There was noise all around him, and for a moment Ed Marcus was disoriented: the volume was the same, but the sort of noise was different, and the same people were not standing around him as had been a moment ago. He looked around, and found himself thinking of some kind of titanic cocktail party, everyone laughing and smiling and chatting and enjoying themselves immensely. He laughed, then laughed again. It felt good to laugh, so he continued, and soon he had struck up a conversation with the person next to him, and then with the others around him. Soon he was feeling pleasantly inebriated (but when had there been alcohol?) and was leading the rest of the group in an Irish song he'd learned from his great-uncle when suddenly it struck him that he couldn't see the walls. Quickly he stood taller, trying to see over the rest of the crowd, but it was no use; he seemed to be standing in an endless expanse of brilliant white, which grew impossibly whiter as he looked up. At the point of what seemed like a dome, the room lost all color at all and simply was: applying a name like "white" would have been meaningless. said a voice in his ear. It was feminine and soft and seductive; it reminded him, all at once, of Lisa, his secretary, about whom his wife had not known. He turned quickly but there was nobody there. came the voice again, just behind his left ear. A sensation he could barely remember at first bubbled up into his forethoughts, warm breath coursing languidly about and around his earlobe. He turned again: nobody. "Who are you?" he asked. His new friends raised eyebrows but said nothing, and he noticed abruptly that one of them had left. He saw as he turned to listen that not everybody was talking, that there were those who were not enjoying themselves. Idiots. The voice responded: "I want you to be Lisa," he said, smiling. If this was her game... That was Lisa's voice; he remembered that now as well, and how he'd had to keep his voice down to leave messages with her machine. "Lisa?" he asked tentatively. The voice had a sharp edge. He frowned. This wasn't right. "Then who are you?" The room, he saw, was beginning to dim. said the voice, soft and seductive once again. "You're not Lisa?" said the voice, and he realized that he was moving, walking despite himself. "Kimberly?" That had been his wife, blonde and - well, once beautiful - and not too smart. "Is that you? Is this a joke?" said the voice. "What?" He reached up to scratch his head, as it had begun to itch, and his fingers came away bloody. "What happened to me?" "Caught who?" He was becoming anxious: he was moving faster, and the blood was starting to drip down his chin. He tasted his fingertips, and his mouth told him that his blood was bitter and cold, not at all the warm, coppery taste he was used to. said the voice, He blanched. "Kim hired someone?" said the voice. It paused. He felt cold tears welling in the corners of his eyes, and his fingertips were starting to itch. He looked at them: they were turning dark blue. "What happened to me?" The room was now uniformly grey, except for the spot at the top which was still impossibly bright. said the voice, all femininity cast aside, its tone sharp and derogatory now. "But..." he said, trailing off as he saw the head of a trident over the crowd, sliding between people like a shark's fin. "I was a good man!" he cried. said the voice. "Why did you do this? Why did you make me think it would be all right?" The room went black. Even the light at the top faded to nothing, and quietly torches began to burn along hewn stone walls. said the voice, and he could swear that the speaker was smiling.