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  "Beg your pardon?"

  "When the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ. The priest says, or used to say in Latin the world over, 'Hoc est corpus,' repeating what Jesus told his disciples at the Last Supper. 'This is my body' "

  "How did the Latin phrase get translated into a magical formula?"

  "Maybe because miracles are magic, and there were a lot of wonders in both the Old and the New Testament."

  "Doesn't it bother you that something sacred was garbled into a password to something so secular?"

  "No, because it happened in an Age of Belief, when the sacred and secular were not opposed, but allied. Today 'hocus-pocus* means 'piffle,' means 'fraud and foolery,' means that miracles don't happen, and Lazarus stays unrisen."

  "You don't have the slightest expectation that anything uncommon could happen at this seance?"

  "Only if you've got a sleight-of-hand artist present to make it happen. Theater, Temple. You say you've had experience. It's just theater."

  "Like The Exorcist. Doesn't this get to you at all? This extra religious ritual drama of challenging death? The potential for touching evil by violating whatever afterlife might be?"

  He shook his head. "You don't understand. True evil always looks so ordinary." His face softened with an emotion she couldn't name. "True evil doesn't give a damn about dramatics."

  Chapter 7

  Could This Be Louie's Lucky Number?

  It is only an hour after sundown that I lurch out of the House from Hell.

  I have done my duty and reconnoitered.

  And I am Indeed sobered beyond belief by what I have seen and heard inside the Hell-oween Haunted Homestead.

  What a disappointment!

  First of all, despite all the advertised blood and guts, I can tell you with the certainty of one to the red claw born that mass produced substitutes masquerade as the real thing. Fee fo fi fum, what I smell is not the blood of an Englishman but the aroma of paint tubes and polyurethane.

  Granted, there is a nasty puddle area the little carts splash through in the dark, but it is only standing city water perfumed with an oily ambiance from the gears and wheels churning through it.

  And I do not like the dark, vast high space that houses the maze of tracks for these open vehicles that cart the gullible public around half the attraction. Imagine, if you will, a rollercoaster framework twisted into a pretzel. I am not afraid of heights, but my climbing efforts are perilous. At any time a parade of these miserable cars packed with screeching humans may whiz by, destroying my concentration, and soon I will be hanging from a support structure by one nail--mine, not its.

  As for the quality of the spirit infestation, I have eavesdropped behind the scenes. Oddities of a sort do prowl the premises. Most of the so-called horrors are unemployable teenagers who should well don masks to hide their pimple-ridden pusses. When not engaged in popping put at some unsuspecting stroller, they hang about behind the scenes; their fright masks pulled half off, smoking pungent unfiltered cigarettes that seem to have come from places farther south than Tobacco Road.

  And the hubba-hubba and hullabaloo! It is enough to wake the undead. As if the piercing shrieks of startled clients were not enough, the entire place is rigged with speakers that bawl forth howls, pants, gasps, whines, bays and basso growls. One would think one was at a dog fanciers' convention. I am sorry to say that I add to the chorus when some careless visitor stomps on my extremities in the dark, which is so deep at times that even my fabled night vision is useless.

  Yet this same impeccable vision is called upon to witness the impossible. I glimpse in the unseen vistas above me airy spirits rushing to and fro. My first such sighting did cause me to freeze like a Labrador retriever, one foot paused in midair. I have seen dry-ice fog and I have seen the diaphanous garments on the ladies of the Las Vegas chorus. What I spy pirouetting above me resembles both of these special effects, if they were blown from the mouth of a fairy tale's giant who was smoking swamp gas.

  At first I take them for UFOs, so high above me are they. Then they float down, wreathing the little cars jerking along the twisted tracks, and I see that they are larger than they appear to me on the ground. In fact they begin to swoop and swirl from high to low and back again, causing a new epidemic of shrieking. One thread of this mist falls all the way to my level where it gathers into a mass, takes shape and stretches until it is the granddaddy of all cats, perhaps even Kitty Kong himself. (Or herself, as I understand the case may be nowadays.) This creature snarls, which is duly echoed by the speakers, and springs aloft like a constellation to stalk the cowering people in their airborne go-carts. They scream and apparently enjoy their terror.

  My own is made of subtler stuff. For the Big Cat is not real, I perceive, but most realistic. I actually wonder for a moment if my kind has an elephants' graveyard where those of us free to do so withdraw as our lives dwindle down to the ninth one's final moments. A place where we can sit in a circle and sing at the night without anyone hearing. A place where large and small sniff noses and shake whiskers, where feral and tame meet and step politely around each other, some last great Litter's End of the rainbow.

  But the fact is that our wild shadows shrink in the jungles as our fiercest species dwindle like our lives, and their only safety is in subtle cages made to look like all outdoors. So I watch the shadow cat pounce and play among the little mouse-cars that dart along their zigzag tracks to no avail... until I realize that the Great Cat is preprogrammed too, and will threaten but not win.

  And I hear again the wretched wails of my kind, somewhere near but far, and this gives me the shivers, for this mighty imitation is silent.

  This moment is truly chilling. It is one thing to sit smugly by and listen to humans howling like dogs, and vice versa, but when the mellifluous feline voice is presented in scalding hysterical tones, it hits uncomfortably close to home.

  Speaking of which, that brings me to the only truly terrifying moment of my entire expedition.

  I am on my way out, having concluded that Karma's utter evil is hardly likely to haunt this frightful funhouse. If I truly wish to scare myself out of my catsuit, I can do it more efficiently trying to cross the Strip during rush hour.

  By now my trusty sense of complicated ways and dark paths knows the place pretty well. I pussyfoot along the place where floor and wall meet, following the deliberately twisting corridor. I nip past the fake Count Dracula who wears Nikes under his floor-sweeping cape, and sweetens his breath with a spearmint spray. What is he afraid of? A little garlic-breath?

  I overleap the spider-ambush niche, avoiding slipping on the collected spider droppings, which reek of rubber.

  l dart around the corner and come face-to-face with... myself. Naturally, I growl. I do not like cheap imitations. Then I reconsider. I might have encountered a mirror, which I have seen oddly angled here and there, the better to multiply a lurid effect.

  I hiss. My mirror image hisses. I narrow my green eyes. Ditto. I arch my back in the patented Halloween position (my kind has practiced this ritual martial-art position for millennia). It matches my posture perfectly.

  Knowing it to be a trick with mirrors, I turn away.

  It pounces and bats my departing tail.

  Since when do mirrors fight back?

  I whirl like a dervish and show my incisors to the gum line. It returns the favor, showing a few back teeth missing.

  Then I notice that the muzzle hair surrounding the striking white whiskers is grizzled. Is this some kind of psychic picture of Dorian Gray? Am I seeing my aged self a few years hence? Is this vision sent by an evil spirit to dishearten me?

  By now my soft growls are questioning both myself and my eerie doppelganger aloud.

  "Do not talk to yourself," a growling voice admonishes. "You could be taken for a toothless old duffer."

  This is a recorded message I have not yet heard in the Hell-o-ween Haunted Homestead. I sit back to regard my spitting image, which now is
also turning off the fireworks.

  Silence holds between us while faint howls reverberate everywhere else.

  "So," myself says to me, lifting a coal-black paw to his whiskers. "Long time no see. What happened in town after you and the spitfire took off?"

  "What are you doing here, Three O'Clock?" I ask in turn.

  "Drafted," he says, wrinkling his muzzle. "Right color, wrong place, wrong time. The old Joes offered me up as mascot to this haunted house, so I run around and give the rats a scare."

  "You talking real rats," I ask with interest, "long snouts and long, naked tails, nasty teeth?"

  "Naw, more like mice. Every time the tourists spot me they shriek and beg me to not walk in front of them. As if I would. I know that is not polite. I was not raised in a barn."

  "Where were you raised?"

  "Inland a piece, in a tract home with those cute little swinging saloon doors into the kitchen."

  "No! I have only heard of such a thing."

  "Well, I am here to tell you they are real. As are sandboxes."

  "Sandboxes! Outdoor public facilities every block or so? Las Vegas is surrounded by a lot of sand, but nothing as civilized as that."

  "Overrated, son. And you gotta wait your turn until the kids are through churning up all that good sand and burying useless things like rubber trucks and toy soldiers in it. And then they poop in their pants. Pretty crude breed, humans. Ignorant about what to do with the dirt Bast gave them. You would not like suburbia, son. I have been there."

  "So how long you been doing the haunted-house routine?"

  "Too long. Pretty boring. And hard on the ears."

  "What about those caterwauls? They strike me as the genuine article."

  The old man shrugs and boxes his ear before giving it a good washing-out. "What was that, son? Hard to hear over all this yowling. Get a little waxy buildup now and then."

  "I say, it is kind of creepy to hear the cries of one's own kind. Do you know how they obtained these recordings? It might be illegal."

  "Probably is. Some people treat us like animals. My old guys are pretty decent, though, and the perks at Three O'Clock Louie's are primo. Come on out again, solo, and I will treat you to some filet and shrimp."

  "What about carp?"

  "Aw, I do not do much fishing anymore. Had enough of that on the open sea. At my time in life, I want someone else to do the catching, carrying and cooking for me."

  "There is nothing like fresh game," I say.

  "At my age, everything is a little stale."

  A horrendous scream shakes the rafters, if there are any. We both look up. By the time we look down again, the old man has risen.

  "You better run along now, son. It will freak my old fellas out if they see you; start thinking they are losing their sight, which they have been for years. I try to keep them from any unnecessary strain."

  "Understood. Humans are fragile beasts. My Miss Temple is a very dainty lady and much in need of artful surveillance, like my distant lady friend, the Divine Yvette. Funny, I almost thought I heard her scream among the chorus above."

  "You are working too hard, son. Take some time off. Lounge by the pool; bask in the sun.

  This is a resort, you know."

  "I know, Dad."

  It is the first time I have called him that. I think I detect a slight grin, and I am a pretty good detective.

  We shake paws and go our separate ways. I am sorry that my old man has been called out of retirement to work in his old age, but no doubt it gives him a sense of usefulness that is good for the soul.

  Me, I am feeling pretty useless at the moment. Snookered by that uppity Karma into a pointless journey through the usual tourist attraction. I am ready for a slow amble home, with perhaps a moonlight detour via Chef Song's carp pond at the Crystal Phoenix. These tired old pads could stand a dip in cool, carp-filled water

  Soon I have slithered my way out of the old homestead and stand in the open. The spotlights ring the attraction. I can see a respectable line of suckers waiting for the next show.

  The suckers can also see pretty well.

  "Look!" someone yells. "A black cat."

  "Ooh," cries a concerned female voice, "it should not be out so near Halloween. Someone demented might try to catch it. Come here, kitty."

  If there are three words in the English language that will make me run like a bat out of a Hell-o-ween Haunted Homestead, they are "come here, kitty."

  I head toward the dark beyond the spotlights, but by now the one good-deed doer has become a crowd. Three or four women are coming toward me, bent over like crones, crooning

  "come here, kitty" with empty hands outstretched, as if I could not smell that all they have to offer is sweat.

  My brisk walk becomes a trot.

  "Don't let it get away!" comes the cry. 'There is no telling what could happen to it alone in the dark at this time of year."

  Yeah, like I could be accosted by a mob of well-meaning folk who will mess up my life and curtail my freedom. I put my ears back and my tail out and make a run for the cyclone fence.

  'The gate," one yells to a confederate. "Block the gate!"

  They really do not think we understand a thing. I head straight for the steel fishnet of fence, and climb it like I would a nylon stocking. I am over and fading into the natural darkness of night before they can get to the fence and set up a wail.

  Karma was right about one thing: I did face true danger at the haunted house.

  Unfortunately, it was not from the ghostly inmates, but from the ghastly visitors outside.

  I suppose the Queen of Sheba would say that counts as a reliable prediction, but in Las Vegas so does losing at gambling.

  Chapter 8

  Lizards and Tarantulas and Bats, Oh My

  Leaving the Hell-o-ween Haunted Homestead was like walking out of a movie theater. The outside brightness and activity were overwhelming after the imaginative journey in the dark.

  Matt and Temple came out the innocuous side entrance into a blaze of colored spotlights.

  "Whew." Matt raised an arm to shield his eyes.

  Temple, blinking, probed the depths of her tote bag for her sunglasses.

  "More people lined up," Matt commented. "Better business."

  She clapped the dark lenses to her face and turned to view the painted facade. "More weird-colored lights, better illlusion." She laughed uneasily. "Speaking of illusions, I was pretty reactive to those cheesy effects. I must be a little worn down."

  "Why not?" Matt pushed his hands in his pants pockets against the night chill. "You've been through a lot. Almost choked to death by a dying romance-cover model, then that dank expedition to the Goliath for the Midnight Louie she--"

  "You were the one who got wet!"

  "I wonder how Kinsella got out of there without us seeing him, and without getting wet."

  "Who said he didn't get wet? Max has done underwater escapes before, you know."

  "Have you seen him since?"

  "No." Temple turned away from the haunted house to eye the long stretch of empty lot to the fence.

  "Neither have I."

  She looked up, startled. "Why should you?"

  Matt shrugged. "He seemed to enjoy inflicting himself on me."

  "Why did you put up with that?"

  "Because ... he claimed he could help me find out about my stepfather."

  "Maybe he can, but it'll only be because that will help Max."

  "Is he that selfish?"

  "Selfish? No, just a survivor. And he's had more to survive than most of us, I think."

  "So are we survivors?"

  "You mean ... by nature?"

  "I mean, you and I. We were starting to be we, and now--" He looked off to the fence too.

  Temple sighed. Max might be absent, but he had become a fence between them just as effectively as if he had turned into interwoven steel and encircled them.

  "I guess we can be whatever we truly want to be, no matter what," she
said.

  "But how do you know? "

  "Instinct. Experience."

  "And if you don't have any?"

  She saw his point. "Hey, even with those things, it's still a struggle."

  "Maybe it's for the best." Matt stared off at the fence again. He was used to fences; what he wasn't used to was freedom. "Maybe we needed a ... time-out. I've got to concentrate on settling the issue of my stepfather: is he dead or isn't he?"

  "The police aren't sure?"

  "The fingerprints are different. The question is, was someone masquerading as Cliff Effinger until a few years ago, or doing it more recently? Then the question is, why the masquerade?"

  "Tough questions. The police will probably have to put them in the dead-case file."

  "Memory has no dead-case file. I have to know, so Til look where and when and how I can."

  "I could help you."

  "I know you could. But it's something I have to do on my own, without any magical assistance. Kinsella got me thinking in some new directions, 111 give him that. I'll probably see him again too; he's right about the two casino deaths being connected. That I know. By instinct."

  "See, you're getting some."

  "Maybe's there hope."

  What there was hope for stayed unspoken.

  "Just don't hesitate to ask if I can help," she said.

  He turned to her, looked down, about to say something, about to move, about to follow some instinct he maybe had never had before.

  A spotlight lifted from the ground and arched toward them like a falling comet. They blinked and reared back from a nova-bright light the size of a dinner plate that burned everything around them into anonymous darkness.

  "What do you think of the protesters?" a male voice demanded from the dark. "Are they interfering with your right to have a little Halloween fun?"

  "What protesters?" Matt asked.

  "These people who are all for bats, rats, snakes and spiders. Haven't you seen them picketing outside the fence?"

  "They weren't there when we came," Temple said, "so we have nothing to say." She grabbed the sleeve of Matt's windbreaker to pull him out of the spotlight.