Page 75 of The Forest of Lost Souls

“The trials of those souls sent to him in the underworld.”

The cougar makes a solemn sound that might be interpreted as agreement with what Wendy said—if Regis was closer to being a citizen of Crazytown than he believes himself to be.

“Why would this Greek god—”

“Minor mythological figure.”

“Why would he hang around Kettleton County of all places?”

“You’ve confessed your former ways, sweetie, and I assume you’ve given them up, but you surely noticed that Kettleton is steeped in corruption. The wicked are busy here.”

“They’re busy everywhere,” Regis says.

“Of course they are.” With one thumb, she indicates the cougar. “This isn’t his only avatar. They’re everywhere, too.”

“Well, I haven’t heard of anyone spotting an albino mountain lion in New York City. Or in Washington, DC, for that matter, where there ought to be legions of them.”

Wendy sighs and shakes her head and looks at the big cat, and the cat sighs as well and shakes its head, a moment of mimicry that unsettles Regis.

“Don’t you think each avatar,” Wendy asks, “will be appropriate to the place where it gathers evidence? In New York, it mightappear to be a junkie wandering the streets in a drug haze—or a pigeon flitting here and there. In Washington, a lobbyist perhaps, or a rat of one kind or another.”

“You really believe this?”

“The world is a mysterious place, Regis, and the ways of the divine are even more mysterious.”

“He’s a minor figure. How mysterious can he be?”

“I’m not talking about the mysterious ways of Rhadamanthus, sweetie. I mean the mysterious ways of God with a capital G.”

He looks at the cougar. He doesn’t fear it nearly as much as when it first appeared. The cat cocks its head and regards Regis in such a way that his fear returns in full force.

“Three or four times a year? So you’ve seen her like maybe a hundred times? Has anyone else seen her so often?”

“Not anyone I’m aware of.”

“So she’s especially drawn to you. Why is she drawn to you?”

“I don’t know that she’s drawn to me.”

“She’s definitely drawn to you.”

Wendy shrugs.

The cougar’s tail, which lies across the kitchen threshold, swishes back and forth, thumping against the jamb, as if she’s a golden retriever.

The massive lion so white as to seem radiant, the petite woman to whom a lie can’t be told, dead men deep under the front yard and riding their cars to Hell, a seer of the future, ancient myths with strange new meaning, madmen born from the current culture ... Regis feels that the universe as he knew it has recently intersected with a universe based on magic rather than science, that anything can happen, and he does not like it; he does not like it at all, except for one thing, one thing that he likes very much.

As the avatar of Rhadamanthus rises to her feet and strides out of the kitchen, Regis says, “Not just the lion.”

“Not just the lion—what?” Wendy asks.

“Not just the lion is drawn to you.”

“Well,” she says with a smile, “aren’t you a smooth one?”

64

WITHOUT A MOON OR WOLVES

---