Copyright © 1996 by S. A. Swiniarski.
At! Rights Reserved.
Cover art by Don Brautigam.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1040.

Atl characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resem-
blance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that

this book may have been stolen property and reported as "unsold
and destroyed" to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor

the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

First Printing. November 1996

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DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

—MARCA REG1STRADA

HECHO EN U-S.A.

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

The literate pans of this are dedicated to
Robert E. McDonough.

The bloodthirsty parts of this are dedicated to
Susie Kretschmer.

Acknowledgments to

Astrid, Susie, Charlie, Levin, Mary, Bonnie, Geoff, and
Paula for doing their best to eviscerate this novel in the
manuscript. I also give thanks to Mr. Poe
for the obvious reasons.

PREMATURE
BURIAL

Thank Heaven! the crisis—

The danger is past.
And the lingering illness

fs over at last—
And the fever called "Living"
Is conquered at last.

—"For Annie"

1

I dreamed of blood, and I awoke in a frozen darkness,
wondering why I was not yet dead. As my blood-red
dreams faded, cold wrapped my body in a grip severe
enough to tear flesh from bone.

"Shit."

My painful whisper was loud enough to frighten me
down to my soul.

My back pressed against a wall of curving concrete.
Water rushed over me, up to my waist. I opened my
eyes, and could barely see a darker shadow where the
rest of my body was. The water numbed my body, and
my frozen hands couldn't feel the ice on the walls.

My senseless hands slid over the concrete as I tried
to push myself upright. When I finally stood, I heard
the rip of my clothing tearing from where it had frozen
to the wall. When the wall released me, my head
slammed into the low ceiling, and dizziness overcame
me. I had to crouch and dry-heave until my gut ached
and my eyes stopped watering.

I was so cold.

My mind flew in chaotic tumbles, the cold and the
vertigo making it easy to lose my concentration. My
thoughts took a supreme effort to retain, and it was
some minutes—too many minutes in this icy tomb—
before I had overcome my disorientation long enough
to think about where I had awoken.

Once I could concentrate, it was obvious that I stood

12

S.A. Swiniarski

in a storm sewer somewhere. But I had no idea where it
was, no memory of how I got here.

The more I tried to force my memory, the more
traitor my mind became. As I groped for some impres-
sion, some image of my life before this icy hell, my
mind was gripped by a headache that shot sparks of
color before my eyes.

I was in serious trouble. I had no memory. Every-
thing before my awakening, and a sense of a dream,
was a void. I felt a sick impression of what was there,
like sensing the definition of a forgotten word, but the
substance of my memory was gone.

Not only couldn't I remember how I had come to
this place, but I couldn't remember who I was.

I put a hand to my head, and while I couldn't find an
injury—all parts of my skull throbbed equally—my
hair was clotted with frozen blood.

Not good. Possible head injury, nausea, dizziness,
amnesia, nightmares—and I was probably going to die
of exposure and hypothermia down here. The thought
of dying down here, with no memory of who I was, ter-
rified me.

I started downstream, hoping for an exit before the
cold finally claimed me. As I duckwalked through the
knee-deep current I tried to force a memory of how I'd
gotten into this mess.

Had I fallen through an open manhole? Had I col-
lapsed into a drainage ditch to be washed under-
ground? I could not focus on what had happened.
Nothing emerged from my memory beyond the impres-
sion of violence done to me.

However I had come here, I could not imagine it
happening more than a quarter-hour ago. The cold was
deadly. It was a miracle that I had not yet died from it.
However long I'd been submerged in this icy water,
any longer, I felt, and I never would have woken up.

For a moment I took some comfort in being able to

RAVEN               13

think clearly now. That comfort brought an unbidden
thought, If I am brain damaged, would I know / was
thinking like mushy cabbage? I pushed away the idea.

I slogged downstream, the rushing water cold, deep,
and painful. I felt sick that I might have survived what-
ever accident brought me here only to die of hypo-
thermia, or lose my legs to frostbite.

For some reason, that brought an involuntary laugh
which made me dizzy and surprised me by showing me
my own breath. My eyes had adjusted to what little
light there was, and I could see my misty laughter
before me. I hugged myself for warmth—gaining little
from it—and slogged on.

The laugh had been for the word "accident."

The word was soaked with irony despite the fact I
could remember nothing of what had happened. My
subconscious knew, however, that "accident" was the
last word to describe what had occurred. What had
happened to me was violent, purposeful, and inten-
tional. This had been done to me. No faces, no memory
of the act itself, only the certainty that some asshole
had tried to kill me.

My anger made me a little warmer. So did the move-
ment, the effort easing some of the chill. It helped
when I finally walked into a chamber talt enough for
me to stand upright.

By now I could nearly see, and I was fighting to
stand upright against the current pushing me. The
water was up to my chest before I found a ledge lining
the tunnel that was high enough for me to stand out of
the water. I climbed up on it and stood, shaking, cold,
and wet. Sensation, searing cold, returned to my
numbed lower body.

I don't know how long I'd walked down that sewer
pipe, or how long my legs had been submerged, but
when my legs were exposed to the air, cold as it was, it
felt as if someone were torching them. The pain was

14

S.A. Swiniwski

bad enough to make me gasp and nearly pitch headfirst
into the torrent below.

Looking down at the water, I couldn't believe I had
fought my way out. Now that my eyes could make out
this gray subterranean world, I saw how close to death
I'd been. The water roared, carrying logs the size of my
thigh and battering them against the walls. As I watched,
one slime-blackened log slammed into a swamped
shopping cart that was wedged against the walls. The
sound of the impact echoed through the sewer, and the
cart was dented and knocked loose, to clatter along the
wall and out of my sight. If I'd been struck by that log,
it would have cost me some ribs or possibly my spine.

I must have been unconscious and swept down the
sewer by this torrent. Miraculously I hadn't drowned or
had parts of me bashed to pulp against the walls.

I felt my head again. Maybe part of me had been

pulped.

I suddenly realized that I had stopped breathing.

Panic gripped me, slamming the headache back into
my skull. I thought I was having a stroke. But once I
thought about it, my chest shuddered and I started
breathing again. I sucked air in great gulps that had to
originate from psychological rather than physical need.
I hadn't been consciously holding my breath, and I
hadn't stopped long enough for it to cause any pain or
discomfort.

It scared me.

It scared me worse than amnesia or possible brain
damage. It scared me because I hadn't realized it was
happening. I was terribly conscious of my own
breathing as I made my way down the storm sewer.

I inched along that concrete ledge, sliding along
walls of brick, concrete, and eventually corrugated
steel. 1 managed to avoid immersing myself again.

It seemed an aeon before I finally made it out of that

RAVEN               15

frigid little hell. Logic told me that the time I spent
underground must have been subjective. Had I actually
spent the hours down there that I felt I had, I would
have been a frozen corpse long before I reached the
sewer's outflow.

The outflow I came to emerged from underneath a
highway. The echo of traffic reached me through cor-
rugated steel long before I saw the opening. The exit
itself was hidden around a bend until I stepped in front
of it.

It opened onto a swollen river that snaked away into
a frosted ravine. Snow-covered ice began a few feet
from the opening, an unbroken blue plain, shimmering
in the moonlight.

I inched out of the sewer opening, stepping on rocks
and downed trees, trying to avoid dunking myself
again. It was colder out here, under a clear black sky,
the air sharp enough to shave with.

I pulled myself onto ice that could support my
weight, holding on to a tree growing out from the lip of
the ravine, and looked up tne wall from which I had
just emerged. The storm sewer outlet was set into a
sloping hillside that went up for maybe a dozen or
twenty feet, topped by a guardrail. As I watched, a
lonely car sped out of the darkness, passed me. and dis-
appeared back into the darkness, chased by its own
bloody taillights.

I moved to the edge of the ravine, holding on to the
branch above me until I was certain that I was on firm
ground rather than snow-covered ice. Seeing the
highway lifted something in me, as if it was a confir-
mation of my survival. I was going to make it through
the snow and the cold. I was going to live, however
unlikely that was. I shook in the cold and told myself
that I had, finally, made it. I had gotten out of the pit
alive.

Whether or not I was in one piece, that was debatable.

16

S.A. Swiniarski

I felt around my head again, now that it wasn't
throbbing constantly. My hair was a tangled mass of
frozen blood. No dangling flaps of skin, no bumps, no
holes, no abrasions. I was comforted until I thought
that 1 might have suffered an injury that had frozen
under the mat of hair I was prodding. It was cold
enough out here to numb anything, and I'd been in the
water way too long.

I had to get inside and warm myself up. My legs felt
asleep. I thought my pants had dried, but when I felt
them with my numbed hand, I found them frozen stiff.

I scrambled up the slope toward the highway,
putting my share of bruises on my numbed shins as I
started a dozen mini-avalanches. When I got to the top,
I had to scramble over the guardrail and six feet of
snowplow ejecta. 1 rolled into the breakdown lane.

I got up and started walking.

As I walked, I searched myself for clues to where I
was, what had happened to me, and who I was. I felt
desperate for some item my ragged brain could hang a
memory on.

I wore well-worn steel-toed work boots—if they
didn't have to chop off my toes it was thanks to them—
a pair of terribly abused blue jeans, a denim work shirt
that, like my hair, was ruined with frozen blood—
mostly on the chest and collar—and a black, fleece-
lined trenchcoat that would probably never be usable
again. Everything had been soaked and frozen stiff. I
made cracking and grinding noises when I moved.

My wallet, if I'd had one, had either been stolen or
had been lost in the sewer. Same for a watch, or keys.
No rings, or any jewelry for that matter. My pockets
were almost completely empty.

For a time I felt as if I had been robbed. But some-
thing in my void of a memory made me feel that what
had happened had been more than a simple mugging.

My hands were clumsy and numb, and found it diffi-

RAVEN                   17

cult to manipulate my frozen clothes, which is why one
of the last things I discovered was the empty holster. It
was clipped to the rear of my belt, hidden from view. I
didn't know what I had found until I'd undipped it and
looked at the thing.

It gave me my first memory of something before the
icy sewer. I could see the gun that belonged in the hol-
ster, a mental image of a blue steel Colt Police .38. It
was more than an image. I felt how much it should
weigh, how it should fit in my hand. I knew what it was
like to load it, by hand and with a speed-loader. The
shock of the impressions made me drop the holster.

What had I been doing with a gun?

I bent slowly, my frozen clothes abrading my skin,
and fished the holster out of the slush in the breakdown
lane. I shoved it in a pocket, for the first time sus-
pecting that I might not be an innocent victim.

No one is innocent, I thought.

I resumed my stumbling progress toward the lights
of what I hoped was civilization. I continued exam-
ining my pockets, my search caking on an edge of
desperation.

I found only one other thing, besides the holster. I
felt something in the breast pocket of my shirt. The
pocket was buttoned shut and gummed with blood, but
I tore it open. Inside was a small plastic card. At first I
thought it was a credit card, but there was nothing
embossed on the surface.

It took a moment for me to realize that it was a key.
The print identified the place as the Woodstar Motel.
The key carried a weak visual impression with it. A
view of a garish neon sign that could have been as
much my imagination as memory.

There was an address on the card and that cheered
me, but only for a moment. I had no idea where I was,
much less how to find this motel. I looked up and

S.A. Swiniarski

18

stared down the four lanes of unused asphalt. How did
I know I was going in the right direction?

I had yet to pass so much as a sign identifying this
road. I pushed my way along the shoulder, leaning into
a wind that cut like a razor, dragging my feet through
dirty brown snow.

By now, on top of the cold, I was feeling pretty
damn weak. I had lost even the pins and needles that
reminded me that I still had legs. My fatigue was a
dangerous sign. I felt as if I could lie down upon the
snowbank and take a nap; the idea was tempting even
though I knew I'd never awake from such a nap.

I forced myself to march along the breakdown lane,
my boots growing heavier with each step. I had gone
maybe another dozen yards when I saw the trees
lighten in front of me. I saw my shadow reach out
ahead of me, and I turned to see a pair of headlights
bright enough to make my eyes water.

Incredibly, my first instinct was to hide from the
approaching car. It was an insane impulse, since I was
certain to die if I spent much longer out in this cold.

Instead, I gathered my coat about me to hide the
bloody shirt I wore, and waved the car down. The car
passed me and rolled to a stop on the shoulder. I
watched the narrow brake lights ease back toward me as
my eyes recovered their night vision- The nearer the car
came, the more I was gripped by an insane ambivalence.

I was frightened of being discovered, and I had no
memory of why I should be.

The car was a late model Cadillac, black or dark blue
in color. It had Ohio plates, Cuyahoga County, up-to-
date tags, and a five-digit number. I also noticed the
small Enterprise Rent-A-Car logo. I was cataloging all
these items by rote before I realized that I was doing it.
By then the plate number was fixed in my head.

The Cadillac came to a stop about ten feet away
from me. For a few moments I was unable to force

RAVEN                    19

myself to move. My hesitation was brief. The wind
picked up, driving needles into my exposed skin. If
nothing else, the cold pushed me toward the car.

I walked up and opened the passenger door, letting
out a blast of heat and the sound of Creedence Clear-
water Revival. The driver turned to face me. He was
an old Asian gentleman with snow-white hair that con-
trasted with a very dark face. He wore a dark blue suit
that was conservative enough to be three or thirty
years old.

He took one look at me and said, "My word . . ."

His accent wasn't foreign, but it wasn't Midwestern.
It was only slightly offset from the universal news-
caster accent, but it made me think Canada. "Sir," I
said, doing my best to sound harmless, "I've had an
accident, I need to get back to my motel."

The way he stared at me made me realize just how
terrible I must have looked. "Of course," he said. "Cer-
tainly. Come in."

I slipped into the passenger seat and pulled the seat
belt around myself. In the warmth of the car, my skin
began burning, fiery needles racing across my flesh.
My clothes began melting immediately.

"Are you certain that you don't need an am-
bulance?" my benefactor asked. "I can drive you to a
hospital—"

"No," I said. It was a reflex, and I said it much too
strongly. He turned to face me, and I saw the begin-
nings of suspicion grow on his face- After a pause, I
said, "Look, I'm all right—"

"You don't look all right." I could see his face
harden, and I could feel him beginning to perceive me
as a threat. His fear began to fill the car like a fog. I
could almost breathe it.

On the radio John Fogherty was singing about bad
moons rising ....

I started talking even before I knew, consciously,

20

S.A. Swinieirski

what I was about to say. I ran my fingers over clotted
hair and said, "Look, this is embarrassing, I lost my job
you see—laid off, downsized, whatever you want to
call it—got cut off with no benefits, no nothing. Car's
totaled, sent the damn thing into a ditch—black ice.
But my insurance lapsed, and hell—I never had any
medical insurance to begin with .. ."

I amazed myself by the facility with which the lies
came out. I fell into a natural patter where the hesita-
tion stops gave me time to think of the next sentence. It
only took a few glances into this guy's eyes to tell I
had him convinced.

"I understand," he said, "but don't they have to take
you at an emergency room?"

I laughed humorlessly. "Yeah, and what they'd
charge'd wipe out what savings I got left. Then I'd
probably be arrested for no insurance on that wreck I
totaled. I do not want to look for work with a sus-
pended license."

"Head wounds can be nasty."

I nodded. "I can go to the free clinic tomorrow.
They'll take that long to get to me in an emergency
room anyway."

The look of disgust on the man's face now had
nothing to do with me. I had sold him, completely, on
a story that I'd constructed out of whole cloth, on
the spot.

Who in hell was I?

I felt my head again and wondered why I was so ter-
rified of going to a hospital. "Head wounds can be
nasty," said my Good Samaritan. The idea did not
make me feel good.

"The health care system in this country is insane," he
muttered. "Where's your motel?"

I fished in my pocket and retrieved the card key. I
read off the address of the Woodstar Motel in the dim
glow from the dash.

RAVEN                    21

"Can you give me directions?" he asked.

"No," I said, "I'm from out of town. I was following
up a job prospect." The lies were almost easy, as if the
conversation was a puzzle and all I had to do was fish
out the pieces to fit. He eventually had me fish out a
map from the glove compartment. At least I now knew
exactly where I was. We were westbound on Route
322, east of Cleveland, Ohio, just outside of Cuyahoga
County.

None of that information held a whisper of a
memory for me. All I knew for certain was that every-
thing I had told my benefactor had been a lie.

The song changed to "Fortunate Son."

The drive turned out to be a short one, which was
fortunate. Even in the warmth of the car, my breath
was shallow, my head throbbed, and I seemed to have
no feeling below the waist. More than once I reconsid-
ered my attempt to avoid a hospital, but I never voiced
my second thoughts. I was going to follow my instincts
all the way, and pray that there was a reason for them.

Eventually the neon-chrome 'sprawl of the motel
emerged from the drifts beside Route 332. The neon
sign merged with the memory my card key had
inspired.

"Here you are," my benefactor held out his hand and
said, "My name's Park. Lee Park."

"Damien Castle," I said automatically, knowing it
wasn't my name. "Thank you for the lift. I think you
saved my life."

He shook my hand and his expression darkened.
"That remains to be seen, my friend."

I nodded as 1 slipped out. The cold was so searing
that I nearly collapsed by the car. It was an order of
magnitude worse now that my clothes had partially
melted. Immediately the moisture on my skin began to
freeze again.

S.A. Swiniarski

22

The Cadillac drove away and I stumbled through a
recently plowed parking lot, realizing that I had no
room number. I gripped the key in a numbing hand,
and realized that there was no guarantee that I still had
a room here. I had the sick feeling that I might have
only delayed the inevitable.

The wind sucked my strength as I tried to think. I
stumbled toward the motel, leaning on a dirty
Chevette that had been half-buried by a snowplow,
and was overwhelmed by a sudden stab of aloneness.
The night gripped me in a silence so total that I wanted
to scream.

Just as suddenly, the sense of isolation was gone,
leaving me shaken and empty. I tried to calm myself, to
push back the tide of panic that was making it difficult
to think.

I looked around the lot, and noticed something. The
Chevette was the only car that was buried so badly. It
had been here a couple of days at least.

My car, perhaps?

Even better, I looked down and saw that each room
had a parking space marked for it. Room numbers were
painted on the curb in front of the spaces. The curb by
the Chevette was hopelessly buried, so I kicked away
the snow around the empty spaces to either side of it. .

The numbers were 222 and 224. That meant the
Chevette belonged to room 223. It was worth a try. If I
was wrong, I'd just have to try every single door until I
found the one where the key worked.

I raised my head and began looking in vain for room
number 223. I felt a blurry panic when I didn't see that
number on any of the doors facing the lot. It took a
minute for me to see a set of stairs leading to a balcony
and a second story of rooms.

I ascended the stairs, the only sound the crunching of
salt under my boots. I passed two doors and stopped in
front of 223. My numbed fingers fumbled with the

RAVEN               23

card, and I felt the panic begin again. What if this was
the wrong motel, what if the room had been given to
someone else?

The card chunked home and a small diode blinked
green from the lock.

Behind me, one of the streetlights illuminating the
parking lot buzzed and went out. For the first time I
noticed that the sky had lightened from black to a
deep aqua.

As the door creaked open, the wave of heat that blew
from the room felt like a furnace. My refrozen clothes
began to melt again. I spared one more look at the
lightening sky.

For some unfathomable reason I felt as if I had made
it just in time.

I stumbled into the darkened motel room on legs that
felt like stilts carved in ice. I slammed the door shut
behind me, not caring if someone else was in the room.
Though, even in the near pitch black, with the shades
drawn, I was sure the room was empty.

I took a step and stumbled over a suitcase. I was
shivering violently, and salt was stinging my eyes—
sweat or thawing blood.

Ass on the floor, and in total darkness, I began strip-
ping off my frozen clothes. It was a process that felt as
though it ripped skin and hair as much as cloth.
Wrestling off my boots ignited deep burning pain in
my feet, especially my toes.

For a moment I sat there, naked, shivering. Fiery
pain washed over me, leaving bone-deep aches in its
wake. Ice trickled down my back as my hair melted.

I crawled to the bathroom, not bothering with the
light. I could feel my consciousness ebbing. There was
actually a bathtub in the bathroom, not simply an
abbreviated shower stall. I turned the hot water on full
and half climbed, half fell, into the bathtub, barely

24                   S.A. Swirtiarski

worried about scalding myself. I felt the steam filling
the bathroom.

My last coherent memory of that first night was of
killing the water when the tub began to overflow,
thinking I was probably going to die.

2

For the second time I woke up in darkness, submerged
in cold water.

For an instant I thought I might be caught in some
vicious cycle of hallucination—doomed to traverse
some private circle of hell, waking in that sewer and
stumbling to Ehe motel over and over and over ....

I had to clamp down hard to keep myself from flip-
ping out.

Calming down took a minute or ten. It took that long
for me to realize that I was still alive. I hadn't stopped
breathing in the night. I hadn't slipped down into the
water and drowned. I'd avoided hypothermia. My
headache was gone for the most part. And, when I con-
ducted a prodding search of my extremities under the
tepid bathwater, I could actually feel. Sensation was
back in my fingers and my lower body.

All things considered, I felt better than I had any
right to feel.

I probably looked like hell.

I heaved myself out of the tub, carefully, expecting a
wave of vertigo that didn't come. I was waking up. I
felt alive, alive in a way you can only feel after coming
pretty damn close to the alternative.

I stood in the darkened bathroom, dripping, thinking
how badly the boys who tried to off me had screwed
up. I was going to find them and—

"Calm down," I whispered to myself. It was hard.

26

S.A. Swiniarski

Like the panic that had surged in me before, thinking
about my hypothetical attackers gave vent to a deep
well of raw emotion. A visceral anger gripped me,
abnormally intense even after what had happened.
Especially since, with my hole of a memory, I couldn't
say for certain that I was the victim of any sort of
attack.

The problem was that I was certain.

I shook my head and tried again to force a memory.
The strain was almost physical. I clenched my fists and
felt a bead of sweat roll off my brow.

I remembered a brief sensation. A smell like rusty
leather, and a heavy wet sound of something falling
on ....

On what?

That was all the memory that would come, the smell
of ferric leather and that incongruous, ominous sound.
Nothing more would come to me, and my subconscious
left me with a deep rage and a feeling that I had been,
in some sense, raped.

"Maybe I don't want to remember." I took a deep
breath. "Stop talking to yourself in the dark, people
will think you're nuts."

I groped for the light switch. A frosty fluorescent
flashed a few rattling strobes before it came on.

The bathroom was a mess. Worst was the bathtub.
The water was black with dirt and blood. Water had
slopped over and drenched the hex-tile floor, streaking
it red and brown. A few towels were sopping in the
midst of the mess on the floor.

I walked over to the tub and hit the lever for the
drain, its only response an anemic gurgle. I had to pull
out a tangle of hair and twigs from the drain to get the
thing to start. I shook my hand off into the John and
glanced in the mirror—

—and got a stabbing pain straight through the
temples that made my eyes water. I immediately

RAVEN                    27

looked away, as if I'd been blinded by a bright light.
The pain faded.

What the. . . ?

I looked into the mirror again, slowly raising my
eyes—

When the second headache faded enough to allow
me some awareness, I was staring into the sink in front
of the mirror and gripping the sides of the counter so
tightly that my arms were vibrating. The idea of brain
damage came to me again.

But I had felt/me until I had looked directly at the
mirror.

I cast a furtive glance at the mirror without raising
my head. I saw my naked waist sliced by the lines of
the sink. I saw my hands, veins standing out on their
backs, knuckles white.

I didn't quite have the courage to raise my head all
the way.

I thought furiously for a moment and came to the
conclusion that it was an effect of the light reflecting
off of the mirror. Bright lights could trigger headaches.
Strobes could start seizures in epileptics. Maybe some
weird angle of reflection hit me just the wrong way
when I looked directly in the mirror.

That decided, I grabbed a dry hand towel from the
rack and, without looking, hung it up over the bare fluo-
rescent tube that ran along the top of the mirror. Once I
was sure it was secure, then I slowly raised my gaze.

No migraine struck this time, if that's what had
sliced my skull open a few minutes ago. The towel
didn't cover the whole mirror, I could see myself from
mid-chest down.

On the parts of my body I could see, there was no
injury, nothing that looked like frostbite. That was
good—or not so good, because that left only one place
for all that blood to have come from.

The drain in the tub gurgled as it finally emptied out.

28

S.A. Swiniarski

I prodded my skull—with the towel in place I
couldn't see my head—and found my hair a crusty
mess. No area felt particularly sensitive, but I wasn't
going to find any signs with all that clotted hair in the
way. I shrugged, sighed, and stepped back into the
shower.

After a long time pulling gunk out of my hair, I
emerged from the shower. I felt about as good as I could
ever remember. Which, of course, wasn't saying much.

As I dried myself off with the only clean towel left
in the bathroom, I looked at the hand towel I'd draped
over the mirror. I found it disturbing. It was the one
concrete sign, other than my memory, that there was
something wrong with me. I might not have found so
much as a bump under my clotted hair, but it wasn't
normal to have migraines just from peeking into a
mirror.

Maybe it'djust been a temporary aberration.

Yeah, like the blood. If the blood came from you, that
bleeding aberration was pretty damn temporary.
Wasn't it?

I reached over and touched the corner of the towel.
Two ways to test this, lift gently, or yank it away.

I began to lift it.

Slowly, it revealed my shoulders and a scar on my
left pectoral. Then my neck, the cor4s standing out as I
clenched my teeth. My chin, dark with a few days'
beard. My mouth, pressed into a hard, bloodless line. A
nose broken once, severely, and reset. My. . .

. . .eyes. . .
"GOD!"

The pain dropped me on the floor this time. It was as
if someone had fired a high-powered laser through my
eyes and burned all the way to the back of my head.
My palms pressed into the orbits so hard that I felt I
might fracture my skull.

RAVEN                     29

It took a while for me to think straight.

As the pain faded, I stared at my hands. I became
very conscious of my vision. It seemed normal.
Nothing was blurred, nothing doubled, the colors
seemed right.

Nothing I remembered seeing in the mirror clued me
in either. The reflection that had looked at me, despite
the grotesque contortion of pain it had caused, seemed
normal. Even the eyes—green, I remember—couldn't
account for the blinding stab I'd felt when I made eye
contact with my reflection.

It struck me as some sort of psychotic pathology,
and that really scared me.

It scared me because I had no obvious injuries. That
left me with the strong possibility that the blood wasn't
mine. I had refused to be taken the hospital. I was
afraid of something. What if it was the police I
was afraid of? I was missing a gun. Was it possible that
I had killed someone?

I climbed, shaking, to my feet.

Amnesia could be psycholbgical as well as from a
blow to the head.

Was I insane? Could I be a serial killer with a few
dozen bodies to his credit? Was I—

I put my hands over my face and told myself to cut
it out.

I pushed out of the bathroom to get away from that
damn mirror. I might be on shaky ground, mentally
speaking, but it wasn't time to be sized for a white
jacket that buckled up the back.

Fumbling for the light switch, I told myself that, for
all my erratic behavior, nothing I'd felt or done yet was
more out of line than the situation I found myself in. I
needed to give myself the benefit of the doubt, since I
didn't think anyone else was about to.

I found the lights and flipped them on, hoping that
something in my room would pull loose a memory. But

30 S.A. Swiniarski

the only thought that crossed my mind upon seeing my
motel room was that the place had been tossed by
amateurs.

There are two ways to search a room: thorough and
subtle. Subtle is supposed to leave the room so the
owner doesn't know it was touched. Thorough is just
like it sounds; you don't give a shit, you trash the place
and sift through the pieces.

This was neither.

I tried to push the thought away, blame it on para-
noia, but the certainty gripped me and wouldn't let me
go. The feeling grew as I rummaged through a pair of
suitcases for clothing.

As I dressed, I began cataloging the details that told
me the room had been searched. Furniture had been
moved. The legs of the end table, the wheels of the bed
frame, both were slightly off the divots they had worn
in the motel's carpet. The cushion on the one easy
chair had been compressed by a succession of rear
ends, but the cushion only sat loosely on the chair
itself, as if it had Just been placed there. The runners
that held the carpet down at the front door and the
bathroom were loose. The suitcases had been gone
through and hastily repacked.

At least the clothes fit me.

Dressed, I went over the motel room more thor-
oughly. The closer I looked at anything, the more evi-
dence I found of tampering—shiny scratches on dull
screw heads, an absence of dust on the back of the TV
set, nicks on the sides of drawers where they'd been
forced off their tracks and replaced.

I couldn't check around the mirror above the dresser
until I thought of putting on a pair of dark sunglasses
I'd found on the night table. The sunglasses prevented
eye contact with myself, and that prevented the pain.

Once I could check the mirror, I found the tampering
there as well. Along the edge of the mirror, scratches

RAVEN                31

circled the plugs capping the screws that held the
mirror to the wall.

I got the feeling that whoever had done this—and it
was obviously not the cops, or, if cops, seriously bent
cops—had been rushed. Maybe not amateurs, maybe
seriously rushed pros. That didn't make me feel any
better.

Then I had a sick paranoid thought to add to all the
others. What if all of this was my doing? I had no
memory. It could as easily have been me as anyone
else. If it had been, what had I been looking for?

Presuming that there was something to find, I pro-
ceeded to toss the place myself. I hoped desperately for
some clues to who I was, to who searched this room, to
what had happened to me ....

I checked the doors and windows first and found
something truly strange. White crumbs were ground
into the carpet by the front door, as if someone had
stepped on a cracker. By the window that faced the
garage I found another cracker, white, about the size of
a Ritz. It lay on the sill where the window opened, and
I had to reach behind the chair 'to retrieve it. When I
saw the image of the Lamb embossed on the surface of
the thin wafer, I realized what it was.

I held in my hand a holy wafer. Someone, probably
myself, had placed the Eucharist across the entrances
into this room.

"Why?" 1 asked. My voice felt hoarse from lack of
use. I backed from the window, confused and fearful.
Looking at the wafer in my hand, I heard a voice out of
my memory—

". - . it is something evil. It is evil and I fear for my
daughter's soul..."
^

^'     There was little in the room that gave me any clue to
^;  who I was. There was much, however, that implied
f;   what I did for a living.

32 S.A. Swiniarski

In the closet I found a camcorder, a high-end model
with interchangeable lenses; next to it an empty tape
case for videos. With the camcorder was a voice-
activated microcassette recorder. Again, an empty tape
case for the cassettes. I found a very expensive pair of
binoculars.

And in the bottom of the closet was a briefcase, alu-
minum and covered by a matte-black vinyl veneer. It
weighed more than it should have. When I placed it on
the bed, the mattress sagged. The latches had combina-
tion locks set to 537.

When I tried the latches, it opened. Whoever had
opened this last hadn't bothered to relock the case. I
suspected that my visitors hadn't cared after they'd
finessed the combination.

Inside the case, resting on a foam rubber cushion,
was a two-thousand-dollar monster: a Desert Eagle and
two boxes of shells to go with it.

Its presence scared me more than the missing thirty-
eight. The revolver was a reasonable weapon, but a
fifty-caliber Desert Eagle is bigger than any handgun
had a right to be. It'd throw a magnum bullet through
someone, through the guy behind him, through the
wall, and crack the engine block on the car parked out-
side. No one had any business carrying this thing out-
side a combat zone.

Scarier still was the way my hands knew the
weapon, checking the slide and the magazine. The gun
was fully loaded, and so new it shone. In the closet
hung a shoulder holster that could fit it and an extra
magazine.

I would have preferred some form of photo identifi-
cation.

But in the remainder of the room I found no papers,
no keys, no wallet, no checkbook. The closest I came
to my identity was in the drawer of the nightstand.
Three hundred dollars in cash was weighted down by

RAVEN               33

an expensive-looking watch. I picked up the watch. It
was shiny, and old enough to show some wear. On the
back was an engraving, "Happy Birthday. Love, Gail."

Something clogged my throat. It came from the same
blank place where the anger and the fear had been
coming from.

'"Gail?" I whispered, not enjoying the sound of my
voice.

I put the watch on my wrist. I wondered why I had
left it here. Fear of losing it, maybe?

When I lifted the stack of crumpled twenties out of
the drawer, something clattered back into the drawer. I
picked up a wedding band.

". . . Kate, I'm worried about you and Gail—"

A sigh comes from the other end of the phone.
"You're always worried about Gail. That's what your
work does to you. "

"This is different—"

"It's always different. I'm not like you, 1 can't live in
fear all the time. That's why I f-eft you . . .."

The memory burned, but even go, I tried to hold on
to it. I couldn't and I felt sick and ashamed that I
couldn't- I had a family somewhere, and I was certain
that I had done evil by them.

I sat on the bed, staring at the night table, trying to
remember anything. But forcing did me little good. 1
sighed and looked at the phone.

For once I seemed to have some luck. The message
light was on, I had some voice-mail waiting for me. I
picked up the receiver and punched up my messages,
hoping for some sort of revelation.

The first message was a voice that was achingly
familiar though I had no memory of ever hearing it.

"Okay, Kane, you owe me. I got the information on
Childe you wanted. Call my beeper, 216-3839. Not my
apartment or the station. You better get this cleared up

34 S.A. Swiniarski

before Internal Affairs eats me alive for not handing
you over."

Internal Affairs? That implied police, and that I was
dealing with a cop who was risking something by
talking to me. Was I wanted for something?

But I had a name now. Somehow that lifted some of
the weight off of my soul.

The second voice was still familiar, but I had a more
ambivalent feeling about it.

"It's Bowie. We gotta talk. Not over the phone. Meet
me at the Arabica tonight, seven. There's talk on
Coventry that you've got to hear."

The voice sounded frantic, but I didn't understand
anything he said. Arabica and Coventry were just
words to me, though my traitor memory decided to
give me an image of the speaker. I saw a thin man in a
leather jacket wearing a jet-black ponytail.

The next message was a repeat of the first caller.

"It's Sam again. Where the fuck are you? Call me."

Now I had a name for my policeman friend. I tried to
remember him, but my memory seemed to resist it. I
couldn't force a memory, they only seemed to come
when I wasn't prepared for them.

The next message was like a fist in the gut.

"Dad?" A young woman's voice on the verge of
breaking into tears. "Sam gave me this number. Please,
talk to me. You're hiding because you think you're
responsible for what happened to Mom. Call me. Damn
it, I love you. I love you . . . ."

"Gail," I whispered into the phone.

Kate my wife. Gail my daughter. That, my memory
would give me. I could feel that something bad had
happened, but what I didn't know. I sat there, stomach
boiling, wishing that Gail had left her number.

But that would be something I was supposed to know.

The messages ended, and I slammed the receiver
down on to the cradle.

RAVEN               35

* * *

I called Sam's beeper, left my name, and waited.

He called back within ten minutes. I grabbed the
receiver before the first ring faded-

"Hello?" I said, my voice wrapped in an asphyxi-
ating uncertainty.

"God damn it, Kane! Where the fuck have you
been?" It was the same voice that had left the message.
Sam's voice.

"Sam?" I said uncertainly.

"Yes. What the hell were you thinking, falling off
the Earth like that? You want everyone to think you're
dead? Please, at least tell me you've called Gail."

"I got her message. I had—"

"Christ, and you're just letting her worry about you?
After what happened to Kate?"

A flash of a memory hit me, a bad one—blood-red
and violent. I saw torn, ragged flesh. I remembered the
sickening reek of disinfectant that just failed to cover
the smell of blood, the almost subliminal smell of
death.

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne ....

"Kane? Are you there? Hello?"

I choked back something. The receiver shook in my
hand. Why can't I remember?

"I had an accident," I said. "I've had some prob-
lems." It was an effort to get the words out.

Sam's voice changed. "What happened? Are you all
right?"

"I think someone tried to kill me."

The response was silence.

"Hello," I said. It was beginning to sink in that here
was someone who knew me, someone who might tell
me what happened.

"Who?" Sam said, earnestness replacing the anger in
his voice. "Was it Childe?"

Childe. That name again. "I don't know. I can't

36 S.A. Swiniarski

remember—" I hesitated. Something inside me didn't
want to admit how badly off I was. "We need to meet."

"Where?"

My mind was a blank. I tried to force a image of a
place to meet, but forcing my past to the surface was
like trying to build a snowman out of water. No
memory would come when I wanted a memory.

On impulse I parroted one of the other messages,
"How about the Arabica?"

"Which one? Shaker Square, University Circle,
Coventry—"

"Coventry," I said. Perhaps I could find Bowie.

"When?" Sam asked.

"Give me three hours or so."

"Okay, 10:30."

I nodded. There was some hope that I would find out
what the hell was going on.

"Are you all right? Do I need to send help out
there?" Sam asked.

"No, I'll be fine." I said it even though I didn't
believe it. "Do me a favor and call Gail and tell her that
I'm okay?"

"Sure, but why don't you—"

"Tell her I love her," I said, and hung up the phone,
my hand shaking. Somehow, memory or not, I had
meant it.

What had happened to my wife? Presumably I was
going to find out. However, from the wisps of memory
I was getting, I was not sure that I wanted to know.

I needed to find this Arabica before 10:30. I looked
at my watch and saw that it was pretty late already- I
needed to get going if I was going to find Sam.

I walked up to the window and drew the shades
aside. The night was ink-black with solid clouds- The
street lamps were globed by halos of wind-whipped
snow. It was as if the day had never happened, as if the
sun were gone for good.

RAVEN               37

I looked down and saw the Chevette was still
snowed in. It seemed to be my car, but did I want to
use it?

I drew the shade and decided to call a taxi.

3

There were a few things I needed to check with the
manager here, before I left- I stepped outside and tried
not to think of the Eucharist crumbs that dusted the
doorway. The idea that I might have been the one to
grin^ the wafer underfoot made me uncomfortable.

The denim jacket I'd found wasn't up to the weather.
The wind cut under it, and the snow abrading it made
an audible patter. I counted my blessings. I'd been
lucky I'd packed more than one jacket. I had, in fact,
packed a hell of a lot.

All the signs seemed to indicate that I was running
from something, something that Had caught up with me
at least once. Which made me feel more than lucky that
this jacket was large enough to hide the Eagle and its
holster.

I trudged through a growing snowstorm to the front
of the motel and entered the manager's office. The
woman behind the counter was easily sixty-five, wore
thick glasses, and had hair the color of FD&C Red # 5.
She glanced up at me, then went back to reading the
book in her lap.

I walked up to the desk and cleared my throat.
"Can I help you?" she asked in a bored voice.
I opened my mouth, and for a moment I had diffi-
culty speaking. I was suddenly overly conscious of a
lot of things: the buzz of the unnaturally white fluores-
cents, the weight of the gun in my armpit, the smell of

40 S.A. Swiniarski

state coffee from a mug on a counter, melting snow
dripping down my neck. . . .

The sense of hyperawareness passed. "I need to
check how long my room's paid for."

The woman gave a hostile sigh and put the book face
down on the counter, cracking the spine. She looked up,
her eyes magnified grotesquely by the glasses she wore.

"We don't give refunds for—"

"Yes?" I said. Her distorted gaze had made me
realize that I'd still been wearing my sunglasses. I'd
been taking them off when she paused.

"Yes?" I repeated. I was becoming uncomfortably
aware that she was staring into my eyes. It was an
intense and disturbing contact that made me wonder
what she was looking at. Somehow I gained a .very
deep feeling of how boring she found her job, of how
lost she felt here. Somehow I knew this woman
regretted missing the chance to be something other
than she was. The wave of empathy was like a blow.

I was drawn, leaning forward. Something pushed at
me, something that wasn't a memory. Something more
like an instinct.

She interrupted me by saying, finally, "What can I
help you with?"

Her entire manner had changed, she wasn't looking
through me any more. I could swear that what I saw in
her eyes was lust, a lust that didn't make me nearly as
uncomfortable as it should have.

"I'm in room 223.1 need to know how long I'm paid
up for."

"Yes, certainly." The hesitation in the way she
breathed as she spoke made my interpretation of her
expression unmistakable. So much so that I felt im-
mense relief when she broke eye contact to rummage in
a card file next to the phones.

"Do you have a phone book I could use?"

"By the pay phone, dear."

RAVEN                     41

I glanced around the office looking for the pay
phone. I found it back in the hall I'd come through. I
left her to search in her files while I stepped outside.
The hall was little more than an air lock, with glass
doors to the outside and the office. The only things in it
were the pay phone and a pair of newspaper machines.

For a few moments I stood there and tried to regain
my composure. I was washed by a sense of disorienta-
tion. Rationally, I knew that all I had seen and felt
about the woman behind the desk had been manufac-
tured by my own mind, but I had to tell myself that
none of it was real.

The roiling in my gut was real, though. The feeling of
need inside me, a reciprocal and distorted version of
what I thought I saw in the woman, that was real. The
fact that I stood there with muscles tensed to where they
felt as if they'd tear from the bone, that was real, too.

For the first time I truly considered the possibility
that I might be psychotic.

My absent memory provided, a fragment of a poem;

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—

The sense of being totally along gripped me again. I
clutched the sides of one of the newspaper machines
and forced myself to take deep breaths. If nothing else,
the effort and concentration that took calmed me.
When I felt as if I had rejoined (he real world, I picked
up the Yellow Pages.

As I called the cab, I started watching outside. Once
I'd calmed down my inner world, I began thinking
about the threats that might exist in the outer. There
were people out there who had left me for dead, and I

42 S.A. Swiniarski

was beginning to feel much too overexposed behind
this wide expanse of glass.

The stretch of Route 322 that I could see was all
snow-cloaked shadows. I saw nothing threatening until
I'd hung up the phone.

It was a small thing, off in the distance. Out there, by
the side of the road, I saw the glow of someone lighting
a cigarette. It was far enough away that it shouldn't
have concerned me. Except that spot of road had an
overview of the motel's entrance, the parking lot, and
the door to my room.

I didn't stare. If that distant smoker was watching
me, he had a very good view right now, as well-lighted
as I was. I didn't want to tip off the guy that I'd seen
him, not until I had some idea who he was. For all I
knew he could be a cop, or my imagination could be
running away with me.

I returned the Yellow Pages, and pulled out the White
Pages to try to find an address for an "Arabica," what-
ever that was. The listing said it was a coffee house, but
I couldn't find an-address for "Coventry." I had to hope
the cabby would know what I was talking about.

I walked back into the manager's office, avoiding
obvious glances outside. "Four days, dear," said the
woman behind the counter. I jumped at the sound.

"You're paid through Wednesday," she finished-

1 realized that I didn't know what day of the week it
was. "Wednesday? Morning or evening?"

She returned to her book, but she kept staring at me
over the spine. "Morning. Checkout time is at 10:30."

It was Saturday.

The taxi took twenty minutes to show up. Despite
the snow, I waited for it outside. I didn't want to spend
the time in the office alone with that woman. When the
cab came, I was covered with snow, and almost used to
the cold.

RAVEN                    43

It was ten minutes toward the city before I was posi-
tive the taxi was being shadowed. It wasn't easy for me
to make the car. This stretch of highway was without
streetlights, and the snow was getting worse. Most of
the time the only visible signs of the car were the twin
cones of headlamp-stirred snow.

However, not all pairs of headlights are created
equal, and my tail was marked by a clump of ice by the
right edge of the bumper that warped the lower right
corner of its headlight. The car faded behind us two or
three times as the cab made its way deeper into the
snowbound Cleveland suburbs. But each time head-
lights reappeared behind us, it was the same car.

I resisted the impulse to have the cab pull over, or to
change my destination. I wanted to keep track of these
guys as much as they seemed to want to keep track
of me.

I wondered if they were the same people who had
tried to kill me. That didn't make sense. By all rights,
^   the people who dumped me in the sewer should think I
was dead.                 '•

I was beginning to have problems with the idea that
someone had tried to kill me. If all the blood that had
frozen on me was my own, where was the injury that
had bled so much? All I had to go on, really, was a gut
feeling that didn't even have a memory to support it.
From the evidence, it could have been me killing
someone and wandering into the sewers to escape ....

By the time the cab passed the border into Cleveland
Heights, Route 322 had turned into Mayfield and we
had passed deep into well-lit suburbia. The general
lack of traffic made it hard for my tail to hide. They
made a valiant effort, but they only had one car, so no
matter what they did, I could eventually pick them out.

The car was a little too old to be totally anonymous.
It was a tan Olds that was made prior to the stream-
lining of the nineties. Mid-eighties was my guess,

44 S.A. Swiniarski

though they never let me have a good look. Best I
could see, there were at least two people in the car,
both large males. Nothing much else I could make out
through snow and distance.

I finally lost track of them when the cab turned to
Coventry. I suspected they'd held back at the intersec-
tion of Coventry and Mayfield. By the time the cab
went a block, I had lost the intersection beyond a white
fog of snow.

It was two blocks to the next tangled intersection
when the taxi stopped. It confused me for a moment
before I realized that we had made it to my destina-
tion. I had to squint past a snow-draped courtyard to
see a storefront, but the neon sign was lit up reading
"Arabica."

I paid the cabby and stepped out into the snow.

I stood ankle-deep in a snowdrift in the center of the
courtyard and stared through the windows into the
well-lit shop. Looking in, I felt a nagging sense of'
familiarity. This place meant something—a lot of
teenagers, more punk than anything else. I saw a lot
of weird hair and body piercing. I also saw a lot of the
bearded-poet type, the kind of folks who wear dirty
army jackets, write longhand on yellow lega) pads, and
quote Nietzsche a lot.

I knew this place-

At one of the tables near the window, a lanky kid
with a blond ponytail was having an animated discus-
sion with a shadowy-eyed girl. They both wore abused
leather jackets.

I stood there a long time before I walked to the door.
The familiarity frightened me, as if this place might
make me remember something that I didn't want to
remember. But after a few minutes the cold drove me
inside.

Stepping from the empty night street into the babble
of humanity crowding the coffee shop was a shock. A

RAVEN                    45

wave of irrational enmity froze me in the doorway. No
one actually looked in my direction, but I felt as if
everyone in this place were paying attention to me,
weighing me.

I forced myself to walk to the counter. It's just the
crowd. I'm not used to crowds. That's what I told
myself at least.

I was certainly in the midst of the largest group of
people I'd seen since walking up sans memory. It was
only natural to find it disturbing, after what I'd been
through.

Of course that was just me bullshitting myself, but it
helped to steady my hands as I took a cup of espresso
and two horrendou sly-priced Danishes to one of the
few free tables. The table was way in the back, in the
smoking section. It was somewhat dark, and smelled
like an ashtray, but having my back to a wall helped
steady my nerves.

For a while I just sat there, cradling the warm mug in
my hands, letting the cold retreat. I forced myself to
moderate my paranoia. While some of the patrons gave
me some odd looks, I was sure that they were the ones
who gave everybody odd looks. I didn't look terribly
out of place here, it just felt that way to me.

At the table next to me, two chain-smokers were
playing chess. I classified the young clean-shaven one
as an eternal grad student, the middle-aged bearded
one as another unemployed poet. I didn't know where
the assumptions came from, but it reinforced my
impression that I had been here before ....

It made me wonder if being here was a good idea. If
the cops were looking for me, and someone here recog-
nized me—

I lowered my gaze. My sunglasses didn't seem much
of a disguise.

As if spurred by my thought, someone slapped my

46 S.A. Swiniarski

back and said, "Hail Eris, you bastard. How goes the
hunt?"

"Huh?" I said. I put down the espresso without
drinking from it. I turned around. The speaker wasn't
Sam or Bowie, I could tell from the voice.

I looked at him hoping for some twinge of memory.
He seemed like someone I should remember. He had
wild blond hair and wore at least seven earrings,
though his ears were all he had pierced. He wore a
denim vest over a linen shirt whose drawstrings left the
neck open on a pentagram necklace. He wore a pair of
John Lennon glasses with slightly blue lenses. He
looked like an avatar of the sixties, though he couldn't
be more than nineteen years old.

He awoke no memories. He didn't even awake a
senseofdejavu.

He slid into the chair opposite me, folded his arms
on the table, and asked, "Find her yet?"

I was glad for my sunglasses. If he had seen my
eyes, he would have seen my confusion. "No, I
haven't." I said. "Do you have anything new to tell
me?" It was a strange question, but one that came to
me automatically—a rote question, something a police-
man might ask.

My guest sighed and leaned back. "How'd I know
you were going to ask that? Sorry, my friend, nada- I
haven't seen them since that open circle I told you
about. Not her. Not Childe. But you've been asking
around; you know that. Vanished, poof." He flowered
open his fingers, "Good riddance."

I nodded.

He held up his hand. "Not the girl, you understand—
but that Childe freak. Just gave the fundies and the
cops something nasty to have us confused with. Hey,
but that's why I like you."

I looked up at the guy, feeling lost. "Why do you
like me?"

RAVEN                    47

"You never came in with that Satan-cult bullshit."

"Why would I?" At this point the questions were
becoming a defense mechanism, to keep him
answering questions so he wouldn't ask me any.

"Hey, man, you're rare. Most people, if you say
you're a pagan, they think you're out torturing cats
somewhere. Take any fundie and talk about any non-
Christian spirituality, boom, you worship the devil.
Somehow pointing out that Satan is a Christian inven-
tion doesn't seem to faze them. Childe's as close to the
devil as I've ever been."

I still couldn't give him a name. However, as I
talked, I got some feeling that I knew his community,
that I had brushed against it before. His words held a
familiarity that he did not.

And there was that damn name again. "Is there any-
thing else you can tell me about Childe?"

He shrugged. "That I haven't told you already? Not
really. English accent, snappy dresser, on a power trip
that'd make Alister Crowley and Anton Le Vay look
like altruists." He sighed. "Hey, I, want you to find this
girl. I don't like the idea of anyone stuck with Childe.
If there was anything I could do ... ."

He trailed off.

Behind him, the chess game continued. I heard a
slap-ding as the grad student slammed the top of a
timer next to the chess board. The poet immediately
moved his queen and made his own slap-ding.

"What is it?" I asked. My companion seemed to have
lost himself in a thought.

"Are you as open-minded as you seem?"

"I try to be."

He grinned, "Then perhaps I can offer some sort of
aid." He fumbled in his pockets and retrieved a bag.
Behind him I heard the timer again.

Slap-ding.

From the bag he pulled a stack of cards. Slowly he

48 S.A. Swiniarski

began shuffling. "You're not someone who comes
believing the oracle, are you?"

I glanced at the cards. "You mean fortune-telling?"
What came to my mind when I thought of divination
was more con artistry than the supernatural.

The kid shuffled cards and said, "More than that. We
attach complex symbols to the cards, manipulate them,
arrange them into patterns. The patterns they form are
reflections of the patterns around us. This is as much us
truly seeing as it is the cards telling us anything." He
looked up and gave me a disarming smile. "Sounds
pretentious, doesn't it? Just started reading up on chaos
theory and emergent behavior." He placed the cards
down on the table between us; a slap-ding echoed his
motion.

I decided if this kid was about to try a con on me,
that would probably tell me more than any oracle. "Go
ahead, it can't hurt."

"Form a question in your mind, something for the
cards to focus on. Then cut them for me."

I reached over and cut the cards. As I did so, the only
question that would come to mind was. Who am I?

"Do you want to know the question?" I asked.

To my relief, he shook his head. "Sometimes the
reading is more profound if only you know what is being
asked. At this point I am only helping you to see "

He drew the top card, laying it on the table between
us. There was a look on his face I did not like. The card
I liked even less. On it a corpse lay facedown, pierced
through the back by ten swords. "The Ten of Swords."
He swallowed. "This card is the past, the basis for what
is to come. You've come through something tragic and
unpleasant. Relationships have ended, maybe badly.
You've perhaps felt a feeling of abandonment. Things
have not gone as you planned or wished them to ... ."

He took another breath and laid down a card above
the first. This one showed a man upon a throne,

RAVEN               49

holding a sword. "This card represents you, and the
situation surrounding you. The King of Swords, not a
great surprise since he deals with law enforcement-
You have a determination to overcome the obstacles
that confront you. There is a lot of stress around you,
you're fighting your way uphill, but you are fighting."

He laid down a card above the other two; this one
showed a woman on a throne, holding a staff in her
right hand and a flower in her left. The card was upside
down, her flower pointing down at the king's sword.
"Ah, this represents your hopes or fears. In a sense, it
is what you are looking for. A woman, I suspect that
Cecilia that you've been asking about, though the
Queen usually has blonde or red hair. The Queen of
Wands, reversed. A troublesome woman, vengeful, she
may turn on you or others.

"Your immediate past . . . ." He flipped over a card
to the king's right. "Whoa."

A skeletal horseman bore a black banner toward the
king. Corpses fell across the steed's path. "Death," he
said needlessly. "Not necessarily, a bad card, but you
are in the midst of some change, a major severance
with the past. With the swords I see a lot of struggle,
but the change is powerful and won't be denied.

"The forces arrayed against you, the obstacles you
must overcome . . . ." He turned over a card and laid it
across the king- A bat-winged demon squatted on a
pillar, raising his hand toward me.

Behind the kid, the chess players went on. Someone
hit the timer again. Slap-ding. We sat there, quietly for
a moment or two before he went on with the reading.
Most of the lightness had gone out of his voice. "The
Devil," he said quietly. He placed his cards down and
ran his hands through his hair. "Evil forces are blocking
your path, and escape from them seems doomed to
failure - - . ." He looked up at me and said, "Do you
want me to go on with this?"

50 S.A. Swiniarski

I nodded, not trusting my voice. His anxiety was
infecting me, even though I found it hard to credit the
idea that cardboard rectangles could say anything
about me.

"The immediate future," he said, slowly picking up
the deck. He turned over a card, looking at it for a long
time before putting it down. The color drained from his
face. I wondered what could be worse than Death or
the Devil.

He slowly placed the card down on the other side of
the king, opposite Death. "The Tower," he whispered.
Lightning struck a lighthouselike structure, people
tumbled off the precipice, and flames danced from the
windows. "Chaos, disaster. Your upheaval has yet to
end, and the tribulations you are about to face will be
worse than what you've already endured."

He shook his head. "That's enough, man. I just don't
like seeing those cards." He began picking up the
spread shoving the cards back into his bag. "Look, I'm
sorry. It was a bad idea."

"Don't worry, I don't believe in it," I told him.

He stood up and touched my hand. "Man, I know
where you're coming from. But even if I didn't believe
it, that kind of spread would freak me."

With that, he left me.

Who am I? I thought.

He was right. Even though I didn't believe it, those
cards bothered me. I turned to ask him another ques-
tion, but he had disappeared into the crowd.

The student and the poet had set up a new game. The
poet was busy arranging pawns. Smoke hung low in
Ehe air, like fog on a battlefield. Change, evil, and
disaster ....

"Yeah, I have seen her," said the blond pagan. His
name is Neil, but he calls himself Sunfox. He hands
back the picture I showed him of a dark woman named
Cecilia. She is missing, and I've been paid to find her.

RAVEN                    57

"Where did you see her last? " / ask him.

"A week ago last Sunday. She came to a few open
circles. She's one of those people who're looking for
something, but they're not sure what. The kind of kid
that Childe bastard's supposed to prey on. "

"Childe?"

"Yeah, that was the last time I saw him, too. A bunch
of us got together and asked him to leave - ..."

The memory evaporated with a slap-ding from the
next table.

I tried to hold on to it, but that made it escape all the
faster. The young man in my memory was the same
one who read my fortune in his cards. Again I was
hearing Childe's name, again I was looking for
someone ....

Am I a cop ?

". . . The King of Swords, not a great surprise since
he deals with law enforcement..."

The poet moved a pawn. Slap-ding.

I cradled my espresso in my hands and thought that
Sunfox had given me a lot of information outside of
any debatable tarot reading. I looked into my cup and
felt a wave of thirst and hunger wash over me, an
intense and weakening feeling.

I took a bite of Danish and my first sip of espresso.

Queen takes pawn. Slap-ding.

The coffee slammed into my stomach, constricting
my throat. The liquid hit my stomach as if someone
had napalmed my abdomen. My gut started spasming
violently.

Knight takes queen- Slap-ding.

I managed to drop the mug on the table without
spilling it all over myself. I had my hand over my
mouth. I knew that I was going to throw up. It felt as if
someone were slamming me with an ax handle.

Rook takes pawn, checkmate. Slap-ding.

I stumbled the dozen feet to the rest rooms barely in

52 S.A. Swiniarski

time. I could feel the contents of my stomach rising as I
pushed open the door. I was kneeling over the bowl
before the door had swung shut behind me. It took me
ten minutes to expel that single mouthful of coffee; it
felt like an hour.

The worst part of all was the steely taste of blood
that came with it. I couldn't ignore it, much as I wanted
to. Streaking the bowl, swirling with the ugly liquid
mass, were trails of bright crimson. The sight of it
made me nearly too weak to stand.

As I got unsteadily to my feet, I knew I could no
longer pretend that I was okay. Okay people don't
vomit blood.

I turned around and leaned over the sink. My eyes
refused to meet the mirror, even though I still wore my
sunglasses. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I
still felt a perverse thread of denial. It was only a little
blood, after alt.

I laughed, though I didn't feel at all amused. I was in
serious trouble. However welt 1 felt when I woke up,
right now I was light-headed from hunger, and
probably thirst. My gut was too torn up to handle any-
thing without puking. I needed a doctor.

I ran water into my cupped hands and drank a tiny
amount. It washed the taste from my mouth, but from
the tightening in my stomach I knew that drinking any
more would send me back to the John.

I had a longing thought about the three bucks' worth
of pastry sitting back at my table, and almost threw up
again. I finally raised my face to took at myself in the
mirror.

"Kane," I whispered, "you look like shit."

Part of my face was obscured by a liSilence=Death"
bumper sticker. But what I saw showed that, whatever
was wrong with me, it must have been getting rapidly
worse. I certainly didn't remember looking this pale
back at the motel. The stubble on my chin looked black

RAVEN               53

against my skin, and my lips were almost white.
Shadows carved out too much of my skull on my face.

I backed out of the bathroom.

Behind me I heard a familiar voice say, "Kane, what
the hell happened to you?"

I turned around to face Sam. I was expending what
little exhausted effort I had to keep from shaking. 1
knew him, and the sight of his face inspired a feeling of
trust that managed to find its way past my lack of
memory. I knew this man was a friend, even though I
couldn't remember him.

"Sam," I said. "Get me out of here."

4

Sam helped me out of the coffee shop. I was past
embarrassment or any worries about being noticed. He
supported me even though he was a head shorter than I
was. It wasn't until we were outside and the snow was
biting my face that Sam asked again, "What happened
to you?"

"Get me to a car," I whispered. "I need to see a
doctor."

The whole world felt distorted, wrong. I still tasted
my own blood, and I felt as if blood tainted my other
senses. Colors were too vivid^ The street lamps shone
like magnesium flares. Each windblown snowflake was
a pin piercing my skin. The only warmth I felt was
from Sam's neck against my hand.

He lay me against the side of a red Saturn and began
fumbling for keys. As he did so, a question came to
me, unbidden. "How's Gail doing?"

"She's as well as she can be after losing her mother.
We've a car watching her." He pulled the passenger
door open and said, "She's worried about her dad, and
so am I. What's wrong? This isn't just a missing kid
anymore, is it?"

I slipped into the passenger seat and placed my face
in my hands. "Kate is dead, isn't she?" My voice had
degraded to a whisper. "My wife is dead."

Sam gripped my shoulder. "Christ, what's wrong
with you? You identified the body—"

56 S-A. Swiniarski

The smell of blood somehow reaches me through the
smell of disinfectant and alcohol. She lies on a stain-
less-steel table like dozens more I've seen before. I
haven't had to see this since I left the force. I never
wanted to see this place again.

Seeing Kate here is almost unbearable. It would be
unbearable even if they hadn't torn at her body. There
is an awful stillness, a motionlessness that's perverse
and unnatural. Sam is there, holding my arm. He is the
only reason I haven't fallen to my knees.

"Kane?" Sam shook me out of the memory. "Are
you with me? Are you going to tell me what the
problem is?"

I looked up at him. I wiped the blur out of my eyes
and said, "I don't know. I can't remember. I can't
remember anything."

We sat in his idling car as I told him what had hap-
pened. He listened quietly, nodding occasionally. After
I finished, Sam said, "This is just great. You know
once we get you to the hospital, we're both in the shit,
You know that?"

I shook my head and said, "No, I don't."

He pulled the Saturn out into the street. The car slid
a little. The snow was wet and heavy, the kind that was
hell on driving. The wind whipped it into a white wall
that erased everything more than half a block distant.
Once he'd pulled away from Coventry, and the busi-
nesses clustered there, we were the only car on the
street.

Sam focused his concentration on the road ahead,
"I've been covering your ass when they wanted you in
for questioning. You could have been in protective cus-
tody by now."

He gritted his teeth, and I could feel his stress at
driving in this mess. "Now you've made yourself look

RAVEN                  57

like a suspect, and that makes me look like an acces-
sory—"

"Can you please tell me what's going on?"

He looked at me. I felt the car slide, and he looked
back at the road. "The way you keep things close to the
vest, and you think I know something? God that's what
I hated about you when we were partners." He sighed.
"What I know? Two weeks ago a high-class hood hires
you to find his missing kid. You find some connection
between this kid and a guy, alias 'Childe.' You find
something going on, and you refuse to tell me about it.
They go after your ex-wife, and you insist on going off
on your own after this Childe person—and somehow
you convince me to let you." Sam pumped the brakes
to bring the car to a slow sliding stop at a red light.
"That's 'what's going on-' "

"Am I a cop?"

"Christ, you don't remember anything? Do you?"

I shook my head.

"Damn, I'm glad you asked to go to the hospital. I'd
hate to try and convince you tb do anything you didn't
want to. Look, your name is Kane Tyier, you're forty-
five years old. You're the most stubborn man I know.
You were a cop for nearly fifteen years. Since then
you've been freelance, finding people's missing kids."

"Tell me about my family."

The light turned green, and Sam spun the wheels for
a while before the car started moving.

"You have the daughter I should have had. Don't
worry about Gail, I did manage to swing some police
protection for her. I have a detective sitting with her in
Oberlin."

"Oberlin."

"She's eighteen, goes to college there. Is any of this
helping you remember?"

I gritted my teeth and balled my hands into fists. All
of this and no memories surfaced. All I had was one

58 S.A. Swiniarski

last lingering image of Kate's corpse. I couldn't even
picture my daughter's face. I felt a deep rage for the
people who had left me in that sewer. They had taken
my life from me, just as surely as if they had killed me.

My gut ached, and I felt very cold. I stared down so
all I saw were my pale fists shaking in my lap. "How
could this happen? How could I forget everything?"

"The doctors will help you."

I slammed a fist into my thigh. "But howT \ looked
up at Sam. "There was nothing wrong. All that blood,
and I didn't find a wound—"

"Calm down," Sam said. "I don't know what hap-
pened to you, but you're frightening me. You could be
bleeding inside. You should have gone to a hospital
immediately,"

"How long has that van been there?" I said, inter-
rupting him. A black van, little more than a shadow,
was behind us. It was gaining slowly through the snow.
'The windows were black, and I saw no sign of a license
plate.

"I don't know, two or three blocks?"

"Call for backup," I said, staring at the van. Some-
thing else had joined the anger and frustration—fear. I
knew that van, even without a memory of it, just as I'd
known Sam as a friend the first moment I'd seen him.

"What. . . ?"

"Call! Now!" I could feel that it was nearly too late.
The van was accelerating toward us. Something, either
my tone of voice or the fact that I drew the Eagle, con-
vinced Sam. He got on the radio and started calling,
"Officer needs assistance."

As if in response, the van slid behind us, and
thudded against our rear bumper. We blew through the
next intersection without even slowing for the red
light. Sam's knuckles were whitening on the steering
wheel.

"Pull away from them."

RAVEN                     59

"I'm trying—"

The van kept with us, as if it were tied to our
bumper. I leveled my gun at the grille of the van, and
fired. The sound tore at my ears, so much it seemed
that it was the gun's report and not the bullet that
shattered the rear window. Gun smoke filled the cab
for a moment before it was sucked out by the sharp
winter wind.

"What the fuck are you doing? "

I didn't answer. The van was like a wall behind
Sam's car. I fired into the grille again. The van didn't
slow or pull away- Snow bit my face.

The world began wailing and pulsing red as Sam
turned on the siren. With that and the tearing wind, I
could bearly hear him yelling into the radio.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the sliding door on
the side of the van open. I tried to shift my aim, but the
van rammed the rear of the car, throwing me against
my seat. It knocked what little breath I had out of me,
and I suddenly had more panicked thoughts about for-
getting to breathe.

This is a bad time to start losing it.

I forced those thoughts away and pumped another
shot into the front of the van. The shot went wide of the
mark and one of the headlights shattered. Without that
glare in my eyes, I saw a shadow slip out of the side of
the van, out and up.

"What the ... ."

Something thudded on the roof of the Saturn. I
raised the gun and was firing through the roof before I
realized what I was doing. Sam jerked, swerving the
car toward the left curb. "What are you doing? "

I never had a chance to answer him.

The driver's window shattered. I barely had time to
see an arm reaching down from the roof to grab the
wheel, before the resulting skid threw me against the
passenger door. My gun clattered into the foot well.

60 S.A. Swiniarski

The car jumped the median, sliding sidewise. Sam
fought for control of the wheel and the arm let go just
in time for the van to plow into the side of the car. The
van stopped, and we kept going, spinning out to crunch
into a parked pickup truck, slamming to a halt with a
lurch that tried to ram my stomach through my throat.

For a few moments, the world was cloaked in a
ghostly quiet. The siren had died, leaving only the
crimson strobe of the flasher. The engine had ground to
a halt. For a few seconds all I heard was the ticking of
cooling metal.

Then I heard a step on the roof.

How could anyone . . . ?

I scrambled to reach my gun. Someone jumped off
the roof of the car before I had gotten to where my gun
had slid under the passenger seat.

"You?" I heard him say. His voice was harsh and
rough, like the grinding of millstones.

I turned to face him and saw a kid; he couldn't be
more than eighteen. He wore black, and the only high-
lights I saw on his clothes were the studs on his leather
jacket. There was no sign of the fact he'd been riding
on the roof during a near-fatal skid.

He leaped up to squat in the shattered rear window.
It was a leap of unnatural dexterity. I kept fumbling
under my seat until my hand felt the butt of the Desert
Eagle.

The kid looked at me with a monochrome face inter-
mittently tinted red by the oscillating police flasher. He
smiled at me with lips that appeared alternately black
and soaked with gore. "Aren't you dead, my friend?"

I got my hand around the gun. I pulled it out and lev-
eled it at the kid's chest. Even though I grabbed my
wrist to brace it, the tip of the gun still shook.

"Don't. Move." I said. My head throbbed, I felt
weak. I felt as if I moved through molasses.

The kid laughed at me. "You really don't want to

RAVEN                     61

shoot me, Mr. Tyier." He leaned forward slowly,
looking me in the eyes. The kid had black irises. I
couldn't see any pupils, just black, bottomless holes
that tried to suck me in. Everything slowed as he
reached for something in the back seat. I could feel his
breath on my cheek.

My finger felt like lead when I pulled the trigger.

The sound was like a grenade going off in the back
seat. The kid flew backward out the rear window, dis-
appearing behind the rear of the car.

The world went quiet again. "Sam?"

I kept looking out the busted rear window, and I saw
nothing but flying snow. "Sam?" A note of hysteria
leaked into my voice. I turned to look beside me.

"Shit." It was little more than a whisper. The wind
tore the words away. Sam was slumped in his seat,
unconscious. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth.
The sight of it froze me.

So much blood that it steamed.

I reached over and felt for a pulse. It was there. He
was alive. My hand came away covered in livid
crimson. The heat of it sank into my fingers. I held my
hand in front of my face, the blood almost seemed to
glow ....

The sound of sirens broke me out of whatever trance
I was in. I got loose from the seat belt and pushed open
the door. Leading with the gun, I inched my way
around the wreck. When I rounded the rear fender, I
leveled my gun at the pavement—

The kid wasn't there.

I started looking around maniacally until I saw him
dimly, through the snow, jumping into the van. He was
carrying something. By the time I had the gun steadied
in his direction, there wasn't anything to shoot at.

"Missed," I whispered. "Must have missed."

I stumbled around to the driver's side, which was a
crumpled mess. Sam was still breathing, but the blood

62 S.A. Swinwrski

looked even worse on this side. The blood pulsed
crimson in time to the light on the dash, like something
alive, like a beating heart.

I slid to my knees next to the door, my head level
with Sam's. My knees hit the slush, but it felt as if I'd
never stopped falling. The world kept spinning and
spinning, and I lost all sense of time or space. For a
few minutes all I knew was that red pulsing light....

Sam's coughing brought me back to reality. He was
on the ground, next to the car, and I was crouched next
to him. I had no memory of prying open the wrecked
driver's side door, or of pulling him out of the car. My
face was barely inches from his.

His eyes fluttered open for a minute and he looked
into mine. "Where the fuck did you learn mouth-to-
mouth?"

I didn't respond because I was trying too hard to
keep the world from spinning out of control. Sam's
face was covered with blood. I could taste it on my
own lips. I had a horrifying suspicion that I hadn't been
trying to resuscitate him.

Sam coughed again, turned away from me, and spat
up a mouthful of blood. The sight tightened something
inside me. I began nervously wiping the blood from my
own face, and sucking if off my hands. I knew it was
Sam's blood, but I did it anyway.

I became afraid of what I might do. This man was a
friend of mine, and all I could do was watch his life
leak out of his body and feel a sick hunger, picture my
lips on his, taste the blood again ....

I needed to see a doctor. I was having some sort of
psychotic episode. What I was feeling was not sane.

Sam had called for backup. Where the fuck were
they?

I pushed myself upright, consciously trying to wipe
the blood off my hands in the snow. Sam would be

RAVEN               63

fine, fine as long as I didn't do anything more. But all I
could think of, all I smelled and saw, was that damn
blood.

"Don't think of it," I was almost pleading with
myself now. I needed to concentrate on something else,
anything else. For once my memory provided some-
thing on command.

"Gaily bedight, / A gallant knight, / In sunshine and
in shadow, / Had journeyed long, / Singing a song, / In
search of Eldorado." I chanted the stanzas like a mantra.
With each word I was trying to force the blood away
from my sight. "But he grew old— / This knight so
bold— / And o'er his heart a shadow / Fell as he found /
No spot of ground / That looked like Eldorado."

Minutes it had been, only minutes since the van had
forced us off the road. It already felt as if I had spent
most of my life here. The taste of blood was still in my
mouth as I spoke.

Something about my distorted state of mind made
my senses unnaturally sharp. I was aware of every-
thing—the bite of individual snowflakes on my cheek,
the crunch of salt under my feet, the rattle of the power
lines in the wind, the sound of a car's distant engine,
and the noise of its tires crunching the snow.

I looked up and saw headlights in the distance,
through a swirling wall of white. The headlights and
the emerging silhouette were familiar. It was my tail
from the hotel.

I kept chanting, trying to calm myself. "And, as his
strength / failed him at length, / He met a pilgrim
shadow—"

It was an Olds, and it pulled up next to the wreck.
Three people got out of the car. One bent over Sam, the
other two walked toward me. My first thought upon
seeing them was: They 're dressed like lawyers, not cops.
But lawyers don't drive seven-year-old Oldsmobiles.

A pair of them stopped in front of me. They were

64

S.A. Swiniarski

dressed to match, dark suits, wine-red ties, and char-
coal-gray trench coats. The one in the lead was tall,
black, and completely bald down to his brows. His
friend was a weaselish man with a razor mustache and
slick hair, who would have looked more aE home in a
brown shirt and jackboots.

Their hands were empty, but I got the impression
that the white guy at least had a shoulder holster under
his trench coat.

. I whispered, " 'Shadow,' said he, / 'Where can it
be— / This land of Eldorado?' "

"Mr. Tyier?" The tall one spoke with a Jamaican
accent that was at odds with the snow-whipped land-
scape.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak- My senses
sharpened with the tension, my eyes carved razor edges
on everything. But my heartbeat, if anything, slowed.

"We represent Mr. Sebastian, your employer."

When I didn't respond, the Jamaican continued,
"Mr. Sebastian wants you to come with us. He is very
emphatic about police involvement in his daughter's
disappearance."

I could feet myself being backed in a corner. "But,
Sam, he's—"

"We understand your relationship with him, and
granted you some latitude. But Mr. Sebastian does not
want you questioned by the police. He does not want
official investigations. Especially after what you've
unearthed already."

What have f unearthed? "You bastards stole my
tapes."

The Jamaican's partner, the one I'd been thinking of
as Mr. Gestapo, smiled. His teeth were gray. The Ja-
maican nodded slightly, acknowledging my statement
but not granting it any importance. "You disappeared,"
he said.

"You mean I managed to shake your tail and you

RAVEN                     65

panicked." It wasn't time to be lobbing verbal
grenades, but anger was welling up and it was hard to
contain.

Mr. Gestapo stopped smiling.

"Perhaps," said the Jamaican, "but if you'd been
killed, Mr. Sebastian needed to know what you knew."

"So now you know what I know—"

"If you would come with us, please." The Jamaican
held a long arm up to the Olds. "Do not worry about
your friend. We'll leave a man here to tend to him until
an ambulance arrives."

I didn't move. "What if I wish to stay and wait for
the ambulance?"

The Jamaican lowered his arm. "Mr. Tyier, we will
not force you into the car. But I should remind you that
Mr- Sebastian has many friends in the police depart-
ment. Friends who are quite aware how emphatically
he does not want you questioned. If you were to fall
into police custody, the consequences would be un-
pleasant for all concerned." He motioned at the Olds-
mobile. "Now, may we please offer you a lift away
from here? You do have Mr. Sebastian's daughter to
find."

I smiled, shook my head, and got in the car. I felt
more and more like the knight in the Poe poem—

"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied,
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

5

They put me in the back seat of the Olds, which was
good. It gave me some chance to hide how strung out I
was. My hands shook, my head throbbed, and my
thoughts were racing around in circles, trying to deny
that anything odd had happened with Sam.

I needed a doctor more than ever. But some sense of
caution kept me from telling my escort.

The Olds pulled away just as the police flashers
began emerging from the snow behind us. When the
flashers stopped by the wreck, it was a few moments
before the snow reclaimed then-^, turning blank and
gray behind us.

"You've caught up with me," I said, forcing my
voice to sound more stable than I felt. "Now what?"

"We stay with you, Mr. Tyier. It's because of you
that Mr. Sebastian knows what we're dealing with, and
he feels very strongly that you should continue—"

"And continue under Mr. Sebastian's leash. I see."

Mr. Gestapo chuckled at that one. "I see you under-
stand. Mr. Sebastian does not wish you to disappear
again."

You bastards, my life is falling apart. How the hell
can I collect the pieces with you guys riding my tail?

Worse, I was beginning to think I might need a psy-
chiatrist, and not just for my amnesia. There was a less
than subtle threat that if I went to the police, I would

68 S.A. Swiniarski

find it unhealthy. I doubted that Mr. Sebastian would
be any more sanguine about me talking to a doctor.

1 racked my stumbling brain for questions I could
ask that didn't reveal my ignorance. "What exactly
does Mr. Sebastian think we're dealing with?" I asked.
"What does he know about what's going on here?"

"An old evil, Mr. Tyier. An evil that goes far beyond
idolatry and false gods. An evil that threatens his
daughter's immortal soul."

I shook my head. That kind of language prompted
thoughts I didn't need to be having.

Pumping these guys for information wasn't very
effective. The Jamaican was only slightly less laconic
than Mr. Gestapo, but his answers were just as uninfor-
mative. Hiding my amnesia hampered my questioning.
Even so, I got a few solid facts.

It was Saturday the fifteenth, and I'd started this
hunt for Sebastian's daughter on the first. My ex-wife'
had been killed on the eleventh, and Sebastian's people
lost track of me on the thirteenth—a full day before I'd
opened my eyes in a storm sewer.

I asked them annoying detailed questions about what
they were doing when, and most of my solid informa-
tion I got from the context of their answers. The sub-
text of their answers, never actually stated, was that I'd
been under Sebastian's surveillance nonstop from the
point I took his job ....

"Where are you taking me?" I asked.

"To Mr. Sebastian. He wishes to hear from you what
happened between seven on Thursday and nine this
evening."

Great. "Why did you take so long to pick me up?"

"I wasn't certain about your identity until you met
with Detective Samuel Weinbaum."

Whatever I had been hired to do, I had to lose my
escort and get some help. I felt certain that whatever

RAVEN                    69

sickness gripped me was pulling me toward something
dark. "I have a meeting," I told him.

"What?"

I removed my sunglasses with a shaking hand. I had
been wearing them all night, and removing them
flooded the world with light. The Olds seemed to drive
through a tunnel of glowing white motes. "I have to
meet someone at the Arabica."

I saw him glance at me in the rearview mirror. "You
werejust leaving there with Detective Weinbaum."

I smiled a little weakly. "I'm not supposed to meet
him until closing. He's paranoid about cops, I had to
talk to Sam first—"

He kept glancing between the mirror and the road. "I
find this sudden revelation somewhat hard to credit,
Mr. Tyier."

"The van was a sudden revelation. This was just an
attempt to get things done with too little time. Or don't
you want me to do my job?"

"But why did you and Detective Weinbaum leave—"

"We were going to the hospital to pick up some
paperwork."

"What kind of paperwork?"

What kind of paperwork? I was stuck for a moment.

"Mr. Tyier?"

"My wife, damn you," I let my shakiness, frustration,
and my anger find my voice. "Blood tests, the contents
other stomach, where they cut into her body . . . ."

I stared at his eyes, and felt my own begin to blur.
The frustration and anger were real. I was lying, but
my tears were for my wife, and because it hurt not to
remember.

He looked away from me. "Forgive me, Mr. Tyier.
We'll go to your meeting."

I felt some sense of victory. It was muted because I
didn't know what I was going to do when we got there.

70 S.A. Swiniarski

Mr. Gestapo stayed with the Olds, and the Jamaican
accompanied me inside. Before we entered, I said,
"Take a table near the front. I told you this guy's para-
noid. If he sees you with me, he's liable to spook."

He didn't look pleased, but he nodded.

I stepped inside, and the lights were so bright that
my eyes watered. I replaced my sunglasses. The smell
of coffee made me uncomfortably aware of my stom-
ach. I gave the counter a wide berth.

No one seemed to go out of their way to notice me.
The blond pagan who had given me a tarot reading
wasn't here. The poet and the grad student had aban-
doned their chess game. There seemed about half the
people here that there'd been when I left.

I had until closing to think of something.

I kept walking farther into the coffee shop, hunting
for some sort of inspiration. As I closed on the
smoking section, I began to notice that there was more
to this place than was visible from the front. The room
curled around the bathrooms like the tail of a snake,
and I followed it to a smoky alcove that was almost a
separate room from the rest of the coffee shop. There
was a whole other section back here, dim and smoke-
filled.

The walls were dotted with fliers back here: a femi-
nist flier announcing a pro-choice rally, some New Age
thing about pagan open circles, a Communist tract
about the liberation of Peru; but what captured my
attention was a poster for a band called "The Ultra-
violet Catastrophe" who were playing at the Euclid
Tavern.

The concert poster disturbed me. Most of the 8'/2 x
11 page was taken up by a black-and-white line
drawing. It showed a tanning bed, and on it was a
cadaverous man, with smoke rising from his mouth and
eyes. In his hand, dangling to the ground, he held a

RAVEN                    71

bottle of something that could have been a Molotov
cocktail.

The artist's interpretation of the band's name, I sup-
posed. It made me uneasy. It made me feel that Death
had walked from his tarot card to sit back here with me.

I turned away from the poster to focus on something
more relevant. There was a fire exit all the way to the
rear. Dull gray metal with a crash bar labeled "for
emergency only." It was obviously wired to an alarm,
so my escort would know as soon as I ran for it.

But I walked to the door and considered whether or
not I could outrun him. I figured that he wasn't going
to give me more than half a minute to think about it
before he walked back here to check on me. If I was
going to do it, I should do it now.

I put a hand on the crash bar—

"Kane? Is that you?"

I turned, surprised. Two people were sitting at a
table next to the fire door, a man and a woman.
Somehow I hadn't even noticed them when I'd turned
the corner. I was farther gonethan I thought.

The man spoke again. "Kane? Christ, what happened
to you, man?"

I recognized the voice from the phone. "Bowie?"

He nodded. He was tall, thin, and wore a long black
ponytail that hung to the small of his back. He wore a
black motorcycle jacket and blue jeans. His only con-
cession to the weather outside was a pair of gray wool
gloves, under the fingerless black leather ones that
covered his palms.

I looked at him and felt familiarity. Not the sense of
trust I'd felt with Sam, but I knew that I had dealt a lot
with this person recently.

The woman, a redhead who was between seventeen
and twenty-one, brought me no sense of recognition
whatsoever. She was looking at me, as if she wasn't
quite sure of who I was.

72 S.A. Swiniwski

Makes two of us, I thought.

"That is you, Kane?" Bowie asked,

"Yeah," 1 said.

"You look dead," he said.

"Thanks, that makes me feel better." I took the con-
versation as a cue to sit. The smoke, and the scent of
heavy perfume underneath it, made me feel a little
dizzy. I wondered when it would stop being disori-
enting simply having people recognize me. I glanced
around, and, as I expected, my shadow had moved to
another table, one in view of the alcove I'd retreated to.

"Let me introduce you," Bowie said. "Kane, this is
Leia, Leia this is Kane Tyter."

"Oh, the gentleman who finds missing children."
She had a high, slightly breathy voice, with a very dis-
tinct English accent. She had a habit of touching the
collar of her turtleneck when she spoke. "An admirable
pursuit." She held out her hand and I shook it absently.
It wasn't until I saw a quarter smile cock her lips that I
realized she had meant me to kiss it.

I looked back to the Jamaican. He was still there,
pretending to read a newspaper. At least if nothing else,
I have met with someone.

"So how's it going? Haven't seen you in days." He
looked at Leia, and they exchanged an unreadable
glance. "And what's with the sunglasses?"

I rubbed my temples. "Light hurts my eyes. Lights
and mirrors." I glanced up and both of them were
staring at me. "I know how it sounds." It sounded like
any number of things, the most probable being that I
was stoned out of my mind. I was getting to the point
where I was going to start to search my own arms for
needle tracks. "I need a doctor," I whispered.

Bowie and Leia exchanged glances again, and
Bowie asked me, "Why don't you get one?"

I looked at him and then at the Jamaican. This was a

RAVEN                  73

noisy place, and I was certain that he was out of
earshot. "I need to get away from a friend of mine."
Bowie looked off in the direction of the Jamaican.

"What, you need some help?" Bowie laughed, and he
leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, "Why sure,
man."

He was grinning and I felt compelled to say, "This
isn't a game, Bowie."

I felt a light touch on my hand. I looked up at Leia.
She stared at me in a way that made me realize just
how attractive she was. She had a very seductive
whisper. "Mr. Tyier, I am certain that Bowie realizes
what is a game and what is a not. You need to seek
medical attention." She patted my hand. "We will get
you to a doctor."

I felt a slight unease in trusting these strangers, but
when it came down to it, everyone was a stranger to
me. I looked at her and said, "How?" I had the feeling
that if I did make it to an emergency room, the police
would become involved.

"We know a doctor who can help you." Bowie was
still smiling. "Don't we, Leia?"

She looked at him and shook her head. "My grand-
father is a physician." She pulled something out of her
purse and slid it to Bowie. "I'll page you when my
grandfather's ready and I can pick you up."

She stood up to leave and I whispered, "Wait, what
about him?" I cocked my head slightly in the direction
of the Jamaican. He was still pretending to read the
paper.

"I'll take care of him," she said. "Just, whatever you
do, stay with Bowie." Leia walked away from the
table.

"What is she going to do?"

Bowie chuckled and said, "You see the same ass I do
and you can ask that question?"

She walked past the Jamaican's table, leaned over,

74 S.A. Swiniarski

and whispered something- I had no idea what she said,
but in a matter of a few moments, the Jamaican wasn't
paying much attention to our table.

Bowie backed out along the wall, toward the fire
door. I saw where he was headed. "What about the
alarm?"

He grinned broadly and slipped a tiny pry bar from
inside his jacket. 'The alarm is set when you push the
bar—" He slid up to the door, and I didn't know how
the Jamaican could miss him."—not when you jimmy
the latch." He put the pry bar between the door and the
jamb and said, "That's the theory anyway."

I watched my shadow, back by the entrance to the
smoking section. He wasn't looking our way.

There was a small creak as Bowie levered the bar,
but no alarm. The door swung out, and I felt a chill
wind hit my face. "Come on," Bowie urged.

I didn't need to be told again-

6

We ran, and for once I was happy for the snow. In the
whited-out landscape, we were out of sight of the rear
of the coffee shop before we had gone two hundred
feet. Even if the Jamaican had come after us the instant
we'd left, Leia had bought us enough time to get out
the door and lose ourselves in the blizzard.

We ran behind buildings, across side streets and
through parking lots, until we came to the intersection
A   of Coventry and Mayfield, a couple of blocks north of
where we started. We emergec[ in the parking lot of a
Dairy Mart after jumping a chain-link fence.

Bowie led me across the street and away from the
intersection, away from the Dairy Mart, away from all
the businesses. Coventry Road on the other side of
Mayfield was a residential accumulation of apartment
buildings. It was also less well lit, cutting down visi-
bility even more.

"Follow me," Bowie said, darting toward a brick
apartment building with me following. Once inside, he
opened the door to the basement with the explanation,
"Lock's broken."

^      In a few moments it was obvious that this building
wasn't our final destination. We passed a pair of apart-
ments, a laundry room, wove our way through ranks of
storage lockers, and came out of a door to the rear of
the apartment.

76 S.A. Swiniarski

Bowie darted across the asphalt behind the apart-
ment, straight for the garage in back. I followed him
out a small door in the rear of the garage.

We walked along an unlit path, calf-deep in snow.
To our right were garages facing away from us, to our
left was an old chain-link fence. After we'd walked
passed two or three garages, I finally spoke, "I think
we lost him. Where're we going?"

"I know this chick in East Cleveland, she owes me
money. We can crash there till Leia calls and picks
us up."

"Uh-huh." I assented without letting any of my
reservations show. I needed that doctor. I felt a pain in
my gut that never quite went away, combined with a
hunger bad enough to make me giddy. If I didn't know
better, I'd think I was starving to death.

/ don't know any better, do I?

"What's over there?" I asked, waving my hand
toward the chain-link. It was impossible to see a few
feet beyond the fence; whatever was beyond was unlit.

"Lakeview, I think. We passed the rear of the Jewish
place a bit back."

Neither explanation helped me, and I kept glancing
off to the left. Ceil/Course? Country Club? City Park?
Of course, none of those explained having a separate
entity for Jews. It stumped me until I caught sight of a
shadow on a hill just beyond the fence. An obelisk
stood, a darker shadow against the blowing snow.

"A cemetery," I whispered.

"What?" Bowie asked over his shoulder. He was
busy navigating himself over a pile of snow covered
garbage someone had dumped back here.

"Nothing," I said as he gave me a hand over a dead
refrigerator.

"Bowie, you acidhead!" The "chick" Bowie knew
was a little upset with him.

RAVEN                 77

We were a few blocks into East Cleveland, and this
building was still on the border of Lakeview Cemetery.
We had gone up to the third floor, Bowie's friend had
opened the door, looked at both of us, and pulled
Bowie into the apartment. I had enough of a glimpse to
see short black hair, a tank top, and a livid red skull tat-
tooed on her bicep, before she slammed the door in my
face, leaving me alone in the hallway.

I was left to listen to their argument through the
closed door, feeling less inconspicuous by the moment.

"Christ, Billi, he's my friend—he's in trouble."

"Do I come to your place so my drugged-out friends
can crash?"

"He isn't—"

"Have you looked at him? It's almost midnight, in a
snowstorm, and he's wearing sunglassesT'

The only bright spot was the fact that this was only
one of two raging arguments going on in this building,
and covering the noise of both was a loud party down-
stairs. I was the only person in the hall, and I did my
best not to look like I belonged'to Bowie's argument.

"You can't do this to me, Billi. ineed to—"

"I don't."

"You owe me, Biili."

Any sane person would have made a graceful retreat
by now. But I was feeling worse by the minute. The
blizzard outside was rattling the windows loud enough
to be heard over the chaos in the apartments, and I did
not want to go out there again. The cold felt as if it was
sucking the marrow out of my bones.

On top of everything else—

I leaned against the wall and stared at the ceiling. If
someone showed for me—police, Sebastian, or Childe—
I wouldn't put up much of a fight. It was hard for me to
believe that when I had gotten out of that bathtub I had
felt fine.

What the hell was wrong with me?

78

S.A. Swiniarski

"No, Bowie, you're not holding that over me."

"Billi, if it wasn't for me, you'd be out on the
street."

"You know I'm going to pay you back—"

"Yeah, right now."

"Bastard."

My view of the rust-spotted ceiling was blurred
through the condensation fogging my sunglasses. A
bead of melted snow slid across my field of vision as
the door to the apartment opened.

I took off the sunglasses to get my first good look at
Bowie's friend, Biili. She was as tall as I was, almost
as tall as Bowie. But where Bowie was stick-thin, she
had an athlete's body. She was wearing sweatpants and
black tank top that might have been sexy if she didn't
look so pissed.

"Come in," she said.

I stepped through the door, and she quickly slammed
it shut behind me. She turned, as if to launch into
another high-volume argument. More raised voices I
didn't need; my luck was pushed as it was.

"I'm sorry to put you through this," I said. I did my
best to sound conciliatory.

She looked at me as if she was about to say some-
thing, then shook her head. "Yeah, whatever." She ran
both hands through her hair, a gesture of frustration.

We stood there, paused, in the entryway to her apart-
ment. Neither of us wanted me to be here. "All I need
is to rest a moment, talk to Bowie— When our ride
calls, I'll be out of your hair."

She looked at me with an unbelieving expression.
"Don't even talk to me. I'm doing this for your bastard
friend."

I nodded and rubbed my temples. On top of every-
thing else, I was beginning to feel feverish. I tried to
tell myself that the apartment was just too hot.

I stumbled inside.

RAVEN                    79

I am going to get some medical attention. I'll be fine
once { see this doctor. That was becoming as difficult
to believe as everything else.

Our hostess left us in the living room. The place
was sparsely furnished, a sagging sofa surrounded by
shelves made with cinder blocks and milk crates. Spiral
notebooks and loose-leaf paper covered every available
surface. I took it all in with a glance, then I collapsed
on the side of the evil green sofa that wasn't in line
with the windows. The cushion sagged halfway to the
ground.

Bowie sat on the arm opposite me. He was perched
so close to the edge it looked tike he was levitating. I
closed my eyes, because without the sunglasses the
light in here was giving me a headache.

It was hard not to give in to the feeling of helplessness.

"We need to talk," I said.

Bowie shook his head nervously. "Yeah, yeah—
You gotta tell me what happened to you." He took a
pause, and, very uncertainly, ]ie said, "Was it Childe?"

The pause in his speech made me feel a little sicker.
"Damn it, I don't know! I'm barely keeping what's left
of my head together. If you're supposed to be my
friend, you tell me about this Childe guy."

"I don't have a hell of a lot more—"

'Tell me everything you know. I need to get it
straight in my head. You have no idea how scrambled
my mind is."

"Maybe I do . ..." He looked at me, and our eyes
locked briefly. "Maybe I don't." He gave me a funny
look then he shrugged. "Okay, everything / know about
the guy. He showed up about five years ago, hanging
around the neo-pagan scene here. He'd just show up at
their rituals, circles, whatever you call them. Everyone
describes him as tall, bearded, English accent. None of
the pagans I talked to liked the guy. He gave everyone

80 S.A. Swiniarski

the willies—bad karma, smelly aura, or something.
Half the people I talked to described him as predatory."

"Childe a real name or an alias?" I asked.

Bowie looked at me as if I should have known that. I
probably should've. But I was long past my limit as far
as feigning an intact cerebellum was concerned.

"Almost certainly an alias," he stared at me. "The
pagan crowd has a thing for renaming themselves. Not
that this guy was ever part of the pagan crowd."

I stared back. "Not part of the crowd?" I thought of
my errant fortune-teller.

"No. The pagans are a good crowd, throw good par-
ties. Childe wasn't there for the parties."

"What was he there for?" I was getting an odd feeling
about the conversation I was having with Bowie. Some-
thing was happening.

"He was a predator." Bowie had nearly ceased
moving, and a lot of the inflection had gone out of his
voice. Looking into his eyes, I could see his pupils
dilated nearly all the way. If I hadn't been watching
him all this time, I could have sworn he had just taken
some heavy drug.                    ^

"Predator?" I asked.

"It took a long time for them to notice what Childe
was doing. See, they had open rituals, circles, whatnot,
where anyone could come and see what they were
doing. Childe would pick people, the curiosity seekers.
Never one of the regulars, the serious pagans."

"Young teenagers, usually girls?"

"Yes. But boys, too. Anyone who left with Childe
never returned to any of the public gatherings. Since
these were always strangers to the pagans, it took them
a long time to notice."

"But they did notice." I had the eerie feeling of
knowing everything Bowie was telling me, and the
associations weren't pleasant.

"They barred him from their functions—and he dis-


RAVEN                   81

appeared, along with a large number of confused
teenagers."

I rubbed my knees and noticed Bowie imitating my
motion. He blinked when I blinked. We were breathing
in sync. 1 had to repress an urge to shudder.

What was happening?

"This is where I came in, isn't it?"

"You were looking for this girl, Cecilia. Childe is
stilt the last person to be seen with her, until you made
the tape."

"What tape?"

"The tape you made of the sacrifice—"

Memory slammed into me. A real memory, as unex-
pected and violent as a sledge to the back of my skull.

/ stand behind a screen of leafless scrub, calf-deep
in frozen mud. Ice cuts into the upper parts of my
calves. The night is clear, the air sharp, the moon full.
I'm facing a wide clearing, a flat spot bordered by
steep, snow-dusted hillsides.

Facing me, a hundred yards away or more, is a
flood-control dam, an angled wall of concrete sloping
up about a hundred feet into the 'dark. The runoff'forms
a creek snaking the left side of the clearing. I'm hidden
along the shores of that outflow.

I'm aiming my camcorder at the right side of the
clearing, toward a smaller hill nestling by the right
corner of the dam. There are structures built into
the hill—-
That's not what I'm looking at. My camcorder has
drifted away from my eye, so there is nothing left
between me and what I am looking at.

Between me and the small hill is a semicircle of a
dozen people. They stand in a patch of snow darkened
far beyond the depths of their bluish shadows. The
snow they stand in is black.

The blackness smears what portions of their skin I
can see. It dots their jackets, their hair, their jeans. The

82 S.A. Swiniarski

blackness almost completely obliterates the crumpled
form they surround, making it no more than a lump in
the shadow.

What they surround used to be human. The
spreading blackness is its blood.

One of the circle looks directly at me. The blood
carves a black hollow in his face. He smiles and I
cannot see his teeth for the shadow.

I jerked out of the involuntary memory as if an icicle
had been shoved into my aorta. The image came with a
legion of emotions: disgust, fear, and—it turned my
stomach to think of it—something akin to lust. I sat
there, shaking, staring into Bowie's dilated impassive
eyes, and decided that I must really be insane.

/ ran from that scene, I know I ran from it.

But he had seen me—

"What am I involved in?" I said. My voice was
barely a whisper.

"Something you don't understand. Even the Le Vey
Satanists shy away from these Childe people."

Looking at Bowie scared me. It was almost as if he,
had become some sort of automaton. It was hard to tell
if I was really talking to Bowie, someone who knew
me, or if I was talking to some warped part of my own
mind. The sense of knowing what he was about to say
just before he said it didn't help.

It began to sink in that these people had slaughtered
Kate to warn me away. The sick, feverish feeling over-
came me again, and I blacked out for a moment.

The next thing I knew was I'd broken eye contact
with Bowie, and I was trying to throw up again. I was
on my knees on the floor, my stomach trying to slam
through my diaphragm, and nothing coming up but a
few bits of sour blackness.

"God, you all right?" Bowie's voice sounded normal
again. I barely noticed.

He dragged me toward the bathroom. I didn't fight

RAVEN               83

him. As he led me, one bony arm around my waist, he
kept talking. "It'll be ail right. We're going to get you
to that doctor."

The door opened to the bathroom, and suddenly I
was faced with a mirror and searing pain. "Lights!" I
managed to croak.

Bowie understood me, and hit the light switch,
breaking the molten eye contact I had with myself. I
turned away from the medicine cabinet and sat on the
lid of the John. I waved him away.

His-silhouette hovered in the doorway for a moment
and he asked, "Are you going to be all right?"

No...

"Yes."

He closed the door to the windowless bathroom,
leaving me in near-perfect darkness. The only light
came from the cracks around the door, filtered through
the edge of the hall carpet. It was a dusty, anemic light
that carved a thin strip of visibility across the walls.

I was no longer retching, but I felt empty, violated. I
felt as if something had beery-cored out of my being,
leaving me with just the husk. I fingered the ring on my
finger.

My wife. My daughter- And I couldn't remember ....

7

It took me some time before I had gathered the strength
to turn on the light. I was careful to keep my back to
the mirror until I had replaced my sunglasses. Even
with my eyes covered, I winced when I saw my reflec-
tion—not from pain, but from the ravages written on
my face.

I wasn't looking at the same person who had stepped
out of the bathroom of the Woodstar Motel. My face was
lined and hollow-looking, worse even than the pale shad-
owed mask I had seen in the Arabica. My skin wasn't
just pale now. It was translucent. The bare bulb above
the mirror carved the outline of a skull on my face.

Four hours ago, in the bathroom of the motel, I had
looked perfectly fine. An hour ago, maybe less, I
had looked in the mirror at the Arabica and saw
someone who was ill.

Here I looked like death.

I reached up and touched my cheekbone, under the
edge of my sunglasses. My skin felt dry, thin, and cold.
As I drew my finger down my face, it left a streak of
gray compressed skin behind it. I stared at that strip for
a full minute before it returned to the anemic color of
the surrounding skin.

Death was a kind word for what I saw in the mirror.

My hands shook, and it began to dawn on me exactly
how loose my clothes felt. My jeans were hanging on
my hips, the denim jacket I still wore felt like a tent on

86 S.A. Swiniarski

me, even my holster felt loose. It felt as if I'd lost
twenty pounds since the mote! room.

I raised my arm so the sleeve fell away from my
watch. The watchband—which was snug when I'd
donned the watch—was loose on a wrist much bonier
than I remembered.

"No way," I whispered. This was an impossibility.

I looked at my hands and saw that my nails had
lengthened, just like they were supposed to on a
corpse.

I backed away from the mirror and grabbed for the
door. My heart felt frozen in. my chest. I couldn't sense
it beating. And, like during my journey through the
storm sewer, every breath I took was a conscious act.

I stepped through the door and into a dim hallway- I
took a few steps and leaned on the wall where I could
see into the living room. Bowie was there, in a corner,
talking on the phone. "Yeah. He's here, locked in the
bathroom .... Yes, urgent, he looks like shit. . . what?
I don't think he's fed at all. Just look at him .. . ."

Hearing him tore at the inside of my head. I wasn't
thinking quite right. Whatever help Bowie and his
friend were offering, a torn part of my mind was telling
me that I was beyond medical attention. Could some
doctor who was used to dealing with junkies and over-
doses do anything for someone who was turning into a
walking corpse?

"Look, just get over here. We'll worry about that
when we get him straightened out.... Dangerous? . . .
When was the last time you were as strung out as
he is?"

I was suddenly very afraid of doctors, and what they
might find. I needed desperately to get away from
Bowie, to get away from the help he was offering. I
edged along the wall of the hallway, toward the
entranceway, senselessly afraid that Bowie would turn
around and see me.

RAVEN                   87

"Yes, that would be easier .... If you want me to
I will. But all this we've gone through was to avoid
that.... You know what I mean . . . ."

Somehow I inched all the way to the door. I watched
Bowie, and I was frozen for a moment when I saw my
reflection in the night-black windows behind the
couch. Bowie faced away from me, staring out the
glass at the storm.

Either it was the angle, or something he was
watching outside, but he didn't notice me. "You didn't
tell anyone about him, did you? . . . No, I just noticed
this guy standing outsi—"

I stumbled out of the apartment, closing the door on
Bowie's conversation.

Even with the sunglasses, the lights in the hallway
hurt my eyes. I sagged against a wall, the light a weight
on my shoulders. The hall was hot with a heat that didn't
reach beneath my bone-dry skin. Cold was deep in the
core of my body, as if my chest was packed with snow.

I shook my head and forced myself to walk. I needed
to get away. My body was screaming its need at me,
and it was a call that was impossible to ignore now.

My eyes refused to focus on the hall ahead of me.
My gaze darted to shadowy corners, where the painful
light didn't reach. In the darkest corners, the ones of
impenetrable black, I could imagine something glis-
tening and wet.

The wall abraded my shoulder like sandpaper, even
through the denim, and the sound was like tearing
canvas. Snow rattled the windows in the stairwell, like
an unwanted visitor scratching to gain entry ....

" Tis the wind and nothing more,' " I muttered. I
almost laughed. I could feel an inappropriate glee
surge like a tide, an alien desire to shout the lines from
Poe's poem—

"Nevermore, " I choked out, grabbing the railing for
balance. I was losing it. My mind was as erratic as the

S.A. Swiniarski

88

snowstorm, feverish neurons firing at random. My grip
on the banister was crushing the skin on my hands.

I stared down the center of the stairwell, all four
floors to the ground. The sunglasses slipped off my
face and tumbled slowly to the concrete below. They
broke when they hit, the lenses fragmenting into a
dozen pieces of glittering plastic.

I let go of the railing and jerked back as if I'd been
hit. My back slammed into the wall behind me. I heard
the plaster crack.

I'd been going up the stairs.

I looked up the stairs, where I'd been going, deliri-
ously. Now, listening, I could hear it. The argument
upstairs—one 1 had heard upon arriving here—was
continuing, or had renewed itself-

1 could just see the door of the apartment up at the
next landing. Number 401. The door seemed to swell in
my vision. Even with my back to the wall, I was still
inching toward it. I could feel it from where I was, a
half-flight down. It felt as if it was the open door of a
blast furnace. Not heat. Anger. Fear.

"You don't play me like that, bitchi"

I could make out the voices now, like a tiny river of
lucidity in a feverish desert.

"Please, Tony—" Woman's voice cut short by an
impact and the sound of something breaking.

I stood in front of door 401. It was razor sharp in my
vision, everything else had blurred away. The entire
apartment building melted away, everything but the door.

"You think I'm stupidT Tony was shouting through
the door. "You think I ain't got eyes?"

"Please—" a timid, frightened voice, nearly
inaudible.

"Do you?"

I tried the doorknob.

"I'm going to kill you if you don't tell me who the
fuck he is."

RAVEN               89

I was breathing again, sucking in hot coppery air.
Something in that air shriveled my gut into a hard little
knot. The door was locked, but that barely mattered to
me. My body was an automaton.

I heard a sound behind the door, a strangled gurgle.

My shoulder slammed into the door. It hit hard
enough to break bone. It was the doorjamb that broke.
Wood splintered, and the door jerked as the security
chain caught it. The chain barely held a fraction of a
second—

Then it gave.

I stumbled into the living room. The door crashed into
the wall, cracking plaster, and slowly swung back shut.

The room was a mess. Chairs were overturned, a
glass coffee table was smashed, blinds had been ripped
from the windows, and there was a hole in the drywall
where someone had thrown a telephone through.

The only light was from a floor lamp in front of me.
Sprawled on the ground, its shade askew, it cast crazy
ink-black shadows on the walls.

"What the/«(•<:?" Tony was^hirtless, wearing only a
pair of dirty blue jeans. His girlfriend was naked, and
only supported by his hand in her hair. There were
bruises across her back, and she was bleeding badly
from a broken nose.

Badly.

The smell of blood was rank in the room. I sucked in
the smell, and the colors in the room seemed to get
deeper, the light brighter.

"This ain't your business, scarecrow. You better
leave or I'll have to fuck you up." His hand left the
woman's hair, and she slid to the ground, unmoving.

Her bruises shone like crimson flares, her blood was
like a river of fire, but where her blood splattered Tony
it was like a black taint of leprosy.

Tony stood before me, muscles flexing in a display
of intimidation. "You deaf, motherfucker?"

9Q                  S.A. Swiniarski

None of this meant much to me at this point. I was
quite mad. I was in free fall. The only thing that
anchored me to earth was the magnificent flare of emo-
tion standing before me. Looking at Tony right then
was like looking at the sun.

And I was cold inside.

"What you staring at?" Tony took another step
toward me. His face was reddening, a tide of blood
washing over his expression. "You been fucking with
my woman?"

It began as an angry shout, but it trailed off as I drew
the Eagle from its holster.

"Hey, man, don't do something stupid—"

I leveled the gun at Tony's head. "Once upon a mid-
night dreary—" The poem came unbidden to my lips,
some mad urge to taunt the last shred of my sanity.

I was halfway into the stanza when Tony said,
"What the fuck. are you—"

I whipped him across the face with the overlong
barrel of the automatic. His face snapped to the side,
his mouth sprayed blood, and he almost fell to his
knees. Almost, but not quite. Tony was a strong kid.
Strong, and so full of anger that standing in front of
him was like standing in front of a bonfire.

His shocked eyes stared into my own, blood
streaming down his face. I could tell his blood from
hers. His blood burned my eyes with its inner life,
while the places where her blood had touched him were
dead, dormant, and black-

The shock in his eyes slowly drained away as he
looked at me. I whispered, " 'Tis some visitor,' I mut-
tered, 'tapping at my chamber door / Only this and
nothing more.' "

Where the woman's blood had been rivers of fire,
the blood on Tony's slackening face was the mouth of
an open volcano. Heat, where I was so, so cold inside.

I took a step forward, still quoting, whispering,

RAVEN                91

staring at the transfixed Tony. I lowered the gun
because Tony was no longer moving. I was close
enough to feel his breath on my face. The only thing
separating the two of us was the lamp, a narrow rod on
the floor.

Upthrust shadows crossed his face, devouring his
eyes, leaving empty wells to stare at me.

"Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into
smiling, / By the grave and stern decorum of the coun-
tenance it wore."

I remembered the sacrifice, the memory of a gore-
stained face, smiling. Tony's mouth was like that now,
blood-covered and black with shadow.

" 'Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou/ I
said, 'are sure no craven, / Ghastly grim and ancient
Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—"

I could feel the same bizarre lust I'd felt during that
memory. It struck me full force in the chest, and the
groin, an aching hunger that had drawn me to this room
even in my delirium. I dropped the gun.

" Tell me what thy lordly-name is on the Night's
Plutonian shore!' "

I raised my arms to embrace Tony. He didn't move.

"Quoth the Raven,"

I stepped on the lightbulb. It popped, plunging the
room into darkness.

" 'Nevermore,' " I whispered.

I kissed him, tasting the blood. I felt his heat, and I
wanted it. Needed it. The blood that had drawn me here
lit a dark fire in my belly. Even as eye contact was
broken, and Tony began to move again, I didn't let go.

He bucked and struggled, but from somewhere I
found the strength to lift him off the ground. He
screamed, but it was muffled by my own mouth. His
breath forced life into my own lungs. The fire inside
him flared into a nova.

His head whipped from side to side. 1 felt flesh tear.

92 S.A. Swiniarski

Warmth spread across me, inside me. As he thrashed, I
bit into the heat, drank it in, absorbed it.

Then my delirium snapped, the fever broke, and I
became aware that I was holding a corpse. I dropped
Tony, now only so much dead weight, and I could
think clearly again.

What I thought was, I'm a fucking nut. I'm a homi-
cidal maniac. I just killed a man.

I backed away from the scene, until I felt my back
pushing the front door completely closed. The room in
front of me was dark, but my eyes had adjusted well
enough to see both crumpled bodies. Only one breathed.

I tensed myself, and walked back into the living
room, stepping over Tony's body. I checked the
woman. Even in the dark I could see that she'd been
severely beaten. Even as my mind tried to use her to
justify what I did, I felt the same perverse lust when I
smelled her blood.

As when I smelled Sam's blood-

1 knew that in the state I'd been in, if she'd been the
only one in this apartment, she would've been the
corpse. Tony had died not for any moral decision on
my part, but because he had attracted my attention.

What was happening to me?

I stood by the woman and, thankfully, felt myself in
control despite the feelings her blood kindled in me.

At first 1 thought she was out cold, but when I
touched her, she winced and curled up tighter into a
fetal position. She was sobbing, but so low that I could
barely hear her.

"It's all right," I told her lamely. "It's over."

As I whispered meaningless reassurances, I won-
dered how much she'd seen. By all rights she should've
been running away from me, screaming for the police.
Right now I didn't much care. I had a totally selfish
desire to get her away from Tony's corpse.

It took a little encouragement to get her to stand up;

RAVEN               93

fortunately, she didn't stand up facing the door, or
Tony. "That's it," I said. "We've got to get you into
bed."

She shivered against my arm, which was around her
shoulders, supporting her. "I didn't," she whispered. "I
don't do things like that."

"I'm sure you didn't." I maneuvered her down the
hall toward what I hoped was the bedroom.

"Where's Tony? I have to tell him—"

"Tony left," I said a little abruptly.

She half-turned toward me, as if suddenly realizing I
was there. "Who are you?" A note of panic slipped into
her voice.

"A friend," I said. I tried to put all the reassurance I
could in the word, and it made me feel like a fraud.

She stared at me through a right eye that was swell-
ing shut. The emotion leached out of her voice as she
said, "It isn't his fault."

I turned away and kept her moving toward the
bedroom.

"He loves me," she said.  1-

I felt sick.

When I laid her out on her bed, she looked up at me
and asked, "What's your name?"

Something inside made me say, "Raven."

She smiled, weakly, and I told her to go to sleep. She
did as I told her-

By the time I had gotten her—I still didn't know her
name, and I didn't really want to—to bed, I was pretty
sure that no one in the building had noticed our little
disturbance. With what I had broken in on, if anyone
had noticed, they'd ignored it.

Hash of a memory, more an amalgam of images and
impressions than any single scene from my past.
Women all of them, I had met dozens of them, hut they
all felt like the same woman. Most were clients who

94 S.A. Swiniarski

wanted help rescuing a child from an abusive runaway
spouse. On a few more agonizing occasions, the women
were the ones who illegally swiped the kids ....

Sometimes the law is a poor parent.

Every time it's the same question. The neighbors
hear the yelling, the fights, the heatings—Why don't
they ever do anything?

I rubbed my temples. A corpse was a high price for a
piece of my past.

But, thanks to the stoic ignorance of the residents
here, there were no police, no ambulances, no one even
knocking on the broken door to ask what was wrong.

I turned on a still-intact table lamp, to get a good
look at Tony. He had collapsed facedown, and I
prodded a shoulder with a boot to flip him over.

I took a step back, and almost fell over.

The lower quarter of Tony's face was gone, flesh
ripped down to the bone. Torn flesh ran down the right
side of his neck to the collarbone. The bite-marks did
not come from human teeth.

I raised my hand to my face, and it came away
bloody.

I looked down at myself, and Tony's blood covered
me, coating the front of my shirt. Tony looked as if
he'd bathed in it. I wanted to feel sick, but the sight
failed to raise a single twinge of nausea.

I knelt by Tony's head and examined the bites.

I knew I had been the one who savaged Tony's face,
I remembered doing it, but there was no way my teeth
could have produced the wounds I saw. I traced a line
above the worst of it, drawing my finger across the
intact skin over Tony's cheekbone. It left a small trail
of blood, and the skin beneath turned an even paler
white with compression. The color refused to return—

A realization came to me.

1 ran to the bathroom, my eyes lowered until I had
my hand up to shade my reflection's eyes.

RAVEN                    95

Under the smears of blood, my face looked perfectly
normal. There was none of the pallor that I had seen
earlier, none of the paleness, none of the desiccation.
My body filled out the clothes I wore. The weakness,
the disorientation, all the symptoms that had me in a
near-panic, they were all gone.

I was more convinced than ever that I had lost my
senses. The physical transformation I had seen in
myself was flatly impossible, and the only explanation
I had was that I'd been in a state of homicidal derange-
ment ever since I had left the bathroom downstairs.

That's a lie. There's at least one other explanation.

I tried to push the thought away.

Lust for blood, an aversion to mirrors ....

It was insane.

Someone placed a Eucharist upon my doorway—

It wasn't as if I'd reacted to it.

That sacrifice, the blood—

"Stop it. Stop it. Stop it," I whispered. My mind
didn't stop gnawing on the possibility—the impossi-
bility—but I tried to ignore it>as I did what I could to
clean the blood off myself.

Fortunately, the mess had confined itself to my shirt-
front. The shirt was a total loss, but the rest of my
clothes had gotten by with only a few minor spatters.
My shoes, face, and hands, I washed off. I was ham-
pered by my reflection and my lack of sunglasses, but
it was surprising how easily I became used to not
looking myself in the eye.

I left the bathroom, and the bedroom door was still
closed.

Tony was where I had left him.

I sat, shiftless, on the edge of an askew couch, and
considered my options. I had until the woman woke up
to do something. The best course—for humanity, if not
myself—seemed to be to sit around and wait for the
cops, since I appeared to be a psychopath.

96 S.A. Swiniarski

For some reason, that option didn't appeal to me.
Neither did just leaving Tony the corpse here. Not
only did that woman, whoever she was, have enough to
deal with, but if I was serious about avoiding the
police, Tony was one hell of a calling card.

So how to dispose of the body? That was the question.

Packing Tony for storage was easier than I expected.
It was helped by the fact that, while the corpse was
covered by blood, there was none of the spraying I'd
have expected from someone missing half his neck—

You know what happened to most of the blood.

—The blood was pretty much confined to Tony and
the carpet beneath him. Another lucky break was the
fact that the carpet in the entryway was a loose Ori-
ental-style rug resting on the wall-to-wall, and the
blood hadn't yet soaked through.

I managed to find duct tape in the kitchen, and rolled
Tony and my bloody shirt up in the carpet. It wasn't
perfect—his legs stuck out below the knees—but it
managed to get most of the evidence in a single
package.

I found a garbage bag and stuck that over Tony's
dangling feet.

Then 1 went through the apartment collecting his
spoor. It was her apartment, so finding Tony's posses-
sions wasn't too difficult. In a few minutes I'd found
his shirt, boots, wallet, keys, and a handful of cheap
male jewelry. Most of it was in the bedroom, but the
woman slept so deeply that most of my caution in col-
lecting the remains of Tony's life was unwarranted.

Tony's car keys were important. I'd been hoping—
praying—for the keys. I couldn't exactly call a cab to
pick up me and the corpse.

The last thing I retrieved was my gun. Picking it up
brought home the complete insanity of what had hap-
pened. I had dropped the gun to bite the bastard.

RAVEN                  97

What I could make no sense of was that he had let
me. If he had had any sense at all, he should've dived
for the gun the second I'd dropped it. But he had stayed
there, fixated on me—

Just like Bowie ....

I was avoiding that line of reasoning, so 1 looked out
the kitchen window, searching for Tony's car.

8

It wasn't easy moving Tony by myself. It didn't matter
how strong I was, or how strong I thought 1 was. Car-
rying a corpse was different than carrying any other
two-hundred-pound object. It wasn't just dead weight I
was dealing with, but it was loose, jointed, dead weight
that insisted on bending and sagging toward the
ground. Picking Tony up was like trying to swing a
two-hundred-pound sack of wet cement over my
shoulder.

I felt incredibly exposed as I descended the fire
escape. Even though, by my watqh, it was after two in
the morning. Even though the snowstorm was still
whiting-out everything beyond a hundred feet. Even
though I couldn't see another soul. I felt as if I were
being watched during every step I took.

It was a harrowing descent. The metal fire-escape
had accumulated a layer of snow over a coating of ice.
Each step was uncertain and felt as if my foot would
slide out from under me. Tony didn't help. Every time
a gust rattled through the metal around me. Tony
would catch the wind and try to pull me off my feet.
Ice motes buffeted my face, but I barely felt them.

In the lot behind the building, everything was blue-
tinted monochrome, black, blue-grays, and whites. The
cars were hard to discern. A half a dozen sat back here,
and all I had to go on were Tony's keys, which went to

100 S.A. Swiniarski

a Chrysler. Instinct led me to the large, unaerodynamic
pile of snow that had no hubcaps.

With one hand, I wiped snow away from the rear of
my chosen car, and saw it was a Plymouth Duster. In a
final test I fumbled out Tony's keys from my pocket,
trying not to let him tumble into the snow.

I shoved the key into the ice-coated lock on the
trunk. It slid in, but wouldn't turn. In frustration, I
forced it. The key turned and the trunk popped open.

It was Tony's Plymouth.

With a sense of relief, I let Tony's corpse roll off my
shoulder and into the trunk. The car was an old model,
'76 at the latest, and the cavernous trunk swallowed all
of him without complaint. I slammed the trunk shut,
thankful that no one had seen me.

My thanks came too soon.

"Sir, you show some instincts that will stand you in
good stead."

I whipped away from the trunk, to look for the
speaker. I heard him before I saw him. It may have
been because of the clothes he wore. It was a few sec-
onds before I saw a white-suited figure emerging from
the blowing snow. It was disorienting to watch. I faced
the rear of the apartment, and I could see it barely
as a shadow within the blue-gray wall of wind-whipped
snow.

The speaker appeared between me and the apart-
ment, as if he were emerging from an invisible dis-
tance, as if the apartment building had never been
there.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"My chosen name is Gabriel." He spoke with a thick
Southern accent. He was past-middle age; he looked to
me to be in his late sixties or early seventies. His hair
was white, and blew around his shoulders. He wore a
white suit that was more fit for the Bahamas than
Cleveland. He walked with a long cane whose shaft

RAVEN                   101

was silvered. He had large hands, the hands of a
pianist. They completely enveloped the head of the
cane when he leaned upon it.

For a long time I stared at him. Then I asked, "What
are you doing here?"

Gabriel smiled. "Ah, it has been a long time since
any youth had the temerity to question my right to be
anywhere. It is my question you ask, sir- One I would
be addressing to you—" He motioned to the trunk with
his cane.''—if I had not already known your business."

1 began to look for a likely escape route. Unfortu-
nately, all of them—the building, the driveway, and the
alley opposite the driveway—led past Gabriel. He
didn't look threatening, but there was something about
his bearing that made me loath to test him. "So you've
called the police already?"

Gabriel laughed. "If you were not so obviously igno-
rant, I should take that question as an aspersion on my
honor. I keep my Covenants, sir. Even with those who
know no Covenant."

1 shook my head; none of this was making any sense
to me. "What are you doing here?" I repeated. "What
are you talking about? What's going on here?"

Gabriel frowned slightly. "Leam some respect for
your elders, Mr. Tyier—"

"You know me?"

He pointed his cane at me. "Keep your peace for a
moment and perhaps your questions might be
answered. Now, may I speak without interruption?"

I nodded.

"I knew of a man, a man named Kane Tyier. This
man was a hunter of children. In time he was hunting
one of the Covenant, the one known as Childe. It has
come to be that those of the Covenant hunt Childe as
well."

He paused for a time and I nodded, still not under-
standing atl of what he was saying. "So you're looking

102

S.A. Swiniarski

for Childe, too?" After a beat, I added, "Sir?" There
was something about him that did command respect.

Gabriel smiled. "Childe has allowed his blood to dis-
regard the Covenant, and for that he must be found and
disciplined."

I shook my head. "I don't understand. What's this
Covenant that you talk about?"

Gabriel looked at me for a long time. "Who is your
master that would send you into the world without that
knowledge, at least? Is it Childe that spawned you?"

I stared at him.

"You are ignorant, sir." Gabriel took one step, and
suddenly he had closed the distance between us. One of
those pianist's hands gripped my chin, cradling my
face. He held his face within an inch of my own,
staring into my eyes. "Do not feign ignorance that you
do not possess. I am lord of my blood, and you may not
deny who it is that owns you."

"/ don't know what the fuck you 're talking about!"

Gabriel grimaced, and I saw anger bum there. It was
an anger that never left the eyes, but it was a fury that
made Tony's bonfire rage nothing more than a birthday
candle.

My feet lifted off the ground before I realized what
was happening. "Witless thrall!" Gabriel said as he
flung me toward the apartment. I was in the air nearly a
full second before my back slammed into the railing of
the fire escape. My head snapped back with an impact
that felt as if it broke my neck. I tumbled forward, and
fell six feet to land face first in the snow. The impact
had stunned me so much that I couldn't raise my arms
to protect myself. My face slammed into the snow-
covered asphalt.

I lay there for a long time, feeling warmth trickle
down my cheek-

"Get up." I felt a boot push my shoulder, turning
me over.

RAVEN               103

After that impact, I shouldn't have been able to
move, much less get to my feet. To my own surprise, I
found myself standing. I stood, shaking, as the wind
froze the blood on my face.

Gabriel held his cane in- both hands, horizontal at
belt height. I could finally see the head of the cane, the
head of a serpent or dragon worked in pewter. Set in
the serpent's eye was a red stone, a ruby at odds with
the blue-gray world around me.

"You have exhausted what license youth and igno-
rance grant you. I am not here to answer your ques-
tions, and you have no leave to challenge me. The only
respect due you is the respect due your master." He
twisted the head of his cane and slowly withdrew a
blade from it. "You will tell me who your master is,
and your chosen name. If you do not, your master shall
find his thrall less than worthy."

I took a step back, toward the building. I reached for
my gun, but the holster was empty.

Gabriel shook his head. "You disappoint me. Per-
haps I was wrong about your instincts." He kept
walking toward me. "Many as 'young as you would
have abandoned the body after such a feeding. I must
deal with such violations too often." He raised the
blade of his cane to my neck. It felt even colder than
the wind. It was sharp enough that I could feel skin part
under the pressure. I feared that he would open my
jugular.

"Answer me. Do not force me to mark you."

I gasped. "I don't know what to tell you. I don't
know what you're asking. My name is Kane Tyier, and
if I have a master, I don't know about it."

"If you lie . . ." Gabriel stared at my face, and then at
where the blade met my throat. He removed the sword
and held it up so that a bead of my blood rolled down
its edge. My own blood looked black in the dark,
nothing like Tony's.

S.A. Swiniarski

104

Gabriel turned the blade, examining the blood. His
nostrils flared and he touched the edge briefly to his lips.

He stood there immobile for a moment, looking at
me. Then he took a handkerchief from his breast
pocket, wiped his mouth and the blade, and replaced
the blade within the cane.

He then shocked me by making a low bow. "Sir, it
seems the humble servant before you has done you a
wrong."

"What. . . ?" The question refused to form itself.

"You are of free blood. I ask your pardon, sir. Such
prodigies are rare." He withdrew a card from his breast
pocket. "This is not the place for our discussion, and I
have withheld you too long. Please come to me. Childe
must be found."

He held out the card, and I took it. There was no
name on it, only an embossed address, and a single
phone number. As I read the card, Gabriel said, "Per-
haps then I might answer some of your questions and
redeem myself for this unfortunate business."

"Wait, I have some questions now. The first of
which—"

I raised my head and Gabriel was gone.

"—why the sudden change of heart . . . ?" I whis-
pered to the snow-

The only sign of Gabriel's presence was the card he
had handed me, and a pair of footprints that were
already filling with snow. I wiped the snow off my
watch and checked the time.

It was 2:30.

I wondered what had happened with Bowie and
Leia. I also wondered what their doctor would have
found if I'd gone to his office. With all of the reference
to blood, insane as the idea was, I was beginning to
suspect that the doctor would have found something
very unusual.

I pocketed the business card and walked back to

RAVEN               105

Tony's Plymouth. The keys were still dangling from
the trunk. Also sitting on the trunk was my Desert
Eagle.

Tony's Plymouth had seen better days. Its left rear
fender occupied the back seat. Fortunately, it started. I
was nervous as I pulled the Plymouth out onto Coven-
try. I was the only vehicle on the road. I felt as if I were
driving under a follow-spot. All I needed was a bumper
sticker, "Body in Trunk."

What now? I asked myself as I drove away from the
apartment.

Everything was different now. I'd killed a man. I had
little memory of my life before this, but I could feel, in
my gut, that I was not a killer. I had carried a badge,
carried a gun, but I wasn't a killer ....

The first real memory of Kate hit me—

"Are you sure you want to do this?" she asks, mas-
saging the back of my neck. She's using the tone of
voice that asks, "You're not just doing this because I
want you to, are you ? "

I shake my head, massaging the scar on my chest.
"I'm getting disability leave now. I think it's time for
me to get out."

A guilty silence fills our bedroom. Kate thinks she's
driving me to this decision, and I can't do much to
dissuade her. Still, I try. I take her hand and turn to
face her.

"Look. I know it's what I've done for fifteen years.
But I still see that kid's face before I shot him—"

"He tried to kill you," Kate objects. Her mouth is
downtumed and I know that she could never accept me
as a cop again, not after what we've been through. She
says that she'll support my decision, but I know if I put
my life on the line tike that again, she couldn 't handle it.

I hug her. "I don't want to face those decisions any

106 S.A. Swiniarski

more, I don't want to see any more kids' faces when I
sleep. "

I gripped the steering wheel hard enough that the
whoie assembly was shaking. I could remember
shooting the kid who put a thirty-two slug through my
left lung. I could remember his head snapping back.

Worse, I could picture the funeral. I could picture
his mother as clearly as if she were sitting next to me.
She hadn't cried, or cursed me. That would have been
easy. That must have been what I had been looking
for, attending the funeral within days of my own hos-
pitalization. All she had done was sit stiil, staring
straight ahead, blind to everything but her son in that
coffin.

Tony's family wouldn't have even that.

My thoughts were jarred when the Plymouth jumped
the curb. I had to brake in the middle of a snowdrift. I
looked madly around for cops. But any cops were tost
far behind the blowing snow. I looked at my watch,
and I felt another wave of memory—

"Happy Birthday, Dad." Gail smiles at me. In that
moment I see so much of her mother in her, in the long
red hair, in the freckles, in the smile. The wrapping
falls away from the little crystal box that holds the
watch.

"Hey," / said, "are you trying to say something
here?"

"Try not to keep so many late nights," Kate says
from behind my right shoulder.

" We miss you, Dad, " Gail says and hugs me.

—I'd already been driving over an hour.

I cursed my memory. I cursed it for showing me
fragments of a life that I could now no longer go back
to. The man named Kane Tyier had died in that apart-
ment as surely as Tony had- The man driving Tony's
Plymouth was a cipher that I knew nothing about, other

RAVEN                107

than that this man was capable of tearing out the throat
of a stranger.

I rocked the Plymouth back and forth, freeing it from
the mess I'd put it in. When I got it free, I drove the car
west, toward the city.

9

By four in the morning, I'd driven out of the snow and
out under a clear sky. The layout of the city was
coming back to me, and that gave me some hope—
good or ill—for the rest of my memory.

The city slid by me on skids of gray ice. I was
surrounded by the deadest part of the night. Tony's
Plymouth was the only vehicle on the road other than
the occasional snowplow.

The city was an eerie landscape painted in cold
colors. White streetlights, bluish snow, purple sky, and
buildings made of gray and bteck shadows. The only
warm color I passed came from the traffic lights-
Cold, still, and empty. Even the snow had stopped
moving for the night. It gave me a weird sense of supe-
riority to be out at this time of night, as if the city were
mine, as if I owned the broad expanse of Euclid
unrolling before the Plymouth. It was a spooky feeling,
and one that felt as if it came from the same part of my
mind that had made me go into apartment 401. That
made me nervous, and I turned on the radio.

Some college station was playing an album side
from Blue Oyster Cult, Fire of Unknown Origin. It fit
my mood perfectly. I drove through an empty Down-
town accompanied by "Joan Crawford."

I'd spent too much time in this car. I needed to dis-
pose of it and the body. I think I'd only delayed the
inevitable for this long because the destruction of the

110

S.A. Swiniarski

evidence of my crime was as irrevocable as killing
Tony in the first place.

At this point there was still some dim possibility that
I could argue that Tony's murder was justified, that I
was protecting the woman. 1 did not believe it, but if I
turned to the police with that argument, I was still part
of human society.

Destroying Tony's body would be an admission that
I believed that I'd left that society.

Instead of crossing the Cuyahoga River, I drove
Tony's Plymouth down into the Flats. I didn't drive
toward the darkened restaurants and bars lining the
mouth of the river. I drove away from the develop-
ment, toward the remains of industry.

I took a turn that carried me under a bridge. Under
the snow the tires of the Plymouth left the pavement. I
paralleled a rusted chain-link fence that separated what
used to be a road from a field dotted with piles of
broken asphalt and old tires. I pulled to a stop in a lot
dominated by one of the massive pillars supporting the
bridge above me. Despite the storm earlier, there was
little snow here.

I wiped off the wheel and stepped out of the Ply-
mouth.

Behind the field of debris, a broken hillside rose
toward the city. Everywhere down here were piles of
concrete, fallen from the bridge above as if it were
some gigantic creature shedding old skin.

Further up, where the road finally ended, sat a
broken gate in the fence. Just inside was a small brick
shack, no more than a shell. The windows were glass-
less, and it was roofed only by a single girder as ocher
as the bricks that supported it.

I stood in a world as dead as a graveyard.

I opened the trunk and searched my pockets for
Tony's possessions. I tossed his watch, wallet, and his
jewelry into the trunk with Tony, after wiping them for

RAVEN                 111

prints. His lighter, a gold Zippo with an eagle engraved
upon it, I kept—wrapped in a wad of tissue paper.

" 'Yet if Hope has flown away . . .' "

I left the trunk open, and backed away from the right
rear fender of the Plymouth. I gave it a decent clear-
ance, twenty or thirty feet. Then I looked around for
anyone observing me. The only witness I saw was a
lone crow perched on a metal post by the fence. It
seemed to be watching me.

I looked away from the bird and out over the black
waters of a river that had once burned. Across the river,
a few lone smokestacks released white smoke; one
black chimney breathed fire. The sky was black
and starless, the only lights red ones—ruby diadems
crowning the smokestacks. I stood upon the night's
plutonian shore, if I stood anywhere.

The night was quiet, the air still, cold and sharp as a
blade. I drew the Desert Eagle out of its holster. I drew
the slide, checked the action, and leveled it at a spot
behind the right rear tire.

I braced my wrist and fired. *"

The shot echoed, its flash illuminating the underside
of the bridge. I saw there, in an instant, that the girders
under the overpass were massed with crows- Hundreds,
maybe a thousand, of the birds took wing in response
to the gunshot. They exploded out above me, a black
cloud cawing a demonic avian chorus.

For a moment I was deafened amid their roar, and by
the sound of their wings tormenting the wind. Then,
like a dream, the birds were gone, slipping through the
girders of the bridge, into the sky, like a handful of
sand slipping into the ocean.

When they were gone, I could hear the sound of
liquid spilling to the ground. I lowered my gaze. My
bullet had torn a hole through the gas tank of the Ply-
mouth. The smell of gasoline sliced though the air

„[   toward me. Under the rear fender, a stream of liquid

-^

"R?

112 S.A. Swiniarski

melted the snow. Gas dripped from the bottom of the
fender and from the bumper.

The ground sloped in my direction, and a snake of
melted snow was weaving its way toward me.

I bolstered the Eagle and took out Tony's lighter.

The Zippo's flame was small and blue. It danced
weakly in the little wind the night had left. The flame
ignited the tissue wrapping the lighter, and I tossed it all
into the gasoline. The tissue flew off toward the sky, but
the lighter landed in the puddle. The little blue flame
escaped and raced to embrace Tony and the Plymouth.
When they met, the gas tank unrolled itself toward the
sky with a burst of ruddy light and hellish wind.

When the smoke reached the bridge, I was already
walking away.

It was after four-thirty when I walked out of the
Flats. I was cold, alone, and empty. I had walked all
the way to Public Square before I heard the sirens
responding to my conflagration. I couldn't feel much
of anything other than fatigue and a sense of loss.

Where did I have to go? What was it that I could do?

Everything seemed to be falling apart, slipping away
from me. Things had spun out of control. I needed
things to stop, to slow down, if only for a while. I
wanted to go home, to rest.

I wanted to go home, but I had no idea where home
was, or if I still had one.

I needed to find a phone book. The night was leaking
away, and I was afraid of the coming dawn. However, I
had some little time left. When I reached the intersec-
tion central to Public Square, 1 saw the lights in the
lobby of the Terminal Tower. The transit station down
there was open, and somewhere inside would be a
phone.

By five, I had an address and I had a cab.

RAVEN                113

The West Side was more familiar to me than the
Heights area. I knew the streets the cab rolled down. I
knew when the cab was just around the corner from the
house where I had lived the past ten years of my life.

The last five, alone.

I told the cabby to drop me off a fair distance back
from the intersection of two one-way streets. I paid him
and stepped out into a virgin expanse of snow. The cab
continued down the street, its taillights the last thing to
vanish as it turned away, looking for a main road.

I stood alone on the street for a long time. The cross
street ahead of me was Allan Drive, a three-block-long
street that was barely a lane wide. Just looking at it
caused tiny flares of memory—

Under the snow, the street is brick and hell on the
suspension.

The green house on the corner is home to an old
woman with way too many cats.

Kate doesn 't like the neighborhood, but she wanted
her own house since Gail was born, and she bears it
with the same grace that she hears my profession.

Gad caught the bus to the high school on Detroit,
three blocks away.

Until Kate left me, that is

Fragments, disjointed facts. They hit like tiny sparks
from an abused piece of machinery. I stared at the wed-
ding band on my finger. Why did I keep it? Did I have
some hope of one day coming home and finding Kate
there ... ?

Something is wrong—

I stared at the ring. Kate had left me five years ago.
Five long years. I had kept the hope that she'd return.
Just like I had kept this ring ....

/ come home, and I see the house. I know something
is wrong—

A memory wanted to come, a memory that filled me
with a sick dread. I wanted to call back the taxi. Call

S.A. Swiniarski

114

it back and have it take me to someplace else, any-
where else.

But the taxi was gone, and I was committed.

I looked up and down Alien Drive. I couldn't see my
house from here, and every other building was dark-
ened and closed. There was a dim threat I felt, unfo-
cused, trapped within my frozen memory. The feelings
made me cautious, made me worry that my house
might be watched.

There was no reason to stake out my house, but I
worried. If there were police here, they had yet to see
me. I approached from the back. Somewhere a dog
barked at me.

The way the backyards and driveways intercon-
nected on these narrow blocks, it was easy for me to
approach my house from the other side of the block.
The neighborhood became increasingly familiar as I
walked up my neighbor's driveway toward the back of
my house. When I reached my backyard, I froze for a
minute. No footprints marred the snow, no tire tracks
marred the driveway. Everything was still, silent. The
wind had ceased.

Recognition struck like a blow. From the gutter sag-
ging beneath the ice to the too-loose storm windows, I
knew this place. I knew the kitchen window that was
painted shut, and the half-assed addition someone had
tacked to the back porch in the fifties. I knew that the
second-floor window facing me was for the rear stairs,
and if the light were on, I would see the top of the bath-
room's door frame. I knew Gail's room overlooked the
driveway, Kate's and mine overlooked the front of the
house and my office was opposite Gait's room. I knew
the glass block on the basement windows was expen-
sive as hell, but necessary since the darkroom equip-
ment m the basement was even more so.

I knew the attic was reached by a trapdoor that stuck

RAVEN                              H5

in summer and shouldn't be opened unless you really
liked the feel of fiberglass insulation on your skin.

Even as I remembered, I had to revise the memory,
correct for the history of the past five years. Nothing
was Kate's and mine anymore, except maybe Gail—
and she was more Kate's. Gail's room was storage
now ....

/ had walked up on the porch, feeling something
wrong. 1 was on the porch before I realized that all the
shades were drawn. I like the light, 1 almost always
leave the shades open. The door—

The memory left me again.

"God," I whispered.

I approached the rear of the house. When I reached
the back door, I stopped. Covering the door and the
jamb a few inches above the doorknob was a yellow
sticker—"Sealed by Order of Cleveland Police Depart-
ment."

The door was locked, and I didn't like the implica-
tions of that sticker. Something was wrong here, and
not just within my en-ant memory.

I was about to try breaking m, but I remembered
something about the back of the house. I walked away
from the door, about ten feet to my left, stopping in
front of a mound of snow that sloped against the rear of
the house. I started kicking the snow away to reveal a
pair of storm-cellar doors. These didn't need a key.
The sloping doors were shut with a combination lock.

There was no police seal here, but I had to kick ice
away from the lock before I could open it-
While I crouched, I had a few nasty minutes when I
couldn't remember the combination. I squatted, fingers
numbing on the metal lock, for close to five minutes
before I began turning the dial. The numbers finally
came, one at a time. With the ice, the lock needed to be
forced, but the numbers were right, and I managed to
tug it open.

126

S.A. Swiniarski

I slipped it off and dropped it into the snow.
The door came open with the grinding sound of
breaking ice. The opening revealed concrete steps
descending into a darkness the moon didn't reach. At
this point, familiarity should have been reassuring, but
it wasn't.

The front door is ajar. With the shades drawn, none
of the morning light reaches inside the house. I had run
here, driven madly, expecting something. I draw my
thirty-eight—

I had been driven to come here, driven by fatigue
and an aching hole of a memory. But now, as more
memories came leaking to the surface, the idea of
entering the house filled me with nauseating dread. I
felt an urge to run.

I stepped down into the storm cellar.

My eyes quickly adjusted to the feeble light down
here. At the bottom of the stair was a flimsy door,
unlocked. I stepped through into my basement.

The feeling of familiarity was overwhelming. The
past fogged this place, like a choking perfume—a per-
fume hiding an uglier scent.

I looked around without benefit of the light; the
bluish moonlight streaming through the glass block
was enough to see by. I found the darkroom I expected,
in a walled-off corner of the basement. I stepped in and
finally had to turn on a light to see.

1 groped in the dark and finally hit a switch that
flooded the room with red light, as if the room had
been sunk in blood. In addition to the trays, the chemi-
cals, and everything else, there should have been pic-
tures in here. Negatives and prints should have been
here. Someone had taken them.

Sebastian's men? The police?

The police, I thought as I found traces of fingerprint
powder on one of the trays.

What was on those pictures? Why were the police

RAVEN                   117

dusting here for prints? The ugly feeling grew in my
stomach. Something bad was going on here.

I push the front door open with my foot. I sweep the
living room with the gun. It's dark and empty. I step in
to caver the dining room—

I forced myself, to act calmly, to move deliberately. I
knew I was nervous about what was going on. If there
were important pictures, I knew that I'd stash them
somewhere.

I knelt down, almost unconsciously, and pulled a
plastic jug of developer out from under the table.
Underneath it was a small drain. The grate came up
easily. A layer of scummy water sat an inch under the
grate. 1 stuck my fingers in, not quite sure what 1 was
feeling for, but I knew it when I touched plastic.

I pulled a slimy Ziplock bag out of the drain. It came
out with a slurp. Inside was a plastic film canister. I
had no idea what was inside it, but I peeled open the
bag and removed the container. I opened the cap on
one and saw what I'd expected to see: rolled-up nega-
tives. I put the cap back on and pocketed it.

I shoved the empty bag baek in the drain, and
replaced everything else as I'd found it.

I was stalling. Eventually, I killed the light and
headed upstairs.

Halfway up the flight, I had to stop. The feeling of
dread was like a weight holding me back. By the time I
had reached the door to the kitchen, it seemed to take
an hour just to reach up and turn the knob-

1 could smell it even before the door opened. It tore
into me, ripping the shroud from a memory—

"You should not pry into things which are not your
business. " The voice on the end of the phone had been
female, barely. The sound was harsh, violent. There
were scratching noises in the background.

I'm remembering the call as I sweep the living room
with my revolver. My pants are still muddy. My

118

S.A. Swiniarski

camcorder is back at my car. The call had come on my
cell phone as I'd driven madly away from Lakeview.

The voice had said. "You are being punished. Then
you will die." There were moans in the background,
someone in pain, barely conscious.

I am remembering the moans as I turn, covering the
dining room. I am remembering the inhuman laugh
that was on the other end of the phone—

The door to the kitchen sticks on something, but I
keep on pushing. The smell hits full force.

/ remember the noises, wet noises, as my eyes adjust
to the gloom shrouding the dining room—

The smelt is of old blood.

10

I stepped into the kitchen, unable to separate memory
from the scene before me.

/ stumble into the kitchen, breath ragged and dizzy
from the scene in the dining room. I'm frozen at the
chaos in here. The overturned dishwasher, the broken
table, the dented stove— Everything ignited fragments
of my weak memory. Blood is everywhere. Pooled on
the stove, speckling the table, coating the sink. Stab
marks—now dutifully circled by the forensics team—
gouged holes in the walls, as if the house itself were
being attacked, bleeding—central to it all now was the
surreal contribution of the police, the strings leading to
blood spots on the walls. Their attempt to map flying
blood cast the kitchen in a giant spiderweb.

"Kate," I managed to croak out.

I edged away from the kitchen, filled with a sour
rage that was nearly as sickening as the carnage in
front of me.

I backed all the way into the dining room before I
turned away from the scene. When I turned away, the
rage burned itself out, blown out by the impact of the
full memory, complete and ugly.

Ever since she had left me, I had the dim hope
of someday coming home to her. Childe had granted
my wish.

120

S.A. Swiniarski

I barely escape that scene in Lakeview. I drive away
from the scene of that carnage, numbed. Then the car
phone rings. It beeps insistently. I don't want to. pick
up the phone, but my hand reaches/or it.

"Kane," says the ragged voice on the other end of
the phone. I don't know who it is—the voice is dis-
torted beyond recognition—but I know what it is, what
is represents.

"You killed her, " I whisper.

"Hardly," the voice laughs at me. "You should not
pry into things which are not your business." The voice
on the end of the phone is barely female itself. The
sound is harsh, violent. I hear scratching noises in the
background.

"You aren 't going to get away with this:"

Laughter, endless mocking laughter. Then the voice
tells me, "You are being punished. Then you will die."

I hear moans in the background, someone in pain,
barely conscious. I can almost recognize the voice.

"Come home, Kane Tyier, someone is waiting for
you." She hangs up.

I race the car into the dawn, in a near panic. I know
what waits for me, but I keep some desperate hope that
I can make it in time. As I drive, I call the police, then I
call Sam.

Something is wrong at my house.

I arrive before the police do. 1 walk up on the porch.
All the shades are drawn. The front door is ajar. With
the shades drawn, none of the dawn light reaches
inside the house.

I draw my thirty-eight, and push the door open with
my foot. I sweep the living room with my revolver.

I remember the noises, wet noises, as my eyes adjust
to the gloom shrouding the dining room.

The strength goes out of my legs. My breath catches
in my throat and I almost drop the revolver. Blood is

RAVEN                   121

everywhere. The air is so rank with the smell that my
brain doesn't want to identify it.

"Kate," I manage to croak out. Breathing in the
blood-tainted air makes me sick. My stomach wants to
rebel, but after what I've already seen tonight, all it
can do is spasm quietly.

They had crucified her on the dining room table. The
violence was so bad that I could not be certain if she
had been alive when they had tied her there.

The memory dropped me to my knees. It was so
vivid that I almost saw the body on the table there
in front of me. Even though Kate had long ago been
taken away.

In the moonlight it was hard to make sense of the
stains, the strings, the marks left behind by the police-
men in their investigation.

The stains formed a vaguely cruciform outline on the
table. Markings by the police give it a human shape.
The table was scarred, knives perhaps, maybe even
claws. I saw wires that could- have bound legs and
arms. Some of the strings led up to bloodstains on the
ceiling.

"No." I whispered again, trying not to see it.

The memory came, in incoherent, unwanted pieces.
My gaze fixated on the head of the table, where a
single beam of moonlight picked out a shape. I stared
at it, trying to make sense of the tiny black knot in the
black bloodstain. I edged around the table, irrationally
drawn to it.

When my back was to the window, I finally under-
stood what it was. I stared at a finger-sized clump of
my wife's hair, glued to the table by her own blood.

I had a memory from after the medics came, when
they had finally moved the body out of the tacky blood.
I had seen her head nod limply as that knot of hair was
tugged from her skull. No one had seemed to notice.

722

S.A. Swiniarski

I had loved this woman, loved her past the end of our
marriage. How could I grieve for her with my wouiided
memory? I finally began to cry.

/ still have a daughter, I thought.

If anything, that made things worse. Gail had lost
her mother because of me, and she was in the process
of losing her father. Not only was my memory crip-
pled, but there was blood on my hands. I was a
murderer.

A murderer, and maybe something else.

I wanted to see her—desperately—but forcing me
upon her after what had happened to me would be
needlessly cruel. Better that she should bury me with
her mother.

I reached out to touch the table, gripped by a torrent
of conflicting emotions—grief, anger, and a hollow
sense of failure. My finger brushed a strand of long
red hair.

A murderer, and maybe something else.

Why did I insist on maintaining that possibility?
Was it some sick way to moderate the guilt of Tony's
death? Thinking that was sabotaging my own sanity.
Insisting that I was infected by some supernatural
entity was insane.

But if it was insane, why did all my feverish symp-
toms, the delirium, the hunger, all vanish when I had
killed Tony? I had physical symptoms. I had needed
that blood. I had needed it when I was in that accident
with Sam.

I walked out of the dining room, swamped with
fatigue.

Behind the blinds in the living room I could see the
sky lightening with the coming dawn. I had a reaction
to the light, a visceral fear that I couldn't damp by
telling myself it was irrational.

I forced myself to walk to the front windows, and
separated the slats of the blinds with a shaking hand.

RAVEN              123

Through the blind I stared at the sky, which had light-
ened from purple to a deep aqua.

The fear flared into a barely controlled panic. My
hand dropped from the window and I turned away. I
faced the dining room and felt a different fear grip me.
I had stopped breathing again, just as I had in the
sewer. I had no idea when I had stopped-1 had suffered
too many shocks in ihe past few minutes for me to pick
out one that could have knocked the breath from me.

If that insane possibility were right, if I were some-
how the walking dead, did I need to breathe?

I ignored the panic, and kept holding my breath. I
waited for my chest to tighten, for my body to protest
the lack of oxygen. I waited for my vision to darken
and for a feeling of giddiness.

Nothing.

I stood, and waited for five minutes, then ten, as the
room around me began to lighten slightly with the
approaching dawn. The light began to take a yellow-
ish tint.

L

Something had happened to me..Something that had
driven me to tear the throat out of a man and drain his
blood. Something that had removed the necessity for
breathing.

I had yet to see daylight, ever since I crawled out
from underground. I turned to see the predawn glow
shining from behind the blinds, and I felt the terror of
having to.

I needed to get away from that light.

It was insane to Ehink what I was thinking. But it was
either that, or I had lost the ability to trust anything that
happened. And, if I had completely lost touch with
reality, what difference did it make what I thought? If I
had iost touch with reality so completely, I could
believe I was a leprechaun for ali it mattered.

Of course, no one made movies about leprechauns

124 S.A. Swiniarski

bursting into flames and crumbling to dust at the first
touch of direct sunlight.

I couldn't leave this house. And there was only one
place here I knew the rays of the sun wouldn't reach. I
ran through the remains of my dining room and kitchen
and took the stairs to the basement two at a time. It was
no longer hypothetical. I had stopped playing what-if
with myself. I had stopped telling myself that the idea
was an insanity.

I dove into the black womb of my darkroom
knowing what I had become- As the rush of fatigue
crashed over me, I felt the card in my pocket and knew
that I was going to talk to Gabriel.

Somewhere in the not-quite-sleep that gripped me, I
remembered things. Remembered them, or dreamed
them. Maybe both.

The guy I'm talking to is known as Switz. Not his
real name. The name has something to do with his
excessively Aryan appearance. That's my guess at
least. He's blond, blue-eyed, and has a motto in
German Gothic tattooed on his bicep. I suspect he's a
Nazi, but I don't know and don't ask.

He's not a friend, and I'm not talking to be social.

We 're standing in a parking lot somewhere in Rich-
mond Heights. Behind us is a vast expanse of snow-
covered Mail, after hours, empty. We're standing
behind Swilz 's car, a brand-new white Mercedes sedan
that's at odds with his military-surplus clothing. Swilz
has just pocketed a large sum of money.

He pulls out the keys and opens the trunk. Inside is
an aluminum briefcase covered in black vinyl, which
he also opens—

"There she is, Kane. Mother of all handguns, the
biggest thing I got. "

The gun is massive, a forty-five on steroids. I pick it

RAVEN               125

up, heft it. It seems almost cartoonishly large in my
hands. "Fifty-caliber? You have shells for this?"

" Fifty-cal magnum." Switz nods at the case. "I've
enough shells. " He smiles. "What you planning to drop
with that thing?"

I clear it, check it, put it back in the case. " You don't
want to know, even if you'd believe me."

Switz snorts, "Whatever it is, you shoot it with that,
it'll drop."

"I hope so." There's a trembling note on my voice.
"Is it clean?"

"Clean? Is hasn 't even been fired."

"Where's it from?"

"A collector gave himself a 12-gauge lobotomy. His
estate got thinned a little. This was still in the packing
crate when I got it. "

1 nod and close the briefcase and take it. " Wish me
luck," I whisper.

"With that thing you don't need luck."

Kate and I are having one 'of our uniquely formal
lunches, something that has become a tradition with us
since she left me. Dinner was too significant a meal, so
if was always lunch at some inexpensive restaurant
downtown.

Today we're in the Arcade downtown, sitting at a
table next to the mezzanine railing. The light from the
glass ceiling is too white with the snow collected up
there.

We've just finished discussing Gait's tuition.

Kate reaches out and touches my hand, as physically
intimate as we've been for the past five years. "What's
wrong?" she asks.

I shake my head.

"Tell me. Something's been bothering you."

I drink some Styrofoam coffee to avoid answering.
But there's little coffee left, and it doesn't last long. I

126 S.A. Swiniarski

stare into the empty cup. "My job," / finally say in
response.

"What about your job?" I look up and see the con-
cern in her eyes. I am uncomfortable with the idea that
she might still worry about me. She had been the one to
leave me. I should be free of her concern—

Life is never that simple. "I called someone a rotten
parent today." I shake my head at the self-evident
hypocrisy of the statement.

"You deal with rotten parents all the time," she
says. "Mostly stealing their kids from each other. "

"This is different."

"How so?."

"There's this gentleman—1 use the term loosely—
named Sebastian. I know him from my days in the
force. Not as a colleague. "

"Uh-huh?"

"He's done well for himself. He was a two-bit punk
we 'd pick up every other month when I knew him. Since
then he's done five years, made some connections
inside, and come out a businessman. Now I'm pretty
sure he's got a finger in every drug-laced pie in this
town."

I crave a cigarette, even though I haven't smoked
since I left the police—or. more accurately, since I look
a bullet in the lung.

"And he's the rotten parent?"

I nod, "He's got a family now. And a daughter about
two years younger than Gail. "

"And she's missing."

"Bingo." I crumble the cup in my hand. "He's not a
man people say no to. But I said I didn't want to touch
his money. When he got insistent, I told him that a man
who did what he did wasn't fit to be a father—" My
voice chokes off.

"You were angry—"

"I saw his eyes. I think f'm the first person to have

RAVEN                 227

hurt him, really hurt him, in years. I'm surprised he
didn't have one of his bodyguards shoot me there. "

Kate looks at me and I can see her read me. It's
something she is still too damn good at. "You're noth-
ing like him."

"Then why aren 't we still married? " 1 whisper.

"One of the reasons is you have a tendency to com-
pare yourself to your clients."

"He's not a client. "

"Isn't he?"

After five years, she still reads me too well. I find
missing kids for a living. Doing that compensates for a
lot of moral ambiguity.

"Twenty-five hundred retainer, non refundable. Five
hundred a day, plus expenses."

The man on the other side of the wide antique desk
smiles weakly. "Somewhat mercenary, aren't you?"

"I always quote the price first, Mr. Sebastian. " I sit
in one of the leather chairs facing the desk. The whole
office seems lifted out of the last century, which makes
the off-white PC with the rounded •corners all the more
incongruous. "Too many times the parents know
exactly where their kid is, they just don't want to deal
with cops or lawyers."

"The money's not a concern. I am somewhat sur-
prised at your change of heart."

"I have a daughter myself, Mr. Sebastian."

"I'm aware of that."

"I find missing kids. That's who I do this for. I deal
with a lot of parents I don't approve of. I let our prior
relationship gel in the way of my job."

Sebastian nods. "I understand." He turns around
one of the pictures on his desk and says, "You will find
my daughter."

DESCENT INTO THE
MAELSTROM

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West,

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

Have gone to their eternal rest.

There shrines and palaces and towers

(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)

Resemble nothing that is ours.

Around, by lifting winds forgot,

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

—"The City in the Sea"

11

I never completely lost consciousness. Even as I was
kept company by returning memories, I never lost
awareness of the concrete floor I lay upon, or the faint
chemical smell of developer- Hours passed, and I never
lost those two sensations.

I rested—but I never slept, and I never truly
dreamed.

Somehow I knew when I was supposed to rise. It
was as if the unseen sun were a weight on my body, a
weight that lifted when the sun left the sky.

When I stood, I knew who"'Kane Tyier was. I had
built a mosaic of myself and I could see the broad out-
lines of the man I used to be. I had been driven, obses-
sive. Kate had married me, but she had married me
when my obsessions had an external focus. I quit the
force to save our marriage, and in doing so I had
destroyed it.

I knew more about Kane Tyier than I wanted to know.

I knew almost nothing about who I'd become.

There weren't any police in sight out the front. I
didn't really expect any. No one had entered the house
during my twelve-hour slumber, and the Cleveland
police didn't have the manpower to waste staking out
my house.

Stili, it'd been a stupid risk coming here. I berated
myself for not thinking clearly last night. Distressed or

132 S.A. Swiniarski

not. Memory or not. It was an easy exercise in hind-
sight to think I should have realized that I'd rented that
motel room for some reason.

I should have left as soon as I'd seen the blood—if
the dawn hadn't trapped me here.

Risk or not, here I was, and no one knew it. Once I
left this place, I wasn't going to come back. So 1 gave
myself one more hour, to pretend I still lived here.

Still, I did not turn on any lights, and after checking
the front of the house, I avoided windows.

I went upstairs and showered. I did it mechanically,
in the dark. I was cloaked in numbness. I'd felt the
panic when I'd fallen from the precipice, but I was in
free fall now, and a long way from the bottom. Almost
everything had been burned out inside me.

Too much had happened to me, too much to absorb,
too much to react to. But this was the first true pause in
which I had time to think. With my rest, the logical
part of my mind started working again.

Childe was central to a cult, a circle of youths that
were into dark rituals that offended even people
who were into the occult. I remembered only fragments
of my investigation, but I could remember that the dis-
taste for Childe was universal throughout the whole
neo-pagan community.

I remembered another odd fact now. Within the
neo-pagan community, with their elaborate taxonomy
of belief systems separating wiccan from druid from
followers of the Golden Dawn, and with their dispar-
agement of Satanism as a uniquely Christian perver-
sion, not one of the pagans or fringe-pagans I had
talked to had given me even a tentative classification
of what Childe actually practiced. They classified
him: predatory, sadistic, cold, charismatic, and in
many cases, evil, but they never classified his belief
system. It was as if they never even heard any rumors
of what it was he did.

RAVEN                   133

"Childe runs a tight little group," I whispered as I
left the bathroom. I said it, but it did not jibe with what
Childe's cult seemed to be doing now.

They had killed my ex-wife in a manner almost
designed to call attention to itself, killed in a man-
ner that would club the police over the head with its
ritualism.

With my healing memory, I was almost certain I
could place the leather-clad teenager at last night's col-
lision at the "sacrifice" I had videotaped. His face had
been the one to smile at me.

Childe's group was low-key enough to work for
years around the fringes of the pagan community
without once leaking any hint of its internal struc-
ture. That didn't fit with Kate's death or ramming
Sam's car.

I had worked with cults before; it goes with the terri-
tory. And a true cult is almost always organized around
a central charismatic figure. Because of that, because
they're an extension of its leader's personality, cults
don't change their behavior vsa-y often. And if they're
inner-directed, they do their best to cut off the outside
world almost completely.

I was beginning to understand why I'd been talking
to Sam. I had had these thoughts before, and they had
led me to the same conclusion. I needed to find out
Childe's history.

And now this investigation wasn't just a matter of
finding Sebastian's daughter, Cecilia. It was a matter
of finding myself.

"Yes," said the voice on the other end of the phone,
"We had a Detective Weinbaum here. But his injuries
were minor. He was released after twelve hours of
observation."

"Thank you," I said to the receptionist, and hung up.
University Hospitals had been the second place I'd

134 S.A. Swiniarski

called after the Cleveland Clinic. At least they'd given
me good news. It was bad enough that I had Tony on
my conscience, I did not need to find out that I'd
somehow worsened Sam's condition.

I sat on the edge of my bed in a darkened room,
holding a phone on my lap. I could see perfectly well
by the light from the streetlight outside. Everything
was blue-gray and black, a gloom that choked the room
like smoke but somehow didn't obscure my vision.

I'd gotten dressed in the dark, so no one would
notice my house being occupied. I now wore a tie and a
black suit, with shoes to match. Not my first choice,
but it was clean- On the bed next to me lay my gun, my
old clothes, and an old tan trench coat I'd found in the
closet.

An address book sat on a table next to the bed, and I
flipped through it. When I reached my daughter's
phone number, I read it with the strange deja vii of
seeing a number that I hadn't known I'd memorized. 1
wondered again how long things would taunt me with
their familiarity.

I dialed the phone before thinking of what I would
say. It rang four times.

"Please, Gail, answer ....'*

After the fifth ring I heard Gall's voice. "Hey! You
have reached—me. If you're calling for someone else,
you've gotten a wrong number. Otherwise say somer
thing at the beep."

The receiver was shaking in my hand. I could see her
face as I heard her voice on the machine. I pictured her
smiling, with her freckles and her mother's long red
hair. So much of her mother in her, except her eyes.
Even as a baby, everyone had said she had her father's
green eyes.

After a long pause, the beep surprised me. I had to
gather myself to leave a message. "Gail? It's Dad. If
you're there, pick up the phone. If not, I'll do what I

RAVEN                   135

can to call you back tomorrow." What could I say to a
machine? "When I call you again, it'll probably be iate.
I'm sorry, I know you have classes, but I can't really
avoid it. Good-bye."

I set the receiver back in the cradle. I tried not to feel
the press of worry, but it was too late. It wasn't some-
thing I'd ever been rational about. I had always been
overprotective, and every time I had a nasty missing-
person's case, even after the divorce, I always had to
reassure myself about Gail.

5am said he had gotten her police protection, and
she's in Oberlin, far away from all of this.

But it was 7:30 on a Sunday. Where was she?

I told myself that she was at a movie, or was out with
friends, or in the shower ....

"Stop doing this to yourself," I whispered to myself.
"You do this every time you get her machine—"

I smiled, because I was right, and I could remember
it, at least partially. But recognizing it as rote paranoia
didn't change the fact that there was a real danger out
there—a real danger that I sttil knew woefully little
about.

I had rebuilt some sense of self out of my amnesia,
but I was remembering generalities. I still had little or
no memory of specific facts or events. Especially frus-
trating was the gap between the eleventh and the four-
teenth, the three days between Kate's death and my
waking in the storm sewer—

My God, who's doing the funeral arrangements?
Have they done it already? The cops would have
to have the body for autopsy, but that'd be done by
now ....

"Monday, if they haven't held it already. Maybe
Tuesday at the latest—"

I realized that I wanted to be there—and if I couldn't
face daylight, I couldn't be.

I stood up and walked to the windows, staring out

136 S.A. Swiniarski

the blinds at the streetlight. I took deep, unnecessary
breaths. My attention was scattering when I needed to
think straight. I still carried the phone. I had one call
left to make.

I pulled Gabriel's card out of my pocket. Here, at
least, I might have some answers to the darkness that
had claimed my life. If nothing else, even if he was com-
pletely insane, Gabriel knew something of Childe—
and Childe was central to everything that had happened
to me.

The card had a single gold embossed number upon
it, and when I called it I received a nasal computer-
generated voice.

"You have reached an automated voice messaging
system. At the sound of the beep, speak your own name
slowly and clearly. If your response is unclear or unac-
ceptable, you will be disconnected."

The machine beeped at me.

"Kane Tyier," I spoke slowly. I was nonplussed at
dealing with a machine, but it did seem to fit with
someone who wouldn't put any identification on a
business card.

The machine digested my response, and after an elec-
tronic pop I heard Gabriel's voice, Southern accent and
all. "Greetings, I am pleased you decided to call me—"

"Yes, I—" I started to say, when I realized that this
message was as automated as the computer. Gabriel
had recorded a message for me. I sighed.

"—assume you wish to meet with me," the recording
continued. "At twelve this evening 1 shall be awaiting
you at the address embossed upon the card. If this is
inconvenient, please leave a message for me. I await
the pleasure of your company, sir."

Midnight, three hours to kill before I talked to him. I
sighed again.

The computer voice returned. "To replay this mes-

RAVEN                   137

sage, press one. To reply to this message, press two.
To—" I hung up.

Three hours, which gave me time to find Sam and
ask him a few questions—especially about Childe's
history. I set the phone back on the nightstand, and
pocketed my address book.

Outside I heard a car slow and turn up a driveway.

My driveway.

I grabbed the Eagle from where it lay on the bed,
amidst my old clothes. 1 heard the engine idle, and I
heard a car door open and slam shut. I edged up to the
bedroom window, but it didn't offer me a view of the
driveway, the roof of the porch was in the way.

I could hear the car, though, almost feel its presence.

I backed out of the bedroom, grabbing the bolster
and the trenchcoat with my free arm. It looked as if I
might be leaving fairly shortly. When I'd backed into
the hall, I could hear someone messing with the front
door downstairs.

Who was it? The police?

I slipped into Gail's old room, so I'd have an
overview of the driveway.

A wave of disorientation flooded me, making me
realize I'd been too comfortable with my returning
memory. I had stepped into her room expecting a bed
with a flowered comforter, and shelves of ceramic ani-
mals that she had made. My memory had laid a nasty
trap, I didn't realize I was expecting the little multi-
colored dragons and horses until I had bumped into the
first pile of filing boxes that was stored here.

The box fell with a rustte, spilling 1993 over the
bare hardwood. Dust balls flew away from the impact
like frightened mice.

"Fuck," I whispered. I had to be more careful.
Assuming that I knew something could be more dan-
gerous than ignorance.

I froze, listening for a reaction. Below me, I heard

138 S.A. Swiniarski

the front door opening. I heard footsteps. I could
almost swear that I could hear someone breathing—

The breathing wasn't me, I had stopped when the car
pulled into the driveway.

Whatever else this darkness had done to me—
whether it was madness or a supernatural affliction—
it did grant me an acuteness of sense that I knew I had
not possessed before. I could picture the shoes of the
man who tread below me, I heard their rubber soles
on the hardwood, and I heard the change when he
stepped upon the carpet. I heard his breathing, steady
but elevated, the breathing of a man tense but not yet
excited.

I heard his footstep upon the stair, and if I concen-
trated, I could hear the beating of his heart.

The door was closed behind me, but I'd know when
my visitor was behind it. I leveled the gun at the
doorway and backed next to the window. Outside the
window, 1 could hear a dog barking, and distant traffic.
One of my neighbors was watching television. I heard
canned laughter.

I glanced down through the blinds. Parked, idling in
the driveway, was a familiar tan Oldsmobile.

How did Sebastian find me?

The phone, it had to be the phone. I had been
working for this man for two weeks. He was rich, and
he was driven. He had hired me and had me followed. I
had no trouble believing that he might have tapped my
phone as well.

"Damn it, for once we're on the same side," I whis-
pered.

There was one driver. I could see a flash of pale skin
and I decided that he was Mr. Gestapo. The one
walking up the hallway toward me had to be the
Jamaican. They'd cornered me.

I glanced at the window and thought of the teenager

RAVEN               139

who had somehow landed on top of Sam's car. I drew
the blinds on the window, and opened it.

I knew the Jamaican now stood without the door.

My exit was blocked by an old storm window. When
I heard the doorknob rattle, I raised my foot and kicked
at the bottom of the storm window's wooden frame.
The window swung out, hinging at the top where hooks
still held it in place. But those fasteners were over forty
years old, and I heard metal snap, liberating an explo-
sion of paint flakes.

After that snap, gravity took the window and it slid
down like the blade of a guillotine.

Behind me I heard the door burst open and a
Jamaican voice said, "Stop, Mr. Tyier—"

I'd already jumped out the window. Below me, the
ancient storm window crashed into the hood of the
Oldsmobile. The wood splintered, and glass exploded
like a crystal grenade. The crash was like an explosion.

It had been Mr. Gestapo's first c!ue that something
was wrong.

My jump ended half a second after the window's
impact. Mr. Gestapo had only time to open the door
"when my feet hit the hood of the Olds. The impact felt
as if it had broken both my shins, and had torn every
one of my leg muscles from the bone. I should have
collapsed and rolled off the hood, but I kept my bal-
ance, and I managed to unbend my knees.

I pointed my Eagle through the windshield and said,
"Get out."

By now he had a gun out as well, but he looked at
me and froze. He stared at me long enough that I had to
repeat myself.

"Get out."

Slowly, he backed out of the car. Above me, I heard
the Jamaican say, "Stop this, Mr. Tyier!"

I looked up and saw the Jamaican holding his own
gun down on me. I stepped off the hood, continuing to

140 S.A. Swiniarski

cover Mr. Gestapo. I smiled up at the Jamaican. "I'm
afraid I am going to have to borrow your car."

"I can't let you do that."

I looked down at Mr. Gestapo and said, "You really
want to drop that." He did as he was told.

I looked up at the man covering me. "You have a
name?" I asked.

"My name is Bishop, Mr. Tyier." He called down
and I could see his breath fog. He didn't seem nervous
or out of breath, unlike his partner. "I'm afraid you
have to come with us."

"Odd name for one of Sebastian's hoods," I said.

Bishop smiled at the remark, his gun didn't waver.
"And you, Mr. Tyier, have an odd name for a police-
man."

"What do you mean?"

"Wasn't Cain the first murderer?"

I shook my head- "Well, Bishop, have you thought
out the logistics of this situation?"

"What do you mean?"

"Your man down here is covered, and you are two
stories above me. I see three options open to you. You
let me take the car. You shoot me now. Or we stand
here for an hour until the police show up and you
explain a B&E on my property."

"Why do you think I won't shoot you?"

I looked up at him, "Because I'm looking for your
boss' daughter, still-1 am doing my job, and I can't do
my job if I am attached to you guys at the hip\"

I could almost feel the options running through
Bishop's mind. Eventually, I heard him say, "Go, but
don't think this will happen again."

I smiled grimly and walked to the side of the Olds. I
told Bishop's friend to get down on the ground, and I
took his gun and tossed it in the car with my coat and
my holster.

RAVEN

141

The key was still in the ignition.

It was a pain getting out of the driveway one-
handed. But I wasn't putting down the Eagle until I
was out of sight of the house.

12

Sam lived on the East Side, so on the way I stopped the
Olds at a BP station downtown. I chose my vantage
carefully, to be in sight of the approach from the police
station and be a short U-turn from the 1-90 on-ramp. I
didn't want to be cornered again.

The police .station was an old sandstone building.
Pollution had turned the walls black. If not for the fluo-
rescent lights shining through the windows, it wouldn't
be out of place on an English moor.

It was early in the evening, quarter to nine, but it was
Sunday and the traffic on St. Cfair, between me and the
station, was light. I idled next to'the pay-phone and
rolled down the window. Despite parking myself
where I had an easy escape route, the black-and-whites
made me nervous.

I dialed Sam's apartment and didn't get an answer,
so I dialed the station.

After a couple of rings I heard, "Detective Wein-
baum here."

"Hi, Sam. We need to talk."

"Goddamn it," Sam's voice dropped to a harsh
whisper. "I told you not to call me here. Where the
fuck did you disappear to?"

"My employer offered me a ride. I need what you
have on Childe."

Sam's voice lowered. "Are you seriously still in
this? After I saw you last time—"

144 S.A. Swiniarski

"I'm handling that, Sam."
"Okay. Where are you?"
"Look out your window."

Sam ran across the street, a folder under his arm. I
let him in and pulled the Olds in a quick U around the
BP parking lot. The green-lit logo was receding down
the on-ramp behind us before Sam asked. "What the
hell's going on, Kane?"

"I'm trying to find out—"

"No, 1 mean with you. Yesterday you were a basket
case. You were shaking and asking for a doctor. I was
scared shitless that you'd wandered off on your own
after the accident, the Heights cops have a bulletin to
look out for you, and I'm in no end of shit because I
have to explain how you were in my car in the first
place—" Sam had to stop to breathe.

He didn't sound too good, and I looked at him. His
nose was buried under a pound of gauze, his skin was
pale, which made the shadows of his bruised eyes even
more violent.

"I'm sorry about that. I don't want to get you into

trouble."

He shook his head and patted his chest. "No," he
coughed. "I can deal with my problems. I do get some
slack because Kate's my case- It'll stay that way until
you do something that makes me look real stupid."

We rolled onto the Shoreway and Sam asked, "Do
you still need a doctor?"

"I said that I was taking care of it."

"That's no answer."

"I know." Before Sam couid bring up any more
questions, I added, "I have enough of an idea of what's
wrong with me to know who to see about it. But it's
not something I can tell you about."

"Damn it, I was there when you were shot—"

"I know, but please drop it."

RAVEN               145

The Oldsmobile plowed east along the Shoreway,
streetlights sweeping us like an intermittent strobe. A
dusting of snow started to drift down, and I turned on
the wipers.

"Okay, but you're worrying me."

I nodded. "Sam, Childe is central to this, so I need to
know what you were going to tell me."

He nodded and opened the file on his lap.

For all the effort expended, almost all Sam had on
Childe was disappointing. Sam explained that every-
thing they had had come from overseas when he had
followed up the suspicion that Childe wasn't native to
this country. Indeed, Scotland Yard had a record of
ChUde's alias, and his addresses and activities in and
around London from the late forties.

His passport photo looked much younger than that
implied, but I had some suspicions why. Childe's name
in London, which remained when he immigrated to this
country, was Manuel Deite.   ..

"Five to one it's another alias," Sam said.

"Why?"

"Manual Deity—hand of God—I think our Mr.
Childe has a high opinion of himself."

Mr. Deite had been the subject of extensive investi-
gation, mostly under the direction of a Chief Inspector
Cross. Why Cross had begun the investigation wasn't
in the papers that Sam had ordered from the Yard.
However, it was clear that there were three decades of
files on Deite and not one scrap of evidence—physical
or circumstantial—that tied him to any crime, real or
alleged.

The Yard's investigation ceased with Cross' retire-
ment in the mid-eighties- However, with the name,
Sam had managed to work forward through immigra-
tion and find a passport photo that matched the papers

146                 S.A. Swiniarski

faxed from London. Sam even had an address for Mr.
Deite in Cleveland.

Just like London, however, there was no scrap of
evidence that connected Childe to any crime here, real
or alleged. All I had myself was hearsay evidence
placing Childe with Cecilia—and Sebastian had not
reported her missing to the police. Considering his
desire to keep the police out of things, it was unlikely
he ever would.

"That'sit?"

Sam nodded. "I've yet to convince a judge that we
even have enough to get a warrant for his house."

"You're kidding."

Sam turned to me and said, "Do I look like I kid?
What are we looking for? A bunch of missing kids that
no one's reported missing? It's a fishing expedition—
and even if I got a warrant, what I have is so thin that
it'd last about three minutes at the hands of a court-
appointed public defender, and wouldn't even get
through the door against a lawyer Childe could afford."

"Thank you for reminding me why I don't miss the
force."

I pulled off the Shoreway at the tail end of MLK
Boulevard and drove around under the highway,
pulling into a. darkened lot facing the lake. I stopped
the car. For a few moments I sat there and listened to
the metal knocking.

"I do have something that's unofficial."

"What?" I asked, not very hopeful.

"Manuel Deite seems to be missing."

I sat up, suddenly interested. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I did some unauthorized snooping in his
credit and bank records, and called his house a few
times. He hasn't spent a cent since January 26th, when
he filled the tank of his car at a Shell station out by the

RAVEN               147

Metroparks. I can't get hold of him by the phone to his
house, or by his two cellular numbers."

"The 26th wouldn't happen to have been a Sunday?"

Sam nodded.

That coincided with the last witness I had to see
Cecilia. Three weeks ago. All I could think of was that
he had gone to ground somewhere when he realized
people were looking for him.

But I hadn't been hired until the first.

There were other people looking for him. I wasn't
sure what Gabriel represented, but it seemed something
worth hiding from.

"Okay, what about the van that hit us?" I asked.

Sam shrugged. "I don't know. Hit and run. Some
sort of warning."

"What did they take? I thought I saw one kid steal a
package out of your back seat."

Sam looked surprised. "Is that what happened to
that? I guess that gives us a bit more circumstantial
evidence pointing at Childe, then." He shook his head.

"What do you mean?"

"I had a lot more from England" on this guy. That's
what they took, the bulk of Cross' files from Scotland
Yard." Sam nodded to himself. "Yeah, this gives me
something on Childe I might be able to use . . . ."

"What?"

"Who else would have motive to swipe them? If I
get a judge in a decent mood, I might swing a warrant
to search for the van and those files. With that, I might
turn up something."

I nodded, wondering. What was in those files? Why
take them when all Sam had to do was make another
call to Scotland Yard for more copies? The more I
learned about what was going on, the less sense it
made. I could discern no reasonable motives for what
Childe and his people had done in the past three weeks.

That bothered me,

148 S.A. Swiniwski

For a while we sat in silence. I stared out, toward the
horizon. The sky hung low, its clouds heavy above a
black lake frozen into stillness. No moon, no stars, the
only lights out there were the small red flashers on the
breakwater, and an ice-white spotlight near its end.

Lake Erie was serene, melancholy, and still. It was
the kind of stillness that made me wonder what kind of
ugliness might lie beneath the surface. If I had not
woken when I had, would I have first opened my eyes
under that sheet of endless ice?

"Sam?" I whispered.

"Yes?"

"The arrangements for Kate—what are they, who's
handling it?"

"I—uh—her sister came in from Chicago to handle
it. I've been helping, what 1 can do."

"When are the services?"

"Tuesday."

A half hour later, the Olds was driving up 1-90, back
the way we had come. Most of the way, we traveled in
silence. It was a long time before I asked, "Gail is
coming?"

Sam nodded, sighing. It was as if the statement had
released a pressure that had weighed on him ever since
we'd left the lake.

"Tomorrow?"

"Evening, yes. We were arranging all this while you
were missing. I said she could stay at my place."

"What about police protection?"

Sam looked at me, squinting over the bandage on his
nose, "I'm a cop, remember?"

I nodded. "You know, if there was any way she
could stay with me ... ."

"Of course I know. You could let her know—"

"I tried calling."

"She'll be here tomorrow, and she wants to see you."

RAVEN                   149

I didn't answer. I drove off 1-90 filled with con-
flicting thoughts. I wanted to see my daughter- I
needed to see her survive the wound of losing Kate, but
I was afraid that she may have already lost me also.
How could I talk to her, reassure her, comfort her,
when I had passed so far beyond the pale myself?

I felt that if I touched my daughter, some measure of
the corruption infecting me would infect her as well.
Beside that, the possibility she might reject me for my
role in her mother's death was almost comforting.

"Kane?"

"Yes," I said. "I need to see her, don't I?"

"Are you all right?"

"No. You'll be home tomorrow?"

"I sort of have to be,'don't I? I plan to be working
around the funeral. All day tomorrow, and then after
the funeral."

"Sorry this is screwing with your investigation."

"She was my friend, too." Sam looked out the win-
dows at the black sandstone station emerging from the
shadows. "Besides, talking to the survivors goes with
the territory. You know me, I'd try to be at the funeral
even if I didn't know her."

"Yeah, I know." I pulled the Olds to a stop about a
block from the station. As Sam stepped out of the car, I
asked, "Can you do me a favor?"

He turned and said, "What?"

"Give me twelve hours before you serve that warrant."
, "Why?"

"Sometime tonight I want to pay Childe a visit."

"I didn't hear that, Kane." He tossed the file folder
on the passenger seat. "Just in case you need that infor-
mation, those are all copies."

He shut the door. I rolled down the window and
shouted after him, "Can I have the time?"

Sam turned around and said, "I didn't get that." He
looked at his watch. "I got to get back and wait for a

150

S.A. Swiniarski

judge to wake up so I can get this Childe warrant
issued." He smiled and resumed walking toward the

station.

He'd given me my twelve hours. And sitting on the
passenger seat was Childe's address. I wanted to go
there now, rush in, and demand explanations from
whomever I found there—

However, I felt the need for some sense of caution.
If there was a possibility of me confronting Childe, I
wanted to know something more of his nature.

Also, I had the gnawing suspicion that—Sam's war-
rant aside—there would be little to find at Childe's
residence. I suspected that Gabriel would have infor-
mation as basic as Childe's address. If Childe was to be
found there, I doubted Gabriel would still be searching.

What was at Childe's home would be what was left
behind when he disappeared with Cecilia. There might
be something there useful to me, but if that was so, it
would stay there while I met with Gabriel.

13

Waiting for my midnight conference with Gabriel gave
me an hour to think. I drove around trying to reason out
the unreasonable, attempting to distill some rational
sense out of an irrational situation. The unreason went
beyond my search for Childe and Cecilia, and the dis-
integration of my life—

I forced myself to think the word that was at the core
of my dilemma.

Vampire.

The farther Tony's corpse receded in my memory,
the more it seemed that all the^vents I'd experienced,
however bizarre and unwarranted/were more than the
products of my own derangement. What had happened
to me that insisted on that peculiar interpretation?

Fear of the sun, holding my breath ....

I was driving the Olds east up Superior, through
some of the uglier parts of the East Side. The night
turned a blind eye to me, the streets snowbound and
empty, the storefronts shuttered in metal or plywood.
Ragged men, young ones and old ones, hovered at cor-
ners, wrapped in their own secrets.

I felt a need to prove something to myself, before I
delved any deeper into something that could just as
well be a delusion. I needed some physical proof, some
tangible stigmata ....

I pulled the Olds over at the corner of E. 55th. At the
moment, the only animate things in sight were a few

152 S.A. Swiniarski

snowflakes dancing in the wind. I stepped out of the
car and gathered my coat about myself.

It was closing on eleven, and it felt as if I stood in a
world abandoned. In the far distance, I heard a siren.
Other than that, the only noise was from the streetlights
rocking in the wind.

I crouched and examined the sidewalk. It was a mass
of gray slush, but it wasn't too hard to find what I was
looking for. The neck of an abandoned beer bottle
stuck up from a mound of grime-spotted snow. I with-
drew it and upended it, loosing its unfrozen liquid to
splatter the slush at my feet.

Stigmata, I thought. If I had truly died, if somehow
some supernatural darkness had claimed my soul, my
body should not be as it was. It would not act as a
living body would. My breathing, my eating, both
showed some physical transformation, if they weren't
symptoms of some derangement.

I stepped to a storefront, and set down the bottle to
roll up the sleeve of my left arm. I made a fist and held
out my arm, about half of my forearm exposed.

"Going through with this is not going to argue for
my sanity."

I paused a bit after saying that. However, at this
point, after all I'd been through, that was no reason not
to. The only reason not to was the fear that my hypoth-
esis was wrong, and I was delusional.

I knelt down and grabbed the neck of the bottle with
my right hand, while I clenched my left. On my
exposed forearm, the veins came into relief under too-
pale skin.

I shattered the body of the bottle against the metal
cage imprisoning the storefront- Before I could recon-
sider, 1 drew the jagged end of the glass in a powerful
slash across my forearm. I felt its bite as it tore skin. I
felt the sour stab of the alcohol contaminating the
glass.

RAVEN               153

The flesh parted across my wrist, the wound deep
enough to sever the veins and slash the tendons. My
fist shook and opened and I felt as if a brand had been
applied to my wrist.

I saw the lips of the wound, ragged and black, before
blood oozed to fill the wound. For a moment I felt an
exquisite agony, as if the skin had been torn from the
wounded area—

And suddenly the pain was no longer there.

My too-black blood no longer seeped from the
wound. The blood sat mute, demarking the line where
the insult had occurred, little more than would have
been there had I suffered a scratch from an angry
kitten.

I dropped the neck of the bottle and wiped the blood
from my wrist. Beneath it, the skin was whole. No scar,
no sign of injury, nothing but the blood on the fingers
of my right hand. I no longer had any doubts that
something had changed me.

I stumbled back to the Olds, my mind consumed
with thoughts of the undead. '•

I couldn't decide when I had first suspected Childe
of vampirism. There was a good chance—I was begin-
ning to think—that I might have started suspecting him
and his cult before I had lost my memory. I couldn't be
sure of that, because those last days were still one of
many black holes in my memory.

But I had seen a blood-drenched ritual, and I had
made tapes of it. Damn Sebastian and his people for
swiping them.

It was looking more and more as if I had been the
one to place the Eucharist upon my own threshold.
There seemed to be a peculiar irony to that, since if I
was now a member of the undead, the Host seemed sin-
gularly ineffective.

I hoped it had at least helped me sleep nights.

154

S.A. Swiniarski

Had I had discovered something? The true nature
of Childe's cult? Its location? Childe's true identity?
Had my investigation unearthed something that had
prompted them to violence that, according to the ab-
sence of police records, was uncharacteristic?

I still couldn't pin down a motive.

Maybe it's something about their nature that's
making me miss something . . :.

Undead. Vampire. Ghoul. Zombie. A thing that sur-
vives its own demise, to feed on human flesh and
blood. A monster, pure and simple.

Unfortunately, pure and simple monsters didn't
accede to logical examination. Pure and simple mon-
sters don't need motivations to act. And if my experi-
ence showed anything, if such monsters existed, they
were neither pure nor simple.

As far as I could tell, supernatural manifestations or
not, the worst blood-drinking fiend still started human,
and that meant that I still dealt with human nature. That
meant that Childe, and his followers, were still doing
things for reasons and were acting in expectation of

some result.

The obvious interpretation was that somehow my
investigation was getting too close to Childe, and his
followers were reacting violently to protect him.

Because that conclusion was obvious, I distrusted it.
I also distrusted it, because if shielding Childe were the
goal—if that was why they had killed Kate, and why
they'd stolen those records from Sam—their effect was
exactly opposite what they intended. If anything, they
were calling attention to themselves.

As I pulled into Cleveland Heights, I had one more
unanswered question to ponder.

Until Cecilia disappeared, Childe had never excited
interest from anyone but Chief Inspector Cross at Scot-
land Yard. Presumably, Childe had been seducing vul-

RAVEN               J55

nerable teenagers into his circle for decades. Until
now, he had never taken anyone that someone missed.

I don't know exactly what I expected from the
address Gabriel gave me. It was in Cleveland Heights,
which I generally thought of as middle suburbia. How-
ever, I knew that I wasn't headed to a typical middle
suburban household. Gabriel lived on a street nestled
behind Euclid Heights Boulevard and overlooking Uni-
versity Circle.

When I saw the house, I knew it had been there when
streetcars rode up and down the hill behind me. This
had been here when most of Cleveland Heights had
been a golf course.

The house was a massive structure, the front a forest
of Doric columns two stories tall, giving the facade the
appearance of two Grecian temples set side by side—
the house's entrance set between them. The entrance,
the windows, almost everything else about the house
was dwarfed by the columns. „

Like Gabriel's dress, the house was white, and its
nineteenth-century appearance wouldn't have been out
of place on a plantation. At 11:55 I got out of the Olds
and walked up an immaculately shoveled walkway, to
the front door of the house.

When I reached the door, it opened for me. The
action gave me pause for a moment, and I stopped
before I reached the threshold. A figure stood in the
doorway, but not one I expected. Gabriel wouldn't
have surprised me, nor would've a butler or other ser-
vant. Instead, I was greeted by a tall, dark woman
dressed in a purple gown that looked as if it could have
been worn in the latter half of the previous century.

She regarded me a moment, and said, "You are
expected."

I stepped through the threshold, still suspecting that

156 S.A. Swiniarski

I had somehow mistaken the address. "I'm here to meet
with Gabriel," I said.

She shut the door behind me. "I know. Come with

me."

The woman was a striking example of exotic beauty,
pale as marble and as finely carved as any Grecian
Aphrodite—but it was a cold beauty, withdrawn and
wary. If anything was out of proportion in the other-
wise perfect face, it was her eyes. Even in their half-
closed scrutiny of me, her eyes were of startling size,
dominating her features. When she turned to lead me, it
was her eyes I remembered.

She took me through the house. Despite the high
ceilings, the broad corridors, and the lights shining
everywhere, the overwhelming impression was one of
gloom. There was something oppressive about the
decor, and about the placement of light. The disturbing
part of it was the elusiveness of the mood the house
evoked. I couldn't find a source for the mood that per-
vaded the house in any particular part. It seemed to be
part of the gestalt.

My hostess didn't say a word.

"Is this Mr. Gabriel's residence?" I asked to break
the silence.

"Just Gabriel," she said.

"Okay. Is this his house?"

"While he is here, it is here he resides." She looked
back over her shoulder, and I noticed a small turn at the
comer of her upper lip, as if she found my confusion
amusing. "This house belongs to Gabriel's circle. This
is where he stays when he is in town."

I noted that for future reference. It explained the
identityless business card, as well as the voice-mail
system. "Circle," was also an interesting word, i.t
implied some sort of societal unit.

"Are you part of Gabriel's circle?"

She laughed. The laugh matched her appearance,

RAVEN                 757

lovely and cruel. "So impertinent." She stopped to turn
and brush my face with her hand. She touched me with
a heat that didn't quite reach her skin. "So," her eyes
stared into mine as she appeared to search for a word.
Her eyes drank me in, and it felt as though she pulled
something out of me as she stared. "Raw. Yes, so
raw you are. So unschooled. Perhaps you need a
teacher... ."

She drew me toward her, and I felt such a hot rage of
desire that it numbed out every other sensation. Every-
thing but those too-large eyes, so violet that they were
almost black. She bent and briefly touched her lips
to mine.

"Please," I said. Somehow I managed to keep my
voice steady.

She released me, a ghost of a smile on her face.

"I'm here to see Gabriel."

"Of course you are." She turned with no explanation
or apology, and resumed walking down the hall. "To
answer your impertinent question. Of course I am of
Gabriel's circle. My chosen hame is Rowena, should
you care to remember it."

I was still recovering from that near-kiss. I could
still feel her lips, as if someone were holding a candle
too close to my face. I also felt it in places that I didn't
know vampires were supposed to feel anything.

"Why was it an impertinent question?"

"Why is it impertinent for a peasant to interrogate
his prince?" She stopped before a large oaken door and
knocked. Before she left me she said, "But then you
aren't quite a thrall, are you? Pity."

From beyond the door I heard a Southern voice say,
"Come on in, Mr. Tyier. Come on in."

I pushed open the door and entered Gabriel's office.
I stood for a moment in the threshold. If the rest of the
house was designed to have an effect on the mood, that
effect was all focused in this one odd-shaped room.

158

S.A. Swinwrski

The room was a huge pentagon, the door at one
vertex. The entire wall opposite the door was a vast
window. Through the window, the city lights were fil-
tered through gnarled trees as old as the house itself. The
other walls were of golden wallpaper that fit some garish
nineteenth-century motif, embossed so that the shadows
formed shifting geometric patterns that changed
depending on where I stood relative to the light.

To the left of the great window, an Egyptian sar-
cophagus stood against the wall, surrounded by a box
of glass. On the other wall hung a full-size reproduc-
tion of the center panel of Hieronymous Bosch's The
Garden of Earthly Delights.

My addled memory gave me the name and the artist
without telling me where I had learned of him.

"Come in, my friend. Have a seat." Gabriel stood
behind a desk of black wood. And motioned me toward
a waiting chair.

I sat down, looking at Gabriel. He had a look of wild
authority about him, with his cane, his lined face, and
his long white hair. Authority and passion that made
his gray-blue eyes seem less the color of ice than the
color of a gas-jet.

He sat, his long hands enveloping his cane. "Again, I
offer my apologies, sir."

I clutched my left hand. "I am still trying to under-
stand what is going on here. No offense, but I don't
know who the hell you are or what you have to do with
what's happened to me."

"We are here to illuminate each other's ignorance."
He leaned forward. "We shall have a fair exchange,
question for question. I shall give you the first two as
compensation for our prior misunderstanding."

Misunderstanding? This person, who looked to be
seventy, had thrown me through the air fifteen feet—
one-handed. That had to be one pretty big misunder-
standing.

RAVEN                159

"Let's start there, then," I said. "Exactly what was
your misunderstanding? You were threatening me one
minute, and the next— What brought on the sudden
change of heart?"

"A mistake about your status, Mr. Tyier. I am not
infallible. I knew that you were mortal when I first
began the search for Childe, and I knew, when I saw
you last, that the thirst had claimed you. The thirst
could not have been upon you for more than a few
days. The possibility that you could have been master-
less never occurred to me until I tasted the strength of
your blood. You do not have the blood of a thrall,
which is what I treated you as."

1 didn't feel as if I understood things any better. I
shook my head. "You'd better start describing the
society I've stepped into, because I don't know any-
thing about masters or thralls, other than what the
words usually mean."

"Now that is a broad question, but I did give you
two." He paused in thought for a moment.

"We keep a Covenant, sir. That is the first law we
hold to. Without the Covenant, our race would swiftly
die- There are three things the Covenant holds us to.
First, no one who holds to the Covenant may slay
another who holds to it. Second, no one who holds to
the Covenant may act so as to reveal those of the
blood, or allow the revelation of those of the blood.
Third, a master is responsible for the actions of all of
his blood. Any of the blood who don't hold to the
Covenant, even those who are not part of it, forfeit
their existence."

I nodded. It made a certain amount of sense, too
much sense. It reminded me of the code of a Mafia
family: don't kill family, keep your mouth shut about
family business, keep your own house in order.

"Our society is larger than the Covenant, but I
think of the Covenant as central to it. Within my

JffO                 SA. Swiniarski

circle, my duty is to enforce the Covenant—" He
looked at me and shook his head. "I suppose I need to
explain that as well." He raised a hand and began
tracing circles on the desk in front of him. "We are a
race of hierarchies . . . ."

14

It seemed that we spent hours in that room. Gabriel
spoke of hierarchies, and explained them at length, and
I saw the master-thrall relationship mirroring itself
throughout the whole society Gabriel described.

A thrall was the lowest someone could be within the
society, little more than the animate property of his
master. In terms of relationships, a thrall was treated
almost as if he were an indivisible part of his master.

The thrall's master was usually the vampire
responsible for creating him. According to Gabriel,
almost all vampires began as1 humans chosen by a
vampire in search of material tor a thrall. Those
choices were consciously made; no thrall was ever
created by accident.

A thrall remained bonded—physically and psychi-
cally enslaved—until his master chose to free him, or
until the master was destroyed. From what Gabriel
said, I wondered if it was an unusual occurrence for a
thrall to end up killing his master. Even if the enslave-
ment was as much mental as physical, I doubted that it
could be maintained permanently, or vampire society
would stagnate. If there weren't an implicit threat of
eventual rebellion, there would be no incentive for any
master to ever release a thrall and create a new one.

Though the Covenant forbade masters from slaying
one another, a thrall operated under his master's
responsibility. If a thra!! killed his master, it was the

162

S.A. Swinwsld

master that was responsible—essentially suicide. I
noticed that Gabriel said nothing about any of that. It
was probably a touchy subject.

What he talked about, at length, was the web of asso-
ciations among those of "free blood," as he called it.
Just as with any culture, there was a definite pecking
order, high to low. The circles that Rowena mentioned
were levels of power, or—more accurately—associa-
tions of vampires who had roughly the same status- It
seemed that individuals could gain status on their own,
or the circle as a whole could rise and fall, a combina-
tion of a political party and a noble house.

Gabriel explained the relationship between higher
and lower, and I began understanding why Rowena
would consider my question about her circle imperti-
nent. Vampire society seemed divorced from the mate-
rial world. The more so the closer to the center you
came. In such a society, information was a valued com-
modity. Information about relationships within the
community, especially-
In a way, Gabriel was telling me how grave his mis-
take was in the way he had first shaken me down, and
at the same time telling me how well he was making up
for that mistake.

After information, what this society valued was reci-
procity—in all its forms. A favor granted meant a favor
returned. A wound inflicted meant a wound repaid. It
went beyond that, into areas that were hard to under-
stand in one sitting. Favors were exchanged like gifts,
but status and power dictated who could initiate such
an exchange. Offering something to someone of a level
much higher than my own could be seen as a bitter
insult, while asking anything of that person could dis-
advantage me, incurring a social debt that I'd be
obliged to repay.

RAVEN

163

After he was done with his lengthy description, I
was taken by one question that he had not answered.
"Where do I fit in this? I've been dropped in here
without a script."

Gabriel held up a hand. "This is your third question,
sir. You must give me leave to ask you one of my own."

I understood what he was doing now. By allowing
me those first two questions, he had expunged a debt
between us, a debt that he'd incurred by his "misunder-
standing." Now we were in a game of reciprocal ques-
tions. I nodded to him, "Fair's fair."

"Who was it that granted you the thirst? Someone
must have taken your mortal life, or have fed upon you
before your mortal life was taken."

His gaze held me, and I felt the distinct fear of disap-
pointing someone more powerful than I was. "I don't
know."

"You don't know?"

"If I do know, it's a memory that's inaccessible to
me at the moment."

Gabriel looked at me, and I had the uneasy feeling
that those blue-gray eyes could see if I lied. "It is an
answer of sorts," he said. "My own answer, to your
question: You do not 'fit' into our society. You have
not pledged yourself to the Covenant. You have taken
no name. You are a rogue as outside us as is the human
from which you sprang. You are of the blood, which
means I must respect you. But you have no status, high
or low. I treat you as a peer because I disadvantaged
myself to you, but others will treat you as is their
fancy."                                    „ '

That disturbed me. It meant I was at a considerable
disadvantage in dealing with others of my kind.

"My kind," I whispered, surprised at the form my
thoughts had taken.

"Pardon me, sir?"

164

S.A. Swiniarski

"No, nothing. This has all been a little much for me. ^

I had a life—"

Gabriel shook his head. "You have a life, Mr. Tyier.
Don't mistake what has happened for death; those who
do taste the true death before long."' He leaned-back.
"But that was not a question."

"No, it wasn't." I sat up a little straighter in my
chair. "How could I fit into this society?"

"You need to accept the Covenant and choose your
Name before us- However, you need one of us to accept
you, and such a boon will not be granted lightly or
freely. Some measure of responsibility shall attach—
not absolute, your sponsor did not create you—but
enough that your actions will reflect well or ill upon the
one granting you this. Something in return will be
asked, and only someone great in his own position
would not demand some indenture."

"Someone has to open the door and take responsi-
bility for letting me in."

Gabriel nodded.

"Your turn."

"I presume you've seen Childe's thralls at one point.
Describe the last time you saw any of them."

"I can't be certain who his thralls are, but if they are
the teenagers he's supposed to be collecting, the last
time I dealt with any of them was yesterday. They
rammed a van into a car I was in ... ."

The question game went on for hours. I answered
Gabriel's questions truthfully, not because I trusted
him—I didn't—but because he never asked anything
that was worth it to risk a lie. The only personal ques-
tions he asked me were about me becoming a vampire,
the sequence of events immediately afterward, .and

about Tony.

Everything else was about Childe, directly or indi-
rectly.

RAVEN                  165

I learned as much from Gabriel's questions as I did
from my own. It was clear that he hunted Childe for
some violation of the Covenant. Specifically, Childe
bore the responsibility for his thralls' violations. His
thralls—apparently the people identified with Childe's
cult—had broken the second law of the Covenant,
"revealing those of the blood." I had the uncomfortable
feeling that I was the one, through my investigation, to
whom things were revealed.

Listening to Gabriel, I had the sense that he had
some-personal stake in finding Childe, beyond the fact
that Childe seemed to have violated the Covenant.
He seemed to view Childe with the same distaste that
the neo-pagans did, and I could not figure out why he
would feel that way. However, Gabriel's attitude
toward Childe raised my suspicions.

I felt Gabriel was too ready to convict Childe, espe-
cially now that I knew the nature of the Covenant. The
Covenant now made it even harder for me to fathom
what Childe's people—his thralls—were doing. I
couldn't account for it even as-some sort of mass rebel-
lion, a slave revolt. That wouldn't'explain the outward-
directed violence. It didn't explain the attention drawn in
Childe's name. A thrall rebellion would have at its focus
the master.

I wondered what Gabriel gained by dealing with
those who violated the Covenant. What did he gain in
status and power? I wondered if his gain was roughly
proportional to the level of the person he brought
down. I didn't question Gabriel about these points. I
didn't want to allow him into the routes my own mind
was taking.

My questions were more basic to my immediate sur-
vival. I kept asking questions about vampirism in gen-
eral. I didn't want Gabriel to think of me as a fellow
investigator. The more he saw me as a neophyte, the
safer I thought I was.

166 S.A. Swiniarski

So I asked if I had to kill.

Gabriel said it wasn't necessary. Life was the impor-
tant thing, not death. He explained that I had been in
such a diminished state when I had taken Tony that I
had no choice but to take all he had to give.

How much blood?

The answer depended on too many things, from
innate physical strength to the level of exertion.

Garlic, crosses, and holy water?

He gave me an amused smile and a comment about
superstition. "Belief is all you have to fear," he said.
"Yours and your adversary's."

Stakes, decapitation, and fire?

Such things would be anathema to any being.

The sun?

Gabriel's expression turned grave as he said, "The
light of the sun is insidious. A more spiritual person
would say it drives the soul from the flesh where it is
bound. From my point of view, it is simple death.
Exposed to that light for any length, and you shall
become a corpse."

"Speaking of that light," I said, "there are things I
must do before dawn."

He nodded at me. "I appreciate all your answers, Mr.
Tyier. Your information may yet help me find him, or
at least make the case that he must be found." He stood
and extended his hand.

I stood and clasped his hand. I didn't know what to
make of him now. His comment came uncomfortably
close to what Sam had said about getting a warrant. I
didn't trust Gabriel, or his motives.

"I apologize for the gaps in my memory," 1 said,
hoping that I had at least gotten as much out of him as
he had out of me.

"As I said, what you do know may yet help me." He
smiled at me, a smile that managed to condense all the

RAVEN                   167

darkness in this house into a single facial expression.
"I'm sure you can find your way out."

When I drove away from the house, it was nearly
three in the morning. When I arrived at the Lakewood
address of Manuei Deite, a.k.a. Childe, it was closer to
four. It wasn't that it took an hour to drive from Cleve-
land Heights to Lakewood. I just needed the time to
digest what I had learned—and what I thought I'd
learned—when I talked to Gabriel.

Childe had a Edgewater Drive address, and at first
I thought that he lived in one of the ranks of ice-
tray apartment complexes that claimed the view of the
water. However, one look at the address told me that he
resided on the other side of Edgewater. The apartment
buildings on that side were stone and brick as opposed
to concrete, and a few decades ago, these would have
had the view of the water—

Now they just had the view of apartments that were
more expensive, newer, and uglier.

The building had a parking tot in back. I pulled the
Olds up over a hump of snow' and looked up at
Childe's building. It would have been at home over-
looking the Rhine. Most of the buildings on this side of
Edgewater would. Childe's building was a Tudor study
in stone detailing and leaded glass.

His apartment number was 1000. Probably a place of
prominence, tenth floor, facing the front. I left the Olds
and walked around the building. When I rounded the
front of the building, I saw what had to be Childe's
apartment. One corner of the building was rounded,
almost like a castle turret. On the top floor, the entire
outer circumference of that stone curve was fitted with
a huge leaded glass window. The window had to be ten
feet wide and half again as high. It was hard to tell,
since the room beyond was dark, but I had the impres-
sion that the inside was hung with heavy drapes.

168 S.A. Swiniarski

Now ail I had to do was get in.

I continued to circle the apartment building, looking
for an entry point. The usual entrances were secure- I
could have tried to have someone buzz me in, but I
didn't want to announce my presence like that.

When I completed my circuit, I saw my way in.

Above the rear door, overlooking the parking lot,
windows looked in on a rear stairwell. The door itself
sat within a Gothic arch topped with an elaborate stone
shield. I looked around, to assure myself that I was
unobserved; then I ran up and jumped at the door. I
grabbed hold of the top of the arch, around the pro-
jecting shield.

Levering myself up to the window was easier than I
expected. I thought of the litany of aches and pains this
should have ignited, and now that I was thinking of
them, I noticed the lack. I lived in a forty-five-year-old
body, but I don't think I could have pulled myself up
so easily when I was eighteen.

I remembered jumping out a second-floor window.
My body seemed capable of more than healing a
slashed wrist.

I stood on a small stone prominence, looking in on
the stairwell. The window I faced was locked, but I
saw no sign of any alarm system. All that held it shut
was a small tab of metal, screwed into the wood of the
frame. My first thought was to break the glass, reach
in, and unlock the window, but I reconsidered.

If I pulled myself up here so easily, how easily could
I force the window?

I grabbed the bottom of the upper frame and started
tugging it down. It tried to move, and through the glass
I saw the metal of the lock levering upward in
response. I saw that it had been painted shut. paint
flaked from the lock.

Then, abruptly, it gave, and the top half of the
window slammed down in the sash. A small twisted

RAVEN              169

piece of metal sailed into the stairwell, clattering down
the stairs. I stood there for a moment, waiting for
someone to react to the noise- No one did.

I climbed though the top of the window, closing it as
firmly as I could behind me.

At Childe's door, I wished for some lock picks, or
at least a credit card. I was reduced to drawing my
gun, looking both ways down the hallway, and kicking
it open.

The door blew in after I slammed my foot next to the
inner edge of the doorknob. The room beyond was
dark. I covered it with the Eagle as the door hit the
wall. Even before my eyes adjusted, I knew the apart-
ment was empty. I could feel it.

I stepped in, still covering the room with my Eagle.
Feelings aside, I wasn't going to let my guard down
until I saw the place was empty.

I did a quick sweep of all the rooms. All were dark,
all were unoccupied. Then I bolstered the gun.

I went back to the front and" closed the door to the
apartment to ward off the curious.'By now I could see
fairly well, even in the near-complete darkness. Well
enough to read titles on the bookshelf across from the
grand, draped window. Another of the fringe benefits
of vampirism.

I started searching Childe's rooms at the bookshelf.
The titles weren't helpful except in confirming Childe's
interest in the occult. Many of the books were old, and
the majority weren't in English. I noted titles such as
Directorium Inquisitorum, Ordinall ofAlchimy, Heaven
and Hell, De Quinta Essentia Philosophorum, and her
Subterraneum. I noted authors from John Dee and
Alister Crowley to Thomas Aquinas.

The remainder of the living room, dominated by the
great curtained window, was less remarkable. Childe
had a predilection for antiques, and I had th& feeling

170 S.A. Swiniarski

that most of his furniture, as his books, must have trav-
eled here from England.

What was striking was what was not here. Childe
didn't own a television, or a stereo. The only sign that
he acknowledged the century he lived in was the pres-
ence of electric lights, and a telephone that occupied a
table to itself in one corner of the living room.

I examined the phone and found an answering
machine. The machine held half a dozen messages.

The first message was a gravelly voice that sounded
slightly familiar, though I couldn't place it. "I hear you
look for a woman of certain qualities. There will be
one at the ritual tonight, I've told her to look for you."
There was a computerized date-time stamp on the mes-
sages; this one had been left at 6:15 p.m. on Sunday,
January twenty-sixth.

The next message had been left over a week later,
after I had already begun my search for Cecilia. The
voice was unquestionably Gabriel, requesting a meeting.

The next two messages were also from Gabriel, no
longer requesting. The last of Gabriel's messages was a
virtual demand for Childe to explain himself. The dates
of the calls were portentous. One corresponded to
Kate's death. The next corresponded to my own disap-
pearance.

The last two were from Sam, leaving a name and
number. I noticed that he didn't identify himself as a
policeman, and that he left the number of his pager.

I worked through an empty and unused kitchen and a
dining room, finding little of Childe left behind. It was
as if no one had ever really lived here. The furniture
was all in place, but most of the drawers I opened were
empty. Nowhere did I find any papers, bank records,
checkbook, opened mail, phone bill, anything.

The only sign that this was anything more than a
mail drop was in the bedroom. The room was huge, and
central to it was a canopied bed, which was curtained

RAVEN               171

with heavy black velvet. The curtains had been drawn
aside, revealing that the bed held no mattress, no bed-
ding. The bed frame supported a flat wood panel.

Even though the windows were curtained, I noticed
immediately that this room was darker than the others.
Dark enough to give my now-exceptional night vision
difficulty. It was as dark down here as it had been in
the sewer.

When I pulled the curtains on the window aside, I
saw why. The glass had been painted so that no light
could leak into this room. I backed up to the door, and
checked around it. There was a curtain rod mounted
just above the door frame, and more heavy curtains
hung to the side, ready to be drawn across a closed
door—a door that would be held shut by a pair of
heavy dead bolts that could not be unlocked from the
other side.

Childe was serious about not having his rest dis-
turbed.

However, I had the feeling that there were a number
of other places in the city where^Childe slept. This one,
I felt, was here for the people who were looking for
Childe, and the outfitting of the bedroom was sec-
ondary, in case Childe needed a dark place to sleep.

It was frustrating, but not unexpected. I knew that
there'd be little to find before I'd come here. Childe
had been doing what he'd been doing for decades at
least. There was no way he could go so long without
learning how to cover his tracks.

No papers, no mail ....

Now there was a thought. If Childe had truly disap-
peared with Cecilia, his mail here would have been
accumulating for three weeks with no one to pick it up.
Even if this was only a front, at the very least, Manuel
Deite had to pay a phone bill.

No matter how many places Childe might have,
Manuet Deite only had one address in this town.

172

S.A. Swiniarski

I slipped out of the apartment and checked the time.
I'd been quick, it was only four-thirty. I had some time
before I had to worry about the sun.

I descended by the rear stairwell, where I had
entered the building. It may have been because I
had left Chitde's apartment, or because I'd found
nothing there, but I let my guard down for a moment
when I reached the first floor landing. 1 began opening
the door before looking down the hall. I saw my mis-
take immediately, but it was too late.

The hall shot the length of the building, from this
stairwell across to the front lobby. The mailboxes were
set in an alcove about midway down the hatl. In front
of the boxes stood a beefy man with slate-gray hair,
who was busily jimmying one of them open. A younger
man stood next to him, watching.

I am no believer in coincidence, and I could pretty
much guess which mailbox he was opening.

The younger one saw me, shouted something, and
they both started running toward me. I had a split-
second to decide if I was running up the stairs or down.
I ran up the stairs, hoping that at least one of them
would head for the obvious exit. As I rounded the
landing where I had broken in. I heard one of them
yell, "Police! Freeze!"

15

Time slowed. The thought that I ran from the police
might have made me hesitate. But it was too early to be
Sam. I never got the chance to stop.

One of them said, slowly and very deliberately,
"He's going for a gun."

I heard a gun go off. A bullet struck me, a twenty-
pound sledge in the side of my chest. I fell into the
window next to me. It shattered as my shoulder
smashed against the frame.

"Shit!" One of the cops said, a different voice than
the one who said I had gone for a gyn.

Another sledgehammer slammed into my shoulder,
and the windowframe collapsed around me. The dry
wood gave way under my weight, and I felt the bite of
winter air as my momentum carried me sidewise and
my feet slipped out from under me.

The cop's gun barked a third time, the bullet ham-
mering my gut. I fell across the sill of the window,
tumbling forward. There was little I could do to stop
my fall.

I pitched out the window before I felt the throb of
the first gunshot. Everything felt distant, as if I were
watching it all from a remove. I tumbled through space
for an endless instant, my body roiling so I faced
the sky.

My wounded shoulder plowed into the ground first,

174 S.A. Swiniarski

grinding into a mixture of snow and glass. I collapsed
into a heap below the window, immobile.

I felt so cold.

I wasn't breathing, and I couldn't feel my own pulse.
I could feel the cold, and I could feel the empty holes
where bullets had ripped chunks from my body. Oddly,
I felt little pain, just an odd pressure in my chest, my
stomach, and my shoulder. The wounds were like pits,
and I felt as if I was draining myself down into them.

I could almost feel my body shriveling, and my torso
tightening in response.

I knew when they came out the rear door, into the
parking lot. Not because I could see them, I felt as if I
couldn't turn my head, but because I felt a sense of dis-
tant warmth. The police radiated an inner warmth that
tightened my gut.

"You shot him!" one of them said, the cop who had
spouted the profanity. I suspected it was the younger
man, though I didn't see him. My eyes were focused on
the sky and the wall of the apartment building in front
of me. Above me, the window gaped like an open
wound.

"Damn straight I shot him."

"Is he dead?"

A face leaned over me, its heat and emotion rippling
toward me through the wind-torn air. I could feel pans
of my body, inside me, moving in response to the
warmth.

The gray-haired cop was ugly and rumpled, and
looked at me with an expression of disgust. He still had
his gun out as he knelt next to me. I could hear—I
could feel—the younger one pacing behind me. The
old cop placed his fingers on my neck and the feeling
of pulsing heat was as intense as an orgasm.

"I put three bullets into him. He'd better be dead."

The fingers stayed on my neck for a long time, and
my body drew the heat—and something else?—from

RAVEN                  775

them. "Fuck," the old cop said, yanking away his fin-
gers. "He's cold already."

With the touch I felt a dreamlike realization that 1
could move if I tried. My anger was building, as if I
had to collect the shattered pieces of the emotion and
piece it into some coherent whole. The shock was
wearing off. This cop had tried to kill me. Hell, this
SOB tried to murder me. He taken me down without a
single hesitation, even down to the lie about me going
for a gun.

"This ain't good," the young cop was saying to my
right.

"Look, kid, this was a clean shoot. You ever say dif-
ferent, you'll be in shit you don't even know exists."
The old cop transferred his revolver to his left hand
and felt around my chest until he found my holster.
"Bastard doesn't even bleed—" the cop mumbled.

"What?"

"I said, 'Look at this fucking cannon.' " The old cop
held up my Desert Eagle with his right hand. Its barrel
glinted in the streetlight as he clicked the safety off.

"Just plant the gun so we can call this in," the young
cop said in a disgusted tone of voice.

"I ain't planting it. It's Tyier's gun." I noticed the old
cop was wearing surgical gioves. He began pressing the
Eagle in my right palm.

I could see what this was now. These were Sebas-
tian's men. No, that was kind. These were bent cops on
Sebastian's payroll. This guy had probably shot me
because there was a hefty sum for keeping me out of
police custody.

Thinking that allowed the anger to break my paral-
ysis. I screamed. It was an inarticulate, primal scream
that sounded as if it were torn from the throat of some
wounded animal. My hand clutched the Eagle.

The sound of the gunshot was like an explosion
going off in my hand. The old cop cursed, and the

176 S.A. Swiniarski

young one screamed. I whipped my head to the side to
see the young cop collapsing. The wild shot had caught
him in the upper right thigh, and the fifty-caliber bullet
had shattered his leg.

"Shit!" The old cop's right hand was missing the
last three fingers. He was yanking his right hand in
toward his body and leveling the revolver at me with
his left. Steaming blood stained the snow. Its scent was
a dagger into my forebrain-

Sometning was happening to me.

I got up, and everything I saw seemed to have been
carved out with a razor. Blood was glowing fire,
turning back at the edges where it soaked into the
shimmering violet snow. The old cop scrambled away
from me, pointing the gun. His skin glowed, heat and
fear and anger rippled off of him, distorting my view.

I could feel my body changing, my bones shifting as
I stood. My skin emitted nothing, no heat, no emotion.
If anything, it was a gaping lack that surrounded me, a
desperate hunger.

I dropped the Eagle.

The cop's gun fired, licking a tongue of flame at my
abdomen. I felt the bullet as a blow to my midsection,
but there was no blood. I could feel the slug pass
through my body, tearing its way through, but that was
little compared to the tearing my body was doing to
itself. I felt muscles ripping and knotting back
together; my skin stretched, tightened, gave way, and
then regrew; the bones of my face moved of their own
accord.

I should have been screaming in pain.

The cop put two more slugs through me before I
reached him. I felt a hiccup of fluids as the first bullet
shredded my right lung. And, when I was nearly upon
him, I was blinded by the flash when he put a bullet
through my right cheek. I could feel my jaw cave in

RAVEN              777

with the impact, and I could feel my flesh and bone
shred behind me.

All of this happened, and I was only really aware of
the hunger.

Still blinded by the muzzle flash, 1 grabbed for the
cop- I could sense where he was, his fear—his life—
was like a beacon. I felt my hands, fingers much too
long, grab the sides of the cop's head. I felt the barrel
of the thirty-eight rammed underneath my chin. I heard
the click as a hammer fell on an empty chamber.

My vision cleared as I felt the flesh of my face
reknitting itself into a new pattern. I felt the sharp
curve of new teeth as my jaw rebuilt itself.

The cop looked at me with terrified eyes. "Holy
Mother of God."

Nothing was left of my conscious thought. All I had
was sensation, and the hunger to posses what this man
possessed: heat, blood, life-

1 snapped his head back, hearing a crack in his spine.
Then I buried my teeth in his exposed neck. My rebuilt
jaw easily covered the entire ar^a, and my bite severed
both jugulars. None of the blood was spilled on the
ground.

When I finally gained control of my actions, I was
leaning over the second cop, the young one. He was
curled in a fetal position below me, whimpering,
"Don't kill me ... please, don't kill me."

I stood at the edge of a pool of black slush. The snow
smelled of blood, a scent like molten iron. Most of the
blood came from between the cop's fingers, where he
was trying to hold his shattered thigh together.

There was no question in my mind that I was about
to kill this cop, just as I'd killed his partner. Then, sud-
denly, I was in control again. The need had receded for
the moment. I actually felt warm.

I stood there, paralyzed by what had just happened.

178 S.A. Swiniarski

The events had the feverish intensity of a hallucination,
but even now, as I felt perfectly lucid, I could feel my
body shifting inside.

Bones moved inside me with the persistent pressure
of a dull toothache. I stared at my hands.

My hands were inhuman. Their skin was tough,
leathery, and nearly black. The fingers ended in curving
black nails that were almost talons. As I watched, the
fingers shortened, the skin softened and regained its
color, and the talons withdrew back into my fingers.

I uttered some profanity, but the word came out as a
low slurred whistle because my mouth was rebuilding
itself. I put my hands to my face and it was like
touching a bony waterbed. I felt what could have been
a muzzle retract into my skull.

I turned around to face the other cop.

There was the window, blown open where I had
fallen through it. There was the glass, and the remains
of the windowframe. There was the imprint in the snow
where my body had fallen. An imprint with no blood
inside it- There was my fifty-caliber Desert Eagle,
dropped on the ground.

And there was the dead cop.

He was sprawled in a half-sitting position, his back
to the wall of the apartment building. His right hand
was across his waist, fisted into a ball around the
missing parts of his fingers. His left hand still clutched
the thirty-eight. His face was slack, and as blue as the
snow he sat in.

His neck had been torn open down to the bone.
Muscle, windpipe, everything between me and the ver-
tebrae had been torn out as if mauled by an animal. The
sight should have been gory, but it wasn't. The living
cop, next to me, was much worse with his bleeding leg.
The dead cop, with the exception of a few trails from
his wounded hand, had spilled no blood at all.

RAVEN                   179

My body had stopped changing, and I looked down
at myself.

I saw five bullet holes in my shirt, two showing
powder bums. I felt underneath, and my chest was
intact.

Of course, it's intact, I thought.

"Please don't kill me . . ." the cop behind me whim-
pered again.

I felt sick over everything that had just happened. I
had just killed a cop—a bent cop, but still a cop. The
guy with the wounded leg had watched every minute.
Shadows moved at windows above me, and in the dis-
tance I heard sirens wail.

The man beneath me was the only witness to what
had happened. And by Gabriel's Covenant, I had to kill
him. He had seen what I had done. If I left him to wit-
ness against me, I'd have more than the police after me.

I knelt down and pulled him up to face me. I held the
sides of his head like I had his partner. . . .

He was sputtering and tears of fear and pain ran
down his cheeks. I felt his terror. Whatever I had
become, I couldn't kill him. Not Hke this, and not in
cold blood.

There has to he another way. There had to be,
Gabriel had told me that it wasn't necessary to kill for
blood. How then did any vampire take blood without
revealing his nature?

It was a combination of impulse and memory that
made me shout at the terrified cop, "Look at me!"

The memory was of Bowie's reaction when he
looked into my eyes. Everyone seemed to have a reac-
tion to my uncovered gaze. The impulse was totally
unlike me, possibly inspired by my talk with Gabriel. I
remembered thinking, who is this man—this human—
to defy my will?

He looked at me. and when our eyes met, his gaze
didn't shift or turn away. He didn't even blink. "You

S.A. Swinmrski

180

did not see who shot you," I said to him. bludgeoning
him with the words. "You saw nothing of what hap-
pened. You do not know what happened to your
partner. Tell anyone what has happened here, if you
even remember it yourself, you shall surely die. . . ."

I felt a flash of memory, someone's stony voice
saying, ". . . if you even remember it yourself, you shall
surely die ..." I was gripped by the feeling that this
had happened before.

I had no time to dwell on it. The sirens were closing
on me. The young cop nodded like a zombie, and 1 let
him slide to the ground. I ran back to the building and
grabbed my Desert Eagle and its one spent casing.
Luckily for me, the cop was using a revolver and I
didn't have to go hunting for his brass.

After bolstering the Eagle, I grabbed the collar of the
dead cop and dragged his corpse to the Oldsmobile. I
tossed him in the back seat because I didn't have the
time to wrestle with the trunk.

I drove away, relying on whatever psychic impres-
sion my will had made upon the young policeman.

16

It was almost five in the morning when I drove out of
Lakewood with a corpse in the back seat. I didn't pass
any police cars in my escape. I only stopped once, on a
side street, to steal a manhole cover. I was caught up in
a rush of action which gave me no time to reflect.

The central part of the Cuyahoga River had yet to
freeze, and the cop's bloodless corpse found its home in
a plunge from the Detroit-Superior Bridge. He slipped
under quickly. His legs were bound to the stolen man-
hole cover with the Olds' jumper cables.

When he had slipped beneath the dark waters of his
ultimate dim Thule and I had driven away, my mind
was free to think beyond the next five minutes of my
future.

I began to appreciate what had happened. 1 had
slaughtered one policeman, and shot out of the leg of
another. It had been Tony all over again.

I ran my hand across my face. I was shaking.

"What have I become?" I whispered.

I had no justification for killing the policeman. His
bullets could not harm this thing I was. I had been in no
danger from him, and I had known it when I had risen
from the ground. I couldn't see the circumstances to
rationalize dropping my gun and mauling his neck. It
was all too much like what had happened with Tony. I
had murdered Tony, and I had murdered this cop.

There was one major difference between the cop's

182 S.A. Swiniarski

death and Tony's. With this man I didn't even have the
excuse that I didn't know what I was doing. I knew
what I was, and I had known what I was capable of,
and I did not stop myself.

I felt as if, on some level I had killed both of them,
Tony and the policeman, because their existence had
offended me.

I pulled the Olds to the side of Superior, just past
Public Square, because I had begun driving erratically,
and the last thing I needed was to draw the attention of
any more police. Once the car was parked, I put my
face in my hands feeling that I had lost Kane Tyier
completely.

When I bent over, something small and black
tumbled onto the passenger seat.

It was a thirty-eight slug, or the biggest part of one.
It was flattened and coated with a thin layer of gore.

I picked up the slug. It looked as if it had struck bone
on its way through, a bone that should be broken and
splintered. It was covered in my blood, but the only
holes were in my clothing, not my body .. .

I had left the human universe, physically as well as
morally. I thought of Gabriel's society and wondered
how anyone could live like this, live in that world, and
remain sane.

Perhaps sanity was only a human concept—

"Stop it," I whispered. "We all come from the same
place, all of us." I was still Kane Tyier, a Kane Tyier
who had undergone a physical transformation of some
sort, but I was still the same man.

Thinking that only made the deaths that much worse.

Wind whistled by the car, the sound low and loath-
some. Garbage rustled by the car, scuttling across the
snow in front of the Olds. I thought of the cop slipping
into the black waters of the Cuyahoga and wondered if
he had any family. Was there a widow out there, per-

RAVEN               183

haps a son who was trying to understand where his
father had gone?

As Gail was trying to understand why her mother
had gone?

How could I face my daughter, when I was becoming
what I was hunting? I sat in the car a long time, won-
dering if this life after life was worth what it was eating
out of my soul. I sat trembling as I stared at the sky,
which had lightened from purple to a deep aqua.

According to Gabriel, all I would need to do was
await the transit of the sun, and this would all be over. I
would have no more blood on my hands.. . .

The sky ahead of me, to the east, began to take a yel-
lowish tint to the clouds.

I couldn't do this. My life didn't belong to me. I
couldn't make Gail an orphan, and I couldn't abandon
Cecilia to her fate. If I gave up now, the deaths on my
conscience really would be pointless.

I revved up the Olds and started down Superior.
Now that I'd changed my mind, the coming dawn filled
me with a growing fear. I needad to get inside.

I drove through the shadows provided by the build-
ings downtown, but a furtive glance in the rearview
mirror showed me the first molten light washing the
tops of the skyscrapers downtown. The eastern faces of
the towers were washed in gold, and reflections off the
mirrored glass seared my eyes. The sight burned like a
brand, scattering purple dead-spots across my field of
vision.

I was driving toward the sun.

The Olds swerved as I blinked my eyes clear. Twice-
reflected dawn sunlight—Cleveland dawn sunlight, in
winter—was as, blinding to me as a magnesium flare.

In a matter of minutes, the long shadows of the build-
ings would crawl across the Olds, leaving me bare to
the sun. Worse, something in the ambient light, the light
that reached into the shadows, was hot, numbing, and

184 S.A. Swiniarski

brought with it a crushing fatigue. I felt an urge to pull
to the side of the road and go to sleep.

I turned off of Superior to find a darkened bolt-hole.
I found an underground parking garage that offered all-
day parking for ten bucks. When I pulled into the
driveway, the sunlight had reached the second floor of
the building. I waited by the gate and peeled off a fifty
from the cash I'd liberated from the hotel room.

There was a guy sitting in a booth by the gate, and I
waited for him. And waited. And waited.

When the sunlight reached down to the top of the
garage's entrance, I laid on the horn. The guy in the
booth to my left looked up and gave me a sour look.
He didn't move. I laid on the hom again.

He stepped out of the booth and yelled at me, "We
ain't open till seven-thirty."

Fuck. I looked at my watch. It was fifteen after.

I rolled the window down the Olds and tried to shout
at the guy, but it came out as a wheeze. I panicked for a
moment before I realized that I had to consciously start
breathing again. As I did so, I tempered my anger.
"Come on, I'm only a little early—"

The guy looked peeved, but he stopped yelling,
"Look, you have to wait."

"Only fifteen minutes." The dawn was drawing
across in front of me, a blinding curtain of light
washing across the front of the garage. I could feel my
skin tightening. I wanted to shrink into the shadows the
Olds provided. But I leaned out the window and
flashed the fifty at the guy.

I looked him in the eyes.

The guy squinted as a line of sunlight began crossing
his face, "I don't know, my boss'd can me."

I extended the fifty. "For a few extra minutes? Come
on, open the gate."

We stared at each other as the sunlight crept toward
my hand. I wanted to flinch, but I sensed withdrawing

RAVEN              185

the fifty—or any sudden move—would break whatever
spell I was trying to weave.

"I don't know. . . ." Blinding light toughed the edge
of the fifty. Light so bright that I was surprised that the
bill didn't burst into flame.

It was slow, so damn slow. It seemed an age before
he said, "Okay," and grabbed the fifty.

I snatched my hand back, but as I did, I felt the brush
of sunlight across its back. The touch of direct sunlight
was not as dramatic as I thought it should be. My hand
didn't burst into flame, or crumble into dust.

What happened was frightening because it was so
subtle in comparison. I felt my entire hand flare with
pain, fall asleep, and go numb. It was as if I had
plunged my hand into a vat of boiling Novocain.

As the gate opened, I had to drive with one hand. My
left hand was limp, paralyzed. I drove into the dark-
ened garage as if the gates of hell were behind me.

Whether I was entering or leaving was open to
question.

I found a space in the lowest level of the garage, a
place that had never even seen reflected sunlight. I
maneuvered the Olds into a dark corner, into a space
half-concealed by a concrete pillar. I was as far from
the elevator as I could get.

Once I parked, I looked at my hand. The skin was
white and numb. It could have been an inanimate lump
of meat for all I could do with it. I was still staring at
my hand when fatigue crashed over me.

More memories, older ones, kept me company as I
fell into my not-sleep.

/ don't want to be in this man's office, I resent it.
Haven't I've been through enough? Dad's dead. What
the hell is this guy supposed to do about it?

186                 S.A. Swiniarski

"Hello, Kane," the doctor says. "I'm pleased to
finally meet you."

"I'm glad someone's enjoying this. "

"Your mother thinks you need someone to talk to. "

I sigh. "You mean she wants me to talk to someone.
What if I don't have anything to say?"

"I find that hard to believe," the doctor says. He
glances down at the desk in front of him, where he
keeps his files. "You seemed to have a lot to say to your
classmates—enough to get you suspended."

I shook my head. "That wasn 't me talking."

The doctor makes a note in front of him and asks, "It
wasn't you? Are you saying that you did not step up on
a desk in your physics class and shout poetry? "

"I'm saying that those weren't my words. Mr.
Franklin asked what something meant. / quoted some-
thing that seemed to apply."

The doctor makes another note. "Mr. Franklin felt
you were being disruptive."

"Sometimes the truth is disruptive."

The doctor nodded, but I didn 't make the mistake of
thinking he agreed with me. I was here because no one
seemed to agree with me. Somehow 1 was wrong. We
were all supposed to accept death, and pain, and loss.
Give it some higher meaning, and go on.

"So what was it you quoted to Mr. Franklin that got
you in so much trouble? "

"It's by Edgar Allan Poe. 'The Conqueror Worm.'
It's part of a short story he wrote. "

Another note. "How does it go?"

I sigh. I'm surprised that the doctor doesn't have it
in his files there in front of him. But then, I am here to
perform. Why disappoint him? I stand and recite the
poem from "Ligeia," first stanza to last.

" 'Lo? 'tis a gala night / Within the lonesome latter
years! /An angel throng, bewinged bedight / In veils,
and drowned in tears, / Sit in a theater, to see / A play

RAVEN               187

of hopes and fears, / While the orchestra breathes fit-
fully / The music of the spheres.' "

As I speak, the doctor scribbles, I find that annoying.
He requested this, he should be giving undivided atten-
tion to it. I raise my voice a bit.

" 'Mimes, in the form of God on high, / Mutter and
mumble low, / And hither and thither fly—/ Mere pup-
pets they, who come and go /At bidding of vast formless
things / That shift the scenery to and fro, / Flapping
from out their Condor wings/Invisible Wo!' "

Scribble, scribble. He was worse than Mr. Franklin,
who had stood in the midst of his cosmology to stand
looking at me agape. He was worse than the other stu-
dents, who had laughed at things that weren't funny.

" 'That motley drama—oh, be sure / It shall not be
forgot! / With its Phantom chased for evermore, / By a
crowd that seize it not, / Through a circle that ever
returneth in / To the self-same spot, / And much of
Madness, and more of Sin, /And Horror the soul of the
plot.' "

Damn him. Listen. Stop that infernal scribbling. I
climb onto the chair in front of him, as I had in Mr.
Franklin's class. The doctor is like the others. He just
refuses to see.

'But see, amid the mimic rout /A crawling shape
intrude! /A blood-red thing that writhes from out / The
scenic solitude! / It writhes!—' " I begin shouting, " 'it
writhes!—with mortal pangs / The mimes become its
food, / And seraphs sob as vermin fangs / In human
gore imbued."

I jump upon the doctor's desk to grab his atten-
tion. Finally he looks up from that infernal notepad
of his.

" 'Out—' " / shout. " 'out are the lights—out all! /
And, over each quivering form, / The curtain, a funeral
pall, / Comes down with the rush of a storm, / While the

188                S.A. Swinwrski

angels, all pallid and wan, / Uprising, unveiling, affirm /
That the play is the tragedy, "Man," /And its hero the
Conqueror Worm.' "

The doctor looks up at me and asks, "How did you
feel when your father died?"

"Dad!" she says to me. Her expression shows exas-
peration, as if she doesn't understand.

"Where the hell were you?"

"With friends—come on, it's only one o'clock. "

I'm standing out there, more angry at myself than at
Gail. I'd just gotten home from a bad day, a really bad
day. I look at her, feeling powerless. "I'm sorry, I
overreacted. You weren't here and...."

Gail looks around me and says, " Where's Mom ? "

Now I feel guilty as well. "She's upstairs, we had a
fight."

In her face I can see she understands now. I see her
lake an unfair share of the weight between me and
Kate. "Oh, Dad—it was about me, wasn't it? I'm
sorry, I should have left a note or something. "

"Shh—"

Gail pushes past me, her hands balled into small
fists. "I don't want to give you and Mom something
else to fight about. "

"No, no," I reach out and place a hand on her
shoulder. "It's not about you. It's me."

"I'm sorry, " she says.

"It's not your fault." I say. "It's never been your
fault."

As I hold my crying daughter, I can't help remem-
bering the girl I'd found today—a girl no older than
Gail, who had slowly died on a filthy mattress in a con-
demned hotel. She had died clutching a dirty needle. In
the end, she had lacked the strength to force the needle
through her paper-thin skin.

RAVEN              189

I'd been thinking of Gail ever since I'd told the
parents.

I look up from my daughter, and I see Kate framed in
the stairwell above us. Our eyes meet and f know our
marriage has ended.

17

I wasn't going to put Gail through what that dead child
had put her parents through- I wasn't going to put Gail
through what my father had put me through. I would
see her, and somehow 1 would make some explanation.

I sat up and felt a tug on my left arm.

I looked down.

I'd been slumped against the driver's door allowing
my left arm to slip between the door and the seat. My
left hand was snow white, and its thumb was caught in
the metal under the seat, twisted at an ugly angle. I
stared at my hand for a long time, stared at the white,
waxy skin.

I didn't feel a damn thing. My thumb was bent back
past the wrist, a position that meant a sprain, a disloca-
tion, or even a break, and all I felt was the tension in
the muscles of my arm.

The shock of the sight brought back the memory of
sunlight on my skin.

I used my other hand to free my thumb from its trap.
Touching the skin of my hand was like touching ice. I
leaned back in the seat and rested my hands on the
wheel, comparing them. I couldn't move my left hand
at all; it was only some residual elasticity in the ten-
dons that pulled my thumb back into position.

The skin was dead-looking, slightly puffy and taut.
If I hadn't known how it had happened, I would think

192 S.A. Swiniarski

frostbite- The sight was scary, not just for itself, but
because the injury was stil! there, still affecting me.

Everything else that had happened to me since I had
come out of the ground had healed, everything from
bullet wounds to the slashes on my wrist put there with
a beer bottle. But what the sun had done—that had
lasted through the day.

What was I supposed to do? I couldn't quite go into
a normal emergency room and tell them what was
wrong with me. I doubted anyone at the Cleveland
Clinic had vampirism as a specialty. Once again I was
forced to drive the Olds one-handed. It made me
thankful that it was an automatic.

The sky was still a light azure when I pulled out of
the garage. The streetlights were just coming on. It was
barely quarter after six, and the city was still wrapped
with people. It was Monday afternoon, and the people,
and the traffic, made me feel part of the world for a
while.

It was too easy to become lost in the night. Too easy
to feel alone. I missed the light.

I'd left the downtown area, and was driving past the
Cleveland Clinic. Sam lived in University Circle, that's
where I was heading-1 needed to see Gail, but my hand
was becoming harder to ignore.

The base of my thumb had begun to discolor. It was
only the color of a bruise, but in contrast to the1 blank
whiteness around it. it was as livid as an open wound. I
still felt nothing.

How was I supposed to deal with this? I needed to
find out, before it became any worse. I pulled over and
got out of the car next to a pay phone. I only knew one
source of information who might know how to handle
this. I called the number on Gabriel's card-

1 stood there, holding the receiver with my shoulder.

RAVEN               193

It rang a few times, and then I heard the familiar elec-
tronic voice. "You have reached an automated voice
messaging system. At the sound of the beep, speak
your own name slowly and clearly. If your response is
unclear or unacceptable, you will be disconnected."

In response to the beep, I said, "Kane Tyier."

Up until then it had gone just as before. But in
response to my name, it said, "I am not able to respond
to 'Kane Tyier.1 " It was my voice, complete with
traffic noise in the background. The machine clicked,
and I heard a dial tone.

"No ..." I hung up and tried again. I hoped that I
just hadn't spoken clearly enough for the machine to
recognize me. I got the same response a second time,
and a third.

I slammed the receiver down on the cradle. The bas-
tard had cut me off. Damn Gabriel and his preoccupa-
tion with status. I could see his thinking. In his eyes, it
wasn't proper to for me to initiate a contact with him—
and that was annoying as hell.

I looked at my hand. Annoying? It might be deadly.

Fuck. I wasn't going to let them lose me that easily.
People hung up on me all the time. 1 had something
better. I had an address. That house of Gabriel's held
more than Gabriel, and somewhere there was someone
who would talk to me.

"What about Gail?" I whispered.

I stood there on the curb staring at my hand. Snow
fell, and when the snow touched my left hand it didn't
melt. I felt no pain, no cold. My hand didn't even feel
part of my body anymore.

I told myself that it had happened twelve hours ago,
and the effects hadn't spread beyond my hand. I
doubted spending some time with Gail could make
things worse; the damage was done.

I shouldered the receiver again and fished out

294                 S.A. Swiniarski

another quarter. I called Sam's apartment. The
phone barely rang once when I heard Sam's voice,

"Gail?"

I stood there, frozen by all the possible evils that one
word could mean. Gail wasn't at Sam's like she was
supposed to be. Sam was worried, I heard it in his
voice. That meant...

I didn't even want to consider what that meant.

"Hello?" Sam said.

I had to force myself to breathe so I could get the
words out. "What's happened, Sam?"

"Christ, Kane, why aren't you at the motel?"

"Gail—" My voice sounded strangled. "Where is
she, Sam?" I asked in a hoarse whisper. My breathing
was so shallow that my voice didn't even fog the air.

"She was supposed to drive here with the cop—"

"Fuck 'supposed to!' What in hell did happen?"

"She took her own car, Kane. I'm sorry."

"My God, what kind of protection is that? How
did—Where—"

"She slipped away from her cop. The only word was
a message she left on my voice mail; she's coming to
see you."

"How? She doesn't know where I am—" I stopped.
The phone slipped out of my fingers.

"Kane? Kane?"

"The motel," I whispered. "She's going-to the
motel." Gail knew where I was supposed to be staying.

The receiver swung free as I ran back to the Oldsmo-
bile. She knew about the motel. I needed to get there
before she met anyone else who knew about that motel.

I raced back to the motel. I drove with my bad
hand, pressing the palm to the wheel and steering by
friction. I was making it worse, but I wasn't giving up
any of the time it took to drive one-handed. I sped

RAVEN              195

most of the way there, stowing only when I actually
saw a cop.

My mind was tumbling with ugly emotions, fear,
anger, anticipated grief. I knew that if Gail was
harmed, the person responsible would be torn apart at
my hands. I tried to tell myself that she would be there,
and fine, but Sam's voice ... he knew I wasn't at the
motel, that meant he had been calling. She wasn't there
yet. Or she had been there already and—

The shift lever bent in my hand, and I tried to force
myself to think of driving.

It was ten after seven when I skidded the Olds into
the parking lot of the Woodstar Motel. The Olds threw
a shower of snow across the parked cars as if it were a
two-ton figure skater. The moment the car stopped
moving, I grabbed the keys and dived out into the cold
night air.

I looked at the lot, checking the cars. The Chevette,
my car, was still there, buried up to the fenders. The
Olds blocked it in now, parked cockeyed in the center
of the parking lot.          ••

Also here was Gail's car. I knew it the minute I saw
it- It was an ancient lemon-yellow Volkswagon Rabbit
with an Oberlin College sticker in the rear window.

"Maybe she just got here," I whispered.

I edged up on the Rabbit and placed my right hand
on its hood. The hood was cold, and the snow dusted
the car evenly. I looked back, up the street. I didn't see
Sebastian's men. I looked toward the front of the
motel, at the glass-fronted manager's office, and saw
no one inside.

There was nowhere left except my room.

I felt my heart beat, much too slowly for how I felt. I
fished the motel key out of my pocket one-handed as I
ran up the stairs. When I closed on my room, I slowed.
I could see tights glowing around the shades in the
window.

196

S.A. Swiniarski

I inched toward the door, listening.

The TV was on in there.

Gail? Would she've been able to talk her way in? I
looked down at the doorknob and saw the fresh
scratches of a real amateur jimmying the door open.

When I saw that, I pocketed the motel key and drew
the Eagle.

I took a deep breath and kicked the door open, lev-
eling the gun at the room. The door slammed into the
room, jingling broken hardware.

There was Bowie, on the bed, beer in his hand,
watching the motel's piped-in pornography. He looked
at me and said, "And where the fuck did you go?"

I almost shot him right there. Instead I yeiled at him,
"Where the hell is Gail?"

Bowie looked as innocent as I suppose he was
capable of. "Who?"

"My daughter, you bastard!"

He shrugged and sat up, chugging the beer in a way
that made me feel sick to my stomach. "Why would I
know?"

"Because you're here," I leveled the Eagle at him.
"And if you don't explain what you're doing here, I am
going to decorate the wall with parts of that skinny
torso of yours."

Bowie spread his arms wide and said, "Whoa, whoa,
whoa! Hold the phone, I was supposed to be helping
you, remember? Doctor and all that."
"What are you doing in my room?"
"Looking for you. You ran out on me and Leia.
Where else do I have to look for you, huh?"

"You make a habit of jimmying the doors of people
you're trying to help?"

"Fuck it, Kane." Bowie grimaced at the can, crushed
it, and tossed it out the door, through my legs. "Did I
know what state you were in? You could've been cata-

RAVEN                 797

tonic on the floor for all I knew." He shook his head
and said, "Why don't you come in here and put that
cannon away?"

I looked at him and decided, even if Bowie weren't
completely sincere, he wasn't immediately threatening.
I bolstered the gun and pushed the door shut with
my foot.

The door closed crooked and left in a draft. Luckily,
the latch still caught, even after the violence done to it.
I leaned against it, and looked at Bowie, keeping my
eyes averted from the mirror on the bureau.

Bowie had made himself at home. The remains
of a six-pack littered the floor, and he had moved the
TV away from the bureau so it sat at the foot of
the bed.

"I'm going to ask you again," I said. "Where's my
daughter?"

"I'm telling you," Bowie said. "I. Don't. Know."

"Her car's outside—"

"She never came here, man.. I been up here almost
since you slipped out on me. . . .".

I looked for the phone, it wasn't on the night table
anymore. "And you haven't picked up the phone?"

"They're your messages. I was trying to keep a low
profile."

"Yeah, right. Where is—" The phone began to ring
before I had a chance to ask. The sound was muffled,
and it was hard to tell where it was coming from.

"Under the bed," Bowie said.

"Under the—" I knelt and the phone was there,
wrapped in a pillow.

'Too many calls, man." Bowie explained. "The
noise was distracting."

I grabbed the phone out on the third ring, "Hello."

I was expecting Sam's voice. Instead I heard,
"Dad?"

198 S.A. Swiniarski

"Gail? Christ, baby, where are you? You have no
idea how worried I was.

There was a pause as she took a breath.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Dad, I'm sorry, I think I've screwed things up."

"Whatever it is, I forgive you. You're all right?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Now where are you?"

"Bratenahl."

"Bratenahi? You're in Bratenahl? How did—" I
paused for a while as it sank in. My employer, Mr.
Sebastian, had an estate in Bratenhl. "Oh, no," I whis-
pered. "What does he want?"

"He said that you were just supposed to come down
here. He wants to talk to you real bad."

"If he hurts you—"

"He's been nice, really."

"Nice?" I shouted into the phone. "That bastard's a
goddamned drug-dealer. He kidnapped you!"

There was a long pause.

"Gail? Gail?"

"Look, Dad, I'm sorry. He didn't kidnap me."

"What?"

"They said that they'd give me a chance to see you.
You weren't answering your phone, and you already
disappeared once. And you are working for him, aren't
you?" I could hear the tears in her voice. "I fucked up
again. Dad. I'm sorry."

"Shh. It's all right, I'm coming down there, okay?"

I heard her sniff. "Okay. He wants you to come
alone, with his car."

"I'll see you soon, baby."

"Yeah, Dad. Love you."

"Love you." I waited to hear the click of a discon-
nection. Then I slammed the receiver back on its cradle
hard enough to explode the phone's plastic shell.

"You bastard, Sebastian!" I yelled at the walls.

RAVEN

199

"What's going on?" Bowie asked.

"I'm going to see my daughter," I said, yanking the
broken door open. I left Bowie to his beer cans and his
pornography.

18

The ride gave me time to think, not necessarily a good
thing. Feeiings washed over me in cycles: first anger,
then black depressive guilt, then numbed fear, then
rage again. It was very hard to hold my mind together.
Whatever I thought about, I kept coming back to Gail,
and what I had become.

I kept blaming myself for involving her in this. I had
the sick feeling that somehow my job was responsible.
I was, or I had been, a private investigator hunting
missing children, runaways, parental kidnappings.
How could I do that for a lifring without somehow
dragging my own daughter in? I ha'd seen Gail in every
case I worked; that had been what destroyed my
marriage. - - .

My own obsession blamed itself for her involve-
ment, as if my perpetual worry were a self-fulfilling
prophecy.

God, I had entered this line of work because I
thought it was safer. It was as thankless a job as being
a policeman, especially in the custody cases, but it had
been supposed to be better. The bullet that pierced my
lung made me believe that working on the force was
too reckless for a man with a family. So 1 took a job
that destroyed the family that I was trying to protect.

Sebastian had hired me to find his daughter Ceciiia.
He had put me under surveillance, and I was certain
that the cops who had tried to kill me were on his

202 S.A. Swiniarski

payroll. At this point I didn't know what he was
capable of. Now he had my daughter.

And I worked for him.

My vision blurred, fuzzing the streetlights. With all
the strangeness going on in my body, I found the tears
reassuring.

This had to stop, somehow. It was bad enough that
Gail had run into the human part of this travesty. I had
to do everything within my power to prevent her from
becoming ensnared in the undead half of everything. It
was a sick thing to think, but with Childe out there—
with his cult out there—maybe being with Sebastian
was the safest place for her.

It was nearly eight when I reached Bratenahl, a
suburb of walled estates, gatehouses, and garages
bigger than my house.

Sebastian lived in a Rockefeller-era mansion of gray
stone. The cobbled drive was flanked by a pair of
bronze lions gone white with frost. There was no gate
barring the Olds as I followed the circular drive to the
front of the house, but I noted more than a few
anachronistic security cameras panning along the
wrought-iron fence surrounding the property. The cam-
eras hung from the eaves, poked out from odd bits of
landscaping, and one even nestled in the arms of a cen-
tury-old oak that dominated the lawn between the man-
sion and the gatehouse in front.

I pulled the Olds to a stop at the front door. The
main entrance was a Gothic stone arch filled with a
massive pair of oak doors, and flanked by an acre of
leaded glass.

In '77 I was a rookie, and I had busted Sebastian for
a dime bag. Somewhere between then and now I had
retired, and Sebastian had done five years at Lucas-
ville. Now he lived here, the home of a millionaire with
a few zeros to spare.

RAVEN              203

I opened the door and slid out, shoving my bad hand
in the pocket of my jacket.

The massive doors opened, and Bishop and Mr.
Gestapo stepped out to greet me. "Welcome, Mr.
Tyier," said Bishop. "Mr. Sebastian is eager to meet
with you, finally."

I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything that
wouldn't sound like a threat. As choked by anger as I
was, I still knew I didn't want to antagonize anyone
needlessly.

'The weapon, if you please?" Bishop held out his
hand. I wasn't in a position to argue- I drew the Eagle
and handed it over to him. Bishop took it, gave it an
admiring glance, checked the safety, and slipped it into
his waistband.

Mr. Gestapo was much less polite. He held out a
sweaty palm and said, "Keys."

I looked at him, tempted to toss the keys at his feet.
Again, though, there was little profit in antagonizing
people right now. I dropped the keys into his hand.

"Come with me," Bishop sakl. As he led me toward
the massive doors, Mr. Gestapo drove the Olds away
toward the gatehouse.

Bishop led me through a central hall dominated by a
massive staircase. The stairs sat below tall windows
that faced north, toward the lake. In daylight it must
have been a seven-figure view, but right now the win-
dows were blank, an acre of dead black broken only by
the reflection of the chandelier.

Bishop took me along a broad corridor leading off
the entry hall. He delivered me into a library that could
have comfortably fit most of Childe's apartment inside
it. The ceiling was eighteen feet high, and the fireplace,
currently roaring away, could have doubled as a
garage.

Sebastian stood facing away from me, the fireplace,

204

S.A. Swiniarski

and the door. He was looking out a set of French doors
that opened up on a slightly lesser darkness than the
windows in the entry hall.

"Sit down." Sebastian's voice was a perfect Mid-
western null. The voice was at odds with the rest of
him. He had dark curly hair, and swarthy Mediter-
ranean features. He had the look of old-world Europe
about him.

"Where's my daughter?" I said.

"Where is my daughter? Sil down, Mr. Tyier."

I sat down on one of two leather chairs facing the
fire. I noticed the bullet holes in my shirt. I pulled my
coat over to hide them. The damage to my trench coat
was less obvious; the builet's damage was hidden in
the midst of all the other damage I'd done to my coat.

"I'm looking for Cecilia," I said. "My Job,
remember?"

I had to half-turn to see Sebastian, who remained
staring out the windows. When I turned, 1 ignited a
new ache in my left wrist, still wedged in the pocket of
my jacket. I tried to adjust my body to ease the pres-
sure on my hand. I didn't try to remove it from my

pocket.

"I've tried very hard to hate you, Tyier," he said. It
wasn't what I expected from him. I felt the need to say
something, but I had absolutely no idea what it could
have been.

Facing out the window, fiddling with his hands,
Sebastian talked on as if I weren't quite there. "When
you first turned me down, I tried to hate you. Your
accusations, 'How could something as evil as I, a drug
dealer, be a decent father—' You have no idea of the
anger I felt. What I felt because I still needed you."

"You're not helping by taking Gail—"

Sebastian raised his head, as if he were talking to a
bird perched on the transom of his door. "Am I? I've

RAVEN              205

seen those tapes. Your daughter needs protection, as
my own daughter needed protection."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence."

Sebastian didn't seem to hear me. "Hate is not an
easy emotion for me, Mr. Tyier. I don't hate the police.
We both have jobs, and I accepted the risks of mine,
just as they did theirs. Like them, if I have to draw a
weapon in my line of work, something's gone wrong.
And despite my anger, I can't hate you, Mr. Tyier. I
understand you too well."

Sebastian turned to face me, and I saw a rosary in his
hands. My throat tightened.

"You hold me guilty of too much. Can you hold that
/ am evil after you've been touched by it yourself?"
The firelight carved dancing shadows on his dusky
face. The light reflected in his eyes made him look a
little mad.

I wanted to tell him exactly what I thought he was
guilty of. All I needed to think of were dead-eyed
junkies dying of AIDS, or reed-thin teenagers selling
what was left of their bodies so they could buy a rock.
Something in his eyes kept my mouth shut. The sight
of the rosary held my attention.

"If I wasn't a father to my Cecilia, it was because I
was kept from her the second five years of her life.
And afterward, what could I do after Rosa died?" His
eyes welled up and he crossed himself. I had to turn
away. It was becoming as difficult to watch Sebastian
as it was to see my own eyes a mirror. If I needed any
confirmation as to what was happening to me, the
uncomfortable proximity of Sebastian's faith was it.

"I didn't know how to be a father. She was lost to me
before she was taken."

Sebastian had walked in front of me, but he was
staring into the fire. "I have seen those tapes you made.
I have seen them too many times. I have seen the—

206 S.A. Swiniarski

the—being who was once my daughter." Sebastian
turned to look at me. "Do you understand?"

I nodded.

"You made those tapes. Do you understand the evil I
am talking about. The true evil here?"

"I think so."

"1 do not hate easily. But this Childe, him I hate. He
has mortgaged my daughter's soul. So she is not only
lost to me, but to our Savior as well." Sebastian kissed
the rosary and put it in his pocket- I felt better without
the beads in view. I felt that I could speak again—

"What about my daughter, Sebastian?"

"I need you to lead me to my daughter, and Chiide. I
need your mind focused, and I need to keep track of
you." He stared into the fire and said, "I do not hate
easily. But I have hatred for the creatures responsible."

Sebastian's profile, rose-colored in the firelight,
appeared as if it were carved out of the shadows around
him. "Lately I've had to ask myself, Mr. Tyier, if you
are part of the evil Ehat took my daughter."

"What?" My voice was a near-whisper, but the
shock in it must have carried to Sebastian. He. turned
his head to look at me. Half his face ruddy-lit by the
dancing flames, the other half a featureless black
shadow. But both his eyes locked on my own, and I
could see a fire in them that wasn't wholly reflected
from the fireplace.

"Are you a part of this evil?"

"No," I said it confidently, but there was a squirming
doubt in my gut.

"Perhaps." I saw him fingering the rosary in his
pocket. "Only perhaps. If you were to succumb to the
evil, though, I would be less a man if I allowed that to
harm your daughter.. . ."

There was something in the eye contact, I could tell.
The same thing that had drawn Bowie out when I ques-
tioned him, the sense that my own words could have

RAVEN                  207

some physical effect behind my opponent's eyes. This,
however, was different. What was behind Sebastian's
eyes was armored by something impenetrable. The
light I saw was the reflection of something deep and
solid within the man, which could not be moved.

Whatever it was, it was strengthened whenever he
fingered the rosary in his pocket. Sebastian shook his
head and walked back toward the window. For a long
time he stared outside. Finally he said, "Your daughter
is lucky, she has her soul."

"What do you want from me?"

"You are going to lead me to Childe, so I can wipe
this abomination from the face of the Earth."

"I've been looking—"

"There is no more search. You have what you need.
I've listened to your notes. You've known this evil, and
you knew enough once to track the evil to its heart. I do
not believe your ignorance."

He turned around to face me. He was silhouetted by
the reflection of the fireplace in the windows behind
him. It looked as if he were walking out of the fire. "I
don't know what stays your hand:'fear, or something
else. But by our Lord, your hand will move. You have
no choice."

I stood up and Sebastian looked at me with his hard,
fiery eyes and said, "If you are part of the evil that con-
sumed my daughter, I will destroy you." He turned
back to the window. "Bishop will lead you to the gate-
house and give you a few hours to think."

19

Bishop locked me in a set of rooms that originally were
part of the servant's quarters. These had long since
been converted to a set of small apartments on the
upper floor of the gatehouse. One of the first things I
noted after the door closed behind me was the fact that
the iron scrollwork outside the windows was a bit more
functional than it looked.

I'd been cornered again.

What had Sebastian done with Gail?

I collapsed on a couch in the living-room area, and
fett a renewed ache in my wrist Not my hand, which
was as insensible as ever, but in the area of my wrist
that seemed to separate the damaged flesh from the rest
of me. The pain was deep into the bone, and made me
stand up before I had completely seated myself.

Even without the pocket cutting into it, the ache
persisted.

I tried to shake my hand loose of the pocket, but it
didn't come free- I had to peel the fabric of my coat
away with my right hand as I pulled my hand away. In
addition to my hand, I had liberated a smell. A faint
overripe smell, some sweet fruit which had just gone a
little mushy.

I wrinkled my nose and looked down to my hand. It
had changed color. The ugly black at the base of my
thumb had spread to the meat of my palm extending
into a vague imprint of the Oldsmobile's steering

210 S.A. Swiniarski

wheel. The back was crossed by a purple-black diag-
onal stripe where the seams of my jacket pocket had
bit. A webwork of coppery-green streaked the white
skin. My whole hand had swollen, asymmetrically in
some places.

I touched the black area by my thumb. The skin gave
with a soft mushy sound and the color seeped a little
into the surrounding area—like ink bleeding under my
skin. I took my finger away, and a dimple stayed in the
blackness, where I had pressed. The smell had grown
much stronger in the interim.

"Oh, fuck."

I pushed up my sleeve, and saw the line where the
dead flesh—in my gut I now knew it was dead—met
my own.

When I joined the force, I had some basic first-aid
training. I wasn't a medic, but I could recognize a few
basic things; burns, fractures, shock—and when my
nose is rubbed in it, I could recognize gangrene.

At the edge of the dead tissue, where the ache in my
wrist began, there was a definite line of discoloration. It
was reassuring to see the diseased flesh stop at that line.

I walked into the apartment's kitchen and washed
my hand off. It was a futile gesture. The smell came
from inside the flesh, and when the rot reached the sur-
face of my skin, nothing would stop it. I scrubbed
maniacally, my left hand cold, limp, and mushy. I must
have washed for five minutes before I came to my
senses. Mercifully the mushy fruit smell had receded
beneath the lemon scent of the dish soap I was using.

My hand was dead, period. It had to be amputated
before the gangrene spread.

"Dad, are you all right—"

I spun around, suds from the dish soap splattering
the linoleum of the kitchenette. Gail stood in the
middle of the living room, on the other side of the only
furniture, a couch and a glass-topped coffee table.

RAVEN                277

She stared at me. I stood there, gaping a few
moments, suds dripping from my dead hand.

"Dad?"

"Where did you come from?" I finally asked. "You
startled me." I reached across the sink and grabbed a
dishtowel, more to hide my hand than to dry it. It
wasn't something Gail needed to see.

She bit her lip as she looked at me. My memory was
still playing traitorous games with my mind. When I
looked at her, I kept wanting to see a thirteen-year-old
who made pottery horses and dragons. Gail wasn't sup-
posed to be an adult. She wasn't supposed to be taller
than Kate.

In answer to my question, she gave a halfhearted
wave toward an open doorway on the other side of
the apartment. Beyond, I saw the corner of a bed. She
stood there looking at me for a long time, then she
shook her head and whispered, "No. I refuse—" Her
voice choked off the words.

"Gail, don't— *

She looked at me and moisture was streaming down
her cheeks. "My God, Dad. What's going on here?
You're the one who disappeared, and you give me that
damn look, as if I was some criminal—and, and,
and. . . ." She collapsed on to the couch, putting her
face in her hands.

"Oh, no, honey." 1 sat down next to her, putting my
good arm around her shoulders. "I never thought that, I
just worry about you—"

Gail sat upright and glared at me with her tear-
streaked face. "You worry? What about me7 I'm not
allowed to worry about you? You disappeared. Mom
dies, and you let me go on thinking the same thing—"
Her words caught and she looked away from me, the
anger bleeding from her voice. "That the same thing
might have happened to you."

I hugged her. In that embrace I felt a profound sense

222 S.A. Swiniarski

of loss, perhaps as deep as the loss Sebastian felt. I was
here, with Gail, but I had already started down a path
that she couldn't follow.

"That isn't going to happen," I said weakly.
. "Is there any particular reason I should believe
that?" Gail asked- "I have a right to know what's going
on here—what happened to Mom."

"I don't want to get you involved in this."

Gail shrugged out from under my arm and stood up.
"You're incredible, Dad- Mom's dead. I spent a week
with a cop. I'm here because 1 wanted to see you. Dad,
I'm involved whether you want me to be or not."

"You don't know what you're saying."

Gail turned around and yelled at me, "Whose fault is
that?"

We stared at each other, and, stressed as I felt, I
found my gaze searching out her eyes. I wanted to
force her away from the subject.

When I realized what I was doing, I turned away.
My gaze landed on my reflection in the glass top of the
coffee table. The vision brought only a slight twinge;

my face was cloaked in shadow, and my eyes were
invisible. "I don't want you hurt."

"It's a little late for that."

The words stung worse than the sunlight. They had a
similar effect, leaving me numb and dead inside. "I
never wanted Kate to—"

Her voice softened. "I never said that." She sat down
on the arm of the couch, facing me. "But you've already
tried to protect me from what you do. Anytime I ask
you details, you close up. It's time you stop it." Gail
sighed. "You can't protect me from my own life."

I turned away, nodding. "It would have been better if
you didn't have me for a father—"

Gail sighed.

"What?" I asked.

RAVEN

213

"Nothing. You just always end an argument by
blaming yourself. I never could stand that."

Perhaps, but it didn't mean what I said was any less
true. Yet Gail was right as well. She had a right to
know. But what could I tell her before she decided I
was crazy?

"Have you talked to Sebastian about any of this?"

"I asked him what was going on."

I nodded. "What did he tell you?"

"He's crazy. Did you know that?"

I turned back to face her; this time I did look into her
eyes. Her eyes were so much like I had remembered
my own. "What did he tell you?"

"He told me stories about Gothic paranoia, spirits of
evil, and the threat to my immortal soul. He showed me
a video." He voice changed tenor. "He is crazy. Isn't
he?"

"What did he say threatened your immortal soul?"

Gail grimaced and began turning away, but her eyes
kept locked on mine. "You, Dad. He said you might
threaten me." She reached into her collar and pulled
out a rosary she was wearing around her neck.

Strangely, I felt no effect from this rosary—nothing
like the one Sebastian had been handling-

"He gave me this thing to protect myself."

I looked at the cross and asked, "What video did he
show you?"

Gail described it in hushed tones that sparked my
own memory.

The wide expanse of a dam, the circle of figures. . . .
Ten people in the semicircle, facing away from me,

toward the structure set in the hillside. The building is

stone, its one doorway a shadowed black hole. It looks

like a mausoleum.

A woman is led from the mausoleum by a figure

cowled in black robes. I feel an awful certainty that the

214

S.A. Swiniarski

cowled figure is Childe, even though t see none of his
features, or much of anything beyond the robe.

The woman, however, I recognize. Her white dress
contrasts against the surrounding night and her
Mediterranean features. She is Cecilia, Sebastian's
daughter.

Something catches in my throat as she opens her
arms to the surrounding horde, as if to embrace them.

Childe1 s people descend upon her—a chaos of
motion. I see claws and fangs appear from nowhere.
The attackers' bodies distort, backs arch unnaturally,
limbs extend. During the frenzy the creatures tearing
into Cecilia are no longer human. Cecilia is invisible
behind the demonic mass. Only glimpses of her white
dress are visible.

And, with each glimpse, over the space of half a
minute, her dress darkens. The snow around the attack
darkens as well, until the mass breaks off from around
her. Cecilia is now only an inert form on a field of

black snow.

They appear human again, and then the teenager
stares at me with a face covered with night-black
blood.

He smiles.

Before I turn and run for my life, I see something
else as well.

Childe bends over Cecilia. In the glimpse I see- only
a pair of pale arms extend out of the sleeves of his
robe, over the corpse.

Before I run, I see Cecilia move.

"I made that tape," I whispered. The whole episode
could have been staged to drive Sebastian insane. I
wondered if it had been.

"Are those bullet holes?" Gail asked. I had leaned
back, remembering, and Gail was now leaning for-

RAVEN                  275

ward, staring at my shirt. The rosary now dangled free
from her neck. "Dad?"

She looked up at me, and I could see fear in her face-
1 could feel it welling up from wherever she had hidden
it. "He's wrong, isn't he? On the tape those were just
shadows right, you're just looking for some nut-cult,
right?" She grabbed my shirt and said, "Right?"

I shook my head and stood up. I couldn't stand her
touching me, touching what might as well be her
father's dead body. The dishtowel fell to the ground
and I shoved my left hand into the pocket to my coat.
"Your hand, what happened to your hand?"
I stood, back to her, and said, "I caught a little sun."
"No." I heard her voice tremble. "You can't say he's
right. You can't}" I heard her move, and her hand
pulled my shoulder around to face her. "I love you,
Dad."

She hugged me, burying her face in my shoulder. I
patted her on the back. "I love you, too."

"He wants to put a stake through her heart," I heard
her whisper into my shoulder, '^is own child."

I shook my head. "He's not right about everything,"
I told her. I felt the rosary digging into my sternum to
no ill effect. "He's not right about everything."

"Are you . . . ?"

"Shh"

"And his daughter?"

*'I don't know about Cecilia, but it seems that way."

"What happened to you. Dad?"

"I don't know, honey. I'm still figuring it out
myself."

There was a long silence as she rested her head on
my shoulder. Then she backed up and said, "I have an
Ace bandage in my purse. Do you think that would
help?"

I knew it was pointless, but I nodded, "Sure, honey."

She ran and fetched her purse, leaving me to wonder

216 S.A. Swinwrski

what she must be thinking about me. She returned with
the bandage and I told her, "I think I better do this
myself."

I turned away and wrapped my hand completely,
thumb and fingers together. When I was done, Gail put
her hand on my shoulder and asked, "You can't be
damned for something you can't control, can you?"

"I don't think—"

I was interrupted by the sound of a gunshot.

Gail broke from me and said, "Dad?"

I grabbed her and dived with her into the kitchenette,
flattening myself against her behind the half-wall sepa-
rating the kitchen area from the living room and the
front door. "What?" Gail said.

"I don't know."

The gunfire came from the hall outside. It climaxed
with one last, much louder, gunshot. The explosive
sound resonated the tile in front of me.

Something slammed against the door hard enough
for the walls to shake. One of the pots hanging on the
wall clattered to the counter, and fell to the floor. My
grip on my daughter tightened-

There was a second or two of silence. I was about to
move us from our minimal cover, when the door to the
apartment exploded into the room. The force of the
door swinging into the apartment scattered yard-long
pieces of the doorframe. Pieces of door were immedi-
ately followed by Bishop, falling backward with such
speed that I doubted his feet touched ground until he
landed on the coffee table, blowing glass everywhere.

Bishop held a nine-millimeter Beretta, or something
similar, in his right hand. Falling out of his left hand,
as he skidded across broken glass, splintered wood,
and chrome table legs, was my Desert Eagle.

Bishop was unquestionably unconscious, if not dead.

I stepped away from my slight cover, putting dis-

RAVEN

217

tance between me and the door. I held up my hand to
prevent Gail from following me into the open.

Following Bishop, walking through the remains of
the door, was Bowie. He turned to face me and I saw a
large bullet hole in the front of his leather jacket. I
stared at him for a second, speechless.

"You waiting for an invitation? Come on, let's move it!"

20

Seeing Bowie here stunned me a moment. Gail stared
at me from the corner of the kitchenette, watching me
for a reaction. I was still trying to digest the fact that
Bowie was a vampire. There wasn't much else that
could explain the gaping hole in the front of his shirt,
or how he'd taken out Bishop unarmed.

What the hell was happening here?

"Come on," Bowie said. "Before these fucks get
their act together'"

Bowie's entrance didn't give me much of a choice. I
ran for my gun.

Outside, the night was waking with the sounds of
men and dogs. I cursed.

"Come on!" Bowie urged. He shook like a coiled
spring.

I bolstered the Desert Eagle and held my good hand
out to Gail. She hesitated briefly, then took it.

Then Bowie took off down the stairs, out of the gate-
house. I pursued with Gail. "How . . . why ..." I
began. I stopped when we reached the driveway.

Gail bumped into my side, and stared. Next to the
road lay the guy I thought of as Mr. Gestapo. His body
was immaculate, and the same blue-white as the snow-
drift he'd fallen in. I saw the edges of a wound, but
most was hidden because he'd fallen face first into
the snow.

220 S.A. Swiniarski

"Bowie, damn it! I'm supposed to be working for

Sebastian!"

"Not since you joined the dance, my friend," Bowie
yelled, without turning or slowing.

Behind me, too close, I heard a canine growl and the
scrabbling of claws across the driveway. I started run-
ning again, pulling Gail along and pushing her ahead
of me.

I dropped back a few feet, so the dog reached me just
as Gail reached the gate. Bowie was through it, ahead
of her. when I heard a growl directly behind me. A
Doberman, out of nowhere, clamped its jaws on my
right wrist. The sudden pain ignited a flare inside me, a
coal of rage I'd been husbanding since Sebastian had
taken my daughter.

1 growled back.

I turned. For a moment my gaze locked with the
animal's. The, dog's eyes were empty of everything,
like the eyes of a machine. My will burned through
those eyes, flashing through the tiny space that was the
animal's mind. The dog froze under the onslaught.
Something that might have been an abortive whimper
died in its throat, behind my arm.

In response, I whipped my right arm toward one of
the concrete pillars marking the edge of the gate. The
dog's jaws remained attached to my wrist, even as its
feet left the ground. It hung on until its back slammed
into the pillar. I heard a crack as, about four feet off the
ground, the corner of the square pillar put a mortal
crease in the Doberman's spine.

AH the strength left its jaws, and my wrist ripped
free. I ran through the gate as the dog fell to the
ground. It hit with a spastic jerk and ceased moving.

Gail wasn't running; she had turned and was staring
at me.

I grabbed her as I passed and I heard her whisper,
"The world's gone crazy."

RAVEN                   221

I silently agreed with her.

My car, the Chevette, was sitting at the curb, idling,
the door open. Bowie was already behind the wheel.
He began shifting gears as I shoved Gail in the back
seat. Bowie floored the accelerator as soon as most of
my own body was in the vehicle.

A Chevette wasn't meant to attempt screaming
acceleration on icy pavement, but somehow Bowie
managed it. I had to hook my left arm over the pas-
senger seat to keep from tumbling out of the car. My
legs dangled over the curb, and the door tried to slam
shut on them without quite succeeding.

I managed to lever my legs inside. "What the hell are
you doing? Sebastian is—"

"I know, I know." Bowie kept staring ahead, as the
Chevette swerved. The passenger door swung widely,
but I had my hands fu!) holding myself in piace. I kept
staring behind us, waiting for the Olds, or some other
car, to slide out of Sebastian's estate after us.

"Shut the door, no one's following us."

"How do you know?"     •-

There was a snick next to me. I turned to see Bowie
holding an illegally long knife. "Hard to drive with four
flats." With a flip of the wrist the knife disappeared.

"What's going on?" Gail finally said with all the
angry confusion I felt. "Who is this guy?"

"Friend of your father, sweet-cakes." Bowie said.

I slammed the door shut. "That remains to be seen.
This is one hell of a bonehead stunt. I should throttle
you for endangering my daughter."

"It's my life, Dad." Gail said. "/'// throttle him."

"Hey, man, it's your skin you should worry about.
You were in there with the man most likely to drive a
stake through your heart." Bowie looked at me. I
stayed quiet. "You're damn lucky I followed you."

"Was that man dead?" Gail asked.

"What man?" Bowie asked.

222 S.A. Swiniarski

"The man, back there, in the snow."

Bowie laughed. "Of all the— Of course he's dead."

"Why did you have to kill him?"

"He was an asshole, he shot me, and I was hungry.
That's two more reason than I needed."

"What about the Covenant?" I asked.

Bowie gave me another look, as if he was measuring
me. "What about it?"

"You know what about it. The second law, 'No one
who holds to the Covenant may reveal those, of the
blood.' " Bowie smiled. "You been talking to people,
ain't you?"

"Damn it, you've left corpses all over the place and
you're blabbing all .; ."

"All this in front of your all-too-human daughter?
Tsk, tsk."

I looked back and saw Gail shrink back a little in the
seat. She was pressed all the way behind my seat, as far
away from Bowie as she could be within the Chevette.

"Look man, first off, I am not leaving 'bodies.' I left
one body for Sebastian, who is already too aware of
what's going on, and who certainly isn't going to
anyone else with the corpse. He'll probably decapitate
it, stake it, bum it, or something. Second, you got the
abridged version of the Covenant."

"Abridged?"

"Fuck, yeah. Three lines are easy to remember. But
we're talking about something older and longer than
the Magna Carta. Whoever enlightened you probably
saw no profit in describing all the exceptions."

"Like?"

"Like, humans can join the Covenant. Hell they have
to if you don't want them to have one hell of a shock
when you bring one over."

"Lord, you have no idea," I whispered.

"I knew what you were going through when you

RAVEN              223

stumbled into the Arabica. The doctor I was going to
take you to, he's Leia's grandfather."

"Why?" Gail said from behind me.

"Why what?" Bowie asked.

"Why are you helping my dad?"

"Kane's hunting down a guy named Childe."
Bowie's face got a serious cast then. "Got my own
thing with Childe."

"What?" I asked.

"Personal," Bowie said flatly. "You find him, so
would I."

I rubbed my forehead. We were rolling out of Brate-
nahl, and back toward Cleveland Heights.

After a long pause, Bowie asked, very gravely,
"What do you remember about being brought over?
Who did it?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know," Bowie repeated slowly.

"You said you knew a doctor?" Gail asked.

Bowie nodded, still looking askance at me, as if he
didn't trust my answers.       l1

"Then you've got to take Dad there, he needs help.
His hand is injured."

"What?" Bowie asked. When I pulled my bandaged
hand out of my pocket, Bowie added, "What the fuck is
that smell?"

I noticed it as well. A sweet-rancid odor was sud-
denly very noticeable. It was thickening in the air, and
when I looked down, I could see a damp stain spreading
on the elastic bandage covering my left hand.

Gail started coughing.

"My hand," I said. Breathing in the odor made me gag.

Bowie rolled down the window and leaned away
from me. I stared at my hand. It was swollen and mis-
shapen under the loose bandage, except where the stain
centered around the base of my thumb, where it
appeared the flesh had collapsed.

224

S.A. Swiniarski

"What happened?" Bowie shouted into the wind.
"Sun?" Gail said, speaking through her hand. -
I rolled down the passenger window.
"Of all the idiot things—" Bowie coughed. "Yeah,
sweet-cakes, we're going to see the doctor."

Bowie drove through Cleveland Heights, and into
Shaker. He pulled us to a stop in front of a large brick
house set about thirty feet back into its lot. It had large
windows and a Tudor design that reminded me of
Childe's—or Deite's—apartment building. Even though
it was a common style—a lot of the buildings in Shaker
and Cleveland Heights wouldn't be out of place in Lake-
wood, a lot of them built around the same time—the
similarity put me on edge.

Bowie parked my car on the curb. He piled out as
soon as he killed the engine. I could smeli why.
Without the constant wind through the open window,
the reek from my dead hand was overpowering. The
bandage was crusted with seepage and the form under-
neath was only barely hand-shaped.

I stumbled out, and Gail followed with her hand over
her face. "My God, Dad." She looked on the verge of
throwing up, and the tears in her eyes had to be as
much from the smell as from sympathy.

The ache in my wrist had gotten worse, and I was
rubbing it unconsciously. I could feel an ugly give to
my skin, even though the sleeve of my jacket.

"Come on," Bowie said. "Got to fix that hand." He
made a face when he said it.

He walked up to the house, and I was disturbed when
I realized that the place was familiar. More than the
accidental similarity to Childe's apartment. The place
in Lakewood was just another building. I felt as if I had
been here. However, with the holes in my memory, I
had no idea if the familiarity was significant. I didn't
know if it represented something that had happened in

RAVEN                  225

the last two weeks, or if the feeling came from some
fragment of the prior four-and-a-half decades that I had
yet to remember fully.

"What kind of doctor?" Gail asked. He voice was
muffled under the handkerchief she held to her face.

Bowie chuckled, "Someone with an interest in our
kind."

I wondered what kind of media! school someone
went to, to specialize in "our kind."

My unease was becoming difficult to ignore. What
did I know about this place? What was I trying to
remember? I felt my good hand moving toward my
holster as Bowie leaned on the doorbell. After a minute
or so the door inched open. A redheaded woman
looked at Bowie through the crack, Leia.

"Yes?" she said in her high, breathy, English voice.

"Leia? Could you get your grandfather for me?"
Bowie nodded back toward where I stood back from
the doorway-1 stopped reaching for the gun.

She looked past Bowie, at me. "You found him!"
Her accent made me think aboftt Childe again, redou-
bling my sense of nervousness. SKe looked about the
;   age Chiide was supposed to prey upon. My hand found
the butt of my gun. "Who's the girl?"

"His daughter— Look, we got to do something about
his hand."

She looked at me, and I saw something alive in her
eyes. Not the fires I felt in Sebastian's, or the machin-
ery I felt behind the Doberman's, but something mov-
ing, living, and writhing in pain. When she spoke, her
hand went to the collar of the black turtleneck she
wore. A single blocky earring glinted from underneath
a tumble of red hair. "What happened to his hand?"

"Bad dose of sun," Bowie said.

She nodded, and I lost sight of those pained eyes. I
felt no desire to see whatever those eyes had seen. "I'll
get Grandfather. Wait here," she said, closing the door.

S.A. Swiniarski

226

As we waited, Bowie said, "Good looking babe,
ain't she?"

"Hadn't noticed." That wasn't quite a lie. I repeated
Gail's question, "So what kind of doctor is Leia's
grandfather?"

"He was a medic in World War Two, when he got
involved in—"

The door opened again. Standing there was a broad,
white-haired man in a blue bathrobe, "This better be
good, I was—"

He had begun by addressing Bowie but as he spoke
he slowly turned, and I could see his nose wrinkle.
"God," he said- "How much tissue is affected?"

He addressed the question to me. "My hand," I said.
"About six inches up the wrist."

He shook his head. "Come around back. I don't want
that smell infecting my house."

THE CONQUEROR
WORM

By a route obscured and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule—
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
Out ofS^ACE—out of TIME.
—"Dream-Land"

21

Bowie nodded and waved us along. I followed. As we
walked up the driveway, we passed a black BMW with
vanity plates, "Ryan I."

"Ryan's a first or last name?" I asked Bowie.

"Last, I think. Always call him Doc Ryan."

We came up on a patio around back, and stopped at a
pair of storm-cellar doors abutting the house. The
doors were new and set in fresh cinder block that
appeared to have been built in the past two years or so.
Bowie stopped by the doors, which—conspicuously—
had no external handles.

"Come here often?" I asked-

"Doc's been practicing a lot longer than I've been
nocturnal."

Not a real answer, I thought. "So how long have you
been 'nocturnal?' "

"Haifa year or so."

"Who 'brought you over'?"

Bowie looked at me askance again. "If we get the
time, I'll tell you the story."

Gail spoke up from behind us. "Is this doctor Ryan
one of... one of you?" she asked Bowie.

Bowie shook his head. "No, the Doc ain't one of us.
I thought I mentioned that."

"He's not?" I said.

Bowie shrugged.

"He knows what he's doing?" Gail asked.

230

S.A. Swinuirski

"I suppose so," Bowie said. "The gentry pay him
enough for services rendered."

Gail squeezed my shoulder. I felt her concern. But, it
was my hand and I couldn't help feeling that it was
wrong for her to be here. Even if there was some
family exemption, some loophole in the Covenant that
let her be here, it was wrong to drag her along—

But what choice did I have? Did either of us have?

With Bowie's little asides, I felt my daughter being
ensnared by the same nocturnal society that had
ensnared me. Bowie, with nearly every sentence, was
dropping references to a culture I barely knew and Gail
was totally ignorant of.

Ignorant of, and already trapped within. Just the fact
that she knew meant she was ensnared in the web of
relationships Gabriel had disclosed to me.

Which made me wonder where Bowie fit within that
web. With the easy way he talked about the Covenant,
he must have a role within that society- Being only six
months a vampire meant he was almost certainly a
thrall to some older vampire. Which meant that, when I
dealt with him I wasn't dealing with Bowie. As far as
the social rules were concerned, I was dealing with
Bowie's unknown master.

A master whose name he'd avoided mentioning.

I had an awful thought. What if Bowie belonged to
Childe?

Before I could worry any further, a short buzzing
sound escaped from the doors. Then, after about two
seconds, they swung outward. The wood exterior
panels were only veneer. On the inside, the doors were
thick, plastic and metal, with a rubber gasket sur-
rounding the edges—airtight and soundproof.

At the foot of the concrete stairs stood Doctor Ryan.
He had dispensed with the bathrobe. He now wore
jeans, a flannel shirt, and a long white lab coat. He still
wore a pair of slippers.

RAVEN                  231

His hand rested on a metal box mounted on the
wall, pressing a green button. Bowie led us down the
stairs and once we all cleared the doors, Ryan pressed
a red button and the buzz repeated itself, louder this
time. The doors shut behind us with a hydraulic
whisper of air.

It wasn't any warmer down here than it was outside.
Combined with the white tile walls and the stark fluo-
rescent lighting, the place felt like a morgue. If he
treats vampires, maybe that's what this is.

"What's your name, son?" Ryan asked with a puff of
visible breath.

"Kane." I said.

Ryan looked a little disappointed with my name.
"And you, miss?"

"Gail—can you help my dad?" She was still talking
through a handkerchief.

"I'm certain I can." To Bowie he said, "You go
upstairs, I don't need company while I work."

"Sure, Doc. Maybe Leia can get me something to
eat." Bowie grinned and left before Ryan could
answer him.

To Gail, Ryan said, "You should go with him."

Before I could raise an objection, Gail straightened
up and said, "I'm not leaving my father."

Ryan looked at her and said, rather gravely, "This is
not going to be pleasant." When she showed no sign of
backing down, Ryan said, "Well, stay out of my way."

He led us down halls that were all concrete and
white tile. Every ten feet or so we passed a blank stain-
less steel door, like the door to a commercial-sized
freezer.

"Quite a setup," I said, cradling my hand and trying
not to inhale the smell.

Ryan seemed preoccupied. "What I do can be quite
lucrative with the right patient." We stopped in front of
a door like the others. "Now I need to see that hand."

232

S.A. Swiniarski

He opened the door. I expected to see lines of meat-
hooks, hanging slabs of beef, or the like. Instead the
room looked fairly normal, if stark. It was populated by
stainless steel cabinets, chromed fixtures and spigots
set into the walls, carts of medial equipment I couldn't
identify, and an examination table under an intricate-
looking set of operating lights.

"Sit down," Ryan said, motioning to a chair in the
corner of the room, also fitted with lights and equip-
ment. I sat.

"You," he said to Gail. "Come with me."

While I did my best to get comfortable without
touching my hand to anything, Ryan went to the wall
and began flipping switches. Gail stood next to him
and cast nervous glances back over her shoulder at me.

Lights came on around my end of the room, and the
whir of a ventilation fan started up. That was good,
because once we'd stopped moving, the odor from my
hand had quickly built to intolerable levels.

Ryan handed Gail a surgical mask and said, "Tie this
on and stand over there." He indicated the far corner,
away from the chair where I sat.

Gail tied on the mask and backed over to the corner
that Ryan had indicated. Ryan laid out an equipment
tray on one of the carts, tied on a mask, and began
scrubbing at a sink across the room from me.

"Are germs really a problem?" I asked, thinking of
alleged vampiric immortality.

Ryan laughed softly, with an ironic lilt to it. "De-
pends on the germ. I can tell without looking, for
instance, that under that rag on your hand, a herd of
anaerobic bacteria are having a festival."

"Ugh," Gail said. From here I could see some of the
color going out of her face.

" 'Ugh,' is right." Ryan shut the faucet off with his
elbows and began the delicate procedure of retrieving a

RAVEN                   233

pair of surgical gloves from a tray near the sink.
"You're new, aren't you."

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Experienced vampires do not go around nursing
advanced cases of solar necrosis. They usually have
enough sense to feed right after the initial injury,
before circulation shuts down completely." He pushed
a cart toward me with his foot. It bore an ugly selection
of surgical instruments. "Take off your jacket and roll
up your sleeve for me, would you?"

I did as I was asked, doing my best not to smear the
contaminated Ace bandage against my clothes. The
bandage itself was now stained, streaked with red and
black, and every time my hand brushed something I
could hear an ugly liquid sound.

" 'Feeding' would have stopped this?" I asked as I
manhandled my jacket. I left the holster and gun in
place, and the Doctor didn't comment on them.

"Most of the time, if you survived the sun in the first
place. Fire's a different story," Ryan nodded.

I noticed Gail edging across'lthe room to get a better
look at what was going on. Ryan paid no attention to
her. He kept talking, "But, you see, after the bacteria
has a chance to do gross damage to the tissue, that's
something else. Would you place your hand over
here?"

I did as he asked, placing my bandage-covered hand
on the examination tray he indicated. He picked up a
pair of scissors from his pile of instruments and began
cutting away the bandage. "Don't move."

"I can't." My hand was an inanimate lump of meat.

Ryan talked as he worked. "If I had been doing my
work in a research hospital, I'd know more than I do.
Forty years as an individual doesn't match ten in a
well-equipped—This is bad."

Gail's eyes widened, and her hand went up to cover
her nose and mouth.

234 S.A. Swiniarski

Ryan had just peeled away a length of bandage with
a pair of forceps. Beneath, my hand was pockmarked
by greenish-black lesions that swelled up under the
skin. The skin had broken in places, weeping thick
noxious fluid. The meat where my thumb met my palm
was entirely eaten away, leaving a moist ragged crater
where the flesh had liquefied down to the bone.

"A human would've probably died of biood poi-
soning by now." Ryan paused a moment, arrested by
something other than the sight of the wound. The pause
only lasted a minute before he began rambling again.
"Now I was going to explain Ehis to you, without get-
ting into the spiritual gibberish—"

Ryan carefully removed the remains of the bandage
as he spoke, dropping them into a stainless steel tray.
He then retrieved another tray, slipped it under my
hand, and used a bottle of clear liquid to wash the dis-
charge erupting from the sores in my hand. I felt
nothing.

"Aren't you just going to cut it off?" I asked.

Gail made a strangled noise and turned away from
the scene. I could hear her sucking deep breaths
through her mouth.

When I looked down again at my hand, I couldn't
take my eyes off of what Ryan was doing. He would
rinse a fleshy crater, then attack it with a small sponge
clamped in his forceps. Each sponge only lasted a
dozen seconds before he'd toss it in with the scraps of
my bandage.

"Again, if you were human." A sponge tossed. "The
infection that created you—I was about to explain—has
some pseudo-regenerative capabilities." More rinsing.

"Infection?"

- Fresh sponge. "Vampirism is a result of, or a com-
plex related to, an infectious entity somewhat akin to a
virus." Swab. "Unlike a virus, it doesn't destroy the
cells it infects, quite the opposite in fact—it can infect

RAVEN                   235

dead tissue and revive it. I've never had the resources
to analyze it property, I don't even know if it is alive,
or simply some extremely exotic collection of pro-
teins." Toss. "But this entity infects every cell of your
body now, and every cell needs it to survive." Wash.

"That caused this?" I still stared at my hand. It
looked as if I'd run it through a garbage disposal. It
was puffy, discolored, and perforated by sores that
sank though flesh, muscle and bone.

"The dissolution of that pseudovirus caused it."
Ryan said. "This thing is photoreactive. UV B breaks it
down fairly quickly, and direct sunlight can trigger a
chain reaction from the surface all the way down to the
bone. All tissue along the way dies off, and the natural
decay process starts."

He dried parts of my hand with a final sponge. He
retrieved a scalpel. "It's medieval to do this without a
local, but I've never found an anesthetic that works
properly."

"I don't feel anything in my^and."

"Not yet," Ryan said, and began cutting. He cut
around the worst of the lesions, slicing ragged black
flesh away from the tips of the wounds. I finally looked
away, toward Gail.

She was facing away from us, leaning on the exami-
nation table. I felt a wave of empathy for her; she
shouldn't have had to be here for this. As I watched, she
turned around and waved weakly at me, as if to say
she was all right. I noticed that she kept her gaze locked
on my face, never looking down toward my hand.

Doctor Ryan never stopped talking. "What I have to
do now is isolate whatever tissue in your hand that
hasn't had its gross physical structure destroyed. That
tissue can be revitalized back to something like life."

"Something tike life?" I asked and looked back at
him. I caught sight of the bones in the base of my

236

S.A. Swiniarski

thumb. They appeared to be eroded. I turned away
again.

"Infected cells are hardier—survive everything but
destruction of the cell membrane—they can radically
alter their own function, but they don't reproduce."

"How can my body replace tissue that dies off—" I
was about to say "naturally," but there was nothing
natural about this.

I suspected the answer before Ryan provided it.
"Human blood, living whole human blood. You ingest
it, the blood itself is infected and incorporates itself
into your own tissue. Blood's the only medium that's
readily absorbed, but any properly suspended solution
of intact human cellular material could do as well."

"Has to be human?"

"Nonhuman cellular material can be infected, but
can't be absorbed. There are a few species that can be
carriers, but none are suitable for feeding from. And as
far as I know, the infection results in vampirism only in
humans—and then only in select cases."

He kept cutting as he talked. I felt nothing but the
occasional twinge along my wrist where the living
tissue stopped. I kept glancing back to see him
removing ragged strips of red-black, unrecognizable as
flesh, and dropping them into the waste tray. The smell
was beyond belief. I had to cease asking questions
because breathing made my eyes water.

I kept looking back at Gail, occasionally forcing a
smile. By now she had backed away from the smell
herself, back to the corner Ryan had put her in.

Somehow, Ryan managed to stand the smell, talking
all the while. "With no intervention, the infection only
thrives in a particular type of host—and then only after
death. And then only if death follows swiftly after
infection. In most humans this entity can't survive the
first twenty-four hours in a living host. Though, if
another infection weakens the immune system, the

RAVEN                 237

entity can survive much longer." Ryan's voice took on
the same distant tone it had had when he'd mentioned
blood poisoning. I had the feeling he was remembering
something specific.

He turned my hand over, resting the perforated back
on a gauze pad. He began working to excise the rot
from the meat of my palm. "If a susceptible host does
die while infected, the infection spreads like a brush-
fire through the whole body. Much faster than the
normal decay process. Often too fast for rigor, or even
lividity, to set in. The infection actually reanimates the
tissue."                   ""

I looked up at him as he set down the instruments.
He looked at my palm. He nodded to himself and
looked back at me. "So far so good."

I lowered my gaze to what was left of my hand. I had
trouble accepting it as part of my body. Large patches
of flesh had been eaten away down to the bone, as if it
had melted. The edges of the wounds were now razor-
sharp, thanks to Ryan's scalpel. There wasn't nearly
enough blood, and my remaining skin was now snow-
white with occasional streaks of discoloration.

"The structure of the remaining tissue should be
intact enough to allow reinfection. If all goes well,
your hand should reform itself and expel the remaining
damaged tissue."

Ryan took the tray of waste and dumped it into a
metal door set into the wall. An incinerator, I sup-
posed. He stripped off his gloves and tossed them in
after the waste. That done, he returned to the sink and
scrubbed again, and replaced his gloves.

"This is where this may begin to hurt," he said as he
picked up a large hypodermic needle.

He swabbed my right arm, and sank the needle into a
vein. "I have to use fresh, infected blood," Ryan said.
"The patient's own is always the best to use when the
damage is this grave." Then, slowly, he withdrew

238 S.A. Swiniarski

blood from my arm. The blood didn't look quite right
to me. It seemed thicker and darker than it should've.

That wasn't the part that hurt.

What hurt was when he began injecting the blood
into the remaining flesh of my dead hand. I felt nothing
at first, as he slid the needle through the edges of the
largest wounds. But at the third injection, the perma-
nent ache in my wrist began traveling down toward my
fingers. Sensation began returning, a pins-and-needles
sensation of restricted circulation.

Then, as the hypo was emptied of its blood sample,
leaving white trails of flesh pock-marked with needle
tracks, I began to feel the raw ends of the nerves.

"God," I gasped, breathing again.

"Dad, " I heard Gail say. She ran toward me.

My hand twitched. It was on fire. I could feel it
burning everywhere Ryan's scalpel had cut. I could
feel the blood he'd injected, rivulets of lava running
under my skin.

I stared at my hand, teeth clenched, and watched as
Ryan's miracle happened. Pink color began to creep
down my arm, past my wrist, and to the strips of flesh
still connected to my hand. My wounds began to bleed.

I felt the now-familiar sensation of skin tightening
and flesh flowing. The lips of the wounds stretched and
flowed across naked bone and tendon, knitting together
with their neighbors. It felt as if my skin were being
torn off my hand,, and then stapled back into place. If I
hadn't been riveted by the sight of newly vita! flesh,
the pain might have made me black out.

But, after a subjective eternity, I sat, exhausted, with
an intact hand resting on a gauze pad soaked with
blood and plasma. I stared in disbelief as I clenched it
into a fist.

"Good Lord," Gail said from my side. She had seen
the entire process.

RAVEN              239

Ryan leaned over and swabbed off my hand. "Let me
see," he said.

I let him take my hand and prod it. As he did I mar-
veled at the sensation of feeling in my hand again.

22

Doctor Ryan's treatment, and his nonstop dialog,
answered many of the physical questions about blood
and regeneration. Even so, for all his scientific jargon,
his explanations seemed incomplete. I was a vampire
i    because I was a susceptible host for the vampiric
}    pseudovirus, and had "died" shortly after being infected
with it.

But what made Kane Tyier a host susceptible to
vampirism? Ryan could offer me no clear answer
beyond the fact that it involved the time since infec-
tion, the physical state of the Host, and environmental
factors up to and including the state of mind at the time
of death. A susceptible host was a rare phenomenon,
and that was how the vampiric pseudovirus could
evolve, and propagate without destroying the host
population.

At least until social forces overwhelmed th.e evolu-
^   tionary ones. Ryan mentioned, almost off-hand, that
.1   most vampires were now made as the result of a con-
s'    scious decision by their creator. Apparently, any
human, susceptible or not, would become a vampire
with a sufficient infusion of infected blood.

Ryan indirectly answered a few of my more obvious
questions. Regeneration or not, "dead" or not, most of
the organs in my body performed the same functions
as they did before, only at a much lower level of
activity. The infection impregnating my flesh took up

242 S.A. Swimarski

most of the slack of a slowed metabolism, and my
blood now had the duty not just of oxygenating tissue,
but of replacing it as well.

A stake through the heart, as long as it remained in
place preventing regeneration, would pretty surely kill
me. Same for decapitation. My body could withstand
an extreme amount of purely mechanical damage—a
gunshot, stab wound, a broken arm—and rebuild itself.
But anything that destroyed large masses of tissue—
fire, acid, or sunlight—would cause my body no end of
grief.

To hear Ryan speak, the whole subject of vampirism
had no claim on the supernatural. Ryan had a ready
answer for all the physical stigmata, and what he said
fit well with what Gabriel had deigned to explain about
the subject.

But there were things that Doctor Ryan did not
explain and, with his point of view, things I doubted he
could explain. He didn't explain how 1 could look into
someone's eyes and push his or her mind in a particular
direction. He didn't explain the fire I had seen behind
Sebastian's eyes, or why I felt an unease around his
rosary and not my daughter's. He didn't explain why I
couldn't look at myself in the mirror. He didn't explain
why I could see blood as a luminescent fire that turned
slowly black as it died.

He did not explain why I could sometimes feel the
emotions of people around me, like ripples carried
upon the wind.

After all the poking and prodding, Ryan released my
hand. "I've done all I can tonight. Nerves take more
time to regenerate than other tissue- If you could stay
here the night, I'd like to look at it in the morning."

I took my hand off the tray and clenched it a few
times. There were a few aches deep in the bones, and it
trembled when I moved. It was gaunt and skeletal, but
a miraculous achievement ail the same.

RAVEN                  243

"You might want to wash that off," Ryan waved
over to the sink. He yawned. "I'M tell my grand-
daughter to set up the guest rooms for both of you."

I looked at Gail and said, "Just for me. My daughter
won't be staying."

"Dad," Gail said at me in a harsh stage whisper- I
looked at her and shook my head aggressively. "No."

Ryan didn't seem to notice the exchange between
me and Gail. He yawned again and nodded. "I'm too
old to keep these hours," he muttered.

He waited for me to wash my hands before he led us
up. He locked the door to the basement after we
emerged. "I'll let you see your daughter out yourself. I
must see Leia and get some sleep."

Once Ryan was out of earshot, Gail glared at me. "I
go through all this to see you, and you're sending me
away? How can you do that?"

I put my arm around her shoulders and started
walking her to the door. "I don't know if you're safe
here."                      ^

"I thought you were friends with that guy."

"Please, Gail, I don't know everything that's going
on here." 1 took her out the front door and led her up
the walk to the Chevette. "But I do know that I've been
mixed up with people who've killed your mom, and
who woulcTve killed me but for some fluke, and I'm no
longer sure who those people are."

When we reached the Chevette, she looked at me
and said, "Then come with me. Dad. We can both leave
here, get away from Sebastian and everyone else."

I shook my head.

"Why? Why are you going to stay here? He fixed
your hand. It's all right now—"

I kissed her on the firehead. "I need to find Cecilia,
and Childe."

"But her dad wants to put a stake through her heart."

244                 S.A. Swiniarski

"Then I have to find her before Sebastian does,
don't I?"

We stood there for a long time. Her breath trailed off
into the night. The air from my own lungs was nearly
invisible. She reached down and took my left hand in
her own- "You're so cold. Dad."

"I've been colder."

"I don't think I believed it until I saw your hand.
Whatever I said, it wasn't real until that happened."
Her grip was tight, as if she were afraid I might run
away. "They did mis to you, the same people who
killed Mom?" She looked at me with shiny eyes.

"I think so," I said. "I don't remember what hap-
pened. The . . . transition left some gaps in my
memory."

"God can't damn you for this, can He? You didn't
have a choice."

It wasn't a question I expected from her. I didn't
know how to answer her; there were times in the past
three days that I felt my soul descended to near-
irredeemable depths. "If we're damned, it is for our
actions, not some opportunistic infection."

Gail didn't let go. "What have you done. Dad?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do," Gail said. "I can see the weight in
your face, the way you look at me. You can carry guilt
like a badge."

Silence stretched for a long time. The only sound was
the wind crying through the branches of the naked trees.
Somewhere above, a crow cawed after something.

How could I lie to her?

"I've killed two people."

She stared into my eyes, and I saw in there a glowing
warmth. It was both like and unlike the fire I had seen
in Sebastian's eyes. The light in her eyes had the heat
and intensity of Sebastian's, but not the fearful vio-
lence. Instead of a barrier, it was a welcome.

RAVEN                245

"Were they innocent?" she asked me.

"What?" I was drawn back by the question, enough
that my hand pulled free of her grip. "What kind of
question is that?"

"You killed two people because you were a vam-
pire?" Gail asked, looking at me with a warmth that
seemed to melt down her face with her tears.

I nodded, two deaths that should have never happened.

"Were they innocent?"

I stood aghast at the question. What the hell did it
matter? I had two people's deaths on my hands. "My
God, Gail, they didn't deserve to die. You can't play
God with human lives."

She grabbed me, "Damn it. Dad! You're not an evil
person. I know you. Who were these people? What
were they doing? Why did you . . . ?"

I looked into her eyes. Had I turned into a monster or
not? I had made the difficult admission already, hadn't
I? "I—"

"Who, Dad? How did it happen?"

"Tony," I finally said. "The man"s name was Tony. I
broke into his girlfriend's apartment. He was. . . ."

"He was what?"

I shook my head. "You can't justify this."

"He was what?"

"Beating her, okay? That's not the point."

"Damn it, it is! If you were still a cop, could you
have shot him?"

"Maybe, I don't know . . .just drive to Sam's, would
you? Use the cellular to call ahead and give him some
warning."

Gail backed up and wiped her eyes. "Okay. What
should I tell Sam?"

"As little as possible."

She opened the door to the Chevette. "You're not
going to be at Mom's funeral, are you?"

246

S.A. Swiniarski

I shook my head. "Not unless they have it after sun-
down."

She took my hand again. "I forgive you."

"Thanks." I started to walk back to the house, but
she kept hold of my hand.

"For everything," she said.

I took my hand back and said, "I love you, Gail."

"I love you, still," she said.

I began walking back to the house. Behind me I
heard the Chevette start up. Over the engine I heard
Gail shout at me, "I still loved you, even when you shot
back." Then the engine revved and started to fade in
the distance.

I rubbed the spot where the bullet had emerged from
my lung, back when 1 was still a cop. I stood in front of
the door for a long time before I could wipe my eyes
and enter.

I took refuge in Ryan's den, trying not to think about
Gail, and Kate, and trying to keep from going into an
emotional tailspin. I stood in front of the French doors,
staring at the snow beyond. My own gaunt face stared
back at me out of the glass. Shadows made my eyes
invisible, a pair of black holes in my face that caused

me no pain.

"Can I get you something to drink?" came an En-
glish-accented voice from behind me. I turned around
to see Leia, Ryan's granddaughter. I didn't hear any
irony in her voice.

I shook my head, suppressing an internal shudder.
Ryan had told me that the drain my injury caused to my
body's resources would require me to feed pretty soon.
Ryan had said 1 could eat and drink normal foods.
However, I couldn't digest them, since acid production
in my stomach was now about nil. My stomach lining
would become more and more sensitive the longer
between real feedings.

RAVEN

247

However, I didn't want to think about blood, or real
feedings, not with my last two victims fresh in my mind.
"No, thank you," I said. "Your name's Leia, right?"
She nodded and I caught the scent of a strong per-
fume. The perfume was the only thing about her that
was overstated. "Yes." she said. "Did—" there was a
slight pause as she bit her lip. "Did Grandfather help
you?"

"Very much," I said. I flexed my intact left hand,
still skeletal and trembling. "He saved me from a rather
stupid accident."

"Good. I'm glad he could help you." She smiled, but
it didn't reach her eyes. Something deep in there told
me that she was very unnerved by my presence. I'd be
unnerved, too, considering her grandfather's clientele.

"You don't need to be afraid of me." Fear didn't
seem the right word, but whatever empathy I had
wasn't providing me with convenient labels. I sensed
confusion, wariness, caution, expectation—some or all
of which may have been me rather than her.

"I'm not afraid." Her smile faded with a sharp
feeling of a nerve being brushed. My comment had
struck a chord, what one I didn't know. Almost as if
she'd seen me notice, she resurrected her smile and
said, "What's there to be afraid of?"

I nodded. "Indeed. What?" I turned my gaze back
out the French doors. She had caught me within my
own fears.

" 'For, alas, alas! with me,' " I whispered, not really
aware that I was quoting aloud, " 'The Light of Life is
o'er.' "

"What's that from?" Leia asked.

I cleared my throat, embarrassed at having quoted
the verse aloud. "Edgar Allan Poe, a poem. It's about
death." I lowered my head. "Everything he wrote was
about death."

248

S.A. Swiniarski

I heard her moving around behind me. "You don't
seem the type to spontaneously quote poetry."

I turned around to face her; she had taken a seat in a
recliner facing the hearth. She sat, legs crossed,
looking at me intently. The low fire brought out livid
copper highlights in her red hair.

"I read a lot of Poe in high school. It comes back to
me every once in a while." Once in a bad while. Ever
since my father died. Poe came back when death was

near.

"How does it go?" she asked.

"Hm?"

"The poem, how does it go?" There was something
in her eyes that drew the poem to the surface.

"It's called. To One in Paradise,' " I said. " 'Thou
wast that all to me, love, / For which my soul did
pine— / A green isle in the sea love, / A fountain and a
shrine, / All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, /
And all the flowers were mine.' "

I paced as I recited the poem from memory. I had to
stop and catch my breath, because my throat was tight-
ening up.

" 'Ah, dream too bright to last! / Ah, starry Hope!
that didst arise / But be overcast!' "

I turned away from Leia to face the French doors

again.

" 'A voice from out the Future cries, / "On! On!"—
but o'er the Past / (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies /
Mute, motionless, aghast!

" 'For alas! alas! with me/The light of Life is o'er! /
No more—no more—no more—

" '(Such language holds the solemn sea / To the
sands upon the shore) / Shall bloom the thunder-
blasted tree, / Or the stricken eagle soar!' "

I leaned on the windowsill and whispered the final

stanza.

" 'And all my days are trances, / And all my nightly

RAVEN                   249

dreams / Are where thy gray eye glances, / And where
thy footstep gleams— / In what ethereal dances. / By
what eternal streams.' "

I ended with my forehead touching the glass and the
sensation that everything behind my chest had fallen
away.

A long silence followed before Leia said, "I'm
sorry."

I collected my thoughts enough to say, "What for?"

"That poem's difficult for you, isn't it?"

I tried to dry my eyes as subtly as possible as I
turned around. "It's not the poem."

She stared at me, and I got the feeling she was seeing
into an uncomfortable depth- "No," she agreed. "It's
not."

"So you live here," I said to change the subject.
"With your grandfather?"

She nodded.

"What about your parents?"

"They died, a long time ago."

"Sorry."

She shrugged.

"Are you friends with Bowie?" She looked to be
about Bowie's age.

She laughed- "Hardly what you'd call our relation-
ship. Let's just say I associate with him. Are you
friends with him?"

"I don't know. Where is he? There are a few ques-
tions I have to ask him."

Leia shrugged. "Bowie has gone, to do the things
that Bowie does. Are you sure about me getting you
something?"

I felt an unnatural clarity in the air, as if every sense
had been honed to a scalpel edge and was cutting into
my brain. Brushfire emotion had consumed everything
inside me, and sensory input rushed in the fill the void.
The light burned my eyes, Leia's perfume stung my

S.A. Swiniarski

250

nose, and the ebb and flow of my own blood was a
hammer in my ear.

Hunger was suddenly a deep ache inside me. Leia
stared at me knowingly and said, "Are you sureT

The offer violated me, as if a stranger were viewing
my own private perversion. She looked at me and I felt
the thirst swell inside me—

1 felt a wary sense of self-preservation. I did not
fully trust this place, and Gabriel had impressed upon
me that everything freely offered carried a price along
with it. I shook my head. "No. Thanks."

She frowned briefly, as if something was wrong. I
didn't know what. I was able to push the sudden wave
of hunger away. The need wasn't yet strong enough to
make me lose control. From talking to Ryan, who
opined much more freely than Gabriel, after two vic-
tims I should have at least a week—if it hadn't been for
the drain because of my injury. As it was, I could go
one or two days before I reached the state where I
became uncontrollable.

I pushed the urge away, but the taste lingered in my
mouth and the light was still bothersome. I walked over
and dimmed the lamps to a tolerable level, where they
barely competed with the glow from the fireplace.

I looked at Leia, seated in the recliner, looking at
me with a faintly curious expression. Who was she?
Why had she been seated with Bowie the first time I'd
seen her?

Like Bowie, she was young enough to be recruited
by Childe's cult. . . .

"Do you happen to know anything about a man
calling himself Childe?" I asked.

Her face darkened, but she showed no surprise at the
question. "He is not a man."

"You know him, then."

She stood. "Evil. Pure distilled evil. Everything he
touches turns to rot sooner or later." She walked until

RAVEN

251

she was nearly touching me. The smell of her perfume
was overpowering. She ran a finger under the collar of
her turtleneck as she spoke. "You should leave Childe
be while you still own yourself."

I shook my head. I couldn't back away now, even if I
wanted to, even though the farther along I came, the
less certain I was of what was happening.

She stepped back. "Don't think your losses make
you special, my poetic friend. Revenge is not a happy
pursuit." Leia stepped around me and out the door.
"The guest room is upstairs and to the right."

I stood in the doorway and watched her ascend the
stairs, a spectral figure. The black sweater and pants
soaked up the darkness, with only her flowing red hair
to mark her humanity.

Revenge is not a happy pursuit.

That woman had been hurt by Childe. I wondered
how her parents had died, and how her grandfather had
gotten into the business of treating the undead.

23

I didn't go to the guest room. I didn't think I could
sleep normally now if I tried, despite feeling the
burden from Ryan's ministrations. My hand had
drained me, and dark thoughts had drained me even
more. More than my hand, the events of the past three
days wearied me. I had been pulled along this path
nonstop, and more than my body, my mind was tired.

I needed to relax, if only for a few hours. So, after
Leia's departure, I rummaged through Doctor Ryan's
bookshelves. Ryan's library was a much lesser and
more pedestrian affair than Childe's, but in it I found
something familiar: a small cloth-bound volume en-
titled simply. Tales and Poems. Under the title was the
name, "Poe."

The memories it sparked were melancholy, but so
were the tales, so were the poems. Right now I needed
the familiarity, the feeling that something of myself
was still mine, unchanged. As always with Poe, I
needed the feeling that I had company in the darkness.

I pulled a drape across (he French doors, shutting out
the rest of the world, and settled in the recliner, which
still held a whisper of Leia's perfume. I opened the
book at random. The first line my eyes fell upon were
within the opening paragraph of "The Masque of the
Red Death."

"No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous.

254

S.A. Swiniarski

Blood was its Avatar and its seal—the redness and the
horror of blood."

It was as if the two decades since my father's death
had never happened, and Poe's words were still talking
directly to me. I let myself be taken to Poe's realm
because, somehow, it vindicated my own. . . .

In a few hours I had passed from the Prospero of the
Masque to the Fortunate of the Cask—from Doom to
Revenge. I had passed into a blackness now wholly lit-
erary, and therefore a little lighter.

The first tier of masonry had but been laid within the
text when a noise drew me out of the story. I looked up,
not sure what I had heard. The winter night was deathly
silent, a blanket of snow soaking up stray sounds.

I convinced myself that it had been the house
creaking, or something popping within the hearth—a
few shadowy embers still glowed there, the last ghost
of a fire.

Just when I returned to reading, I heard the noise
repeating. I heard it, again—a very distinct knocking
coming from in front of me. Something about the rap-
ping frightened me.

Lightly tapping, the noise repeated itself.

I told myself it was nothing, the wind . - - But there
wasn't any wind.

I slowly placed the book on an end table. A Raven,
embossed in gold leaf, looked up from the cover.

I stood up and walked toward the heavy purple cur-
tains I'd drawn across the French doors. It was those
doors from which the sound came. Someone gently
rapping on the panes to gain admittance.

"Bowie?" I asked, even though I knew it wasn't him.
Bowie'would not cause me such dread.

The rapping continued. I felt certain that whatever
was outside those doors represented death. The sense
was so strong that, as I reached for the curtain, I felt as

RAVEN              255

if it could be Kate beyond, risen from the stainless steel
can from which I'd last seen her.

I flung open the curtain.

The feeling of fear and present death did not cease
when I saw the man who had been knocking at the
door. If anything, my feelings deepened.

The man did not have the appearance to inspire
terror. He was, in fact, attractive in an androgynous
fashion. He was dark-skinned, but any attempt to put
his face in a set racial category was doomed to failure.
His nose was European, his eyes could be Asian, his
hair was Indian, his skin African—but none of the
terms fit him. He was not a marriage of separate races.
He was of a race of himself.

"Come with me," he said. His voice did not fog the
air. I doubt it was even audible inside the house,
beyond the glass, so softly was it spoken. I heard it
nonetheless, and I found myself unable to refuse.

I opened the door with the feeling that this was a
particularly vivid dream. The cold and my feet sinking
into the snow only slightly dispelled the illusion.

I never felt so much power tied" into a single entity.
Standing next to him was like standing next to volcano
that was about to erupt. There was nothing about his
appearance, absolutely nothing, that gave that impres-
sion. Physically he was less imposing than I was.

"You will walk with me," he said.

I didn't have much choice. Even if I had felt able to
refuse, this man's bearing and his sudden appearance
would have demanded some sort of attention in spite of
the intimidating presence around him.

I followed him away from Doctor Ryan's house, and
into the night-emptied streets of Shaker Heights. Once
out of sight of the house, he addressed me again, "Ask
your questions."

"Who are you?"

He glanced at the sky and said, "Another spirit

256

S.A. Swiniarski

bound in chains of flesh. No names for me, Mr. Tyier, I
am not here."

The denial of one in power. I could feel the tug of
secrecy behind this visit.

"You know me," I said, half-question, half-statement.

"I have an interest in what you are involved in." We
stopped and he gave me a searing look. "You are an
outsider."

"I know. Why are you here?"

"You question my presence?" His stare became a
holocaust, I could feel his gaze stripping layers from
inside me. I knew now what Gabriel had told me about
power, and status. I was standing in front of a vampire
as far beyond Gabriel as Gabriel was above a Thrall.

Still, under that invisible assault, I managed to
whisper, "Yes, I am."

The first trace of expression crossed his face, a slight
upturn at the corners of the mouth. "Strength," he said
to himself. He turned and continued walking along the
sidewalk.

"Perhaps I'm here to offer you Indenture."

"Indenture?"

He turned around and extended his right arm beyond
the sleeve of his jacket. It extended for an unnatural
length. "You feel the hunger upon you, don't you?"

In response, I felt the ache begin in my stomach, in
my brain. The raw need consumed every vein in my
body. A death chill frosted every nerve. The night
focused into razor clarity, every angle slicing into my
brain. Every sense amplified a dozen times, including
the ethereal sense that told me of the power .this crea-
ture before me held.

This creature, now, burned like a pillar of divine fire. I
saw within him a heat, a power to take away the hunger,
the need, the pain. More than enough. More than I could
take in a dozen lifetimes. His life burned infinitely
brighter than that of the human souls I had seen.

RAVEN                 257

And before me was his extended arm, the life within
nearly too bright for me to look at, the heat within
burning the frozen skin of my face. The skin of his arm
was bare before my face, and as I watched, the skin
laid itself open to me. A slit appeared between the
bones of the wrist, above the vein, traveling up the arm
and pulling apart.

Blood spilled out of the wound, fire-red, leaking on
to the ground. The smell drew me, and my lips were
almost upon the spilling wound before I whispered,
"No."

I knew what drinking would mean, I knew there was
a tie in the blood beyond what Ryan suspected. No one
had to teli me that, I could feel it. I felt it rippling from
the blood that spilled from his arm—its life, powerful,
seductive, and not my own. Accepting this from him
would form a bond that I did not want to make.

I was still leaning forward, the need, the lust,
pushing me. I repeated, "No," and pushed the arm
away. The blood drew a black arc in the snow. It was
the hardest thing I had ever done.

When I turned away, everything returned to a sense
of normalcy. I expected him to be angry, at the very
least. But, from behind me, I heard the whispered word
again, "Strength."

I turned to face him. He was no longer a god offering
communion. He was a figure of purely temporal power.

"Who are you?" I asked, my voice unsteady.

"No one to trifle with." He extended a now normal-
looking arm ahead of him. "You have some strength.
Do not confuse it with power."

He began walking, and I had no choice but to follow
him. I began to think that, had he wished me to drink, I
would have drunk. My victory had only been over
myself, my own desire. Apparently that was enough
for now.

"What did I refuse?" I asked.

258                 S.A. Swiniarski

"Security," he said. "Comfort. No small bit of
power. That, and slavery."

It was the blood. Ryan's pseudovirus transmitted
itself through blood, taking over the flesh, controlling
the flesh. Somehow the mind controlled Ryan's bug—

"You think you understand." His words made me
feel naked, as if my thoughts were exposed in his
presence.

He laughed and it was terrifying to listen to. More
terrible because I knew what he was laughing at. "Such
desperate clinging, Tyier:" His eyes burned when he
said it, heated from the internal fire that had nearly
consumed me before. "The doctor has buried himself
in the flesh, as have you."

He reached over and gently touched the edge of my
chin. "Do not think describing the Mystery, in what-
ever detail, will explain it."

I was frozen, staring at him. I almost wanted to
believe I was held in place by some mental power, but
I knew that it was awe that held me there. His face was
a fusion of the angelic and the diabolical, shaped like a
man's face, but no longer remotely human.

It stroked my cheek as if comforting a child..

"Blood is All. But the All is not simply blood. It is
Life, Spirit, Soul. Our Mind, our Soul, everything us
that transcends the physical is chained within us, has
become part of the flesh chaining us to this world. It
lives with the flesh, dies with the flesh. It controls the
flesh and is controlled by the flesh. Ryan is not of us.
He does not see the mind within the blood, the soul
within the blood. He cannot see what we see, or under-
stand that there is anything unphysical abo"ut us." He
looked deeply into me and said, "You have seen the
soul within the blood, tasted it."

I couldn't bring myself to speak, so I nodded.

"You have seen the maelstrom of faith within a
righteous man."

RAVEN                  259

I thought of Sebastian and nodded again.

"You cannot look into the daemon within your own
eyes."

I nodded again.

"You have left the world of men. The human being
you once were is dead, and the remnant spirit has
remolded your flesh. You must set aside the beliefs you
once had; such things can only hurt you now."

"But—"

A stern edge crept into his voice. He dropped his
hand. "You think like a human and you will die like
one."

I backed away. "Why are you here?"

"Because of your ignorance, your novelty, your
potential importance. Because you are a rogue. The
first such born to us in half a century to survive the day
of his creation. Because you are of use to me."

The sense ofotherworldliness seemed to recede. The
cold I felt was real, and the colors I saw belonged to
Shaker Heights, not a higher, or lower, realm.

"What use?"

"You have no master. No one has given you what I
offered you." He gestured with the arm he had bran-
dished earlier. It was intact, no sign of wounding now.
"You have a freedom that few have until centuries after
their birth."

I was glad of that, at least. I didn't relish having a
master, of any sort.

"No Master. No Teacher," he said. "A rogue is dan-
gerous, especially to himself. You have no status, no
role, no protection. You honor no kin. You have no
Name."

"This makes me useful to you?" I asked.

"Yes, Kane Tyier. It does." He steepled his hands in
front of him, as if consciously withdrawing all the
intense impressions I had felt around him, as if he
folded his sprit back within his body. "I am older than

S.A. S-winiarski

260

you can imagine, and my power is such that even a
thrall to me is a force few would contend with. But I
cannot move incautiously, my acts bear too much
weight for me to make an ill move."

"Are you asking something of me?"

He laughed, "I am offering something."

"Something with a price."

"All things have their price. Can you accept the
Covenant?"

Could I? Perhaps, more importantly, could I reject
it? Gabriel had labeled me an outcast because I had not
accepted the Covenant, and had said that someone
would want much for "granting me that boon."

"What do you want in return?"

"The conclusion of the troubles that have come to
this city."

"Childe?"

He laughed softly, "It is not for me to accuse. For me
to express myself, rightly or wrongly, in this matter
would do worse damage than is being done now."

"Then what do you want from me?"

"Those who search for the truth in this are blinded. I
wish your eyes. I wish to commend upon you the duty
of vengeance."

"I thought that was Gabriel's job."

"Such it is. But I shall not wrongly demean his status
if he is blameless. You shall be my agent, but you shall
not be me. Shall you accept the Covenant and provide
this for me?"

That gave me all sorts of questions about Gabriel's
role in all of this. I found myself nodding even before I
had decided to do so.

"Again, shall you do this, refusing the option to turn
back?"

"Yes."

He placed a hand on my forehead, and I felt a

RAVEN

261

burning there. "Between me and the night," he said,
"name yourself."

The word was pulled immediately from my lips, as if
it wasn't me talking, but something speaking though
me. "Raven," I heard myself say.

"Raven it is, and shall ever be. As jaguar, I am wit-
ness to your entrance to the Covenant, speak your
name now, and it will be known of what you are a
part."

I opened my mouth to ask a question, one of a tumult
of questions about Childe, and Gabriel, and even
Bowie. However, before I had taken breath to speak, he
had removed his hand and had stepped backward into a
shadow. Though my eyes never left him, I could not
see where he went. When I looked down, I only saw
my own set of footprints.

"Jaguar," I whispered, naming the apparition.

He had been right. Neither Ryan nor I had come
close to the mystery. Or the Mystery.

24

I took my vampiric nonsleep in Ryan's windless guest-
room. For once I wasn't tormented by memory. I
simply rested, barely aware of my surroundings or the
passage of time. The sunlit hours of Tuesday passed
without me.

I came to full consciousness with someone knocking
on my door. I felt a weird sense that the day had not
fully passed, and that I had just laid down upon the
bed. A glance at my watch told me that the day had
indeed passed. It was nearly seven.

I sat up feeling fatigued and hungry. I rubbed the
sleep from my face as the knocking continued.
"Coming," I said.

I stood up, feeling as rumpled as my clothes looked.
I picked up my holster and put it back on before I
unlocked the door. I opened it to found Leia standing
outside. She'd traded her black turtleneck for a navy
blue one, and her perfume was as strong as ever.
"Grandfather wants to see you in his office, to look at
your hand."

I nodded. "I'll be down in a few minutes."
I had a memory flash, and as she turned to leave, I
asked, "How long have you been here?"
"Here? With my Grandfather? All my life."
I shook my head, "No, in Cleveland."
She shrugged. "Six months or so, why?"
"Just curious. I've noticed your accent."

264 S.A. Swiniarski

"Oh," she said.

Still thinking of England, I asked, "Does the name
Cross mean anything to you?"

"Should it?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"You enjoy asking questions, don't you?"

"It's my job."

She gave me a half-smile and said, "In my experi-
ence questions are often far more interesting than
answers. Pardon me, but I have errands to run."

She left me abruptly enough for me to feel that t had
hit something significant. What, I didn't know. How-
ever, I was too much a detective to discount Leia and
Childe's common nationality as coincidence.

I met with Ryan in his office downstairs. It was a
study in whitewash and stainless steel. However, it was
aboveground and a much more pleasant environment
then the morgue in the basement. The room felt as if a
person worked and lived there. There were pictures on
the wall, a reassuring clutter on his desk, and a spider
plant hanging in one corner of the room.    "'

I sat for the doctor as he poked and prodded my left
hand, which now bore no sign of yesterday's gangrene.
There was, in fact, little now to distinguish it from my
right hand.

Ryan, as he'd shown last night, was a talker. As he
flexed my hand and dragged little pointed implements
across it, he'd talk all about what he thought was going
on inside me. He talked about how much resources my
body had used up during the night. How it had expelled
or reabsorbed the dead tissue. He talked about a lot of
chemical esoterica that I couldn't understand.

Most important to me was the fact that he talked. It
wasn't very hard to change the thread of his conversation.

"So," I asked as he tested the reflexes of my pinkie,
"how'd you get into treating vampires anyway?"

RAVEN

265

"The war," he said without missing a beat- "I was a
volunteer medic. I was in London, treating civilians
during the Blitz." He nodded absently to some pictures
on the wall, many were black and white, showing a
young Doctor Ryan. "During the worst part of the
bombing, there was an epidemic of unexplained deaths.
All in a single ward, all in the middle of the night. We
weren't equipped for autopsies, not to mention the lack
of personnel." He rolled up my sleeve and began prod-
ding my wrist. "So I stayed up to watch the men in the
ward. That night I saw my first vampire. The creature
must have been caught in the bombing, much of the
soft tissue had been burned away. The face was little
more than a charred skull."

He paused for a while, looking my hand over. "Sun-
light is bad, but fire is worse. Destroys the tissue
immediately. This thing's skin was like charcoal. It
rustled like dry leaves when it moved. And when it
moved, its skin cracked, showing livid red tissue."
Ryan shook his head. "The mass of blood it would
have needed to repair that damage would have been
twenty or thirty full grown men. As it was, with me and
the orderlies there, once we overcame our shock and
saw it begin feeding, we restrained it—and inadver-
tently killed it."

Ryan put down my hand and pronounced, "Your
hand is fine, Mr. Tyier. My suggestion is to feed, rest,
and build up your strength. You should be as good as
new."

"'Thank you. What can I do to repay you?"

Ryan smiled. "Money usually suffices. If you're fow
on funds, a blood sample once you've fully recovered."

"More research?"

Ryan nodded. "Feel free to remain my guest here as
long as necessary."

"I appreciate the offer." I also had the suspicion that

266

S.A. Swiniarski

it was too generous. "Do you think you could answer a
few of my nonmedical questions."

"I'll do my best, Mr. Tyier," he folded his hands.
"It's actually refreshing when one of my patients has
an interest in what I have to say."

"That's unusual?"

Ryan chuckled. "Very. What do you want to know?"

"I was interested in what you could tell me about
some vampires I'm interested in."

"What about them?"

"What you've heard, what they're like—"

"I suppose I'll be more forthcoming than your kins-
men, for what little I know about the figures in your

society."

You 're part of that society as well, I thought, you
have to be to do your work. "Tell me what you know
about one named Childe."

Ryan shook his head. "He is old. He came out of
central Europe about four hundred years ago. Childe is
very—" He wrung his hands as if groping for a word.
"Inner directed, I suppose you could say. He uses
people. Uses them up."

"You know him, then?"

"No," Ryan said quickly. "I know a/him."

"From England?" 1 asked.

Ryan gave me a blank look and then he nodded.

"Yes, from England."

I nodded. "Your granddaughter said you left Eng-
land about six months ago. Why did you leave?"

"Huh?"

"You were there since the war?"

Ryan nodded.

"Why return to the States now?"

"Oh. The last of my wife's family passed away.
There was nothing left to hold us there." He glanced up
at the wall and said, "I thought you wanted to know
about vampires?"

RAVEN                  267

"Do you know of a gentleman named Gabriel?"

"Gentleman," Ryan smiled. "Appropriate word.
He's one of those Americans that become so enamored
of aristocracy that they become more class-conscious
than the British. He's pre-Civil War, and he slipped
into the society as if it were made for him. He would
hate Childe."

"Why?"

"Because Childe has no use for any rules of society,
human or otherwise. He's fond of quoting Alister
Crowley, 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the
law . . .' The fact that Childe is older, more powerful,
and has more status than Gabriel does would be almost
a perpetual insult."

Ryan stood up. "Now, if you please, I have business
to attend to."

I stood and extended my hand. "Thank you for your
help, and for fixing my hand."

"It's my job." Ryan shook my hand. "As I said, feel
free to use our guest room."

"Thank you, but I think f should be moving on
soon."

Ryan got up to leave, and I asked, "How come
you're still human?"

"What?"

I stood up myself. "You must have been tempted,
doing all this research, to become one of us." The
phrase, "one of us," came much too easily to me.

Ryan shook his head. "Never."

"You could, though, couldn't you?"

He nodded. "Yes, I could infect anyone I wished to,
viable specimen or not. But I have never been tempted.
I've seen what it can do."

Ryan, somewhat hurried, left me there- I could tell
that I had hit a nerve or two. I also could tell he was
lying through his teeth about not ever meeting Childe.

I glanced at the wall with all the pictures. Many

268

S.A. Swiniarski

shots—wartime England, a primitive-looking hospital,
Ryan doing this, Ryan doing that, Ryan with the hos-
pital staff, a color picture of Ryan and his grand-
daughter with a modern London background. I took a
step back from the wall and was struck by a feeling that
something was wrong here.

The sound of someone clearing his throat interrupted
me. I turned to see Ryan standing at the door, waiting.
"I'd like to lock up, Mr. Tyier."

I nodded. "Sure," I said, slipping out the door past
him. I still felt something was not quite right about that
office. I just wished I could figure out what it was.

I called Sam's number once Ryan and I were
through with each other. Gail answered the phone.
"Hello, Weinbaum residence."

"Gail?"

"Dad?"

"Yes. What are you doing answering Sam's phone?"

There was a pause before she said, "Hoping you'd

call. How're you doing?"

"Hand's mostly better," I locked my lips because a
hunger was nagging at me as well, something I needed
to take care of soon. I never again wanted to push
myself to the point where something like my attack on
Tony became inevitable. "How did things go at ...

how'd things go?"

She paused for a long while before she answered.
When she spoke, I could hear the stress in her voice,
"It went well, I guess." I could tell she'd been crying.

"1 wish I could have been there."

"So do I." She sucked in a deep breath. "I'm going       ^.

to miss Mom."                              '             ^
"I miss her, too." I've been missing her for five       ^

years. "Is Sam around?"                                 ^
"Sleeping," she said somewhat abruptly.                 ;^,
"He's asleep?"                                       ^

RAVEN               269

"You make it sound like an accusation."

"He's supposed to be protecting you."

"It's not his fault."

She seemed on the verge of tears again. "I'm sorry,"
I said. "Look, I'm going to take a cab down there—"

"You don't have to do that."

"I need the car."

"Oh. I'll be here, I guess."

The strange conversation lasted a few more minutes,
talking about nothing in particular, and I hung up the
phone and realized that I still had a family. Despite
everything else, they hadn't taken that from me. When
I called for the cab, I rummaged through my pockets
for what was left of money I had liberated from my
hotel room.

In fishing for cash, I found something that I had
totally forgotten about—a small black film canister
with a gray cap. I hadn't slowed down long enough to
look over the negatives I had found in my house. What-
ever was on them still belonged to one of the black
absences in my memory -

As I gave the dispatcher Ryan's address, I popped
the gray cap and withdrew the negatives. There were a
half-dozen strips of various lengths, all high-quality
black and white, 35 millimeter. When I hung up, I
uncurled them and held them, one at a time, up to the
light.

The stills were from long-distance surveillance.
They weren't unusual in themselves, documenting
people and places. What was unusual was the sense of
menace that pervaded the images, images that were
otherwise mundane. It was a visceral response that had
little to do with what was actually in the pictures.

Without a magnifying glass, some of the pictures
were indecipherable. However I had very clear pictures
of a number of cars, most focusing on the license plates.

270 S.A. Swiniarski

One was of a dark van with no plate that could have
been the same vehicle thafd slammed into Sam's car.

Another was a dark BMW with a vanity plate,
"RYAN I."

I had also taken pictures of Ryan's house. There
were other houses I'd photographed, some of which
seemed run-down and abandoned, but the only place
that I knew was the doctor's.

I had also photographed people, young people for
the most part. I suspected they were either members or
candidates for Childe's little cult. In addition to faces
that I could not remember, there were three faces that I
did know. I had a picture that was recognizably Leia,
and on a separate roll I had a picture of the same
leather-clad teenager that had jumped onto Sam's car.

My short-circuited memory made a series of connec-
tions—

In front of a mausoleum, standing upon a field of
black snow, a teenager smiles at me with a mouth
invisible under night-black blood ...

With a millstone voice, the same teenager speaks
from the shattered window of Sam's car, "Aren't you
dead, my friend?" Washed by the car's flasher, he
smiles at me with lips that appear alternately black and
soaked with gore.

That same gravelly voice speaks from Childe's
answering machine. "1 hear you look for a woman of
certain qualities," it says. "There will be one at the
ritual tonight, I've told her to look for you."

A van plunges out of the darkness and sideswipes
me. I'm thrown into a drift.

I'm dragged into the van, and the same stony voice
says, ". . . if you remember us, this, anything, you shall
surely die ..." After which I smell rusty leather, and
hear a heavy wet sound. . . .

The fragments wrapped within my memory to place
this teenage vampire in a role as the leader of Childe's

RAVEN              27J

thralls. Childe's lieutenant, I thought. He was at the
right hand of the black-cowled Childe at the mau-
soleum. He had called Childe to deliver Cecilia. He had
led the attack on Sam's car. Somewhere in my black
memory, he had attacked me, made me what I was.

All that made it even more troubling to me that, in
the picture, this kid was clearly talking to Bowie.

25

Outside, the cab honked its horn for my attention.
During the wait I had searched for any sign of Bowie,
and had found none. When I went out to the cab, I was
still racked with contradictory memories. I still re-
called little of the time between Kate's death and my
own subterranean waking. However, I now remem-
bered the first time I had talked to Bowie.

I told the cab to go to University Circle. I sat in the
back, staring at the lightly snowing evening.

b.
"I've seen you talking to Childe.'s people, " I tell him

over a cup of Arabica coffee.

"And you think?" He shakes his head at me. "You
don't know how wrong you are, man."

"Why are you talking to these people then?"

"You're supposed to know your enemy, ain't you?"

"Childe 's your enemy? "

"He fucked with someone I care about. ..."

Even as I remembered it, I found that I wasn't so
ready to believe him now as I had been then. Though,
if he was Childe's tool, why had he helped me as far as
he had? If he wasn't, why did I now have the impres-
sion that his message on my voice mail had set me up?

Thralls did occasionally kill their masters. Perhaps
Bowie was Childe's, and had killed him off. Loss of a

274

S.A. Swiniarski

leader could do strange things to a cult, perhaps even
spark a flaring of atypical violence.

That didn't explain why Kate and I had been targets.
Had I been close to finding out something? If they had
been trying to conceal their vampire nature, they'd
done a lousy job of it.

"Maybe Childe's still around, and they're setting
him up," I whispered. His own thrall had picked out
Cecilia as a potential victim. As far as I could see, she
was the first of Childe's people to have disappeared
with someone to miss them. Everything since seemed'
to have been designed to draw Sebastian's attention.

The taxi pulled up in front of Sam's building, and I
paid the cabby off with the little cash I had left. I
entered Sam's building, thinking that I had almost fig-
ured out what was going on.

Gail opened the door a crack to talk to me. The
funeral had been hard on her, I thought. Her face was
pale and drawn. "Hi, Dad," she said through the crack
in the door.

"How are you dong?"

"Not too great," she said, shaking her head.

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"Can I come in?"

Gail looked back into the apartment and paused.
"We should let Sam sleep."

"Is there something wrong?"

She looked at me and said, in a voice thick with
irony, "I don't know, Dad, Mom was buried today,
what should be wrong?"

I felt sick at what I said. The new sense of empathy 1
had—the sense of a psychic wind carrying emotional
heat and cold through the aether—carried ripples of
confusion, of grief, and of sadness from Gail. I had a
sense of clarity beyond anything I'd felt before, and

RAVEN              275

with it came a feeling of loss from my daughter beyond
any I had felt myself. "Forgive me, .it was a stupid
thing to say."

She stared at me, and I felt a sense of something that
Gail wanted to say, and wasn't saying. "Whatever hap-
pens, I love you. Dad. It isn't your fault ..." I stood
there, waiting for some revelation. Instead she said, "I
forgive you."

"Okay."

"The Chevette's in the lot out back. Go find what
you're looking for, okay?"

"Okay?"

She closed the door leaving me with a feeling of
unease. I was unsure where my normal parental con-
cern ended, and my paranoia began. I wanted to break
in the door and ask her what the problem was, but I
told myself that I'd seen her, and she was all right, and
she was safe with Sam.

When I left, the press of my hunger was bad enough
that I could almost smell blood.
i.

I was sick for blood, and I didn't want any more
lives on my hands. I needed to take care of it immedi-
ately. I had an idea I wanted to test, so I drove by Uni-
versity Hospitals. I parked the Chevette on the street,
straightened my Jacket to cover the holster and the
bullet holes in my shirt, and headed for the emergency
entrance.

I walked in, past a reception desk and into the hos-
*    pital proper, concentrating on projecting an aura of
belonging there. I don't know if it was my attitude, any
vampiric powers, or simply that the nurses running the
desk were too overworked to notice me, but I slipped
in without hearing any comment or objection.

A security guard paced the halls, but he faced away
from me, and I followed the corridor in the opposite
''   direction from him.

276

S.A. Swiniarski

So far so good, but I soon found that at least one part
of my plan was ill-conceived. I had intended to slip
into the hospital and steal some of their whole blood
supply. That was easy to say in the abstract, but now,
as I wandered the night-emptied corridors of the hos-
pital, I found it a little difficult to follow through on the
premise when I had no idea where anything was. I
could feel hunger eating away inside me, making it
harder for me to think clearly.

I ran across a few directory maps. but none had a
convenient label saying "find blood here."

After about hatf an hour of random searching, all I
had succeeded in discovering was that 1 could do a
pretty good job of mentally convincing inattentive
humans that I wasn't there. That was useful, but it
didn't help my hunger, which had grown even worse
with my mental effort. The hunger was an ache in my
joints, a pressure at the back of my skull, a fire searing
behind my eyes.

I wandered deep into the hospital complex, away
from the constant activity around the emergency room.
This corridor was empty enough that I must have let
my guard down for a moment, because, just as I was
washed with a stunning wave of hunger that near-
doubled me over, a tall woman stepped in front of me.
"Pardon me, but can I help you?"
The woman confronting me was thin, and maybe an
inch shy of six feet tall. That, combined with her
intense gray eyes, invested her with a quiet authority. I
glanced down to her name tag, stitched on her white
coat over her left breast. "Dr. Nicholson."

I felt warmth, heat, and life inside her. I knew—I
could feel—that what she carried within her could fill
the void that was eating a hole inside me. We were
separated by six feet, but I already felt the strength of
her pulse under my fingers. Something savage inside

RAVEN                 277

me told me I wanted to grab her right there and sink my
teeth into a vein.

She was becoming impatient with me, I could sense
irritation rippling within her. "Can I help you find
something?" There was a note of demand in her voice
that almost hid the subliminal fear. She knew I wasn't
supposed to be here, and the strength of my hunger was
so intense that even she had to feel it on some level.

I took a few steps forward, and she said, "Sir, I'm
going to have to ask you to leave."

I took another step.

"Do I have to call Security?" The fear was reaching
her voice now. I felt a tidal pull toward her.

I stared into her eyes and felt my words push into the
deep gray pools I saw there. "That won't be necessary."

I felt a spike of fear accompany her answer. "No, it
isn't."

"Don't be afraid."

I heard her swallow. "I'll try." I felt the emotion dim
somewhat, but it didn't disappear. That was inter-
esting. What exactly was I doing? If it was control, it
wasn't absolute.

She kept staring at me, as if fascinated. / can take
her here, I thought, and she won't resist. She'll feel
panic, and fear, but she won 'I stop me.

I almost reached for her—

Then I heard Gail's words, "Were they innocent?"

Instead of grabbing her, I spoke. "I need whole
blood. Take me to where you keep it."

She nodded. "Follow me."

As she led me off, 1 tried to imagine what was going
on inside Dr. Nicholson's mind. I still fought the
frightening impulse inside me that made me want to
take all of what she had inside her. When she finally
took me into a darkened lab and opened a refrigerator
for me, I got a nasty surprise.

278                S.A. Swiniwski

Of the bags of whole blood 1 saw filling the refrig-
erator, none of them bore the heat of life. I was des-
perate in my hunger, and I grabbed one of the bags.
The fluid inside seemed black and dead to me, I gently
bit into it, to taste the contents.

I heard a sharp intake of breath from the doctor, who
still held the refrigerator door open-

The taste of the blood made me gag—like bile in my
mouth, like death. I threw the bag down in frustration,
and a tiny stream leaked out of the hole my tooth had
made. It made a black trail on the linoleum floor.

I looked up at the doctor, and the sense of the life
within her was overpowering. As was her fear. "I'm
sorry," I said.

There was no way around it, I had to drink from a
living person. All I could hope for was, as Gabriel had
said, it didn't have to be fatal.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

We stood apart, the light from the refrigerator the
only barrier between us. I could feel the pull- of her
blood, and I could feel the skin begin to tighten around
my jaw. "I won't hurt you," I said, with difficulty. I
hoped it wasn't a lie.

I stepped forward, and she let go of the refrigerator
door. It closed neatly all the way, leaving only a sliver
of light between us.

I touched her neck, and felt the shiver of a racing
pulse. "Please calm down," I said, as gently as I could
manage.

"I can't," she said.

I felt for her, for her vulnerability. She didn't
deserve this, but my own remade nature insisted that
nether of us had a choice. I leaned forward.

My lips almost brushed her neck, but I held myself
back. I didn't want to injure her. "You take blood,
show me the vein you use."

In the ghost-dim light I saw her shake her head. Her

RAVEN                 279

arms were folded across her in a protective gesture. My
will was holding her here, but she was afraid. I didn't
blame her.

I took her hand, gently, and drew it out in front of
her. "Show me. Please." The heat this close to her body
was intoxicating. I could smell the life, and every
vibration of her pulse sent a tremor through my own
body.

After a long pause, she reached down and rolled up
her sleeve.

"Forgive me," I said. I leaned over and kissed the
crook of her arm, the vein a hot brand against my
tongue. My remade teeth bit into the skin almost on
their own. Her life, her warmth, filled my mouth. I
heard her breath come in shuddering gasps as I drank.

The blood filled weaknesses I hadn't been aware I'd
been feeling, the nagging pain evaporated, the fatigue
drained away. As soon as I realized that the thirst no
longer was a weight within me, I forced myself to stop.
It took an effort to pull myself away from her arm, but
I managed it. I had refused--temptation on a much
grander scale last night.

As I pulled away, I was grateful to find that my
victim was still standing. As I broke, she sighed and
collapsed against me. I had to scramble to keep her
upright.

I was beginning to worry when I heard her whisper
in my ear. "Who are you?"

"No one important," I said, walking her into the light
out in the hall. I looked down at her arm. It was pale
and still bleeding, but not badly. I sat her down on the
first chair we came to.

She was conscious and seemed to be all right. She
looked at me with a wistful expression that made me
nervous. "Who are you?" she repeated.

We were out in a corridor, apparently alone. "Just a
^ random nut," I told her. "You should forget about me."

280

S.A. Swiniwski

She nodded. She had her arm bent upward, and was
putting pressure on the wound. Whatever I was doing
mentally, this woman was still in possession of all her
faculties. Again, I wondered what was going on inside
her mind.

She looked up at me and nodded. "But will I see you

again?"

1 was stunned by the question for a moment. In
response I just shook my head and said, "I don't
know." Then I got out of there as quickly as I could.

I wasn't thinking about much of anything as I wove
my way back out of the hospital. I wasn't concentrating
on not being seen. I passed a small alcove of vending
machines, and shortly afterward I heard feet running
after me. "Kane? Kane Tyier? Is that you?"

It was a female voice that I barely noticed as
familiar. I had conflicting urges to draw my weapon or
run, but 1 turned to face the person.

My first thought was, what is she doing here?

She slowed to a stop, still holding a Styrofoam cup
of hospital coffee. "I thought that was you. If you're
here to see him, you missed visiting hours. He's asleep

anyway."

I stood there blankly staring at the woman. I knew
her, though I could not remember her name. She was in
her early thirties, blonde, and wore a dark flowered
print dress that was at odds with the weather-outside.

She was Sam's girlfriend. Seeing her here gave me
a sick feeling of who she was talking about. "What
happened?"

"Oh," she looked surprised. "You didn't know?
Well, don't worry, the doctors say he'll be fine. They
managed to deal with the blood loss in time."

I wanted to shake her. "What blood loss?"

"From the accident. They let him go home and one
of the sutures burst open while he slept."

RAVEN

281

I shuddered. "When? When did this happen?"
"Sometime last night—"

I was running for the car before she finished her
sentence.

Gail wasn't there to buzz open Sam's apartment. At
this point I had lost all concern for subtlety. When she
didn't answer, I kicked in the door to the lobby- I ran
up the three flights to Sam's apartment, cursing my
own stupidity. I had known something was wrong, 1
had felt it, and I had left her there.

I had even smelled the goddamned blood.

I pounded on Sam's door and received no response. I
drew the Eagle and tried the doorknob. It was un-
locked. I felt the copper taste of fear in my mouth, a
taste that reminded me of blood.

I pushed the door open with my foot, covering the
apartment with the Eagle. The living room was empty, but
the smell of blood was there—ferric and sharp-tasting.

"Gail!"

I received no answer as I swegt the apartment with
my gun: living room, kitchen, bathroom. . . .

The blood-smell came from the bedroom. I stood in
front of that door a long time before I had the courage
to open it. I couldn't take it, not ifGail. . . .

I kicked in the door to Sam's bedroom. It was dark
and motionless in there, but my night eyes quickly
adjusted. The bed was soaked with blood, blood that
was cold, dead, and black.

Gail wasn't here.

"You bastards!" I yelled at the walls. "Where is she?
What are you doing?" My voice spent, I whispered,
"Why did she lie to me?"

Looking around, I could see the chaos made by the
paramedics when they'd grabbed Sam. From the blood-
stains on the bed, I could picture the opening of the
wounds in his face, spilling across the pillow.

S.A. Swinifirski

282

I couldn't picture it as accidental.

I tore the place apart, looking for some clue to where
Gail had gone, but I found nothing of hers in Sam's
apartment. The only thing I did find was on the floor
next to the bed. It was a dirty, folded, piece of paper
that looked as if it had spent a long time in someone's
pocket, only to slip out when its owner knelt -over
Sam's bed.

I unfolded it. It was a map of Lakeview Cemetery.

26

I drove away from Sam's apartment building knowing
that to find Gail, I had to find Childe's people, his
thralls. A knot of rage burned through my gut, at
myself, and at them. I had to get to them before they
harmed her—

I couldn't complete the thought. The emotion made
it hard to think clearly, and I needed to think clearly-
1 only had two things to act on. I had a map of Lake-
view, and I had a memory of dams and mausoleums. I
had a memory of running from the teenager with the
blood-black smile, of Cecilia s animate body on the
blackened snow, of the mausoleum from which
she emerged, and of the flood-control dam that had
hovered over the whole scene like some gigantic
memorial.

Clearly marked, on the map of Lakeview, was the
location of that dam. At the moment, that was all I had.

As I drove up Mayfield from University Circle, I
passed a large wrought-iron gate that said, "Lakeview
Cemetery." My destination.

I felt pressed for time, and parked opposite the gate
as soon as I saw it. The cemetery was shut up and dark,
long past closing. The sidewalk on that side of May-
field was deserted. The dark quiet beyond the fence
seemed to have reached out to claim Mayfield as part
of itself.

As I got out of the car, I glanced up toward the

284                 S.A. Swinuirski

well-lit intersection of Coventry and Mayfield, with its
BP station, its bars, and its people. All of it bustled in
the distance. From where I was, cloaked in the silence
next to the cemetery, it looked tike another world.
They even seemed to have less snow up there.

I dashed across Mayfield, and up Lakeview's drive-
way, stopping at the gate. The gate was large and
wrought iron, flanked by shorter fences. I walked to the
right of the main gate, staring into the darkened foliage
beyond the fence, and waited for the traffic on May-
field to die off for a moment.

During a pause in the traffic, I took a step up and
vaulted over the fence. The ease with which I did it—
the fence was seven feet tall—surprised me. Somehow
I was exploiting both the energy of my anger and of the
fresh feeding.

God help anyone who harmed my daughter.

I came crashing down in the snow-covered mulch on
the other side of the fence. I stood still for a time, lis-
tening for signs that someone had seen me cross the
fence. I heard nothing. The snow absorbed the sounds
of traffic.

I slipped through the naked winter bushes and into
the cemetery. The sense of entering another world was
complete. I stepped out into a word of naked trees,
rolling snow-blanketed hills, and a total absence of
people.

There were footprints here and there, where people
had visited, or tended a grave. But, like the graves
themselves—mostly marked only by blank humps of
snow—the signs of people seemed distant and irrele-
vant when weighed against the omnipresent stillness.

The silence allowed it to sink in, what had happened.
The worst of my fears, the fear that one day I would be
hunting down someone's child only to discover the
child was my own. My fears had been a self-fulfilling
prophecy. I had brought all of this down upon us, and it

RAVEN

285

wasn't hard to believe that my own anger was the only
thing keeping the guilt from paralyzing me.

I followed the map as well as possible in the dark-
ened cemetery. More than once my haste threw me
down on an ice-slicked road. In my blind rush, when I
did see a ghostly figure emerge from the woods, I had
drawn my gun and almost shot before I realized who
it was.

I held my gun upon the white-clad figure and stared
for a moment before speaking.

"Gabriel," I said in a puff of fog.

"Indeed, sir. Now, Mr. Tyier, would you put aside
that weapon."

"Give me a good reason."

"You try my good graces, sir. You're in no position
to test me."

"Am I not?" My hand was shaking. "I had the
impression I left whatever grace there was between us
when I stepped out of your house."

"You try my patience, Mr. Tyier—"

I steadied my gun with botn hands. "You pedantic,
pretentious—You have about five seconds to explain
why you're here or you'll feel what it's like to have a
fifty-caliber bullet pass through that smug expression."

"You're threatening meT

"It won't kill you, but I'm curious about what might
happen to your motor skills."

"Mr. Tyier!"

I took a step forward, staring into Gabriel's eyes.
They were closed and dead to me, almost opaque. Even
so, I looked into them and poured all my anger into my
words. "You're so fond of form. My chosen name is
Raven."

Gabriel shook his head, "I don't believe I can accept
you as a peer, sir."

"Fuck what you believe. Tell me what you're doing
here, now!"

286                 S.A. Swinuirski

I don't know if it was the force of my anger, the
threat of the gun, or the blessings of Jaguar, but
Gabriel backed up-

"Don't you dare move," I shouted at him.

His glare raged with a fury mirroring my own, cold
where mine was hot. "All right, Raven, ask me what
you will."

"What are you doing here?"

"The same as I was doing when first I crossed your
path. I felt the intensity of a feeding. I came to investi-
gate."

"Looking for Childe?"

"Looking for Childe."

"Why?"

"Because he breaks the Covenant—"

I shook my head and felt a glare colder than the
snow that soaked into my shoes. "Everyone lo6ks for
Childe. He's convenient, isn't he? No one seems to pay
attention to the radical change in behavior his thralls
have undergone. Or that he disappeared with his last
recruit, the first person he's taken that anyone seems to
have missed. Childe's been around too long for all this
to happen at his hand."

"What are you implying?"

"Isn't it obvious? Childe's being set up- And at the
very least you're looking the other way. At worst—"

"Mind your accusations. You do not know what
you're dealing with."

I closed the distance between us and pressed the gun
barrel to his temple as he had placed a sword against
my neck. "You don't know who you're dealing with.
My daughter is in the hands of those people. Childe, or
the people who're scapegoating him. If I find you're
involved, I will tear out your heart. What's down the
hill?"

"Nothing you should concern yourself with." His
face was remarkably calm.

RAVEN              287

"Let me be the judge of that."

"There's a young woman down there with a tale to
tell."

Those words were enough to send me scrambling
down the hillside, toward a fenced-off access road that
led to my destination. "Don't pursue this," Gabriel
called down after me. "Let Childe sink under the
weight of his excesses."

I ignored him as I jumped over the gate blocking the
snow-covered road. I didn't know what Gabriel was,
but at the very least he acted like a cop who simply
ignored inconvenient evidence. He disgusted me.

"You've made an enemy today," he called after me
at last. I couldn't have cared less.

I ran down the road to a large bowl-shaped valley
close to the center of Lakeview. I emerged on the floor
of that valley. Towering to my left was the wide con-
crete face of the dam.

It was just as surreal as I remembered it, a wide
slope of concrete hovering over a flat field of snow
marred only by one paired set oT footprints.

Near the base of the dam, opposite a tiny, snaking
river escaping from its base, huddled a small hill next
to the wall of the valley. The footprints pointed me
directly at that hill.

As I'd remembered, mausoleums were set into the
side of that hill. As I ran out onto the dam's flood-
plain, following Gabriel's steps, I noticed no sign of
graves on the field between me and the hill. The mau-
soleums down here had to predate the construction of
the dam.

My memory of Cecilia's sacrifice kept replaying
itself in my mind. I received no new insights, only
more and more vivid shots of adrenaline. Little had
changed down here, down to the blue-tinted moonlight.

I had to stop between a pair of barren trees, because
it was the spot where I had seen Sebastian's daughter

288                 SJ\. Swiniarski

die—and perhaps be reborn. I was directly in front of
the tomb from which I'd seen her emerge. Gabriel's
footsteps led directly to the tomb's door. And so did
others.

It was hard to tell, but where the flood-plain had been
virgin except for Gabriel's footprints. Here, by the hill,
there were signs of two, or maybe three other people
walking around the site. I felt even more unease when I
remembered why Gabriel said he had come here.

A feeding.

More footprints led to the mausoleum than left it.

This mausoleum seemed typical of the other half-
dozen granite boxes set into the hillside around it. It
had the same peaked temple roof supported by two pol-
ished granite pillars flanking the single door. The door
was gated by a latticework of eroded green bronze. The
only decorative carving on the tomb was an Egyptian
sun-disk on the lintel above the door. I was certain that
this was the place from which I'd seen Sebastian's
daughter emerge.

What disturbed me was the fact that this tomb bore
no name.

I glanced to the tombs to the left and to the right,
"Forbes," on the one, and another name, illegible in
shadow, on the other. The place I faced was unique. It
must have been built just before the dam, just before
they stopped using this place where the dearly departed
could be washed away the next time they opened the
sluice.

I glanced at the dam. Close as I was, it filled half the
world, ground to sky, at an oblique angle. I felt as if I
had fallen into a surrealist painting. Some element
didn't belong here, the dam, the hill, the nameless
tomb, myself. . . .

Not a place I'd chose to be buried. Not a place I'd
choose to die.

RAVEN               289

I stared at the footprints leading to the door of the
nameless mausoleum. I felt the same dread that I had
felt when approaching Sam's bedroom.

It seemed an eternity before I had gathered the
courage to walk up to the gate in front of the door. I
stared in, past the green metal scrollwork, trying to see
through the one window in the door beyond. The dark-
ness was impenetrable, even to my sensitive eyes. The
little windows set into the recessed door seemed to be
painted black.

Just like the bedroom in Childe's apartment. Perhaps
for the same reasons. It was easy to believe that all my
answers lay beyond the bronze scrollwork in front of
me. I listened for a few moments, trying to sense if
anyone was here.

I let the silence hover a little longer than was com-
fortable. I felt alone. I hooked my fingers into the cold
metal scrollwork, next to the lock, and pulled.

The gate flung open, unlocked. I expected the mech-
anism to protest more upon opening, but it glided open
on well-oiled hinges.

I now faced a heavy, studded, wooden door.

I looked around and listened again. This time I heard
something—

I backed, slightly, and began raising my gun. I
wasn't quick enough. The door was yanked open from
inside. A stench of rotting death billowed out, piercing
the cold, worse than anything my gangrenous hand had
emitted—the warm, wet smell of decayed meat.

The smell pushed me back like a fist. I saw the
source of the smell and wondered if the gun was going
to do me any good.

I saw its clothes first, maybe because I didn't want to
see the rest of it. What I saw was typical teenage
Gothic-punk. Black jeans, black T-shirt, black leather,
black everything. At least everything used to be black.

290                &A. Swiaiarski

Everything was torn, ragged, splattered with mud and
darker filth.

It emerged into the moonlight, following its smell, a
first-hand example of someone who did not wear vam-
pirism well. Its hair was gone except for a few random
patches. Feral red eyes burned inside sockets sunk into
craters of tattered white flesh. Black sores pockmarked
its skin. I saw tendons working through holes in its
cheek and the backs of its hands. Fingernails and teeth
were absurdly long.

It hissed like an angry cat.

I leveled my gun and tried to stare it down—a move
that had been successful lately. But, behind those
bloody eyes I didn't see much I could influence. And
what was there was dedicated to being permanently
pissed off.

The thing leaped at me, screaming something shrill
and inarticulate. I ducked to the side just in time to
avoid having a bite taken out of my left shoulder. I felt
its hand brush by me. Its touch felt unclean.

Before I'd turned fully around, I felt claws rake across
my left hip. I backpedaled and saw the thing trailing
bloody pieces of my shirt and my jacket. It was fast.

It advanced toward me, a moving corruption.

I fired the Eagle. The zombie and I were connected
for a microsecond by a tongue of flame/then it fell
backward into the snow, a ragged hole kicked into its
chest. Of course, it started getting up again. I walked
closer and fired again, this time into his head. Its face
caved in and chunks of skull blew into the snow. It
stopped moving.

I knew, despite appearances, that I hadn't finished it
off. Looks weren't anything. It had looked dead before
I shot it, and I'd survived a bullet in the face myself.

Though, looking at the mess in the snow, I realized
that the bullet I'd taken was not into the brain-case, and

RAVEN                  291

hadn't been fifty-caliber. From the look of things, at
the very least I'd slowed it down a bit.

The mausoleum still hung open, behind me. I ran
back up to it.

The first thing I saw, as my eyes adjusted to the
gloom, was that Sebastian had left his spoor here, in
the form of two dead soldiers. The two crumpled
bodies cluttering the marble floor, dressed and armed
as they were, were unlikely to have come from another
source.

As Gabriel had said, a woman sat here. In the dark-
ness I was allowed one momentary illusion. I almost
whispered, "Gail!"

Then I saw through the shadows and saw the face of
. Cecilia, Sebastian's daughter. She didn't look as bad as
the thing I'd pumped iead into—the corpses on the
floor didn't look that bad—but she didn't look good.

She sat at the far end of the tomb, one of the corpses
crumpled at her feet. She glared at me and demanded,
"Who the fuck are you?"     k-

Nice Catholic girl, I thought. I glanced at the bodies
on the ground and said, "Someone who isn't working
for your father." Saying that severed whatever ties I
had left with Sebastian. It felt better than it should've.

"Like the last guy?"

I heard a rattle and as I stepped forward, over the
first corpse. She was handcuffed to a wrought-iron

- bench set into the narrow far wall.

"Are you a cop?" she asked. "I told everything to the
guy with the cane."

I bent over and rolled one of the dead men onto his
back. I didn't know him, but the wound was familiar.
His neck was half gone, the wound a black crater in
the darkness. In one hand he clutched a rosary, in the

- other a thirty-eight. Neither appeared to have helped
[, him much.

292 S.A. Swiniarski

I picked up the rosary, which didn't seem to hold
any special power. Maybe he hadn't gone to church
enough.

"Who are you?" she repeated.

"Where're Childe's people? Where're the rest of his
thralls?"

She shook her head. "I don't know what you're
talking about."

I rolled over the second body, whose wounds were
less severe, smaller, and just as fatal as the first's. Two
generic hoods with the job of scouting locations for
Dad. "How long ago?" I asked.

"What?"

"How long since you and the zombie feasted on
these two?"

"I didn't—"

I knelt down in front of her. "No games. I know what
you are. This guy has most of his neck, unlike the
zombie's dinner. That, and you're pretty damn fresh
for someone who hasn't had a drink for a long time.
How long have you been here? Since Childe's little
ritual? You should be starving."

"Stop it! Stop it!" She was crying, and I backed off.
She looked down at her feet and whispered, "I was
insane with it. Dominic—" she indicated the corpse
"—was dead before I realized I knew him." She
sobbed. "I've had to sit here with him for a whole day."

Sebastian had had over twenty-four hours to realize
his hoods were missing. I looked back out the door. I
could see the bloodless zombie out there on the ground,
looking even more cadaverous and thin even though
his chest had reconstructed itself.

In the distance I heard sirens. My gunshots had not
gone unnoticed.

"You have a choice, Cecilia. I can leave you here for
the cops, or I can take you, and you tell me what I want
to know." I stared into her eyes, and I didn't know if it

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293

was vampiric persuasion or the unambiguous options
that made her say, "Take me."

I bolstered the Eagle, reached down, and pulled the
handcuff chain apart.

27

Fortunately, I was able to lock the mausoleum shut on
the corpses. I collected my brass and left zombie-boy
where he was. I pulled Cecilia along, through the
cemetery, without running across Gabriel again. And,
despite the sirens, we reached the gate before any
police showed themselves.

I pulled her over the fence and we dashed across
Mayfield to the Chevette.

"Who was that he left guarding you?" I asked. I
wanted her talking.

"Joey," she said. There was a long pause. "At least I
think he's still Joey." Her voice was small and leeched
of any of the earlier bravado. I suddenly felt for every-
thing she was going through.

Despite the wave of empathy I felt, I had to remind
myself that she was one of Childe's thralls now, which
meant she was involved in whatever happened to my
daughter. "How did Gabriel get by him?"

"Who?"

"The man with the cane."

"I don't know. He just looked at Joey, and Joey
didn't move."

" Rank hath its privileges. Apparently Gabriel had
better luck staring down the opposition than I did. "I
need you to tell me about him, and Childe's people."

She looked up at me, and I stopped next to the
Chevette- I wanted her in the car. Her dress was

296

S.A. Swiniarski

gore-stained, black with dried blood, and I didn't want
anyone to see her. "They have my daughter."

"I'm sorry," she said.

I opened the passenger door and set her in the car.
"Talk to me."

"I met Joey once, before. . . ." She shivered. "I had
no idea that would happen to him. He wasn't happy,
even before all this. He thought he was a bad person,"
Cecilia said.

"He thought Childe was a bad person?"

"No, he thought he was, Joey. He saw himself as
evil."

"So you knew these people a while before you ran
away?" I made my way around to the driver's door of
the Chevette. I was feeling strain from standing still. I
wanted to wring Cecilia's neck, get her to tell me
where they were now. But I knew pushing her might
make her clam up, and I needed her talking.

"Friends," she said. "I thought they were friends.
They aren't people."

Neither are we, Cecilia, I thought. "Go on about
Joey."

"He started following Childe before I met him. I
don't know what he was like before then. When Joey
was in a good mood he would talk about what an evil
bastard he was—saw himself as—about all the people
he was angry at. When he was in a bad mood, he would
sit and sulk. I think he amused Childe."

"Amused him?" I said as I slipped in and started the
car. I didn't know how tight control between master
and thrall was, but I felt that there was a good chance
that this woman was directly under Childe's control. I
was lucky she was volunteering information.

Whatever that control aspect was, my experience
with my own influence, especially with Doctor
Nicholson, seemed to be less absolute domination, and

RAVEN

297

more of an erosion of the victim's will—or desire—to
resist suggestions.

After being locked up with Joey, Cecilia probably
didn't feel any excessive loyalty to Childe, or to
Childe's thralls. If I was right about the way things
worked, I could probably deal with her up until she met
Childe again, and the domination reasserted itself.

"People amused Childe—" She shook her head- "I
tried to leave him before. . . . Who are you?"

The sudden shift startled me. I was driving carefully,
away from Lakeview, keeping an eye on the rearview
mirror. "My name's Kane, Kane Tyier." -

"Why is that name familiar?" She seemed to ask me
and herself.

"I arrested your father once."

"You are a cop!"

"Was, a long time ago. I retired when a twelve-year-
old blew a hole through my lung."

"Sorry," she whispered and touched my bicep.
"Were you hurt badly?"

"I've been hurt worse since-". I turned the wheel,
more to escape her hand than to maneuver the car. Her
touch made me uncomfortable. "You said you tried to
leave Childe. Why didn't you?"

"He convinces you. That's what he does. He con-
vinces you to do things, and once he does that, he owns
you- Once you go with him, you can't go back; no one
else would have you if they knew what he'd made you
do."

"If someone forces you—"

"That's it. He doesn't force. Everyone's free to go,
they just can't." She bent over, palms pressing into her
'temples. "You can't imagine—" She stopped talking
for a while, and just shook.

"I wanted to kill myself," she finally whispered.
"You know why I didn't?"

"Why?"

298                 S.A. Swiniarski

"Because of what he has us do to the bodies."
Then, in a massive rambling lump, she let it ail come
pouring out.

Cecilia had been sucked into Childe's group because
she was quite consciously searching for something dia-
metrically opposed to her father's Catholicism. In a
sense, for her, the neo-pagans that populated Cleveland
Heights were just too good-natured for her.

In other words, she was exactly the kind of person
Childe looked for. Childe pulled his followers to him
by appealing to something evil.

Childe offered power to his followers, in return for
their absolute slavery to him. Somehow the inherent
contradiction of Childe's offer was overshadowed by
his demonstration of blood-magick. His charisma was
such, and his appeal so visceral, that no one who
entered his inner circle ever left. He called himself
Satan's agent on Earth, and the people he targeted were
so alienated and nihilistic that such a proclamation was
attractive, especially after Childe demonstrated the
ability to transcend death.

Cecilia told me of a time when Childe offered a
revolver and a box of ammunition to a doubter named
Eric. Within a circle of twenty people, Eric loaded the
revolver, and pumped off three rounds point-blank into
Childe's chest. Childe's robes erupted with gore, and
Cecilia remembered seeing, briefly, the walls of the
wound going deep into Childe's chest. Childe smiled,
took the gun, and fired a single round into Eric's head.

Eric had not taken Childe's sacrament; Eric died. After
that demonstration, it was easy for Childe to order his
followers to descend on Eric and feed—even those who
had not yet become his thralls.

The pattern Cecilia related was common for all of
Childe's followers. He would pull the victim in, gradu-
ally force the person to sever all ties to family and

RAVEN

299

friends outside the group, show some demonstration of
power, and slowly pull the person into steadily more
degrading acts. Each event would increase Childe's
power over the individual, until, by the time Childe
decided to take the final step and grant his own blood
to the victim, the person was already psychologically
enslaved.

According to her, she had been locked in that mau-
soleum for two and a half weeks prior to the ceremony.
She only had water. She was nearly driven mad by
hunger and isolation—but Childe had done enough of a
job on her to keep her from crying out.

When they opened the door for her, she had no
choice but to walk out. But according to her, after the
door opened, she had no memory until waking up,
inside the tomb, with the zombie.

There were things in her story that didn't ring true.
There's a difference in the way people tell their stories.
And when I listen I can telkthe difference between
someone who's telling me something for the first time,
and someone who's rehearsed. The pauses are more
conscious. There's more awareness of the audience. I
can see the words flow by as if by rote.

It doesn't matter how emotional or inarticulate a
person is, I can see when they know the next word
they're going to say. I suppose it was all those times
hearing the difference between what people said during
interrogation, and what they said on the stand after
being rehearsed by their lawyer.

Listening to Cecilia made me wonder if she had been
talking to a public defender.

But I had other worries. "So where can 1 find them?"
i asked.

"You don't want to find them."

I slammed on the brakes and skidded the Chevette to
the side of the road. Clouds had rolled over the moon,

300                 S.A. Swinuirski

and a tight snowfall was captured by the streetlights in
front of me. Cecitia was curled up in her spattered,
ragged, dress, staring at her lap.

"They have my daughter!" I shouted.

She winced and I softened my voice as much. as I
was able. "Cecilia, I need to find her."

"Too powerful. . . ." she whispered. I had to struggle
to keep from grabbing and shaking her.

After the silence became too long, I said, "Lead me
somewhere she might be, Cecilia."

She nodded. "I can't go in with you. You can't make
me face him."

I placed a hand on her shoulder. "I wouldn't make
you do that."

Slowly, very slowly, she said, "There's a-house
where he kept us—"

The house was in East Cleveland, on the economic
downslope from the hills of Lakeview. I was expecting
her to lead me to something a little less mundane.
Instead, I pulled up across the street from a three-story
brick duplex that had seen better days. The yard was
fenced-in chain-link, the gutters were sagging, and I saw
a few major dips in the roof- All the windows were dark,
and in tihe sodium glow of the street lamps, I could see
newspaper covering the insides of most of them.

"There?" I asked, looking at the dead windows.

Cecilia nodded without looking at the house. "Don't
make me go in there," she whispered-

To me, the house looked empty. At least it was a hell
of a lot emptier than its neighbors. There was loud rap
music from at least two nearby houses. Lights blared
from a party on our side of the street. Teenagers were
crossing the street from house to house, ignoring the
snow, ignoring us.

The clock on the dash read 1:30. The house across

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301

the street loomed in silence like a tooth missing from a
smile. I looked at Cecilia.

She looked terrified. I could feel the waves of emo-
tion from her even without looking in her eyes. While
that sixth sense felt the warm tide of fear, an older
sense—a gut instinct that had hung with me ever since
I was on the force—smelled a setup.

They had tied Cecilia out there for someone. Sebas-
tian maybe. Maybe me.

I'd been able to bust the handcuff chain with no
problem. If she had fed recently, wouldn't she be
capable of a similar feat? Why had Gabriel left her
there?

"What did you tell the man with the cane? What did
you tell him that you haven't told me?"

"Nothing else," she whispered.

I wondered if that meant Gabriel was here. It was
probably a mistake, but I couldn't gamble with my
daughter's life. Still, I was second-guessing myself
even as I said, "Don't leave the car."

I locked the Chevette behind me, leaving her curled
up and hidden behind the snow-dusted windows. I
stepped out into the slush in the middle of the road and
looked around me.

It was so damn normal—obnoxious teenagers
drinking, partying, and playing loud music. Change the
black kids to white, and the rap music to neo-punk
grunge, and this could be my neighborhood. The alien-
ation I felt from that normalcy was crippling.

I walked to the one empty house, conscious of
exactly how quiet it was. I was figuring geography in
my head as I stepped through the snow-covered, car-
less driveway, so I-wasn't surprised to see the rusty
fence at the rear of the house, the woods beyond it, or
the fresh-cut hole in the chain-link.

The ends of the cut wire were shiny, and fresh tracks
marred the snow in a path between it and the rear door

302

S.A. Swiniarski

of the house. Too many tracks to tell if the most recent
were coming or going.

It had taken me a while to figure, but it was clear to
me now that this property bordered on Lakeview.
Beyond that fence was part of the cemetery. Lakeview
was a huge suburb of the dead, bordering Cleveland
Heights and East Cleveland, as well as Cleveland
proper.

Of course Chiide would own a house that bordered
on the cemetery's property. The question in my mind
was, was anyone home?

The house gave no clue. It was silent and dark, most
of the first-floor windows covered by wood or news-
paper from the inside. If it weren't for the glittering
wound in the rusty fence, and the trail at least as fresh
as the last snowfall, it would appear totally abandoned.

I looked to the lighted yards on either side 'of this
one, and saw no one watching me. I drew the Eagle and
walked to the back door of Childe's house.

I tried the door. It was locked. I slowly leaned on it,
forcing my shoulder between the lock side of the
window and the doorjamb. I thrust with my legs, con-
centrating on using whatever paranormal strength I had.

The dead-bolt gave with surprising ease. Dry-rot
showered me as the wood of the jamb gave. The lock
broke as I'd wanted it to, with a bare snap. It didn't
look or sound as if I had kicked the door in.

A metal object glimmered a moment, and I caught it
with my left hand before it clattered to the ground. It
was the half of the dead-bolt that I'd torn loose from
the wall, screws and all. I pocketed it to avoid making
any more noise.

I listened at the doorway for movement inside. I
could sense some dim life—not heard, but felt as a dim
wave of barely conscious emotion. The only thing I
heard was the loud music next door.

I slipped in and shut the door behind me.

RAVEN

303

I found myself in the rear stairwell of a two-family
home. Stairs before me led down into an ink-black
basement. The stairs up led to the rear of the first floor
apartment.

Where first?

I wanted to follow the impression of life I felt
upstairs; it could be Gail. But I had a long instinct for
not leaving my backside exposed. I descended into the
basement, going slowly down the stairs to give my
eyes a chance to adjust. Even my extreme night vision
had problems seeing in the near-absolute darkness,

I held the Eagle before me, and before I made it
halfway, I could smell the blood. At the foot of the
stairs I had to pause for a long time before I could
understand exactly what I saw.

At first all I saw was an abstract pattern of shapes
piled against the cinder-block walls. I saw blotches of
shadow, and deeper shadow, and oblong and round
patches that rose out of the shadow. My gaze locked on
a circular patch of off-white formed of symmetrical
shadows.

I must have stared for at least half a minute before I
realized I was looking at a skull, jawless and upside
down, perched on top of a pile of other remains.

It was the same conceptual shift I remember from
those optical illusions where suddenly a vase becomes
a pair of faces. Suddenly I saw the random shadows as
bones from maybe half a dozen human beings. Other
piles resolved into scattered piles of sneakers and
jeans.

I stopped breathing.

Blood dotted the walls like rust-stains. Odd bits of
clothing, reduced to rags, were scattered everywhere.
Ragged lumps of bone lay here and there. Most
appeared to have been gnawed-

1 began to see movement in the piles of remains, and

304

S.A. Swiniarski

I nearly shot, before I saw a fleshy patch-furred thing
trailing a naked tail.

Rats.

If I concentrated, I could hear their claws scratching
on the concrete. They followed the edges of the base-
ment, scratching and gnawing. But I saw them now,
dead-eyed things, the smallest the size of my fist.

Central to the basement, extending the width of the
room between the sinks and the rusted-out water-
heater, was a table. I saw the stains, the marks, and the
chains meant to restrain. I was overcome with memory.

The stains form a vaguely cruciform outline oh the
dining room table. Markings by the police give it a
human shape. The table is scarred, knives perhaps,
maybe even claws. 1 see wires that could have bound
legs and arms. Some of the strings lead up to blood-
stains on the ceiling.

The table was the same here, the same as the dining
room where Kate had been killed. It served the same
purpose, for many more people. A deep rage filled me,
and fear for my daughter that bordered on agony.

28

As I ascended to the first floor, the air warmed, freeing
something dead in the air. I bent close to the door on
the landing and listened for movement. I heard the
scratching of rats below me, the music blaring outside,
little more. I stood for a few long moments, before I
reached for the doorknob.

The knob spun loosely in its socket. I pulled gently.
It slid out of the door. The door creaked open a frac-
tion, and in the crack I saw a slice of the kitchen.

The scrabbling of rats continued, and the smell grew
worse.

I pushed the door open with my foot, keeping the
Eagle leveled at the dark kitchen. A rat the size of a
brick exploded out of a pile of garbage by the door,
shooting between my tegs.

I froze, listening for reaction from the rest of the
house. Nothing but the sound of music blaring outside
and rats scratching inside the walls.

Yellowed newspaper sealed the kitchen's one win-
dow, filtering the only light. Piles of garbage, mostly
clothing, covered cracked linoleum. The refrigerator,
doorless, gaped at me, revealing an interior splattered
with black stains. There was no stove.

I dropped the doorknob in the filth choking the sink,
and inched deeper inside.

The place was empty, but I counted a half-dozen
mattresses in the two bedrooms, where the windows

306 S.A. Swintorski

were painted black. The walls in the living and dining
rooms were covered with writing, or symbols, or some-
thing. Predictably, the marks were written in bloo<?.

The bathroom was where most of the smell was
coming from.

I dreaded approaching that place, but when I came
near enough I realized that, whatever it was in there, it
had been there since long before Gail had disappeared.
It hung from a pair of handcuffs to the rear, over the
bathtub. It was vaguely humanoid, and quite dead.
About half of it had spilled into the bathtub.

The fact that it wasn't Gail was faint reassurance.
The deeper into this place I walked, the more the fear
gripped me. I backed out of there quickly, and retreated
for the stairs.

I could feel that more was here besides me 'and the
rats. What I felt came from upstairs. I mounted the
steps, climbing to the second floor. I expected more of
the same.

I was wrong, very wrong.

The first sign was that the door was locked- It wasn't
a great lock, it broke when I put my shoulder to the
door—but just the fact that the door was locked at all
was a signal that the upstairs was different.

After the door broke, a security chain went with
it, swinging and jingling as the door rebounded off of
the wall.

I stood there, the Eagle covering a relatively clean
kitchen with refrigerator, stove, and empty sink, and I
listened. This time I heard more than scratching rats
and Dr. Dre lyrics in the background. I heard a high-
pitched whine....

The sound stopped me in my tracks. It was some-
thing that might have come from a leaky radiator. It
had the same weak breathless quality. But the tone of
that sound struck me on an entirely different level,

RAVEN              307

something that tore at the bowels, that made me want
to curl up into a ball and shake.

The sound did not end. It droned on and on and on—

I thought of Gail and my stomach tied into a hard
little knot. It was that thought that gave me the courage
to move. The thought ran over and over in my head, /
woke something up.

The doorway between the kitchen and the dining
room was blocked by a heavy red drape. The sound
came from beyond that. I steeled myself, and pushed it
aside with my gun.

It was as if I had left this century and entered the pre-
vious one. I entered a twisted parody of Childe's apart-
ment. The walls had been knocked out, down to the
structural supports. Most of the second floor was now a
giant velvet-draped space. Candles guttered everywhere,
and threadbare Victorian furniture weighted stacks of
balding oriental carpeting. Incense fogged the air, barely
covering the smell of rot.

And over that, came that whine.

Ahead of me, across a room furnished from a nine-
teenth-century garbage heap, was a trunk, or a table,
concealed underneath a tasseled red cover. Gold thread
had come loose from the cover, leaving random stitches
as almost-comprehensible hieroglyphs.

I took a step and I saw one of the tassels move.

That sound, an exhausted anguished cry, came from
under that cover. And something underneath it was
moving.

"Gail?" I whispered so low that I didn't hear my own
voice.

Whatever the covered object was, it was set so its
top was at waist height. It was at least seven feet
long, maybe a yard wide. I approached it, hands
shaking, feeling perspiration for the first time since
the sewer.

308                 S.A. Swiniarski

I saw that the object was not perfectly flat. The edges
were higher than the center, some sort of frame ....

Within a foot the smell was almost intolerable. Not
just from the incense-burning braziers that flanked
this thing, but from the rot the incense was trying to
cover.

The sound died. It didn't trail off so much as
sever itself. Something pushed the red cover,
brushing it slightly from underneath. It was a weak
motion, and only the thought of Gail kept me from
backing away.

I lightiy tugged the cover away from the rectangular
object. It only took a slight tug before the cover slid off
under its own weight.

The object uncovered was as much a discard from
the last century as the rest of the room. But it belonged
in a insane asylum, or a torture chamber.

I reeled from the box, as the thing inside began
keening again.

It was a flat cage of wood and iron, two feet by three
feet by seven. The box sat, like an offering, on an
antique table supported by a set of cracked jade dragons.
The creature imprisoned within could not move more
than a few inches in any direction.

It wasn't my daughter; the thing inside that cage had
been trapped for much longer. . . .

Exposed, the thing within began thrashing and
jerking, screaming louder. It was naked, and reduced to
nearly a skeleton. Ragged holes were worn in its flesh,
and the skin in its face had tightened to form a rictus
grin. The eyes had sunken too deep in the skull for me
to see more than shadowed holes. Its teeth were fangs,
and its fingers formed six-inch claws—

I kept backing away from it.

It shook as if having a seizure, the claws on its hands
slashing its sides. As I watched, the wounds tried to
heal, seat themselves shut. However, the flesh would

RAVEN              309

fester and boil instead, and leave another crater in
its skin.

I had retreated all the way to the kitchen door when
the caged thing arched its back and tore at a gaping
wound that scarred most of its shriveled abdomen.

It screamed as it sank claws into its gut, and when its
hand withdrew and slapped against the bars, it dropped
something that fell through the bars and to the carpet. It
was a rat, coat slick and black. It scurried off into the
darkness to join its brethren.

I wanted to vomit.

The imprisoned thing sank into quiescence, not
breathing, not moving, as silent as a corpse. Just
looking at it made me feel filthy. Who would do this, to
anyone? To anything?

I took a step forward, and it didn't move.

I walked back up to the cage. The creature was as
physically devastated as a mummy. It was nearly
impossible to determine sex—determining age was
hopeless.

When I reached its side, the flesh the rat had fed
upon had aged to match the other old sores that perfo-
rated its flesh. The motionlessness was so complete
that it was hard to believe that I wasn't looking at an
inert corpse.

"Raven?"

I jumped at.the breathy whisper. It shocked me badly
enough that I nearly put a bullet through the cage.

"/ see your name." It slowly turned its head, eyes
burning red in its deep sockets. The voice was weak,
paper thin, and it terrified me. I leveled the Eagle,
aiming between those red eyes, but I didn't fire.

My hands shook.

"Let us sup. you and I," it said. I felt gore-spotted
talons clawing into my mind. I could feel its will
pulling me down toward it.

Strength, I thought.

310 S.A. Swiniarski

"No," I whispered, raising my gun and tearing my
eyes away from the gaze of that thing.

"Sate my hunger and I will be yours, " it whispered.
I kept backing away, into the kitchen. I was relieved
when I finally slipped away from that thing. There
was something very special about that creature in
the cage—

Before I had enough distance to think, I was inter-
rupted by the sound of voices outside, behind the
house. The thing in the cage must have heard them,
too, because I heard something that might have been a
laugh. The sound it made was little more than a whis-
pery cough, but there was a malignant humor woven
into it, a weight of malicious unreason-
It was hard to retreat into the stairwell. The corpse-
thing pulled attention to itself, even when it had
receded from view. It was hard to concentrate on any-
thing else, knowing it was there.

The voices behind the house were close enough to be
intelligible over the music blaring next door. It was the
hard rhythm of gangster rap more than the voices that
pulled me back into the present.

"—the ruck's the matter with Joey, man?" The voice
was fast, high-pitched. It came from almost directly
under my feet and I edged up next to the window
across the landing from the kitchen door.

"Wake up, Joey. Say something!" Female voice,
deeper, rougher than the first. When I was next to the
window, I peeled some yellowing newsprint away from
the window, so I could see down into the yard. The
paper came away in a shower of dead flies.

I saw six figures, struggling along the path between
the back door and the cemetery. They were half-
dragging a bald man with staring eyes.

"What, Hel? Like Joey said anything before? We
had to lock him up, remember?" This was another

RAVEN               311

woman, back to me, who was leading the bald guy by
the arm.

"Shut up!" Said the first female voice. There was a
paleness to that woman, to all of them except the bald
guy, more than makeup could account for. Their skin
was near-translucent. Hel's skin was white enough to
make her lips appear black by contrast.

Everyone's hair was black as well, again, except for
the baid guy. The bald one was dressed in the same
Goth-punk outfit as the rest of them, but rattier, mud-
spattered.

It wasn't until they were close enough for me to see
the hole blown in his shirt that I realized that I was
looking at zombie-boy. That shocked the hell out of
me, because there wasn't any of (he leprous rot on him
anymore. He wasn't even pale, like his escorts. Joey's
skin was now smooth, pink, and as blemish-free as a
baby's. I didn't see a speck of hair, or a sign of the
bullet holes I had put into him.

However, his eyes were as blank as a dead television
set. He stared straight ahead, being.led by his fellows,
showing no sign of anyone at home.

"We are vulnerable," I whispered. 1 had shot this
guy in the head and all the mechanical damage, even to
the brain tissue, had regenerated. The mind, it seemed,
had not.

I swallowed, thinking about what would have hap-
pened to me had the late detective fired an inch or two
higher into my face. I'd be dealing with more than a
little amnesia.

However, the fact that the body had returned to a
State healthier Ehan when I had shot him, that I had
trouble figuring.

I had two choices—run for it, or force a confron-
tation.

With Gail missing, I had one choice. The Eagle
didn't counterbalance being outnumbered like this, but

312 S.A. Swiniarski

these were the beings responsible for the disappearance
of my daughter, more so than Childe—whose fate I
was only now beginning to comprehend.

I didn't want to meet with the cage-thing again, so I
started down the stairs for the first-floor apartment.
I listened to the two women argue over Joey as I ran
down two flights of stairs. "Joey's nuts, Hel."

"Shut up. We'll get him better—we're promised that
much."

"Yeah, for sitting on the missing newbie. Did you
forg—"

"Shut up!"

I had reached the landing behind the kitchen door on
the first floor when I heard a new male voice say.
"Girls, we've got a problem." With the voice, I heard
the rear door creak open. It was a voice I had heard
before, from the rear of Sam's car, and Childe's an-
swering machine tape.

I braced the Eagle in both hands as I approached the
landing.

I heard one whisper from the woman who wasn't
Hel. "Stace, stay with the geek." Then the voices
silenced themselves.

The shadow from the door below slid by the wall
next to me. I backed to the far corner from the door and
tried to become part of the shadows. My Eagle was
focused down the flight, toward the back door. Next
door, amplification distorted a voice rapping about
natural-born killers.

Three figures slipped into the stairwell. Even in the
dark, the albino skin on the trio lifted their images out
of the shadows. The clothing they wore faded into
the blackness, making their heads and hands gray and
disembodied.

The one in the lead, the male, looked directly toward
me and said, "So what the fuck's this?" It was eerie to
see this guy close up. He looked like someone playing

RAVEN

313

at being undead, someone who could blend in with all
the other teenagers who'd read Anne Rice once too
many times. However, at this distance it was obvious
that the pale skin wasn't makeup. I could see the
shadow of his veins weaving under the surface. The
vivid mouth could have been lipstick, but I suspected a
play-actor would have chosen pure black or red, and
not a shade exactly the color of clotted blood.

"Where is my daughter," I said to him.

The guy laughed. "You don't know what the fuck
you're doing, do you?"

I kept my gun leveled at him. "Neither do you. I'm
supposed to be dead, remember? Where is she?'"

I looked past him at the two women. One, with hair
long and black, was wearing a floor-length dress that
looked extremely impractical for anything other than
hiding bloodstains. The woman next to her was more
punk than Goth. She had shaved the sides of her head,
and wore about a pound of jewelry through various
holes in her face. Like the lead guy, she wore a studded
motorcycle jacket, self-consciously abused black den-
im, and a pair of Doc Martens.

Thirty years ago, Childe's disciples probably wore
tie-dyed peasant shirts, granny-glasses and love beads.

The guy took a step forward, up the center of the
stairwell. The two women slid to the walls and fol-
lowed, a foot or so behind him. The punked-out girl
was giving me a hungry, long-toothed smile.

"I'd stay where you are," I said.

The guy shook his head. "That gun can't do anything
to us."

It was my turn to smile. These kids were more igno-
rant than I was. "Joey would tell you different if he
could still talk."

He! screamed and leaped toward me, and I would
have put a bullet through her if the guy hadn't blocked
her. Punk-woman was no longer smiling.

314 S.A. Swiniarski

"I don't believe you," he said, his words slurring a
bit behind a long grimace.

I felt a shriveling in my gut as I realized I was
watching them change. Their skulls were shifting,
favoring an inhumanly long jawline and carnivorous
teeth. Their nails were lengthening, turning into black
claws. The punk one was turning into a pierced version
of the vampire from that silent German film, Nosferatu.

The moment I noticed, I could feel the skin in my
face tightening in sympathy.

"A slug through the brain," I said. "The nerve tissue
might grow back, but I doubt it knits into anything
really complex."

He took another step, and Hel was pushing to get by
him. Her eyes had gone blood-red with fury. She
snarled like an animal, her skin had gone gray and
twisted, and her skull was forming a muzzle.

"Stop!" I put what will I could into the word. I tried
to force down the trio with my stare, as 1 had tried with
Joey. I pushed, but with the three of them it was barely
enough to force a pause in their advance. "I took third
in marksmanship. I'll drop one of you, probably two,
before you reach me."

They stopped advancing; even Hel stopped snarling
for a moment.

"Where's my daughter?" I said.

"You know where she is, Kane." His voice had
become high and hissing. Where Hel was changing
into something animalistic, he was turning into some-
thing demonic. His forehead had distorted into a shape
that suggested a crest and horns.

"Where's Gail?" I yelled at them. My own voice was
slurring, my tongue was too thick in an oddly formed
mouth.

There was something wrong. The demon laughed
and I realized that it wasn't my will forcing them back.
They were waiting for something.

RAVEN                  325

It struck me all at once. There'd been six of them.
Joey was guarded by someone out back. Werewolf,
Demon and Nosferatu were in the stairwell with me—

Where was the last vampire?

I tensed, expecting it, and when the door to the
kitchen exploded open, 1 fired the Eagle into the
Demon's face before I began turning. I was tackled by
a punk nightmare before 1 finished my movement. I
had a visceral glimpse of chain and leather, then my
back slammed into the wall, crushing plaster and splin-
tering lathe. Claws pierced the wrist of my gun hand,
pinning it to the frame of the window next to me.

More claws pierced my abdomen, just above the
groin. I felt its hand slam against my spine in a white-
hot explosion of pain.

My vision fogged red. I watched its face, which
seemed small and distant through the pain, despite
being an inch away from mine. He was somewhere
between Nosferatu and the Demon, ugly, but still
vaguely human. Even more jewelry hung off his face
than the other punks. Rings and chains jingled, almost
touching my face.

Its jaw levered open, revealing carnivore teeth in a
waft of carrion breath. One gold tooth remained dis-
turbingly human.

I forced myself to move through the shock. I reached
up to push its face away with my left hand, and found
myself with my hands on a chain that dangled between
its right ear and the bony ridge that used to be a nose. I
yanked to the left, toward the wall next to me.

The chain came free of the ear instantly, it seemed,
and its jaw snapped shut short of my neck. Its nose was
more durable, especially with the cartilage that seemed
to have grown around the end of the chain.

Its head snapped to the side, following the chain,
slamming into the wall, going through the plaster. Its
hands fell away from my gut and my wrist.

S.A. Swiniarski

316

I stumbled back, away from everything, up the stairs
toward the second floor. I faced down the stairs, lev-
eling the Eagle two-handed as the flesh knitted on
stomach and my wrist.

I heard Hel before I saw her—a feral growl to my
right, behind the wall separating the stairwells. I'd
stumbled halfway to the landing above when the
growling thing rounded the wall into view. Whatever it
was, it was no longer even vaguely human. It was
wolflike, a wolf with sickle claws and sharklike teeth.
It loped toward me, clumsily, on all fours.

The Eagle barked in my hand, drowning the thing's
growls. The kick from the gun slammed spikes of pain
into my still-healing wrist. The wolf-thing was close
enough to the muzzle-flash that I smelted its coarse fur
smolder.

The shot took out a chunk of its shoulder above the
left foreleg. It tumbled backwards into the punk I'd
slammed into the plaster, who was just now unwedging
itself. They both tumbled into a heap under the window
on the landing below me.

I scrambled up on the landing behind me, my gut
leaking despite my body's efforts to repair itself.

My ears still rang from the gunfire as Nosferatu
rounded the corner. She was still recognizable, even
with the long clawed fingers and the vast forehead, and
that made the transformation seem even worse.

I realized I was snarling as badly as the wolf, and my
remade hands were making it difficult to keep the gun
level.

What the hell have I turned into?

Nosferatu looked up at me and held a hand back,
gesturing her tangled comrades still. "Everyone chill
the fuck out!"

Amazingly, her voice was unchanged, desprte the
radical dental work her front teeth had undergone.
Everyone stopped moving. I was grateful for the pause,

RAVEN                   317

because I could feel parts of my stomach moving
around by themselves.

"Now what?" I asked, keeping the gun leveled at her
skull. I had to lean against the wall to keep my hands
steady. It was a standoff, and they knew it. I was pretty
sure they could take me, but only with a high cost. The
trio gathered at the foot of the second stairwell; it was
just wide enough for two of them to rush me.

No sign of the demon, or the one guarding Joey.

That one must have heard the shots, and I was wor-
ried about being blindsided again. I was next to another
window on this landing, facing the driveway. I tried to
keep an eye on it, as well as the half of the stairwell
going up to the second floor. I was too exposed where I
was, but I couldn't keep retreating upward without
losing sight of the vampires below me.

"You better put the gun down, Kane," Nosferatu
finally said. "You aren't getting out of here." I felt a
dominating pressure behind the words, but it was
almost perfunctory. It didn't qyen compare to the thing
in the cage, much less the one glimpse of real power I
had seen in Jaguar.

"My chosen name is Raven." I smiled, which felt
odd with my altered jawline.

"You're outnumbered, in our domain. You belong
to us—"

I shook my head. "It doesn't work like that. Your
horned friend might have chewed on my neck, but I
took nothing from him. I own my own blood." I shook
my head. "Nothing here belongs to you. It all belongs
to your master.",

I felt a wave of contempt wash up the stairwell. I
couldn't tell which of the three it was coming from, or
if it was inner- or outer-directed.

"To our master, then—"

"No one's my master." I slurred my speech, but it
was becoming easier to talk. I was getting used to the

318 S.A. Swiniarski

shape of my jaw, which was good, since no one seemed
to be changing back. I hoped that it was related to
stress, and I wasn't stuck as whatever I was now-

"That can change." Nosferatu had slipped easily into
the spokesman role. I suspected she wasn't that un-
happy that demon-boy had taken a bullet in the face.

The thought reminded me of Joey and his keeper.
Where were they? For that matter, what about Cecilia?
If she had any brains, she'd run for it, or had swiped
the Chevette.

"We can take you, Kane."

"The Covenant would frown on my death—"

She chuckled. "Let Childe bear that responsibility,
as he's borne so much else."

"Would it frown on the destruction of thralls that go
to such effort to flout it?" I leveled the gun. "Anyone
who stands between me and my daughter is going to
die."

Hel growled, and the punk fondled the loose end of
his nose-chain and looked bloodthirsty. Nosferatu
smiled up at me with her surreal teeth. The ring
piercing her lip glinted red. "That would be painful for
both sides, more so than you think." The glint vanished
as she spoke. "Surrender to my master's authority and I
think we can avoid the pain. Both to you, and your
Gail."

"What master is that? Childe, if he is that thing up-
stairs, appears no master at all."

The red glint had moved to the ring through her eye-
brow as she laughed. "Childe? He's no longer my
master—"

The glint had drawn my gaze to the window on the
landing below. Like most of the windows, it was cov-
ered with newspaper. Enough had torn away in the
scuffle for someone to see in, if they were in the right
spot. As she spoke, I saw a tiny dot of red laser light
track across some of the newsprint—

RAVEN

319

"Get down!" I yelled, a fraction too late.
The window exploded inward as a gunshot blew the

contents of Nosferatu's elongated skull out the left side

of her face. I never heard the shot.

29

I ran for it. I dashed up the stairs, holding the hole in
my gut to keep from tearing open the just-healed
wound. I heard growling behind me, and the sound of
breaking glass. From somewhere I heard someone
kicking in a door.

I passed by the door to the second-floor kitchen and
heard a whispery laughing from beyond it. I kept going
because I had no desire to confront the thing in the cage.

I shouldered through the door to the attic, dodging
past the window on the landing, giving the sniper as
little profile as possible. I was Jucky. The window
exploded, throwing glass, newspaper tatters, and dead
flies across the landing, but only after I'd passed.

I smelted something bad upstairs, but the sounds of
chaos below continued to drive me upward.

I ran up into a huge peaked space running the length
of the house. Above were naked, uninsulated rafters,
covering a floor of loose gray planking. The space was
lit by bluish moonlight from the rear window, and the
yellow sodium streetlight from the front window. Nei-
ther window had glass or newspaper, and the wind
blew wisps of snow through the attic.

Staring at me, from places in the eaves, between the
beams supporting the roof, were small white faces.
There were a dozen children up here, dirty-faced, pale,
and looking at me with a feral stare that was becoming
too familiar.

322 SA. Swiniarski

None of them looked older than thirteen, and half
were naked and nearly as bony as the thing in the cage.
The smell up here was appalling, and there was no
incense to cover it.

Seeing kids up there filled me with a mixture of
horror and pity. The force of the emotion slammed
against the panic driving me, striking me still where I
stood.

The children did not move, but they watched, and
from their combined stares I felt a pressure akin to
what I felt when that caged thing spoke to me. 1 heard
the thing's laughter from behind me, and it finally
pushed me forward.

I advanced, slowly, toward the front of the house,
becoming aware of how most of the beams up here
bore the scars of claw marks. Gunshots and screams
came from below, and I no longer heard rap music in
the background.

The whispery laugh followed me to the window.

I kept an eye on the children; the sight of them was a
weight in my gut. I edged to the window in the front of
the house. I took a quick look out, too quick for anyone
to get a shot off at me.

What I saw, however, was enough. I saw four cars
pulled up down there, and one was a familiar-looking
Oldsmobile. I also saw my Chevette, empty, with the
passenger door hanging open. Sebastian was as good as
his word. He was taking his revenge on the people who
had taken his daughter. On Childe. He was going to
save his daughter's soul.

I felt the growing weight of my own guilt. Not only
had I drawn my own daughter into this mess, I had led
Sebastian to his daughter—and he was going to kill
her, unless she had had the sense to run for it.

I had to get out of here and find Gail. She wasn't
here with Childe's thralls. Where was she, then?

"You know where she is, " he said.

RAVEN

323

What had he meant by that?

"You are not of the other?" I spun around at the
voice, and found myself leveling my Eagle at a naked
six-year-old girl. At least, she looked like a six-year-
old girl, except for her eyes.

"The other?" I stammered, unsure where to point
my gun.

"The one who keeps our master from us," said a
scrawny ten-year-old.

I shook my head, unsure of what they were talking
about. I was shaking from the enormity of everything.
They were children.

"We are bound here twice," said another child's
voice.

"Once to master."

"Once to other."

There were more screams from the first floor.
Diving out the window was looking more and more
attractive. These children frightened me worse than the
chaos below me, almost as much as the caged thing.
And there was the porch roof one floor below me. I'd
made worse jumps. I rubbed the wound on my gut. The
skin felt raw, but intact.

The kids were all talking at me, their words running
together as if they were one person speaking.

"Are you here to free master?"

"Or kill him?"

"Who do you bring?"

"Who do you serve?"

"Will you free us from master?"

"Or other?"

"One must die now."

Their words pressed me against the wall, even though
none of them took a step toward me. The assault was
verbal, but there was a psychic pressure behind the
words to the point where I wasn't even sure I was
hearing their voices, in the normal sense of the word-

324 S.A. Swiniarski

"Stop it!" I yelled, with all the force I could muster.

The babble ceased, and I heard movement below me.
Someone was walking on the second floor. Dimly I
heard a voice. "Shit, what the fuck is that?"

"Gimme that cross," said another voice. The whis-
pery laughter below had ceased. In its place I heard
that same paper-thin voice say, "Come."

That one word filled me with dread, despite the fact
that it wasn't addressed to me.

"Come," the whisper repeated, an undeniable force
behind the voice.

The children, all of them, turned away from me,
toward the stairs at the rear of the attic. "Master," said
the one nearest me. There was reverence in that voice.

Below me I heard a panicked voice saying, "Murphy,
what the fuck are you—get the fuck away from—
SHUT

There was an agonized liquid scream, and three rapid
gunshots.

The children began slowly walking toward the stair-
well. "He will come."

"Free us from the other."

The kids had begun another monotone babbling. I
missed most of it because someone downstairs was
putting shots through the floor. Two boards too close
to me exploded outward, exposing splintered bullet
holes shafted with candlelight from below.

The laugh was back. It no longer sounded like the
laugh from a corpse. It was loud, vulgar, unashamed.
The man with the gun was screaming something inco-
herent. It took a moment, between the gunshots, to
realize that it was the twenty-third psalm.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of me shad-
ow of death!—" Blam! "—fear no evil: for Thou art
with—" Blam! "—rod and Thy staff they comfort me—"

His voice was choked off, and there were no further

RAVEN                  325

gunshots. The laughter ceased, and was replaced by a
wet sucking sound.

I shuddered, and one of the children standing around
the head of the stairs turned to face me. "He will wish
to see you. Raven. He will come to free UG from the
other."

That monotone sentence still hung in the air when I
heard the sound of fabric tearing, glass breaking, and
wood cracking apart. I looked out the window, below
me, in time to see a body tumble onto the porch's roof.
The parts of the corpse I saw were completely dessi-
cated, shriveled to the bone. Its neck hung open, and it
left red tracks in the snow as it rolled off the roof to the
right, into the driveway.

It had been thrown through the window below mine,
and tatters of red velvet drapery and newspaper were
still floating to the ground in the front yard. A gold
cross glinted in the snow.

If I wanted to move, I had to do it now. I jumped
though the glassless window, .to the roof of the porch
below. I bent my knees as I hit, keeping the gun away
from me. The impact shuddered my body, but no bones
broke, and my abdomen didn't split open—though it
felt as if it wanted to.

I rolled twice, to the left, slowing. I was just about to
jump to my feet when I ran out of roof. There was a
sickening lurch as I went into free fall above the
driveway of the next house. I fell five feet onto a car
below me.

The car's roof caved in with the impact. Safety-glass
exploded underneath me. I froze for a second or two, as
the pain of the collision washed through my body and
evaporated. The car's owners, occupants of the neigh
boring house, were nowhere to be seen. They had van
ished with their music.




I forced myself up, out of the concave roof, and the

326 S.A. Swinwrski

hood below my feet dimpled with a bullet's impact.
The sniper was still out there.

I rolled off of the roof, scrambling to my feet, and
ran through the snow in front of the house. The sniper
had to be behind the house, somewhere in the ceme-
tery, and Childe's house offered the best cover I had—

As I ran, I almost collided with more of Sebastian's
thugs, running out the front of the house. I raised my
gun, but they barely paid attention to me as they beat a
panicked retreat. There were four of them, and two
were busy carrying a wounded comrade.

They piled into an illegally parked Dodge, which
began accelerating away before the doors were shut.

I ran for the Chevette, thinking. Did I black out for a
moment? All the damn cars are gone.

From the looks of it, every one of the cars had pulled
way at top speed. Snow had been sprayed across the
side of the Chevette.

"What the fuck did you do to her!" I yelled at the
now empty street. The Chevette was empty; the pas-
senger door hung open with a shattered window. I was
filled with a futile rage at Sebastian and Childe, and I
didn't know if I was screaming for Cecilia, Gail, or the
six-year-old girl in the attic.

When did those bastards catch up with me?

I looked up, the car between me and Childe's house.
Standing in the attic window was a naked man- He had
a Van Dyke beard and shoulder-length hair that blew in
the biting wind. He was soaked in blood from the neck
down- The face he wore belonged to the pictures I had
seen of Manuel Deite.

He saw me looking, and smiled. . . .

Small forms were darting about in the shadows
around the house, larger than rats.

I dove into the Chevette, fear gripping my chest. I
fumbled the ignition and accelerated away without
looking at the house again.

RAVEN

327

I raced the Chevette through night-empty streets. I
had blown it. I was furious with myself, mad enough
that I was halfway to Shaker before my body reasserted
its normal appearance. I had led Sebastian's people
straight to Childe's house.

Hadn't I?

I had a gut suspicion that the whole scene was
staged, from act one up to Sebastian's untimely arrival.
I thought of Cecilia's story, her convenient imprison-
ment on the site of the sacrifice I had witnessed.

Where the fuck had Gabriel been? He had been
looking for Childe, he had seen Cecilia before I had,
and Cecilia had led me straight to the maniac. That
whole house seemed designed to piss off Gabriel, the
whole unsubtle setup. Childe had been starved in a box
so he couldn't interfere with what was going on, letting
his thralls go on a rampage, causing all sorts of havoc.

I now knew where Childe had disappeared to, and
where Cecilia had disappeared to—and it didn't fit.

I could visualize the box trapping Chiide. A strong
vampire could break out of that thing, but if he'd
undergone a massive injury, and was locked in there—
I could picture his body feeding on its own resources in
the absence of blood, the body wasting away to be-
come the skeletal thing I had seen. From the actions of
his thralls, Childe had been in that box since before I'd
ever heard Cecilia's name.

Nothing fit, unless CeciUa was lying If someone had
set Childe up, shut him up in the box up there, that
same person had staked out that ritual site for me to
witness; that same person had shut Cecilia up in the
mausoleum with Joey; that same person had control of
Childe's thralls and had staged the house for Cecilia to
lead someone to.

All the talk of two masters was beginning to sink in.
I was dealing with another vampire. The person who

328 S.A. Swiniarski

had transformed Cecilia, who had infected her, wasn't
Childe. She wasn't the kind of person who Childe
would take. Her father was a powerful man who would
believe the bloody clues left for him, and would react
accordingly.

That was what my wife and I were, bloody clues left
to ensure that Sebastian would act. The vampire who
had taken Cecilia, who had staged the sacrifice, he was
my enemy. He was the one in the cowled robe, not
Childe. He was the one who had taken my daughter.

I knew two vampires who had some grudge against
Childe. Who would want some summary justice deliv-
ered for his breaches of the Covenant. Gabriel was the
first and the most obvious, but his world revolved
around the Covenant. Would he stage all this to give
himself an excuse to dispose of Childe? It seemed
unlikely now. More than that, if he had set up this cha-
rade, why was Childe still alive?

Someone else had set up Childe for Gabriel's benefit.
And at the last minute, after talking to Cecilia, Gabriel
had not risen to the bait. Cecilia had told him what she
had told me, but I could see Gabriel talking to her as he
had me. I could see him asking who her master was. I
could see her lying. I could see him taste her blood, as
he had mine—and maybe he could taste who her master
really was. The old ones seemed to see, to sense, more
than I could.

If it wasn't Gabriel, that left me one other suspect.
The person I'd seen with the thralls, the person who
was free to follow Gail to Sam's apartment, the person
who'd been feeding me information on Childe all
along....

Bowie.

Bowie had shown up too conveniently at the Arabica
right after my run-in with the thralls, he had broke me
out of Sebastian's in a way that was sure to inftame
him, he had disappeared right after I had sent^my

RAVEN                  329

daughter to so-called safety. The bastard had been
using me all along, using me to lead everyone to sus-
pect Childe, everyone from Sebastian and Gabriel to
the cops.

The demon thrall had said that I knew where my
daughter was. I thought of the first time I'd seen Bowie
and Leia together. I slammed the brakes and skidded
the car around to head toward Shaker Heights.

30

I pulled the Chevette to a halt angled across the tree-
lawn of the Ryan house. I threw open the car door and
rushed the front of the house. I shouldered my way into
the house as Doctor Ryan ran down the hall toward me.
He wore a blood-spattered lab coat.

"What's going on here—"

"Where is she?"

Ryan stopped short, about ten feet down the corridor
from me. He eyed the splintered doorjamb behind me.
"Who?"

"Don't bullshit me Doc," I said. "I want my daughter,
and 1 want the man responsible for all this."

"Look, perhaps you should calm down."

"Fuck calm!" I drew the Eagte and leveled it at the
doctor. "I want my daughter or I'm emptying your
skull into the wallpaper."

"Mr. Tyier. . . ." The doctor backed to the wall. I
advanced until the barrel of the Eagle was pressed
against the white stubble on his cheek.

"Hey, man, you really ought to calm down," came a
familiar voice from behind me.

I whipped around, keeping the barrel of my gun
pressed into Ryan's neck. Bowie emerged from the den
behind us. He stopped and leaned against the door-
frame at the foot of the stairs. He looked unconcerned
about Ryan.

332                 S.A. Swiniarski

"Give me my daughter," I said through clenched
teeth. "Give her back, or I swear I'll kill him."

Bowie shook his head and tsked at me. "It doesn't
work like that."

I chambered around and said, "Fuck that, you bas-
tard. You've used me to set up Childe, and it ends
now—"

Bowie kept shaking his head. "No, it doesn't. That's
why we have her. With all the pieces out there, Sebas-
tian, the cops . . . Childe will self-destruct if he hasn't
been killed already."

"It's over. Childe's freed himself, and Gabriel's on
to you."

Bowie laughed. "Sure he is. But do you see him
here? He won't stick his neck out for Childe. He wants
the status for Childe's head."

"But—"

"If Gabriel's the cavalry, where is he?"

I kept the gun pressed into Ryan's rieck, and he mut-
tered, "Please."

Bowie shook his head. "Put the gun down."

"Why, damn you?" I shouted. "Why take her?"

"What's she ever done to me, she's never hurt
anyone, she wasn't a threat. . . ." Bowie straightened
up and took a step toward me. "That's what you mean
ain't it? Christ, ain't it obvious? Sebastian held her
over you, and pretty damn soon you'd twig to what was
happening, and we couldn't have you talking to Sebas-
tian or the cops when you figured it out."

"Who's 'we?' " I breathed. Anger was twisting a
hole in my gut.

"Me and my master," Bowie said. "And you have
her word that no harm will come to your precious Gail
if you just subjugate yourself to her."

Her?

"Put down the gun," came a voice from up the stairs,
between me and Bowie.

RAVEN

333

I turned so I could keep an eye on the stairs as well
as Bowie. Leia stood at the head of the stairs, glaring
down at me. She was as pale as ever, and deep in her
eyes I fe!t a tug that could only come from one source-

"Put down the gun," she repeated. I felt her will, like
a mental undertow on my arm. I resisted it, despite the
weight my arm felt. My hand shook, and fear from the
doctor washed away any emotion I might have felt
from her.

"You?" I felt the anger again, the stress. I felt bones
dislocating, muscle tearing and reknitting, skin split-
ting and flowing back together.

So obvious, so damn obvious. I suddenly knew what
was wrong with the pictures on the wall of Ryan's office.
There hadn't been a single picture of Ryan's wife.
There'd been him in England, him and his granddaughter
Leia, but none of a wife. What had really sparked his
interest in vampires?

What if Leia wasn't his granddaughter?
"Yes, me. I've waited half a century for Childe's
humiliation. You aren't going to stop it."

"My daughter or he's dead!" came a half-animal
yell. I glimpsed a shadow of myself on the wall, and
saw a hunching back, lengthened arms, and a distorted
skull evolving a muzzle. I could feel myself willing the
changes now. Everything was tinted with blood-red
anger. I snarled.

"No," she shook her head. "And you harm him, and
you'll watch me tear out your daughter's heart."

I was fighting an internal urge to drop the gun and
rip out the doctor's throat. My body was burning itself
with the effort of the change, and it sensed the heat
within the doctor's flesh. It wanted that flesh.

Leia kept staring at me, and it was becoming diffi-
cult for me to concentrate- The gun shook in a clawed,
leathery hand. The world seemed to be twisting away

334

S.A. Swiniarski

from me, as if the scent of the doctor's blood, even
through the skin, were making me high.

"Childe is evil; he has to be punished. Punished,
then killed." Leia took a step down the riser.

I tried to say, "Gail." But all I produced was a
breathy growl. My clothes split and shredded.

"You weaken yourself with your anger," she said,
and I found my neck turning so I could stare into her
eyes. She was halfway down the stairs now, her
cloying perfume in advance of her. Now, however, my
sense of smell had become infinitely more acute, and I
could smell the corruption that perfume cloaked.

She kept descending until near the end, where her
eyes were even with mine.

"Look at what Childe did to me," she said. She
grabbed the collar of her turtleneck and yanked it
down. The fabric tore as she uncovered her' left
shoulder, neck, and breast—

A gaping, festering, wound sank into her flesh. I saw
the outline of a collarbone, glistening red.

I felt something stab into my side, opposite the
doctor. I turned to see Bowie plunging the contents of a
hypodermic into my side. I yanked myseif away,
breaking the needle, but I was too late. The hypo was
empty, t readied to lunge at Bowie, the doctor all but
forgotten—

"Look at me," she said.
I could not avoid looking.

"That blood's just to soften your will." I was locked
in place, unable to draw my attention away from her.
Heat rippled out from where the needle had pierced my
skin, and my body sucked in the heat, along with some-
thing else.

"Fetch his daughter," she said to Bowie. He ran up
the stairs. She turned back to face me. "You will
be harder than a thrall. You have to accept my blood
willingly."

RAVEN

335

She took another step down the stairs. "You ask me
why? Childe took my blood and left me with this—"
her hand went to the wound that ate into her shoulder
and chest "—he seduced me, used me, and then left me
to die from a long, suppurating infection. I lived for a
month."

I remembered Ryan's words: "In most humans this
entity can't survive the first twenty-four hours in a
living host. Though, if another infection weakens the
immune system, the entity can survive much longer."

The warmth in my side had spread to every part of
my body. I shook with a feverish heat, sweating, diz-
zy, my body beginning to tear itself back into a human
form. I tried to recapture the emotions I had been
feeling, but they slipped through my mental fingers
like so much air.

My back-collapsed against the wall, and the gun
tumbled from my fingers; Everything seemed very far
away, even the pain of my bones reshaping themselves.

"Death wasn't the end," a' far away voice was saying,
"I was left cursed with this unbeatable wound. Every
night for fifty years I've woken up to this pain.
Every night for fifty years I've been tied by this political
contrivance they call a Covenant. Every night for fifty
years I've been waiting for Childe to slip, to give an
opening for those who hate him. Even his own race wish
him gone, and will happily destroy him for a misstep.
You know what Childe is, you know he had to be
stopped. Punished- Crushed."

I shook; my body was fighting off an alien infection.

The master-slave relationship, and the control it cre-
ated, flowed from the blood, blood linked to a specific
mind. The blood in my veins, the vampiric infection
throughout my body, gave me control to the point
where I could heal gunshots and restructure my entire
body. Allowing another vampire's blood into my body,

336

S.A. Swinwrski

allowing another infection, could give that "other"

similar control, both body and mind.

That was how she had taken control of Childe's

people.

That was happening to me now. With that flash of

realization, I tried to push back the encroaching apathy
and disorientation that blazed across the surface of my

fever.

"Cross," I muttered through a mouth that was still

animalistic.

Somewhere, far away, I saw her nod. "My maiden

name. My brother, the chief inspector, was responsible
for those police files your detective friend ordered
from England. Detective Weinbaum is almost as useful
against Childe as Sebastian is. Now either they will kill
him, or Childe will kill them, bringing all the force of
the Convenant down upon his own head."

I barely heard her as I tried to concentrate, tried to
gather together the tatters of my will against the fever.
My body stopped changing back.

"With my brother's death, I knew Childe would
never stumble on his own. I had to take his thralls.""

I felt her breath against my sweaty cheek. My half-
human body was vibrating with fever, drenched in
sweat. Inside myself, I fought to retain my own iden-
tity, my own perception of reality, against the force

this woman was exerting.

The pressure of the fever> the blood, and her will,
was becoming impossible to fight. Her mind was as
strong as my own, maybe stronger, and she was aided
by the traitor infection that Bowie had injected.

t saw Bowie descending the stairs, bringing Gail
with him. Gail stared blankly, going where Bowie

led her.

"You have a choice," Leia's face was within an inch

of my own. I felt her words brush my ear, burning it.
"Take my blood. Become one with my blood as your

RAVEN                  337

daughter has. Or your daughter dies. The Covenant
protects no thralls."

Gail. She showed no reaction upon seeing me, as if
she were in a trance.

Leia had taken her. She had forced my own daughter
to become one of them. A sound, somewhere between
a cry and a howl, emerged from my throat. A spark of
rage ignited, my own fire, and I concentrated on it.

Her arm extended in front of me, the vein opening
for me as Jaguar's had. There was" a flood of fire, a
pressure willing me to taste, to drink. I wanted the
blood, and I knew that it was the desire that was
the key. The second I stopped resisting the desire, the
burning hunger that she was pulling out of me, I would
be lost.

She had taken Gail.

I felt the knot of anger harden.

I was not a thrall. I was not a human any more. I was
a vampire whose chosen name was Raven. I was this
woman's peer. She had had half a century to focus her
will, but my own wounds were fresh.

I felt myself bend over her arm, felt the bones begin
again to rewrite the structure of my jaw. I could smell
her blood, and it was the sweetest thing I had ever
smelled. Below me it leaked from her arm, a warm
ruby glow, radiating with life.

Under it all I could still smell the taint of corruption.

She had taken Gail.

The world stopped spinning around me, and my
sense regained a sharper focus.

"Take of me, Mr. Tyier. Your daughter has an eter-
nity before her, don't let it end."

She had taken Gail.

Focusing on Gail allowed me to retain myself.
Doctor Ryan had found a weapon for her, but the
weapon wasn't absolute. The tainted blood increased
her power over me, but it did not make me her slave. I

338 SA. Swinwski

was the master of my blood, not a thrall who carried
another's blood in his veins already.

I held her arm with both hands. My nails were talons
in leathery skin, my jaw a savage muzzle, my nose
wrinkling at the sweet smell of blood. I knew, instinc-
tively, that to give up control, even for a moment,
would make me her slave.

"Drink, Kane—"

Raven, it is Raven now.

"—you should not be fighting me—"

My name is Raven and I am master of my own blood.

A voice came from out of the darkness within me. I
heard myself whisper.

"From childhood's hour I have not been / As others
were—"

I raised my eyes to meet hers. Leia stopped talking. I
slammed the tatters of my will against her own.

"I have not seen," I whispered, "As others saw—"

I dropped her arm. I could feel her try to turn away,
but I held her gaze with my own.

"I could not bring / My passions from a common
spring—" I could feel the fever burning itself out
within me. "From the same source I have not taken /
My sorrow—" The blood inside me burned like a mag-
nesium flare, brief, intense, leaving nothing but ash in
its wake.

"I could not awaken / My heart to joy at the same
tone—/ And all 1 lov'd—I lov'd alone . . ."

I was still me. My mind felt tempered, all the impu-
rities burned away. I felt all the anger, the fury, the
endless rage and fear burning through my skull. All of
it focused on Leia in front of me.

Leia began to scream.

Bowie began moving toward Gail, who still stared
into space.

"No!" I growled. My hand slashed in front of me, at
Leia. Every last trace of emotion within me powered

RAVEN                   339

that swing. My hand was not a hand anymore, it was a
weapon.

My talons sank into Leia's neck, tearing across her
throat. Her scream gurgled to a halt. She slammed into
the wall next to me.

Bowie had grabbed Gail, and she seemed to wake up
from her trance. Gail yelled, and I leaped at him. His
hands were on her throat as he looked up at me.

I saw fear in his face.

He raised his arms too late to defend himself, and I
sank my teeth into his throat. I tasted blood, but I
didn't drink. I tore at him, shredding flesh, tearing at
him tooth and claw, driving him away from my child.
Gail scrambled, panicked, up the stairway.

Bowie pounded at me, and I felt his bones shift
under my assault. His spine separated under my teeth
before he could transform into anything threatening. I
threw Bowie's corpse into the den to shatter through
the French doors. His head stayed in the doorway.

I heard a renewed scream behind me. I turned around
in time for Leia to grab me with a pair of clawed hands.
Where I had turned into something wolflike, she had
turned demonic. She threw me high against the wall.
My back cratered the plaster, and a picture shattered
underneath me. I slid to the ground, Ryan diving out of
my way.

Leia dove upon me and slashed with obscenely
elongated hands. Her nails were a foot long and tapered
like swords. I raised an arm to defend myself and I felt
the claws sever the muscles down to the bone.

I grabbed her wounded neck with my other hand,
holding her at bay. It didn't work as well as I intended.
My gut exploded in pain as her other hand slashed into
my abdomen, burying itself in my stomach.

I roared, and Leia hissed at me in a way that was too
reminiscent of the way Childe had sounded in his box.

She pushed away my other arm, its muscles severed

340 S.A. Swiniarski

and immobile, and began slashing at my face and neck.
I saw my own blood spray across the hallway, splashed
by her blows. As I weakened, I felt my body rebel
against the alien shape.

Each slash knocked more of the beast out of me, and
more leaked out of the fiery hole in my gut. My hand
on her throat did more to pin me than it did her. As I
began regaining a human form, she started laughing
at me.

Then the world exploded as someone fired my
Desert Eagle. Leia's face exploded across me. She
stopped laughing. However, her hand kept slashing at
me, as if by reflex.

The gun fired again, numbing my ears. Leia's head
caved in with the impact. Her arm still moved.
Again it fired.
Leia's arm dangled by her side.
I was frozen in that tableau for nearly a minute, as
my body shifted, sucking all its resources to return me
to my human form. Above me, Leia's head was
nothing more than a chunk of rotten meat above her
lower jaw, good as decapitated. As I watched, her
oozing blood faded from livid red to a sick, dead,
black.

I let go of her neck, and her body tumbled to the
ground.

Gail stood there, in the center of the hall, holding my
Desert Eagle in both hands.

31

Gail held the gun, trembling, tears streaming down her
face. "Dad?" she whispered.

I slowly pushed my back up the wall. I looked down
the hall to where Ryan stood, shaking, staring at Leia's
corpse with wide eyes. He didn't move.

I looked back at my daughter and said, "It's alt right,
it's over."

"Over?" she repeated.

I walked up and took the gun from her hands.

She buried her face in my shredded shirt and cried.
"I'm sorry. Dad. I didn't want to lie, but they made me."

"You're free now," I said. I looked down on Leia's
body. All her blood was now the black of death- Ryan
had knelt down next to the corpse and was whispering.
"Come on, honey," he mumbled at her, "wake up,
wake up—"

I looked at Gail.

"You are master of your own blood now," I said to
her. "Let's leave this place."

I walked her out the front door, out into the snow,
toward the Chevette on the lawn. I was limping, feeling
as if most of my flesh had been torn from the bone.
For my injuries I must have looked almost as bad as
Joey had.

Gail was shaking her head, and I thought of all she
had to go through. For what?

"So pointless ..." I whispered to the night.

342 S.A. Swiniarski

"Things usually are," replied a cultured voice with
an English accent.

I turned to face the Ryan house, and leaning up
against an ivy-covered wall was a well-groomed
gentleman who appeared to be in his fifties. He had a
slight touch of gray at the temples of his shoulder-
length hair, and his chin sported a Van Dyke.

"Childe?" I said.

The man made a slight bow. "My reputation pre-
cedes me."

I glanced back up at the house. Gail turned to me and
whispered, "Oh, God."

Childe shook his head. "He has little to do with it.
No, we're discussing Jaguar, actually." He smiled
grimly and followed my glance up at the house. I saw
erratic shadows cross the windows, semi-human in
form. Nearly a dozen of them. No sound came from the
house.

"Jaguar?" I said-

"The English of an otherwise unpronounceable
Mayan name. I would think you'd remember meeting
him,"

Jaguar, my raceless visitor. I nodded as the lights
went out in the house. "He told me Doctor Ryan was
buried in the flesh."

"Some of us more so than others." Childe held out
his hand. "Perhaps you two should come with me."

"What is he doing in there?" I asked.

"Fixing things."

I stared at Childe and after a moment said, "That was
you, in that box."

He started walking away from the house said, "I
have made better impressions."

"I should have killed you."

He paused for a moment and looked back over his
shoulder. "Yes, by your lights, perhaps you should
have. But come."

RAVEN              343

He waved us after him.

"I could have," I whispered.

He kept nodding. It was difficult to picture this man
as the thing within the box. But I'd had that glimpse of
him in the window, and he was unquestionably the
same being. The same person whose picture was faxed
from England.

How many of Sebastian's men had it taken to bring
him back?

"For God's sake, why?" Gail said.

He turned around, and I noticed that the surt he wore
had to cost close to a grand. The scarf and gloves he
wore spoke of the same expensive taste. "Why ask for
nepenthe of some strange black bird crossing my
threshold? Is there balm in Gilead?"

Childe addressed me, giving me an odd grin. "I
know something of you now, and you shan't offer such
balm."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't make the mistake Leia did. She was one of
us, but she wasn't of us. Applying a human morality to
us is akin to applying that bird's morality to a human."

He turned around and resumed walking. "What souls
we have, what minds, are chained within this flesh. All
resides close to the surface. We become what we are.
Our thoughts mold ourselves, our flesh, our reality.
Our choices bind us—"

I nodded, not understanding all I wished to. Though
I began to see how vampiric psychology could affect
the flesh; from Joey's zombie-rot to Leia's wound,
self-image molded the body.

"What she did," Childe continued, "forcing herself
on the bodies of my thralls, with her blood, that was a
worse act than killing me would have been." He shook
his head and wiped snow out of his hair.

"All of them chose to be yoursT'

The comer of Childe's mouth twitched upward. "I

344 5.A. Swiniarski

do not force the worm within my breast upon anyone.
They each had time to decide."

We turned a corner and approached a black car.
"What happened with her?" Gail asked.

"At the end of the war, I offered something to a
woman. She gave freely, but when it came time for her
to take, she refused to deal any more with me. I am
always clear about what a relationship with me costs."

We stopped at the car, a Rolls Royce, one of the ear-
lier models, before they started looking like Lincolns.
Childe shrugged. "Her husband was a doctor, but she
hid the marks too long. They became septic. She died-
She lived. Her mind kept the scar alive, and she blamed
me." He shook his head- "She existed for half a cen-
tury, and all must have seen that wound in her heart.
None sponsored her, took her into the community, or
gave her a name." He gave me a meaningful look.
"You're very lucky. Rogues come to bad ends."

I felt a small flare of anger at the society I had thrust
myself into. "She was such a loose cannon, why didn't
Jaguar, Gabriel, or somebody, stop her before it came
to this."

"Her husband was useful, I suppose. He had a good,
if incomplete, model of our existence. If she was
removed, so was the motive for his work. Also, 1 am
not loved. They may have waited to see what my fate
would be."

"They let this happen?"

"To an extent. But, thanks to you, this conflict began
attracting too much attention to ignore." Childe looked
up the street, back toward the Ryan house.

"Jaguar will fix this, as I had to clean my own
house." I looked up and I began to see a flickering
glow through the trees.

"I owe you something," he said, interrupting the
memory.

"What?"

RAVEN

345

He opened the door to the Rolls. "They were mine,
those who did this to you. By our iaw, I am responsible
for what happened to you. I may indulge you in some-
thing compensatory—"

Gail hugged herself closer to me, and I said, "You
can't bring Kate back."

Childe shook his head. "Do you desire something
more within my power than forgiving your violence
against my own? That I have already done."

What could I want from this creature?

I looked up at the sky, remembering how the moon
looked as rt hung low over Lakeview. If there was only
one thing I could ask from Childe, I knew then what
it was.

"Cecilia," I said.

"What?"

"If she still lives, free her from her father. Free her
and sponsor her."

Childe appeared interested. "This will not change
what she is ..."

"She does not deserve Sebastian killing her. Your
protection should be worth something."

Childe looked at me a long while, then said, "This I'll
do, to cancel our debt." He slipped behind the wheel
and said, "Shall I give you two a lift somewhere?"

I shook my head and said, "No. We have our own
car."

I took my daughter and began walking back.

"Indeed," Childe said. I heard the door shut behind
me, "But perhaps, my dear Raven, you'll indulge me a
moment more?"

I stopped walking, and without turning around, I
asked, "What more is there to say?"

I heard the Rolls' quiet engine start, and I heard the
tires grind snow as it advanced to pull even with us.
The wheel was on the wrong side, so Childe was sitting

346

S.A. Swiniwski

just on the other side of the door from us. "A story," he
said through the open window, "an old one."

"What—"

"Shh. This predates that American drunkard you're
so fond of by two millennia, and it is just as much part
of your soul now."

I turned to face him. and Childe looked off, out the
windshield. It began sinking in, as he spoke, what
Ryan said, about Childe being so old.

"This occurred in the east, in the mountains there.
Perhaps India, perhaps China. I prefer to think of it as
Tibet. The thirst came upon a young man in a
monastery. There was no one to tell this man what had
happened to him, and when it overpowered him,
finally, he killed his teacher and drank of his blood.
The young monk was horrified by his deed. He ran off
into the night, hiding in a cave far away from any other
person.. He sat in that cave, and vowed to sit there until
he died."

He paused and stroked his beard. He still didn't look

at me.

"This monk had a strong will, perhaps as strong as
any other man's had ever been. Stronger when tem-
pered by his horror at his teacher's fate. He did not
move from his spot in the cave. Days came and .went,
the sunlight never reaching his flesh. He did not feed,
nor did he move. Within a month, the monks found him
there, after half his flesh had withered. They demanded
answers from the young monk, for the death of his

teacher."

Childe finally turned to look at me. When his eyes
met mine, I could picture the scene. The cadaverous
monk in a lotus position, and the robed elders, holding
candles and shouting questions. I was unsure if the
imagined scene was from my mind, or Childe's.

"The young man did not answer, and the only part of
his body he moved was his eyes- The questioning went on

RAVEN

347

for days, during which he did not move, or eat, or speak.
He could smell the blood of the monks around him, but he
held his hunger inside. The others saw this, and decided
that the young man had achieved enlightenment."

Childe grinned as if this were his favorite part of the
story. "They left him there, with his hunger. The young
monk stayed unmoving for a year, then another. Word
spread across the countryside about his enlightenment.
Soon pilgrims visited the mountain, to ask their own
questions, to which the young monk would offer no
answer.

"The thirst gnawed away at him for a century, with-
ering him away until he was barely a skeleton held
complete by the force of his denial. As every day
passed, his will strengthened along with the thirst. And
the pilgrims still came, dozens, hundreds—all asking
questions with no answers.

"The monks built a shrine around the cave, and the
pilgrims began to worship at the young man's bones.
They held him sacred now, though none knew that he
still lived, and still kept his vow..

"A city grew up at the base of the mountain, below
the monk's shrine. Eventually, the cave itself was
walled up, for fear of anyone disturbing the young
monk's remains.

"Slowly, though, the young monk was forgotten.
The pilgrims ceased coming. Eventually, it was for-
gotten why the city was where it was. And, nine cen-
turies after the young monk had walked into the cave,
he moved.

"In the space of one night, every single person who
lived within the walls of that great city died. A thou-
sand, ten thousand. A quarter awoke the next night,
with their own thirst, and found the shrine destroyed,
and the young monk nowhere to be seen."

Childe tuned back to face the windshield. "You can't
deny yourself, much as you want to."

348                 S.A. Swiniarsld

"That justifies all the killing?"

"It means what it means," Childe said. "There are
hundreds of versions of that story. Will over thirst,
thirst over will. Fate, destiny—" Childe shook his
head. "There's just more there than I've said, and
there's more here than you've seen."

He pulled the Rolls away from the curb, leaving us
alone in the snow-dusted night.

"What did he mean?" Gail asked.

"I'm not sure," I said. "But we'll work it out,
somehow."

' We walked back to the Chevette. When we reached
it, I could hear sirens in the distance, and the Ryan
house was already engulfed by fire. I could picture
another fire burning in East Cleveland, destroying
Childe's house, burning away everything that might
not be mundane.

I thought of Leia, and Bowie, and Ryan. I hugged
Gail's shoulders and counted ourselves lucky. Leia had
been right. Revenge is not a happy pursuit.