“The Labradors didn’t send me here.”

“Good. I don’t know if I believe you. But good. My advice? Hop in your car and drive home.”

“Trust me, I’d love nothing more.”

“Once you leave, never come back here. Not for love or money.” He smoothed his pocket square, tracing the letters.

My head began to throb with the onset of a migraine. The business with my intermittently fritzed hearing was exacting a toll. The sun burned a notch in the black cloud; a red eye. It didn’t brighten the dining room. I glanced around the table at the leering imposters in their high school costumes, at the ancient who’d licked the meat to bone, then gnawed a hole in the bone itself. The bone was the size and shape of a primitive recorder. Polished to a gloss finish and pointy as a spike at one end.

The Magician put it to his lips and blew a halting, tremulous note. The note gathered power and sharpened to an unbearable pitch that quivered and ceased. He extended his long, gaunt arm and laid the bone upon my empty plate with a soft clink.

“For when it’s time to face the music,” he said.

Nausea surged into my throat. I rose, gripping the knife so hard my knuckles ached. Would they really permit me to walk out the door, or would this devolve into a reenactment of Julius Caesar’s infamous last scene? The goons and the Mares were far less of a concern than the master of ceremonies himself. He impressed me as a spider, coiled and alert, poised to spring upon its prey.

“What lurks in the darkness of interstellar space? The interstellar reaches of our souls? Terror.” Mandibole reclined, motionless, hands in plain view, yet his whisper emanated behind my left ear. Then, louder, “The emotion you’re experiencing. It’s terror. Terror ruled the indigenous tribes of the Valley. Terror motivated the white colonists. Of course, men fear the wilderness, the natural features of the land. That’s why men deface it at every opportunity—burn it, bulldoze it, hack it to stumps, and pound it to gravel. They desire clear lines of sight.”

I disliked how he said “they” in reference to humanity.

“Goodbye, Tom. Let’s do it again in the next life.”

“Some heroes are compelling because they represent the little guy,” he said to my back. “She or he is the little guy, and everybody roots for him or her to rise up, for the worm to turn.”

I made it to the door, then wended my way down the intricate maze of passages. Neither Mandibole nor his Magnificent Seven Freaks had moved to pursue, yet his voice carried eerily and slithered after me as I made good my escape.

“Some heroes are compelling because they’re invincible bad asses,” he said. “Demigods. Both kinds are worthless. Prostrated before the approaching shadow, worms are worms. Demigods are puny, weak, ineffectual. In the face of towering evil, they wither and are consumed.”

I nearly stiff-armed the valet aside in my haste to get the hell out of there.