Summary: An Evil Guest

ONE

In the Oval Office, the President asks Dr Gideon Chase to investigate Bill Reis, former Ambassador to the distant world Woldercan, who is suspected of espionage. Gideon's terms are steep, and no deal is struck.

TWO

Actress Cassie Casey finds a note from Gideon in her Kingsport apartment, offering to make her a star. She phones her friend Sharon Bench, a reporter, to inquire about Gideon, then meets his representative (who resembles her second husband) in an ice-cream parlour. She is taken to Gideon's car, where she falls asleep: when she wakes, Gideon is driving her at speed towards Canada.

THREE

Gideon explains the Reis mission to Cassie as they climb a Canadian mountain that he claims is alive. Reis is to be Cassie's "assignment". Gideon conducts a mystical ritual at the mountaintop, and Cassie falls asleep at his instruction. She wakes back in her apartment, calls Sharon to arrange lunch with her, and at the appointed venue finds that she is recognized by the staff as a star and that Gideon is there to meet her.

FOUR

Gideon explains to Cassie that he wishes Sharon to spread gossip about them in order to attract Reis, who seems unfindable by other means. That evening, at the last night of Cassie's play, she performs remarkably and is received enthusiastically by the audience. Margaret, the dresser of the play's nominal star, approaches Cassie for work. The director India tells Cassie that she has an angel wishing to back a new musical, in which Cassie might perform. An unknown man wants to give Cassie a present via the security guard, but she refuses to meet him.

FIVE

At the post-show party, Cassie learns that the security guard who carried her refusal has been found dead. Cassie sends Margaret to tell Gideon that she is scared. She is introduced to the "angel", who is Bill Reis going by the name of Wallace Rosenquist. Reis gives her a heavy gold bracelet, which she hands on to Margaret. Cassie is in Reis's car, where he explains he wants her for the lead in his musical Dating the Volcano God, when Gideon phones her.

SIX

Cassie meets Gideon, who is keen to see the bracelet. He explains that he broke into her apartment by tunnelling through from her absent neighbour's. Margaret calls to tell Cassie that Reis has reclaimed the bracelet.

SEVEN

Chase returns to his apartment, but on the way is shot by an unknown assailant, whom he wounds with a meat cleaver. Margaret meets Cassie and persuades her to try singing, with some success. Sharon calls to tell Cassie to turn on the vid, on which a news item about the attack on Gideon and his disappearance is playing. Meanwhile, a decorator fixes the hole in Cassie's wall. Cassie calls her agent Zelda to arrange a lunch meeting, and Gideon appears at her door.

EIGHT

Gideon tells Cassie that the bracelet may have been made by Reis of radioactive gold, using Woldercan techniques. He also tells her that male Wolders can hybridize with lower animals, that some humans can transform into the shapes of animals, and a few (with assistance) into higher beings.

NINE

India, Sharon and Zelda between them persuade Cassie to sign up for Dating the Volcano God, while Margaret measures her for costumes. She receives a message from Gideon that his injured leg has become infected, and an invitation to dinner from Reis.

TEN

Reis's driver Carlos takes Cassie to dinner, while Reis himself searches her apartment. Meeting her, he says he wishes to win her love. He tells her the bracelet has now been melted back down, and gives her its cash value instead. He says that he once hired Chase, who is now trying to despoil him, and asks Cassie to report on Chase to him. He implies that his ambition is to rule an entire world, with Cassie at his side.

ELEVEN

The show opens, in a town named Springfield, to good reviews for Cassie's performance. Cassie is called by FBI Agent Martin, who wishes to talk to her about Chase. She refuses, but he later show up in her dressing-room. He tells her that Reis, a master criminal is trying to kill Chase, and he is trying to find both of them. India is auditioning understudies for Cassie's inadequate opposite number Dean, but none are satisfactory replacements. Back at her hotel, Cassie is met by a different man claiming to be Agent Martin.

TWELVE

Cassie asks Margaret to try and reach Gideon. India and Zelda get Cassie to sign a contract for voice recording. Cassie tells India that the first "Agent Martin" was a fake. India has found a potential replacement for Dean, who has only one leg but can still sing and dance. Cassie is met by Reis's car, into which he is video-projected. He gives her a diamond bracelet and offers her the chance of becoming Queen of Takanga, implied to be a savage society. He says he is trying to find out who tried to kill Chase, and that it wasn't he.

THIRTEEN

Cassie is woken by Sharon, annoyed that she didn't tell her she had met Reis the previous night. Cassie explains that she didn't physically meet him, and believed it to be a dream. Margaret helps her retrieve the diamond bracelet from the room safe where she hid it. Zelda takes Cassie, Margaret, Ebony and the one-legged actor Gil Corby to Kingsport, in her hopper. In flight, Cassie sees what mmight be a monstrous bat. On arrival Cassie and Gil take a separate car, and see that Zelda's car is being held up by gunmen.

FOURTEEN

Cassie is questioned by Lt Aaberg, who is also Gideon's "representative" that she met in Chapter Two. He tells her that Margaret was kidnapped by the gunmen. Gil replaces Dean in the play. Gideon warns Cassie that Reis is about to ask her to take a trip with him.

FIFTEEN

A note from Reis tells Cassie to prepare to become Queen of Paradise, and asserts his love for her. Fellow-actor Norma walks Cassie out of the theatre, and is shot outside the door, by a sniper. During the night, Cassie wakes to find mysterious dark inhuman figures tapping at her window, eleven floors up.

SIXTEEN

Cassie has breakfast with Ebony and is met by her ex-husband Scott Zeitz. He tells he he now works for "Arthur Thomas Franklin", which wants to find Gideon Chase, threatening Cassie and implying that his agency shot Norma. Reis appears at the table and shows Cassie a picture of her dancing with Gideon, one-legged, in a scene that appeared at the time to have been with Gil. A large wolf arrives, at Reis's instruction, and compels Scott to follow it away: Reis says Scott will now be killed, and confirms that the ATF killed Norma. Reis says that Margaret was kidnapped by another agency, implying the FBI. Reis then vanishes.

SEVENTEEN

After the last night of the show, Gil reveals to Cassie that he is Gideon Chase operating under a glamour, similar to the one Reis uses to become invisible -- except that Reis got his power on Woldercan. Gideon is now working for Reis (although also reporting on him to the FBI), and is to take Cassie to join him in the Pacific isles of Takanga. He retrieves the stealth car he used in Chapter Two, which is also a hopper, and takes Cassie to dine at the Silent Woman restaurant. The menu is in an unknown language, and the waiter not human. Gideon says that the wolf that captured Scott was a werewolf, whose human form was the fake Agent Martin from Chapter Eleven.

EIGHTEEN

On returning from the restaurant, Cassie steals Gideon's car, and has a conversation with its AI and with three mysterious voices. Cassie and Gideon spend the night together. When she awakes, Cassie learns via Ebony that Scott has been found torn to pieces and partly devoured as if by dogs.

NINETEEN

Gideon explains to Cassie, while taking her to Takanga, that he is still working for the President and FBI, trying to persuade Reis, to hand himself in. He is simultaneously working for Reis, spying on the various government agencies. He has asked the president to make him ambassador to Woldercan, but has so far been refused. In Kololahi, the capital of Takanga, Cassie is received as high queen. She calls India but is cut off partway through describing her surroundings. She calls Gideon, who warns her she is being watched. She dreams of, and converses with, the shark god Hanga, who appears as a person.

TWENTY

Cassie tells Zelda how a large shark ate a tourist with whom she had spoken. That night, she meets with three bat-like beings, who tell her that the Storm King is not a god but a real entity, from whom they will help protect her. Cassie phones Sharon but learns and reveals little. She meets King Kanoa, a British-educated Takangese who takes her to the High King while telling her about his ancestors' interactions with Hanga.

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