“All the time, Goblin was with me, very strong, very visible, his face full of concern, but I didn’t dare try to speak to him and he knew it. After the energy he had used I couldn’t understand why he still looked so dense and so powerful. He didn’t like what was happening. He made no bones about it. And suddenly I became terrified that he would start breaking the glass and the whole scene would devolve into chaos.

“ ‘Goblin, don’t do anything in here,’ I said, staring at him. ‘It will only make it worse. Let me just play it on out.’

“Then Dr. Winn Mayfair himself, proud scion of the legendary Mayfair family and working head of the whole complex, approached the gurney. It seemed a spell fell over the Emergency Room, doctors and nurses mesmerized by the mere presence of the guy.

“I calmed down too. I was quite literally bound hand and foot, and why should I object to this doctor examining me?

“Now, the only reason I knew anything about Dr. Winn Mayfair was that Lynelle had told me all about him. He had been born in New Orleans, reared in Boston and become a physician up North, coming South only when the family here contacted him and offered him a dream job at the new medical center.

“He had become the partner and confidant of Rowan Mayfair, the other M.D. member of the famous clan, the one who had created and endowed the center and designed all its special features.

“It was Dr. Winn who took over the actual day-to-day management of everything, whereas Dr. Rowan worked tirelessly in research having to do with human growth hormone, Lynelle’s old dream.

“Somewhere behind the scenes was Dr. Winn’s father, Dr. Elliott Mayfair, a cardiac surgeon, and he had also been persuaded to transplant back home, and Rowan, Elliott and Winn Mayfair were the backbone of the establishment.

“Dr. Winn had a reputation for having a very quiet voice and a very gentle touch. His field had been neurosurgery—the same field as that of Dr. Rowan Mayfair—and the two were said to be cousins who resembled each other in temperament and gifts, as well as physical looks, though they had only met recently, each quite astonished at the other.

“Lynelle had worshiped the guy.

“What I saw was a smooth, brilliant and attentive man, tall and lean, who had been roused from bed to meet Miss Lorraine McQueen and her legendary boy prodigy who communed with the Dead.

“He had beautifully groomed silver blond hair and cold blue eyes behind rectangular wire-rimmed glasses, and he talked to me under his breath, which tended to give his words a confidential tone, which I frankly welcomed. He also spoke slowly.