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and grim. Mason’s expression of dazed pleasure vanished beneath cold, hard lines.
    “My family,” he said far too calmly, “can go to hell. That’s where they sent me.” Then he saw the concern on Carla’s face and made an obvious effort to shake his suddenly savage mood. “Hey, forget it. It’s no big deal. My family and I don’t exactly communicate these days. My old man wrote me off the day I made it clear I was going to make a career in art instead of law. That’s old history. Let’s get some more champagne.”
    Several more SOLD signs went up before the evening ended. A certain subdued excitement had infected the crowd. Theresa, the gallery owner, was bubbling over with heady enthusiasm as she darted about, answering questions. By the time he and Guinevere had put Carla into a cab to send her back to her Capitol Hill apartment, Mason’s mood was euphoric. He stood on the sidewalk until the cab was out of sight and then started walking Guinevere back to her apartment building. It was nearly midnight and the streets were empty.
    “Hey, it went okay, didn’t it?” Mason said for what must have been the fiftieth time. “It really went okay.”
    “It went better than okay,” Guinevere said, assuring him. “You heard Theresa. She’s ecstatic. You’re all set, Mason.”
    “Are you kidding? This is just the beginning. There’s no such thing as being all set in this business. Every new painting gets judged against all the others you’ve done. But at least I’ve proven I can sell. Dad never thought I would get this far, you know.”
    “Didn’t he?”
    “Hell, no, he—” Mason broke off abruptly. “Forget it. I don’t want to talk about him. Not tonight.”
    “How about witches, Mason?” Guinevere asked gently. “Want to talk about them?”
    He stopped short and stared at her under a street lamp. “Witches! You mean that stupid pentagram business?”
    “Mason, that man, Henry Thorpe, said something about your once having been involved in some kind of occult group. And that damage to your painting last night looked pretty vicious. If there’s any possibility of a connection, don’t you think you ought to tell the police?”
    Mason muttered something that sounded quite disgusted. “Thorpe. God knows what he was running on tonight. He hasn’t been able to paint decently for almost a year, and it’s eating him alive. What did he tell you about witches?”
    “Nothing much. Just that for a while a couple of years ago you’d been mixed up with some sort of odd group.”
    Mason shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “Yeah, it was odd, all right. But it wasn’t dangerous. Bunch of folks sitting around playing games with stuff they learned out of old books. For a while it was just a friendly group that met to get a little high on some homegrown agricultural products and have a few laughs. An excuse to party. A couple of the members started taking things too seriously, though, and I got out. So did almost everyone else. The partying was getting in the way of my painting.”
    Guinevere frowned, considering. “You don’t think there’s any possibility of a connection between what happened last night and that group?”
    Mason shook his head impatiently and resumed walking. “Not likely. Most of the people I knew who were part of the crowd have long since dropped out. Like I said, it was just an excuse to party. I haven’t seen any of the original group for months.”
    “Where did you do all this, er, partying?”
    “One of the members, a guy named Sandwick, had inherited an old house. Mostly we used it. Had a spooky old basement that was soundproof. Neighbors couldn’t hear us if we got too loud, not that the neighbors would have cared. It wasn’t exactly a high-class area.”
    “Where was it located?”
    “Near Capitol Hill.” Mason sounded totally uninterested. “Let’s talk about something more to the point.”
    “Such as?”
    “Such as your sister,