“Why?” Johnnie asked again. “Why does God—excuse me, I mean ‘the Light of Universal Whatever’—why does it just give us a freakin’ impossible clue? Why can’t it just tell us what we’re supposed to do?”

“Because,” said Mikey, “the Dancing Bear wants us to suffer.”

But Jix had a different opinion on the matter. “I think the Universe wants only to point us in a direction, not tell us what to do. If it tells us, then we’re not really choosing. It only means something if we choose it.”

“Yeah, but if we’re supposed to save the stinkin’ world, why make it so hard?” said Johnnie. “In fact, why make us do it at all? If ‘the light’ is all-powerful, then ‘the light’ oughta save the world itself, and leave us alone.”

“Maybe it doesn’t want to save the world,” said Nick.

Mikey laughed bitterly. “If that’s what you think, then why are you even here? You should join my sister; you’re in love with her anyway.”

“Just hear me out,” said Nick. “Mary wants to destroy the living world. We want to save it. The ‘Universal Whatever’ is willing to accept either outcome, so it makes the odds fifty-fifty.”

“ ‘Fifty-fifty’?” said Mikey. “If you ask me, Mary’s got the advantage right now.”

“So if you were the light at the end of the tunnel, how would you even out the odds?” Nick asked.

“I’d tell the losing side to get a clue!”

“Or,” said Nick, “you’d give them a clue . . .”

Nick’s thought left everyone speechless. Suddenly the temple around them began to actually feel like a temple, and although none of them worshipped at the same altar, there was a sudden singularity of purpose that bound them.

. . . Fat Alamo, the Trinity, Ground Zero . . .

“It’s places we’ve been,” said Mikey. “It has to be. Ground Zero is what the living call the place where Mary used to live. You know—the towers that gave her her name. And Jix was at the Alamo, right?

“So maybe we’re supposed to go back to those places,” offered Nick.

Johnnie pointed an oversize finger at Mikey. “I ain’t going back nowhere unless it’s where I started. And anyway, it don’t explain the Trinity.”

Jix scratched his whiskers and gave it more thought. “Álamo is Spanish for a kind of tree. . . .”

“So we’re looking for a fat tree?” asked Mikey.

“Perhaps.” Jix went over to one of the guards “¿Dónde hay un álamo gordo?”

The guard shrugged. “Los álamos son todos delgados.”

Suddenly something caught in Nick’s mind with such force, he thought his brain might be ecto-ripped right out of his head. “What did you just say?”

“I just asked him if he knows where—”