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Well, Brat Prince, I thought, you gambled, you lost! And you get to die now. Here's your personal Pacaya.

But I was merely flying backwards through the bracken again, smashing against tree trunks, and through clattering crackling branches and wet fronds. I twisted and turned with all my might trying to escape this thing, trying to flee to one side or the other, but it was driving me backwards at such speed that I was helpless.

Finally I was flung down in a grassy place, an open grassy circle of sorts, unable for a moment to move, my body aching all over. My hands and face were badly cut. My eyes were stinging. I was covered with dirt and broken leaves. I climbed to my knees and then to my feet.

The sky above was a deep radiant blue with the jungles rising high all around as if to engulf it. I could see the remains of some huts here, that this had been a village once, but it was now in ruins. It took me a moment to catch my breath and then to wipe my face with my handkerchief, and wipe the blood from the cuts on my hands. My head throbbed.

It was half an hour before I reached the lodge on the banks of the river.

I found David and Jesse in a tasteful tropical suite there, all very civilized and pretty with white curtains and veils of bleached mosquito netting over the white iron bed. Candles burned all through the rooms and the manicured gardens and around a small swimming pool. Such luxury on the edge of chaos.

I stripped everything off and bathed in the fresh, clean swimming pool.

David stood by with a heap of white towels.

When I was myself again, as best as I could be, with these soiled and torn clothes, I went into the cozy little parlor with him.

I related what I'd seen.

"Khayman's in the grip of the Voice, that's clear," I said. "Whether Maharet's heard it or not, I have no idea. But Mekare gave me no hint of menace, no hint of mind or cunning or ..."

"Or what?" Jesse asked.

"No hint that the Voice was coming from her," I said.

"How could it possibly be coming from her?"

"You're joking, surely," I said.

"No, I'm not," said Jesse.

In a low confidential tone I told them all I knew of the Voice.

I told them how it had been speaking to me for years, how it talked of beauty and love, and how it had nudged me once to burn and destroy the mavericks in Paris. I told them all about the Voice--its games with my reflection in the mirror.

"So you're saying it's some demonic ancient one," said Jesse. "Trying to take possession of blood drinkers, and that it's taken possession of Khayman, and Maharet knows it?" Her eyes were glassy with tears that were slowly thickening into pure blood. She brushed her curling copper hair back from her face. She looked unutterably sad.

"Well, that's one way of putting it," I said. "You really have no clue who the Voice is?"

I lost all taste for this conversation. I had too much thinking to do and I needed to do it quickly. I didn't tell them about the image of Pacaya in Guatemala. Why should I? What could they do about it? She had said she wouldn't harm us.

I went out of the room, motioning for them to let me go, and I stood in this dreamy little tropical garden. I could hear a waterfall somewhere, perhaps more than one, and that throbbing engine of the jungle, that engine of so many voices.

"Who are you, Voice?" I asked aloud. "Why don't you tell me? I think it's time, don't you?"

Laughter.

Low laughter and that same distinctly male timbre. Right inside my head.

"What's the name of the game, Voice?" I asked. "How many are going to have to die before you finish? And what is it you really want?"

No answer. But I felt certain someone was watching me. Someone was off in the jungles beyond the border of this garden, beyond this horseshoe of little thatched-roof luxurious guest suites, staring at me.

"Can you even guess what I suffer?" said the Voice.

"No," I said. "Tell me about it."

Silence. It was gone. I could feel its distinct absence.