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courteous tone.   The vicar began to shout about Creatures of the Night and Unholy Practices and Living Blasphemies and Things Like That.
         "You gave it sanctuary!" I heard him cry.   "I'm coming after it!"
         "You are not," Jack responded.
         "I've a moral warrant, and I bloody well am!" said the vicar.
         Then I heard the sounds of a scuffle.
         "Excuse me, Needle," I said.
         "Of course, Snuff."
         I ran on into the front hallway, but Jack had already closed and bolted the door.   He smiled when he saw me.   There came a pounding from behind him.
         "It's all right, Snuff," he said.   "I'm not about to set the dogs on the poor fellow.   Uh, Where _is_ your friend, anyway?"
         I glanced toward the kitchen.
         He walked that way, preceding me by several paces.   When I entered he was already feeding a grape to Needle.
         "'Creature of the Night,'" he said.   "'Living Blasphemy.'   You're safe here.   You can even have a peach if you'd like."
         He strolled off, whistling.   The pounding on the front door continued for another minute or so, then stopped.
         "What's to be done about that man, d'you think?" Needle asked.
         "Stay out of his way, I guess."
         "Easy to say.   He took a shot at Nightwind yesterday, and a couple at Cheeter recently."
         "Why?   They're not into sanguinary stuff."
         "No, but he also claims to have had a vision concerning a society of wretched individuals and their familiars preparing for some big psychic event which will place them at odds with each other and threaten the safety of humanity.   The vampire business was the first 'sign,' as he put it, that this was true."
         "I wonder what busybody sent him that vision?"
         "Hard to guess," Needle said.   "But he could be shooting at you, or Jack, tomorrow."
         "Perhaps the parishioners will send him to the Continent," I said, "to take the waters at some salubrious spa.   We only need about two and a half weeks more."
         "I doubt they will.   In fact, I think he's enlisted some of them in the cause of his vision.   He wasn't the only one out there with a crossbow tonight."
         "Then I think we're going to have to identify those people, find out where they live, and keep an eye open in their direction."
         "I use echolocation myself, but I get the idea."
         "Nightwind and Cheeter obviously already know.   I'll tell Graymalk if you'll tell Quicklime and Bubo."
         "What about that Talbot fellow?"
         "So far as I can tell, Larry Talbot doesn't have a nonvegetable companion.   He can take care of himself, I think."
         "All right."
         ". . . And we should all agree to spread the word on who they are and where they live.   It won't matter to someone like that what your persuasion is."
         "I agree with you on this."
         Later, I checked around outside and there were no crossbow-persons in the vicinity.   So I opened the window again and let Needle out, the vicar's quarrels stuck in the siding over our heads.
     
     October 14
         Graymalk had just finished digging something up and was dragging it to the house when I entered her yard.   I brought her up to date on last night's events, and while she cautioned me never to trust a bat she acknowledged the seriousness of the threat presented by the vicar and his crew.   Someone had apparently taken a shot at them from the top of a hill as she and Jill passed overhead last night, causing them to veer and experience an exciting moment or two near a chimney.
         When she had completed her task, Graymalk said, "There were a couple of things I wanted to talk to you about."
         "Go ahead."
         "First things first, then.   I'd better show you this one."
         I followed her out of the yard.
         "A London police officer visited Constable Terence