My lips parted but my voice had died in my throat. All I could do was stretch out my arms to him, to send from my heart a silent plea for mercy and for help.

Again the dog gave his fierce warning and seemed about to spring.

And as I watched helplessly, and trembling uncontrollably, the figure turned its back slowly, and giving me one last angry, disdainful look, disappeared.

It was then that I sprang to life, crying his name. “Marius!” I rose to my feet, calling louder and louder. “Marius, don’t leave me here. Help me!” I reached up into the skies. “Marius,” I roared.

But it was useless and I knew it.

The rain soaked through my coat. It soaked into my shoes. My hair was slick and wet with it, and it didn’t matter now whether or not I’d been crying, because the rain had washed away the tears.

“You think I’m defeated,” I whispered. What need was there to shout for him? “You think you’ve passed your judgment, and that’s the end of it. Oh, you think it is as simple as that. Well you are wrong. I shall never have vengeance for this moment. But you will see me again. You will see me again.”

I bowed my head.

The night was full of mortal voices, the sounds of running feet. A great noisy engine had come to a halt on the distant corner. I had to force these miserable mortal limbs to move.

I motioned for Mojo to follow, and off we crept past the ruins of the little house, still burning merrily, and over a low garden wall and through an overgrown alley and away.

ONLY later did I think how close we had probably come to capture—the mortal arsonist and his menacing dog.

But how could such a thing matter? Louis had cast me out, and so had Marius—Marius, who might find my preternatural body before I did, and destroy it on the spot. Marius, who might already have destroyed it so that I was left forever within this mortal frame.

Oh, if ever I’d known such misery in my mortal youth, I didn’t remember it. And if I had, it would have been little consolation to me now. As for my fear, it was unspeakable! Reason couldn’t compass it. Round and round I went with my hopes and feeble plans.

“I have to find the Body Thief, I have to find him and you must give me time, Marius, if you will not help me, you must grant me that much.”

Over and over I said it like the Hail Mary of a rosary as I trudged on through the bitter rain.

Once or twice I even shouted my prayers in the darkness, standing beneath a high dripping oak tree, and trying to see the approaching light coming down through the wet sky.

Who in all the world would help me?

David was my only hope, though what he could do to help me, I couldn’t even imagine. David! And what if he, too, turned his back on me?