to stop myself, but itâs getting too hard. Listen . . .â His voice became a whisper. âThings are different here. I think I might be able to change what I am. But Iâve got to keep looking all over the island for it. A secret. Thereâs something here that will help me. So I go out looking. I can search all kinds of hidden places without leaving my room. Do you understand? My mind can move through all the houses and even the ground. Now Iâve found something under the castle.â âLeave me out of it, then,â Archer gasped. âYou find it yourself. Iâm frightened.â âI canât do it myself. Youâve got to help. Youâre my hands. You can pick things up. I canât.â Archer struggled. âI donât know what youâre talking about. Let go.â Jay tugged him toward a grassy slope. Above it, the castle wall where a tower reared up, a fist of stone to threaten the moon. âIâve found a hidden place under the castle. Thereâs something in there you have to get. Itâs precious. Youâve got to find it for me.â By now Archerâs bare feet skidded across the grass as if he were skiing. In front of him a bank of earth loomed closer as Jay dragged him toward it. He didnât want to go. He sensed a dark terror in that bank of soil. An object that had been hidden because it was too terrible for people to see. Jay did not stop. Archer felt himself falling through the earth. Beyond it lay death in all its dark essence. âBite. I want you to bite.â Victor felt Laura pull his face toward her bare breast. The dark nipple had become engorged. Her skin had become bumpy with gooseflesh. âBite me, please,â she panted. When he closed his teeth round her hard nipple she moaned with pleasure. They were on the bed back at his apartment above the garage at White Cross Farm. Theyâd been talking about Max, about how heâd calmed down as soon as the tranquillizer had entered his bloodstream. Now some detached part of Victor wondered how it had all happened. The magic of the island? Maybe. From a whispered conversation beneath the stars to this. Theyâd been talking calmly. Then Nurse Laura Parris, the steely woman who had looked as if she could cheerfully beat him with her fists just a few short hours ago, had kissed him again with as much ferocity as passion. After that had been a blur. Mouth on mouth kisses. Once inside his apartment theyâd wrenched at each otherâs clothes, becoming a writhing pair of bodies. As their limbs entwined they made love with such force that it was more than sex. This passion drenched their emotions in erotic sensation. This was a way of forgetting all about Max, about Mayor Wilkes, about the whole insane world. When fears about what tomorrow would bring began to intrude Laura had begged Victor to bite her. âBite them hard. Donât be afraid. You wonât break me.â So he gripped those dark tips of skin between his teeth. With a sigh, this naked beauty melted into an ocean of pure creature feeling. A place where the waking nightmare that was Jay couldnât reach her. For long moments Archer was certain the black earth would suffocate him. Jay had dragged him through the soil as if they were moving through a mass of bed sheets hanging on a washing line. A stream of material flapped against his face. The stench of moist dirt filled his nostrils. Thick fleshy worms with sticky, pink bodies squirmed in the blackness around him. Then he was alone in the room. But what kind of room? Eight-year-old Archer had seen nothing quite like it. Straightaway he saw the car. However, this was no garage. The walls were made of blocks of stone. There were pillars like those you find in old churches. Even though he could see there were no lamps, no windows, nothing to allow light into the room. âJay?â The whisper died on stagnant air. Jay had