"I'll stay back out of danger."

  "You're damned right you will. You'll stay there on the porch."

  "You're hiding something, Slaughter."

  For the first time, Slaughter felt enraged by him. "I beg your pardon?"

  "You heard what I said. You're not sure you can keep your men controlled. You don't want someone like me up there to see trouble."

  "I've had just about enough from-"

  "Parsons told you to cooperate."

  "About the commune but not this. He doesn't even know about this."

  "But he'll be damned mad if you screw up his p.r. tactics. Look, you need as many witnesses as you can get. I've handled this about as well as anybody. I've been helping."

  Slaughter couldn't stand here arguing. He squinted at the headlights, at the medical examiner approaching, and abruptly made his choice. "All right, I'm going to take a chance on you. The first time you get in the way, you'll find your ass out on the porch."

  "That's what I figured."

  "Then we understand each other." Slaughter turned to the medical examiner. "You'll need these gloves."

  "Hey, I will too," Dunlap said.

  "You won't be close enough to need them."

  They crossed the long, wide hallway toward the curving staircase. Men were spread out at the bottom, the net before them.

  "Ready with your flashlights?" Slaughter asked.

  They nodded, turning on the flashlights, beams arcing up the stairs. He heard their breathing and smelled their sweat.

  "Okay, let's do it."

  Footsteps shuffling, scraping, they started, the net spread out before them, up the staircase.

  Chapter Eleven.

  It was waiting for them. It had scurried to the final landing. Now it heard their footsteps and their whispers, saw their sweeping flashlight beams. They still were quite a distance down there, but in time they would be up here, and it hissed as it swung in search of cover.

  But there weren't any rooms behind it, just this one big open space that stretched from end to end. It didn't understand, although it did retain a far off memory of someone who'd explained this. There were slight projections from each corner, spaces behind, but these would be too obvious. It needed something else. And then it saw what it was looking for. A perfect hiding place and one it could attack from if it had to.

  It was scurrying to reach the place, and all the while, it kept glancing at the glow that swept in through the window and spread cold and pale across the floor. It started howling again. It couldn't stop itself, was powerless to fight the urge, just crouched there, head up, howling long and high, its throat constricted painfully, and then the urge had been relieved, and it was scurrying.

  The darkness in this hiding place was wonderful, the blackness soothing and secure. It closed its eyes to rest them after all the strain of squinting at that cold pale glow that spilled in through the windows. It was breathing quickly, nervous even though the hiding place was comforting. It licked its lips and tasted yet again the scabs of blood that clung in specks against its mouth. That salt taste that it now had grown accustomed to and even had begun to crave. But the salt taste had been liquid, and that recollection made it gag again. Nonetheless it wanted that warm sweetly salted liquid. It was caught in oppositions, both attracted and repelled, and without conscious effort, it was howling even more fiercely.

  Chapter Twelve.

  They stopped down on the second landing.

  "It's up on the third floor."

  "Maybe," Slaughter told them.

  "But you heard it howling."

  "We don't know if there's a dog in here as well. I say we do this as we planned it. Dunlap, you're so anxious to be helpful. Shine that flashlight up the stairs. Don't wait to yell if you see movement."

  "Oh, don't worry. If there's anything on those stairs, I'll yell my god-damned head off."

  "Are you sorry that you came now?"

  "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

  "You must want that story bad."

  "You have no idea."

  But then Slaughter saw the way the flashlight beam was shaking, and he took the light away from him. "I don't know if it's booze or nerves, but I don't want my life depending on you. Here, you'd better take this." And he gave the flashlight to the medical examiner. "You do it just the way I told him." He turned to his men. "Okay, we work along this big hall up here, checking all the rooms. I don't expect to find him on this level, but I can't depend on expectation."

  With the net spread before them, they moved through the darkness. When they reached the first doors on each side, they stopped and looked at Slaughter.

  "Try the left side. I'll stay here and watch the other."

  Breathing hoarsely, they went slowly in. But there was nothing. They shone flashlights in the corners and the closets, just an old-time bedroom with a canopy above the bed, a net that came down to keep out mosquitoes. They looked underneath the bed, and they came out, checking all the other rooms along the hallway. Other beds, a playroom, and a study, all rigged out as if a hundred years ago, maps and photographs and guns up on the walls, a chair that looked as if old Baynard had risen from it only a moment ago, but nobody was in there, and they came out, staring down the hall toward where the medical examiner was aiming the flashlight up the stairs.

  "I guess we know he's up there," Slaughter said.

  They faced the stairs and started up. Their flashlight beams were making crazy angles on the walls and ceiling. The men shuffled as if at any moment they expected some small figure to come hurtling toward them, but instead they reached the final landing, and they swung their beams across the big top-story room.

  "Well, I don't get it," Slaughter said. "What is this place?" His voice echoed.

  'You've never been here?" Rettig asked.

  "Always meant to. Never took the time."

  "The ballroom," Rettig told him. "Baynard's wife was Southern, and she didn't like the people out here. She was used to parties, dances, fancy dinners. Baynard built this place to suit her, and the ballroom was his special effort. Once a month at least he had a celebration. Ranchers, those with money, used to come from miles around, better people from the town, congressmen and senators. He paid their way. They'd come up from the railroad in carriages he sent for them. He even brought an orchestra from Denver. They would dance and eat and-"

  "What's the matter?" Slaughter asked him.

  In the dark, the flashlight beams angling across the ballroom, Slaughter felt his stomach burning.

  "Well, I used to hear about it from my father's father, but I never knew if it was true or not. He said the parties sometimes got a little out of hand."

  "I don't know what you mean."

  Rettig continued, "You can see the way the balcony juts out from that end. Well, the orchestra played up there. With that solid wooden railing, the musicians couldn't see too much of what went on below them. In the corners and the sides there, you can see the slight partitions that come out."

  "They're triangles."

  'That's right. You see those padded benches on the sides."

  "Well, what about them?"

  "Rumors, I suppose. My father's father said that wives were swapped up here, that people went with different partners in around the back of those things. He said there were secret doors that you could go in for privacy."

  "He knew that for a fact?"

  "He never was invited. No one ever found a secret door."

  "Then that's just a rumor, like you said. I mean, a thing like that, somebody would have told."

  "And maybe not have been invited anymore."

  "But Baynard's wife. Why would she have gone along with this? You said that she was from society."

  "I didn't mention that she also had a reputation. Baynard was the one who had to go along with it. To keep her with him. Then the parties got a little out of hand. She found a man she liked much better than the rest. Some people say she left with him. Others say that Baynard killed her. But they never found the body."

  "Oh, that's swell. So now you've got us searching through some kind of haunted house. Just keep your mind on what you're doing. Dunlap, you stay here. We'll check this right end. Then we'll move down toward the other. Shout if anything slips past us. Everybody ready?"

  They nodded, then slowly worked across to search the corner to their right, moving around the triangle. They knocked the wood in case they might find a secret door. They crossed to search the other corner. Then they moved along the big wall, going around the triangle on that side.

  "Nothing so far," Slaughter said. "We still have two partitions and the balcony. We've almost got him. Let's be careful."

  They moved up toward the far end.

  "Like I said, be careful."

  There was nothing in the far left corner, nothing in the right.

  "Okay, he's up there in the balcony. He's got to be."

  They started up the narrow stairs but bumped against each other; there wasn't room for the four of them.

  "This isn't working," Slaughter told them.

  They were grateful for the chance to wait.

  "Rettig, you stay back. You other three go up," Slaughter told them. "Rettig will be just behind you."

  Rettig breathed out with relief. The other three looked tense, aiming their flashlights up the narrow stairway.

  "What about on top of those partitions?" one man asked.

  "No. How could he climb up on them?"

  And in that brief distraction, their faces turned out toward the ballroom, everything began to happen. First, the snarling, then the hurtling body. It came off the balcony, a half-seen diving figure that swooped past them, slamming hard at Rettig, men now scrambling, shouting, bodies rolling on the floor. Slaughter heard the snarling, Rettig's screaming, as he tried to get in past the scrambling bodies. He saw Rettig struggling upward, something hanging on him. He saw Rettig falling backward then, the extra weight upon him as they crashed against the near partition, the old boards cracking, and the men were rushing forward with the net.

  "Where is he?"

  "Here, I've got him!"

  Rettig kept screaming. Then the net swung through the flashlight beams toward where he struggled with the figure on the padded bench beside the triangle.

  "Oh, Jesus, get him off me!" Rettig shouted, and he kicked, the figure thumping, snarling on the floor.

  The net fell. They had him. Arms and legs were lashing out, entangled worse with every effort. Slaughter pushed between his men and saw them roll the boy and get the net around his back and chest, and there was no way that the boy could get out. He was powerless, except for where he slashed his teeth against the net and snarled at them.

  The medical examiner hurried next to Slaughter, set down his bag, and reached inside to grab a hypodermic. "Keep him steady."

  "You don't think we'll let him go."

  The medical examiner pulled out a vial, slipped a needle into it, and eased out the plunger to get liquid into the chamber. Standing by a flashlight, he pushed slightly on the plunger until liquid spurted from the needle. Then he looked at Slaughter. "Pull his shirtsleeve up."

  'You're kidding. In that net. I couldn't move it."

  "Rip a patch out then. I don't care. Let me see some skin."

  Through the webbing, Slaughter tugged and ripped the shirtsleeve. He was quick, afraid the boy might get at him. The medical examiner swabbed alcohol across the skin and leaned close to press the needle.

  One loud yelp. The medical examiner kept pushing gently on the plunger. Then he straightened, and he looked at Slaughter. "In a minute."

  "Why are these bricks here?" someone said, and Slaughter turned. Too much was going on.

  "I don't-"

  Then he saw where Rettig's fall had broken the partition. In there, as he shone his flashlight, he saw a wall of bricks. He glanced at Rettig who was slumped across the padded bench, his hands up to his throat.

  "Are you all right? He didn't bite you, did he?" Slaughter asked.

  Rettig felt all over his body. He breathed, gasped, and swallowed, breathing once again. He nodded, wiping his mouth. "I think I only lost my wind." He tried to stand but gave out, slumping once more on the bench. "I'll be okay in just a second. What bricks?"

  "There behind you."

  Rettig turned, still trying hard to breathe. "I don't know anything about them. I don't think they should be here."

  Slaughter didn't even need to ask him. Rettig was already going on. "I guessed that this one sounded different from the others. Much more solid, heavier."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" a policeman asked.

  "Baynard's wife. I think we know what happened to her." The group became silent.

  Slaughter felt Dunlap beside him.

  They peered down at the small boy who was tangled, now unconscious, in the net.

  "A little kid and all this trouble. Hell, I didn't really understand how little he would be," Slaughter said.

  They stood around the boy and stared at him.

  "We'd better get him to the hospital," the medical examiner said. "You too, Slaughter. Rettig, you as well. I want to check both of you."

  "He never touched me," Slaughter said.

  "The cat did. If this virus is like rabies, you're long due to start your shots. Rettig, I don't know. If you don't have a bite, there won't be any problem."

  "But I wasn't bitten," Slaughter told him. "Only scratched."

  "You want to take the risk?"

  Slaughter shook his head to tell him no.

  "That's what I thought. Don't worry. You've got company. I need the shots as well."

  "But you weren't bitten either."

  "No. But with this bloody lip, I can't take any chances. The boy is harmless now. You men can lift him. Stay clear of his head."

  They looked at Slaughter, who nodded. One man held the boy's legs while another gripped his shoulders.

  "Hell, he doesn't weigh a thing."

  "That's what I said. A little kid and all this trouble," Slaughter answered. "It's enough to make you-"

  Hollow and disgusted, he watched as the men worked with the boy to reach the stairs. "Here, someone grab that corner of the net before we have an accident," he ordered, and they moved clumsily down the stairs.

  Slaughter kept his flashlight aimed before them. On the second landing, they turned, heading toward the bottom, and he heard the idling cruisers now. He saw the headlights glaring through the open door, the mother and the father out there, and the woman from the organization that ran this place, an officer beside them.

  "Take it careful," one man said and paused to get a better grip around the boy's shoulders. "Okay. Now I've got him." They reached the bottom, moving across the hall toward the entrance.

  "Rettig, tell that woman what we found up there. Those bricks could mean a dozen things, and none of them important."

  'You don't think so."

  "I have no opinion. But she should know about the damage."

  They went onto the porch. The mother and the father now were running.

  "Is he-?"

  'Just sedated. Everything considered, he's been lucky. Stay away from him," the medical examiner said. "I don't want you contaminated. You can see him at the hospital."

  They didn't look convinced.

  "It's simply a precaution," Slaughter said, stepping close. "We still don't know what we're dealing with. Let's put him in the back seat of my car," he told his men.

  'You'd better set him on a blanket. We can burn it at the hospital," the medical examiner said.

  "Do we have to be that careful?"

  The medical examiner only stared at him.

  "I'll get a blanket from my trunk," the father said and hurried.

  "Good. That's very good. We need your help."

  They moved toward the cruiser. Slaughter opened the back door, and the father spread the blanket.

  "Thank you," Slaughter told him. "I know how hard-"

  He looked at where the mother stood beside the cruiser, weeping. "-how hard this must be for you."

  They set the boy inside, and the medical examiner leaned in to check him. He stayed in there quite a while. When he came out, even in the darkness, Slaughter saw how pale his face had suddenly become.