Lucifer's apartment faded gently away in the sweet, cloying odor of hyacinth.
When Lucifer Brill opened his eyes, his face was half buried in a white pillow. A damp breeze blew across the back of his neck. The breeze was heavy with tropical odors. Yet there was something curious about them. Lucifer sniffed, and sniffed again. He discovered that his hay fever wasn't bothering him.
Through one probing eye, Lucifer could see his glasses on a nightstand. Beyond them was a window down which drops of rain were beginning to streak.
Memories of the blue phial and the strange visitor flooded back. His right arm was numb, but he decided he had been sleeping on it. He experimented with his toes and legs.
They moved.
His right knee bumped against an object on the other side of the bed. The object felt alien to anything in Lucifer Brill's previous experience. He pushed firmly with his knee, and felt something that was both firm and soft, yielding and unyielding, warm and slightly cold.
There was a sleepy murmur of protest, and the alien object moved away.
Lucifer Brill obeyed habit. He reached for his glasses. Then he raised himself on his tingling right elbow and peered cautiously toward the other side of the bed.
By many standards, Lucifer could have been adjudged a brave man. But what he saw had a curiously frightening effect on him.