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As though in a dream, she felt a hand touch her on the shoulder, lift her from her chair, and lead her to the bed. Her nightie left her body. She was caressed, teased, brought up to the brink of climax, only to fall again. When she finally came, her eyes opened wide and she saw her neighbor's face inches from her own. Then he was inside her, filling her with his need, but stealing something from her at the same time— a part of herself more precious than any moment's pleasure.

Lysistratus looked down at the woman's limp body, holding a pillow in his hand. She
knew.
In that moment that he'd taken a piece of her, she had opened her eyes wide, recognized him, and understood what he did. He toyed with the pillow, then tossed it aside. Now was not a good time. It was too close to home. He left the room as silently as he'd entered.

When Lisa woke the next morning at ten, she was already a half hour late for work. It wasn't until her lunch hour that she remembered last night's erotic dream. She smiled. The man next door had been in it. The smile faltered as the memory grew a little sharper. Tied up with the eroticism was something ugly that she couldn't quite place. But it left her with a vague unease and edgy nerves, and the disturbing sensation that it hadn't been a dream.

By her afternoon break she was feeling so high-strung that she dug out her prescription from the bottom of her purse and had it filled at the pharmacy across the street.

Peter left Cat's house with a certain amount of misgiving. She was much calmer now and had promised to meet him at the store later in the morning. She'd promised as well to keep the doors locked while she was home, and that when she did leave, she'd make certain there was more than one person on the street. In the light of morning it all seemed a little foolish, but while the stranger aspects of last night still needed some suitable explanation as far as Peter was concerned, the very real threat of an intruder— of Cat's watcher— couldn't be denied.

Peter still felt they should have called the police. They were equipped to handle this sort of thing. Ordinary people might be able to deal with a psycho in a Brian De Palma film or in the pages of a Stephen King thriller, but this was the real world, and out here on the streets it just didn't work that way.

He meant to stay at her house tonight and if they saw anyone lurking about, if they saw
anything
out of the ordinary, he'd call the cops himself. But before that, before he even opened the store, he had another part of Cat's problems to deal with. He liked her a lot, but she needed more than just a friend right now. Maybe she and Ben would hit it off or maybe they wouldn't. But it sure as hell wouldn't hurt to give them the opportunity to have a go at it.

"Mick?"

He turned back to the bed. Becki sat up, the sheets falling back from her breasts. She grinned.

"Where ya going?"

"To work."

"Capitalist."

"Slug-a-bed."

She stretched, ruffling her spiked hair. "Do you have to go right this minute?"

"Well…"

Mick let his jeans fall to the floor and climbed back into bed. Becki pushed him down and sat on his stomach, running her hands down his chest.

"You know your friend Ben?" she murmured. Her mouth was right beside his ear, her voice breathy.

"Mmm?"

"He's not such an old fart after all— told him so myself."

Mick laughed and pulled her back as she started to sit up again. "I kinda thought you'd changed your mind about him," he said. "Now are we going to talk or—"

"We're going to 'or'," Becki told him seriously, and then they both laughed.

Mick only just made it in to work before Jim. They no sooner got the station open than an old Ford ran over the signal cord.
Ping-ping-ping.
Mick glanced at Jim.

"Hey," Jim said. "I've got the bank deposit to do."

It'd be nice, Mick thought as he headed out for the pumps, if they could have just one more full-timer working here.

Ben caught the phone on its third ring and muttered a sleepy hello into it. He sat down at the kitchen table, dressed only in shorts and a T-shirt, and stared blearily at Central Park through the window.

"Did I wake you up?" Peter asked on the other end of the line.

"I'm not sure that
awake
is the word I'd use to describe the way I'm feeling right now. What's up, Peter?"

"Just thought I'd let you know that the new Ellison showed up late yesterday afternoon. You still want a copy?"

"You called me at eight-thirty to ask me that?"

"Hot item, pal. They'll probably all be gone by noon."

"So save me one already."

"You're sounding grouchy, Ben. Have a late night?"

"I checked out Mick's new band last night at Barrymore's— a group called Too Bad that he's doing the sound for. How about you?"

"Well, the woman of your dreams stopped by and stayed for the evening."

"Who?"

"Cat Midhir. Weird thing. I walked her home and we found that some guy'd busted into her place."

"Are you serious?"

"Uh-huh. He left empty-handed and the place wasn't busted up or anything, but I got the feeling he was waiting for her. She spotted someone casing the place the night before. Being who she is, I hope it wasn't some crazed fan— you know what I mean?"

"Christ, Peter. If you think/had anything to do with—"

"Give me a break, Ben. I know you better than that. Infatuated, yes. But crazed? Not likely."

Ben looked across the kitchen at the poster of Cat that Peter had given him— it was the same as the one hanging in the window of Arkum Books advertising
The Borderlord.

"I tell you, Peter," he said quietly into the phone. "Sometimes I worry about it— the way I go on about her, collect everything she writes, everything that's written about her. I've even got all the columns that she did for her community newspaper—
The OSCAR.
Remember those?"

"You don't have to explain, Ben. Besides, you're mad-keen on other writers too."

"Yeah, but it's not the same."

"So it's not the same. That doesn't mean you're going to start going weird on us."

"I suppose not." What Peter had said earlier about Cat coming over for the evening sunk in then. "Are you… starting to see her?" he asked with a twinge of jealousy.

"I was with her last night, Ben, but it's not like you might mink. She came into the store just before closing last night and she was really depressed. I mean, bottoming out."

"What's she got to be depressed about?"

"Well…" Peter didn't want to compromise Cat's trust. But having inadvertently let part of it slip out, he realized that he had to say something. He wouldn't tell about the dreams. That was too private. But… "Just between us, she's having trouble with her writing lately."

"She's— jeez. What a bummer. Are you giving her a hand?"

Peter laughed. "Who are you kidding? I'm just giving her a sympathetic ear. She hasn't got a whole lot of friends, Ben."

"Yeah. You've told me." He glanced at the poster again. "Sometimes I wish—"

"All you've got to do is do it. She's shyer than you are."

"I think it's kind of late for that, Peter. Any sort of friendship'd be tainted by this whole hero-worship trip that I fell into."

Peter disagreed. "Writers love ego-boo, Ben. I've never seen such an insecure profession. I think it comes from the fact that they don't get any immediate feedback on their stuff. You know. Like when a musician plays a gig, people either like it or they don't, and she knows right away. But a writer just sits away in a garret somewhere, pecking the stuff out and having to wait for the reviews, which won't even necessarily be representative of what the general public thought of her book anyway."

"It still wouldn't work."

"Yeah. Well, if you're convinced, you're convinced. I think you're making a mistake, but what can I say? I've got to run, Ben. You'll be down this afternoon to pick up the Ellison?"

"Fifty-five Canadian, boxed and signed— you think it's worth it?"

"You bet. Course, I've got my rent to pay."

Ben laughed. "Right. Okay, Peter. See you this afternoon."

Lysistratus sat facing his painting of the Kikladhes, his thoughts turned inward. The sounds of Klaus Schulze's synthesizer washed from the speakers of his stereo at a low volume. Lysistratus imagined that sound as the blue-green waters of the Aegean Sea lapping Myconos's shore. He concentrated on it, hearing more than the waves on that strand. There was a gull's cry, the rattle of a fisherman's oars as he brought his boat to beach, the bleating of goats on the headland, a man's voice lifted in song as he trimmed his vines….

He thought it curious how such a contemporary music could evoke such pastoral memories. But he supposed it was no more different than the dichotomy that he himself represented. He appreciated the glitter and flash of the contemporary world as much as he did the simple pleasures of the past. That was his principal complaint with modern society— they didn't seem capable of maintaining a happy marriage between the two. It was either all empty sparkle, or a dead serious return "back to the earth." Although there were exceptions.

He thought of Cat Midhir and her true dreaming. Tonight they would explore a deeper union than they had thus far. But first he would have to deal with the woman next door. She had recognized him for what he was, and though he doubted she could represent any danger on her own, he had not survived this long by being careless and letting such loose ends lie unravelled.

There was something very satisfying about a victim's final dream. As the life left their body, as their last psychic essences fled to fill him…

Much as Cat appreciated all Peter had done for her last night, she was glad to see him go. She needed time to be alone with her grief, time to try and understand what was happening to her. Accepting that Kothlen was dead was the most difficult. How could he be dead? He was one of her ghosts. Ghosts don't die.

The day was already threatening to become a scorcher. Taking her coffee with her, she went up to her study, flicked on a fan and sat in her thinking chair by the window. It was strange how everything was happening all at once. First she lost her dreams and with them her ability to put them on paper. Now the source of her inspiration was dead— just when she'd finally dreamed again. On top of that was Peter's theory that whoever'd been here last night, whoever'd been watching her, might be doing so because of the very writing she couldn't do anymore.

At least she didn't have her usual morning headache. Small comfort, all things considered. No comfort at all, really. Kothlen was dead. When she dreamed, she dreamed nightmares now. The other ghosts were all hiding, all except for Tiddy Mun, and where was he? Where was she without Kothlen?

Gone, gone, gone…

She forced back the tears that came welling up. She had to be braver than that. If she didn't feel so wide awake, she'd try to dream again. She'd find Tiddy Mun and— Except who knew what would be waiting for her when she dreamed again? The Otherworld had changed, and horror haunted it.

Her dreams and writing had always been her catharses, giving her something to turn to when the world seemed too big and frightening, filled with people who didn't care, a way of communicating that didn't require personal intimacies. Now when she needed an intimate, when she was trying to reach out, it seemed too late.

Melissa and Peter were the closest she had. She'd already tried Peter, but he simply hadn't understood. Not really. Not where it counted. And she wasn't prepared to try Melissa again. The fewer to know how close she was walking on the borders of being all-out crazed, the better it was.

Lines from a poem came to her.

Yeats again, but that was what she was. Divided inside herself. The Cat with a secret name who lived with ghosts, night after night, who dreamed: That was one. Not so shy, not ' so withdrawn. But there was the other one as well, the one who was sitting here now, trying to make sense of it all. This Cat who didn't dream, or dreamed horrors, who had no secret name— what was she to do?

Well, she could start by getting out of this house and up to the store, as she'd promised Peter she would. She didn't have anywhere better to go. Anywhere else to go at all, really.

Maybe she could lie down on his couch again and look for ghosts. Maybe she'd open a cupboard to find Tiddy Mun there, waiting for her. Maybe she could dream a place where Kothlen wasn't dead and shadows didn't drop from the sky with her secret name branded on their talons. Maybe she could sit behind the counter with Peter and watch the people come in and out of the store, and pick up a few tips on how to be real from them.

She looked out the window. Mrs. Beatty was fussing with her flower bed on Bellwood. On Willard, Nate Timmons was doing bodywork on his car. In the schoolyard that filled the pie-wedged shape between the two streets, the usual storm of shouting, running, jumping children were racing to and fro, filling the air with their shrill cries.

There was no one lurking, and there were no shadows to lurk in. It's perfectly safe, Peter, she thought. She changed into a pair of shorts and a loose cotton blouse, stuffed a book into her shoulder bag, and went downstairs. As she reached the front door, the phone began to ring.

"I'm on my way," she told it, and stepped out into the September sunshine.

Double-checking the door, she set off for Bank Street, the Glebe, and Peter's store, having already decided to walk rather than take the car.

Ben saw the Dude walking down Bank Street as he turned onto it from Clemow. It's funny, he thought. Once you spotted someone you thought was a little odd, you just kept seeing them. The city was full of characters. You could go your whole life without seeing one, but as soon as you did, you saw them everywhere. Like that old guy everyone called the Walker who lived somewhere in the Glebe. He'd lived there for years, apparently, but Ben had never noticed him until Peter pointed him out one day.