"Are you okay?" she heard a tense male voice. She felt a hand on her shoulder; someone turned her toward them. To her surprise, she saw it was Not-a-Doctor, but there was something foreign about him. The sight of him calmed her at first. The hysteria receded slightly, but not for long. When she focused on his face, she understood that he was different from usual. His eyes showed pure terror. He was scared. An emptiness opened inside her. He was scared, but of what?

  "Answer me, Alice! Are you okay, damn it?!"

  "I'm fine," she answered in a trembling voice. "What happened?"

  "I think I should be asking you that, girl," he replied, clearly calmer. "Let's get out of here first."

  They entered her apartment. Away from the street noise and chaos, the silence reigning in the living room seemed almost unnatural. Not-a-Doctor led Alice toward her favorite armchair. When had she leaned on his shoulder? How had they even gotten there? She felt empty inside, tired. Fear had sucked all the energy out of her, but that wasn't entirely bad. Her heart ached slightly. She had never been so scared in her life. Every part of her was screaming with fear; Alice felt the souls she had absorbed screaming with her.

  "Who was that?" she asked and hid her face in her hands. "Damn it, I felt nothing. How could I not feel anything?"

  "I don't know who that was," the man said, lighting a cigarette. "You have to tell me. I don't even know what happened there."

  "I was drinking coffee, as usual. The waiter brought me apple pie from a man in a white linen suit. I invited him to my table because his aura showed no threat. We talked for a while about everything, but nothing personal. He said he had to go, and then I said I hoped we'd meet again. He said not in my lifetime. He used my name, though I never gave it to him. Then he smiled so strangely and told me to give you his regards. He said, 'Give my regards to Not-a-Doctor.' My stomach twisted. I've never been so scared. A little more and I would have become hysterical, but I kept telling myself that you were watching, so I managed to control myself. He walked..."

  Alice stopped mid-sentence, because the meaning of the black-haired man's words finally reached her. She slowly raised her head and looked straight into Not-a-Doctor's eyes.

  "What do you mean, you don't know what happened there?" she asked in a flat, dead voice.

  "I was cut off from you," the man stated matter-of-factly. Lying in such a situation made no sense. "We are telepathically linked. The thread is weak, so it's not easily detected, but stable enough for me to know what's happening to you."

  "So now I'll ask you. What the hell happened there?"

  Alice was trembling all over, as if she had become terribly cold. Is this how people feel when death breathes down their necks?

  "I was completely cut off from you. The thread was severed, so I immediately started looking for you. I couldn't see you anywhere. In that one moment, you ceased to exist; your energy was completely hidden. I tried to portal to the place where I last sensed you, but it proved impossible. Someone completely blocked the possibility of opening gates in the area. It all lasted only a moment, but I thought I'd go crazy with worry during that time."

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  His stern gaze softened. A thousand emotions suddenly appeared in his cold eyes.

  "But that's impossible," the girl snarled, unable to make any sense of it in her head. "He was just a normal man! I checked him, damn it!"

  Silence fell. Both looked at each other completely helplessly, like children who had just learned that the world is much bigger than the yard they always play in. Yes, there's something beyond the fence, and it's not necessarily friendly.

  "But I saw what you did to that homeless woman. She wasn't from our world."

  "That was an Executor sent by Heaven. One of the better ones, but younger." The man sighed, taking a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

  "Explain this to me, because I can't piece this puzzle together myself," Alice said, taking a cigarette.

  "I am strong, but not omnipotent," he replied, offering her a light from his lighter. "I know one thing: the man sitting at the table was human. Someone with the power to completely sever the connection couldn't come to this world in person. Even I hide my presence, appearing as a hologram of myself. My actual body is in another dimension; only my reflection, my thought, appears here. If I came in person, my energy field would destroy part of your computer network's structure. Someone with power greater than mine would destroy all electronics just by being here for a few seconds."

  "So how..."

  "It was possession. Pure, brutal possession," Not-a-Doctor said, his voice noticeably calmer.

  Alice closed her eyes. Behind her eyelids appeared the image she had seen the moment the stranger stepped back.

  "If I don't know who we're dealing with, I can't properly assess the threat..."

  "I saw him," Alice interrupted. "The moment he stepped back. I saw him for a fraction of a second, as if two images overlapped."

  Not-a-Doctor watched her intently. He didn't say a word, but he didn't need to. His eyes said everything, so the witch took a deep breath and began to describe the figure in as much detail as possible.

  "He seemed shorter and slimmer, but not by much. Almost feminine. He had a symmetrical face, but it was unnaturally pale. A wide, unnaturally wide smile. Blond hair, I think, though I can't tell if all of it was blond. Rather short, a few centimeters long. He had shoes with a two-, maybe three-centimeter heel, a cane in his right hand, a top hat on his head. I don't remember..."

  She stopped. She didn't need to add anything more. Not-a-Doctor knew who the described figure was. It was written on his face. Alice didn't ask anything, because a hard glint appeared in his cold eyes. Whatever it meant, she sensed it was better that she wasn't initiated. Some things are better left unknown.

  "You are in no danger," the black-haired man said, finishing his cigarette. "Not from him."

  "Good God, what..."

  "Don't ask God for help. Even God wouldn't stand a chance against him," Not-a-Doctor stated coldly. Then he stood up and nodded slightly in farewell. A moment later, he vanished.

  She closed her eyes and let her thoughts drift freely. She didn't want to analyze anything or ponder anything. It was decidedly too much for her to understand, far too much to comprehend. God was her witness, she didn't even feel like trying. She felt fragile, defenseless, small. In this world, she might have power, but not in a clash with beings from other worlds. There, she meant nothing.

  Until now, she had believed that Not-a-Doctor was the most powerful, that there was no one who could challenge him. She knew it was nonsense, that logically there would always be someone stronger. She had thought about it so often that she never let those thoughts reach her heart. Accepting the existence of more powerful beings would force her to revise her understanding of power itself. Now she had to face it, and she learned it in the most brutal way possible. And that last sentence, about God? No, she didn't even try to remember it. She pushed it out of her thoughts at once; that was decidedly too much for one day.

  She was in no danger. That's what Not-a-Doctor had said. That had to be enough. She clung to that thought with all her strength, desperately, like a child clinging to its mother's skirt. She wouldn't let go. She focused on it completely.