Surprisingly to Phil, the retort to this came not from Juno, who was lifting her now bare arms menacingly, but from Cookie. "Oh, so you don't care anything about me, either," he accused shrilly. "I've suspected it for a long time, and now you say it yourself." "Shut up, you're just a dumb stooge," Jack told him without looking around. "Oh, so I'm just a dumb stooge, am I? Well let me tell you, Jackie, Juno's right about one thing and I wish I'd admitted I agreed with her long ago. These Akeleys have turned your head. They've dazzled you." At that moment Sacheverell came popping back into the room, his brilliant silk robes fairly hissing against the black velvet. "Stop, at once!" he commanded, raising his arm. "You will disturb _his_ awakening. Rise above hate. Do you realize I can't see anything of you but ink blobs, your auras are so black? Even _he_ will be unable to reach you." "Shut up that silly talk about _he_," Cookie snarled. "I don't want to hear the word again or anything more about your stupid cults that I had to pretend to be interested in. You've done Jackie quite enough damage as it is. Do you know we could have got _ten thousand dollars_ for that cat you're using for your idiotic mumbo-jumbo? Jack had just stun-gunned it and was all ready to hand it over to Moe Brimstine and collect _ten thousand dollars_, when you have to prance in with that _ugly_ witch of a wife of yours and make like a wizard and flatter Jackie into thinking he was starting a new religion or something and soft talk him into giving you the cat. I hate you. I want to hurt you." And he started toward Sacheverell, walking on his toes and puffing out his sweatered chest like a bright blue fighting cock. Once again to Phil's surprise, Sacheverell's horrified and reproachful gaze was turned not on Cookie, but Jack. "Jack," he gasped, "do you mean to tell me you shot _him_ with a stun-gun, that you even dreamed of selling _him_ for money? Judas!" "Now see what you've done," Jack moaned, not at Cookie, but at Juno. "You've spoiled everything." "I'll spoil you, you rancid little intelleckchul-lover," she roared and ran at him blindly like a novice. Jack's face set itself in a shrewd grimace and he stepped lightly to one side and slipped out a hand for a hold. But just then Juno's professional training seemed to come back to her and she checked herself, smoothly grabbed the wrist of the hand snaking toward her, bent, spun, and sent Jack sailing over her hip in a flying mare that landed him on the silver pentacled table. It toppled with a crash and various religious objects fell from the wall. Meanwhile, Mary Akeley had picked up a small vise that had broken from her upset work table, and hurled it with great accuracy at Cookie's head, but then Cookie suddenly hurled himself at Sacheverell's throat and the vise passed through the space where Cookie's head had been.