Niceville

but not so very fond of his life that either of these possibilities carried much weight, Gray Haggard began to move towards the figure on the far side of the glass, like a man in a dream.
    He reached the doors
—Margaret
—took the gilt handles in his rough, dry hands, his clear blue eyes fixed on the naked woman—
Margaret
—who was waiting on the other side of the glass, her arms open, her lush white body and her full breasts glowing like alabaster in the diamond-hard light
—Margaret
—Gray turned the handles and threw the doors open.
    The dining room was utterly black.
    Totally dark.
    He could see nothing at all, as if a black cloth had been thrown over him.
    He shook his head, blinking, thinking—
a stroke I’m having a stroke
—but then he saw pale light on either side of him, flickering and silvery. He looked down at the rippled glass in one of the doors and saw the naked woman
inside
the glass panes, still waiting with her arms open, smiling out at him. His chest tightened and one knee began to quiver. He looked back into the featureless dark of the dining room.
    He heard a voice.
    It might have been Delia Cotton’s voice.
    Run, Gray, run
.
    For the love of God run
.
    Gray Haggard was about to slam the doors shut and run when something exploded out of the black like a huge flock of crows, flying directly at him.
    He caught a brief flash of jagged black beaks and coal black eyes with a green light in them. The air was full of the fluttering of wings. The black cloud struck him full in the upper body and face with crushing force, a blinding violet light full of sizzling red wires flared up inside his skull, and he went down, falling backwards into the music room, the floor slamming into his back, his head striking the parquet tiles hard. Dazed, stunned, he was aware that the black cloud had settleddown onto him like dust, that it was coating him like oil, that it covered him like a shroud, that it was burning its way into him like lava, penetrating him in every place. He felt himself being fed upon.
    This went on for much longer than his mind could deal with it. Towards the end he was not himself. The thing kept feeding and a long while later Gray Haggard was gone from the living world.

Kate and Nick Connect
    Kate was driving home when her cell phone rang. It was Nick, calling from his cruiser, by the background noise.
    “How’d it go with Bock?”
    Kate’s mood, darkened by the look she had seen on Bock’s face, lifted at the sound of Nick’s voice.
    “We beat the bastard,” she said.
    “Good. But we talked about him. I still think you need to watch him. You still have your Glock in the glove box?”
    Kate rolled her eyes. Nick tended to be a bit extreme when it came to the defense of his family. Since Kate was the only wife he had, as far as she knew, she got all his attention.
    “Nick, stand down, okay? You don’t have to be on point about me all the time. Look what happened in Savannah last week.”
    “Hey. Guys begged for it. So I just tuned them up a little.”
    “Nick. They were just a couple of steroidal jerks in Forsyth Park. And if that was just a tune-up, I’d hate to see the whole program. And right across the street from the hotel we were staying in. Everybody in the lobby saw it happen.”
    “Nice hotel, though. Great pool.”
    “You’re changing the subject.”
    “I’m sure as heck trying.”
    “Nick …”
    “Look, I went too far in Savannah. Won’t happen again. But you’re out there driving around with everything I give a damn about in the world.”
    “Yeah?” she said, point made and backing off. “What about the Oakland Raiders? Don’t you love them too?”
    “They’re not in Oakland anymore. And anyway they all have guns.”
    “So do I. Where are you?”
    Nick’s voice changed again.
    “You heard about the Gracie thing?”
    “Yes. It was terrible. Have they put you on it?”
    “Not yet. The First Third is a national bank, so it will go to the Feds and to Marty Coors at State.”
    “So where are you?”
    “I’m out at the scene. I’m walking it with Jimmy Candles and Marty.”
    “How come, if it’s not going to be given to CID?”
    Nick’s answer was careful.
    Guarded.
    “Well, mainly because I’m ex-military, and Marty asked me to.”
    Kate was silent for a moment.
    When she had first met him, he had shown up at one of her criminal justice courses, in his full Class A’s, a chest full of ribbons, as dark-skinned as a Bedouin, all his