'John, this is Kasyx,' said Virginia. 'I found him on the beach. He said he wanted to 
meet up with other Night Warriors, so I brought him here to you.'
   Reblax stood up shakily, walked over to Virginia, and laid a hand on her shoulder. 
'Virginia, you're blessed by God. Kasyx - Springer told me all about you. You're a 
charge-keeper, aren't you?'
   Kasyx shook his hand. 'I was - until I discharged all of my energy trying to blow that 
shadow-creature away.'
   'Well, quick - my own charge-keeper has just been killed. Is there any way that you 
can use his power? And, please, hurry - the shadow-creature just left the dream-world, 
and it's in the material world.'
   Kasyx knelt down beside Oromas I. He hesitated for just a moment at the sight of 
Oromas I's ravaged neck, then quickly glanced over his power-grille.
   'Almost full,' he remarked. He unhooked an insulated lead from the side of his own 
armor and connected it quickly to the side of Oromas I's power-grille - the side to which 
Oromas II used to connect himself, to give the twins double power.
   Kasyx threw three levers - kachunk, kachunk, kachunk -and then there was an immediate 
crackling of psychic energy as he drained Oromas I's system and topped up his own. After 
less then ten seconds, he glanced up at the instruments inside his helmet and said, 
'That's it. Full. Let's go.'
   He stood up and drew the blue octagon in the air. As he did so, Virginia stepped away 
and waved, and smiled at Reblax with a regretful smile.
   I love you, he mouthed as the octagon descended over him, and thank you, whatever 
happens.
   Reblax closed his eyes as Kasyx transported him through time and space and silent 
imagination. For one instant he didn't know whether he was alive or dead.
   He blinked his eyes open. He was standing in Lenny's room in the police department 
headquarters, with Kasyx right next to him. The room was almost totally dark, but Reblax 
could see at once that Lenny was still asleep. He could also see that Dianne was gone, 
although her video equipment was lying overturned on the floor.
   Dianne was gone, and so was the staff of Moses. There was no sign of the 
shadow-creature.
   'Where are we?' Kasyx asked, blundering into Reblax's back.
   'Police headquarters. But what's more to the point -where's the goddamned 
shadow-creature?'
   Kasyx said, 'Hold on, and I'll tell you.' He switched on the sensors on his helmet and 
quickly scanned the building. 'There -' he said. 'Up on the roof, judging from the 
signals. And a darn sight bigger than it was when I went after it.'
   'It's stuffed itself on a little more fear and darkness since then,' Reblax told him. 
'Come on, let's get after it.'
   'If you insist,' said Kasyx without much enthusiasm.
   They rose through the building until they reached the roof. The lights of Philadelphia 
spread out all around them, and the night was heavy and warm. Quickly they looked around 
- and on the opposite side of the roof, close to the edge, Reblax saw Dianne. She was 
kneeling, her arms raised.
   The night was so dark that he didn't see the shadow-creature at first. It towered over 
Dianne, its claws hooked back and its teeth bared and its eyes glinting yellow. Reblax 
had never seen it expose itself so openly before. It was even more grotesque than he had 
imagined: all the black and twisted ropes of human fear turned into a living being.
   'Dianne!' he shouted. 'Dianne!'
   Because he was nothing more than a dream-being, Dianne could scarcely hear him. But 
she turned her head and frowned in his direction.
   Reblax ran across the asphalt helicopter-pad. As he came closer, he saw that she was 
holding up the staff of Moses; and that the staff appeared to be keeping the 
shadow-creature at bay. She must have snatched it when she first saw the shadow-creature 
materialize, and run up here.
   The shadow-creature roared thunderously as it sensed that Reblax had returned from the 
world of dreams. It slashed at the air with its claws, ripping up asphalt and striking 
sparks. But Dianne held her ground - she had to, she was right at the very edge of the 
roof, with her back against the low parapet.
   'Dianne!' Reblax shouted. 'Dianne - give me the staff!'
   Kasyx was close behind him. 'You won't be able to hold it, it's a material artifact! 
You're nothing but a dream! It'll drop straight through your hands!'
   The shadow-creature sensed Dianne's heightening fear, and scratched its way closer 
across the roof.
   'Stay back!' she shouted at it, her voice close to hysteria. 'Stay back!'
   She tried to move to the side, to escape from the edge of the building, but the 
shadow-creature lunged at her, and its claws flew so close to her head that they lifted 
her hair. She screamed, dodged, then stumbled. The staff fell to the ground and rolled 
away.
   Now the shadow-creature rose up like a mounting thunderstorm. It bellowed in freezing 
triumph, and advanced on Dianne with its claws sliding along the asphalt. Reblax had 
never heard a noise like it in his life. It was the sliding sound of imminent death.
   He darted forward and snatched for the staff. To his surprise, he could feel it, hold 
it. It had as much solidity in the world of dreams as it did in reality. He turned to 
Kasyx, lifted it up, and shook it. Kasyx, baffled, now knowing what it was or what it 
represented, shouted, 'Go for it!'
   Just as the shadow-creature raised its claws for a single murderous slash at Dianne's 
body, Reblax stepped right in front of it, holding up the staff.
   'Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death!' he cried out. 'I shall 
fear no evil! For Thou art with me! And Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me!'
   Even as he uttered these words, the upraised staff burst into dazzling light and 
became in his hand a rod so brilliant that he couldn't even look at it. White fire 
streamed out of it in all directions, lighting up the roof, lighting up the clouds, 
shining over the rooftops of Philadelphia in an incandescent beacon of hope and purity 
and total fearlessness.
   The shadow-creature shrank and writhed, and lashed out at Reblax again and again. But 
Reblax was unafraid. He walked toward the monster with the blinding white staff upraised; 
he kept walking deep into the creature's very being. Its flesh spat and crackled; its 
nerves shriveled up; it collapsed on top of itself, fold after fold of black and 
thunderous fabric, as if all the tents of all the multitudes of terror were being struck, 
one after the other.
   In a last shuddering effort to escape, the shadow-creature swept its arm at Reblax, 
and knocked him aside. The dazzling staff fell onto the rooftop, out of his reach. With a 
rushing, rumbling noise, the shadow-creature fled toward the edge of the roof, like the 
Phantom of the Opera leaping through the scenery of the Paris Opera House, like Bill 
Sikes leaping from the rooftops of Victorian London.
   It thrust itself into the air and spread billowing black wings. It flapped them once, 
twice, gaining height. But its whole being had been burned up, its strength was gone, and 
it began to stagger in the air, and then to fall.
   Kasyx hobbled right to the edge of the parapet and pointed his outstretched fingers at