". . . now it goes without saying that at this point accounts of Sandor Perth's life become at best fragmentary, at worst apocryphal but all accounts do verify that his infirmities forced him to retire. He withdrew here with his nursemaid, wife and children-no wait the children came later didn't they?"

Lorelei tuned him out again, she had known about Sandor Perth long before she had ever hooked up with Jason Magwier. Thanks to her mother she had spent most of her life being groomed and prepped to join the secret ranks. When other kids were learning to add and subtract she was learning Latin. When other kids were learning to drive she was learning the history of the Sons of Enoch. The legend of Sandor Perth had been one of the first. The Little Duke That Could was their nickname for him. The plucky Rosicrucian that saved the world from a threat no one else saw coming. Some said however, that Sandor Perth was a fool and a glory hound and he got what he deserved. But no one ever made statements like that out loud.

They where almost at the house now-it was a huge, almost bloated-looking structure. Rainwater bled from the sagging gambrel roof to spatter onto the half-submerged walkway. Lorelei thought she spied a gargoyle crouched on the rooftop's edge, but the shifting shadows made her uncertain.

Magwier gingerly treaded across the flooded footpath. "The night before we left the City . . . I had one of my episodes. I knew we were destined to come here. No sense fighting destiny is there?"

Well, that explains everything, Lorelei thought has she followed him. Her instructors at the Academy would have called her lover "Precognizant." That kind of thinking was one of the reasons why she didn't hang around for many of their lectures. Magwier didn't see the future-that ability might be useful. He remembered things that might happen; it made him great at poker and lousy at chess. Ordinarily the visions came to him as a kind of seizure, Lorelei remembered the first time he had one in her presence it had scared her right out of the bed.

They huddled under the arched doorway, sheltered from the rain but still at the mercy of the biting wind. With a theatrical flourish Magwier rapped on the door.

"I don't think anyone lives here," Lorelei said slicking her wet hair from her face.

"Nonsense." He knocked harder, "His widow and his children-"

"-probably aren't here. Get a clue Jason." She stepped out from under the archway and looked around. A curl of lightning streaked across the sky, thunder rumbled. The heart of the storm was getting closer. "There isn't a light on around here."

"Perhaps they've gone to sleep early."

"Perhaps you didn't have a vision after all. Perhaps you're just after something but don't want to tell me what." Cupping her hands, Lorelei let the rainwater pool there and then spit into it. She whispered a few well-chosen words from a lost language.

"What are you doing?" Magwier asked. When she didn't answer, he grimaced and banged on door all the harder. "I hate it when you talk to me that way. I am not nearly as duplicitous as you imagine."

"Chalk it up to experience," Lorelei said before shoving Magwier aside and turning the doorknob. The hinges squealed as it swung open.

-echoing the future, foreshadowing the past-

. . . the door swings open revealing the Hierophant. I am too stunned to react. The sight of him standing there in his dull gray uniform and frayed yellow cloak strips me of my resolve. Dark, loathsome eyes glint out from behind the eyepieces of an ash-colored mask. The mouthpiece of the mask is misshapen and snout-like. He draws the blade from the scabbard on his hip and I move, trying to throw Lorelei to safety but I'm too late. I'm always too late. I hear the subtle hiss of a sharp edge gliding across flesh. Lorelei collapses in my arms her warm blood . . .

"What a dump!"

The sound of her voice jarred Jason back to reality. Sighing with relief, he followed her into the shadowed vestibule, "Be careful don't go blundering about."

"That's your specialty."

The floorboards were warped and thick with dust, the carpets had long ago given away to mildew and rot. There was a cloying, fetid smell in the air. Jason took off his hat and wrung it out. The sound of water spattering on the floor echoed though the house. Slowly, his vision adjusted to the murk. Slowly, bit-by-bit, piece details emerged: the pockmarked walls, the ripped oil paintings the ruined chandeliers. "What I wouldn't give for a flashlight now," he said. He remembered that the walls had been eggshell green; he remembered the canvases that decorated the walls were all of Sandor Perth and his family; he remembered the laughter of children playing and the music from a harpsichord. Jason remembered all this even though he had never been here before.

"All I need is a candle," Lorelei replied as they felt their way along the filthy walls.

Pocketing his soggy hat, he drew closer to her. Even when it was subdued by shadows, her face still set his heart hammering. He wanted to touch her, but he knew she was still angry with him. Physical contact now would only upset her further. "You need to pace yourself."

"You need to back off and let me do what I do."

"The door-"

"For all you know the door was unlocked." They followed the hallway to the drawing room and navigated cautiously through the clusters of moldering furniture. "Ah!" Lorelei said as she darted forward. Jason Magwier could hear the triumphant smile in her voice.

. . . they are not human shapes but they are familiar, very familiar. One by one they drop on to us. With each breath, their proboscises quiver ever so slightly, their bodies are hunchbacked, their legs spindly. I hear Lorelei struggling as arms wrap around me with crushing force, lifting me off the ground. My feet piston helplessly against the air . . .

He ran after her, crying out "Be careful!" only to trip on the leg of a moldering futon. Sprawled on his back and lost in a cloud of dust, he flinched as a particularly close bolt of lightning set the house shaking. The momentary flash burned the image of the parlor's high-arched ceiling into his mind. His light-starved eyes found elaborate frescoes with brass trim and layer after layer of thick cobwebs but no monsters, no horrors waiting to pounce on them.