It was a little over twenty-four hours since the massacre at Glen Ellen. Alison lay in a bed in Claire D'Amboise's guest room, exhausted from crying over dead and missing friends, too keyed-up to sleep. Her only comfort was the warm presence of Ming, lying against her leg beneath the covers.

      She had to get some sleep. She had to be at the studio tomorrow; she couldn't afford to miss any more work.

      How was she going to get through the day, though? How was she coming to blot out the memories? Brad bouncing off the hood of her car. Rhinehart's farmhouse ablaze. Claude's corpse being loaded into the ambulance. The look on Maurice's face when she asked him where Joey was.

      Joey. She never would have believed that he could leave such a big, painful hole in her life.

      She remembered the first time he left her, during her senior year of high school, just after the twins died. She recalled the gut-wrenching worry she had felt for him then, alone someplace she couldn't go. There had been hurt and anger as well, since he had left without any goodbyes, without displaying any concern for her at all.

      As the months went on and she had begun her preparations for college, Alison slowly put Joey out of her mind, thinking of him only infrequently. When he finally called her at her UCLA dorm, to tell her he was living in San Francisco, Alison had been relieved but not overjoyed. By then a sophisticated second-semester freshman, she had relegated Joey to the mental space reserved for such high school memories as braces, trips to the mall and Billy Joel albums.

      Now Alison had to face the very likely possibility that Joey was dead, gone forever this time.

      Unable to sleep, Alison gently moved Ming and got out of bed. She dug out a pack of cigarettes from her purse and lit one up. It tasted horrible but calmed her down. One of these days, she was going to have to quit...

      Someone rapped lightly on the door. "Alison, are you awake?" Claire called.

      Alison threw on her bathrobe. "Yeah. Come on in."

      Claire opened the door. From the shy smile on her face, it looked like good news. She said, "There's someone here who wants to see you."

      "Joey? Is it Joey?"

      She pushed past Claire and raced down the staircase. At the bottom, she met Maurice Tolliver. She said, "Is Joey here?"

      "Outside in my parents' Winnebago. He wants to see you."

      "How is he?"

      "OK, considering. He was hiding out somewhere and called me from a pay phone in Glen Ellen about three hours ago. He's exhausted but made me stop here."

      Alison ran outside, not caring how she was dressed, unmindful of the cold, wet pavement beneath her bare feet. The camper was parked in the driveway. She opened the side door and mounted the steps in one jump.

      Joey sat on the couch. When he saw her, he got up and walked toward her.

      For the longest time, Alison couldn't say anything. She couldn't find the words to express what she was feeling. She swallowed a sodden lump and began to cry.

      He took her hand and led her to the couch. When she sat, he reached over and embraced her. Alison let him comfort her, stroke her hair and wipe her tears away.

      She finally said, "You're alive."

      Joey smiled weakly and said, "That can be our little secret."

      A mirror hung on the altar. Joey looked into it and thought, "Is that really me?"

      He ran a hand through his freshly cut blond hair and caught a faint whiff of bleach. With his tongue, he touched the plastic inserts between his gums and his lips that gave his face a more solid definition. He blinked and barely felt the blue-tinted contact lenses. Bouncing on the lifts in his new shoes, he tugged at his glued-on mustache.

      Alison's make-up artist friend had done a remarkable job. Joey's own mother wouldn't recognize him.

      A closer inspection told him that that wasn't true at all. He didn't look much like himself, but he definitely looked like a Spelvin, more so than he ever had before.

      Seeing himself with blond hair and blue eyes, he suddenly realized how closely he resembled Tom and Jeff. A shiver ran through him.

      On the altar, Maurice had laid out the items Joey would need for his first solo attempt at calling down the loa. Water pots. Rattles. Beads. Sacrificial food. Joey inspected them all and ran down his mental checklist of prayers, songs and invocations. He didn't want to botch this. Too much depended on it.

      As far as the outside world was concerned, Joey Spelvin was still missing and presumed dead. Four bodies had been hauled out of the charred wreckage at Rhinehart's. Only one, a woman, had been positively identified so far. The three male bodies all were burned beyond recognition, but one was approximately Joey's age and size.

      Joey had no idea how long it might be before the police and their forensics lab came up with the victims' true identities. In the meantime, he planned to keep as low a profile as possible. Maurice had been kind enough to let him share his house in El Cerrito, and Joey ventured outside only when it was absolutely necessary.

      Two friends of Chantal, Lester Jones and Andrea Fontaine, had flown up from Los Angeles to be with their mambo while she recuperated at the hospital in Santa Rosa. They had spent most of the past few days teaching Joey an astounding amount of vodoun lore, completing as best they could the education interrupted by the firefight in Glen Ellen. A larger, much more prosperous congregation than Baribeau's, Chantal's humfo owned an extensive library of books and periodicals relating to vodoun. Lester and Andrea had brought with them some of the collection's choicest texts and let Joey pore through them as much as he wished.

      Now it was time to put all that scholarship to use. Joey picked up the rattle and began to chant Legba's invocation. The Creole words came effortlessly, spilling from his mouth as if he had grown up singing them. At the end of the pray, he raised his hands over his head and cried, "Papa Legba, open the gates and let me pass through!"

      He felt it happen, a vertiginous moment when it seemed as if the whole planet shifted a few degrees out of alignment. He lost his balance for a second, leaned too far to his right and caught himself before he fell. The sensation both scared and pleased him. His prayers were being answered.

      He worked his way through the rada loa pantheon, asking the favor of each major god and goddess, giving them their favorite sacrifices. All the offerings were simple foodstuffs: fruit, candy, grains, liquor. No blood sacrifices were required at this point, for which Joey was profoundly thankful.

      Joey saved Ogu, his personal loa mait'-tete, for last. Since that night a week ago in Glen Ellen, he had had no contact with the God of Fire and Thunder. Possession still frightened him deeply. He hated being out of control, having no say about what happened to his body. But before he could proceed any further with his plans, he needed that powerful spirit's advice.

      With a handful of salt, he drew Ogu's veve on the floor at the base of the altar. He splashed pungent rum on the design, then directed his attention to a cheap postcard of St. Jacques, purchased from the gift shop of a local Catholic church and hung on the altar.

      Haitian practitioners of vodoun made little distinction between the Catholic saints and their images of the loa. The Virgin Mary and Ezili, St. Patrick and Damballah-wedo, St. Ulrich and Agwe': all were one and the same to voodooists.

      He placed the postcard on the veve and set it afire with a pocket lighter. As it burned, he called down the loa.

      Joey's head-pot sat on the altar. Someone had had the foresight to rescue it from the djevo after all hell broke loose Saturday night. Now it began to glow with a greenish light.

      A quick tweak at the back of his head, a few twitches in his arms and legs, and Ogu was inside him.

      And outside, as well. A broad-chested, middle-aged black man, dressed in a military uniform and clutching a huge machete, suddenly appeared before Joey. The warrior took a cigar from his breast pocket and lighted it without striking a match. He calmly sat cross-legged on the floor.

      Joey knew that if someone else were to enter the room just then, that person would not see Ogu. The god was visible only because he was conjuring hallucinations from inside Joey's head.

      Puffing contentedly on his cigar, the loa said, "Well done, boy. You have not neglected your studies."

      "God of Fire, God of Thunder, God of the Blazing Forge, I seek your advice in matters most dire."

      Ogu waved a dismissive hand at him. "Formality does not suit you, son. You may dispense with it. As long as you remain properly respectful."

      "I need your help, Ogu. I don't see how I can defeat Henri Concasseur's sorcery. It seems impossible."

      "It is not. Even the most powerful bokor has his weakness. And Concasseur is far from the most powerful bokor."

      "Then what is it? Surely, you must know."

      Ogu played with his machete, running a finger lovingly along the edge of the blade. "Surely I do. And I am not about to tell it to you."

      Joey discovered that it was possible to lose one's temper with a god. "Why not, for Christ's sake?"

      A white-hot needle jabbed into Joey's eye. He screamed. Before he could inhale again, the pain disappeared.

      Ogu raised an eyebrow. "Remember, respectful."

      Joey took a few seconds to recover. Softening his tone, he said, "How can I discover Concasseur's weakness when he's surrounded by so many dangerous followers? What do I do about all the zombies, werewolves and other assorted freaks?"

      "Remove the followers so that you may concentrate on their master. Find their weaknesses and exploit them."

      "Where do I look for these weaknesses? In books? By asking the other loas?"

      "Some of the answers can be found in those ways. Others you must discover for yourself, by looking at yourself."

      Why did spirits take such pleasure in being inscrutable. "I don't understand."

      Ogu flicked his cigar ashes on the floor and laughed. "I know. Until you are a whole man, you will not."

      "Can't you give me a hint?"

      "I will say only this. Find Concasseur's place of power and make that power your own." Ogu stood and bowed. "Goodbye for now."

      The gate closed. The loa was gone.

      That night, after Alison got home from work, Joey and she visited Chantal at the Santa Rosa Hospital. A pair of burly men, wearing black tee shirts and chinos, guarded the door to her room. They nodded in recognition. One, his voice surprising gentle, said, "She had a rough afternoon. Please don't stay too long."

      At first Joey thought the mambo was asleep. As they entered the room, Chantal lay absolutely still, barely breathing. Then, opening her one good eye, she smiled suddenly and said, "Alison. Joey. I'm glad you came."

      Surrounded by literally dozens of protective charms, she began to prop herself up in bed, but she didn't have enough strength or dexterity to get the pillow behind her back. Alison rushed to help her and received a tender pat on the hand in return. Chantal lay back and rested for a moment, seeming to gather her strength.

      Alison pulled a chair near the bed and sat down. Joey kept his distance, perching on the window sill.

      He caught himself staring at the swath of heavy bandages that covered nearly half the mambo's face. He looked away, uncomfortable at the thought of what lay under all that surgical gauze.

      The loup-garou's claws had wreaked havoc on Chantal. The night of the attack, her followers had feared that the mambo's once-beautiful features were beyond repair, that the torn flesh would never be returned to its natural smoothness, that the dreadfully injured eyeball would have to be removed. And much to their sorrow, they had been mostly right.

      Her plastic surgeon still held out a small measure of hope that the permanent disfigurement could be minimized. The first order of business, however, was to bring the infection under control. Carol Hartinger's talons had left filth deep inside the injured tissue, and the mambo still burned with fever.

      Chantal said, "I had a visitor from the Sheriff's Office today. They are very interested in questioning me about last weekend, but I put them off for the time being. How is Professor Rhinehart dealing with them?"

      Joey said, "He's sticking to the white-supremacists-on-a-rampage story."

      "And are they buying it?"

      "I'm not sure. It's probably more plausible to them than the truth.

      Chantal took a plastic cup from the bedside table and sipped at the straw. Wiping her mouth daintily on a Kleenex, she said, "We will have to do what all good hungans and mambos do in Haiti. We will cast certain spells to make the authorities come around to our way of thinking, use magic to divert attention away from us."

      She turned to Alison. "How are you faring, my dear? Have you squared things with the Berkeley Police?"

      Alison sighed, and twisted a strand of hair between her fingers. "As best I could. I told them all about being attacked by Brad and hitting him with the car. I figured I committed manslaughter or something, but no one has seen or heard from Brad since that night. He hasn't shown up at his apartment or in any hospital or morgue."

      Joey said, "Without a body or another witness, she can't be charged with felony hit-and-run."

      Alison nodded. "There's a small chance that I could still be charged with a misdemeanor, but my insurance agency is working things out with the guy whose parked car I hit."

      "You poor thing," Chantal said. "We will all say prayers for you."

      Chantal's eyelid drooped with fatigue. She blinked and sat up straighter. She said to Joey, "What do we know of Henri Concasseur's latest activities?"

      "Unless I've slipped up, he has every reason to believe that I'm dead. Rhinehart gave his name to the police as a likely suspect in the Sonoma shootings. The bokor seems to be lying low for the moment."

      "Have you figured out what Concasseur has planned for you?"

      The answer had been right there in the literature. All he had to do was know where to look for it. "He wants to sacrifice me to his hot-point demon."

      "Yes."

      "Why didn't Claude tell me that earlier?"

      "He was afraid the knowledge of it would make you weak with fear, that you would refuse to undergo the kanzo. I think he was wrong, but that is what he believed."

      Joey didn't have it in him to be angry with Baribeau now. The hungan's lack of faith in him was more than understandable.

      Chantal yawned, shook her head to clear it and looked sharply Joey. "So then, Joey, are you prepared for Claude's funeral tomorrow?"

      He said, hoping to display more confidence than he felt, "I guess."

      Alison shifted her gaze from the bed to him. Chantal said, "It is past the time for guessing. You have a crucial role to play."

      He didn't want to argue with her, but he said, "I don't see why I should have to do it."

      Chantal smiled feebly. "If I could, I would do it for you."

      "I know. But there's always Maurice or Claire or one of your people."

      "They cannot perform the final rites, either. You, and only you, must do it."

      "Well, what if I don't?"

      His tone shocked Alison. "Joey! Claude died trying to save your life!"

      "I know, I know! But I've only been doing this voodoo stuff for a couple weeks. Maybe I'm not ready yet."

      "That is where you are wrong," said Chantal emphatically, looking as if she wanted nothing more than to get up out of the bed and shake Joey by the shoulders. "You are poised on the cusp between the worlds of white and black magic. A single misstep could send you tumbling over into the wrong side.

      "Now is the time, Joey, for you to see exactly who you really are. And to do that, you must honor the dead and learn from them. Do not turn your back on the dead! You do so at your peril."

      The outburst exhausted the mambo. She slumped back on her pillow and closed her eyes, breathing raggedly.

      Feeling the laser beams from Alison's eyes boring into his skull, Joey said after a few minutes, "Alison and I had better be going, Chantal."

      Alison stood and bent to hug the mambo. "Thanks for everything you've done, Chantal."

      The mambo opened her eyes. "May the loa treat you kindly, Alison."

      Chantal motioned for Joey to come forward. When he reached the bed, she took his hand and held it tightly between hers. "I will say no more to you now, except this. You have a dangerous path to walk, Joey Spelvin. Be true to your loa, to your dead and to yourself. May Papa Legba take you through the crossroads and into safety."

      Joey was about to say something more to the mambo, when he discovered that she had fallen asleep. He gently disengaged his hand. He and Alison slipped out of the room.

      During the entire ride home, Alison would not speak to him. He tried to engage her in conversation a couple times, but her cold glare made him give up quickly.

      When they passed the El Cerrito exit, Joey sat up and said, "Hey, aren't you going to take me to Maurice's house?"

      Alison didn't answer. She kept driving in silence until she reached her own apartment.

      Her place was a mess. It looked to Joey as if its entire contents had been brought into the living room and dumped on the floor. Unable to face all the bad memories associated with the place, Alison planned to move into a new apartment across town in just a few days.

      Alison shut the door, picked a stack of record albums from the seat of a chair and said, "Sit." Joey sat.

      Alison said, "Have you ever been to anyone's funeral?"

      The question and the accusing tone in her voice threw him for a loop. "No, I haven't. Why?"

      She looked tired, her skin pale and her eyes red. "You know, this has always bothered me about you. Why did you take off after your brothers died?"

      How could he even begin to answer that one? Talk about worms that would never fit back into the original can. Without meeting her eye, he said, "I was just a screwed-up kid, I guess."

      "Don't give me that shit. I don't buy it."

      Alison started pacing the room. "You've always gotten a kick out of death in the abstract, Joey," she said. "Couldn't get enough of it in books, at the movies, on tape. It was all just a cheap thrill, a roller coaster ride. But when you're actually forced to deal with it in real life, you never stick around to face the consequences. You want someone else to do it for you.

      "It scares me, Joey, the way you seem to forget people, to block out any memories of them, to pretend they never existed."

      She grabbed his shoulders and made him meet her gaze. "Joey, if I died, would you go to my funeral?"

      The very thought made him sick. "Alison! Don't talk like that!"

      She spoke softly, but her words had the strength of a shout. "Tell me! Would you go, or would you skip town, like you usually do?"

      It was a struggle to form the words, but he finally choked them out, tears streaming from his eyes. "I'd go. I'd be there for you!"

      She wouldn't let him alone. "Why? Why would you go?"

      "Because I love you, goddamn it!"

      Too shocked to move, they remained staring at each other. Alison's mouth formed a perfect O of astonishment. Joey felt his cheeks burn, but he dared not look away.

      Alison flinched first. She turned her back on him and walked to the window. She stood there, looking out onto the darkened street. Her shoulders hitched with a silent sob.

      Joey rubbed at his stinging eyes. "It's true, you know."

      "I know." She turned and asked, "Didn't you love them, too?"

      "Who?"

      "Your parents."

      "Of course."

      "What about your brothers?"

      That question had no easy answer. He surprised himself by saying, "Yes, I guess I did. In some way."

      "Why did you leave them all?"

      "I had to."

      "That's not good enough, Joey. Tell me what happened. Tell me right now, or don't come around here anymore."

      She meant it. Now he had to choose.

      "Sit down," he said. "This is going to take a while."

      For the first time in his life, he spoke of that final day at Brown's Pond.