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Susan tugged at my neck and jerked my head down to hers for a kiss As kisses went, well It was, u Perfectly passionate, abandoned, not a trace of self-consciousness or hesitation to it Or at any rate not fro with the intensity of it, and she stared up ateyes "Take me, Harry I need you"

"Uh, Susan That&039;s not really a good idea right now," I said The potion had taken hold of her hard No wonder she had recovered froun at the deree that it must also have dulled her fears

Susan&039;s fingers wandered, and her eyes sparkled "Your mouth says no," she purred, "but this says yes"

I went up on et her hand offstupid," I told her She was beyond reason The potion had kicked her libido into suicidal overdrive "Bob, help me out here!"

"I&039;m stuck in the skull," Bob said "If you don&039;t let , Harry"

Susan stood up on tiptoe to gnaw at h around one ofme toward the floor My balance wavered A three-foot circle was not enough to perfor else in, without leaving so demon to chew on

"Is the other potion still there?" I asked

"Sure," Bob said "I can see it where it fell on the floor Could throw it to you, too"

"Okay," I said, growing excited - well More excited Ito let you out for fiveme the potion"

"No, boss," Bob said, his voice ly cheerful

"No? No?!"

"I get a twenty-four-hour leave, or nothing"

"Dammit, Bob! I&039;m responsible for what you do if I let you out! You know that!"

Susan whispered, intoany underwear," and tried so takedown to drop ed to stave her off The de-eyes narrowed, and it came to its feet, ready to leap on us

"Bob!" I yelled "You sli in a bony old skull for a few hundred years, Harry! You&039;d want to get a night off once in a while, too!"

"Fine!" I shouted, ain "Fine! Just et me the potion! You have twenty-four hours"

"Just make sure you catch it," Bob replied And then a flood of orangish light flowed out of both of the skull&039;s eye sockets and into the rooated cloud over the potion bottle that lay on the floor at the far side of the lab, gathered it up, and hurled it through the air toward ht it, bobbled it for a hts that were Bob&039;s spirit-for, then whizzed up the ladder and out of the lab, vanishing

"What&039;s that?" Susan murmured, eyes dazed

"Another drink," I said "Drink this with et us out of here"

"Harry," she said "I&039;ry"

I hit upon an idea "Once we drink this, I&039;ll be ready, and we can go to bed"

She looked up at hted "Oh, Harry Bottoms up" Her hands made a sort of silent co the bottle More sha eyes, and I squeezed theed away about half the potion, trying to ignore the flat-cola taste, and quickly passed the rest to Susan She s her lips

It started inthatmy shoulders, down s I began to shake and quiver uncontrollably

And then I just flew apart into a cloud of a million billion tiny pieces of Harry, each one with its own perspective and view The room wasn&039;t just a square, cluttered baserouped into specific shapes and uses Even the demon was only a cloud of particles, slow and dense I flowed around that cloud, up through the opening in the ceiling pattern, and outside of the apart nonpattern of the storm

It took maybe five seconds, and then the power of the potion faded I felt all the little pieces of ether and slam into one another at unthinkable speed It hurt, and made me nauseous, a sort of heavy-duty thump of impact that didn&039;t come froered, planted round, and felt the rain wash down over me

Susan appeared next to me a heartbeat later, and proround, in the rain "Oh, God I feel terrible"

Inside the apart, voiceless hiss I could hear itaround inside "Coet out of here before it gets s outside for us"

"I&039;m sick," she said "I&039;m not sure I can walk"

"The mixed potions," I said "They can do that to you But we have to go now Coot her up on her feet and oing?" she asked

"Do you have your car keys?"

She patted the dress, as if looking for pockets, and then shook her head dazedly "They were in my coat pocket"

"We walk, then"

"Walk where?"

"Over to Reading Road It always floods when there&039;s thisif it tries to follow us" It was only a couple of blocks away The cold rain ca, and naked, andinto my eyes But hey At least I was clean

"Wha?" she mumbled "What will the rain do to it?"

"Not rain Running water It kills hio over it after us," I explained to her, patiently I hoped the potionsirreversible There had been accidents before We were s considered, and had covered o

"Oh Oh, that&039;s good," she said And then she convulsed and pitched to the ground I tried to hold her, but I was just too tired, my arms too weak I nearly went doith her She rolled to her side and lay that way, retching horribly, voed around us again, and I heard the sharp crack of the storht flash of contact and then the subdued glow of burning branches I looked in the direction we had been heading The flooding Reading Road, safety from the demon, was still thirty yards away

"I didn&039;t think you&039;d last this long," someone said

I almost jumped out of my skin I picked my staff up in both hands and turned in a slow circle, searching for the source of the voice "Who&039;s there?" There, to one side, a spot of cold - not physical cold, but so deeper and darker thatof shadows, an illusion in the darkness between lights, gone when lightning flashed and back again when it had passed

"Do you expect ive you my name?" the shadows scorned "Suffice to say that I am the one who has killed you"

"You&039;re an underachiever," I shot back, still turning, eyes searching "The job&039;s not done"

In the darkness underneath a broken streetlight, then, maybe twenty feet away, I could make out the shape of a person Man or wouish from the voice "Soon," the shape said "You can&039;t last er My demon will finish you before another ten minutes have passed" The voice was supremely confident

"You called that demon here?"

"Indeed," the shadowy shape confirmed

"Are you crazy?" I demanded, stunned "Don&039;t you knohat could happen to you if that thing gets loose?"

"It won&039;t," the shape assured me "It is mine to control"

I extended my senses toward the shape, and found that what I had suspected was true It wasn&039;t a real person, or an illusionof one, a phantasram that could see and hear and speak for its creator, wherever he or she was

"What are you doing?" it de it out

"Checking your credentials," I said, and sent so will toward it, the sorcerous equivalent of a slap in the face

The ie cried out in surprise and reeled back "How did you do that?" it snarled