He woke to the gentle purring of the phone beside his bed. His wife stirred restlessly, but did not wake. He sat up and glanced at the clock: four in the morning. His head buzzed with fatigue, and as he reached for the phone he recognized that particular exhaustion that meant he had been transmitting.

  No! It can't be!

  'Hello?' he said quietly into the phone. And thought, I've been asleep. I can't have been transmitting. In the name of God, what's happening to me?

  'Wickhurst?'

  'Yes. Speaking.'

  He was drained. He was totally drained. He could feel the knot in his solar plexus where the link reached out to the psychic substance of his own mind. It was drawing close, returning. In sleep he had been transmitting!

  The man at the other end of the phone spoke slowly and deliberately, the tone almost patronizing. 'Are you experiencing difficulty?'

  He shivered, with cold perhaps, or with fear. 'I don't know.'

  'Is he killed?'

  'No. He's created partial defences around his house. He has the woman with him. Ellen Bancroft.'

  'Are you experiencing difficulty?'

  He knew what it would mean to say yes. I mustn't admit it. 'His strength was unexpected. I know the measure of him, now.'

  The voice at the other end of the phone almost hissed as it spoke. 'Will he be killed?'

  'I understand him now. I can take him.' 'And the woman.' It was a statement.

  'Yes. She too.'

  'Why is it taking so long? Are you experiencing difficulty?'

  'No. No difficulty. He is able to detach his persona, and it is a strong manifestation. I had not expected that. But I understand him now. I will take care of it.'

  'And the woman?'

  'I will take care of them both.'

  There was a pause on the phone. His wife shifted in bed and made incoherent sounds as her sleep was disturbed.

  Then the voice again:' Arachne is returning to the south. They have sent a mandrathon to you . . .'

  NO! OH GOD NO! NOT THAT!

  'Please . . .' he said, trying to keep the panic from his voice, 'it's not necessary. I swear it.'

  'The mandrathon is coming. I'll ask again. Are you experiencing difficulty?'

  What do I say? In heaven's name, what do I say?

  'No. No difficulty. I will create the elemental now. How long do I have?'

  'You have a few hours. At least until dusk.'

  'Thank you.'

  He placed the phone gently back on the receiver, and remained quite still for a few moments, staring at it. Then he reached into his bedside drawer for the two photographs he always kept there. He stared at them and the bitterness and anger within him grew.

  Beside him his wife slept on, unaware of the sounds of hatred and frustration that her husband uttered as he slowly and deliberately crushed the photographs in his hand.

  'What the hell are you doing up so early?'

  Brady looked startled as Ellen entered the dining room of Brook's Corner, where he was seated, cleaning and inspecting the shotgun that Andrew Haddingham had loaned him. It was just before six in the morning. Outside, the garden was covered with frosted dew, and the dining room itself was cold, the windows patterned with ice.

  'I haven't been to bed,' Brady replied. He looked tired, he knew, and he felt very weary. But the sight of Ellen Bancroft enlivened him, and he stood to kiss her. Ellen herself looked as if she had been a week without sleep. Her eyes were puffy, her hair dishevelled, and she was frozen. Brady rubbed her hands vigorously. 'You look exhausted.'

  'I am. Totally. I'll grab a little sleep before I begin building.'

  She stripped off her coat and began to unpack her bag, placing a variety of items and boxes on the table. Brady watched her curiously. It had been a long night for him, crouched in a room, protected by a circle and various primitive defences, dreading the return of the Stalker while he was alone. But he knew that for Ellen the night had been far longer, far more harrowing.

  'Was it. . .' he began, meaning to ask if her experiences had been as bad as he imagined. He found the words dried up on his lips. It was such a personal thing that she may have been through that somehow it did not seem right for him to enquire. And yet he was concerned for her, anxious for her well-being . . . and hungry for whatever information she may have gleaned during her ordeal.

  'Was it what?' she said wearily, and glanced at him tiredly as she sat down in one of the easy chairs, kicked off her shoes, and stretched out her legs. 'Was it rough?' She lay her head back and closed her eyes. Brady watched her. 'Yes. It was rough. But it wasn't as bad as I'd expected.' She stopped speaking. Brady stared at the objects on the table, idly wondering what she was intending to build. Another trap, no doubt. He had given up trying to t omprehend the full extent of Ellen's acquired knowledge.

  As if she sensed that he was still sitting there, about to ask more questions, she opened her eyes, regarded him Wearily and said, 'Listen. I don't want to talk about it. I really don't. It was bad. I want to forget it.'

  'I can understand that,' Brady said quietly.

  'The thing you need to know . . .' she regarded him squarely, tired eyes narrowed. 'Our man is George Campbell. I had a hint before, but I couldn't be certain. Now I'm sure. The source is George Campbell.'

  Brady had already jumped to his feet, with shock and surprise, leaning on the table and staring at the American. 'Campbell! Are you sure?'

  'Quite sure.'

  'Good God Almighty!' he bellowed. 'George Campbell . . . I can't believe it. It can't be true . . .'

  'It's true,' said Ellen tiredly. She had closed her eyes again. 'I need sleep.'

  Brady stared into the distance, mouth open, letting the full impact of the revelation sink in. Campbell, the highly respected Director of Hillingvale. Campbell! A man with political contacts almost growing out of his body. Rich, arrogant, brilliant, a man destined for the sort of honours and accolades, on his eventual retirement, that only the very, very best in their fields achieve.

  'I worked with him,' he said softly, angrily. 'I've sat in the same room as him, given him ideas, I listened to what he had to say. I've learned to respect him, even if I hated him. He never liked me, but I always felt he admired my work. Campbell! The bastard . . . one of them, one of the attackers. He always liked Alison. He used to make her feel uncomfortable with his overweening attention, at socials, when he invited us to dinner once. I never guessed ... it never occurred to me . . .' he squeezed his eyes shut, feeling tears of anger and grief bubbling for expression. 'Campbell!' he repeated, the tension in his body making him express the name through clenched teeth. When he looked at Ellen she was staring at him blankly, letting him ride the shock, and the fear, and the anger . . .

  'He was the same with me,' she said. 'Perhaps worse. I was naive enough to be flattered by his attention, by his warmth. I saw prospects, promotion, a brilliant reference from a man of amazing stature. I was unlikely to get a good reference from my own supervisor, Geoffrey Dean. I think Campbell wanted me from the first moment he met me. He probably was far less aware of the extent of that need than was I.'

  'The bastard,' Brady repeated, reliving the attack on Alison, and again feeling that awful psychic attack on himself, the throttling hands, the weight of the beast upon him . . .

  And it had been George Campbell, coldly and dispassionately killing him, having helped to rob him of the family he loved.

  He said, calming down, 'He was actually on the station when the Watcher came into my lab and killed my experimental animals. He couldn't have been more than a hundred yards from me.'

  Ellen nodded, as if she understood exactly what he meant. 'Most likely a pre-manifest. Campbell was in the process of creating the elemental that would later attack so savagely. Some residual, or side energy, created a minor form of Watcher that targeted on you. He probably didn't even know he had done it.'

  Brady stared at her, then shook his head in angry exasperation. 'How the hell do you know so much? Every other sentence you speak is a fucking mini-lecture.'

  She watched him peculiarly. 'Don't take it out on me. I'm in no mood.'

  'Your expertise is almost suspicious. At times.'

  'I went into my work,' she snapped pointedly. 'You obviously weren't as keen.' Brady was silent, his lips pressing together, his eyes narrowed, the tension in his body almost intolerable. Ellen went on, 'Everything about these attacks suggests a source without total control. Remember what you heard the collector say? "Is Wickhurst a strong enough source?". They had slight doubts about him even then. I'd go so far as to say that Campbell transmits without always meaning to. The elemental has taken control of him. It generates on its own, drawing only from his unconscious desires. That's why its attacks on me huvc gone so far and no further . . .'

  'Even the first attack?'

  Ellen grimaced and shook her head. 'No. That was real enough.'

  Brady picked up the shotgun, broke it open, then snapped it shut again, cradling it in his two hands. 'Reality,' he said. 'Thank you for reminding me.'

  'What are you going to do?' She sat up and rubbed her eyes.

  'What the hell do you think I'm going to do?' Brady reached for his jacket, and pushed the box of cartridges into the pocket. As he pulled the coat over his shoulders, so Ellen grasped his intention.

  'You're not going to face Campbell now!'

  'Why not? What better way to solve our problem and get a little extra information on where to start our search? Are you coming?'

  Ellen faced him, and reached out to drag him back as he paced towards the door. 'What the hell's the matter with you, Dan?'

  'Nothing! I'm going to kill Campbell!'

  'Wonderful! You blow his head off, and languish in Pentonville for fifteen years.'

  'They'll have to catch me first. Campbell will know something about where they've taken Alison. And he'll tell. . .'

  'Why should he? You walk in there, waving a shotgun, accusing him of psychic attack. He'll laugh at you. The police will laugh at you, Dan, you've got it all back to front.' He glared at her, but she wouldn't let go of his arm. 'Think, for Christ's sake, Dan. Think. You've got no evidence, no proof, nothing tangible at all. And Campbell, for all that I've just said, is not a weak man.'

  'Nor am I.'

  'Don't be so fucking arrogant!' Her voice had risen with anger. She deliberately calmed herself down. 'What we need to do is trap Campbell. You can be sure that he'll be targeting for us, and sending a stalker against us. He knows our defences, now, and he'll attack until he breaks through. We'll let him break through. Once in the house, we'll snare him. What the hell do you think all that's for?' She waved a hand towards the pile of boxes and objects on the table, Brady followed her glance, then looked back at her. 'With his thought-form trapped, he'll be weak. He won't have the stamina to resist our questioning. Once we've got what we want, what I want, then and only then can you do what you like. Kill him and leave the search to me; or hand him over to the police and have a chance of hunting down the gathering party.'

  The words sank in, and Brady gradually relaxed. The anger in him was subdued and he allowed himself a wry, bitter little smile. She was right, of course. It made no sense at all to go charging off to George Campbell's Buckinghamshire house at six in the morning. It would be asking for complications. He broke the shotgun and turned back into the dining room, walked to the table and picked up a mirror, its glass surface streaked with silver and green paint. Turning to stare at Ellen, who stood, arms folded, watching him, he waved the mirror in the air. 'I've no idea how it works, but let's start building.'

  'You start building,' she said with a tired smile. 'Wake me when the sun clears the top of the trees.'

  Four o'clock in the afternoon.

  The early morning frost had vanished quickly beneath the bright March sun, but the day had remained cold. By noon the clouds had begun to build up from the west, and rain threatened. This was a miserable and chilly sample of spring weather, more reminiscent of autumn. The wind gusted through the garden, occasionally sending a flurry of rain silently against the windows of Brook's Corner. But though the storm-clouds deepened, the heavy rain stayed off.

  Ellen finished her psychic snare, and stood within it, her fingers crossed.

  To Brady, the snare seemed remarkably simple, and very fragile: the shape of a pentangle, about six feet across had been made with thin, gold thread, the fifth angle pointing away from the garden doors. Inside that fifth angle had been placed the small, green mirror, its glass surface patterned with silver in the complex form of a triple spiral. Between the silver, the glass had also been painted green. At the shoulders of the pentagram, the gold thread had been coiled four times around large fragments of quartz. Inside the bottom angles, near the garden, were bone-handled copper daggers, their blades marked with the symbols of the Eye and of Venus. A dark unguent, smelly and mucoid, was then dabbed at each angle: this consisted of a preparation of the flowers of wolf-bane, viper's bugloss, orpine, cinquefoil and vervain, with the inevitable addition of organic material from both Brady and Ellen.

  'The combination of these herbs will help to ward off and thus weaken the psychic substance of the Stalker, and then contain it once it has broken through. The green, the copper, the four coils, are part of the symbolism of Venus, the planet of love and friendship. It's Mars - anger, hatred - that is coming against us. We fight like with opposite. We oppose hate with the idea of love, death with the idea of life. Okay? Simple enough?'

  'Oh sure!'

  'Last job,' she said to Brady, handing him a long, iron knife. 'Go and cut the maze outside the french windows.'

  'Cut the maze?' Brady took the knife, surprised at the weight of it. He pulled an anorak on as he stepped carefully across the gold thread and opened the windows.

  'Three straight lines,' Ellen instructed him, 'running across the pattern, and meeting at the window step.'

  A channel, she explained, a way for the thought-form to pass through the first maze, before becoming ensnared in the second.

  Brady bent his back to the task, sawing through the thick turf in as straight a line as possible. He had just finished the second cut, and was crouching on the lawn to begin the third, when he heard a car draw up around the front of the house. Still holding the knife he walked round to investigate. He was not at all happy to meet Bill and Rosemary Suchock.

  'Hell, Dan,' Bill said, almost nervously. He was swathed in a thick car coat, and holding Rosemary's hand. She stared at Brady through large, red-rimmed eyes. She had been crying. She looked like a small, lost child, being brought home.

  'I'm sorry if I upset you,' she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

  'That's all right,' said Brady. 'I wasn't upset. I thought you were quite right to say what you did.'

  'Well I don't agree,' said Suchock stiffly, and his brow creased into a frown, more of confusion than anger. 'We've not been as close as we should. We've let concern for ourselves stop us being concerned for you. Good God, Dan, you've been through hell. The least we could do is stand by you, try and understand what's going on with you.'

  Of all the times to have an attack of conscience, Brady thought wryly. Ellen's words seemed to shout at him again: Rosemary is dangerous to have around. Keep them away, for their sakes and ours.

  'You've done too much already,' Brady said, stepping forward to take Bill's arm. He gently propelled them back towards their car. 'When certain things are settled, when I'm more settled in myself again, I'll explain a lot to you. Right now, why not go home . . . ?'

  It was too patronizing, too obviously wrong. Suchock wriggled free of Brady's grip and turned on him, almost angrily. Rosemary went pale, stepped back and began to shiver as her husband said, 'What the hell's all this about? You were only too glad of my help a few days ago. We've come round here to make amends for our cowardice. I admit I ran away. I was bloody terrified. But we're family, Dan. You and Rosemary and I. We're part of the same family, and we should stick together.'

  Suchock's face was infused with blood, his cheeks and forehead red with anger. He looked all of his forty-five years, a man with high blood pressure, an unfit man, drab and settled in his ways.

  Brady said firmly, 'This place is dangerous, Bill. I don't want you here, either of you, I'm expecting company. Do you understand what I mean? A job, begun at Christmas, has to be finished now. This place is not safe for anyone, and I don't want you here. I don't want to risk your lives too!'

  It got through to Bill Suchock, who looked quite stunned. Perhaps it really had taken this long for Brady's true situation to sink in.

  'You mean those men . . . those people might attack you again? Is it them who blew up the fence?'

  Rosemary was instantly ill at ease. Her drawn features turned even paler. She huddled inside her raincoat, eyes darting about the grounds as if she sensed the danger already.

  And as Brady said, 'That's right . . .' so he sensed the danger too!

  Suchock began to say, 'Well, get the bloody police to put a few men inside. That's what they're here for . . .' He stopped speaking as he saw the look on Brady's face. 'What is it?'

  It was here! It was outside the wall, close to the front gate! How he knew was not something that concerned him, now. He could feel its presence watching him, watching the three of them. Distantly, bells tinkled. There was a faint, eerie sound, like the cracking of branches, a sound that went on and on, even though it varied in intensity.

  He heard Ellen's cry of 'Dan! It's here!'

  'What's here?' stuttered Suchock, his eyes widening in panic. Rosemary, sensing only the danger, began to scream.

  Brady tugged at them both. 'Back to the house. Quick!'

  As if in a daze, Bill Suchock stumbled after Brady, but Rosemary began to run towards the front gates, along the winding driveway until she was hidden by trees. Suchock realized that his wife wasn't with them and turned to chase after her. Brady yelled at him not to be a fool, then raced along the drive himself, slowing as he realized that Bill had stopped.

  The gates in the high brick wall were being flung open and shut, almost too fast for the eye to see. The hinges creaked, the sound of the metal edges meeting became a persistent ringing. Rosemary stood there, staring at the gates as they were blown back and forth with astonishing speed.