s well have been gasoline and dynamite. There was a purplish
flash and a muttering boom, and the whole roof of the four-story
building lifted off.

I caught his arm.

"Let's get out of here," I said.

He looked at me blindly. I'd swear he didn't know me. His eyes were
tortured.

"Too late!" he croaked. "Too late! They're free again!"

III

So I went to work for Theobald Greco--in his laboratory in Southern
California, where we replaced some of the things that had been
destroyed.

And one morning I woke up and found my hair was white.

I cried, "Greek!"

Minnie came running in. I don't believe I told you about Minnie. She
was Greco's idea of the perfect laboratory assistant--stupid, old,
worthless to the world and without visible kin. She came in and stared
and set up a cackling that would wake the dead.

"Mister Hampstead!" she chortled. "My, but ain't you a sight!"

"Where's Greco?" I demanded, and pushed her out of my way.

In pajamas and bathrobe, I stalked down the stairs and into the room
that had once been a kitchen and now was Greco's laboratory.

"Look!" I yelled. "What about _this_?"

He turned to look at me.

After a long moment, he shook his head.

"I was afraid of that," he mumbled. "You were a towhead as a kid,
weren't you? And now you're a towhead again."

"But my hair, Greek! It's turned _white_."

"Not white," he corrected despondently. "Yellow. It's reverted to
youth--overnight, the way it happens sometimes. I warned you, Virgie.
I told you there were dangers. Now you know. Because--"

He hesitated, looked at me, then looked away.

"Because," he said, "you're getting younger, just like me. If we don't
get this thing straightened out, you're going to die of young age
yourself."

I stared at him. "You said that before, about yourself. I thought
you'd just tongue-twisted. But you really mean--"

"Sit down," he ordered. "Virgie, I told you that you were looking
younger. It wasn't just looks. It's the demons--and not just you and
me, but a lot of people. First Grand Rapids. Then when the hotel
burned. Plenty have been exposed--you more than most, I guess, ever
since the day you walked into my lab and I was trying to recapture
some that had got away. Well, I don't guess I recaptured them all."

"You mean _I_--"

He nodded. "Some of the demons make people younger. And you've got a
colony of them in you."

* * * * *

I swallowed and sat down.