or you. I have taken the
hex from you. Is it not so?"

"Taken the hex--" Mrs. Wladek shook her head. "Then why do I still hear
the voice?"

"You still hear it?" The gypsy woman muttered under her breath. "Come
back tomorrow. We work again."

"Tomorrow is a long time."

The gypsy woman closed her eyes for a second. "All right," she said, and
snapped them open. "Four o'clock this afternoon."

"I will be here."

"It is a strong curse."

"You will help me," Mrs. Wladek said.

"I will help you," Marya Proderenska said.

But, after the old woman had left, Marya Proderenska sat alone and her
face was troubled. The strength of the curse--she had felt it
herself--was enormous. She did not know of any magician who had such
power.

She listed over the members of her own clan in her mind, and became
satisfied that none she knew was responsible. And yet, the strength of
the curse argued real power; was it possible that a power existed within
the city, and she did not know of it? Marya felt a cold wind on her
back, the wind of fear.

Such a power might do--anything.

And yet it was being used to coerce one useless old woman into taking a
job!

Marya Proderenska lay flat on the floor, her arms outstretched. Thus one
might gather the vital energies. Four o'clock was not many hours
distant, and by four o'clock she would need all of the energy she could
summon.

She did not allow herself to become doubtful about the outcome.

And yet she was afraid.

* * * * *

Gloria smiled understandingly at the woman who sat across the desk.

"I understand, Mrs. Francis," she said.

"It's not that Tom's a bad boy, you know," the woman said. "But
he's--easily led. That's the only thing."

"Of course," Gloria said. She looked at the middle-aged woman, wearing a
gray suit that did not fit her overweight frame, and a silly little
white hat. "I'm sure everything's going to be all right," she said.

Mrs. Francis gave a little gasp. "Oh, I hope so," she said. "Tom doesn't
mean to cause any trouble. He just doesn't understand--"

Gloria went over the report sheets mentally. Tom didn't mean to cause
any trouble, but he had been involved in a gang war or two--nothing in
the way of Thompson sub-machine guns, of course, or mortars, just a few
pistols and zip-guns and rocks and broken bottles.

Tom hadn't been killed yet. That was, Gloria thought sadly, only a
matter of time. He hadn't killed anybody y