The wood held. The old door she hated for swelling and sticking to the frame in the summer heat was solid enough to withstand the blows, as was the dead bolt and even the smooth iron doorknob. The presence behind the door eventually went silent. Maybe even went away altogether.

Neeva looked at the puddle of Christ’s tears on the floor. When the power of Jesus fails you, then you know you truly are shit out of luck.

Wait for daylight. That was all she could do.

“Neeva?”

Keene, the Luss boy, stood behind her in sweatpants and a T-shirt. Neeva moved faster than she imagined she ever could, clamping a hand over the young boy’s mouth and sweeping him away around the corner. Neeva stood there with her back against the wall, the boy wrapped in her arms.

Had the thing at the door heard its son’s voice?

Neeva tried to listen. The boy squirmed against her, trying to speak.

“Hush, child.”

Then she heard it. The squeak again. She grasped the boy even more tightly as she leaned to her left, risking a look around the corner.

The mail slot was propped open by a dirty finger. Neeva whipped back around the corner again, but not before she glimpsed a pair of glowing red eyes looking inside.

Gabriel Bolivar’s manager, Rudy Wain, cabbed over to his town house from Hudson Street after a late dinner meeting at Mr. Chow’s with the BMG people. He hadn’t been able to get Gabe on the phone, but there were whispers about his health now, following the Flight 753 thing and a paparazzi picture of him in a wheelchair and Rudy had to see for himself. When he showed up at the door on Vestry Street, there were no paparazzi in sight, only a few dopey-looking Goth fans sitting around on the sidewalk smoking.

They stood up rather expectantly when Rudy walked up the front-stoop stairs. “What’s up?” asked Rudy.

“We heard he’s been letting people in.”

Rudy looked straight up, but there were no lights on anywhere in the twin town houses, not even in the penthouse. “Looks like the party’s over.”

“It’s no party,” said one chubby kid with colored elastic bands hanging from a pin through his cheek. “He let the paparazzi in too.”

Rudy shrugged and punched in his key code, entered, and closed the door behind him. At least Gabe was feeling better. Rudy entered, past the black marble panthers and into the dark foyer. The construction lights were all dark, and the light switches still weren’t connected to anything. Rudy thought for a moment, then brought out his BlackBerry, changing the display to ALWAYS ON. He shone the blue light around, noticing, at the foot of the winged angel by the stairs, a heap of high-end digital SLRs and video cameras, weapons of the paparazzi. All piled there like shoes outside a swimming pool.

“Hello?”