LITMIR.BIZ

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then he realized what had happened and smiled broadly.

      It had stopped.

      About time.

      He had never figured out what caused that odd feeling, but whatever it had been, it was a relief to be rid of it.

      * * * *

      Angela Thompson burst out crying, and when her mother finally got an explanation it took a real effort not to slap the girl for getting hysterical over nothing.

      “Mr. Nobody stopped talking to me,” indeed!

      * * * *

      Ray Aldridge didn’t like it when the messages stopped, but it was no big deal. They weren’t providing all that much useful material, anyway—no bulletins from dead millionaires or miracle diet plans. He had gotten along without them for years, and he could get by without them again. He would just go back to making up his own.

      * * * *

      Oram Blaisdell wasn’t so complacent as the others. When the angels from Venus stopped talking to him, he concluded that Satan had somehow killed them all. He got his old twelve-gauge from the back room and went out to his pick-up and headed north.

      He wasn’t any too sure where Goshen, Maryland might be, but he reckoned he could find it.

      He got as far as Radford, Virginia before the cops picked him up for speeding. Listening to his story, they decided the poor old guy shouldn’t be running around loose. They called up his kids back in Paulette.

      Between Henry Blaisdell’s coaxing and the state troopers’ story about a secret government campaign against the Satanists in Goshen, Oram finally decided to go home and mind his own business.

      Satan wouldn’t get him without a fight, when the time came, but why go looking for trouble where he wasn’t wanted?

      * * * *

      Pel Brown was sitting in his favorite chair, re-reading C.S. Forester’s Ship of the Line, when someone knocked.

      He glanced up, annoyed. He had been in the middle of the scene where the Sutherland, Hornblower’s ship, tears up an entire Italian army on the Spanish shore road, and he resented the interruption. He had been comfortably absorbed in ships’ broadsides and Napoleonic politics.

      Nancy and Rachel were out shopping, he remembered, partly to return the duplicate tape of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ Rachel had gotten at her party yesterday, but mostly after groceries. They weren’t around to answer the knock—but maybe whoever it was would go away.

      Whoever it was didn’t go away, but knocked again instead.

      Why would anyone knock, anyway? Was the doorbell broken?

      Sighing heavily, Pel got up out of the recliner and put the book down on the endtable, using the unpaid cable TV bill as a bookmark. He plodded to the front door and opened it.

      No one was there. The porch and front steps were empty. No one was on the sidewalk or the lawn, either. More annoyed than ever, Pel turned and headed back for the recliner.

      The knock sounded again, and he realized it wasn’t coming from the front door. It was coming from the door to the basement.

      Had Nancy come home without his even noticing it and somehow got herself locked in the basement?

      No, because then where was Rachel? She was never this quiet. And besides, he hadn’t been that involved with the book; he’d have heard them come in.

      Maybe a meter reader had come in from outside and needed to talk to him about something?

      On Sunday? Not likely.

      There was one easy way to find out. He opened the basement door.

      The man standing on the steps was a complete stranger. Pel blinked at him, startled. It was only when he saw this new apparition that he remembered seeing the little person while assembling Rachel’s wagon two nights before.

      “Good day, sir,” the stranger said. He bowed, right arm across his chest, a hat in his right hand, a feather bobbing on the hat.

      “Hi,” Pel said. “Who the hell are you?”

      “I am called Raven,” the stranger replied, with another bow. “And whom do I have the honor of addressing?”

      Pel stared for a moment.

      He had, he felt, plenty of reason to stare. The man before him was of medium height, maybe five foot eight or so, with curly black hair and a tan. He was wearing a black tunic with silver embroidery and gold trim, black woolen hose on his legs, and a fine black velvet cloak thrown over one shoulder. The hat he held was a wide-brimmed, flat-crowned black felt, with a curling white ostrich plume in the band.

      It didn’t look like a stage costume, though—the materials were too heavy, the detailing too fine, without any of the glitzy look of theatrical attire. The clothes had a solid reality to them.

      So did the man who wore them. He had a long nose, dark eyes, and lines at the corners of a thin-lipped mouth; Pel estimated him to be in his late thirties or early forties. He looked more like a Mafioso than an actor.

      He was waiting for an answer.

      “Pel Brown,” Pel said at last.

      The stranger straightened up a little more and said, “Your servant, sir. Are you the master here?”

      “It’s my house, if that’s what you mean.” Pel considered it odd that the man’s speech was rather flowery, in accord with his garb, but his accent was faint and seemed somewhere between Australia and the Bronx, not at all in the traditional British upper-class manner.

      “Indeed,” Raven said. He moved his eyes.

      Pel took the hint and stepped aside. “Come on up out of there,” he said.

      The man who had introduced himself as Raven obliged, and for the first time Pel realized that the stranger’s tunic was belted with a wide band of black leather, and that a sword hung from that belt. Not a dueling foil, as his outfit might have led one to expect, but a sheathed broadsword.

      “Come on over here,” Pel said.

      Raven’s eyes darted about, taking in the passageway, the kitchen that was visible through the doorway, the family room, the bookcases, the etageres, the couch, the recliner, the video set-up, the Maxfield Parrish print on the wall.

      Pel stepped back and closed the basement door, making sure that it latched and that the lock was set. Then he followed his guest into the family room.

      Upon spotting the stranger the household cat, Silly Cat by name, leapt up from his place on the back of the couch and made a dash for the stairs. He was a timid beast, much given to hiding under the bed, and would hardly ever stay in the same room with an unfamiliar human being.

      “Have a seat,” Pel said, gesturing at the couch.

      “Thank you,” Raven said. He sank onto the sofa and seemed startled by how soft the cushions were. His sword got in the way; he swung it to the side, and had to unbuckle the belt to get comfortable. He pulled the leather band out, wrapped it around the scabbard, and then laid the whole package gently on the coffee table, carefully not disturbing the two issues of TV Guide or the beer-stained coaster. His velvet cloak he draped over the back of the couch, where, Pel was sure, the velvet would pick up cat hairs.

      Pel settled back into his recliner, his hand reaching automatically for his book. He stopped himself, leaned forward, and asked, “So, Raven, you said?”

      The stranger nodded.

      “Okay,” Pel said. “So what were you doing in my basement? You have anything to do with the elf who turned up down there night before last?”

      “Elf?” Raven’s face expressed polite puzzlement.

      “Something like that—little guy, about this high.” Pel held out his hands to show his tiny visitor’s

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