They Are

***

Chapter One-Guardians of the Threshold

David Starsky put down the file he was reading and looked around his office. Not that it really was an office, it was more like a glorified cubicle. It had room for a desk, two chairs (one for the desk, and one for a visitor), a file cabinet, and that was about all. But it had a door he could close, so that he could interview people in private, and a window, where he had set a plant provided by Hutch. On the desk he had a telephone with a private line, a typewriter, and the old piggybank that had once adorned his and Hutch�s desks in the squad room.

He even had a secretary! Well, not personally, for him alone, but in the outer room that this row of small offices was attached to, there was a receptionist who would take his calls for him, and do all the things that a secretary normally did.

It wasn�t what he had thought of his police career coming to. But it was considerably better than it could have been. He had to remind himself of that. He was alive, which he had almost not been after the shooting in the police parking lot, he was in relatively good condition, (though, with the loss of half a lung, his days of running after suspects were a thing of the past), and most importantly of all, he still had Hutch, not as his partner on the streets any more, but as his partner in life. If the cost of that was sitting in an office and working on cold cases all day, it was little enough. At least cold cases were a reasonable use of his detecting skills, unlike some of the things he could have been assigned to.

Of course he worried about Hutch being on the streets without him, but he had given Steve Barlow, Hutch�s new partner, an intensive course in �working with the Blond Blintz� until he felt reasonably sure the kid knew what he was doing. And it was only a temporary situation anyway, until Hutch could take the lieutenant�s examination and get a safer assignment. (Passing the exam was a forgone conclusion. The possibility that Hutch might have any difficulty with any intellectual activity was a thought that Starsky didn�t even consider. Not that he�d admit as much to Hutch, no use in letting that blond head get swelled.)

Yes, all in all, life was good.

So why had he had this vague feeling of foreboding for the last few days? It had crept up on him slowly but inexorably, until he had the continual feeling that he should be looking over his shoulder. He hadn't felt anything this strong since... since the time he and Hutch had gone camping at Dobey's cabin.

The intercom on his desk buzzed. �Detective Starsky, there�s a Mary Polanski to see you.�

�Send her in, Margie.� Mary Polanski? The name sounded familiar but Starsky couldn�t place it. It wasn�t one that was mentioned in any of the cases he was looking into.

As soon as he saw the short, plump, brightly bedecked form, however, the mystery was solved. Mary Polanski, aka Madam Yram, the so-called fortune-teller who had helped them a few years previously in the armored car robbery case. That left the bigger mystery, though, why was she here?

"Hiya' Mary," he said cheerfully. "Long time no see."

Her eyes grew wide and she gasped when she saw him. She raised one hand and reached towards his face.

�Detective Starsky,� she said in awed tones. �You�ve been in high company, I see.�

A small shiver crept down Starsky�s spine. �What do you mean by that?� he asked suspiciously. Was she trying to pull some kind of scam on him?

Mary pointed to his forehead. �You have a mark, here. It glows. And your aura�� she trailed off. �You�ve been on the other side,� she finished after a pause. �Haven�t you?�

Starsky swallowed and remembered:

Slowly he nodded. "Yeah, I guess so." But that didn�t mean anything, he reminded himself. Lots of people knew his heart had stopped in the ICU; it didn�t take much supernatural knowledge to guess he might have had some kind of experience during that time. �What did you mean, I�ve been 'in high company'�?

She reached again for his face, touched his forehead. Closed her eyes. �The flame of the burning bush, and the guardian of the tomb,� she whispered. �Heaven�s war leader.� Her eyes snapped open. �You saw Michael,� she stated flatly.

Starsky shivered at her certainty, remembering the tall figure of light:

Hutch knew who he had seen. No one else did. But other people did know he had seen something, it could still be a lucky guess.

�He kissed you. Here.� She touched his forehead again. �Marked you as his.�

Starsky took a deep breath, starting to believe that she wasn't trying to put something over him. Because he hadn't told that part to anyone. Not even Hutch. In fact, he tried to forget it as much as possible, though there had been that strange dream when Hutch had pneumonia back in February.

"I thought you were a phony," he said cautiously.

She shrugged. �It doesn�t take much of the real Talent to keep the crowds happy, Detective Starsky. Which is good, �cause truthfully, I don�t got a whole lot of it. But I have a little. Enough to see where you�ve been, and who you�ve seen. Enough to know I needed to come to see you.�

Starsky motioned her to the chair. �Needed to see me, why?� he asked, trying to bring the conversation back to reality.

She sat down, still keeping her eyes on his forehead. �That�s so pretty� she sighed dreamily.

�What does it look like?� he asked, in uneasy fascination.

Mary Polanski laughed happily. �All bright 'n sparkly.�

"Nice. OK, Mary, what are you here for?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah." Mary visibly dragged her attention away form Starsky's head. "I'm sorry, lookin' at that is nicer than thinking about...� She swallowed and trailed off nervously, then started again. "I came to see you 'cause I remembered you from when you and that cutie-pie partner of yours came to see me a couple years back, remember? And of course from the news last year... I'm so glad you didn't die. I said prayers for you."

"And I'm sure they helped." Starsky gave her his best ingratiating smile. She really did seem upset. "But why are you here now?"

Mary took a deep breath. "Guess I gotta' tell you, I came all this way... OK here's the thing. Like I said, I'm mostly a fake. But I do have a little of the real Talent, that's why I started as a fortune-teller, figured I could use the little bit I do have to help myself along. I can see auras, like I did yours, and sometimes... Sometimes, I get visions." She trailed off again.

"Visions?" Starsky prompted. He wasn't sure what to make of this. But she had obviously seen something when she looked at him, and since meeting Joe Collandra he was a lot less skeptical about psychics than he had been.

"Yeah. In shiny surfaces sometimes. You know that's the whole idea behind a crystal ball, right? It just kind of focuses things. So, about a month ago, I started having this vision when I looked at shiny things. And I keep seeing it... more and more often now. Each time I see a little bit more, but I never see the whole thing. But... Oh, Detective Starsky." She looked at him earnestly, twisting her pudgy fingers. "It's bad, whatever it is, it's bad, 'n it's coming to Bay City."

"What's coming, Mary?"

"I don't know exactly. Something big, though."

Starsky sighed. "OK, let's take it from the top. What do you see in these visions?"

"Well, it's hard to explain." Mary looked up at Starsky's forehead again, as if for reassurance. "It starts with a city. Big, old, made of stone. Like in Egypt or Babylon or one of those old places, you know? Only bigger. It's too big for people, and all the angles are wrong somehow, too. It's all carved with shapes like fish, and octopuses, or something like that with tentacles. And it�s wet, like it�s been underwater, and dripping with green stuff. And it's bad. Evil and nasty. And all dead and quiet, but not really dead, I can feel it's just sleeping."

She shuddered. "And then this really strange chanting starts. It sounds sort of like this." She made a noise that sounded like she was clearing her throat and trying to cough up some phlegm. �C�thulchu�

�Anyway, after that, it switches to looking up into a night sky, only it doesn�t look right, somehow... but I don�t know enough about the sky to know what�s wrong, I just know that it isn�t right. And then we�re going up into it.�

�We?�

�Yeah, you�re there. And that cutie-pie partner of yours."

"Just us?"

She shook her head. "And a third guy that I don�t know.�

�Is he a young guy?� Could it be Hutch�s new partner?

Mary shook her head. �He�s older than you guys. A little guy, in his late 40s or 50s I think. Maybe older. Reddish hair. Kinda� freckled. Big nose, brown eyes... oh, and this is really weird. His clothes... he wears a suit made out of that cloth, what is it, with the really thin pale blue and white stripes? All rumpled. And a straw hat, the kind I think they usta� call a skimmer. With white sneakers that are even nastier than yours.�

�White and blue stripes? You mean seersucker? Who wears seersucker any more? I haven�t seen a seersucker suit since my uncle left the garment business.� He ignored the comment on his sneakers.

Mary shrugged. �What can I say? That�s what he wears.�

�OK, anyway, after the big city, then what?�

Mary swallowed nervously again. "Well, we go up into the stars, farther and farther, 'til the sun and earth and moon and the other planets are all behind us, all little 'n safe and warm, but we keep going out father and farther, and it's all... just nothingness. Bigger and bigger... black and cold, and just more and more nothing...� Mary's voice started to get a panicky edge. "Except then it isn't just nothing any more, it's... things. Ugly, horrible things, all flopping and oozing around. And colors, colors that don't have names. And this awful piping sound, like really bad, crazy music, thin and screeching, and pounding drums, all wild and crazy." She looked up at Starsky's forehead again, gulped, and took a deep breath as though what she saw there comforted her.

�Calm down, Mary� Starsky said as soothingly as he could, while a chill was running through his own belly. Little as he wanted to, he found himself believing in her obvious sincerity and terror. �Is that the end of the vision?�

She nodded. He reached out and took one of the plump hands in his, and squeezed it comfortingly. "It sounds pretty scary, but what does it have to do with Bay City?"

Mary shook her head. "I don't know. But I know it does. Something bad is coming, and you and Cutie-pie... I mean Detective Hutchinson, and the little guy in the funny suit, you're going to have to do something to stop it." She stared at him defiantly.

"OK, Mary, I'll see what I can come up with. You don't have any idea other than this what it's about?"

She shook her head. �But your partner�s there too, remember, so maybe it�s something he�s working on.�

Starsky shrugged. �I�ll ask him. And if you see the other guy, bring him around, OK? And we�ll see if we can figure it out." He patted her hand comfortingly. "Don't worry, Mary, I'm sure it's not as serious as you think it is."

�Well I don't know...� Mary smiled dubiously. �Whatever it is, it's pretty bad." Then she brightened. "But I know you can take care of it somehow. I just knew that I had to tell you about it, Detective Starsky. I�ve been so scared, and I didn�t know what to do, but then once I recognized you and your partner, I knew I was supposed to tell you.�

�So, are you OK now?� Starsky asked in some concern. She had seemed so upset.

Mary nodded. "Yeah. I feel a lot better about it all now." She smiled. "Now that I've talked to you. Just seeing you was a comfort."

Starsky smiled uneasily. "Uh, I�m glad I could help."

Mary gestured to his forehead again. "Yeah, it's really reassuring. You know the scenes in vampire movies where the hero holds up a cross and it starts to glow, and the vampire gets blown away?"

"Yeah...?"

"Well, the way you're glowing... we wouldn't need the cross." She smiled brightly. �Look, I�ve got to get going now. I�ll come back, though, if I see anything more.� She waved good-bye, and was gone, leaving Starsky thinking uncomfortable thoughts.

He had known since his death and return that the world didn't work the way he'd always thought it did. But he'd been able to mostly ignore the knowledge. This visit was giving him notice that maybe he wouldn't be able to ignore it any longer. And that was frightening. Mary might think that being marked as Michael's gave him special protections, but he was more inclined to think that it simply made him a bigger target. He remembered far too clearly what Michael had told him:

At last he had his life straightened out, finally he and Hutch had gotten it right, gotten out of the dangerous stuff, and had a chance to live happily ever after. He wanted that chance, wanted it desperately. But still:

Chubby, balding Tony Vincenzo, with his customary expression of long-suffering harassment, leaned out of the door to his glassed in office and into the newsroom.

�Kolchak! Get in here now!�

Kolchak looked up, instantly wary. Tony's tone of voice, not angry, but trying to be wheedling, boded ill for Kolchak's future. "In a moment, Tony." He glanced towards the door to the hall, planning his escape, but Tony was too fast for him.

"Now, Carl. This is important." Uh oh, thought Kolchak, It�s really bad news when he uses my first name.

Grumbling, Kolchak made his way into the office.

"Hi Tony, you called?"

"Carl, you'd like to go back to California, wouldn't you?"

"California? Would I!" Kolchak smiled in reminiscence. The only place he�d rather go would be back to New York. Then his sense of self-preservation cut in. "Whoa. Hold on, Tony. The only place in California that has an INS bureau office is Los Angeles, and if I go back there, they'll hang a murder charge on me." Not to mention the assorted other charges. Unfair, and unjust. Staking a vampire wasn�t murder, and the police had known it quite well. But the facts had all been neatly covered up to hide the truth that the public couldn�t face.

"Calm down, Carl," Tony said soothingly, which automatically made Kolchak start worrying more. "No one's expecting you to go to Los Angeles."

This could be bad. �Who�s expecting me to go where, Tony?�

�Well, you see, Carl, the bosses in New York have decided to open a new office in California, and until they can hire staff to run it, they want all the other bureaus to loan people to the new one for six months.�

"You want to send me out on a loan, Tony?" Kolchak was outraged. "Where are they starting this new bureau, any way, San Francisco? Shouldn't you send Updyke? It's more his homeland." When Ron Updyke had come out of the closet a few years before, the only surprise it had been to anyone was the improvement it made in his personality. The officious little twit was now almost endurable, except for those moments when he started giving Kolchak deep soulful looks.

�They asked for you particularly.� Tony smiled ingratiatingly. �It seems that Monique put in a good word for you with her Uncle Abe.� Monique Marmelstein was the niece of Abe Marmelstein, the head of the news service. Monique herself, after a bad beginning at the Chicago office, had turned out to be a pretty good reporter, and had been in Los Angeles for several years now. She and Kolchak had kept in touch, but obviously, Kolchak thought, not closely enough if she thought this was a good idea. Or maybe it was a long deferred revenge for the time he had locked her in the trunk of his car.

�Oh she did, huh? I�ll have to remember to thank her for that,� he snarled.

�And it isn�t in San Francisco anyway,� Tony continued. �It�s in Bay City.�

�Bay City?� Kolchak yelled indignantly. �Bay City! Why in hell would they put a bureau in Bay City, the armpit suburb of Los Angeles? Tony, I am NOT going to Bay City!�

�It seems that Bay City is having an upswing in major crime in the last few years, and the main office thinks it�s worth it to put a subsidiary bureau there. Don�t ask me, Carl, I only work here. As do you, and because you do, you ARE going to Bay City,� Tony concluded emphatically.

�Oh no, Tony. It�s out of the question. You aren�t sending me to Bay City.� Kolchak was equally emphatic.

�Now come on, Carl.� Tony put on his best pleading tone. �It�s only for six months. Then you�ll be back here. And they aren�t making it optional. Either you go, or they fire you. And maybe me too. And I�m too old to start over, Carl.�

�Oh no you don�t, Tony." Kolchak wagged an admonishing finger at his boss. "They aren�t going to fire you, don�t try guilting me on that.�

�They might, Carl. And who else would hire me at this point? Or you for that matter?�

Kolchak shrugged and made a non-committal noise.

�And, Carl, they said something about a bonus, to make the relocation worthwhile.�

�Oh, a bonus... why didn�t you say so, Tony? That�s different. Bay City, here I come!� Kolchak snapped sarcastically. "What are they offering, bubblegum? Baseball cards?�

�Carl...!� Tony said warningly.

�OK, Tony, I�m going, I�m going...� Kolchak stormed out of the office, muttering under his breath �Bay City! My God!"

The Monk, so called for his usual manner of dress, not for any evidence of a religious vocation, had chosen, as usual, to meet with Kolchak in one of Chicago's darker alleys, in the middle of the night.

"So what do you have for me?" Kolchak asked.

The enigmatic figure in the brown robes gestured him closer. �Huggy Bear,� he whispered. �The Bear knows everything that happens in Bay City.�

�Huggy Bear! What kind of a name is Huggy Bear?�

The Monk shrugged. �No one knows his real name. He runs a bar called The Pits. You can find him there. But Kolchak, be cautious. He will check on you before he helps you. And he has family here in Chicago. Some that you know.�

�Oh yeah? Who that I know?�

�His cousin, Sweetstick Weldon.�

Kolchak felt his heart sink. Bernard "Sweetstick" Weldon had hated Kolchak ever since Kolchak�s exposé article back in 1974 had called him �the duke of the numbers racket on the South Side, and an all around civic headache.� Their last encounter had left Kolchak nursing a bruised abdomen from being punched out by one of his goons. If this Huggy Bear was close to his cousin, it could be a serious problem.

�They aren�t tight, and he doesn�t approve of Weldon�s activities," The Monk went on, anticipating Kolchak's question, "But rumor has it that the Bear has a strong sense of family, so be careful in your dealings with him. He will check you out so don�t try to conceal the connection.�

Kolchak nodded. It seemed worth taking the risk anyway. �Anything else I should know?�

The Monk shook his head. "Nothing." He held out his hand for the second part of his promised payment. Kolchak handed it to him, and The Monk melted off into the night.

"I don't know, Kolchak," Maria said, settling comfortably into her seat in the Little Romney Tearoom and sipping the cup of tea she held in her exquisitely manicured hand. "I don't know anyone. Maybe my grandma does. But then I'll have to go up to the nursing home and see her. Take a lot of time."

Kolchak sighed. "How much do you want?" Maria was nothing if not predictable.

Maria smiled sweetly. "A hundred in advance should make it worth my while."

"A hundred bucks!� Kolchak squawked indignantly. �For a name I don't even know if you can get? That's highway robbery! What if your grandmother doesn't know anyone in Bay City?"

She shrugged. "You take your chances."

"I can take my chances on finding someone myself when I get there. Fifty in advance, another fifty if you come up with someone."

"Make that fifty in advance, fifty if I get someone, and twenty-five even if I don't, just for going, and you have a deal." Maria pouted. "You don't know what my grandmother's like."

Kolchak sighed. "You drive a hard bargain. When can you have it by?"

�Come by next Monday. For now, cross my palm with silver. The foldable kind.� She held out her hand.

Grumbling, Kolchak gave her fifty dollars.

The next Monday, she gave him the name �Mary Polanski�. �My grandma says she knew her grandmother back in the old days. She�s somewhere in Bay City, uses the name �Madam Yram'. I don�t know how good she is, but Grandma had only good things to say about her grandmother. Says she still keeps in touch with her off and on.�

�Then why doesn�t she give me the name of her grandmother instead?�

Maria sighed. �She�s been dead for years, Kolchak.�

�But you said your grandmother was still in touch with her!� Kolchak objected.

Maria just looked at him.

�OK, right, right. Sorry I asked.� He dug in his pocket. �Here. Fifty dollars. This better be worth it, Maria.�

�Or what, you�ll put a gypsy curse on me?� Maria laughed sarcastically.

Kolchak just sighed and left grumbling.

�Kathy? It�s Carl. How are you doing?�

�Carl? Gee, if you�re calling to ask me out I�d love to, but I already have a date tonight.�

�Darn.� That was real. The bubbly brunette was a lot of fun, a good dancer, and didn�t worry about being much younger then the men she dated. �Maybe another time. But for now, I wanted to ask you something.�

�Sure, anything.�

�Didn�t you mention to me once that you knew a couple of cops out in Bay City?�

�Sure. Starsky and Hutch. That�s Dave Starsky and Ken Hutchinson. Why?�

�The news service is sending me out there, I was hoping to know a few names... hey, wait a minute!� Something clicked in Kolchak�s memory. �I know those names! Last year... Kenneth Hutchinson. He�s the one who took down James Gunther! After his partner David Starsky was shot. Those guys! You know them?�

�Yeah, that�s them. Poor Starsky. I visited him in the hospital once after he was shot. What a mess. I�ve called them up each time I was out there since, but they haven�t been interested in going out. The last time I was there I kinda� got the idea that they weren�t on the market anymore.�

�You mean they�ve both got girlfriends?� The more he could learn about them in advance, the better.

�Well actually, Carl, I was kinda� wondering if they were involved with each other, you know what I mean? They were always so close. We'd even done threesomes, you know? But I didn�t want to come out and ask. That�d be a loss to the female population of Bay City if it was true.�

On the other hand, there was such a thing as too much information. �Maybe they should have sent Updyke after all,� Kolchak muttered under his breath. �Well, can you give me an address or phone number anyway?� he added more loudly to Kathy.

"No problem. They've been living together while Starsky's recovering. I have the phone number here somewhere..." There was a rustling as she shuffled through papers. "OK, here it is." She read it off to him. "Tell them I say 'hi', OK?"

***

It was the end of a long shift and Ken Hutchinson and his new partner Steve Barlow were just finishing up before leaving when the phone rang. Steve got it first.

�Barlow here... Oh hi, sweetie!� By the delight in his voice it was obvious the caller was his fiancée, Angelina. But then his face fell. �Oh, OK. That�s too bad, I was looking forward to seeing you.� There was a short pause. �No, I�ll be fine. I have stuff for dinner in the fridge, I won�t starve.� Another short pause. �OK, I�ll see you tomorrow then. Take care when you leave.� He hung up with a sigh.

�Something wrong?� Hutch asked with some concern. He liked both Steve and Angelina.

The brown-haired younger man shrugged. �Angelina and I were going out for dinner tonight, but she got pulled into doing an extra shift.� Angelina was a nurse at County General Hospital. �Oh well, I can dig up something.�

Hutch thought for a moment. As far as he knew Starsky and he had nothing special planned for the night. �You want to come over to our place for dinner?�

�I'd love to, but I don�t want to intrude....� Although the police department had finally assented to allowing gay cops, Steve was still one of the few people outside of their families who knew about Starsky and Hutch�s new relationship. They had told him when Hutch realized that if anything happened to him on the job, Steve would need to know in order to deal with Starsky�s reactions.

�We aren�t doing anything tonight. But it�s Starsky�s turn to fix dinner, and I should find out what he�s making first. With Starsky, it can be scary.� Memories of peanut butter burritos brought a wry smile to Hutch�s face. He reached for the phone.

�Jacobs residence, Dave Starsky speaking.� They were house-sitting for Professor Martin Jacobs, while the professor and his wife were in England at Oxford for eighteen months. Although it had been almost three quarters of a year, there were still occasional phone calls from people who didn�t know that the Jacobs weren�t there.

�Hey Starsk, it�s me.�

�Hey Blondie. You on your way home?�

How can just the sound of a voice fill me with such happiness? �Just finishing up. But Barlow got stood up by Angelina. She has to work an extra shift. OK if I ask him for dinner?�

�Well, it�s just meatloaf and a salad. But sure, if he doesn�t mind that it's nothin� fancy. Least there's plenty of it.�

Hutch gave inner thanks that it wasn't something more creative. Starsky�s meatloaf was actually pretty good. �I�m sure he won�t mind. We�ll be right there.� But then he stopped. There was something in Starsky's voice... "Is everything OK?"

"Yeah, yeah, no problem. There was just something that I wanted to talk to you about, but it's no big deal, it can wait til later."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, it�s nothing big, and I'd love to see Barlow.� The obvious sincerity of Starsky's voice reassured Hutch. �Gotta� check up that you�re bein� good without me," he added.

"OK, we'll be right over, then."

"You're sure Starsky's OK with this?" Steve asked as they headed for the parking lot. He had picked Hutch up that morning and they were using his car. "You sounded like he might not have been happy."

"No, he's fine. He had something he wants to talk about but he said it could wait."

Hutch felt himself growing tense as they left the building. The parking lot did that to him all the time now, left him with memories burned into his brain of Starsky lying huddled against the wheel of the Torino, bleeding out through Hutch's fingers as he'd tried desperately to staunch the wounds. He hunched into himself and hurried towards his car. It had been so close, so close... he�d almost lost Starsky before he�d really had him.

�Well, if you�re sure...� Steve looked at him in concern. Hutch had never told him how the parking lot affected him, but Hutch was sure the young officer was sensitive enough to have guessed.

�I�m sure.� They got in Steve�s car. As they pulled away, Hutch relaxed a little. But even though some of his tension receded, he still felt an oppressive sense of foreboding. It annoyed him... Starsky was alive, was fine... there was no reason for his constant sense of unease. Yet it was there, and contrary to all logic, it had been growing over the past few days. He made a concerted effort and put it out of his mind.

When they reached the little cottage, Steve excused himself immediately to use the bathroom. Hutch assumed he was being discreet and allowing him to greet Starsky alone.

Starsky was in the kitchen, taking something out of a cupboard with his back to the door when Hutch came in. �Hi, Babe,� he said over his shoulder as he reached for the top shelf.

The rush of love was almost too great to contain. He reached for Starsky, pulled them together, and held him tightly. Starsky arched against him as Hutch�s hands held his chest. Laying his head against Starsky�s back he nuzzled his neck. �Missed you today,� he murmured.

Starsky twisted around in his grasp, and brought their lips together in a kiss. �Missed you too,� he said as they moved apart. "Where's Barlow?" he added.

Regretfully Hutch pulled away. "He's in the bathroom. I think he wanted to give us some privacy."

There was a noise in the living room just then, and Steve's voice said "Hiya' Euripides." There were some happy dog noises as he stopped to play with the small Jack Russell terrier they were sitting for along with the house.

�I think that�s his way of letting us know he�s out of the bathroom,� Starsky said with a grin. �Hey, Barlow, come on in, we�re in the kitchen.�

Steve poked his head cautiously around the door. �Hi Starsky. How�s it shakin'?"

Starsky laughed. "Shakin' good, Barlow. How's the Blintz been behaving himself?"

"I've been keeping him under control. Taking care of him for you."

Starsky nodded approvingly. "Remember, I don't want him getting dinged."

"I got it covered," Steve said smiling.

Hutch looked between the two of them, but decided against saying anything. He knew it was important to Starsky to think that Steve was keeping an eye on him the way that Starsky would have himself if he could have, and he was thankful that the two got along so well. "You want a beer, Barlow?"

They moved out to the dining room. Starsky served the meatloaf, and everyone helped themselves to salad.

"So what's Dobey got you guys up to now?" Starsky asked, taking a swig of beer.

Hutch swallowed a bite of meatloaf. "Well, just today he put us on the drug case, you know, the new stuff they're calling 'Big-C'.�

�Yeah? What is it, anyway?� Starsky asked.

Hutch took a sip of beer. �Well the thing is, they can't get an exact chemical analysis, but whatever it is, it�s nasty. It seems to start with some hallucinogen close to bufotenine, and go on from there."

�Bufo... whatever you said, what�s that?� Starsky looked quizzical.

�It comes from the skins of toads, Starsk.�

Starsky made a face. �Ewwww... that�s really gross. You telling me that you can get stoned from toads?�

Hutch laughed. �There�s some people who actually lick them for the effect. Of course, it has to be the right sort of toad. Some of �em are poisonous instead of psychedelic, and the toad licker gets a higher high than they expected� permanently."

�When I was in college,� Steve broke in, �There were some kids who used to go out to the Sonora Desert and collect them. Free, all-natural, what more could you ask for?�

�And they licked them? Toads? Just to trip?� Starsky was incredulous.

�No,� Steve explained. �You can lick them, but the more common way is to milk the poison out, dry it, and smoke it. It doesn�t even hurt the toad if you�re careful.�

�Ew. What kind of high was it?�

�They said it was really intense, but didn�t last long. A lot of them said they tripped on desert scenes, like the toads� home.�

Starsky shuddered. �Think I�m glad I skipped the college experience. So anyway, this stuff is toad skins?�

Hutch shook his head. �No, it starts with something close to bufotenine, but it isn�t quite the same. But there�s more than that, it�s a real blend. There�s some sort of narcotic as well, and there even seems to be something like tetradotoxin in with it, but that really makes no sense, because tetradotoxin is a nerve poison. It�s found in things like puffer fish and poisonous octopuses. They think an overdose of the tetradotoxin is what causes the deaths that we have.�

�Toads? Frogs? Fish and octopuses? Someone seems to like slimy creepy-crawlies.�

�Well, that goes along with the other name we�ve heard for this stuff,� Steve put in. �Sea Dreams. The story is that it causes you to hallucinate about ocean scenes, not desert ones like the toads. Of course, we only have rumors. So far the only people we know for sure have taken it are dead. Everything else is just from a friend of a friend, or someone said, or the word on the street. No one wants to admit to knowing about it personally.�

�Ocean scenes, huh?� There was a sudden uneasiness in Starsky�s voice that made Hutch glance at him in surprise. �What sort of ocean scenes?�

Steve shook his head. �I don�t know, I don�t think we heard anything particular. Fish, coral, seaweed� Hutch, you hear anything more than that?�

Hutch shrugged. �Um, I think someone might have mentioned a drowned city, something about fish swimming around the stones. Why do you want to know, Buddy?"

"No reason in particular." Starsky smiled disarmingly, but Hutch could tell that he wasn't telling the truth. Starsky had a reason for asking that he didn't want to divulge. All right, Partner. We'll drop it while Barlow's here, but afterwards, you're coming clean.

"So you don't know where this stuff is coming from at all?" Starsky went on. "Or who's behind it?"

"Not a clue. Which is disturbing in itself. The whole street is silent on a source. Even Huggy hasn't picked up anything."

�Huh. Nothing from any of the other suppliers? Jealousy or anything? This stuff has gotta� be bringing in millions for whoever�s behind it. It�s gotta� be cutting into profits for the others, too.�

"Not a single thing," Steve agreed. "Not about anything. It's weird. We know the stuff is out there, we have dead bodies to prove it, but for all anyone admits to knowing, it could be nothing but imagination. It's just... weird."

Starsky shook his head. "Really," he agreed. "So what are you doing?"

Hutch shrugged. "What can we do? The usual stuff. Talking to people, listening... you have any ideas, Buddy?"

"I'll let you know if I think of anything." Starsky started clearing the table. "You guys want dessert? I got ice cream."

After dinner they had coffee, and sat in the living room for awhile, but eventually when Hutch said he had to walk the dog, Steve said it was time for him to go.

"Pick you up tomorrow?" he asked as Hutch leashed Euripides. Steve liked using his own car because he shared Starsky's opinion of Hutch's taste in vehicles.

"Yeah, sounds good. Hang on, I'll walk you to the car. I'll be right back for the dishes," he added over his shoulder to Starsky. Because Starsky had cooked, it was Hutch's turn to clean up.

It was cool outside. Steve had parked down the block, because Starsky's Torino, lovingly restored to its glory, was in the driveway, and Hutch's latest clunker was in front of the cottage.

Across the street a late passer-by loitered. Hutch gave him a hard look, and he shambled off. Steve noticed, and laughed. "What, you think someone is casing the joint?"

"Could be. You never know, that's why the Jacobs wanted us here after all."

"Be a pretty nasty surprise for a burglar to find two cops in residence,� Steve grinned.

�Yeah, I guess so at that.� Hutch slapped him on the back. �OK, Barlow, I�ll see you tomorrow.� He and Euripides set off on their walk.

When he got back to the cottage, Starsky was relaxing in the living room, but he got up and followed Hutch into the kitchen.

"So what was it you wanted to talk about without Barlow?" Hutch asked as he scraped the plates.

"Something weird happened today," Starsky began. "Do you remember Mary Polanski? Madam Yram?"

Hutch made non-committal noises while he searched his memories.

"The hostage case?" Starsky prompted.

"Oh yeah, the fortune teller." Hutch remembered how the chubby little palm reader had obviously been taken with Starsky.

�She came to see me today.�

Hutch made a face. �What about?�

�Well, that�s the thing. You remember how when we met Joe Collandra, you were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I thought he was just a phony?�

�Yeah�� Hutch said noncommittally, wondering where Starsky was going with this.

�Well, Mary says she has visions too. Real ones. And� I�m pretty sure she�s telling the truth.�

�OK, it�s possible. So what does it have to do with us?� Hutch started filling the dishpan.

"I think a lot," Starsky said seriously. "She says she saw us in her vision, that's why she came to see me. I think it has something to do with your drug case."

Hutch put the plate away he was drying and turned to Starsky, wiping his hands on a dish towel. �Why do you say that?�

�Because of what she says she saw. Us, and a third guy she didn�t know. Not Barlow, an older guy. And a stone city that had been under the ocean. Just like you said some people had seen on this drug. She said something evil was coming to Bay City, and we had to stop it. Us, and this other guy. And she saw something about the stars, but I didn�t get that part.�

�She could be scamming you, Buddy, you think of that?�

Starsky shook his head. �You didn�t see her, Hutch. She was terrified. For real. Whatever she saw, she believes in it.�

Hutch shrugged. He trusted Starsky�s assessment of people. �OK, so she believes it. She could still be crazy. Hallucinating.�

Starsky shook his head emphatically. �She convinced me, Hutch. The guy who didn�t believe Joe Collandra without proof. She � knew things. About the time I was dead after the shooting. Stuff I only told you.� He paused while that sank in. �Knew stuff I didn�t tell anyone, including you. She knew, just by looking at me.�

That gave Hutch pause. He wasn�t sure what he thought about Starsky�s near-death experience, except that Starsky believed it. But even if it was only a comforting hallucination Starsky's oxygen deprived brain had conjured up as his heart stopped, the fact that Mary Polanski knew about it, and knew what he�d seen, argued that at least she had some variety of the power that Hutch knew Joe Collandra had.

�OK, so even if she saw something, so what? What does it get us?�

Starsky shrugged. �I don�t know. But if it�s really as important as she says, and this drug is as bad as it sounds, maybe we ought to look into it?�

Hutch shook his head. �Look into what, Starsk? So far all you�re saying is that she knew something bad was coming. Sounds like the drug itself. Now, if you can get a line on the other person she was talking about��

�I told her to bring him around if she figured out who he was.�

�Then I don�t see what else we can do.�

�But I don�t think that the drug was the big evil thing she was talking about, Hutch. I think there�s something else that she�s seeing,� Starsky said uneasily.

Hutch looked at him in surprise. �What do you think she�s seeing then, Starsk?" he asked in exasperation. "Some kind of big green monster? Come on. We went through this with René Nadasy. There�s no such thing as vampires, or ghoulies, or monsters. The human mind has some amazing potential, and that�s why there�s people like Joe Collandra, and maybe Mary Polanski too. But that�s it.� Hutch went back to doing the dishes, trying to ignore the fact that Starsky had that stubborn, pissed off look on his face. There was no way he was going to let this turn into a hunt for something supernatural.

�All that the Nadasy case proved was that Nadasy wasn't a vampire, Hutch. It didn't prove that there aren't vampires at all,� Starsky pointed out. �And even if he wasn't a vampire, there was something pretty weird about Nadasy. Remember the way he jumped? Like he could fly? And how about the way he recovered from the injuries he'd had? He was supposed to be barely able to walk, not run and jump like that."

"So he fooled the doctors. People do it all the time. For insurance, for..."

"For what reason, Hutch? It ruined his career. If he could have come back and danced again..." Starsky trailed off. "Aw, this is pointless, Hutch. It's not Nadasy who's the problem now."

"Then why bring him up?" Hutch was determined not to give an inch.

"To try and get it through your blond head that there's more things in heaven and earth than you know about."

Starsky was obviously getting annoyed at him now, but Hutch couldn't resist teasing a little. "Been reading the Collected Shakespeare again, huh Starsk?" He smiled sweetly.

"Yeah, well, he was right, Hutch. There�s somethin' going on here that�s more than you think. I been feelin' it coming for awhile. Feelin' like something's creeping up on me."

That hit home, and Hutch suppressed a shiver. It was so close to what he had just been thinking when he left work... no, it must be a coincidence. Time to lighten the mood.

"Only thing creeping up on you, Babe, is me." He made a sudden grab and caught Starsky around the waist.

"Hey! What are you...?" Starsky's protest was muffled by the kiss Hutch planted on him, and in the ensuing scuffle, the subject was dropped.

Later that night, though, in the big queen sized bed, while Starsky slept soundly, Hutch lay awake, his head cushioned on Starsky's chest, listening to the slow, steady beat of his heart.

He reviewed the events of the day. The drug case was a bitch. There seemed to be nowhere to go with it, just poke away and hope for a lucky break. He actually wished that Mary Polanski�s vision had shown him some sort of direction to go in, but it didn�t sound as though it did. Odd that Starsky felt so strongly about it, though. Well, maybe it was worth going and having a word with her. Or having Starsky talk to her again.

It was strange that both he and Starsky had felt that same feeling of something bad coming. Or maybe not. It was April. Soon the first anniversary of Starsky�s shooting would be coming up. Not so strange, after all, that they should both feel that. Perfectly natural, really. Just reacting to the date, that's all, Hutch told himself firmly, and forced his mind to other things.

Just before he drifted off to sleep, he thought about the passer-by that had seemed to be watching the house when he saw Steve out. Was someone casing their home? It was possible. He would have to keep an eye out, maybe even glance through the mug books. Hutch felt sure that he would recognize the man again, because he had seemed so odd. There had been something wrong about his face, the curiously bulging eyes and wide mouth, and something even odder about that shambling walk when he finally moved on.

***

Chapter Four - Syzygy

The bar named �The Pits� had been easy enough to find. A scruffy looking place, it was clean enough, but dingy, with a juke box for music, and a pool table for entertainment. Now, in the afternoon, it wasn't very lively, but it had the feeling and look of a place that might be much busier after dark.

Kolchak spotted Huggy Bear tending bar, recognizing him by his uncanny resemblance to his cousin Sweetstick Weldon. He ordered a beer and nursed it slowly while he considered his next move. By the time he finished, he�d decided that The Monk was probably right and full disclosure was the best way to handle this meeting.

He held up his empty glass and motioned the bartender over. When the bartender took it to refill, Kolchak asked him, "Are you Huggy Bear?"

"Who wants to know?"

Kolchak pulled out his press ID from Chicago, since he didn't have one from the Bay City police yet. �My name is Carl Kolchak. I'm a reporter for the INS, the Independent News Service. The bureau just relocated me to Bay City, and my sources in Chicago told me that you�re the right person to come to for information about anything that�s going on around here.�

The thin black man took his ID and studied it carefully. �There is little that the Bear doesn�t hear,� he admitted. �But the information only comes free to friends.�

�I�m proposing a completely business relationship, I assure you, Mr. Bear. I�m just looking for a steady source of reliable information.�

Huggy handed him back the press card. "Come back in a day or so, Mr. Kolchak, and we can discuss matters more thoroughly. I need to know more about my potential business associates."

"If that means you're going to be investigating me, I'll come clean about something right now," Kolchak said. "We have an acquaintance in common." He detailed his connection to Sweetstick Weldon.

Huggy Bear nodded gravely. �Being on the outs with Cousin Sweetstick is not automatically detrimental to being on my good side, Mr. Kolchak. Come back the day after tomorrow, we�ll talk more then.� He filled Kolchak�s glass for him, and went to talk to a customer down at the end of the bar. Clearly the interview was at an end.

Kolchak slowly drank the second beer. He was just about to leave when the rear door to the bar swung open and two new people came in. One was a skinny younger man, probably in his 20s, with sandy brown hair, while the other, older, was a bright platinum blond with a mustache. It was the older man who caught Kolchak�s attention. He felt he�d seen the face somewhere before.

�Hutch, my man! Good to see you,� Huggy Bear called out.

Hutch? Something clicked in Kolchak�s memory. Kenneth Hutchinson, the man who brought down James Gunther. That�s where he�d seen the face before, in the news reports. One of his possible contacts, thanks to Kathy. But the younger man wasn�t the injured partner, Starsky.

Kolchak made a rapid decision. This might be worth hearing. He wanted to know something about Hutchinson before he contacted him. He settled down to listen as unobtrusively as he could.

�Gonna� hit the bathroom,� the younger man said, and headed off as Hutchinson took a seat at a table. �Just order me a special, OK?�

�Two specials, Huggy,� Hutchinson said as the proprietor approached the table.

�You got it, Bro.� He took the orders to the kitchen, then came back and sat at the table with Hutchinson.

"Seems funny to see you in here without Curly," Huggy Bear said. "Unfinished. Like a needle without the thread. Or peanut butter without the jelly."

"We'll have to have you over for dinner some night," Hutchinson said, which made Kolchak prick up his ears. Apparently the two officers had more than a professional relationship with Huggy Bear. �If Starsky�s doing the cooking, you may see peanut butter and jelly,� he added with a small laugh.

"How are you doing without him?" Huggy asked.

Hutchinson sighed. "I miss him, Hug. Every day out there it's like I lost my right arm. But it's worth it to know I can go home to him at night, and have him alive, and not..." the blond detective trailed off.

"But Slim, there, he�s working out alright?" Huggy gestured towards the men's room, concern in his voice.

"Barlow? Oh, just fine. As fine as anyone who isn�t Starsky could be.�

The younger man, obviously Barlow, came back just then, and the subject was dropped.

�So to what do I owe the privilege of your visit, gentlemen?� Huggy asked as the waitress brought their lunches.

�Same as yesterday, Hug. The drug case. Big-C. Or Sea Dreams, whatever they�re calling it. Anything new that you�ve heard.�

Huggy Bear shrugged. �What I have heard would fit in a teaspoon and leave room for the tea. I don�t even know what the junk is.�

�Well, we can fill you in on that a little bit now,� Barlow put in. �It�s apparently a mixture of several drugs, one related to bufotenine, the substance some toads secrete in their skins, and one related to tetradotoxin, the venom of some sea animals, plus some sort of narcotic. Ring any bells?� He didn't sound very hopeful.

Huggy Bear took a breath as though he was starting to say something, stopped, and looked thoughtful. "Maybe it does," he said slowly.

The two police officers stared at him. "You serious?" Barlow asked.

Huggy Bear looked insulted. "Does the Bear lie? I'm not saying I'm sure, but the combination of toads and sea poison is reminding me of something. But I have to check."

"Anything you can tell us, Hug, any kind of lead," Hutchinson said earnestly.

"You have to ask? I want this stuff gone as much as you do."

"OK, Huggy," Hutchinson said, getting to his feet. "We'll be back tomorrow then to find out what you've learned."

Outside of The Pits, Steve Barlow waited for his partner to get into his car. But Hutch stood for a moment, thinking.

"Barlow, did you notice the guy who was sitting at the bar?"

Steve searched his memory. "Little guy? In the rumpled white suit, and hat?"

"Yeah, him. Did it seem like he was listening to us?"

He considered the question. "Maybe. Could have been. You think he was?" If Hutch thought the stranger was eavesdropping on them, he was probably right. Steve knew very well how lucky he was to have been partnered with the famous Kenneth Hutchinson. When you were with the best, you paid attention.

"Yeah, I think so. Let's go."

They went back inside. The little man in the white suit had already left.

�Forget somethin�?� Huggy asked, spotting them.

�The guy who was in here before, you know anything about him? I think he was listening into our conversation.�

Huggy swore softly. �Yeah, he coulda� been. He�s a reporter, new in town, from Chicago, looking to make some contacts for information. Name of Carl Kolchak. I�m sorry, Hutch, I didn�t think.�

�Aw hell.� Hutch looked pained.

�Well, what did he actually hear, anyway?" Steve pointed out. �It�s no secret that this stuff is out there, or that we�re looking into it.�

Hutch sighed. �Starsky and I haven�t had such great luck with reporters in the past.�

Steve looked away. There it was, and no point to complaining or pointing out that it wasn�t Starsky and Hutch any more, it was Barlow and Hutch. To Hutch he would always be second-best, no matter how good he was, and there was nothing he could do about it.

It wasn't that he wanted to come between Hutch and his original partner. He didn't. And he knew, even if he did want to, there was no way he ever could. He certainly didn't envy Starsky's place in Hutch's bed, that was something in which he hadn't the slightest interest. But Steve had a strong streak of hero-worshipper, and it had been the biggest thrill of his career when he learned he was being paired with half of the famous Starsky and Hutch duo. It would have been nice to feel, just once, as though he wasn't the unworthy replacement.

Not that Hutch had ever been hostile, or unpleasant to him. In fact, he'd gone out of his way to try and make him comfortable, knowing that it wasn't his fault he couldn't be with Starsky, and not wanting to make him feel bad. The fact that he had trusted him enough to tell him the truth about his relationship with Starsky proved that there were no hard feelings. But he simply wasn't Starsky, and that was all there was to it.

Oddly enough it was Starsky who had made Steve feel more accepted. Realizing that Hutch was having trouble adjusting to someone new, he had taken the time to tutor Steve in what Hutch was expecting. It had worked out well, and the two men had forged a partnership of their own, dedicated to keeping Hutch safe. Steve knew he owed Starsky a lot for his help.

But it still left him the very junior member, and with all his hero-worshiping heart, he yearned for some way to prove himself to Hutch, prove himself worthy of being his partner. He had hoped that this drug case might be the way to do it. It was the first really big case they�d been assigned since they had been teamed together.

But all of that was neither here nor there. The immediate worry was the reporter.

"Do you think he'll be a problem?" he asked Hutch anxiously.

Hutch sighed. "Probably not. Huggy, do you know where to get in contact with him?"

Huggy shook his head. "No, but he's coming back in a day or so, when I've had time to look into him a little."

"We can check him out with the Chicago PD, too," Steve pointed out.

"Yeah. Minnie should be able to pull up something. Huggy, you find out what you can, too, and let us know."

And with that they had to be content.

***

Chapter Six - The Queen of Cups

The room where Madam Yram met her clients was dark, and cluttered with mystical objects and decorations. There were the typical accouterments of the fortune-teller's trade laid out on a small table in the middle of the room, a deck of tarot cards, a crystal ball, and some other objects, but there was no sign of the occupant.

A voice came from another room. �I�ll be there in a minute, just hold on.�

A short, pump woman with curly hair tied in a headband, and a gaudy dress draped with a shawl swept into the room. �I am Madam Yram� she announced in a dramatic manner.

�My name is Carl Kolchak...� Kolchak began, but before he�d gotten any further he stopped. A look of shock had come over the round face of the seeress, and she went pale.

You... you're the man!" Madam Yram gasped out. She sank into the large chair behind the table.

"Excuse me?" Kolchak asked quizzically.

"I saw you... in a vision," the obviously shaken woman managed.

�What, who, me?� Kolchak asked. �Naw, couldn�t be...�

�Yeah, it was. Who are you, anyway?�

�Me? I'm nobody. I...� Kolchak gathered himself together and started over. �My name is Carl Kolchak and I�m a reporter with the INS. I�ve just been assigned here from Chicago, and I got your name from Maria Hargrove, who said you were someone I could trust in Bay City as a source of information on the paranormal.�

Now it was Madam Yram�s turn to look puzzled. �I don�t know a Maria Hargrove.�

�She said her grandmother knew your grandmother.�

�Well, Grandma knew some strange people, that�s for sure. I guess I�m about as good a source for information as you can get around here. But you... I saw you...� She twisted her plump fingers in distress.

"Yeah?" Kolchak asked dubiously, wondering if this were some sort of scam. He didn't think so, though. The way the woman had gone pale and sweaty was something that couldn't be faked. "What was I doing?"

"That's just it, I don't know..."

�OK, start from the beginning."

"No! There's no time!" Madam Yram seemed to have reached a decision. "I have to take you to see Detective Starsky. Right now. That's what he said, if I found who you were, I had to bring you around. Do you have a car?"

"Yes, but... What? Detective Starsky? David Starsky?" This was getting strange. Kolchak didn't like coincidences. Frequently they weren�t coincidental.

"Yeah. Come on. I don't have a car, so you drive. I'll explain on the way." She pulled on his arm, tugging him towards the door.

Kolchak found himself swept up by her, and somehow leading her outside to his car.

Chapter Seven - Synergy

Starsky was in his office finishing up some paperwork when the intercom buzzed.

"Mary Polanski to see you again, Detective Starsky."

�OK, send her in.� Interesting. He hadn�t expected her back this quickly.

The pudgy little psychic rushed into his office, half leading, half pulling another person along with her.

�Detective Starsky, I found him!� she squeaked breathlessly, pushing the other person ruthlessly forward. �The third man in my vision, I found him!�

Starsky looked dubiously at the man standing in front of his desk. He seemed to fit Mary�s description, at least. Short, stocky, and disheveled, he had the brown eyes, reddish hair, and freckled, mottled complexion Mary had described. And he was wearing a rumpled seersucker suit and an aged straw skimmer. He was also wearing dirty sneakers, and had a cheap camera around his neck.

"Hi, I'm Dave Starsky" He stuck out his hand to the smaller man.

"Carl Kolchak" His handshake, at least, was firm enough. "I'm a reporter with the INS, I've just been reassigned here to Bay City from Chicago. I know who you are, your partner was the one who brought down James Gunther."

"Yeah. But... why are you here?"

Kolchak shrugged extravagantly. "I don't know!� His voice turned into something that could best be described as a squawk, Starsky noted. �She, she dragged me here! Something about seeing me with you and your partner in visions. I was given her name as a potential information source here in Bay City, that's all."

�You don�t know anything that could have something to do with whatever it is she�s seeing?�

�How do I know?� Kolchak replied indignantly. �I don�t know what it�s about. How do I know if I know anything?�

Starsky came out from behind his desk and circled slowly around Kolchak, studying him. Kolchak glared back. He didn't look very promising, just annoyed. Still, if Mary's prediction was worth anything at all, he was important. Starsky reached a decision.

"It's getting late, and it's time for me to go home. You guys come to dinner, we'll talk this whole thing over with Hutch." He stopped and thought for a moment. "Mary, have you ever tried deliberately looking for this vision? Maybe see more of it, what it's about?�

Mary shrugged. "Yeah, sorta'. It didn't work too well 'cause I was alone, and too afraid. But if I had all three of you together, and I could concentrate, then maybe..."

"What would you need?"

"Well, any shiny thing like a mirror would do but the best would be my crystal."

"OK, can you get it and bring it with you?"

"Well, sure, but someone has to drive me. He brought me here." She gestured at the slowly simmering Kolchak.

"Can you bring her back to her place and then over to us?"

"Oh, nice of someone to ask me something." Kolchak snapped. "Yes, I can do that if you tell me where we're going."

"OK, good. Hang on a minute, though, I'd better clear this with Hutch." He picked up his phone. "Margie, can you patch me through to Zebra-3?" It gave him a pang to use his own old call-sign, knowing he wasn't part of the team any more.

A moment later he had Hutch on the line.

"Hutch, what were you planning for dinner? 'Cause we have guests coming."

"Guests? Who? How many?"

"Uh, it's a long story. I'll explain when you get home. But there's two. Oh, and can you bring Barlow, too?" After all, the kid might be useful, Starsky thought.

"Uh, OK. Hang on." There was a whispered conversation. Then Hutch was back. "He said he'll stop in to say hello, but he and Angelina have plans for dinner. Starsky, what�s all this about?"

�It�s about what we talked about last night.�

�What, Mary Polanski and her vision?�

�Yeah. She found the third man.�

�How convenient. Starsk, doesn�t that make you suspicious at all?�

�Hutch, just have dinner for two extra people tonight, OK?� Starsky snapped in irritation. �I�ll see you when you get home.�

He banged down the phone. �Come on,� he said to Mary and Kolchak, �I�ll walk you to your car.�

They walked out to the parking lot.

Starsky wasn't scared of dying anymore. Been there, done that, he knew it was nothing to worry about. He did worry, though, about things on this side, disability and pain for instance. He'd had more than enough pain to last him the rest of his life no mater how long that was. And he didn�t ever want to be in a situation that would leave him nothing but a burden on his loved ones.

But most of all he worried about what his death would mean to Hutch, what would happen to him if he were left behind. He wished he could convince Hutch of what he knew with such certainty, that they would be together eventually, even if they were parted in the world for awhile.

Still, even with those worries, the parking lot didn�t bother him the way he knew it did Hutch. He led the way towards where the Torino was parked.

�Where did you park?� he asked Kolchak as they walked.

�Over there.� Kolchak waved towards the street.

�You should see his car!� Mary chirped. �It�s gorgeous, Detective Starsky.�

�It�s OK,� Kolchak said noncommittally, but with a pleased expression.

�Oh yeah? What is it?� Starsky asked, intrigued. The rumpled little man looked more as though he�d be at home in one of Hutch�s junkers than anything fancy.

�Oh, just a '66 Mustang convertible, nothing special.� Kolchak waved depreciatingly.

Starsky�s eyes widened. Something less likely than this scruffy little dirtball driving a '66 Mustang was hard to imagine.

�Good condition?� he asked.

�Not bad, considering I just had to drive it here from Chicago. Needs a tune up, probably, by now.�

�I have a mechanic I can recommend,� Starsky said. �Best in Bay City.� And, almost a member of the family, now, but Kolchak didn�t need to know that. �Mention my name and he�ll give you a discount.�

"No kidding? Well, thanks." Kolchak smiled dubiously. By now they had reached the Torino. "This your car?" he asked. Starsky nodded. "Nice."

Now it was Starsky's turn for modesty. "Yeah. Merle did a good job patching her up after the shooting, too."

Kolchak walked around the car. "I like the paint job. But doesn't it make sneaking up on the bad guys hard?"

Starsky grinned in memory. Maybe the little reporter wasn�t such a bad guy. "When we really needed to be undercover we used Hutch's old wreak."

"Uh, guys?" Mary Polanski broke in, "I hate to break up the mutual admiration society, but we have things to do."

"Huh? Oh, yeah." Starsky pulled himself together. "Right." He scribbled on a scrap of paper and handed it over. "OK, here�s the address where we're staying and I'll see you there as soon as you have Mary's crystal."

Kolchak took it, and he and Mary walked off across the lot.

***

Chapter Eight - The Gathering of the Hunt

�Mr. Kolchak, there�s one thing. I hope it won�t bother you too much.�

�Call me Carl. What�s that?�

�Well, they�re, you know, together.�

�You mean...?�

�Yeah. I saw it in Starsky when I read his aura. That�s not going to bother you, is it? �Cause it�s really important that you guys can work comfortably.�

"No, no, it doesn't bother me." He didn't mention that he'd already guessed it anyway. It didn't matter. After a few years of working with Ron Updyke�s melting glances, being with two gay men who were interested in each other rather than him would be a relief.

"I knew as soon as I saw Detective Starsky again that he was important. It's the glow, ya' know.� She paused thoughtfully. �You can't see it, though, can you, Mr. Kolchak?"

"Glow? Uh, no. What glow would that be?"

"Well, it's from where he was kissed by the angel Michael when he was dead."

"That's.... fascinating. And he told you that himself?"

"Oh no. I knew it when I saw him. That's what I do, I see auras. But he agreed with me when I told him I knew."

"So Detective Starsky confirmed that he was associating with angels? That's very interesting... very interesting." Kolchak trailed off, thinking about how that would work into a story.

"Oh! Don't tell him I told you! This has to be off the record."

"Off the record? Where'd you learn to talk like that?" Kolchak asked, with an ingratiating grin. Darn it. That might have been good.

"Oh, I know all about how you reporters work. I watch Lou Grant every very week," she said.

�Oh, you can�t believe everything you see on that.� Kolchak had watched the popular series himself, but wasn�t quite so impressed. No one on the show had ever so much as run into a vampire, much less a swamp monster or rakshasa.

�Well maybe not, Mr. Kolchak, but I know that if I say it�s off the record you can�t use it in a story.�

Kolchak sighed. "You drive a hard bargain."

Madam Yram giggled.

When they got to their destination Detective Starsky was waiting outside for them.

"Nice car!" he said in admiration, running his hands over the Mustang's bright yellow finish.

"It gets me where I want to go," Kolchak said modestly.

Madam Yram had been getting herself and her belongings out of the car. Now she wiped her hands on her skirt and looked around nervously. "Hey guys, I hate to break this up, but maybe we should get moving inside, you know what I mean?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Come on, folks." Detective Starsky politely took an armful of Madam Yram's equipment and led the way into the little cottage.

Just before he entered, Kolchak took a last look around. Must be about two blocks from the ocean. Looked like a nice neighborhood. Pretty little cottages... but who was that guy lurking across the street? Ugly looking, with a receding forehead and practically no ears, huge feet, and a pasty, gray colored skin. No one who looked like he belonged in this quiet, tasteful cul-de-sac. Under Kolchak�s gaze, the lurker shambled away. Kolchak shuddered in distaste, shrugged, and followed the other two into the house.

Inside, a small dog bounced up to them, barking. Detective Starsky laid Madam Yram�s things down on the couch. �Euripides! Behave!� he said sharply to the dog, who stopped, and looked at them apologetically.

�Awww! He�s so cute!� Madam Yram knelt down and petted the little dog, who wriggled enthusiastically.

�He doesn�t bite, does he?� Kolchak asked dubiously.

�Never has yet,� Detective Starsky assured him. Kolchak gingerly patted the dog on the head. The dog yawned and wandered over to the hearthrug to lay down.

�Well, you wanna� get started?� Madam Yram asked. Her voice had a note of forced cheerfulness, as if she didn�t really want to. �Can I use the coffee table?�

�Sure, good idea.� He started clearing some knick-knacks off. �Set everything up, but we�ll wait for Hutch.�

"Yeah, OK." She spread a dark cloth over the table and set up a crystal ball on a small stand.

�You guys want anything to drink? We have beer, I think there�s some wine...�

"I'd love a glass of wine, but I need to keep a clear head if I'm really going to try this," Madam Yram sighed. "Maybe afterwards, though."

Now that he knew what to look for, Kolchak noticed how she kept stealing glimpses at Starsky, presumably to reassure herself by looking at his aura. "I'll have a beer, thanks." He always figured he might as well take anything he could get for free. It was an attitude he'd come to over the many lean years in his checkered career.

Starsky brought a bottle from the kitchen for him. "Hutch should be back soon," he remarked.

Kolchak felt a brief flash of nervousness. What if Hutchinson recognized him from the bar that afternoon?

Chapter Nine - The Dominion of Eris

Hutch was glad he had decided on spaghetti for dinner, because it stretched easily to feed whoever it was that Starsky had invited. Steve stopped while he quickly ran into a grocery to get what he needed, and then they headed for the cottage.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Hutch asked.

"What, come in for awhile? Sure, I have some extra time. And Starsky wanted me to, right?"

"Yeah, asked me specifically to ask you."

"So, what's the problem? What's up?"

Hutch sighed. "I wish I knew." Starsky had a bee in his bonnet this time. Hutch didn't know what was in his mind. Still, Starsky was just as good a detective as he'd ever been, so Hutch knew he should give him the benefit of the doubt. "It might have something to do with the drug case," he added cautiously.

They pulled up at the curb. The Torino was, as always, in the place of honor in the driveway, and Hutch's current junker was, as always, pulled up in front of the house. But there was another car pulled in to the driveway behind the Torino that Hutch wasn't familiar with, a bright yellow convertible.

�Hey, nice car,� Steve said appreciatively. �Wonder where that came from?�

�One of Starsky�s guests I suppose. Come on, let�s go in.�

Inside, Starsky met them at the door. �Hi Barlow, glad ya� could make it, even for a few minutes. Come in and have a beer.�

It was when they got to the living room that Hutch saw who was sitting on the couch. The shabby seersucker suit, the straw skimmer...

�You... What the hell are you doing here?� he snapped.

"Hutch?" Starsky asked. "Why are you yelling at our guest?"

"He was spying on us at Huggy's today..." Hutch growled.

"I was NOT spying on you!" the stranger broke in. "I was simply there to..."

But Hutch was on a roll, and not listening. "Starsky, don't you see, this has to be some kind of set up? He was there listening to us, now he's here..."

"Detective Hutchinson?" The tentative tone made Hutch finally notice the other person in the room. The sight of Madam Yram on the loveseat did not mollify him.

�You! What are you trying to pull on us anyway?�

�I�m not pulling anything; I just had these visions��

�Stop picking on her, Hutch! I told you, she has to be legit, she saw things I didn�t even tell YOU, Hutch. Not even you.�

�Yeah? Well, did you know this, this, reporter�� Hutch pointed dramatically in the direction of the rumpled little man, �Has been asked to leave not one, not two, but THREE major US cities by their local law enforcement? He left LA just ahead of a rap for murder one!�

�It was NOT murder!� the reporter bellowed. �If they�d had a murder rap, they would have prosecuted. But they knew they couldn�t bring me up on what they had because it would PROVE that there was a vampire running around LA!�

�You hear that, Starsk? A vampire!�

�And I told YOU, Hutch, the Nadasy case didn�t prove nuthin� about the existence of vampires.�

�Detective Hutchinson? I really don�t think the vision I had was anything to do with vampires.�

�There! You hear that? This isn�t even about vampires anyway!� the reporter added triumphantly.

�I don�t give a damn if it�s about vampires or NOT, I want him OUT of this house!�

Starsky�s face darkened dangerously, and Hutch had a brief premonition that he was playing with fire. But he was too angry to care.

�I mean it, Starsk, RIGHT NOW!�

�You got no right to tell me who I can and can�t have here.� Starsky snarled.

�You know what?" Hutch stormed, �You�re right. But you can�t make me stay here with them either. Come on, Barlow, let�s get out of here.�

�No! Detective Hutchinson, we need you!� Mary wailed, jumping to her feet.

�Yeah? I just bet you do.� Hutch whirled towards her and paused in his march to the door.

�The least you could do is listen,� Starsky snapped.

The situation was rapidly descending to chaos, with everybody shouting at the same time.

Suddenly a different voice cut above the commotion. �All right, enough! Everybody quiet down!� It was Steve.

There was silence. Even Hutch stopped in mid-word, out of sheer shock. He�d never seen his normally reticent younger partner like this.

�OK, good. That�s better,� Steve said in a more normal tone. "Now, Mister... Kolchak was it?" The scruffy little man nodded sharply and grunted. "OK, Mr. Kolchak, what were you doing at The Pits this afternoon when we were there?"

Hutch started to say something, then stopped, his anger draining away. He saw now what Steve was doing, and doing almost as well as Starsky would have, too. He backed off to give him room. His eyes met Starsky's, and there was that old, silent communication between them. Apology made and accepted.

Kolchak glared at the young officer. "I was there on my own business," he blustered. �Which is none of yours. We don�t live in a police state yet, you know.�

"Well, your business is starting to look like our business. So maybe you should explain."

The disheveled reporter looked as though he was starting to protest again, then shrugged. �I was given his name as a potential source of information here in Bay City. Then when I saw you and Detective Hutchinson come in I stayed because a woman named Kathy Marshall gave me his name, and I wanted to know more before I approached him.�

�Kathy Marshall? She�ll vouch for you?� Hutch broke in, at the exact same moment as Starsky added �You know Kathy?� Hutch knew they were both thinking the same thing. Kathy Marshall was an old friend. If she trusted him...

�Yeah, she gave me both your names, and this phone number.� The little man started digging through his jacket pockets, finally coming up triumphantly with a scrap of paper. "There, there, you see?" He shook the paper in Hutch's direction.

Hutch managed to snag it out of his hand and looked it over. On it was written "Starsky, Hutchinson", their phone number, and the notation "Mention Kathy M."

"Starsky, Barlow. A moment?" Hutch gestured towards the kitchen. Starsky nodded, and headed in, followed by Barlow. Hutch went to join them, then turned to Kolchak. He pointed emphatically. "Just wait here. I mean it. Don't go anywhere."

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it," the reporter muttered sarcastically.

In the kitchen Hutch turned to Starsky. "OK, what the hell is going on?"

"I told you, Hutch. Mary bought him around, and she said he was the other guy she saw in her vision. I don't know nothin' about him being at Huggy's today."

"Hutch?" Steve put in tentatively. "It does make sense that a new reporter in town would go to Huggy for information."

"That's true," Hutch admitted.

"If Kathy really say's he's OK..." Starsky began.

"Do you have her number?"

"Yeah, I think so. Lemme go see."

One phone call later, Hutch was left pondering the information that Kathy, whom he'd always thought of as a very sensible, down-to-earth girl, considered Kolchak a lovely person, and that she'd particularly thought he and Starsky would get along.

"So he wouldn't need to pull any kind of scam with Mary to get to see us, Hutch. Using Kathy's name would be enough for that, and he's gotta' be smart enough to know that," Starsky pointed out.

"The Chicago cops did say he was a pretty good reporter when he wasn't going off on whatever it was they meant by 'that crazy stuff'," Steve reminded Hutch.

"That still doesn't prove that Mary Polanski isn't trying to pull something by bringing him to you," Hutch pointed out stubbornly. "What do we really know about her, Starsk? She was helpful to us in one investigation, that's all."

Starsky sighed. "Give me credit for a little brains, Hutch, will ya? Gunther's boys shot my chest, not my head. I checked her out. This morning I asked the Bunko squad if they knew anything about her. She comes up clean. No complaints, nothing. In fact, we�re not the only ones in the department she�s helped with information. She�s one of the good guys."

Hutch felt his anger fading, and realized with a sickening shock that Starsky was right. He had been dismissing Starsky's judgment in a way he never would have before the shooting. "I'm sorry, Starsk. I didn't mean to..."

"Forget it." Their eyes met, in a promise of a more thorough reconciliation when they were alone.

�Well, if that�s settled now,� Steve broke in, �There�s still two people and a crystal ball out in your living room, and the question of why they�re here. And why you wanted me here with them. And I hate to bring it up, but I�m due to meet Angelina in an hour and a half, so if we can get to it quickly, I�d appreciate it. Hutch, I know you guys have seen some crazy shit in your careers, but psychic visions?�

Hutch nodded. �Just go with it, Barlow. We saw stuff with Joe Collandra... if Mary really is legit, we may actually get something. It�s worth trying, anyway. My only question is how legit she is. This still all seems awfully coincidental to be on the up and up.�

Starsky glared at him. �Are you going to start again?�

Hutch sighed. �No, I�ll give her the benefit of the doubt. For now. But I�m not convinced.�

�A fair try is all I�m asking for, Hutch.� Starsky pulled himself together. �OK, guys, come on.�

He led them back to the living room. �See, here�s the thing. Mary, here has been having these visions. And I think it�s got something to do with this drug case you�re working on. So I thought that, since she was seeing us three,� his gesture indicated Hutch and Kolchak, �but that she�s too scared to see the whole vision while she�s alone, it would make sense for her to try here, with us to support her. And Barlow, even though he�s not in the vision, because he�s in the drug case. Make sense?�

�Clear as mud,� Kolchak muttered. More loudly he added, �Look, I�m new in town, remember? I haven�t even checked in at the office yet. What is this drug case, anyway?� He pulled a small, hand-held recorder out of his pocket. �On the record, please?�

The three officers exchanged glances. Still, most of this was public record anyway. Hutch took a breath. �On the record, there�s a new drug in town that�s been responsible for at least ten deaths that we know of in the last month. It�s called Sea Dreams, or Big-C. The lab boys have only recently been able to get any kind of information about its composition. So far we don�t have any leads to where it�s coming from. That�s it in a nutshell.�

�So are the police turning to less orthodox methods of solving their cases now?� Kolchak gestured to Mary and the crystal ball.

�That�s off the record,� Hutch said sharply. �This whole evening has to be off the record.� Damn it, Starsky, you should have made sure of that before you brought him here.

Starsky nodded. �Yeah, Kolchak, Hutch�s right. I got carried away. Shouldn�t have invited you here without making that plain... we don�t read any of this in the papers tomorrow, or ever. Got it?� The look he turned on the reporter was one of his most feral.

Kolchak hunched in on himself but didn�t back off. �Yeah? Then what do I get out of it?�

Hutch had to admit to himself he was impressed. The little reporter didn�t cave easily, even though Starsky obviously had him scared.

�You get a story when we say you get a story," Starsky growled. "A scoop over your rivals, but not until we say so. And the rest of the time you�re here in Bay City is a whole lot more comfortable than if we put the word around that you can�t be trusted.�

Kolchak nodded. �OK. That�s fair. As long as I get the story first when you�re ready to release it.�

Starsky nodded. �All right. Then let�s get started.�

�Just a minute. Off the record, you still haven�t explained why you think whatever Madam Yram�s visions have to do with the drug.�

Hutch wanted to know that, himself.

�Call me Mary,� the little psychic, who had been listening quietly to the whole exchange, put in.

�I think it has to do with the drug case because of the hallucinations the victims that we know of have had,� Starsky explained. �Supposedly they�ve seen underwater scenes, and some of them have had a sunken city, like the one that Mary�s seen in her vision. And what we know about the drug, and this is still off the record, is that it�s composed of several parts, two of which are compounds similar to ones that come from toads, and sea fish or octopuses, and the city Mary saw is carved with octopuses or something like them.�

�Oh, is that why they call it Sea Dreams?� Kolchak asked. Starsky nodded. �And Big Sea? Is that because they see the ocean, too?� Starsky nodded again, but Hutch shook his head, wanting to get everything straight.

�No,� he explained. �That�s �Big-C�, like the letter �C�. Because supposedly another thing that some of the users have said is that if they get really high on it they�ll �see Big C�. But we don�t know who or what Big C is.�

�I didn�t realize that,� Starsky said crossly. Hutch shrugged apologetically.

�So what are you hoping to find out by doing this?�

Starsky shrugged. �Some lead on where this stuff is coming from.�

�What about him?� Kolchak pointed at Barlow. �You said he wasn�t in your vision, Mary. Should he be here?�

�Oh sure,� Mary said. �See, sometimes that�s the best way to change the outcome of something you�ve seen, you know? Throw in a random element. If it�s going to come out one way without it, and that isn�t the way you want it to come out, you throw in something different, and it changes. �Course you can�t predict how it�s going to change, but it changes things. Like, how a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can make a storm in Nebraska, or whatever. Little changes make big ones. Whatta' they call that?"

�Chaos theory,� Hutch said, impressed despite himself.

�Yeah, that,� Mary agreed.

"OK, I think I have it." Kolchak took a blank tape for his recorder out of his pocket. "Mary, you mind if I record this?"

"No, go right ahead. It might be kinda' interesting, I never heard myself when I'm in a trance."

Kolchak turned to the detectives. "You gentlemen mind?" There was a suspiciously sarcastic inflection on the word �gentlemen�, but Hutch ignored it. They all shook their heads.

"All right, then let's get started." Hutch said. "Barlow's in a hurry."

"OK, then, everyone sit around the table." Mary settled down in the middle of the couch, and gestured around her. The men sat down.

"Do I need to turn out the lights or anything?" Starsky asked.

"Naw, this isn't a séance or nothing like that, I just need it quiet. So hush, everybody." She turned her attention to the crystal ball on its stand, and the experiment began.

***

Chapter Ten - Fear in a Handful of Dust

Madam Yram bent over her crystal, staring into it. She started breathing deeply, as though she were falling asleep, but her eyes were open.

Suddenly her breathing took on a harsher note.

�I see the city,� she whispered. �Big. Really, really big. The carvings... things with tentacles. And all the angles are funny. Wrong. And slime and mud over everything, and dead things, dead fish, rotting. There�s a statue... huge, made of green stone.� Her voice cracked a little. �It�s so ugly, a thing with wings and claws and more tentacles. And it�s more than just a statue, it�s alive! But asleep, asleep for so long��

Suddenly she gasped, and her eyes grew large. �The chanting, the chanting started. Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!�

It wasn�t words she was saying, just sounds, sounds that shouldn�t be able to come from a human throat. Kolchak had never heard anything like it before.

She sounded almost hysterical, and the noises seemed to rip themselves from her.

"Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ia!"

Her eyes closed, and she rocked in place. Kolchak looked at the other men with concern. Something seemed wrong about this.

�Ph�nglui mglw�nafh Cthulhu R�lyeh wgah�nagl fhtagn. Ia! Ia!�

Gently he touched her shoulder. Her eyes snapped open, and she gasped.

"Are you alright?" he asked in concern.

She swallowed, and nodded once, quickly. Then her eyes went back to the crystal ball.

She breathed faster now, as she went on, �We look up at the sky. It�s night, and the stars are out, but they�re wrong, they�re all wrong! They shouldn�t look like that, but I don�t know why.�

The four men all leaned towards her, as her words came out in a rush.

�We�re going up into the sky now, farther and faster, higher... now everything�s behind us. We�re out in the cold and the darkness, empty, black darkness.�

She almost sobbed.

�But now it�s not empty any more! We�re at the center, and there�s things here... Oh God!� Her voice rose to a shriek. �The piping, the drumming, the noise, and the things flopping around... no, no, I can�t look! I won�t look! NO!�

This time both Kolchak and Starsky reached out for her, each touching her on one shoulder. She reached up and took their hands, one in each of hers, and squeezed. The strained tension in her relaxed a little. She managed a smile at both of them, then turned back to the crystal.

Her voice trembled as she said, �OK, this is new, this is what I couldn�t see before. There�s a door... it�s all behind a door. You have to keep the door shut. There�s something horrible behind the door, evil. The statue! He�s calling to it, calling... Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn! He�s calling! He�s opening the door with the drugs. The drugs are the key. He�s using the drugs to open the door.�

�Who, Mary? Who is it?� Starsky�s voice was gentle but urgent.

�Tall man, black...� Mary�s voice shook. �He knows you... he sees us! He�s watching us, and he knows who you are! He's laughing and laughing... Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn! �

She broke away from the crystal, and pulled her hands from the men, buried her head in her arms, and sobbed for real. The vision was obviously at an end.

Starsky pulled the crying woman to him. �Shh, Mary, shh... it�s all right. We�re here, you�re safe.� He rocked her gently. She looked up, tears still streaming down her face, and reached to touch his forehead.

Guess that�s where she thinks he was kissed by the angel, Kolchak thought.

�You�ll make sure it�s OK?� she whispered.

�Promise,� Starsky said, smiling. �Cross my heart. Pinky swear.�

Madam Yram laughed shakily. �I guess you gotta� mean that.� She drew a breath. �OK, I think that was all there was to see. Get anything from it?�

�You said the drugs were coming from a �tall black man�, and he �knew us�,� Hutchinson said thoughtfully. �Would you recognize him again if you saw him?�

�Yeah, I think so. He has a really creepy laugh, too.�

�Would you be willing to look at some pictures tomorrow?�

�Mug shots? Sure.�

�The door you saw,� Kolchak asked. �Was that a real door?�

Madam Yram shrugged. �It was and it wasn�t. It was a real door, but it also was a symbol. Visions are like that, you know?�

�What about those, those... words... that you said? Do you know what they mean?�

Madam Yram silently shook her head. Kolchak looked at the others. �Anybody?� Everyone made generally negative gestures.

�Madam Yram,� Kolchak asked. �What library around here has a good occult collection?� That was the sort of information he'd wanted an informant for, after all.

�Call me Mary,� she said, making Kolchak realize she�d asked before. �The best is Jameson College. Haven�t you heard about them? They call them �Miskatonic West�, �cause they have the best occult collection on this side of the Rocky Mountains. The only better collection in the country supposedly is Miskatonic University in Massachusetts. But it�s a closed collection, you can�t get in unless you have a recommendation from one of the professors.�

�Jameson College? That�s where Professor Jacobs works,� Starsky said. To the blank looks of Kolchak and Mary, he explained �It�s the Jacobs who own this cottage. We�re house sitting for them.�

�That's fine! You can get the professor to give me a recommendation!� Kolchak said excitedly.

�I can try. I can ask Mrs. Jacobs to ask him.�

�When are you going to talk to her?�

�Well, with the time difference, it�s way to late to call her now,� Starsky said regretfully. �Or, actually, too early there. It's, what?� He looked at his watch. �Almost 7:00 here, so it�s only 3:00 am there. But if I wait until midnight, I can call and it�ll be 8:00 in the morning, they�re early risers, I should just catch them.�

�Almost 7:00?� Barlow broke in. �Hey, I have to get going, Angelina�s going to be waiting for me. Nice meeting you folks,� he said to Mary and Kolchak. �Starsky, always a pleasure.�

�I�ll walk you out,� Hutchinson said to his partner. "Starsk, I'll start dinner when I get back in." Kolchak assumed he wanted to talk to Barlow privately. He made some sort of polite noise to the younger detective, he wasn�t even sure what, as his mind went over the information at hand.

�Nice to meet you, Detective Barlow,� Mary said sweetly, batting her eyelashes.

Starsky moved into the dining room and started setting the table.

Kolchak started making his next day�s plans.

Chapter Eleven - Time and Tide

Outside, Barlow and Hutch paused at Barlow�s car.

�So, what do you think of all this?� Barlow asked uneasily.

Hutch shrugged. �Didn�t Starsky ever tell you about the Haymes kidnapping? When we had to use Joe Collandra, the psychic? If Mary has even a vestige of the talent that Collandra has, it�ll be worth it to just have her look at the mug book tomorrow. The rest of it, all that stuff about the stars and the drowned city... she�s probably picking up on the hallucinations the drug users are having, that�s all.�

�You think that�s possible?�

�Well, I don�t think there�s a big green monster with wings and tentacles coming to get us, but that they might be seeing common delusions, yeah. You said that the people you knew who smoked the toad venom saw things that were similar to each other, so there�s no reason why this stuff can�t cause common hallucinations too.�

�Yeah, but Hutch... the toad venom really did come from the desert, just like people saw. The visions were accurate.�

�So maybe this stuff really does come from the ocean, and the rest of it is just metaphor.�

Barlow looked as though he were about to say something more, when he stopped, and stared off over Hutch�s shoulder. �Hey, Hutch. Isn�t that the same guy who was watching your house last night?�

Hutch spun around. Across the street the same shambling, lanky figure lurked.

�You there! Stay where you are! Police!� Hutch dashed towards the watcher without taking time to think, fumbling for his badge as he ran. Behind him he heard Steve running too.

The watcher froze for a moment, then tore off. Despite his strange, almost hopping gait, he ran tremendously fast. Hutch put on as much speed as he could, but still lagged behind the gangling, frog-like figure as it lurched towards the nearby beach.

They ran through the dark, silent neighborhood, Hutch unable to gain on his opponent, and in fact loosing ground. By the time he actually reached the waterside, the lurker had vanished completely.

Hutch was standing on the boardwalk, leaning against a pole, panting slightly, when Barlow thudded up to him.

�What happened? Where�d he go?� the younger man puffed out.

Hutch shrugged and gestured around. The empty beach lay around them, with no one in sight. �I lost him somehow,� he admitted.

They stood for a few moments to catch their breath.

�Wheew. Must be low tide. Smell that stench.� Barlow coughed.

Hutch nodded, sniffing the fishy, salty miasma. It really was foul, like something rotting. �Funny, I never smelt it this bad before down here.� The waves pounded against the shore, and the wind blew another blast of the reek at them. "Let's get out of here."

Wearily the two men started back towards the house. When they got there, they stopped at Barlow's car again.

�Tomorrow, while Mary goes through the mug books looking for tall black drug dealers, I�ll go through them too and see if I can put a name to that face. There can�t be too many people in Bay City who look like that.�

�Yeah, that's for sure." Barlow shuddered a little. "So I�ll pick you up again tomorrow?�

Hutch nodded and slapped Barlow on the shoulder. �See you then.�

�Right. See you.�

Barlow drove off. Hutch watched him out of sight, then went back into the house.

Starsky looked up in concern. �What was all the commotion? I heard yelling, but when I went to look you were gone.�

�Have you seen anyone watching the house the last few days?� Hutch asked.

Starsky paused to consider. �No, I don�t think so.�

�I saw someone when we came in,� Kolchak unexpectedly volunteered. �Nasty looking guy. You think he�s been hanging around?�

�I saw the same person last night and again today,� Hutch confirmed. �Just now I tried to get hold of him to question, but he got away.�

�You gotta� be careful� Mary put in nervously. �There was an evil atmosphere outside when we got here. I felt it.�

�Maybe we should get someone out here staking the place out," Hutch mused.

"I think we can handle it ourselves, Hutch," Starsky sighed. "In any case, now that you and Barlow chased him off, it's not likely he'll be back tonight."

"I guess you're right," Hutch agreed unwillingly. He didn't like the idea of the lurker staring at their home. But Starsky was probably right, the strange man wouldn't come back that night. Knowing that didn't make him any happier, however. Dissatisfied, he went to start dinner.

Over spaghetti, salad, garlic bread, and red wine they discussed arranging Kolchak's permission to use the Jameson College library and getting Mary to the police station the next day to look at the mug books. Starsky agreed to call the Jacobs at midnight (which Hutch wasn�t happy about, he had wanted to be in bed earlier) and then call Kolchak at his hotel with the results, and Mary agreed to take the bus over to the station the next morning if someone would drive her home.

After dinner, Kolchak took Mary home, and the two detectives settled into wary silence.

"Hutch? You angry at me for this?" Starsky finally asked.

Hutch sighed. "No, Babe. I just wish the whole thing hadn't come as such a surprise when I got here. But if Mary can really give us a lead to who's responsible for this stuff, then I'm happy."

"But what if she's right about the rest of it, Hutch?"

"Right about what, Starsk? She hasn't said anything about anything else, just that there's something evil coming, which could simply mean the drug itself."

"She doesn't think that's all there is to it, though. And I think she may be right."

"Well, Starsk, we'll have to agree to disagree on that. You know we haven't always seen eye-to-eye on everything, like when you hid Sharman Crane, or how you handled the situation with Emily Harrison, but I've always supported you, even when I thought you were wrong."

"Yeah. I know that. Thanks, Hutch." He snuggled up against him suggestively.

"Don't start anything you don't have time to finish before you have to call the Jacobs," Hutch muttered darkly. He had really been looking forward to going to bed long before midnight.

Starsky pulled himself to his feet. "My turn to do the dishes anyway," he said regretfully, and started clearing the table.

Then it was time for Hutch to walk the dog.

"Are you sure that's safe?" Starsky asked. "What if that guy's come back?"

Hutch turned and showed him the Magnum in his hand. "Don't worry, Starsk. This time, I'm ready." He holstered the gun, leashed the dog, and set out.

This time there was no sign of the unknown watcher. Euripides seemed nervous, however, and whined anxiously when Hutch tried to lead him in the direction the stranger had taken. Hutch decided discretion was the better part of valor, and allowed him to take his walk in the opposite direction. He saw nothing out of the ordinary.

After that they killed time watching TV until finally it was time to make the call. Starsky had still been hospitalized when the Jacobs left for Oxford. As he watched him dial, Hutch considered the irony of how he had managed to charm Mrs. Jacobs even though they had never met. But then, it had always been that way. Starsky�s little-boy charisma had any woman with an ounce of maternal instinct willing to eat out of his hand within minutes. His new injured hero aspect had only made the attraction greater.

�Hi, Mrs. Jacobs? It�s Dave, Dave Starsky. Yeah, I know it�s kinda� unexpected to hear from me now. No, everything�s fine. Yeah, Hutch just walked him a little while ago. And the birds are fine, too.� There was a pause for a moment as Starsky listened.

�Well, what I�m really calling for is to ask a favor. Or actually, for you to ask your husband for a favor.� A long pause this time.

�Well it�s pretty simple. I have this friend, he�s a writer, and he needs to do some research on the occult, and he says that Jameson College library has the best collection around here, but you need to have a professor�s recommendation before you can use it. So I was hoping the professor could call them.� Another pause. "OK, I'll hold on."

"She's talking to the professor," he told Hutch. "Oh, OK, I'll talk to him. Hi, Professor Jacobs." He patiently repeated his request, then listened. "Yeah, he's very responsible. Won't cause any damage, I promise." Because if he did, Starsky would take it out in his hide, Hutch privately filled in to himself. Or Hutch himself would, he amended.

�Yeah, he�s on a deadline, so the sooner you could call, the better. Yeah, today would be great. As soon as they open. OK, let�s figure out the time difference.� There was a few moments while they did that, and worked out that Professor Jacobs would call the library at 4:00 pm his time, which was 8:00 am Bay City time, when they would be open. Starsky was actually good with time zones, he�d had to deal with the time difference when calling his mother for so many years.

�Thanks a million, Professor! His name is Kolchak. Carl Kolchak. Carl with a �C�, Kolchak with a �K�.� He spelled the name carefully.

After that the professor put his wife back on, and she and Starsky exchanged a few more pleasantries. It ended with Starsky promising to give her love to Euripides, the birds, and Hutch, in that order, and they ended the call.

�All right, Hutch, just gotta� call Kolchak and give him the good word, and then it�s time for bed. Think you can wait, Big Boy?� Starsky batted his eyes suggestively, and winked. Hutch felt his face crimson. He stuttered something incoherent. Starsky laughed, and dialed Kolchak's number.

***

Chapter Twelve - A High Place of Darkness and Light

Kolchak stepped out of the elevator into a small lobby with a double door at the far end. Beside the door was a marble bust on a plinth, labeled "Henry Armitage, AM, PhD, Litt.D, Librarian". He pushed the double doors open and stepped through..

Inside was a large room filled with book shelves and an imposing oak and marble desk. Glass cases lined the walls. Behind the desk was an equally imposing woman. She looked at him with clear gray eyes, and asked in a cool voice, "May I help you?"

"Yeah, hi, my name is Carl Kolchak." He struggled in his pocket for his press ID. "Someone should have called this morning about me using the library?"

"Ah, yes. I've been waiting for you. I'm Miss Dansforth, the librarian." She stepped out from behind the desk. She was tall and angular, with a face that could have been anywhere from 28 to 48. Her light brown hair was fastened tightly back with a clip. "What are you here to investigate?"

Kolchak fumbled in his jacket pocket for his recorder. "Well, I have this tape, here. And I'm trying to identify the chanting. Here, listen."

He pressed �play�, and the weird noises filled the room. The librarian listened, and her lips pressed into a tight line. "Most interesting," she said after Kolchak had turned the recorder off.

"Can you identify it?"

"Assuredly." She motioned him to a seat at one of the heavy tables. "Wait here."

She vanished through a door marked "closed shelf". Kolchak took the opportunity to look around the room. The glass cases seemed to contain artifacts of various kinds. From where he sat, Kolchak could see things that looked Native American, Egyptian, and Chinese, and in other cases items he couldn't identify as readily.

It took her a few minutes, but soon Miss Dansforth returned with a towering stack of books. She spread them out on the table around Kolchak, opened one, and put it in front of him. �Start here,� she commanded. And Kolchak began to read.

The morning wore on. Each time he finished a book or section, Miss Dansforth was there to put something else in front of him.

He read about the Old Ones, the Elder Gods, strange eldritch presences from out of the depths of time and space that seeped down to our world when it was young, before man had crawled from the primal ooze, when the Earth was ruled by races now forgotten. He read of Azathoth, the amorphous blight that mindlessly rules the cosmos, blasphemously bubbling at the center of the universe, surrounded by the wailing of pipes and the throbbing of drums; and of Yog-Sothoth, the all-in-one and one-in-all, the gate and the key; and their messenger and avatar Nyarlathotep, the one who takes the shape of a man to lure men to ruination, he who came to rouse the witch-cults to blasphemous, erotic frenzy as their �dark man�, leading them to loathsome ecstasies, perverting them away from the gentle nature-worship of their forbears.

He read of Shub-Niggureth, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, figure of twisted evil fecundity, the Blood Mother, hideous mate of Yog-Sothoth, who produced from her diseased loins the countless gibbering monstrosities that flopped and mewled around the black throne of Azathoth.

He read of the horrifying races that predated infant humanity by millions of years; of the Mi-go, those dreaded fungi from the black planet Yuggoth; of the ghouls that gnawed through the darkest caverns of earth�s bowels, taking as their fruit and bounty the harvest of the human dead; of the Elder Race, strange, extinct creators of the horrific amorphous, evil shogguths who had dwelt in primordial Antarctica, before the world changed and the ice took it over.

And he read at last of the Deep Ones, amphibious horrors in strange frog-fish combination, that dwell in all of Earth�s oceans, immortal malices weaving their plans to retake the solid grounds of earth as their own, seeking miscegenation with humans to create strange half-breed creatures to re-colonize the human world. He learned how foolish and greedy men would throw a summoning stone into the deep ocean to call them, to make strange bargains that were always to the Deep Ones benefit, and to the detriment of the humans who thought they were the masters.

Many times over the years they had set up colonies off blighted shores, and made treaties with the humans living there, treaties to exchange fishing success and strange artifacts of gold, for human sacrifice, and human mates. The children of those matings would be themselves immortal, and eventually go down to the sea to live in the cold and darkness with their inhuman kin, learning to hate all the above water world. The only thing that repelled those strange colonies was the Elder Sign, certain shaped stones marked with odd glyphs, but what these were or where they could be found, the books did not say.

He read of the Deep Ones� God, the demonic entity known as Great Cthulhu, High priest of the Elder Gods, the winged, tentacled horror, sealed away for untold eons, trapped in his cyclopean underwater city of R�lyeh, there to wait until summoned forth when the stars were right, yet still even in his sleep able to bleed his evil into the waking world through men�s dreams, seeking always to destroy man and bring the earth back into the hellish stew of pure chaos that was the realm and environment of the Old Ones.

And lastly he read of the human cultists who, seduced and deceived by Cthulhu and his minions, sought to restore him to full awareness and presence in the waking world. Around the world, in the dark places, at dark times, there the cultists were, written about from the time of Friedrich Von Junzt�s horrifying Unaussprechlichen Kulten, or Comte d�Erlette�s Cultes de Goules, up through the modern world, to the writings of those deemed by saner men to be simply writers of fiction.

Wherever more wholesome worship turned dark and foul, there the cultists could be found, in the uncivilized places, but also hidden in the underbelly of modern society. In the forests of primal North America, abhorred by the majority of the Native peoples; in the frozen tundra wastes, pushed out of the clean villages by the warriors of the Inuit and Tlingit; in the deep forests of Haiti, despised by the true voodoo worshipers; in the high reaches of Nepal and Tibet, always opposed by the priests and nuns of the Buddhists; in the seething immigrant stewpots of great American cities, feared and fought by the immigrant's churches; in the castles of Germany during the Nazi reign, shunned even by those later called war criminals, the cultists arose again and again.

And wherever and whenever they arose, their dread chant was heard, the same that Kolchak had recorded on his tape machine: �Ia Cthulhu�. �Hail Cthulhu�. �Cthulhu fhtagn�. �Cthulhu dreams.� �Ph�nglui mglw�nafh Cthulhu R�lyeh wgah�nagl fhtagn�. �In his house at R�lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming�.

He learned of the verse in the cursed Necronomicon, the crazed outpouring of the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, that explained that chant:

He learned where this knowledge came from, the shunned and censored terrible grimoires that, along with the Necronomicon, told of the hidden knowledge, the Pnakotic Manuscripts, those strange moldy scrolls rumored to predate the existence of the human race; the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan; the Book of Eibon, and Ludwig Prinn�s abhorrent De Vermis Mysteriis. He read of the bleak despair and abject madness that filled those who delved too deeply into these secrets, of the hopelessness of a world with no succor, no hope, no place for puny mortal men.

Eventually he closed the last book that Miss. Dansforth had prepared for him. �Does that answer all your questions?� she asked.

Kolchak looked at her, his mind dazed and confused by what he had read, and horrified by its import. �Is this� all true?� he whispered. �That the universe is ruled by�?� he trailed off.

Miss Dansforth looked at him coolly. �I�m a librarian, Mr. Kolchak. There�s something that all librarians know, that sources must be evaluated. Truth is to be found in books but only the truth known by their authors. The authors write their truths as they see them.�

She walked to one of the glass cases, and motioned him over. �Do you know what this is?� she asked.

Kolchak examined the object. It looked Native American, though he couldn�t identify a tribe. It was wooden, a macabre, distorted human face surmounted by another head, a head surrounded by five tentacles. It was cunningly made so that the jointed wooden tentacles could actually be moved by means of strings made of sinew. He shook his head. �I have no idea.�

�It�s a mask, Mr. Kolchak, from the Kwakiutl Indians. Anthropologists say it represents an octopus spirit.�

�It looks as though� does this come from one of the cults that worship Cthulhu?� His voice wavered over the name.

�It may. We don�t really know. Do you know anything about the Kwakiutl, Mr. Kolchak?�

�No, never heard of them. No, wait. Weren�t they mentioned in one of those books? They knew the Deep Ones and called them, what was it, Pugwis?�

�Yes, that�s right. The Kwakiutl are one of the peoples of the Northwest coast. That�s the official reason why we have this artifact here.�

Kolchak waited. Obviously, she was coming to a point.

�There�s an interesting legend that�s common throughout many of the peoples of the Pacific coast. They have a story of a terrible monster in the sea that threatened to destroy the world. But the monster was defeated by the Thunderbird, and the people were saved.� She turned to him. �I have no doubt that some day some scientist or other will look at that legend and say that the monster represents, oh, perhaps an earthquake, and a tidal wave. But we know better than that, don�t we, Mr. Kolchak?�

Kolchak swallowed and nodded.

�What do you know of Thunderbird?�

�I� isn�t he the Great Spirit?�

�Close, but not quite right. To many, maybe most, of the Native American tribes, Thunderbird is the emissary of the Great Spirit, his messenger and chief warrior. His captain of the guard, if you will.�

Kolchak breathed in deeply, remembering what Mary Polanski had told him about Detective Starsky. �Captain of the Heavenly Hosts? Like the Angel Michael?�

Miss. Dansforth nodded in satisfaction. �Very good, Mr. Kolchak. You do know your material. Tell me, are you a Bible reader at all?�

�A little. Not for awhile, though,� he admitted.

�Are you familiar with Psalm 74?�

�Not off the top of my head, no.�

�Wait a moment.� Miss. Dansforth stepped over to one of the shelves, and quickly searched for something. She pulled a fat book off the shelf. A Bible, Kolchak saw when she walked back. She leafed through it. �Here we are. Verses 13 and 14 are what I was looking for. �You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the dragon in the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.��

She looked at Kolchak closely. �There is always opposition, Mr. Kolchak. From where do you think the Elder Sign proceeds? Mankind is not alone. You should know that. You have had experience.�

�How do you know that?� Kolchak asked, suddenly suspicious.

�Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Kolchak. Your recommendation from Professor Jacobs got you into this collection, but it was your recommendation from Professor Wilmarth that gained you my assistance.�

�Who? I don�t know any Professor Wilmarth,� Kolchak asked in confusion.

�That doesn�t matter, Mr. Kolchak. Professor Wilmarth knows of you and that is all that is necessary. You will be welcome here for as long as you are in the area. Now, did you have any other questions?"

Kolchak thought for a moment. His head whirled with the shock of what he had read, but his reporter�s instincts still functioned. "Could there be any connection between any of this and illicit drug use?�

Miss Dansforth�s lips pursed as she thought. �Good question. There is anecdotal evidence that some drugs block people�s reception and awareness of the Old Ones and their minions, if somehow they�ve become sensitized to them. On the other hand, there have been rumors that some drugs can open the perceptions wider, allowing greater access to different levels of reality. Even, possibly, allowing those levels of reality to be manipulated. However, no one, as far as I know, has ever done a study of the question.� For the briefest moment, a trace of humor flickered across the cool, impassive face. �It isn�t, one would think, a subject that lends itself to scientific experimentation.�

�No, no, I suppose not.�

�So, then, Mr. Kolchak, does that cover everything you need at this time?� Miss Dansforth went on briskly.

Kolchak considered. �Yeah, for now at least.�

�Good. Remember, though, now that you have been admitted, you are welcome back here at any time for any information we can assist you with.� She walked him to the door and ushered him out.

Chapter Thirteen � The Wind from the Hilltop

Mary Polanski had no luck in finding the man from her vision in the mug books. Neither, much to his disgust, did Hutch have any luck in finding the ugly lurker from the previous night. Finally, in annoyance, he left Mary off with Starsky to bring home, and stormed off to have lunch at The Pits with Barlow.

"Hey, Hutch," Huggy said as soon as he saw them, "I got the lowdown on the gentleman of the press for you."

"Oh yeah? What did you find out?" Hutch asked hopefully. Maybe there was something he could discredit the man with.

"The man is a flake, but an honest one. Equally hated by the bad guys he uncovers and the good guys he annoys. Even my Cousin Sweetstick, who is something of the, dare I say, black sheep of the family, says he sticks to things like a dog to a bone, can't be turned away by threats or bribes." Huggy chuckled. "I gather Cousin Sweetstick has tried both on him in his time."

"Pretty much what we heard. Not that it makes much of a difference; we're stuck with him now." Hutch sighed, disappointed. "Starsky picked him up like a stray."

"How did that happen?"

Hutch gave Huggy a brief synopsis of the previous night's events.

"Sounds like Curly's gotten himself into some weird shit, m'man," Huggy said carefully.

"Yeah, and I'm not too happy about it." That was an understatement.

Huggy gave him a sideways look. "Seems to me like you've been into some weird shit yourself sometimes, Hutch. Remember Joe Collandra?"

"I haven't forgotten, Huggy. That's the only reason I'm going along with this as far as I am."

Barlow had been listening to the conversation in silence. Now he spoke up. "Don't look now, Hutch, but he's here."

"Starsky?" Hutch turned to the door.

"No, Kolchak."

Sure enough, the scruffy reporter had just come in. Spotting the trio in their booth, he ambled over to them.

"Ah, Bay City's finest. May I join you?" he asked breezily. Without waiting for an answer he settled into the booth.

"Make yourself at home," Hutch said sarcastically.

�So, Mr. Bear,� Kolchak continued, ignoring Hutch, �Have I met your criteria for doing business?�

Huggy glanced warily at Hutch, who shrugged. It wasn�t his business who Huggy sold info to. Reassured, Huggy said, �You have been checked and found acceptable, Mr. Kolchak, especially since I now learn that my man Starsky has taken you into his circle of acquaintances. It will be a pleasure to do business with you.�

Kolchak smiled cheerfully. Hutch frowned in irritation.

"So, now that we're all friends," Huggy went on, "Hutch, the last time you were here, you were asking if I knew anything about Big-C. And you said that Mr. Kolchak here has been looking into the same question."

"Huggy, are you saying you found out something?" Hutch asked in surprise. He hadn�t expected Huggy to come up with anything so soon.

Huggy waved an admonishing finger. "Now, I'm not saying that, no. But you asked me about a certain combination of ingredients, and I said it rang a bell."

�Yeah, and?�

�And first, if you gentlemen will excuse Mr. Kolchak and myself, we need to do some negotiation to cover my fee for telling him what I found. Mr. Kolchak, if you care to step over to the bar?�

�Oh, yeah, sure,� Kolchak said, sliding out of his seat.

Hutch watched in irritation as Kolchak and Huggy negotiated. Some bills were exchanged, and then the two came back to the booth.

�Where was I?�

�The combination of ingredients rang a bell,� Barlow put in helpfully.

�Oh, right. So I called my Aunt Minnie. And we do not want to discuss what an effort the long distance call was, and I'm putting my phone bill on your tab. You remember Aunt Minnie, right Hutch?�

�I�m not likely to forget,� Hutch growled. �Our time on that damn island was not something that either Starsky or I enjoy remembering.�

�Well, I don�t know the lady, so maybe you could explain to me?� Kolchak put in.

Huggy nodded. �Fair enough, since this information is for you as well. Aunt Minnie is a griot, a storyteller. She also dabbles in charms and potions, and is a formidable source on anything relating to Voodoo on the island where she lives. She said that the poisons from sea snakes and toads mixed together was a major ingredient of the potion they use to make zombies.�

�Zombies?� Kolchak squawked.

"Not the 'living dead', but the kind that's really a live slave drugged into a stupor. They work 'til they drop, and this is the potion that makes them do it,� Huggy explained.

"There's more than one type of zombie?" Barlow asked.

"According to Aunt Minnie there is, and you do not want to argue with that woman, you dig? She says the bokors make a living man into a zombie when they want to punish him, but that's different than when they bring a man back from the dead for revenge on his enemies."

"Yeah, I know all about that kind," Kolchak muttered darkly.

�Are you saying this �C-dreams� stuff has something to do with Voodoo?� Hutch put in, ignoring Kolchak.

�I�m not sayin� anything, Hutch. It could be a coincidence. But it looks like combining those two is something that�s been thought of before, and it was thought of by the voodoo bokors.�

Hutch and Barlow exchanged a look. "So, should we try looking in the Haitian part of town?" Barlow ventured.

Hutch nodded thoughtfully. "It's worth a try. It's the only lead we have at this point. All right, let's go. Thanks, Hug."

"You don't think this is just a Haitian drug pusher, do you?" Kolchak asked abruptly.

"It could be." Hutch started getting up.

"There's more to this than that. Mary told you what she saw. Now I know what her vision was."

"Yeah? What?"

"She saw the city of R�lyeh, and the statue of Great Cthulhu. I think that whoever�s behind this drug is trying to change reality and bring back the Old Ones from the abyss!�

�What the hell are you talking about?� Hutch asked in exasperation. He was beginning to understand why this man was regarded as a flake.

�I�m talking about the end of the world as we know it! If the Old Ones return we�re all doomed!�

�What the hell are the Old Ones?� Hutch fumed. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

�They�re beings from another spatial dimension. They ruled the world once, and they want to rule it again. This is all a plot by cultists to bring them back again. It all fits, see? The drugs make it possible for time and space to be manipulated. Then the leader of the cult can manipulate the drug users, and then they don�t have to wait until the stars are right to call Cthulhu from his sleep! He must be the �C� in C-dreams, the �Big C� that the users see in their visions. That�s what Mary�s been seeing!� Kolchak concluded triumphantly.

�You�re crazy,� Hutch said flatly. He turned to go.

"Hey, wait a minute," Kolchak protested. "Listen to me. Detective Hutchinson, did Mary Polanski pick anyone out of the mug books when she looked?"

Hutch stopped. "No," he said shortly.

"And did you see anyone who even looked close to the man you saw watching your house last night?�

�No,� he was again forced to admit.

�Ah ha! That�s because it wasn�t a man. It was a Pugwis, one of the Deep Ones, the followers of Cthulhu that live in the oceans. They�re probably supplying the drug to the human cultists!�

Hutch stared at him. �Are you saying some non-human monster was watching our house last night? You know, the Chicago police were right. You are totally insane. Come on, Barlow let�s go. Huggy, later.� He started walking for the door.

�No, wait. Listen!� Kolchak tried to get in his way. �The Deep Ones are frog-like. Maybe they secrete the drug from their own skins! You�ll never find out anything just randomly asking about Haitian drug dealers.�

�Maybe not, but we�ll find out more than we will listening to you!� Hutch was fuming inside. He�d been told Kolchak was a freak, but this took the cake. And this ranting madman was spending time with Starsky? He didn�t like the idea at all.

Motioning Barlow to follow him, he stepped around Kolchak and stormed out of The Pits without another word.

When they were in Barlow�s car, he slumped back in the seat.

�Man, that guy is deranged!� Barlow said.

�Yeah. I don�t want him anywhere near Starsky. I�m gonna� call him and tell him I don�t want him in our place again. And I don�t want Starsky going home alone either, as long as there�s people watching us. He can wait at the station and we can go home together.� He reached for the radio.

Barlow put his hand out to stop him. �You might want to wait a minute and think before you do that Hutch. I don't think Starsky'll take that too well.�

Hutch glared at him for a moment, but then dropped his hand, and sighed. �I suppose you�re right. Damn it.�

�I don�t think you need to worry so much about him, Hutch. Just what do you think's going to happen, anyway?�

Hutch shook his head. �I don�t know. It�s just� he�s so vulnerable now. I don�t want to see this nutcase drag him into anything that�s going to hurt him.�

�Hutch,� Barlow said seriously, �I don�t want to interfere. But I�m your friend, and Starsky�s too, and I think you�re being a little overprotective. His mind wasn�t hurt by the shooting, and as to his body, I still wouldn�t want to try and take him on one-on-one. If you start treating him like a child, or an invalid, he isn�t going to be happy about it.�

�I know,� Hutch admitted. It was something he�d worried about. But he needed to keep Starsky safe, and it was hard to know where to draw the line. �But it�s hard to let go. Seeing him there in the hospital unconscious for so long, not knowing if he�d wake up or not, when I'd never�� He trailed off. �You don�t know what it was like.�

Barlow looked aside. �Don�t think that you�re the only one who�s ever been in that situation,� he said quietly. �During the summer of our sophomore year in college, Angelina was hit by a car, and she was in a coma for almost a week. I had no idea if she was going to live or die.�

�Shit, Barlow. I�m sorry, I had no idea.� Hutch was shocked. He knew Barlow and Angelina had been together a long time, but they�d never discussed details.

�The worst of it was, we weren�t together then. We�d been going out in high school, but after we graduated, I insisted on breaking up. She didn�t want to, but I wanted my freedom in college. But her mother let me visit her in the ICU, and as soon as I saw her there, I knew how stupid I�d been to ever let her go.�

Hutch winced. The similarity of the situations was uncanny. �What happened?�

�I went to the hospital chapel and prayed. Swore that if she survived I�d do everything I could to make it up to her that I�d left, and get her back if I could. And she did, and here we are. But Hutch, letting go of trying to protect her all the time was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I almost lost her again because she got so angry with me for the way I was clinging to her.�

"Barlow, I..." Hutch said uncomfortably.

"Look, just think about it, OK? That's all I'm saying. Because, like I said, you're both my friends."

"Yeah, OK." Hutch was happy to drop the subject.

"All right then. Let's go." Barlow started the car.

***

Chapter Fourteen � The Words of the Rainbow Serpent

�Ah! Mr. Kolchak! I�ve been waiting for you!� The voice that came from the store�s gloomy interior, high, cracked, and deeply accented, was shockingly familiar to Kolchak, a voice he had last heard years before in Chicago.

"Marie Edmonds!" he squawked. "You, you were deported! What are you doing here? Where's Céline Des Champs?"

The tiny, wizened woman behind the counter cackled. "Oh Mr. Kolchak! Do you think I would stay in the islands when my bebé, my François, is buried in this country, eh? No, I came back as quickly as I could. And surely my old friend Céline would not mind me using her identity now that she doesn't need it any more."

Kolchak shuddered, wondering just how the mamalois had ensured her �old friend� didn�t need her identity. He wouldn�t put murder past her.

�Now come in, Mr. Kolchak. Like I said, I have been expecting you. Have a glass of rum, eh?� She motioned him to a chair and reached for a bottle and glass from under the counter.

�No, thank you," Kolchak said emphatically. "And what do you mean, you were expecting me?� He warily sat down on the edge of the seat.

The bokor poured a glass and pushed it towards him. �Now, now, Mr. Kolchak. You had my rum once before and it did not harm you, did it? And as to expecting you, the bones told me you were coming.� She waved her hand over the litter of organic detritus on the counter. Bones and other, less identifiable, objects were haphazardly scattered there.

�Harm me? You tried to murder me! You sent your grandson�s animated corpse after me!�

�But I didn�t harm you with the rum, did I? That would have been inhospitable.� She reached out to pat his hand, and Kolchak recoiled instinctively. She laughed. �And I was only a little bit angry at you. I would have stopped François before he killed you.�

�Like you stopped him before he committed his other murders?� Kolchak spluttered indignantly.

The bokor�s eyes flashed dangerously, but her voice retained its amused condescension. �The only killing he did was retribution for his own death, Mr. Kolchak. The men he killed were full of evil. Surely you cannot say Chicago is any worse for their passing? In fact, is it not better that they are gone?�

�That�s not the point! It was still murder!� Kolchak objected, though privately he had to admit that the organized crime figures that the mamalois had used her dead grandson to kill had all been dangerous, corrupt people, and Chicago probably was better off without them.

Marie Edmonds made a dismissive gesture. �We can argue that all day, Mr. Kolchak, and not come to an agreement. That is not why you are here anyway. Please, have a glass of rum, and let us talk.�

That was true enough. Kolchak brought his mind back to the current situation. He settled more firmly in the chair. �So what did the bones tell you about why I�m here?� He cautiously took the glass of rum, but didn�t drink it.

�The bones told me you were coming about something very important, Mr. Kolchak.� Marie Edmonds cackled again, and poured herself a glass of rum, too. �I have a story to tell you, about a man they called The Blood Drinker.�

�The... Blood Drinker?� Kolchak stammered.

Marie Edmonds nodded solemnly. �The Haitian Blood Drinker. He was strong, very strong.� Her voice took on a singsong cadence, like someone telling a story. �A powerful bokor. He wanted to be the supreme papalois. He commanded the loas, he could call the orishas. But he grew arrogant, and he wanted power in the world of men rather than the world of the spirits."

She paused, and took a sip from her glass. "He made a deal to use his strength for money, much, much money, to help an evil woman get power, and he killed many people for her.� She nodded, and added more quietly, as though to herself, �Many people indeed.�

Then she cackled again. �But just when it seemed that the plans of the woman and the bokor were coming to fruit, two men from the mainland came to the little island where his plot was laid. They had no power with the spirits, they did not even know what they were fighting, and yet they destroyed his plans and ruined his schemes. They could do this because his evil and arrogance had caused many of the loas to forsake him, and the two men, who were innocents like yourself, Mr. Kolchak, had help they did not know of, from the loas.�

She took a deeper swallow of her rum, as if to wet her throat, and went on, �So after the men were gone, the Blood Drinker was left bitter and angry, deserted by the loas, and alone. And then he turned to the other powers, the powers from outside.� Her bright eyes looked knowingly at Kolchak. �You know of the powers of which I speak, no?�

Kolchak nodded slowly. �Yeah. I think I know what powers you mean.�

�Sometimes it happens that way, you understand? When the bokor loses the friendship of the loas, or when he does not have the strength he thinks he deserves, he turns to other ways of growing strong. But those powers, they steal the mind and the sanity. The bokor, he is quite mad now. So he comes to this city, to seek revenge on the men who defeated him.�

"And those men were Detectives Starsky and Hutchinson, I presume," Kolchak said, thinking aloud. "That's why Mary said the man she saw knew who they were and were watching them." It explained the watcher outside their house, too.

"I think those were the names, yes. But that is not important. What is important is that this man, this Papa Theodore, he is willing to destroy the world for his revenge. That is important."

�Yeah, I�d say the destruction of the world was important, all right!�

�So, Mr. Kolchak, for this reason, the loas have sent you to me, so that I may tell you this story and you may understand.�

�So, do I get any help from the loas? Like telling me where can we find this Papa Theodore?�

Marie Edmonds laughed, a full laugh this time, not her usual cackle. �Oh, Mr. Kolchak! What do you want? Surely you know �the gods help those who help themselves�? No, I cannot tell you where the papalois is. He is somewhere in this city. That is all I know. But here. Take this. Perhaps it will be of some little use.� She reached under the counter, brought out a small object, and handed it to Kolchak.

He took it gingerly and examined it. It felt strangely warm in his hand. It was made of some greenish stone with a soapy feel, a five-pointed star shape, with the tips of the points truncated. There was a pattern of dots incised into its surface.

�What is this thing?� he asked, puzzled.

�If you do not know, then we are all doomed,� Marie Edmonds said. �But I think you do know. What you do not know, what none of us know, is how it is to be used. But it is for you, for you to give to one who has the favor of the Opener of the Ways.�

�The Opener of the Ways? Who�s that? And who has his favor?"

�Don�t you know anything Mr. Kolchak?� Marie�s amusement was plain now. �The Opener of the Ways is Papa Legba, the Guardian of the Crossroads. Some say he is the same as Saint Lazarus, but others say he is Saint Michael the Angel.�

�Michael?" Kolchak blurted.

�Yes, the Angel Michael. So, do you know now who should get that little trinket?�

�Yeah,� Kolchak said thoughtfully. �I think maybe I do.�

Chapter Fifteen - Negotium Perambulans in Tenebris

�I think it�s time to call it a night, Barlow,� Hutch said wearily. The two men had been doggedly trying all their connections in the Haitian part of town for hours, to no avail. It seemed like no one wanted to talk to them, and although that was telling in its own way, letting them know they were on the right track, it was intensely frustrating.

�Yeah, I guess you�re right,� Steve sighed. His feet hurt, and he was deeply depressed by their lack of success. He was more than willing to go back to the station now.

It had grown dark, and an unseasonably chilly wind was blowing as they headed to Steve�s car. "Little Haiti" was near the waterfront, and the damp air carried the smell of rotting fish and seaweed. Steve shuddered. It was too similar to the stench from the night before when he and Hutch had chased the stranger to the beach.

He looked around the dark street uneasily. The back of his neck prickled as though he was being watched, but he couldn't see anyone around. The usual city night sounds seemed oddly muted. He could imagine the sounds of soft padding feet following them.

Suddenly there was a shriek off in the distance, blood-curdling, trailing off into an ominous gurgle, followed by a succession of screams.

Hutch spun around and pulled his gun in a single movement. "Come on," he barked to Steve, and was off running.

Steve followed, pulling his own gun as he ran.

They thudded down dark alleys, one leading into another, Hutch in the lead, following the sound of the screams.

Rounding one final turning, they found themselves in a dead end. The stench of rotting sea wrack was choking.

Suddenly a weight dropped on Steve from above, knocking him down. It was a man, terribly distorted, like the stranger from the night before, pounding and pummeling him, joined by another, who, horribly, looked just the same. His gun was knocked out of his fingers as a third stamped on his hand.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Hutch down with a pile of the ugly attackers on top of him too. He struggled and flailed, and suddenly something hit him behind the ear. Red exploded behind his eyes, and everything went gray.

He was only half-conscious as two of them dragged Hutch and him away. There was a white van at the end of the alley, with its back doors open, and they were unceremoniously thrown in and secured.

The voices of their captors were thick with phlegm, and strangely accented.

�Use the handcuffs for the blond,� the one holding Steve croaked. "And here, take the keys." Steve struggled in vain as groping hands pulled his cuffs from his pockets, and then rifled through the rest of their contents.

�What about that one?�

�I�ll tie him. He�s not important. The Priest is just going to kill him when we get back to the temple anyway. It�s the blond he wants for the Great Sacrifice.�

�But doesn�t he want the dark haired one as well?� Somewhere behind Steve, Hutch moaned softly. There was the metallic click of handcuffs.

�Not this one. This is the young one. It�s the older one he wants. The blond�s mate.� The last word was spat out with disdain.

Steve was flipped onto his face. He writhed futilely in his captors grasp as his arms were pulled painfully behind his back and his wrists tied.

�Why do we have to follow the Priest�s rules, anyway? He�s just another dry-lander.�

�He has taken the vow to He Who Sleeps, so he's one of us now," the one tying Steve said sternly. "So says the Sea-mother. And he has the attention of the Great Ones.�

�Mmmm...." There was a hungry sound. �When the Great Ones return, what was ours before will be ours again."

�And the Priest can bring us that. So the Sea-mother says we follow him.� He finished tying Steve�s ankles. �There. Now hurry.�

He was dumped at the back of the van. His two captors flopped ungainly out of the back doors and slammed them shut. He and Hutch were left alone.

The van's engine started up, and they pulled away with a jerk.

There was a moan from behind him. With great effort, he rolled over and sat up. His head throbbed. "Hutch? Hutch, are you all right?"

Unlike Steve, who simply had his ankles and wrists tied, Hutch�s hands were cuffed above his head to a ringbolt that had been welded to the wall. He was in a seated position, slumped over, and looked as though he had been beaten worse than Steve had been. He shook his head groggily and blinked. "Yeah, I think I am."

�Who the hell are these guys? Did you see them? They hardly seemed human!�

Hutch coughed. �Must be some sort of inbred genetic problem. I never saw anything like it before.� He shook his head again, seeming a little more alert now.

"We have to get out of here. Did you hear what that guy said? They're gonna' kill us!"

Hutch pulled against the ringbolt, but the cuffs held firm. "You mean you have to get out. There's no way I'm going to be able to. And he said that the Priest, whoever the hell that is, is going to kill you as soon as we get where we're going."

"But Hutch, they're going to kill you too!� Steve cried in dismay. �I can't leave you here! Starsky would..."

Hutch interrupted him. "It's Starsky I'm thinking about. You heard what they said, they want him too. You have to make sure he's safe. And you have to tell Dobey what's happened, so you can find me before their sacrifice, whenever that is."

Steve sighed. He didn't like it, but it made sense. That was, assuming he could even get free. �Which begs the question of how I�m going to get lose in the first place,� he muttered.

He squirmed, trying to get his tied wrists down low enough to put his feet through, but to no avail. His captors had tied him tightly; no matter how he twisted or wriggled, there was no way he could get his hands around to his front.

�Can you get over here?� Hutch asked. �I have an idea.�

Steve wriggled himself with difficulty across the floor of the moving van. �Now what?�

�Can you get your wrists up to my face? Because if you can, I might be able to untie them with my teeth.�

�You�re joking!�

�It�s worth a try, isn�t it?�

�Better than nothing, I guess. OK, here goes.� Steve struggled up on his knees, facing away from Hutch, swaying with the van�s jolting, and raised his tied hands as high as he could. �How�s that?�

�Bring them a little closer� There, that�s good.� Steve felt the press of Hutch�s teeth against the rope and a tug. Hutch worked for a few minutes.

"Peh." He pulled away from Steve for a moment and spat. "That's disgusting."

He tugged on the knots again. Steve felt something give. "I think I'm getting it," Hutch mumbled. He pulled away once more to rest. �Let�s hope Starsky never hears how close I have my mouth to your ass,� he joked. He went back to chewing on the rope.

Steve laughed tersely. �Don�t get your hopes up, you�re not my type. You know I don�t go for blonds.� Angelina had flaming red hair. �How�s it coming?� he went on nervously. �I just hope we don�t get where we�re going before you�re finished.�

�Just about done, actually,� Hutch muttered. He gave a final yank, and Steve felt the ropes fall from his arms.

He rolled over and chaffed his wrists until his numbed hands felt better, then untied his ankles.

�You�d better get out of here fast, before they stop moving,� Hutch pointed out.

�Are you sure you don�t want me to wait in the van? If I jumped them when they opened the door, maybe I could take them and get you loose too.�

�And maybe you couldn�t,� Hutch replied. �They took both of us on before with no problem. It�s too big a risk. At least this way you get away and warn Starsky.�

"Yeah. I guess." Steve sighed. "OK, here goes." He crawled over to the door of the van. It was bolted shut on the inside but didn't seem to be locked. Presumably, their captors had trusted to their restraints to contain the prisoners.

Their route had apparently been thorough street traffic rather than highways, to judge by their speed and stops, probably for traffic lights, and the way they seemed to go around corners occasionally. Now, as Steve crouched by the door, waiting, they slowed and came to a stop again, the engine still idling.

Making as little noise as possible, Steve undid the latch on the door. Then all in one movement he swung it open and jumped.

He landed on the roadbed in a crouch. Without waiting he began to run.

Behind him he heard shouting, and the cab door of the van opening and slamming. A harsh voice ordered, "You, drive back. I'll chase this one down." He heard the sound of the van starting again, and feet behind him.

He ran for his life down a dark, deserted street. Behind him he heard the slapping footfalls of his pursuer, closing in. Ahead he saw the only lighted building in the area, a small mini-market. Desperation pushed him forward towards the open doorway.

He could hear his follower coming closer. Frantically he threw himself over the last few yards and through the door of the store. "Police officer!" he cried out, slamming it behind him and leaning against it. "Call 911!"

He saw the ugly form come right up to the door, face contorted with rage, but, as Steve had hoped, he didn't dare attack in front of witnesses. Steve could hear him cursing as he turned and, as rapidly as he had come, fled back into the darkness.

He slumped on the floor, panting. In a few moments he heard the wail of police sirens, summoned by the storekeeper's call.

He was safe, but Hutch had vanished into the night.

***

Chapter Sixteen- Eclipse

When Kolchak pulled up to the location, the parking lot of an abandoned warehouse, there was a tight cluster of cops and crime scene investigators around a white van. He pulled out his camera and took a few pictures. He spotted Starsky yelling at a heavy-set black man, and pushed his way through the crowd to him.

"Who the hell are you?" the black man snarled, switching his attention to Kolchak.

"Carl Kolchak, INS," Kolchak said automatically, pulling out his ID. "Detective Starsky, what's going on?"

"Starsky, you know this guy?"

Starsky gave Kolchak a distracted glance. "Yeah Cap'n, I know him. Kolchak, what the hell are you doing here?"

"I heard there was a kidnapping. Was it...?

"Yeah. It was Hutch."

Kolchak reached for his recorder. �Well, how did it happen?�

�Starsky!� the captain broke in, a surprising note of gentleness in his brusque voice. �Get out of here. You know you can�t do anything to help, so go home, and take Barlow with you. He looks like he�s been hung out to dry.� He turned to Kolchak. �And as for you, no comment, and get the hell out of here. And no pictures!�

Starsky gave the captain a venomous look, but obeyed. �Barlow!� he called. �Come on. Dobey wants us out of here.�

Kolchak made a rapid decision. It didn�t seem he�d get anything here. He turned and followed Starsky, waving his recorder.

"Detective? Detective Starsky? What happened? Did it have anything to do with the drug case?"

"Yeah... no... I don't know. It was those guys that've been watching our place. Come on, let's get out of here. Barlow!"

Officer Barlow joined them. He looked like he'd been beaten. "Starsky?"

"Cap'n Dobey wants me to go home and take you. Says there's nothing more we can do here."

"You aren't just giving up?"

"Hell no! But the captain's right, there's nuthin' here for us. Let's go. Minnie'll let me know anything the forensic guys come up with."

Barlow glanced at Kolchak. "What about him?"

"He comes with us. Maybe he can help."

"So what's the story?" Kolchak broke in.

Barlow filled him in on their abduction the night before.

"They found the van abandoned here this morning," Starsky added when Barlow was done.

"And you're sure it was the same guys who've been watching your house?"

"Sure looked like the guy Hutch and I chased the other night. Fast like he was, too." Barlow shuddered.

"Dobey has officers watching the place now, but none of 'em have been back," Starsky put in.

"What are you going to do?"

Starsky shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. None of this makes any sense." For a moment he looked totally dejected and hopeless. Then he pulled himself up and eyed Kolchak fiercely. "What have you found out?"

By this time they had made their way through the crowd to Starsky's car.

"Why don't we go somewhere and I'll fill you in?" Kolchak suggested. "This isn't the best place for a private conversation."

Starsky looked around the parking lot. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Our place. Barlow, you coming?"

"Yeah, of course," the younger officer replied, with a sideways glance at Kolchak.

"I have my car, I'll meet you there," Kolchak said, and headed for where he'd parked the convertible. He hoped that Barlow wouldn't have the chance to prejudice Starsky too badly before they could talk.

The drive was uneventful. Starsky and Barlow were already waiting when he got there. Starsky looked more concerned than before, if that was possible. He pulled Kolchak in as soon as he walked to the door.

"OK, what the hell is this that Barlow's telling me?" he asked roughly. "Something about undersea creatures trying to take over the world?"

"Not exactly," Kolchak started to explain. "The Deep Ones just serve the Old Ones... but that's not important now. I found some stuff out."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"I went to see a Voodoo bokor that Mary told me about. She had a lot to say. She said that the brains behind this is the same guy that was behind whatever happened to you and Hutch on that island, wherever it was. Papa... something. Theodore, I think."

Starsky stared at him. "Where did you hear that name? Barlow, did you guys tell him that at Huggy's yesterday?"

Barlow shook his head in bewilderment. "No. Who the hell is Papa Theodore? Does he have something to do with that voodoo stuff Hutch was talking about? But he never said the name, I'm sure of that."

"I'm telling you, Marie Edmonds told me about him. After I left Huggy Bear's yesterday," Kolchak insisted.

"What else did she say?" Starsky paced back and forth in agitation.

"She said that this Papa Theodore is willing to destroy the world to get his revenge on you and your partner. He's turned to the Old Ones, and I think he's using a drug that the Deep Ones provide to manipulate his followers into waking up Cthulhu and opening a way for the Old Ones to return to earth."

Starsky threw up his hands. "The Deep Ones, who the hell are they?"

"They're creatures that live underwater that worship the Old Ones. They look... they look, well, they look kind of like the guy who was watching your house the other night."

Barlow frowned. "Starsky... the guys who kidnapped us... they were talking about 'The Sea-mother', and 'Dry-landers', and they said stuff like �what was ours will be ours again�. It makes sense, sort of. Well, at least it makes sense that those guys are some sort of cult that believes it. Hutch was saying they looked like they had some sort of weird inbred genetic problem.�

Starsky's restless pacing paused. "What was it Mary said the other night?" He looked thoughtful. "'A tall black man'? With a 'really creepy laugh'? That fits Papa Theodore, all right."

"Look, we have to find Hutch before their 'Great Sacrifice', whenever the hell that is," Barlow broke in.

"May first," Kolchak said. "Beltane, also called Walpurgisnacht. That's their big spring holiday."

"That's in two days," Starsky snarled. "We only have that long. But you've been after this drug ring for months now without finding them. There's no time." He slammed his hands down on the coffee table in frustration. Kolchak winced at the sound.

�Look, maybe we have something now we didn�t before,� Barlow put in. �This woman, whatever her name was, that Kolchak went to see yesterday. She seems to know something. Kolchak couldn�t get her to talk, maybe we can.�

�Marie Edmonds?� Kolchak shook his head. �No, no. She�s stood up to police interrogations before. She won�t say anything she doesn�t want to.� He was certain of that.

�It�s worth a try, anyway. Come on, Kolchak, you have to show us where she is.� Starsky was out the door, practically dragging Kolchak, before he�d even finished his sentence.

They piled into the Torino, leaving Kolchak's convertible behind. Kolchak directed them to the seedy little shop.

But when they arrived it was closed and dark. None of the neighbors could tell them anything about where Marie Edmonds, otherwise known as Céline Des Champs, might have gone, or where she lived.

Starsky kicked over a garbage can while Barlow looked helplessly on. �Damn it!� Barlow almost wailed. �There must be someone who can tell us something.�

Starsky looked up, hope suddenly showing on his face. �Maybe there is,� he muttered. �Mary Polanski. She�s the one who got us into this. Come on!�

�Well, I wouldn�t say she got us into it...� Kolchak started, but his words were lost as they ran, following Starsky back to the car.

Chapter Seventeen- Seeing Forever

Starsky fought down the sick terrified feeling that twisted in his gut. They would find Hutch; he would be alright. They had to. No other outcome was permissible. They had come this far and made it through everything life had thrown at them. They would make it through this too.

He drove the Torino wildly, as fast as he dared, to Mary Polanski�s house. She had to be able to tell them something.

But when they reached it, and explained to Mary what had happened, she shook her head. �I�m sorry, Detective Starsky. I�ll try if you want me to. But it�s not something I�m good at. I told you, I�m mostly a fake. Just a little bit of real talent is all I have.�

�Just try, Mary, please. That�s all I ask,� Starsky pleaded.

�Well, OK," Mary gave in. "Do you have anything that belongs to him that I can hold? Something that he�s worn would be really good.�

Starsky thought for a second. "Yeah, yeah, I think I do. Wait."

He ran out to the car, and threw open the trunk. Sure enough, there was some of Hutch's laundry shoved in that had never been taken to the laundromat. He grabbed a shirt and ran back inside.

�Here,� he snapped, shoving it at Mary.

She took it cautiously. �OK, here goes.�

She buried her face in the shirt and sat unmoving for a few moments. Starsky stood in an agony of anxiety as she breathed heavily.

Finally she looked up again and shook her head. �It�s no good," she said, distraught. "All I get is something like my own house here. Nothing else. I�m really sorry, Detective Starsky, but I�m just not strong enough.�

Despair washed over Starsky. He put his head down. There had to be someone, something...

Suddenly he jumped up. "Barlow, Kolchak. Come on. If she can't, I know who can."

"Who?" Kolchak asked, grabbing up his hat and following.

"Joe Collandra."

"Joe Collandra?" Mary squeaked, jumping from her seat. "You know him? I've always wanted to meet him. I'm coming with you!"

"Who the hell is Joe Collandra?" Kolchak blustered, as the four of them loaded into the Torino.

"Isn't he the psychic that you guys got involved with once?" Barlow asked.

"Yeah, that's him," Starsky replied, as he swung the Torino around a corner, sending Mary sprawling onto Kolchak's lap.

"A psychic? You were involved in a case with a psychic?" Kolchak asked. No one answered.

Mary pushed herself upright again. "I've heard that he's the best there is," she said hopefully. "As good as it gets. Of course," she added more quietly, "that still doesn't mean he can see everything."

He'll see this, Starsky thought. He'd better. He has to.

Joe's greasy spoon diner looked about the same as it had before, no better, no worse. There were still no patrons inside. Joe himself looked up from behind the counter as they stormed through the door.

�What the hell�?� he started, then covered his eyes and winced away. �Whoa! Can you turn down the brightness on that thing?�

�I knew it!� Mary squealed. �You can see it too!�

�I can see it, but what the hell is it? Detective Starsky, why are you glowing like that?�

�He was kissed by an angel!� Mary chirruped.

�Mary, do you have to�� Starsky broke off. �Joe, I need a favor from you. Really, really badly.�

�You�d better stop the glowing thing first then,� Collandra said testily. He glanced at Starsky and covered his eyes again. �I can�t even look at you.�

�Wait, why does it hurt so much? It shouldn�t. If it�s too bright, just shield yourself a little bit,� Mary asked, puzzled.

"What the hell do you mean, shield? And who the hell are you, anyway?"

"My name's Mary Polanski. Didn't anyone ever teach you how to close yourself off to stuff? My grandma taught me."

"No, no one ever taught me anything about it," Collandra snapped.

A look of total shock came over Mary's face. "Nothing? Oh boy, that's got to hurt some times! Detective Starsky, we got to wait just a couple of minutes while I teach Mr. Collandra some stuff he should know."

Anxiety twisted Starsky's stomach. "Mary, we don't have time."

"Look at him! He can't even face you! How can he help you like that!"

It was true, Collandra was still grimacing away.

�Oh, hell. All right, Mary, but make it fast.�

�Hey, aren�t you guys missing something? Like telling me who the hell you are and what you want?�

�You�re the psychic,� Starsky snarled. �You tell me.�

�All I can see right now is that you�re shining like a damn Christmas tree!�

�I can help you with that, Mr. Collandra,� Mary said. �Please, let me help.�

�Look, let�s start with who the hell you are first, OK?� Collandra almost pleaded, still with his eyes shaded.

�My name is Mary Polanski,� Mary repeated patiently. �I�m a fortuneteller, and a little bit of a psychic too. I�ve been helping Detective Starsky with a case, but I�m not strong enough, and this is very important.� Her recitation speeded up as she went along. �So we decided to ask you to help, but it looks like you need my help first. So can I help? It�ll only take a few minutes, and it�ll make you able to deal with stuff like that,� she pointed to Starsky, �much better. OK?�

�What do you want to do?� Collandra asked uneasily.

�Just talk to you, teach you a few things. Just alone for a few minutes. Is that all right with everyone?� She looked anxiously around at Starsky.

�Just hurry up,� Starsky snapped impatiently.

�Mr. Collandra? Please?�

Collandra threw up his hands. �Ok, hell, what do I have to loose? You want some privacy? Come on, I have an office in the back.�

He gestured towards the back. Mary smiled, and followed his lead.

The two psychics were gone for about fifteen minutes. It was the longest fifteen minutes of Starsky�s life. He paced anxiously across the length of the diner.

�Calm down, Starsky,� Barlow said soothingly. �They�ll be back soon.�

Starsky didn�t answer. His mind was too busy building horrific images of what Hutch�s captors might be doing to him.

If Kolchak was right about the date of the sacrifice, he would be kept alive until the first. But alive didn�t mean unhurt. The last time Barlow had seen him, Hutch had been beaten and bloody, chained to a wall. Who knew what worse had been done since then? In frustration he took a swipe at a chair that was in his way, knocking it over.

Barlow looked worriedly over in his direction but wisely didn�t say anything.

Finally Mary and Collandra reappeared. Mary had a satisfied smile, and, Starsky had to admit, Collandra looked a lot less tense then he had. He also wasn�t wincing away from Starsky.

�Hey, Mary! You�re right!� he said, �I can look at him now without it hurting!�

Kolchak stepped up to him with his recorder out. �Mr. Collandra? Are you the psychic that was used by the police in that kidnapping in Atlantic City some years ago?�

Collandra eyed him warily. �Now who the hell are you?�

Kolchak pulled a card out of his pocket. �Carl Kolchak, INS. Can I ask you a few questions?�

�Not NOW, Kolchak,� Starsky snarled, nearly at the breaking point. �Get your damn story later!�

�All right, all right.� Kolchak moved aside, grumbling to himself. �I�ll come back and talk to you another time, then,� he added to Collandra, who ignored him.

�All right, Detective Starsky, what is this about?� Collandra asked.

�Didn�t Mary explain?�

�No, I knew you wanted to keep this fast, so I just told him my stuff. Not why we were here,� Mary explained. �And I just gave him the basics quickly. I�ll have to come back later and really help him out.�

�So, Detective, what is it you want me to do?� Collandra asked again.

Starsky swallowed nervously, all his anger melted away in the overwhelming fear. �Hutch is missing,� he said simply. �He was kidnapped last night. We think they�re going to kill him in a few days.�

He gave the shirt, which he�d been twisting in his hands, to Collandra. �This is his. Can you find him? Please?�

Collandra glanced at Mary, who smiled reassuringly. He took the shirt. �I guess I owe you one,� he said grudgingly. �OK, I�ll try.�

He crumpled it, and pressed it to his face the same way that Mary had. Then he suddenly looked up, with an expression of surprise. He stared at Starsky. �Oh, that�s why you�re so concerned. Congratulations, Detective. I think. I didn�t know it was allowed by Internal Affairs.�

�Thanks,� Starsky snapped sardonically. �Yes it is, now, and no one knows anyway. So don�t go around broadcasting it.�

Collandra muttered something unintelligible and put his head down again. For some moments he sat like that, silent, trembling slightly. Then he moaned softly, and sweat broke out on his forehead. Mary touched him gently on the shoulder.

�It�s OK, Joe,� she murmured. �Don�t fight it. Let it come.�

Joe whimpered. �Big house!� he gasped. �Pretty colors around the door.� He shook from side to side. �Words next to the door. A sign��

�What does the sign say, Joe?� Mary prompted. �Remember what I said about focusing. Can you see it?�

�No, no� Yes!� Collandra gasped. �One word. �Netherworld��. He was panting and shaking now. Suddenly he gave a shout, and snapped his head up. His eyes stared wildly. "He�s calling it! Don't let it out!" he panted. "Whatever's down there, don't let it out!"

"What do you mean? Down where?"

Collandra looked puzzled. "I... I don't know. I just know, someone calls it, and if it gets out, it's a really bad thing. Like... doomsday bad." He was shaking and drenched in sweat.

"Ok, ok, we won't let it out," Barlow said soothingly. "But where? What did you see?"

Collandra shrugged helplessly. "A big house, and colors around the door. And that one word, 'netherworld'. And there�s something there that shouldn�t ever be allowed to come up.�

�What the hell do you mean by that, �shouldn�t be allowed to come up�?� Starsky snarled, frustrated. �What shouldn�t be allowed to come up? And come up from where?�

Collandra shook his head in confusion and annoyance. �I have no idea what it means, Detective,� he said sharply. �Maybe you�ll figure it out yourself. You wanted me to do this, and I did. And that�s what I came up with. That and the word �netherworld�. You tell me what it means.� He wiped sweat from his face. �Better still, don�t tell me. That�s all I know, and it�s all I want to know.�

"'Netherworld'? What the hell does that...?" Starsky trailed off. A memory flickered through his brain. Where had he...? Yes! That was it! "Netherworld! The Church of the Netherworld! That's it! Joe, do you have a phone I can use?"

Collandra was pulling himself together now. He shrugged. "Yeah, sure. You can use the one on the counter."

Starsky dialed a number he knew as well as his own. A familiar voice answered the phone. "The Pits, where the fine meet to dine and put their taste buds on the line."

"Huggy? It's Starsky."

"Starsky?" The playful bantering tone was gone, and Huggy's attitude was suddenly serious. "Is there any word about Hutch? I've been asking questions but gettin' no answers. No word on the street at all."

"No, and that's what I'm calling about. I may have a line, but I need to know something. After we busted Ezra Beam, what happened to his phony 'Church of the Netherworld' setup?"

"Ezra Beam? That flake? You think he had something to do with this? I thought he was still locked up tighter than Howard Hughes vaults."

"He is. That's why I want to know what happened to his church after that."

"Let me think... Yeah, I know. There were a couple of his followers who were serious about it, and they kept it going after he got sent away. Then about a year ago, some new cat came and took it over. A brother, that's all I know."

"A brother... a black guy? You're sure about that?" It could be Papa Theodore then.

"Yeah, I'm sure. I heard he was a big dude, kinda' crazy. Changed the name of the place from what it was to something else, has 'Dagon' in it. I forget exactly what."

"But it's still in the same building, though, right?" Hope blossomed in Starsky's chest. That had to be it.

"Far as I know, sure. Why? You think that's where Hutch is?"

"Yeah. He'd better be." Starsky slammed down the phone. "OK, that's it. I know where he is," he said to the group. "Let's go."

"I'll come back tomorrow," Mary called over her shoulder to Collandra as she followed the men out. "We'll work more on the shielding then, OK?"

"Yeah, OK. Thanks for everything. Good luck," Collandra called after them. �You�ll need it,� Starsky heard him add quietly as they left. It was not comforting.

"Where are we going? Shouldn't we get backup? And a warrant?" Barlow asked, as they piled into the Torino.

"What judge would give us a warrant based on the word of a psychic? By the time we convinced anyone, it might be too late." This was something Starsky knew he had to do himself. There was no time to wait for anyone else. He looked at Barlow, eyes narrowed. "Are you in?"

"Yeah, of course, if you really think we'll find Hutch." Barlow said defiantly.

"OK, then we'll straighten it all out afterwards." After all, that had always worked for them before. He peeled out of the parking lot, and headed towards the house that had once held Ezra Beam's church.

***

Chapter Eighteen - Riding the Wings of the Storm

They pulled up across the street from the house. Mary gasped. "It looks just like the house where I live!" she exclaimed. "I guess that's why the only impression I could get of where Detective Hutchinson is was of my own home."

It was true. The building was exactly the same, from the entryway up to the cupola on the top. Kolchak snapped some pictures. The sky was clouding up, which gave them a dramatic backdrop.

He had a thought. "Hey, then maybe you can tell us about the layout inside!"

Starsky turned to her. "Yeah, Mary, anything you could tell us would help."

She shook her head. "Sorry, Detective Starsky, but my house has been all cut up and rearranged inside to make it into apartments. Nothing's original any more." Then she brightened. "Oh, but there�s one thing I do know! These old houses, especially the ones down here by the bay, there's legends that some of them have secret tunnels leading from the basements that go down to the water. Smugglers used to use them, and guys that used to shanghai sailors."

"That's something to keep in mind," Kolchak nodded, thinking of Collandra�s warning. "Down in the basement you say?"

"That's what I've heard," Mary agreed.

Starsky opened the car door. �All right. Mary, you and Kolchak wait out here, and Barlow and I are going in.�

�Oh no, Detective Starsky.� Kolchak was emphatic. �If you�re going in, then so am I. I�m not missing out on this story.�

�He could be useful,� Barlow pointed out.

Starsky stared at Kolchak for a moment, then nodded tersely. �All right. But Mary, you stay out here. If we don�t come out in half an hour, no, make it 45 minutes, I want you to call the police. Get Captain Dobey, and tell him where we are.� He quickly showed her how to use the police radio.

�OK,� Mary agreed. �Be careful.�

�Oh, we will be,� Kolchak promised earnestly, thinking again of Collandra�s warning. Not something he wanted to get involved with. Though, fatalistically, he feared that once again it would fall to him to take care of whatever the problem was.

The three men got out of the car and walked over to the big house. From the outside it didn�t look particularly dangerous or sinister, just a large white Victorian-type house with a cupola on top. The wind that had risen made the treetops toss. Clouds scudded across the sky.

�Look,� Barlow whispered, pointing to the front door. There was a decorative inset of small colored panes of glass all around the main window. ��Pretty colors around the door�,� he quoted.

"And there," Kolchak added. He pointed to a sign next to the door that read "Netherworld Temple of Dagon".

"Guess this is the right place," Barlow said. "Who or what the hell is 'Dagon', anyway?"

"A minor figure under Cthulhu,� Kolchak explained. �Sometimes the cultists use his name to hide what they�re really doing, because Dagon was also the name of a Babylonian god.�

�Cut the conversation,� Starsky whispered sharply. He reached for the door. It was locked. �They used to have this rigged so it would open automatically,� he added reminiscently.

�OK, now what?� Barlow asked. �We can�t just ring and ask to come in. But we don�t have a warrant.�

Starsky gave Barlow and Kolchak a hard look. �I think I hear screaming. Don�t you? That means a crime might be in progress.�

Barlow wet his lips and nodded. �Yeah. Loud screams. Right Kolchak?�

�Oh, absolutely,� Kolchak agreed solemnly. "Loud, loud screams." What the hell. He'd used less legal methods to get into places in his time.

�Right. Barlow, you go high, I�ll go low. Kolchak, stay back.� Both men drew their guns. Starsky kicked the door, and it flew in.

There was no one inside. The two cops relaxed slightly. Starsky moved warily into the room, then motioned Barlow to follow. Kolchak went third.

The entryway led directly into an area that appeared to have been set up as a chapel. It was decorated in an ocean theme, waves, weed and fish. There was a predominance of tentacled shapes like stylized fish or octopi. Kolchak shuddered as he looked around. He took some pictures.

�They changed the decor,� Starsky whispered. �All this fishy stuff is new.�

�Goes along with the new object of worship,� Kolchak muttered darkly. �But I�ll bet this is only for show anyway. The real temple is probably hidden away. �Down below�,� he added. �Where whatever �it� is, is.�

�And that�s where we have to go,� Barlow said. �That�s where they�ll have Hutch, waiting for the sacrifice.�

Starsky nodded. �Yeah. I agree. Down.� Quietly they moved down the corridor that led from the chapel area and started exploring the house.

They found the stairs with very little effort. Prosaically, they led from the back of what appeared to be a perfectly normal, if somewhat empty, kitchen. Carefully they descended the narrow wooden steps.

The basement was dark and musty, with a bare plank floor, lit dimly by a few bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling. There were dozens of wooden barrels lining the cement walls. In the center of the room, under what little light there was, was set a long table, with several chairs around it. One of the barrels was pulled up to it, with the top open. It was filled with white powder.

The three men spread out warily, inspecting everything. Kolchak peered at the table. It was covered with little paper envelopes. The white powder from the barrel had been scooped into the envelopes, and the envelopes sealed. There was a neat pile of filled envelopes at the end of the table. Jackpot! He snapped pictures of everything.

"I guess we found our drug dealers all right," Barlow whispered.

Starsky found a screwdriver on the floor and pried the top off one of the other barrels. It too was filled with white powder. He and Barlow stared at it, then at the rest of the barrels.

"This much?" Barlow marveled. "Where the hell is it all coming from? And what�s the barrel covered with?" He ran his fingers over the wooden surface. Kolchak touched one too; it felt like there was some sort of sticky coating.

Starsky shrugged wordlessly.

"I told you," Kolchak said testily. "The Deep Ones are supplying it. Maybe it comes from their own skins." He shuddered at the thought of it. The coating was probably some sort of waterproofing.

"Where's Hutch?" Starsky growled. "I thought he'd be down here." He glared at Kolchak.

"Hey, don't blame me!" Kolchak protested. "I thought he'd be down here too." Then something else occurred to him. "And I thought there'd be an entrance to those tunnels Mary mentioned." He started pushing barrels aside.

Barlow glanced at Starsky, who nodded, and both of them joined Kolchak�s efforts.

It didn�t take long before they�d found the trap-door in the floor, hidden in the corner behind more barrels. Kolchak smiled grimly. �This is it,� he said. He could feel it.

Barlow pulled on the ring. The trap lifted easily, obviously oiled and well used. Under it, another flight of steps, stone this time, but with a wooden railing, led down into darkness.

Starsky motioned to Barlow and Kolchak to go behind him, and, gun in hand, started down. Barlow followed, and Kolchak brought up the rear. �I knew I should have brought a flashlight,� he grumbled.

The stairs opened onto another room, a sub-basement. It was huge and dark, cut out of rock, and much bigger than the basement above. There were even more of the barrels of the drug lined up by the stairs. The air was damp and smelled of the ocean. The only light came from small flames lit in little braziers standing around the room.

That was all Kolchak had time to see, before Starsky gasped and cried out, �Hutch!� and ran across the room.

Detective Hutchinson was chained by his wrists to ring-bolts hammered into the wall. He was bloodied, and seemed only semi-conscious, but alive. �Hutch, you OK?� Starsky murmured, worry in his voice. Hutch didn�t reply. Starsky gently lifted one of his eyelids, and peered at his eye, though what he hoped to see in the dim light, Kolchak didn't know. �I think he�s been drugged,� he said. �We gotta� get you down from there, Babe.� He pulled experimentally on the chains, but it was obvious to everyone that the bolts were firm. He looked at the lock that held them. �OK. The key has to be here somewhere.�

Kolchak looked around the chamber. It didn't look promising. There was what appeared to be a stone altar at one end. It looked as though the room had been expanded, and the stones that had been excavated in the process had been used to build it. The original ceiling, under the upper level of the basement, was wood, but the rest was solid rock.

Near to the altar was an opening into a tunnel. There was a cool breeze blowing from it, and the rank fishy smell was stronger. "Must be the way to the water," Kolchak muttered. He went on searching.

He inspected the altar closely. It was a stone slab covered with various strange markings, painted or carved into the surface. Disturbingly, there was a channel cut down it that looked as though it was designed to allow blood to flow away. He pulled out his camera, and took some pictures.

"What the hell is that?" Barlow asked, behind him. Kolchak turned to look. Barlow was staring at a shelf set in the wall to one side of the altar. On it was a stone weight, carved in strange patterns, incised with metal.

"That must be the summoning stone," Kolchak decided after some thought. "When this Papa Theodore wanted to call the Deep Ones here, to set up the community, he would have thrown that in the water," he explained. "When they made their bargain with him, they gave it back." Something else he should have a picture of.

On the altar itself was an object with a cloth over it. Kolchak really didn't think he wanted to see what was under it, but with a sense of fatalism, he pulled off the cover.

As he suspected it would be, it was a greenish stone idol, and it was just like the descriptions of Cthulhu that he had read; a head with tentacles like a squid or octopus, the legs with their horrid claws drawn up onto the block he sat on, the long clawed fingers of the grasping hands, and the hideous bat-like wings. It was loathsome. The descriptions had somehow missed the disturbing quality of it, the sickening impression of wrongness that it had. And this, bad as it was, was only a copy of the real thing, the statue that was more than just a statue that squatted obscenely somewhere in the depths, in the sunken city of R�lyeh. Kolchak shuddered.

"Ick." Barlow made a disgusted noise. "That's pretty nasty looking. What the hell is it?"

"That's Cthulhu," Kolchak explained. He snapped a picture. Barlow grimaced and moved on to searching along the farther wall.

Hutch moaned slightly from his chained position.

"Have you found the key yet?" Starsky called frantically from across the room, where he was tearing through some boxes filled with what seemed to be robes of some kind. �Hold on, babe, we�re working on it,� he added to Hutch, throwing the garments aside, and going on to the next box.

"No," Barlow answered. "Doesn't look too likely to be over here, either. I think we're going to have to break him loose. There was that screwdriver up in the other room..."

Just then Kolchak heard something, footsteps, maybe, in the distance. �I don�t think we have time,� he said urgently. �Listen!�

Everyone froze. There was a burst of eerie laughter, and then an unfamiliar voice said, "Detective Starsky. We meet again. I knew we would; I called you and you came. You still belong to me."

All three of them whirled to face the opening where the voice came from. A tall black man in a long red robe was standing there, leaning nonchalantly against the wall.

�Not now, not ever,� Starsky snarled. �Where�s the key to those chains, you bastard?�

Papa Theodore, or so Kolchak assumed him to be, sauntered into the chamber. He laughed again. �All in good time, Detective, all in good time.� He moved over to the altar. �And you other two gentlemen. How nice of you to come and see me, Detective Barlow, Mr. Kolchak. Oh yes,� he added to their startled reactions, �I know who you are, very well.� He chuckled deeply. �Detective Barlow I know because I know everyone associated with my friends Starsky and Hutchinson. And you, Mr. Kolchak... you have a reputation all your own in certain circles, you know. Yes, indeed.�

Starsky pulled his gun and aimed at Papa Theodore. �The key. Now.�

Nervously Kolchak started edging away from the altar. Papa Theodore did not appear to notice.

�Oh no, Detective Starsky. Detective Hutchinson is set to be a most important guest at our service in two days. Certain of my new friends are, shall I say, hungry to make his acquaintance.� He laughed at his own joke.

"Why are you doing this?" Kolchak asked. He surreptitiously turned on his tape recorder.

Papa Theodore turned his attention towards him, causing him to back up even more. �Revenge,� he intoned. �Revenge, of course. These two destroyed everything I held dear, so now I will destroy them.�

�But if you call back the Old Ones they�ll destroy the whole world along with them. Isn�t that a little extreme?�

Papa Theodore started his creepy laughter again. �What do I care? When the Old Ones reign supreme, They will take me as their emissary and set me above all the people of the world!�

�They�re more likely to eat you for an after dinner snack,� Kolchak muttered. More loudly he asked, �So calling back the Old Ones, that�s the whole point of this? The drugs, the cult?�

�Yes, of course. And when the final rite is held in two days, the power of the faithful will be focused through the minds and dreams of all the fools who have used the drug the Deep Ones brought me. And then, even though the stars are not right, it won�t matter! Great Cthulhu will awake, and the city of R�lyeh shall rise from the depths. The Old Ones will return again!�

�You�re a freak,� Starsky broke in. �Now give me that key.�

Papa Theodore turned to him. �You puny little man,� he said with a chuckle. "You�re blind in the face of the power and the might of the Great Old Ones. But you and your like will not stop me!� His voice rose to an unearthly shriek, and he chanted, �Ia! Ia! Ng�wthrgn ag rglagn Shogguth! Lgn�rn Shogguth! Ia! Ia! Shogguth!�

�What the hell?� Barlow whispered, uncertainly.

�My God, I think he�s summoning a shogguth!� Kolchak gasped. He remembered in horror what the books had said about the shogguths, created as mindless polymorphic servitors by the Elder Race, but which over millennia came to awareness and power, filled with evil, and malicious beyond understanding.

�Yes, that�s right, Mr. Kolchak,� Papa Theodore gloated. �A shogguth. And it will come and flay you skin from bone and suck your marrow dry! And then it will guard this place from any who might come to interrupt until the final rite that calls down the wrath of the Elder Gods!� He took up his chanting again. �Ia Shogguth! Lgn�rn Shogguth! Ia! Ia!�

Kolchak moved even farther towards the back of the room. Anything to get away from the chanting. He stopped when he felt something up against his back.

Papa Theodore rose to a crescendo of shrieking. �Shogguth! Shogguth! Fgn�rgl n�mgthlp Shogguth! Shogguth! Ia! Ia!� He reached inside his robe and pulled something metallic out.

�Gun!� screamed Barlow.

Faster than Kolchak could follow, Starsky had aimed and fired. The shots echoed in the chamber. Kolchak jumped backwards, knocking over the object that had been pushing into his back. It was one of the braziers, and it went clattering to the ground.

The thing in Papa Theodore�s hand fell to the alter. Not a gun, a knife. He gasped. Blood sprayed onto the altar before him. He fell to his knees. Horribly, he started laughing again.

A trickle of blood dripped from his lips as he chortled. �You think by killing me you�ll stop what happens?� he gasped. �All the summoning needed was blood. It will still come, and I will still have my revenge.� He collapsed onto the floor.

Behind Kolchak, the flames from the toppled brazier spread to the pile of robes Starsky had left on the floor, and kindled. The fire flared up and caught one of the barrels. Smoke billowed.

Starsky coughed. �The key!� he cried out. �He must have it on him. We have to get the hell out of here.�

Barlow jumped over to Papa Theodore�s body and searched. �Here it is!� he called. He tossed a key chain over to Starsky.

Starsky unlocked the manacles. Hutch slumped into his arms. Starsky held him tightly. �Let�s get going,� he shouted.

�We can�t,� Kolchak said grimly. �Don�t you feel it? It�s coming.�

The others paused and looked at each other. �Yeah,� Barlow said uneasily.

It was not quite a sound, more of a feeling of pressure, not physical, just barely on the edge of perception, but there, unmistakable. Something was coming. Something� wrong. Coming closer.

�We have to stop it,� Kolchak went on. �Remember what Collandra said? This is it. If we don�t, then it guards this place until the Deep Ones hold the ceremony, and then the world ends. We have to stop it, now.� Damn, he hated this sort of thing. But someone had to save the world.

Starsky cradled the semi-conscious Hutch against him. Briefly he closed his eyes, then a look of determination came over his face. "Barlow! Get Hutch outside. I'll stay here with Kolchak."

"But this smoke� your lungs�"

"No buts, Barlow,� Starsky ordered. �Take him. Here." He draped Hutch's arm around Barlow's shoulders.

Barlow sighed. "OK, Hutch. Come on, let's go."

Hutch mumbled something Kolchak couldn't understand.

"It's OK, Hutch. I'll see you outside soon," Starsky said reassuringly. "Now go with Barlow."

Barlow pushed the unresisting Hutch up the stairs. The fire had spread to the wooden banisters now, but Barlow got him safely past and up.

Starsky watched them go, then turned to Kolchak. "OK. Now what?"

Kolchak shrugged. "I have no idea." He hoped something would come up. It always had before.

"Well, you'd better think of something. It's getting closer. What is a shogguth, anyway?"

"Trust me. You don't want to know."

The sensation of imminent presence, of a malign will approaching, was stronger, like the oppressive sense of pressure before a storm. It was a sort of roar off in the distance, not quite physically heard, but felt somewhere inside. Hunger and anger and hatred were there, malice and power and spite. It was death, and more than death.

Starsky had reloaded. He aimed his gun down the corridor.

"I don't think that's going to do any good," Kolchak said.

"Do you have a better idea?" Starsky snapped.

"No... wait. Maybe, yes!" Suddenly Kolchak remembered the little object Marie Edmonds had given him the day before, something to be given to "the one who had the favor of the Opener of the Ways." He fumbled in his pocket for it. Where was it? Certainly he couldn't have forgotten it... no, here it was.

"Here!" he said, shoving it into Starsky's hand. "This is for you."

"What the hell is it?" Starsky asked, staring at it.

"I think it's the Elder Sign," Kolchak said. "It wards off these things. Marie Edmonds said it was for the one who had the favor of Papa Legba. That's..."

"That's Michael," Starsky cut him off. "What do I do with it?"

"I don't know."

"You're helpful," Starsky said sarcastically. He was wheezing a little from the smoke.

Kolchak shrugged. �But whatever you do, it had better be fast. I don�t think we have much time.�

Starsky studied the Elder Sign. �He said that he was with anyone who called on him, if they knew the right name or not,� he said thoughtfully, like he was remembering something. �Maybe it doesn�t matter what I do, as long as I ask.�

His lips moved for a moment. Kolchak thought he was mumbling something in a foreign language, maybe Hebrew. Then, taking aim, he threw the thing down the corridor, with a pitch that would have made Tom Seaver proud.

There was a tiny �click� as the little stone hit the floor of the corridor. And suddenly, all hell broke loose.

Something shrieked, an unearthly, hellish crescendo of sound, ear-piercing, filled with frustrated rage and impotent fury. The walls shuddered with the force of it, and kept on shaking. Rocks fell from the ceiling, and the whole room shook. The noise went on and on, growing louder, now with an actual note of pain. Then, just when they thought they could stand it no longer, it started retreating into the distance, dying off into a gibbering, gurgling wail.

�That�s done it!� Kolchak shouted over the din. �Now we get out of here!�

�Yeah, I think you�re right,� Starsky said. �Come on!�

Together they stumbled up the stairs, through thick blinding smoke. Kolchak could hardly breathe as they staggered across the floor of the basement. It was already blazing in spots, and as they ran through the room one of the drug barrels caught and exploded, spreading more flames behind them.

The wooden basement steps were untouched so far, but the flames followed them closely behind. Just as they cleared the kitchen, there was a roar from beneath them, and part of the floor caved in.

Kolchak trembled on the brink of the gaping hole for a moment but Starsky grabbed him and pulled him back, and together they circled around.

They made it down the corridor. Starsky was struggling to breathe in the choking smoke. He started coughing, unable to catch his breath, stumbled, and fell to his knees. �You go on,� he gasped out. �Tell Hutch...�

�Come on, get up,� Kolchak snarled, pulling at him, but the bigger man was too much for him to lift. �Come on!� he cried again. Flames were around them now, and Kolchak too started coughing from the smoke.

Suddenly Barlow was there. �Starsky, lets go!� he yelled. Together he and Kolchak managed to pull him to his feet again. They dragged him through the blazing chapel area, to the front door and out into the safety of the open air.

The sky was greenish-gray, and the wind whipped the billowing clouds of smoke to a towering column. The three men limped across the street, to where Mary Polanski was cradling Hutch on the grass. Barlow gently lowered Starsky down next to him, and he and Kolchak sank to the ground themselves. Starsky put his arms around Hutch and pulled the two of them together, breathing hoarsely, gulping air. Hutch rested his head on Starsky�s shoulder.

�Thanks, Barlow,� Starsky gasped.

�Hush, don�t try to talk. There should be an ambulance here pretty soon,� Mary said.

Off in the distance fire engines could be heard, sirens blaring. Crowds had gathered to watch the fire.

Suddenly, from the clouds that loomed overhead, a bolt of lightning smashed down to the top of the burning building. More flames burst from where the bolt hit. Lightning struck the roof again, and then several times more as the onlookers gaped, awe-struck. The first fire truck arrived just as the building started to collapse.

Epilogue- Nacht und Nebel

Several days had passed. Both Starsky and Hutch had spent time in the hospital, Hutch for the results of the drugging and the injuries he had received in the abduction, and Starsky for the after-effects of smoke inhalation on his damaged lungs.

May first had come and gone, and the world hadn't ended. Not that Steve had really thought that it would, now that he�d had time to think about it. Just like Hutch had said, it was probably some cult, inbreeding and getting weird over generations.

Today was both Starsky and Hutch's first day back at work after getting out of the hospital, and Hutch and Steve had spent the morning out on the streets. Now they were back in the office to do some paperwork.

No sooner had they entered the room, however, than Captain Dobey stuck his head out from his office. "Hutch! Barlow! In my office, now." He didn't look happy.

Starsky was already there, as was, oddly enough, Kolchak. Steve had seen Kolchak in the police station the day before while the reporter was arranging to get a Bay City police press pass, and knew he'd been spending his time writing up the story. Both he and Starsky looked angry.

There was an additional man in the room as well, a stranger. He had dark hair, craggy, somewhat sunken features, and a supercilious smirk. He was sitting at Dobey's desk with an ash tray. There was a package of Morley cigarettes on the desk beside him which he had apparently been chain smoking, to judge by the ash tray filled with butts. His fingertips were stained yellow from nicotine.

�Hutch, Barlow, this is Agent�� he looked at the stranger expectantly. The stranger took a long drag on his cigarette and puffed out smoke, smiled and said nothing. �This gentleman is from the government,� Dobey improvised. �He wants to talk to the four of you about what happened the other day.�

The stranger stubbed out his cigarette. �No, Captain, I want to remind your men, and Mr. Kolchak too, of course, that nothing happened the other day. Nothing at all.� He lit a fresh one. �Just an unfortunate fire at an empty house. Luckily no one was injured beyond two valiant officers who suffered some smoke inhalation, which is what their medical records will show.�

�He�s taken all the files,� Starsky broke in grimly. �There�s no record any more of you being kidnapped, Hutch.�

�Why?� Hutch asked coldly. �What�s the point of that?�

�Oh come now, Detective Hutchinson. I know you and Detective Starsky have encountered times in the past when things that you investigated had to be covered up for the good of your country. The unfortunate case of poor Alex Drew, for instance. Or the events surrounding the murder of Joe Durniak. This is just another of those times.�

�What about the public�s right to know?� Kolchak broke in. �People should be warned about the danger of the Deep Ones!�

The unnamed stranger shifted his attention to Kolchak. �Mr. Kolchak, you already have a reputation for making bizarre claims. Really, who in their right mind believes that the government is covering up killer robots, cave-dwelling troglodytes, or,� his voice slipped into sarcastic mockery, �UFOs?� He smirked as he took another long puff on his Morley. �Even if we allowed you to publish anything about this, no one would believe it.�

�He, he impounded my camera,� Kolchak announced to the room in general. �And my recorded notes!�

Just then there was a knock on the office door. �Come in,� Dobey called.

A young man in dirtied work clothes carrying a wrapped object came in. Ignoring Dobey he went up to the stranger and gave it to him. �Here you are sir. We just found it. They told me you wanted it immediately and I should bring it right over. We�re still looking for the other thing.�

�Thank you,� the stranger said politely. The worker left, and the stranger pulled the wrapping off the object. Kolchak breathed out heavily.

It took Steve a moment to recognize it, but then he realized that it was the bizarrely carved stone that Kolchak had called �the summoning stone�.

�That�s what this is about, isn�t it?� Kolchak demanded. �You, whoever you people are, you wanted that thing. You want to call the Deep Ones yourselves!�

�Mr. Kolchak, please. What could the US Government possibly want with something like that?� The stranger smiled and blew smoke.

�Anything! Power, gold, who knows?� Kolchak gestured with his hands. �And the other thing they�re still looking for, that would be the statue of Cthulhu that you want. God only knows what you can do with that!�

�What about the drug case?� Hutch interrupted.

�That will be listed as closed. That�s all anyone needs to know. All three of you will be credited with it.�

�I figured that was the least I could do,� Dobey added gruffly.

�Yes, but�� Kolchak started.

�That�s enough now. Everybody out!� Dobey ordered. �You too,� he added to the stranger.

�As long as you all remember, gentlemen, nothing untoward happened over the last few days."

�Yeah, yeah we know, we know,� Hutch said coldly.

"Your friend, Miss Polanski, has been contacted and told not to talk about it, either,� the stranger added.

�Come on, Kolchak,� Starsky said, leading the reporter out. �You too, Barlow. Hutch and me know by now, we never win this stuff.�

�Yeah, it's happened to me before,� Kolchak said disgustedly. He glowered at the stranger, who smiled back benignly. Steve decided it was best to say nothing at all.

The four men filed out of Dobey�s office. The stranger stayed seated.

�Go on!� Dobey said. �You too! I want to air out my office.�

"Good day, then, Captain." The stranger smiled again, nodded cordially, and left, carefully cradling the wrapped summoning stone.

Wordlessly they watched him go. Dobey shut his door, but they could hear the sound of windows opening.

�So that�s it,� Kolchak growled. �Another story killed. The whole thing vanishes into nothing.� He sighed heavily.

They sat in silence for a few moments. Finally Starsky roused himself. "OK, guys. Let's go get something to eat. The Pits. On me. I owe both of you for saving me and Hutch."

Steve glanced at Hutch, who nodded agreement. �You did a good job, Barlow. Thanks,� he said. �And you too, Kolchak,� he added grudgingly.

�Yeah, OK,� Kolchak said. "First time the police have ever thanked me for anything," he added, as the four of them headed out to lunch.