“Here ‘tis,” Tom Terrific said, holding up a small clear envelope with a layer of yellow powder in its lower corner. “It’s some sort of blue in its active state—”

“Just what kind of blue is ‘some sort’?” Jack said.

“You know,” he said with a wavering, uncertain smile, “I can’t really say. Ain’t that weird. I’ve been working with the stuff for the past coupla weeks, seen it every day, but I can’t quite remember its color. But I know it wasn’t yellow. Yellow means it’s gone inert.” He handed the envelope to Jack. “Here. Take it.”

“All of it?”

“Sure. I was gonna throw it out anyway.”

“How about some of the active form, just for comparison.”

Tom Terrific’s ponytail whipped back and forth as he shook his head. “Don’t have any. There’s always a lag in supply after the old stuff goes inert. The new stuff won’t show up for another day or so.”

“Strange way to do business,” Jack said.

“Tell me about it. Was me, I’d have the new stuff out Day One after the old stuff crashed.” He shrugged. “But who knows? Maybe they’ve got a good reason.”

Jack stuffed the envelope into his pocket and turned to go.

“Wait,” Tom Terrific said, holding up another envelope, this one half-filled with fine clear crystals. “Here’s my latest—Ice-Seven. Want to try a taste?”

“No, thanks,” Jack said, moving toward the door.

“On the house. You’ll like it. Lasts about three days. Takes tired old reality and makes it much more interesting.”

Jack shook his head. “For the last year or so, Tom, reality’s been just about as interesting as I can stand.”

10

Gia stopped her paintbrush in midstroke and listened. Was that the doorbell? She and Vicky had come out to the sunny backyard—Vicky for her playhouse, Gia to work on her painting—and they were a long way from the front door.

She heard the chime again, clearly now. With a glance at Vicky, who was setting a Munchkin-size chair before a Munchkin-size table by her playhouse, Gia wiped her hands and stepped inside.

As she headed through the house toward the front door, she wondered who it could be. Jack had said he’d be tied up most of the day, Gia hadn’t arranged a play date for Vicky, and this was not a neighborhood where people popped in for a cup of coffee.

Despite the months of living in this grand old East Side town house, Gia still didn’t feel she belonged here. Vicky’s aunts, Nellie and Grace, had owned it but they were gone now, officially missing persons since last summer. But Gia knew the truth—the two dear old women were dead, devoured by creatures from some Hindu hell. If not for Jack, Vicky would have suffered the same fate. And thanks to Jack, the creatures were as dead as Nellie and Grace, incinerated on the ship that had brought them, their ashes sent swirling into the currents of New York Harbor. Vicky would inherit the house when Grace and Nellie were declared legally dead. Until then, she and Gia lived here, keeping it up.