Murphy's office stood at the back of the room, with cheap walls and a cheap door that finally bore a genuine metallic nameplate with her name and title on it. I leaned back and drove my heel at the doorknob. The cheap door splintered, but I had to kick it again to send it swinging open.

Murphy sat at her desk, still wearing the clothes I'd last seen her in. She'd taken her hat off, and her short blonde hair was mussed. The circles beneath her eyes were almost as dark as bruises. She sat perfectly still, staring forward with her blue eyes set in an expression of horror.

I stood behind her, all in black-the same outfit I'd worn the night we'd stopped Kravos and his demon. The Nightmare looked like me. Its hands rested on either side of her face, fingertips on her temples-except that they had, somehow, pressed into her head, reaching down through skin and bone as though gently massaging her brain. The Nightmare was smiling, leaning down a bit toward her, head canted as though listening to music. I didn't know my face was capable of making an expression like that-serene and malicious and frightening.

I stared for a second in sheer horror at the weirdness of the sight. Then blurted, "Get the hell off of her!"

The Nightmare's dark eyes snapped up, sparkling with a cold, calm intelligence. It lifted its lips away from its teeth in an abrupt snarl. "Be thou silent, wizard," it murmured, steel and razor blades in its words. "Else I will tear thee apart, as I already have this night."

A little gibbering shriek of terror started somewhere down in my quivering belly, but I refused to give it a voice. I heard Rudy and Stallings coming behind me. I lifted the blasting rod and leveled it at the Nightmare's head. "I said to get off of her."

The Nightmare's mouth twisted into a smile. It lifted its hands away from Murphy, fingers just sliding out of her skin as though from water, and showed me its palms. "There is something thou hast forgotten, wizard."

"Yeah?" I asked. "What's that?"

"I have partaken of thee. I am what thou art," the Nightmare whispered. He flicked his wrists toward me. " Ventas servitas."

Wind roared up in a sudden fury and hurled me from my feet, back into the air. I collided with Rudolph and Stallings as they ran forward. We all went down in a heap upon the ground.

I lay there stunned for a moment. I heard the Nightmare walk out. It just walked past us, footsteps calm and quiet, and left the room. We gathered ourselves together slowly, sitting up.

"What the hell?" Rudolph said.

My head hurt, in back. I must have slammed it into something. I pressed a hand against my skull, and groaned. "Oh, stars," I muttered. "I should have known better than to give him a straight line like that."