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He and Maryann Morris were bonded by untimely death as well as by their inability to rew darker because he took offense on behalf of the cocktail waitress I don’t believe these stranded spirits feel any sense of community They see one another, but each is fundamentally alone

More likely, Datura’s viciousness resonated with this er

The fifth spirit has arrived, I told her Conditions are perfect now

Then do it, she said sharply Conjure theiveis helpful It’s…I don’t know… it’s e

I told you I always know exactly what I’ at her, and with my help, in a few minutes, you’ll not just see Maryann but all of theuage far more vile than she’d used thus far, and both of the Coleh in syht at the sah the sky outside

Stalking, turning, stalking, circling, as if caged, as though frustrated beyond tolerance by his confineh to fracture knuckle against knuckle if he had been aa sound in his spirit form

He could have swung those fists at me, but they would have had no effect No spirit can hars to us, not to them

If an earthbound soul is sufficiently debased, however, if the anger and envy and spite and stubborn rebellion that characterized hinancy during the days when he lingers betorlds, he will be able to vent the power of his dee on inanimate objects

To the cocktail waitress whom she couldn’t see and never would, Datura said with pitiless persistence, You knohat I think, what I’d bet, Maryann? In that shabby nursing houy on the staff sneaks in your sister’s roo fury, Buzz-cut threw back his head and screamed, but the sound was trapped with him in the realm between here and Elsewhere

She’s helpless, Datura said, her voice as venomous as the contents of a rattlesnake’s poison sacs Bonnie would be afraid to tell anyone because the rapt never talks, and she doesn’t know his name, and she can’t see, so she’s afraid they won’t believe her

Buzz-cut tore at the air with his hands, as though trying to claw his way back through the veil that separated hi

So Bonnie has to endure anything he does to her, but when she’s enduring, she thinks of you, thinks because of you, she here she hen the quake destroyed her life, and she thinks about how you, her sister, aren’t there for her now, and never were

Listening to herself, her own most appreciative audience, Datura thrived on her viciousness After each hateful rant, she seemed to thrill to the discovery of a deeper vileness in herself

The nant mass beneath the mask of beauty now rose all but fully into view Her flushed and twisted features were no longer the stuff of adolescent boys’ dreams, but of madhouses and of prisons for the cri that a forceful demonstration of the spirit’s fury was alized, Buzz-cut thrashed spastically as if he were lashed by a hundred whips or tormented by jolt after jolt of electricity He threw his arms out, palms spread, like an enraptured preacher of an expressive sect, exhorting a congregation to be penitent

Fros of power They were visible to me, but only by their effects would they be visible to s arose from the piles of ruined slot an to dance in place Here and there across the casino, s ashes spun up fro? Datura asked

They’re about to appear, I told her, though every spirit other than Buzz-cut had disappeared All of theeists are as impersonal as hurricanes They cannot aim the power, and can har debris brains you, however, the effect is no less devastating than a well-swung club to the head

Broken slabs of plaster ceiling ornamentation levitated out of the craps table into which they had fallen during the earthquake, and exploded at us

I dodged, Datura ducked, and theinto colu bolts of power from his hands, and when he let out another silent screay poured froray ashes and soot and scraps of charred wood spun up from the floor, while chips and clods of plaster shook down fro down from above as ere loose wires and electrical conduits, while a battered blackjack table tumbled across the room as if blown by a wind that othere could not feel, while a fire-scorched wheel of fortune spun by in a blur of losing numbers, while a pair of a caloom and rapidly swelled both in volu chaos, a chunk of plaster weighing perhaps fifteen pounds struck Robert in the chest, knocking hi went down, theappeared out of the darker reaches of the casino, proving to be a half-melted life-size bronze statue of an Indian chief on a horse, spinning with alarainst the concrete floor, fro away debris, striking sprays of white and orange sparks

With Robert still falling, with Datura and Andre riveted by the approaching, whirling, shrieking bronze, I seized the moment, stepped to the nearest Coleman lantern, snared it, and threw it at the second la, I scored a strike Lantern ht, and then ere in darkness relieved only by the sparks showering fro horse and rider

THIRTY-EIGHT

ONCE A POLTERGEIST AS POWERFUL AS BUZZ-CUT HAS committed itself to a violent release of pent-up fury, it ith rare exception rage out of control until it exhausts itself---postal at the annual Vibe Awards In this case, the stor as two or three

In the dark, in the rattle-clatter-bang-shriek, I stayed low, scuttling, anxious to avoid being knocked unconscious or decapitated by flying debris I squinted, too, because enough chips and splinters of this and that were spinning through the air to ist withdark, I tried to follow a straight line My goal: a gallery of deh which we had passed on our way here fro piles of rubble, I went around so on the move I felt my ith both hands, but cautiously lest I claes

I spat ashes, spat unidentifiable bits of debris, plucked away fuzzy twirls of fluffy stuff that tickledthat I could be tracked by sound through the poltergeist cacophony

Too soon, I grew concerned that I had strayed off course, that it was not possible to remain oriented in pitch blackness I quickly became convinced that I would bump into a voluptuous form in the dark, and that it would say Why, if it isn’t my new boyfriend, my little odd one

That stopped ht froh to sweep s and reorient myself

Datura and her needy boys probably had not relied solely on the Coleht or even three If not, then Andre would let her set his hair on fire and use hi torch