The one called Eric said, "It's in order, Kei. This man wants to see his daughter."

"Yes, Mr. Eric."

All right. Two of them at his left and the old actor type on the stairs. No dogs. All right.

Then two women came along one side of the stairs.

Nobbi saw them. They were old. Done up in mothy, silky dresses, faces pale as paper, with long dark hair. Two old women… who were also young.

He realized that one of them, the smaller one, was Tray.

Something battered Nobbi in the side. It was his heart.

There had been all sorts of trouble in the past, the people she got in with. But always she had come out to him, maybe scared, maybe defiant or weepy, but always Tray. Shining and lovely. Not like this.

"What they done to her?" Nobbi said. Then he bawled, "What they done to you, love? Come here. Come here quick. I'm here. What is it, love?"

And Tray, vampire pale in her tresses of coal, Tray all one with the shadows and the hidden eyes, shrank back against the other young old woman. And in a little voice he heard her say the precious name she had had only for the Old Girl: "Nan-Nan?"

"She don't know me," said Nobbi. Did she? His heart did not think so and it attacked him with huge blows. "What have you done to her? Eh? What you done to my daughter?" And he lurched up the stairs toward Tray, or toward Eric.

Without a sound, the two waiting men were on him. They had him and they held him. Christ, they were strong. Nobbi roared.

On the slope, Malach turned his head.

Connor had heard something, too. Some sort of engine or even music in the house, revved up loud.

Camillo giggled.

And Malach looked back at him.

High up, Ruth had also heard.

She moved slowly about, in a wave of hair.

Her dress was dark green, the mantle of a wood at dusk.

She listened.

Malach was in her body still, and in her brain. Malach was her teacher.

Now she knew what Scarabae meant.

She turned again, and paced across this room, pale and scarcely decorated, fashioned for him.

On the wall, the stone knife. She touched it.

And from down in the house, a kind of rumbling came, like an earthquake at the foundations. And then a man's voice again, like the roar of a bull.

Common sense, not the murmuring of Star, made Nobbi stop fighting.

He forced himself to relax in the grasp of the two men, the old one and the young one, both so vital.

"All right. All right."

The man on the stairs said, "You can let him go."

And they did. They released him.

Nobbi was shaking.

In the house of fear—

He had done everything he should not have done.

He looked up at Tray again. She seemed frightened now. She seemed like Tray.