By the light of the moon

quickly loaded the suitcases into
the SUV, he looked left and right, and behind himself, leery of
being assaulted again, as though crazed physicians armed with
enormous syringes full of stuff could be expected to travel
in packs as surely as did coyotes in desert canyons, wolves in
forests primeval, and personal-injury attorneys at any prospect of
product liability.
    When he returned to the motel room, he found Shep where he had
left him: standing in his stocking feet, eyes closed, exhibiting
his annoyingly impressive vocabulary. '—fluorescence,
phosphorescence, bioluminescence—'
    Dylan hurried to the desk, broke apart the finished portion of
the jigsaw, and scooped double handfuls of Shinto temple and cherry
trees into the waiting box. He preferred to save time by leaving
the puzzle, but he felt certain that Shep would refuse to go
without it.
    Shepherd surely heard and recognized the distinctive sound of
pasteboard pieces being tumbled together in a pile of soft rubble.
Ordinarily, he would have moved at once to protect his unfinished
project, but not this time. Eyes closed, he continued urgently to
recite the many names and forms of light:'—lightning,
fulmination, flying flame, firebolt, oak-cleaving
thunderbolts—'
    Fitting the lid on the box, Dylan turned away from the desk and
briefly considered his brother's shoes. Rockport walkers, just like
Dylan's, but a few sizes smaller. Too much time would be required
to get the kid to sit on the edge of the bed, to work his feet into
the shoes, and to tie the laces. Dylan snatched them off the floor
and placed them atop the puzzle box.
    '—candlelight, rushlight, lamplight,
torchlight—'
    The point of injection in Dylan's left arm began to feel hot,
and it itched. He resisted tearing off the cartoon-dog Band-Aid and
scratching the puncture wound, because he feared that the colorful
bandage concealed awful proof that the substance in the syringe had
been worse than dope, worse than a mere toxic chemical, worse than
any known disease. Under the little rectangle of gauze might wait a
tiny but growing patch of squirming orange fungus or a black rash,
or the first evidence that his skin had begun metamorphosing into
green scales as he underwent a conversion from man to reptile. In
full X-Files paranoia, he didn't have the courage to
discover the reason for the itch.
    '—firelight, gaslight, foxfire, fata morgana—'
    Burdened with puzzle box and sibling footgear, Dylan hurried
past Shep to the bathroom. He hadn't yet unpacked their
toothbrushes and shaving gear, but he'd left a plastic pharmacy
bottle, containing a prescription antihistamine, on the counter
beside the sink. Right now, allergies were the least of his
problems; however, even if he were being eaten alive by a vile
orange fungus and simultaneously morphing into a reptile, while
also being hunted by vicious killers, a runny nose and a sinus
headache were complications best avoided.
    '—chemiluminescence, crystalloluminescence, counterglow,
Gegenschein—'
    Returning from the bathroom, Dylan said hopefully, 'Let's go,
Shep. Go, now, come on, move .'
    '—violet ray, ultraviolet ray—'
    'This is serious, Shep.'
    '—infrared ray—'
    'We're in trouble here, Shep.'
    '—actinic ray—'
    'Don't make me be mean,' Dylan pleaded.
    '—daylight, dayshine—'
    'Please don't make me be mean.'
    '—sunshine, sunbeam—'

8
    'Hickdead,' Jilly said again to the closed door, and
then maybe she called a brief time-out, because the next thing she
knew, she was no longer in the tilting-turning bed, but lay
facedown on the floor. For an instant she couldn't remember the
nature of this place, but then she gagged on a dirty-carpet stench
that made it impossible to hope that she had checked into the
presidential suite at the Ritz-Carlton.
    After heroically rising to her hands and knees, she crawled away
from the treacherous bed. When she realized that the telephone
stood on the nightstand, she executed a 180-degree turn and crawled
back the way she had come.
    She reached up, fumbled at the travel clock, and then pulled the
phone off the nightstand. It came easily, trailing a severed cord.
Evidently, the peanut lover had cut it to prevent her from making a
quick call to the cops.
    Jilly considered crying out for help, but she worried that her
assailant, if still in the vicinity, might be the first to respond.
She didn't want another injection, didn't want to be quieted by a
kick in the head, and didn't want to have to