The Scarabae had snared her, made her live with them. She had always thought so. But in fact they had invited. That too was a trap, a web. Adamus had waited for her, in it. And she had been seduced by Adamus. And she had birthed, from that union, Ruth. The web had then rent itself to pieces.

At the hotel, she had played chess with Eric. He had taught her how to play, although she never properly understood, but the pieces intrigued her, the carven kings and queens of black and white, the knights and castles, and the ill-fated pawns.

They had put the board and the chess pieces on the table, so at first she did not recognize it. Then one evening she came down from a long day-sleep, and found Cheta polishing the table. It was the furnishing from the hotel which they had used in the seance, its surface scratched into a peculiar pattern.

Cheta stood aside.

Rachaela poised by the table, staring down at it.

The seance glass, in rushing from letter to letter, had ripped a path upon the table. And yet she saw now—the reason they had kept it—the scratching also spelled a word: zegnajcie.

"Cheta," Rachaela said. "This. What does it mean?"

Cheta said at once, "Good-bye."

Then they carried the chess board, loaded with its figures, back between them, and set it over that good-bye.

When Cheta had gone, Rachaela was alone in the room. The Scarabae dinner would not be for another hour, for afterlight still lingered through the glorious windows of walled gardens, roses, palaces upon hills. And through this window above the table, where the knight kneeled before the forest and the burning tower.

Good-bye.

Now she had glimpsed their true power. Oh yes. At last.

They could command things and elements, and people. The cars in the mist, the vast hotel, this house, prepared for them against their coming.

And yet, they beat like moths against the tempest of life. Strong, thin, black moths with eyes of obsidian. How great the storm, how small, how small, the Scarabae.

CHAPTER 7

ON SATURDAY MORNINGS, ABOUT TEN-thirty, the milkman always came. And so, although she was hoovering, with music turned up loud, Julie Sawyer heard the knock.

The problem was with the milkman; if he failed to rout them out on Saturday, he would return at six a.m. on Sunday and bang and shout. Julie tried to avoid this, but sometimes she overslept on Saturdays. Terry was useless, naturally, he just pulled the covers further over his ears and burrowed down into the pillow. He was up there now, asleep overhead in the larger of the two small upstairs rooms. And although Julie had been making as much noise as she could, she knew in her heart he could slumber through the disco beat and Hoover, even when she cleaned the carpet around the bed.