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1
FLASH FORWARD
“You Always Hurt the One You Love.” His eyes flooded with tears as he shot her dead.
2
AN ORDINARY JOE
Nothing remarkable happened to Joe Mandel until the winter that he was eighteen, when over the course of one day, more interesting, strange, and perilous events befell him than most people experience in a lifetime.
Grandma Dulcie was what his dad called “a character.” If flamboyance was an inheritable trait, Dulcie evidently had gotten all of it that had been allotted to three generations of the Mandel and Rockwell families.
A new volunteer was on duty, a strikingly pretty girl named Portia. She was so nice to look at that Joe twice stabbed his left foot when he thought he was spearing a bit of litter, though neither wound was serious enough to require a tetanus shot.
Joe admired Corvettes, but he didn’t want one. The car seemed too flashy for him. He drove a secondhand Honda.
Little City was a tourist destination in part because of its many specialty stores and the quaint shopping they provided.
“I wasn’t, really. I just sort of like got caught up in the moment.”
3
ICE CREAM AND PAINFUL LOSS
He said, “Why on earth did you follow me through all of that?” “Who wants to spend Saturday stabbing litter?”
“You’re Portia Montclair.” “Wow, you put it together just like that.”
“My grandma Dulcie says we know we’re finally getting a little wisdom when we’re able to see that even loss can be beautiful if it makes us love more the things we haven’t lost.”
“Yeah, right. Don’t try to tell me you were working on the plot of your great American novel.”
4
ANOTHER TWO-HEADED CALF
Portia said, “I’m taking you home with me,” which sounded promising to Joe.
5
WHERE THE WATERS OF TIME FLOW
Still gazing at the empty bottle, she said patiently, “What we’re talking about is life and death. Your life and death.” He regarded the bottle with interest. “Tell me about time.”
She said, “We’re as confused about time as we are about distance. We think time flows from the past through the present to the future. But time doesn’t flow. All time—past, present, future—existed in the first instant of the universe’s creation. Textbooks will tell you so. Time is not a river. It’s an invisible ocean encompassing the universe, with tides that run in all directions simultaneously.”
“There are some scientists who believe that the universe is in fact an infinite number of parallel universes, and that perhaps we never die. If the forward motion of time is only our perception and not true, then perhaps when we appear to age and die, we actually continue in a parallel universe . . . and so on and on.”
This vile thing invades a human host and lives secretly among us, and by our definition, it is pure evil. It infects others, not with its substance but with a controlling poison, and those it infects eventually infect still others.
6
THE MASQUERADE
“Only death can break their bond to Parasite. In their case, death is a mercy when it comes. The parasite has evidently identified Patsy as an enemy, and he’ll have to leave town quickly and never contact us again until the day this war is over or moves on to another city.”
“The seeker worked through me to instruct you. I have no power. I’m only me. The seeker has sought Parasite and others like it for maybe a thousand years, maybe forever. I can’t be sure how long the hunt has lasted, because the seeker speaks of time in ways that exceed what I described to you, in ways I can’t understand.”
“No, I’m not possessed. There’s no one in here but me. The seeker doesn’t use us the way Parasite uses people. The hunter and the hunted play their game in masquerade, but they wear far different costumes.”
7
HOUND OF THE HOUND
“You’ve been given the vision to see the hidden form of it. Just for God’s sake, don’t get within arm’s reach of it. And, Joey, I can’t stress enough . . . don’t hesitate to kill it. Act at once.”
She took her smartphone from the table and speed-dialed the chief. “Daddy, he’s ready.”
8
“I’ve never fired a gun,” Joe said. “Doesn’t matter,” the chief said. “When Seeker gave you the tracking talent, she gave you expertise with guns, too.”
“When exactly did Seeker give me all this?” “One of the times she came in your house at night while you were sleeping.”
“Last thing you look like is an assassin.”
Yet another thought occurred to him. “Seeker and all of you have been hunting it the last four years. Does it always escape by changing bodies? Have there been other paladins?” “Seven,” the chief said.
“Five failed, huh? What about the other two?” “They’re dead,” the chief said.
9
MADE STUPID BY LOVE
He picked up and fingered various items that people had discarded, because the parasite seemed likely to be the type who littered.
They said that Seeker had given him not just the skills but also the confidence to do what needed to be done. Indeed, he strode the neighborhoods with self-assurance, afraid but fortified with courage that prevented him from being crippled by his fear.
At the malt shop, when Joe patted the resin head of Lucky Duck, a psychic residue of perfect evil shuddered through his hand and up his arm.
10
WHAT LIVES WITHIN
He stood on the sidewalk, paralyzed by disbelief. Of all the people he had ever known, he would have put this woman last on the list in a search for evil’s harbor. She was kind and generous and good. If his father’s seldom-expressed affection was love, then of the three people who might love Joe, he would have said that Dulcie loved him most of all, if only because she had loved him without a moment of exception for far longer than Portia had loved him, if indeed she did.
If he went inside, he might have to kill his grandmother.
