Manipulate? Yes, I manipulated. And despite the ensuing events, I would do so again, for it is the function… — Lucius Shepard

Overwhelmed with disgust, Donnell said, “I could sell you sorry fuckers anything, couldn’t I?”

They weren’t sure they had heard correctly; they looked at each other, puzzled, asking what had been said.

“I could sell you sorry fuckers anything,” he repeated, “as long as it had a bright package and was wrapped around a chewy nugget of fear. I could be your green-eyed king. But it would bore me to be the salvation of cattle like you. Take my advice, though. Don’t buy the crap that’s slung into your faces by two-bit wart-healers!” He jabbed his cane at Papa Salvatino, who stood open-mouthed in the aisle, a litter of paper cups and fans and Bibles spreading out from his feet. “Find your own answers, your own salvation. If you can’t do that,” said Donnell, “then to Hell with you.”

Every object, the old man had said, is but an interpretation of every other object. There is no sure knowledge, only endless process.

The necessary had been accomplished. That’s the way Les Invisibles work. Singular, unquantifiable events. Impossible to treat statistically, to define with theory.