Voice.

"I think you might have gotten really lucky tonight, Johnny," Case said.

Johnny looked at her, eyes even wider than normal. "What do you mean?"

"I saw those kids, too-right up front. One of them was trying to touch you during the set. It"s a good thing they didn"t come after you."

Brad cut in before Johnny could reply. "I don"t think they would have," he said softly.

"Why not?" Case asked. "They were crazy-there"s no telling what they would do."

Brad put his elbows on the table and leaned in toward her. He looked from Johnny to Case and back. "I heard some of the guys in the club talking. The guy who got killed-he was the one who threw the bottle."

"So you"re saying what?" Johnny asked, his voice rising in pitch. "Those four psychos did this on my account? This is somehow my fault?"

"What? Jesus, no. I was just saying you probably weren"t in any danger."

Johnny sat back in his chair. "Oh," he said, mollified, but his glance darted around the table, and he didn"t look at Brad. "Well, they got the killers in custody now. We won"t have to worry about that s.h.i.t anymore."

"Unless it is the old guy," Quentin said.

Johnny fixed a cold glare on him. "Quentin. Shut the f.u.c.k up."

Chapter 17.

Johnny woke the next morning sweaty and shaking. It was bad dreams nonstop lately, and last night"s insanity hadn"t helped that any. He wondered if he"d ever get a good night"s sleep again after that.

There was a noise from the other side of the room, and Johnny started as his guests sat up. Another show, another unwelcome visitor afterward-and this time there had been two of them waiting by his front door when he got home.

"Where the h.e.l.l am I?" the woman asked. She looked around the room, taking in with mounting disgust the stained carpet and the plant tendrils forcing their way in around the air conditioner.

"Johnny"s place," the man said. "Johnny, Johnny, Big Johnny T. Everything"s gonna be fine, sweetheart."

Johnny looked at the guy with genuine alarm. The tone in the man"s voice was unmistakable-that strange dark excitement that seemed to inhabit all the creeps who followed him home, who had been taken in by . . .

By the spell. Or whatever.

The voice in his head made a kind of snorting sound. He ignored it.

The last couple of times, the spell (for lack of a better word) had broken after only a few minutes. This time, when his two visitors had shown up, it had been decidedly different. They had babbled, as always-cryptic, unsettling statements about being lost in the darkness punctuated with promises of undying loyalty and grat.i.tude-but it had been a lot more controlled than before, the crazy contortions damped to moderate tics. They could have pa.s.sed for normal, if they"d have just shut the f.u.c.k up.

What had worried him last night was that the spell didn"t pa.s.s. They"d eventually curled up on his floor and gone to sleep-and this morning, the man didn"t seem to be better yet.

"Are you okay, man?" Johnny asked.

The guy c.o.c.ked his head and grinned. "Right as rain, darlin", but hungry, so hungry, we"ll have to eat soon, oh yes!"

"Randy, what the h.e.l.l is wrong with you?" The woman slapped his shoulder.

These people need to get out of my house.

These are your friends. Let "em stay. What will it hurt?

Are you f.u.c.king kidding me? You"re out of your mind. He stifled a laugh. Out of someone"s mind, anyway. And when, exactly, had he started talking to "Johnny" without actually talking? He had the feeling it had been going on for a few days now, but how had he missed it?

Regardless, this was nuts. He had weirdos following him around constantly, and if he needed an object lesson in the dangers of that, he only had to think back to last night. He hadn"t seen the body, but the descriptions had been plenty colorful.

"Look, you people need to get out of my house."

The man rolled his eyes and leered. "No way. We"re with you, Big Johnny."

"Like h.e.l.l we are," the woman protested. She stood, steadying herself with one hand on the air conditioner. "You can stay here as long as you want, but I"m gone." She pulled her hand off the window unit. A film of oily dust was streaked across her palm. She made a face, then wiped her hand on the wall.

"G.o.d, this place stinks," she said.

Johnny watched as she walked to the hall. She hesitated, looking back expectantly at Randy, but he only bobbed his head from side to side. She shuddered, folded her bare arms, and left. Johnny heard the front door open and close.

"What am I supposed to do with you?" Johnny asked.

Be nice, John. This is one of your adoring fans.

Randy giggled.

This was not going to work. Bad enough this creepy b.a.s.t.a.r.d had shown up here at all, but the thought of him hanging out here all day was wholly unacceptable.

Douglas, Johnny thought. He"ll know what to do.

Johnny stood. He was still dressed in last night"s clothes, and the smell was pretty ripe, but just then he didn"t give a f.u.c.k. He slipped on his shoes.

"Come on, Randy. I"m leaving, and you can"t stay here by yourself."

Randy got awkwardly to his feet and lurched after Johnny. His gait smoothed out somewhat after a few steps, but he still walked like he wasn"t familiar with the equipment.

Oh, good. Night of the Living Dead following me around all day. f.u.c.king fabulous.

Johnny went outside, and Randy followed. Johnny squinted at the bright sunlight. Randy"s face contorted into an exaggerated expression of shock and disgust, his tongue extended and his eyes almost closed. "Augh," he said. He held both hands up to shelter his eyes. "Bright. Bright."

"Hangovers are a b.i.t.c.h," Johnny said. Sure. He"s just hungover. Right. "I"ll get you a hat." He went back in and returned with a Rangers cap and a pair of sungla.s.ses. He had to help Randy a bit with the hat-it was too small for him, and he hadn"t got the hang of the adjustment in back-but after that, Randy seemed much happier.

There was no car parked out front; in fact, Johnny"s nighttime visitors never drove. Johnny"s house wasn"t that far from downtown, and given the odd coordination problems his visitors had, Johnny suspected that driving would be a disaster for them.

"Looks like we"re walking," he said. Randy nodded eagerly.

Johnny walked quickly through the neighborhood. Most of the neighbors were probably at church, but it would be awkward if he ran into any of them. He didn"t know them well, and Randy didn"t seem like a great conversationalist. Plus-dammit!-Randy insisted on walking behind him. Johnny slowed down a couple of times and even tried to guide Randy into step next to him, but Randy wasn"t having any of it. No, he had to walk two paces behind Johnny, close enough that Johnny could hear his joyous, insane mutterings, close enough that when Johnny slowed, Randy ran into him.

What is wrong with this guy? he asked "Johnny."

He seems fine to me. Perfectly happy, in fact.

Bulls.h.i.t.

Laughter. Ah. Well, since you"re so smart on it, maybe you can figure it out and explain it all to me.

No help there. "Johnny" was a complete pain in the a.s.s when he wanted to be.

They walked down Fitzhugh and onto Columbia, past the convenience stores and p.a.w.nshops squatting behind their iron bars. Only a few people were on the streets at this time on a Sunday, and the few he saw walked with their heads down, so preoccupied with their own thoughts that they paid no heed to Johnny and the shuffling weirdo behind him.

Johnny was coated in sticky sweat by the time they reached Main Street. The tattoo parlors and junk shops were closed and locked, the glare off the empty street a bland white like fossilized bone. If Johnny thought it was desolate down here on a Monday night, it was infinitely worse in the daylight, a marauded skeleton, picked clean and left as a warning.

Douglas wouldn"t be here, Johnny was suddenly sure. The kind of business Douglas did wasn"t daylight business.

Stupid. What the h.e.l.l am I doing here?

For once, "Johnny" had no comment, or at least chose to make none.

"I"m gonna get some water," he said. "You want some?"

Randy made no answer.

Irritated, Johnny turned. Douglas was there, staring at Randy, who was looking back with great interest. In the sunlight, Douglas looked even older than usual, pale skin folded into deep creases around his eyes, his hair more grey than black. He looked familiar somehow, too, though Johnny didn"t know from where.

Douglas broke off his staring match with Randy. "What do you need, Johnny?" he asked. His whisper barely carried to Johnny"s ears.

Johnny rubbed the back of his neck. "I, ah-look, I don"t know what to do with this guy." He pointed at Randy. "I don"t know where the h.e.l.l he came from, and I don"t want him around."

"All right. That it?"

"Now that you mention it, no." Johnny took a breath, then plunged ahead, avoiding the black holes of Douglas"s eyes. "These crazy f.u.c.kers that keep following me around-what is the deal with them? Are you-you"re not, I mean . . ." He looked away, across the street, to where a woman in a black tank top unlocked the door to one of the shops. "Are they, uh, dangerous?"

"Depends," Douglas said. Across the street, the woman went inside. To Johnny, it looked like she locked the door behind her.

When it became obvious that Douglas wasn"t going to say more, Johnny pressed on. "Depends on what?"

"On what you mean by dangerous. They"re not gonna hurt you, Johnny. You already know that."

With an effort of will, Johnny forced himself to meet Douglas"s gaze. The older man"s eyes watered from the glare, but he didn"t blink. "They killed somebody last night, man. Motherf.u.c.kers tried to eat him right on Commerce Street."

Douglas arched one eyebrow. "You know this for sure?"

"It was four kids from the show last night, and they were acting all crazy when it all went down. I don"t need a jury to give me a verdict on this one. Christ, the other guys in the band think you"re selling some kind of psycho drug to people that come to our shows."

"I told you," Douglas said, and there was a knife edge buried in the whisper. "Crazy people are part of it. b.i.t.c.h and moan all you want, but deal with it."

"They killed somebody."

"I"m sure it won"t happen again. It"s not your fault. Get over it."

"And they"re staying crazy now. Randy here has been out of his G.o.dd.a.m.n head for over twelve hours," Johnny said, his eyes flicking to the man next to him. "What is going on?"

Douglas put his hands in his pockets, and the line of his mouth drew tight. "Don"t ask questions you don"t want answers to, Johnny."

Once again, Johnny broke eye contact. The voice in his head snarled. Are you gonna let this f.u.c.ker push you around every time you see him? Do you mind if I . . .?

Johnny felt that push again, the one that came before he sang. Go for it.

"Douglas, you miserable p.r.i.c.k, you"re f.u.c.king this up. Again."

The words came out of his mouth, but, unlike when he sang, they were dissociated from his thoughts-he was every bit as surprised by them as he would have been if somebody else was speaking.

The older man"s eyes widened, and he leaned in toward Johnny. He bared his yellowed teeth in a smile. "Is that you? Is it really you?"

"Don"t ask questions you don"t want the answers to," Johnny heard himself say in a mocking voice. Douglas smiled wider.

"I won"t screw up this time," Douglas whispered.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n right you won"t. Now, take this sad sack of s.h.i.t away, and I don"t want to see another one." Johnny was so wrapped up watching the reactions on Douglas"s face that he didn"t notice his own arm move to point at Randy without any apparent instruction from him.

"Sure thing," Douglas said.

Ha! Johnny thought. Take that!

Douglas turned to go, guiding Randy with a hand on his back. "See you later," he said.

"Yeah. See you," Johnny said, and his voice was his own this time. He watched Douglas walk away with Randy, and then he started home.

Douglas left Johnny behind, pushing the dumb babbling b.a.s.t.a.r.d that Johnny was so worried about in front of him. The guy-Randy was as good a name as any-muttered and mumbled, but he went where he was told. Probably he"d recover his wits in another day or so, and if not-well, so much the better.

A dark excitement filled Douglas"s body, tingling like electricity to the ends of his fingers and toes. The voice, the boss, had spoken to him-harsh words, sure, but he had failed too many times not to understand the impatience.

Randy tripped over a tiny crack in the sidewalk, and Douglas watched him fall, making no move to help. He got up after a short struggle.

This was the most dangerous part, Douglas knew from bitter experience. The disciples, as he thought of them, were stupid at this stage, and too weak to completely control either their bodies or their hungers. Some vague vestige of intellect usually kept them from doing anything too stupid in public, but last night they must have been hungry indeed.

That should never have happened, and he would have to heed the boss"s warning-it couldn"t happen again. Not where Johnny might find out. Soon the disciples would be strong enough, but until then Douglas would have to be even more vigilant. Johnny could still stop everything, if he really wanted to. Others had, Douglas recalled with a bitter pang. One had even managed to commit suicide, long after Douglas had thought success was a.s.sured.

And there was his own failure, too, the one that hurt most of all.

Not this time. He thought of the boss"s words, and that dark thrill ran through his body again.

"Johnnyyyyyy," Randy said, dragging it out in a wavering, exultant wail.