Cold Fire

"Damn," Holly said, and a thrill coursed through her, not merely because he had just confirmed her entire theory, whether he could admit it or not, but because the five words he had spoken were proof that he wanted out of the Byzantine fantasy in which he had taken refuge.

He was as pale as a man who had just been told that a cancer was growing in him. In fact a malignancy did reside within him, but it was mental rather than physical.

A breeze wafted through the open car windows, and it seemed to wash new hope into Holly.

That buoyant feeling was short-lived, however, because new words suddenly appeared on the tablet in Jim's hands: YOU DIE.

"This isn't me," he told her earnestly, in spite of the subtle admission he had made a moment ago. "Holly, this can't be me.”

On the tablet, more words appeared: I AM COMING. YOU DIE.

Holly felt as if the world had become a carnival funhouse, full of ghouls and ghosts. Every turn, any moment, without warning, something might spring at her from out of a shadow-or from broad daylight, for that matter. But unlike a carnival monster, this one would inflict real pain, draw blood, kill her if it could.

In hopes that The Enemy, like The Friend, would respond well to firmness, Holly grabbed the tablet from Jim's hand and threw it out the window.

"To hell with that. I won't read that crap.

Listen to me, Jim. If I'm right, The Enemy is the embodiment of your rage over the deaths of your parents. Your fury was so great, at ten, it terrified you, so you pushed it outside yourself, into this other identity. But you're a unique victim of multiple-personality syndrome because your power allows you to create physical existences for your other identities.”

Though acceptance had a toehold in him, he was still struggling to deny the truth. "What're we saying here? That I'm insane, that I'm some sort of socially functional lunatic, for Christ's sake?" "Not insane," she said quickly. "Let's say disturbed, troubled.

You're locked in a psychological box that you built for yourself, and you want out, but you can't find the key to the lock.”

He shook his head. Fine beads of sweat had broken out along his hairline, and he was into whiter shades of pale. "No, that's putting too good a face on it. If what you think is true, then I'm all the way off the deep end, Holly, I should be in some damned rubber room, pumped full of Thorazine.”

She took both of his hands again, held them tight. "No. Stop that.

You can find your way out of this, you can do it, you can make yourself whole again, I know you can.”

"How can you know? Jesus, Holly, I" "Because you're not an ordinary man, you're special," she said sharply.

"You have this power, this incredible force inside you, and you can do such good with it if you want. The power is something you can draw on that ordinary people don't have, it can be a healing power.

Don't you see? If you can cause ringing bells and alien heartbeats and voices to come out of thin air, if you can turn walls into flesh, project images into my dreams, see into the future to save lives, then you can make yourself whole and right again.”

Determined disbelief lined his face. "How could any man have the power you're talking about?" "I don't know, but you've got it.”

"It has to come from a higher being. For God's sake, I'm not Superman.”

Holly pounded a fist against the horn ring and said, "You're telepathic, telekinetic, tele-fucking-everything! All right, you can't fly, you don't have X-ray vision, you can't bend steel with your bare hands, and you can't race faster than a speeding bullet. But you're as close to Superman as any man's likely to get. In fact, in some ways you've got him beat because you can see into the future. Maybe you see only bits and pieces of it, and only random visions when you aren't trying for them, but you can see the future.”

He was shaken by her conviction. "So where'd I get all this magic?" "I don't know.”

"That's where it falls apart.”

"It doesn't fall apart just because I don't know," she said frustratingly.

"Yellow doesn't stop being yellow just because I don't know anything about why the eye sees different colors. You have the power.

You are the power, not God or some alien under the millpond.”

He pulled his hands from hers and looked out the windshield toward the county road and the dry fields beyond. He seemed afraid to face up to the tremendous power he possessed-maybe because it carried with it responsibilities that he was not sure he could shoulder.