does he play in relation to Gordon?”

“I’ve wondered so often myself. Sometimes I think he’s just another victim, but a willing one. Sometimes I see him as the éminence grise behind Gordon’s latest activities. They’re hand in glove, anyway, never doubt that.”

Her face was averted, her voice rapid. She could hardly speak of the man, her loathing was so great. Michael realized that the basis for her aversion was more than a spiritual rejection. Perhaps it had not been Briggs’s dabbling in questionable theology that had caused his expulsion, but rather his inability to conform to the basic tenets of the priestly orders. He wondered whether Gordon was aware of his colleague’s attitude toward his wife; and knew that, if Gordon was what they had conjectured him to be, this would only be another weapon in his hands.

In the middle of the afternoon, Napoleon returned.

Michael hadn’t noticed his long absence; he had too many other things to worry about. He was in the kitchen making another pot of coffee when the heavy body thudded down onto the counter; and then he remembered that Napoleon never missed coming home for breakfast.

He reached out for the animal, expecting the usual snarl and rebuff. But Napoleon’s lackluster stare remained fixed on thin air and he did not move. Michael passed his hands over the cat’s body. He found no new wounds. Whatever else he had been doing, Napoleon had not been fighting. Which was in itself a sign of something wrong.

Lifting the unresponsive bulk, he carried it into the bedroom.

“He’s sick,” he said, sounding like a nervous parent.

Linda looked up from the book she was not reading.

“Let me see.”

Michael dumped the cat onto her lap and Linda investigated.

“I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “He’s a mess-why don’t you chaperon him better?-but what’s left of his fur feels sleek enough. And his eyes look okay…”

Returning her look owlishly, Napoleon made the rusty grinding noise that passed for a purr. When Michael reached out for him, he eluded his master’s hand with the old agility, and leaped down off the bed. Michael trailed along after him while Napoleon made a thorough inspection of the apartment, from bathroom to kitchen. Having arrived at his food dish, he squatted down in front of it and began to gulp with a ravenous intensity that relieved much of Michael’s worry.

He wandered back into the bedroom.

“He’s eating.”

“I expect he’s all right, then. Michael…Would you think me ridiculous if I found his return reassuring?”

“I never thought of that. Hell, honey, it’s illogical. Cats are supposed to fawn on demons.”

She didn’t answer. Michael sat down wearily on the edge of the bed and put his hand on her ankles. He ran his finger under the thick silk, making sure it was not too tight.

“Don’t,” she said.