Too late! Pain exploded within me, a sheet of white nausea. All in an instant Ilost the name of my second daughter, an April morning when the world was new andI was five, a smoky string of all-nighters in Rensselaer Polytech, the jowlygrin of Old Whatsisface the German who lived on LaFountain Street, the freshpain of a sprained ankle out back of a Banana Republic warehouse, fishing off ayellow rubber raft with my old man on Lake Champlain. All gone, these and athousand things more, sucked away, crushed to nothing, beyond retrieval.

Furious as any wounded animal, I fought back. Foul bits of substance splatteredunder my fist. The Corpse-grinder reared up to smash me down, and I scrabbleddesperately away. Something tore and gave.

Then I was through the wall and safe and among the bats and gloom.

"Cobb!" the Corpsegrinder shouted. It lashed wildly back and forth, scouring thebrick walls with limbs and teeth, as restless as a March wind, as unpredictableas ball lightning.

For the moment I was safe. But it had seized a part of me, tortured it, and madeit a part of itself. I could no longer delude myself into thinking it was simplygoing to go away. "Cahawahawbb!" It broke my name down to a chord of overlappingtones. It had an ugly, muddy voice. I felt dirtied just listening to it. "Caw--"A pause. "--awbb!"

In a horrified daze I stumbled up the Roxy's curving patterned-tin roof until Ifound a section free of bats. Exhausted and dispirited, I slumped down.

"Caw aw aw awb buh buh!"

How had the thing found me? I'd thought I'd left it behind in Manhattan. Had myflight across the high-tension lines left a trail of some kind? Maybe. Thenagain, it might have some special connection with me. To follow me here it musthave passed by easier prey. Which implied it had a grudge against me. Maybe I'dknown the Corpse-grinder back when it was human. We could once have been