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into it, that would absorb her light and her  .  .  . I don't know, her soul, I guess. Her horn flared and dimmed. She dragged the tip of it along the concrete, breaking the red circle. The thing bellowed, then it faded away."
    Silence for a long time in the library. I don't know how long it was before I stopped looking at the candle and saw Chaffney staring at me. "I think I want a cigarette," he said, shaking his shaggy head.
    I frowned. "Ariel doesn't like to be around cigarette smoke. She won't even let me smoke. Damn horse."
    "Love you, too, Pete."
    Chaffney leaned forward. "That's all that thing did? It didn't hurt you?"
    "It sure as hell tried. Oh, Ariel was perfectly all right, and I was okay, except for being jelly-kneed and dry-throated, and wanting very much to go to the bathroom." I looked up at Ariel. "You sure know how to pick your spells."
    She said nothing.
    "You ever try anything else?" he asked.
    "No. I kind of stayed away from spells after that."
    He smiled. "Don't blame you."
    "Hey, where's your buddy, anyway?" I asked. "What's its name?"
    "Asmodeus. I left her home. I didn't want to bring her after what happened this afternoon."
    "It won't happen again," said Ariel.
    "Tell me," he said, "what else can you do?"
    Ariel shot me a warning look. "She can make peppermint appear and make cigarettes disappear," I said.
    He scowled. "And she can read Latin."
    "No, I already told you I can't. I read magic. There was something about the way the spell was put together that made me know what it was about. I don't understand it, I just do it."
    "I've got a friend," Chaffney said carefully. "The guy who cast the loyalty spell on Asmodeus. He reads a lot about magic. He wants to know what caused the Change."
    "Don't we all," I said. "You have any ideas?"
    He tossed his head to the side, his version of a shrug. "Only what I've heard. A lot of people I know think we're in a place in space where old laws don't work anymore."
    "Do you believe that?"
    "I don't know. I wouldn't throw the idea away, but I'm not sure it holds water, either. Laws are laws."
    I nodded. "'God doesn't shoot dice.' Einstein said that."
    "Why don't you ask Ariel about it?" he said. "Since she knows about magic."
    "I have. Tell him, you Salvador Dalí version of an Appaloosa."
    "Hairless monkey." She looked at Chaffney. "I haven't the slightest."
    "She couldn't have been around until after the Change took place," I said. "She wouldn't remember any of it."
    "God, I do." He rolled his eyes. "Everything just stopped, all at once. I was watching Dallas at L.A. It was the third quarter. Dallas was on top, twenty-one to nothing. The power cut out and the TV went dead. I waited for the electricity to come back on but there was nothing. When I picked up the phone to report a power failure after about ten minutes, the phone was dead. Nothing, not even static. Then I noticed how quiet it was. Really quiet. I could hear birds chirping, but no traffic—that wasn't right for Decatur. I walked outside with my wife and it was spooky. Cars stopped dead in the middle of the street. People stood up and down the block, seeing the same thing I did—something different." He leaned back. "Sometimes I wonder what happened to the people in airplanes or on ships in the middle of the ocean. What happened to people on cross-country car trips who were in the middle of Utah or Arizona? Christ, we even had a Shuttle up!" He shook his head and laughed. "You know the funniest thing about it? The thing that really burned me the most?" He paused, waiting for me to ask him what, but I said nothing. "I had a hundred bucks riding on the game, and I never did find out who won it. All those people stuck in elevators, everywhere, and all I could do is wonder whether or not L.A. at least beat the spread."
    "What were you saying about your friend?" I prompted. "The one who reads on magic." I was afraid he'd start talking about his wife, and I wasn't sure I needed to hear about it. I