A few days later, we checked into a hotel in New Jersey; the desk clerk handed Tommy three message slips after he signed in. He read through the first two quickly, but lingered over the third a bit, smiling. He glanced up from it and around at me and snickered, then nudged Tony and whispered something to him.

Tony looked around at me and laughed. I found myself wondering, What? Don't my socks match?

The last few days on the road had left me wondering how Wish ever managed to put up with Tommy; one-on-one he could really be annoying---in combination with Tony and Razor, he could be absolutely insufferable. I'd been trying to get into the books Tommy had given me, but Razor's attitude toward me was distracting, to say the least---and when the three of them got together I usually ended up feeling bad, and about as welcome as a skunk in a perfume factory; I was seriously considering chucking the whole thing and going back to Malibu, Castevet or no. Going nutzo from inactivity was preferable to putting up with the Three Jerk Stooges for the next six weeks.

I decided right then and there to call Wish; surely that would cheer me up, and maybe she could give me a few tips on how to cope with Tommy and his cronies.

I checked in and went up to my room. I made it a point to ignore Tommy and Tony along the way; they were still staring at me and snickering like snotty little kids telling potty jokes.

Once I was in my room, I locked the door, tossed my bags on the bed, and dug out Wish's journal. At least Tommy had done me one favor, to date, by writing her number down in the thing. I threw myself down on the bed beside the bags, picked up the phone and dialed the number scribbled inside the journal's cover. I just hoped he hadn't been yanking me about that part of things; if the number were bogus, I just might punch his lights out the next time I saw him.

The phone rang four times; it picked up, and I heard Wish's voice; my heart lurched and stumbled at the sound of it. And then it sank right into my shoes, because that bright, beautiful voice was just the outgoing message on an answering machine. Oh, great...

I hung up without leaving a message, since I couldn't think of anything intelligent to say at the moment, and looked around for something to get my mind off the way I was feeling. My eyes fell on The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal; I pulled it out, opened it to the section on telepathy and re-read the entire thing, hoping maybe I'd come across something useful that I'd managed to miss the first time around.

It was no help; I was already tired, and all the effort got me was a bad case of drowsiness. I ended up dozing off in the middle of the chapter. For once I had no dreams, neither good nor bad, that I could recall.

And then the sound of someone pounding on the door jarred me awake.

"Hey, Rain!" It was Tommy. Like I needed him, right now...

I mumbled, "Yeah?" and stumbled up off the bed, trying to shake the sleep out of my head. He kept pounding and hollering; I finally managed to get my legs and feet to work and headed for the door, growling under my breath. If this was another of his stupid jokes...

Then I remembered what I'd been reading when I'd drifted off, and decided to give a quick mind-touch a try; I wasn't sure I could get it to work, but if I could---well, forewarned about a prank is forearmed, after all. I reached out through the door, feeling around for Tommy's mind---and stopped dead in surprise.

I couldn't find a thing out there! He was still out there, pounding on the door and making a pest of himself, but I couldn't feel his mind! Either he really was brainless, after all---or he had some way of shielding his thoughts from others that blocked out everything---even my mental awareness of his presence.

If it was some sort of mental shield, I wanted to know how it was done; that sort of thing would have to come in handy somewhere.

I sighed and opened the door; Tommy was standing out there with a big, cartoonish grin on his face. I favored him with the most sour look I could manage (considering the way I was feeling, my expression probably would have curdled milk into cottage cheese on the spot) and grumbled, "This'd better be good, man; I'm in a mood to bite throats...and yours is looking pretty good, right now."

It didn't faze him in the slightest. His grin just got bigger and he told me, "There's someone in my room who wants to meet you."

I growled to myself. Great. Sounds like a set-up for another one of their sophomoric practical jokes. Too bad Wish wasn't home when I tried to call her; I'd rather be talking to her right now than putting up with this crap. I'm really not up for this!

My sense of humor had been dwindling, slowly but surely, ever since I'd joined the tour, and by that time it was pretty threadbare. I grunted, "Okay, but you've been warned. Screw with me and learn to fly---the hard way."

I shut my door, locked it up properly and followed him down the hallway, pocketing my key securely.

Tony and Razor were waiting outside the door to his room, trying hard not to laugh and snicker; they were doing a lousy job of it. Tommy unlocked the door, but didn't open it immediately; he whipped off the bandana he usually wore around his neck, went around behind me, blindfolded me, then opened the door, shoved me into the room and slammed the door behind me. I could hear gales of laughter outside as the three of them scurried away down the hall.

My temper started to go---and then I heard an exasperated sigh. Something about the sound defused my anger on the instant, and I froze. I didn't understand how I knew what I knew, all of a sudden, but I knew it just as surely as if I had full vision to my name: Wish was in the room with me!

That must've been what that note Tommy and Tony had been snickering over was all about; Wish had left a note for Tommy that she was here, saying that she wanted to see me---and the Boob Squad had just had to make a stupid little joke out of the whole thing!

Gentle hands undid the blindfold; I blinked furiously in an effort to get my eyesight cleared, praying that whatever had just told me that thing was right.

My vision cleared, and sure enough, Wish was standing there, looking as if she wanted to hug me and go kill her "brother" all at the same time. No wonder she hadn't been at home to answer her phone...!

She finally settled for smiling at me and touching my cheek with the tips of her fingers a little uncertainly.

"Hello, Rain. I'm very sorry about that...I really am; that's their idea of being funny. Tommy knows better, but he's always been Mr. Go-Along; those two can talk him into almost anything as long as it doesn't involve an actual crime---at least, so far."

I suddenly realized that I was no longer ticked off at Tommy and the others; somehow, Wish being there just made everything okay, again. I smiled for the first time in days; she smiled back, and this smile was even more brilliant than her first one. I don't remember reaching for her, or her for me, but somewhere along the way we ended up in each other's arms...and the world was good again.

While the others were at the venue getting set up for the show, Wish and I had an early dinner in the hotel's restaurant. Hey---we were entitled; we deserved a little reward for putting up with the buttheads in our lives.

As we were waiting for the food to arrive, Wish sipped at her wine a little uncertainly and ventured, "Has Tommy given you my journal yet? He supposed to be filling you in on matters psychic."

I put my own drink down, clasped my hands on the table before me and hunched my shoulders; I was nervous all over again. "Uh---yeah. He said you wanted me to read it, but I really didn't like the idea of invading your privacy like that."

She arched an eyebrow delicately. "So you haven't looked at it?"

I shook my head, feeling like a schoolkid all over again. "No. I thought about it, but I just couldn't do it without clearing things with you first. I tried to call you earlier on this afternoon, to ask you about it, but all I got was your answering machine. I had no idea you were coming here!"

She smiled a little uncertainly. "Well, how about if I read it to you, then? I mean, you need to know these things, Rain. You're very psychic; you know that. And we psychics need to band together."

Now, that sounded ominous. "Why? It's not like there's some great, crying need to form a Psychic's Union, or something. I mean, even the psychic hotlines are considered to be jokes; most of the people working them are the same class of con artists as most Gypsy storefront palm readers."

She shook her head sadly. "It's nothing that mundane, believe me. I know this is going to sound melodramatic, but it's the God's honest truth, Rain; there are evil forces out there."

I flashed back to Castevet, on the beach in Malibu, and the dream I'd had that night; a cold chill trickled down my spine. I tried not to let it show, but I don't think I was all that successful. "Out to get who? Me? You?"

She shuddered faintly. "Yes to all of that---and more. You, Tommy, Dad, me---everyone in our group. We're all at risk...and in ways you can't even imagine. There's more at risk here than just our lives; it goes far beyond mere life and death."

That chill was back; the problem was, it wasn't just trickling down my spine---it was doing laps up and down it, this time. She had my undivided attention, and she knew it; she pounded the matter home: "There's one particularly evil individual named Nicodemus---"

My stomach lurched, rolled over, and played dead, right there on the spot. She saw my reaction and trailed off. I gulped, hard, and struggled to get my voice to work. It took some doing, believe me.

"Whoa! Hold the phone!! I ran into a real creep case by that name in Malibu a while back. Any chance we're talking about the same guy?"

She locked eyes with me, somewhere beyond dead serious now. "Dark hair, British accent, near-white eyes?"

I nodded. "And as cold as ice. I don't think he was even human."

She paled a little more. "What makes you say that?"

I shook my head uncertainly. "A lot of things, if I wasn't imagining them. For starters, his aura was black. According to The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal, that color in a person's aura means death is about to take him...but there was nothing unhealthy about the way he looked or acted. And that aura felt unclean when it touched me...like maggots crawling on my skin. And he paralyzed Rocky just by touching him. And---"

I trailed off; this last part sounded too far around the bend to be believed, even though it'd happened to me.

Wish prompted, "And---?"

I sighed; if anyone would believe me, it would be Wish.

"And he walked across more than a hundred yards of beach sand without leaving a single footprint in it anywhere."

She was paler than ever. "That's him. Dad told me that you'd encountered him, but he didn't give me any details. We've been trying to pin him down for a long, long time---but until you met him, and then talked to Dad, we didn't have anything but a first name on him. He may have made a serious mistake in giving you a last name; one of our people is trying to track down the name Nicodemus Castevet through the Internet and the World Wide Web. It may lead us to his base of operations; if we can find it and neutralize it, we have a chance of defeating him."

I shuddered. "I can believe he needs to be stopped. I get the feeling he'd have given me the cold shivers even if I weren't psychic. And he treated Rocky like he didn't even matter at all---as if he were worth less than nothing. And that was living right next door to me; even though I had no idea who or what he was, I kept getting these urges to get the hell out of there. When I got the offer to temp in the band, here, those urges were one of the main factors that made me decide to take the offer. Getting away from Castevet makes even putting up with Tommy and Tony and Razor look good by comparison---at least, most of the time. Lately the Three Jerk Stooges have been losing ground, and Castevet is starting to look better and better."

She let out a startled giggle. "The Three Jerk Stooges? That's what I call them!"

Somehow, I wasn't surprised. I gave her a crooked smile and murmured, "'Two great minds with but a single thought', and all that."

She giggled and sipped at her drink, eyes sparkling. When she showed no signs of speaking, I shrugged and admitted, "The funny thing is, I didn't even realize all this until just now; talking to you about it helped to bring it out into the open for me."

She smiled a little. "It happens like that. It's all part of being psychic; things tend to come out in unexpected ways for us."

The food arrived about that time. We dug into it, grateful for the distraction. But after a few bites I had to ask, "Just who is this Creepshow character, Castevet, anyway?"

She sighed grimly, shook her head a little, glanced around at the others in our immediate vicinity pointedly and lowered her voice enough to keep from being overheard.

"That's a little hard to explain. On the surface of things, he's Dad's nemesis; Dad's been doing battle with him for as long as I can remember. On a deeper level, I suppose you could think of him as a demon at large in the mortal world---a supernatural creature that disguises itself as a human being so that it can work its evil from within the framework of human society, and thereby more readily catch people in its snares unawares. He's a kind of psychic vampire; he drains energy from people to sustain himself, and uses that power to cause just as much harm as he can to innocents. He and others like him have been behind every major human tragedy in recorded history...wars, plagues, disasters of all sorts; the more suffering he causes, the better he likes it. Dad is certain that the individual we know as Nic, or Nicodemus, was responsible for the Chicago Fire, the Hindenberg Disaster, the sinking of the Titanic, and the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand that touched off World War I; he also suspects that he was the one who drove Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito mad enough to set World War II in motion; more recently, we suspect his hand in things like the Charles Manson affair and the Reverend Jim Jones tragedy in Guiana. The problem is, knowing that Nic and his kind are loose on the world and being able to do anything to stop them are usually two entirely different matters. These demons-in-the-flesh are crafty, and slippery; pinning them down is like trying to catch a greased pig---and even after you've managed to corner them, they're immensely dangerous unless you can somehow defang them first. That's why we're trying to find his base of operations; if we can put it out of commission, we have a chance of stopping him for ages to come. But if we can't---"

She shuddered detectably. "---we could pay for our failure in ways that you can't even imagine yet. Shakespeare had it right when he said that there are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies."

This was getting both of us way too upset, so I changed the subject to something a little less grim. "What say we get onto something a little more pleasant? For instance, I like the idea of you reading your journal to me; that way, you can do whatever editing you feel is necessary." And besides---it'll ensure that you stay around here for a while.

She smiled almost blindingly, obviously grateful for the turn of conversation; if she caught the thought behind the suggestion, she showed no signs of it. "Okay, we can get to that later. Are you performing tonight?"

I grimaced. "To be honest, at this point I could take it or leave it, but I did sign on to do a job..."

She smiled sympathetically. "The Three Jerk Stooges have been getting on your nerves?"

"Aww---you guessed!" My tone had enough irony in it to classify as heavy metal. "Between Tommy, Tony, and Razor I'm about to do something really uncouth to someone. I remember coming across a sticker somewhere that read, 'Stress: The confusion caused by your conscience overriding the urge to strangle some jerk who really, really needs it!' At this point, my stress levels are approaching the stratosphere, and I'm having to fight off the urge to strangle all three of them---or at least break their heads a little."

She giggled. "Not surprising; personally, I've been trying to avoid Razor for two years."

My expression went a little sour. "I take it you've already had the displeasure of meeting him."

She nodded glumly. "Unfortunately. When he joined the band two years ago, he saw a picture of me in Tommy's wallet, and he's been trying to get Tommy to introduce us ever since. When he knew me in England I was just a little girl, and nothing to interest him...but since I've grown up, that part of things has changed drastically. Razor's only notion of how to treat women is to use them up for his own pleasure and then throw them away---and I'm not about to be treated like that, even a little bit. I used to tour with the band, from time to time, just to spend time with Tommy, but since Razor showed up I've been avoiding the entire scene. Unfortunately, my luck gave out today; I ran into him in the lobby, and I had to do something drastic in order to avoid him. Back when I knew him in England, he was just so rude and crude and crass that I wanted to smack him every time I turned around; he's gotten no better in the time since. And Tommy just laughs his behavior off; I expect much better behavior from Tommy because I know he was raised better than that!"

She clenched her hands so hard that the fork in it bent. She might have looked delicate and helpless, but that would have told me otherwise even if I hadn't been psychic. She finally realized the damage she'd just done to the cutlery, oopsed prettily and straightened it back out on the spot. A little red-faced, she murmured, "I'm sorry...it's just that mannerless, deliberately offensive people like Razor anger and offend me---deeply...but Tommy's insensitivity cuts a lot deeper. My own brother!"

She shook her head; the fury in her eyes almost made them glow. I'm kind of glad they didn't actually emit any light; as unsettled as I was feeling just then, if they actually had given off any kind of visible glow, it might have brought unwanted attention to us.

She seemed to be such a gentle, placid individual by nature; finding her on the verge of committing mayhem - even if it were to a pile of compost like Razor - was disconcerting, to say the least. Maybe I should have tried to talk it out with her, but I didn't know her all that well, yet; for that reason I decided it would be best to try changing the subject again. After all, I didn't want to risk fanning the flames any further and having those glowing eyes aimed at me; I kept getting an uncomfortable feeling that if they actually burst into flames, being that close to her might get me incinerated in my socks...

So, very hesitantly, I asked, "Well, I've got a lot to ask you about, if you don't mind, so uh..." Oh, wonderful, Sanders; 'uh'...that old-faithful standby of nervous little kids who don't have a clue about life or what it is to be cool. Surely you can do better than that!

I struggled on gamely: "...what if we went over your journal, uh..." There you go again!! Come on, Sanders! Get it together, already!!

"...in my room?" Oh, Jeez!! Now I'm blushing!!

It didn't seem to bother her in the least. Softly, she murmured, "Sure. To hell with those jerks."