He pumped his fist in victory and allowed himself another legitimate smile. And yet, relieved as he was, he understood that a smile born of relief was very different from one forged in joy.

But he had screamed. And Mrs. Doris had invited him over tonight because, as she said, a woman knows. Especially a woman who lives next door and hears everything through the thin apartment walls. Mrs. Doris had been a friend tonight. She gave him company, she gave him wine. She gave him a chance to talk at length about subjects he adored.

Goblin. History. The strength of Blackwater and the cruel cunning of George Carroll and Wes Farraline.

“There was no native chief in the hall,” he said, rewinding the tape farther yet. “It’s just…in your bones tonight.”

He saw himself leaving then returning to his rooms, then leaving, then pacing, waking, sleeping, waking, sleeping.

He pressed pause when he saw himself setting the alarms before going to bed. He froze the frame as his hand lifted from the alarm clock in question.

The numbers read 3:45 a.m.

He’d set it after all.

Kamp sighed.

Then he got up from the monitor, stepped over the drywall rubble, and fell flat, exhausted upon his bed.

9

But he did not sleep. Instead he reveled, for as long as it would last, in the cool rainy waves of amelioration, having made it so deep into the night, without dying, without giving up, without being scared to death.

10

For the first time in many days, Kamp felt like a grown man capable of telling children, There’s no such thing as ghosts.

DON’T YOU WORRY ABOUT WHAT’S UNDER THE OL’ BED! DADDY’S HERE!

Trust Daddy.

Another alarm went off.

Kamp, lost in his new mood, simply rolled on his side, pulled the sheet, flashed the bulb, looked under his bed, turned the alarm off, and settled again on his back. Hardly any more effort than turning the air conditioner on or off.

His gaze drifted. From the small monitor hooked up to the video mixing board, to a small pile of clothes on the floor in the closet with no doors. Up to the ceiling and up and down the walls. He looked over to his nightstand. Four identical alarms bought at the Transistor Planet downtown. Kamp peered over his bed. On the stand’s shelf stood the state championship debate trophy: a golden woman holding an old-timey microphone. Kamp coached Goblin High to the school’s one and only state championship. Had his photo taken for The Green Goblin.

His own history had never been as fascinating to him as the city he loved, the city that had gotten into his bones, but tonight it sparked, tonight it made a simple flame.