Trapped

"You're in for a surprise." Dreamsinger laughed again. This time her laughter sounded more genuine. And mean-spirited. "Dear brother Sebastian, do you realize you've fulfilled your final purpose?"

The boy glared at her. "What do you mean?"

"You were used to gain access to this station. To shut off the electricity. To cut the cables feeding this room so nothing will happen even when the water finally spills around your dam. On top of that, your lovely wife just tricked you into dispelling every enchantment in this room. My Chameleon glamour wasn't the only spell you removed; you also erased thirteen charms of protection to prevent this cage from opening." Dreamsinger made a mock bow toward the Lucifer. "Clever you. But your kind has always been clever."

"More so recently," Jode said.

"So you believe."

"What are you talking about?" Sebastian demanded.

Jode gave a nasty smile. "You'll never know, boy. You've outlived your usefulness."

The Lucifer made a darting motion with its hand. Something went bang, like thunder.

For a moment I was certain the bang meant Sebastian's death: some murderous alien surprise that would beat the boy's psionic defenses. The Lucifer might have planted a booby-trap while consummating the sham marriage-one long deep kiss and a tiny curd of maggoty white could have slid down Sebastian's throat. That curd might lodge itself in the boy's stomach, stealing atoms and molecules from nearby tissues to build an explosive chemical… or perhaps the curd could mutate into an explosive all its own. One way or another, Jode must have a trick for blowing people up from the inside: that's how it got the Mind-Lord, blasting him to pieces above the winter anchorage.

But the explosion we'd heard didn't come from Sebastian-the bang erupted back near the exit tunnel. Jode's leer of triumph dissolved to bewilderment… and Dreamsinger laughed at the sight.

"I'm not the only one who's predictable," she told Jode. "I knew you'd rig the boy for a fatal finish… so I removed your surprise from Sebastian's small intestine. Switched it by sorcery to the corpse of one of my Keepers. As I said, they made a valuable sacrifice-without them, I couldn't save one of the most powerful psychics the world has ever known."

Jode's face twisted with fury. The Lucifer's right hand turned puffy, as if the creature was so enraged it didn't have enough self-control to retain its Rosalind form… but the moment passed and the hand resumed human shape. Sebastian seemed to have missed the brief transformation-he was too busy staring at the alien's fierce expression. "I don't understand," he said. "Rosalind, what's this about?"

"She's not Rosalind," said the Caryatid. Her voice was wheezy-the bullet through her shoulder must have pierced a lung. But she struggled to her feet, still pressing her wound with a blood-drenched hand. "The real Rosalind is dead. Murdered by this bag of skin filled with pus." She took a shaky step toward Jode. "We found Rosalind's body last night. Dead in her dorm room. The thing you married was her killer."

"No," Sebastian whispered. "No. The Rosalind I married… she was my Rosalind. She knew things-secrets only we… how could anyone else know?"

"How do you think?" The Caryatid took another step toward Jode. "This thing is called a Lucifer. It's a shapeshifter; it can look like anyone it wants. If it made itself look like you and visited Rosalind in her room… secrets would naturally spill out. Amongst other things."

Bile boiled up in my throat. I remembered the position of Rosalind's corpse: lying naked in the bed, arms and legs splayed wide. If Jode had come to her in Sebastian's form soon after supper… if Jode had said, "I know we didn't plan to get together till later, but I just couldn't wait…"

I could guess what the Lucifer would want. Not just talk. Not just secrets. Jode wanted the perversity of bedding the girl before killing her. Certainly, there were practical reasons for such an atrocity: seeing the girl naked in order to duplicate any moles, birthmarks, etc., hidden by her clothing; learning if there was anything distinctive in how she made love. Fundamentally, though, the Lucifer was just so damnably evil it wanted to be astride Rosalind when it spewed curds into her mouth-filling her with death and horror at the moment the betrayal would be most shattering.

Jode liked to cause pain; it was that simple. The Lucifer reveled in the anguish on a victim's face just before the face went slack. Even now, though the alien hadn't managed to kill Sebastian, Jode must have enjoyed the boy's look of dawning revulsion.

"No," Sebastian whispered. "No."

"Oh yes," Jode said. Then three things happened almost simultaneously.