And they fantasize about putting down roots and using their skills to kill really bad people as a gesture of community activism. They are, in short, the book's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Another stalker is John Shade, whose cover is a spy novelist. He and Nightwood become lovers while he siphons her ideas, sending it back to his boss, whom he calls Mother. Shade's splitting headaches, however, can only be cured by killing people, which he does as a freelance activity separate from his job.
People start dropping dead.
Nightwood's elaborate, suspenseful and sometimes sexual dreams tell her something isn't right. Butler takes a risk using a character's dreams to move a story along. As a rule in life, other people's dreams lack plot lines and are generally boring. In a novel, dream sequences are the sort of thing a reader might skip through. But her inquisitive gland seems turned off when it comes to her real-life lover.