F. Paul Wilson - Hosts

"All right," Sandy said. "I'll run it up the flagpole with some cops I know and see if they salute."

The Savior squinted at him. "You're going to what?"''

"I'm going to run with it. But I've got to ask: what do you want out of this?"

"Besides anonymity? I want Holdstock in Rikers getting passed around the showers like a party favor."

Sandy shuddered. "You have to know this might mean I can't devote as much time as I'd like to your amnesty cause."

"Told you I'm not interested in that."

Maybe not, but I am.

But even if the Savior should skip town as Sandy had feared this morning, he still had this murder cult to keep him hot.

"You should be, but right now I guess we've got a hotter fish to fry." He pulled out his notepad. "Okay, let's get some of these details down so I have my facts straight when I call the cops…"

5

Kate came out of Jack's kitchen when she heard the door open. He looked terrible as he stumbled across the front room like an exhausted homing pigeon flapping toward its roost. She followed and watched as he tumbled face first onto the bed she'd just made up. She'd opened the window to freshen the stale, sick air.

"Jack, are you all right?"

"Just swell," he said, his words muffled by the bedspread against his face.

"You could have fooled me."

"Imagine what's left of the Hindenberg on the Lakehurst tarmac after burning and crashing and you have the beginning of a hint."

"I was worried about you."

Those words startled her, not because they weren't what she'd intended, but because she wasn't saying them. A stormwave of terror smashed against her.

Someone else had control of her voice.

The words were true—he'd been gone awhile and she'd waited with growing concern—but the words weren't hers, and she couldn't stop them.

"Where did you go?"

Of course. That's what the Unity wanted to know. It had overheard him mention a countermove.

"Out."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing." He turned his head and looked at her with one eye, like a cat. "Is this a conversation or the title of a book?"

Kate tried to gesture to Jack, to let him know that she wasn't in command anymore, but her hands remained at her sides.

"If you're worried about the Unity listening in, it's okay. It's left me for the time being."

Lies! Jack, don't listen!

"Why would it do that?"

"I think it waited as long as it could for you to come back, then had to focus its attention elsewhere."

Jack rolled onto his back, staring at her, not quite convinced.

"You're sure?"

Kate felt her head nodding, tried to stop it—and succeeded. It worked! She wasn't completely helpless. But her voice… she still couldn't reclaim her voice.

"All right," Kate's voice said. "If you've still got your doubts—and I can't say I blame you—don't give me any details. But I'd like to know something . After all, I'm involved in this too—more than you."

Don't listen to me, Jack. It's trying to sucker you into revealing something.

He sighed and ran a hand over his pale face. "You've got a point there, I guess. Sorry."

"Well, then, how did it go? Were you successful?"

"I think so. I put some wheels in motion. We'll see if things turn out like I hope."

"Which is?"

Don't answer!

As Jack opened his mouth to reply, Kate willed her hands to move, to wave in the air before her.

Jack's eyes widened. "Kate? What's up?"

And suddenly her voice was hers again. She sagged against the bed.

"Oh, Jack!" she gasped. "That was the Unity! It took control for a few minutes there and I…" A sob burst from her throat. "It was awful!"

Jack sat up and gripped her hand. "But you fought them off. Keep fighting, Kate. We should know by late this afternoon if my plan works. Can you hang in till then?"

She nodded. "I think so. But don't tell me anything, Jack. Even if I'm in control, the Unity is part of me. It's always there, always listening."

His features hardened. "I shouldn't have let you talk me out of Plan A, damn it."

"Don't talk like that. You promised, remember."

"Promise or not, Kate, if Plan B doesn't work, it's back to A."

"It will work," she told him, and sent up a silent prayer that it would. "Whatever it is, it will buy me enough time for CDC and NIH to come up with a cure." If they can.

"It better." He flopped back onto the spread and closed his eyes. "And they'd better. Because if they don't, I'll use my own virucidal agent. Don't know about theirs, but mine's administered via nine-millimeter, hollow-pointed injection."

How could he speak so casually of killing eight people? Could he do that? Could her brother be such a cold-blooded murderer?

Looking at his features now as they relaxed toward sleep, she found it hard to believe. She touched Jack's cheek.

"Get your rest," she whispered.

She had an uneasy feeling he was going to need all his strength back, and soon. She'd sensed something while the Unity was controlling her voice. The same background of ecstatic anticipation she'd experienced last night, and something else: fear. The Unity feared her brother. It had feared Fielding, too, and look what happened to him.

Kate went to the front door and locked it.

And then an awful thought jarred her, stiffening her limbs with dread: How much of her would remain in the morning? Would she have enough of her own volition left to fight off the Unity and go home for Lizzie's concert? Maybe the distance to Trenton would attenuate its influence.

She prayed so.

6

"They didn't arrest Holdstock?" Sandy said into his cell phone. He wanted to shout but this was an NYPD detective he was talking to. "Why not? I served him up to you on a silver platter."

He'd called in his "tip" to McCann—the only NYPD detective he knew by name—who relayed it to the Queens precinct investigating the murder. Sandy had figured if the Savior's info was true, Holdstock would be locked up in no time. But when he'd called the 108th Precinct to confirm the arrest, he was told Holdstock had been sent home and no more. Unbelievable. He'd been trying to get hold of McCann ever since. Finally McCann had returned his call.

"You should get stuff appraised before you buy," Detective McCann said, his voice thin through Sandy's cell phone. "That silver platter of yours was mostly tin."

Sandy felt a twinge of nausea. Had he been set up?

He was seated in the dark in the front seat of a car he'd gone out and rented immediately after hearing the news. He was tempted to roll down a window for a breath of night air, but didn't. After what he'd seen a few moments ago, he wanted the windows up and the doors locked.

"What do you mean?"

"Had an alibi," McCann said. "Airtight, as they say on the tube."

"Who?"

"The seven other members of his cancer support group say he was with them at a meeting at the time of the killing. Hard to argue with that."

Cancer support group? What the—? Of course! The cult.

Sandy fumed. He should have foreseen they'd band together and cover for him.

"But the handprint—"

"Was just where you said it would be, and a perfect match."

That was a relief. At least he knew the Savior had been telling the truth about that.

"Well? Doesn't that prove he was there?"

"It does, but it doesn't tell us when. Holdstock says he must have left it there when he visited Fielding last Thursday."

"He's lying. He was there last night."

"He says different. It's not like they didn't know each other. Fielding treated Holdstock, and Holdstock says they struck up a friendly relationship."

"Bullshit. When was the last time your doctor invited you over to his house? And that's not a cancer support group Holdstock's been meeting with, it's a cult, and he's their leader."