Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter 1 - NEW YORK

Chapter 2 - NEW YORK

CANTESHRIKE GROTTO

NEW YORK

Chapter 3 - NEW YORK

Chapter 4 - NEW YORK

Chapter 5 - NEW YORK

Chapter 6 - NEW YORK

Chapter 7 - NEW YORK

Chapter 8 - NEW YORK

Chapter 9 - NEW YORK

MAINE

Chapter 10 - NEW YORK

MAINE

NEW YORK

Chapter 11 - MAINE

CANTESHRIKE GROTTO

Chapter 12 - NEW YORK

MAINE

Chapter 13 - NEW YORK

MAINE

NEW YORK

Chapter 14 - MICHIGAN

NEW YORK

Chapter 15 - MICHIGAN

NEW YORK

Chapter 16 - MICHIGAN

NEW YORK

Chapter 17 - OHIO

NEW YORK

NEW YORK

Chapter 18 - CANTESHRIKE GROTTO

NEW YORK

OHIO

Chapter 19 - NEW YORK

OHIO

Chapter 20 - OHIO

NEW YORK

Chapter 21 - OHIO

NEW YORK

Chapter 22 - OHIO

NEW YORK

Chapter 23 - KENTUCKY

NEW YORK

Chapter 24 - LOUISIANA

NEW YORK

Chapter 25 - LOUISIANA

THE DEAD GOUGE

Chapter 26 - LOUISIANA

NEW YORK

Chapter 27 - TEXAS

Chapter 28 - NEW YORK

TEXAS

Chapter 29 - NEW YORK

TEXAS

Chapter 30 - TEXAS

Chapter 31 - NEW YORK

ARKANSAS

Chapter 32 - NEW YORK

WEST VIRGINIA

Chapter 33 - NEW YORK

Chapter 34 - PENNSYLVANIA

NEW YORK

Chapter 35 - NEW YORK

Chapter 36 - NEW YORK

Copyright Page

1

NEW YORK

GLORIA PRESSED THE CELL PHONE to her ear and strode across the street, black boots mirrored in wet pavement. “I’m so ready to go home,” she said with a sigh. “I’m starving, but I only have time for a quick bite. I need to work tonight.”

The cool, misty air wreaked havoc on her curls, sending them aloft. The elastic band in her hair managed only to cinch her low ponytail into a bishop’s sleeve shape and errant curls haloed her olive face, tangling in her dark lashes. She brushed them aside.

“I have maybe an hour, two at most. Then back to ‘the Chang Enigma.’”

“Still an enigma, huh?” Bruce said through the earpiece.

“As much as ever. Benefactors can be such a drag sometimes.”

“They’d be insufferable if not for the massive sums they throw your way.”

“Or not, in Chang’s case. Anyway, I have to keep trying. If I can just refine the pitch a little tonight, things should normalize at the office.”

“Do what you have to do. You’ve put in a good sixty hours this week already. Maybe you only need a few more to crack this guy’s code.”

“That would be great.”

Gloria scanned the streets and saw a figure among the passersby that she thought was Bruce. The figure turned into a café and disappeared. She smiled, imagining Bruce’s easy posture and stride. No one walked like him, certainly not the guy she just saw.

“You close by?” she said.

“Pretty close.”

She arched her back and surveyed the shop windows with a swivel of her chin. The crowd replicated itself in the glass and in the shining slick pavement. Sunlight broke through the cloud cover and bounced from one sparkling surface to another, leaping across the street and back again in hide-and-seek fashion.

“If I can just get Mr. Chang to provide funding for this project, my schedule will ease up a little and we can have more nights to ourselves.”

“You’ll get him. Woven Hillside does great stuff. I was telling someone just yesterday about the schoolbook program and the shelters you’ve gotten funded.”

Gloria gazed at the display where an opulent tapestry hung; a peacock woven in green, blue and gold, with backdrop motifs in royal purple.

God, it’s gorgeous. Her fingers itched to stroke the delicate threads.

Then, for a moment, she caught the reflection of a pale woman’s face. Someone so beautiful it sharpened the senses. And with her a man, also very pale. In the distortion of glass, it almost looked as if they had wings and impossibly thin, bent legs. Pivoting to look over her shoulder, Gloria searched for them, but saw no sign of anyone in white.

She stared at the window again. This time her eyes fixed on a reflection from across the street, where she found Bruce standing there, phone to his ear, watching her.

She grinned, refusing to turn around. “This unbridled faith wouldn’t have anything to do with our being engaged, would it?”

“Maybe we’re engaged because I have unbridled faith in you.”

Gloria’s heart melted a little and she longed to touch his hair. Still, she resisted the urge to wheel around and make eye contact. Her shoulders eased downward and the arch in her spine went slack.

He continued. “After all, I met Gloria the tireless fundraiser before I ever got the chance to touch Gloria the—aw, damn. I’ve been made, haven’t I?”

She laughed. “In fact, you have.” She turned to face him directly, phone still pressed to her ear. “And how long have you been watching me while I fussed about waiting for you?”

She could see the breadth of his grin even from across the street. “Actually, I kinda got here before you did.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, really.”

She ended the call and slapped her boot against a puddle, waiting for him to jog across to her. He did so and gathered her up into his arms, brushing his lips along her brow. “Bessy-me, baby!”

She playfully evaded him, heading instead toward the subway as he followed at her elbow.

“Shame on you!” she said. “Making me wait with my stomach growling!”

“Is that what that racket was? I thought we were getting some kind of cell phone interference.”

She chuckled and threw him a playful slap. “How did you suddenly know that you’d ‘been made’? Did you see me looking at your reflection in the window?”

Bruce laughed boyishly. “Nah. I could tell you saw me by the way your body changed.” He slid his hand down the length of her back.

She shivered luxuriously. “Am I so transparent?”

“Afraid so, babe. That’s why I had to watch you for a while first. I never get to see you in your powerhouse mode.”

“What do you mean? You see me in business suits all the time.”

“Yeah, and you’re beautiful in them. But I’m not talking about what you wear; I’m talking about how you are. Your face is all serious and you stand like you’re ready to lead a marching band down the street.”

“Is that so? And how am I otherwise?”

Bruce grinned. “Well, once I come around, you get all kittenish.”

“What?”

Bruce gave a rueful shake of his head. “You can’t help yourself. You stop leading the marching band and instead you walk all sleek and catlike. And you get a kind of sleepy smile.”

She harrumphed, but could not banish the smile—probably a sleepy one—from her lips.

“No use fighting it, babe. It’s my natural pheromones. They’re awfully powerful. You’re pretty much helpless against ’em.”

Gloria snorted. “I see. Then explain this: since you observed this ever-so-dramatic change in me from across the street, how could I have been reacting to your, um, devastating pheromones? Wouldn’t I have to catch your scent in order for that to happen?”

“That might have been true a while back. But you’ve been with me long enough now that all you have to do is see me. Your response is downright Pavlovian.”

Gloria’s eyes widened. “Oh my. I had no idea I was making such a spectacle of myself.”

Swiftly, completely taking her by surprise, Bruce spun Gloria into an alley and kissed her deeply, pulling her tight into his warm chest. She felt the unmistakable flow she felt every time they touched like this. The first time it happened, she thought she might be coming down with something. Now she realized it was just the opposite.

“They want to do scientific research on me, you know,” he said huskily, their faces still touching.

“They?”

He stepped back to wave his hand dismissively. “Yeah, they. They want to get to the bottom of this irresistible beacon of attraction I send out.”

She nuzzled his neck. “Well you know what? They’re right. To hell with dinner. I need to have you now.”

At first, Gloria thought Bruce was actually going to take her up on this. After all, there was that time in Prospect Park. But in midtown Manhattan? Even in an alley, they were completely exposed.

Then he kissed her again and took her hand to lead her back onto the street. “We’d better just get dinner instead. I can’t concentrate with your stomach growling so loud.” He led her back to the sidewalk and down the subway stairs. “Yeah, all those hunger growls scared some poor couple dead white.”

Gloria gave a start and a different kind of tingle went up her spine. “The people in white? I think I saw them, too.” She remembered the harsh exoticism of the woman’s beauty and the way the scrambled reflection made it look like they’d had wings and bent, ostrichlike legs. “Did you see what they were wearing?”

“I didn’t get a good look.”

Bruce’s face suddenly tightened. Gloria turned to identify the cause for his discomfort, and as she did, he steered her away from a man ranting near the token booth. The guy had wild brown and gray hair and a denim shirt. He carried a sign that read, THINE LOVE IS MINE DEMISE.

As Gloria made unintended eye contact with the man, his voice thundered.

“Kneel down now!” he said. “Swear your allegiance! You put them in power to rule us all because of your selfish longings!”

Gloria felt pressure on her arm as Bruce quickened their pace. But the subway prophet leaped into their path, cornering them before they reached the turnstiles.

“You!” he said. “A bond-recherché! My God. And you’re not even listening. Didn’t you hear what I just said? Can’t you see he’s sent the yellow-eyed canteshrikes to watch you?”

Bruce raised his hand. “Easy, friend. We’re just trying to get on a train.”

The man stared at Bruce, heaving, and then let his eyes travel to Gloria. “Yes. Oh, yes, yes. Enjoy it my friends. My dear, delusional friends. Take it. Ha! Wallow in it.”

He nodded in derision. “Soon there will be hell at your feet.”

The lunatic’s glare darkened. “Hell for all of us.”

Enervata watched the lovers on the street below. He could taste it full in his mouth. The taste of opportunity.

His bronze claw released the curtain as he turned back to the three Pravus attending him, the two brothers and the mouthless one, Sileny. Their eyes were intent on the young couple beyond the window, but he could tell they were subtly watching him as well. They were taking his measure. Sampling his mood. But he had no desire to cultivate their fear at this moment; his mind was on the lovers, and only the lovers.

“The time has come,” he said, his voice deep like the grinding hull of a ship as it buckles upon the ocean floor. “We have a rare bond-recherché before us. I shall assume a human form and take the woman soon.” He cast his black gaze upon each Pravus in turn. “And this time there had better not be any mistakes.”

Sileny averted her gaze. The other two—the round brothers, Hedon and Glueg—ambled to the settee and preoccupied themselves with fatty chops and pint jars of honey wine, their plump fingers tracing glistening streaks on the glass.

But Sileny’s worried eyes spoke the things she could not say. Enervata had removed Sileny’s mouth long ago. He might have simply killed her when she dared speak against him, but he preferred to keep her alive and suffering for his entertainment. A single mole capped her left cheekbone, the only feature marking the lower half of her face, and from it protruded spikes of brown hair that matched those on the top of her head.

He could see that her mind calculated all the ways in which they might fail.

Enervata’s tail twitched with a readiness to lash her. “Have you something to say, Sileny?”

Sileny’s hands flashed in quick gestures, daring to cite the incident, nigh on two hundred years ago, when last a bond-recherché dangled its promise so close within Enervata’s reach.

So close.

Enervata raised a hand. “No more, Sileny. It is not so difficult. They are but a man and a woman, a twosome. Does this twosome know anything of magic? I think not.”

The brothers laughed, muttering, slurping their honey wine.

Again, Sileny’s hands moved swiftly, recalling those lovers of long ago, the courtier and the minstrel in Paris at the time of the revolution. They, too, had remarkable talents, and they, too, had found each other, forging a rare, passionate, blind love.

Enervata affected a yawn, his tongue lolling across his fangs, a growl erupting from the depths of his throat. At last, Sileny halted. She seemed to sense the danger.

“You speak for her, Glueg,” Enervata said as he turned his back to Sileny and sat upon his chair. “I grow weary of bearing witness to this woman’s insufferable twitching.”

Glueg’s eyes flew wide even as his teeth tore off a bit of chop. He smacked it down and stared, his lips forming an O deep within his red beard. Hedon, his brother, tapped his fingers on his pint jar.

“Right.” Glueg jammed a fist across his mouth to smear away the fat.

Enervata could see Sileny’s reflection in the glass panel doors of the Rococo cabinet. With hesitation, hands shaking, she began to sign again.

Glueg cleared his throat. “She’s talking about the last bond-recherché, master. How you managed to break through their bond. You’d turned the woman to your side good and proper.”

Hedon broke in, shaking a chop at Sileny. “Tell’m somefin he don’t know, you stupid ninny! Why must you always try our master’s patience?”

Enervata felt the blackness welling inside him, gathering up all the hatred and putrefaction that defined his Macul heart. The Parisian courtier of long ago had been willing to lay with him, indeed, setting him on the verge of the ultimate fulfillment of his mission. To destroy a bond-recherché, to break their love, was to generate enough dark power to enslave all living things of the Earth—mystic, man, and beast alike.

But in a trice, it fell apart.

Enervata’s claws clenched and unfolded. “If you’ve a point, Sileny, you’d best make it, but I warn you to take your measure!”

The room was still. Hedon and Glueg stared at the floor. Enervata could see Sileny’s reflection tremble where she stood behind him. And then her hands began to move again.

Hedon cast a glance her way and shook his head, muttering. “The canteshrikes are down below in the heart of it and we must sit and endure this stupid mouthless slattern!”

Glueg cleared his throat with uncertainty but continued to interpret Sileny’s sign language. “She says how it could very well go like it did last time.”

Enervata needed no reminder of that. A rival Macul, the one focused on the defilement of human capacity, got the minstrel to leave the courtier by offering success in the symphony. The love between the courtier and the minstrel disintegrated because of this.

Enervata seethed.

The trio of Pravus went very still. None dared speak.

Enervata’s words came slow and cutting. “Sileny seems anxious to remind us of this failure. By all means, Sileny, speak of how the bond was prematurely broken. How it rendered the courtier’s betrayal meaningless. And I was cheated of the power I might have gained in the despoliation of their love!”

Hedon waved a hand. “Why listen to this woman’s drivel, master? That’s all behind us now. After all this time, we’ve a new bond-recherché, and we’ll break them to pieces, we will.”

Sileny stepped forward, letting her hands fly.

But what’s to stop another Macul from getting to them first? Just like last—

Enervata snatched Sileny’s wrist, his claw cutting into her skin. She turned her face from him.

“Are you so devoted to the notion of failure, Sileny?” Enervata hissed.

Sileny pulled, but Enervata would not release her. A sound dislodged from her throat, a stifled mew. Finally, he cast her away and she stumbled onto Hedon’s lap. The brothers pinched her as she disentangled herself and stood, tapping nervously at her skull.

Enervata rose from his chair. “There will be no failure this time. And you have my promise: any hint of it shall mean your deaths. All of you.”

He parted the curtains again and watched the lovers on the street, enchanted with one another and oblivious to the canteshrikes who hovered about, cloaked in a different kind of enchantment. Passersby went about their business, lost in their own worlds. All of them ignorant, all of them destined to fall to their knees before him.

Soon.

Glueg cleared his throat, swirling his honey wine. “When are we to begin, then, master?”

Enervata kept his black gaze fixed beyond the window. Eventually, he said, “I shall meet her a few days hence.”

2

NEW YORK

GLORIA SETTLED INTO THE RESTAURANT chair and smiled, breathing in the scent of roasted garlic. The cafe wrapped them in warmth and candlelight, the familiar dining room tantalizing with smells drifting from the kitchen. The mirror by the hostess station reflected candlelight at an odd angle to the room. Gloria narrowed her eyes at it, suspicious now of rogue reflections.

“Here we are!”

Carlotta appeared from the kitchen bearing two steaming plates. Her ruffle-fringed apron flourished to a grand bow at the small of her back and she beamed with satisfaction.

“Enjoy!” she said broadly, patting Gloria’s shoulder before she headed toward the kitchen.

“Do you know who she reminds me of?” Gloria said. “Mama Bear, from ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears.’”

Bruce lifted a forkful of pasta and glanced at Carlotta as she bustled through the dining room. He nodded. “Definitely Mama Bear. And I bet she makes up a mean pot of porridge.”

Gloria smoothed her napkin over her lap. “You can tell good souls by the way they care about certain things. Carlotta definitely cares about food.”

“No question about it. If there were more Carlottas in the world, there would be no suffering. None at all.”

“Except for the occasional indigestion.”

Bruce grinned. “It’s a small enough price to pay.”

They dug into their food. Gloria truly was ravenous. Lunch had been an energy bar. Or was that yesterday? She couldn’t remember right now whether she’d eaten lunch at all this afternoon. Regardless, the escarole and beans was even more soul satisfying than usual.

“What’s going on with the play?” she said after her fifth bite.

Bruce’s eyes lit up. “I think we’re almost there. Good thing, since opening night’s coming at us fast. It’s all so cool. I still don’t buy why they’re putting our lead actress in the back at the start of her soliloquy, but . . .” He seemed to catch himself and shrugged. “I’m just an apprentice. I need to quit obsessing.”

“You’re more than that; you know the theater like it was your brother. Anyway, I wasn’t asking about that play. I meant your play.”

Bruce examined his plate. “Also known as the endless journey.”

Gloria smiled softly. “I have Mr. Chang and you have your third act.”

Bruce glanced up at her, a hint of resignation in his eyes. “Maybe I’m not ready.”

“You’re beyond ready,” Gloria said in a voice she hoped wasn’t too insistent. “You just need to tap every resource.”

Bruce nodded. “I know. Some of those resources are proving harder to tap than I expected.”

Gloria chewed her lip. If he really didn’t want to go the extra mile, she wouldn’t push him, at least not now. But all Bruce ever talked about was how anxious he was to get this play out into the world. And she wanted it out there, too. She’d read passages of his work that spun her head around. Most of it wasn’t like that—not yet—but enough was to make her wonder at what waited to emerge from his soul.

He looked beyond her and smiled, changing the subject with his eyes. Gloria followed his gaze over her shoulder and saw Carlotta moving in their direction.

“Everything is okay?” Carlotta asked.

“Fantastico!” Bruce said, kissing his fingertips.

“What’s the secret to the escarole and beans?” Gloria asked. “I can never get the texture right.”

Carlotta tilted her head toward the kitchen. “High heat. Hot hot hot! And fast. If you waste time or don’t use enough heat, it falls apart and is useless.”

The sound of shouting filtered in from the street.

Carlotta craned her neck. “Who’s yelling out there? I worry now. Two weeks ago, someone took a brick and smashed through the stained glass window of the church around the corner. Beautiful window! Who would do a thing like that? And this is a quiet neighborhood.”

“I heard about that,” Bruce said. “It was the big leaded glass window, way up high where they hadn’t put bars. It’s too bad.”

Carlotta nodded. “Some people see something beautiful and they have to smash it. I don’t understand that. I see something beautiful and I want to love it.”

Carlotta stared at the middle distance. Gloria wondered what was running through her mind at that moment. It seemed to mirror the sense of disquiet Gloria felt herself. Why did she have this nagging urge to look over her shoulder? Her eyes traveled again to the mirror that hung near the hostess station, half expecting to see a strange woman in white.

Suddenly, Carlotta’s expression changed. “Hey! Your wedding is soon, right?”

“Yes,” Gloria said, grinning irrepressibly. “Prospect Park in a little more than a month. We’re having the reception there, too.”

Carlotta’s arms spread wide. “Big wedding?”

Bruce smiled and reached for Gloria’s hand. “A frugal wedding. Big on sentiment.”

Gloria grazed his fingertips with hers.

“Big on sentiment is best,” Carlotta said. She smiled at Gloria. “Your dress is ready, dear?”

Gloria nodded. “Bridesmaids, too, Candace and Jamie. They’re going to be wearing pale green with blue sashes.”

“Ah, sounds lovely. So much work, these weddings.” Carlotta rolled her eyes. “Big or small, you have the invitations, the flowers, the catering.”

Bruce shook his head. “Too complicated for me. I leave it to the experts.”

Carlotta smiled. “I’ve thrown weddings for two sons and one daughter. Now with the grandbabies, some day they’ll have weddings, too.”

She paused and put a hand to each of their shoulders. “You are so beautifully in love. I can see it. Anyone can see it.”

Gloria looked up at Carlotta, then at Bruce. Anyone can see it? That should be a good thing, right? Why, then, did the thought send a chill of apprehension up her spine?

Gloria’s gaze darted back to the mirror. She shook her head. Her senses seemed extra sharp lately, almost to the point that maybe she sensed things that didn’t even exist.

“So beautifully in love,” Carlotta repeated. “And you will have beautiful babies. When you do, you bring those babies here for pasta!”

CANTESHRIKE GROTTO

The flock danced in the ice cave, their lustrous pearl bodies swaying, feathers lifting. Musical laughter rang from the sparkling ridges of the ceiling, drenching the cave with harmonies of minor chords. One by one, two by three, they began to join with one another.

“Isolde the Fair! Come hither and share!” they beckoned. “Let us partake in the fruits you bear!”

Isolde raised a finger, bidding them wait.

A pixiefly the size of a teacup was singing nearby. Rafe lifted his wings and then folded them. Isolde could see the tension in his bare back and hindquarters. The pixiefly drew nearer, mesmerized by the pearlescent glow of Rafe’s wings.

In a sudden movement, Rafe snatched it from the air and swallowed it.

He turned and regarded Isolde. “Our master will take the woman soon, and we must find ways to break them. The bond-recherché has achieved a heightened state.”

“She coveted the woven prize. A thing we might use, I do surmise.” Isolde shook her silken hair, longing to join the rest of the flock for a romp, to join with their bodies and feel the electricity of them in and around her.

Rafe scratched impatiently at the grotto floor with his trident canteshrike talon. “The woven prize. I presume you mean the peacock tapestry. We will report as much to the master. And yet you miss my meaning entirely. Did you not see it? On the street, in the window, the lovers beheld our presence. Somehow they were able to see us.”

“Am I so dense I might not know this? I too heard them converse about us!” Isolde paused, thinking. “That kaleidoscope burgh caught our likeness.”

Rafe considered this. “A phenomenon of reflections and atmosphere ? Perhaps. It is possible the trick of rain and sunlight ensnared us in the glass.” His eyes narrowed. “But I think not. I suspect they have come to such a place in their love that a measure of power does now evolve. Through it, they glimpse the world of the canteshrike. Love yields resonant power.”

“Through love, they see us? You are preposterous!”

Rafe wheeled on her, and Isolde pulled back a bit instinctively. He was leaning close enough that the scent of his skin met her nostrils; a gentle invasion, yet one so sudden that she fought the urge to slash him with her talon. His bare, white chest loomed over her bare, white chest, and the feathers at their haunches touched.

Rafe lowered his voice, now steely but with the quality of an opiate. “Have you truly forgotten its power? For me and thee, our love once meant the world.”

Isolde turned from him, but in doing so let her left wing graze his chin. “Love bore us naught but servile fate.” Her eyes lifted to meet his. “Our power lies within our hate.”

“Yes, our hate. An easy thing to nourish, when we must look upon one another century after caustic century in these bestial canteshrike bodies. Inasmuch as our love did once burn, our hatred burns brighter.”

Isolde did not reply.

Rafe squared his wings. “I must report back to Enervata, though I am tempted to omit the detail of how the two lovers spotted us.”

Isolde’s yellow eyes lit, and then she lifted a single pearlescent shoulder. “A captain are you. Lieutenant am I. ‘Tis for you to do while I must bide.”

“How very humble of you. And how opportunistic. That I might risk withholding information from Enervata, and that you might take your turn at his chair and whisper the truth, currying his favor. Offering up my head to hang in his hall.”

She sighed a hiss of impatience, her wings twitching toward the entangled bodies of the flock.

“Think you only of flesh, Isolde? Even now, at the dawn of what will be the world’s darkest hour.”

“Darkest hour! ‘Tis the dawn of our power! The wild-lands for me and mortals for thee.”

Rafe stroked his jaw where her wing had touched him. “I wonder of the choice I made so very long ago, Isolde, believing I could save your life, not damn it for eternity. Now I care only to see you suffer and to claim my scrap of power in our master’s inevitable kingdom. I hate without moderation. Love yields resonant power, it is true, but hatred is a faithful servant who bears an asset of longevity.”

His jaw clenched. “Go join the flock if you wish. I will report to Enervata about this new ability of our bond-recherché. There is little time. Their connection has grown strong, perhaps even too strong. It is of no use to us if Enervata cannot break it.”

The ice glowed blue and the cawing, calling music of the flock beckoned. Isolde’s desire burned.

Rafe turned from her, taking silent footsteps, and paused. “How fortunate for us, fettered by Enervata in perpetual servitude. My hatred blossoms as his debtor.”

He left her, and for a suspended while, Isolde’s eyes lingered on the empty space he had occupied.

Finally, she whispered, “Hate blossoms, yes, and serves us better.”

NEW YORK

When dinner was over, Bruce and Gloria went back to their tiny apartment exhausted but content. Gloria had long since abandoned the idea of getting back on the laptop for Woven Hillside. It could wait until tomorrow.

She slipped off her heels, sighing with the pleasure of flexing her feet. “Oh, those shoes!”

“Come here,” Bruce said, taking her hand and pulling her to the couch. He lifted her feet into his lap and began to rub.

Gloria closed her eyes and groaned, the massage sending waves of relaxation through her body.

Bruce chuckled. “It’s funny what Carlotta said about us.”

Gloria’s expression darkened, which she assumed was not what Bruce expected. “Do you ever worry?”

“What do you mean?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure, really. Carlotta was saying how some people see something beautiful and they want to smash it, and then she tells us that we’re so beautifully in love. It just got my paranoia going. Sometimes I look around and I feel like we’re being . . .”

Bruce’s face changed to mirror hers. “Watched?”

Gloria stared at him, reading concern she hadn’t anticipated. “Yeah. Sometimes. More lately. I don’t know.”

Bruce nodded, balling the back of his hand into the arch of her foot. “I think I know what you’re talking about. Every now and then when we’re out together, I feel my intuition prick up, as though . . . as though—I don’t know what.”

“Right, exactly.” Gloria had experienced those same moments of “high alert” and she was just as incapable of explaining why.

Bruce’s gaze grew more intense. Suddenly, his massage didn’t feel as comforting. “They are watching, you know,” he said darkly.

Gloria’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Weren’t you listening earlier tonight? ‘Can’t you see he’s sent the yellow-eyed counterstrikes to watch you?’”

Gloria blinked twice, then burst into giggles. “You’re talking about that guy in the subway?”

The more she thought about it the more absurd it seemed. “Counterstrikes? I thought he said ‘candy stripes.’”

“Yellow-eyed candy stripes? You thought he said that we were being watched by teenaged girls who volunteer in hospitals?”

Gloria grabbed Bruce’s wrist and pulled him up toward her. “Come here you nut!”

“Thought you’d never ask.” Bruce moved with her and his face regained all of its handsome good nature. He climbed up her body and wedged himself alongside her on the couch.

He put his lips to her ear. “There was that other thing Carlotta said, about how beautiful our babies will be.”

Gloria snuggled into him, trying to bring him closer, though she supposed that was physically impossible. “Mmm.”

“In a couple of years, we’ll buy a place. Something bigger than this. Could you imagine having kids here? I hope they’re black-haired and long-legged, like you. And that they have your Spanish eyes.”

“Nn-mm. Sandy-haired and strong-chinned, like you.”

He laid a kiss on her brow and she imagined those children. Smaller versions of her, or him, or a combination. Either or both genders. Whatever they had would be pure alchemy.

He ran his hand slowly from her shoulder to her lower abdomen. “Do you think they’ll be like us when they grow up? Love the same things we do?”

“Maybe a little.” She loosened the top button of his shirt and breathed in the scent of his neck. He moved his leg, and she felt his heat centering on her. “They’ll be more fabulous, of course,” she said.

He groaned with pleasure. “More fabulous, definitely. Leaders of the world, great visionaries, and timeless artists all at once.”

“For starters.” She shifted slightly and the pressure on her inner thigh gave her a little shiver of bliss.

“I wonder what it’ll be like to watch them graduate, start careers, get married.”

“And give us grandkids.”

She played with the short hairs on the back of his neck and watched his eyes close dreamily.

“I hope our grandkids are black-haired and long-legged, like you,” he said after a moment.

Gloria giggled. “No, sandy-haired and—hey!” She sat up slightly. “I thought you said you never thought about what happened beyond today.”

Bruce gave her one of his deep-eyed smiles and lightly touched his lips to hers. He reached down and moved his hand under her skirt, kneading the muscle of her leg and hooking his finger under the band of her thigh-high. “It’s fun to think about what we’ll be like years from now. To imagine the entirety of our lives together.”

She rolled out from under him and then sat up slowly, eyes on his. “I love living it,” she said, her voice husky.

“It’s only gonna get better, babe.” He reached his broad, warm hands into her blouse and unbuttoned it, then freed it from her shoulders, slipping his ring finger under the strap of her lingerie. “God, you’re beautiful.”

She brought the fabric back up loosely to her chest, eyeing the window. “The neighbors will be scandalized.”

“Nobody can see us except the pigeons. And they don’t talk. Much.”

“Shouldn’t we withdraw to the bedroom?”

He shook his head. “Mirrors everywhere. It’s lousy with candy stripes. I’ve got a better idea.”

He untangled himself from the couch and lifted her, sweeping her legs up over his forearms.

She brushed his ear. “Where are you taking me?”

“I’m going to make love to you in the clouds.”

She allowed him to carry her to the bathroom, where Bruce’s foot lightly kicked open the door. Without turning on the light, he set her down gently on the rug. Her toes settled into the soft, pale threads. She watched the stretch of his biceps, chiseled and thick but not bulky. He laid a folded towel over the toilet seat, then draped a large, white towel over that and lit the candles. The scent of sulphured heat drifted from the flames, and they flickered with the air currents of Bruce’s movements.

He turned the faucet on the bathtub and twisted the lid off a bottle of her bubble bath, emptying it into the steaming clear water.

She bit her lip. “You do realize you don’t need quite that much, don’t you.”

“Shh.” He put a finger to her mouth. “Now where were we?”

He slid her blouse from her shoulders and draped it over the mirror, then did the same with his own shirt. “There. Safe from the candy stripes.”

She laughed, eyeing the tub as it began to billow with replica cumulonimbus. Heady vapors of mint and verbena drifted from the tub, caressing her face.

“We’ll never fit—”

His mouth covered hers before she could finish the thought. His arms held her to him, strong and warm and conveying their promise, lifting her to her toes. She smelled the pinched purity of his skin, and curled her fingers up from the nape of his neck to his hair, tugging roughly.

They discarded their clothing, draping garments one by one over the towel bar. The room filled with steam and he closed off the faucet and dipped his hands into the water, smoothing it across the curves of her body. She drew in her breath. He picked her up again and then sat on the folded towel at the commode, settling her across his knees, hands warm and caressing.

The tub billowed and the rug and towels illuminated in pale drifts despite the darkness of the room. The candles twinkled like stars, casting their waltzing light across the broad plain of his shoulders. She loved the vastness of those shoulders. If she brought her elbows up and out sideways with her knuckles together, the length of her arms elbow-to-elbow matched the length of his chest shoulderto-shoulder.

“What gave you the idea to make love to me in the clouds,” she whispered, her fingers grazing each of his muscles in turn.

“It’s where we belong together. In the heavens.”

She closed her eyes with a sleepy smile, though her body twinged with something far from drowsiness. She felt the hairs of her skin rise in pointed anticipation.

She wanted to breathe him in, drink him in, take him in. She wanted to absorb every ion of his being and saturate herself in his energy.

The frothing bathtub crackled softly in waiting, like the reel of an old black-and-white movie. He pressed his face into her hair, and then searched beyond, his lips at her collarbone, his mouth tracing wet bows down her skin. “Without you, I don’t exist.”

She replied with a vocalization that remained buried within her throat, pressing her body to him, moving first her hip and then her leg so that she faced him.

Their fingers, mouths, and ankles locked, and the fit seemed to transcend beyond their bodies. She laid back her head at the shock of his skin, so searing and so alive. So intrinsic to her being. Sounds escaped from her throat and poured upward with the scented vapors. Her hair tumbled back past her waist and grazed his leg.

They gripped each other, each muscle taut and clamping, as if they could lock for a span of forever.

3

NEW YORK

ENERVATA WAS LOSING PATIENCE for Sileny’s melodrama, but he allowed her to speak. “What is it?”

In his natural Macul form, with thick bronze skin and wiry hair that covered much of the lower half of his body to the tip of his tail, he slumped into the armchair. Sileny stood before him on the marble, her chin tucked and forehead thrust forward, moving her hands in quick explanation.

The lesser ones, the pair-normale. We must not forget about them just because we have a bond-recherché in our midst. Allow me, master, to injure their tie.

“You are not even a lieutenant, Sileny. Just a low-ranking Pravus. Hardly qualified to delve into that. Anyway, it’s a distraction. We must focus on our most important task.”

Her hands moved in reply.

This pair-normale may prove sturdy. Let us intervene. It need not take away from our other task.

Enervata rolled his eyes, his chin atop his claw. “Yes, yes. And by the way you probably wish to feed, don’t you?”

Hedon and Glueg laughed, a gulping rumble between bites of lamb.

Enervata regarded them, sighed, and turned back to Sileny. “Which pair-normale has you so distressed?”

Sileny’s chin dipped lower under the brothers’ mockery, but she continued to wave through her speech.

The newest ones, the accountant and the cook. Already they speak of leaving their jobs to open a bakery. Their kind of bond only inspires others. I would be remiss if I did not suggest we intervene immediately.

“So very conscientious.”

Another rumble came from the brothers.

“But perhaps for once you’re right, Sileny. If they open a bakery, they will have an increased social presence and their passion could spread.”

“Tell you what, master,” Glueg said, smacking his lips and rising to his feet. “Me brother and I ought to take care of this one. We can crush a pair-normale as easy as a babe fills its nappy. ’Tween the two of us we’ll have them lovers brawling in a jiff.”

“You think you’ll be more efficient than Sileny, do you?”

Hedon waved a leg of lamb toward Sileny. “It’s just that she’s so batty, that one. That’s why you don’t send her out into the field much, anyway, isn’t it? She’s best served as a scullery maid. Leave it to us, master. Glueg and me; we’ll give this twosome a good smite.”

A shrill growl came from Sileny’s throat, a catlike sound that, if she had a mouth, might have emerged as a screech.

Hedon sneered. “Odd as a cock’s egg, aren’t you dearie?”

The growl escalated as it struggled to escape her and she hurled Hedon’s plate of lamb. It missed him and struck the wall.

Enervata waved a hand, sending a burst of indigo light arcing toward Sileny. She shielded her face just as it sliced upon her and the little finger of her left hand toppled to the floor. She whimpered, wide-eyed, and cradled her diminished hand with the other.

“At least your reflexes are quick, Sileny,” Enervata said. “You very nearly lost your nose just now.”

Glueg and Hedon howled. Hedon wiped the back of his hand across his lips, removing a bit of crust but smearing grease deeper into his red beard.

“If I may.”

They ceased their laughter and turned toward the doorway. In it stood Rafe. His shoulders were squared under the arch, his jawbone wide and smooth.

“Yes, what is it, Rafe?” Enervata said.

“Isolde and I have monitored our bond-recherché as instructed. There has been a small development. It seems that both of them saw us through reflections in the glass.”

Enervata lifted his chin from his claw and flared his snout, his interest piqued. “They’re evolving. Faster than they should.” This notion quickened his thoughts. He rose taller in his chair. “Did they take note?”

“They did, but dismissed it because they did not understand what they beheld. But there is more. A vagrant decried our existence soon after.”

Enervata furrowed his brow. Though centuries had passed since his last bond-recherché, his memory of it remained all too vibrant. Everything was happening faster this time. The immediacy fascinated him. “A vagrant? I take it our Bruce and Gloria did not listen?”

“No, but Isolde and I thought it prudent to temper our surveillance for the present.”

“Probably wise. Where is Isolde now?”

“Canteshrike Grotto. Shall I beckon her?”

Enervata shook his head. “Another orgy in the ice cave, is it? No, let her feed her lust. But if our bond-recherché has developed this newfound ability, you must proceed with extreme caution.” He stretched his claw toward Rafe. “You tell Isolde as much. Keep yourselves hidden in the course of your surveillance. No more such glimpses. Am I understood?”

“Of course. Might I make another suggestion?”

“Go ahead.”

“I overheard your previous discussion and I think it might be prudent to send Sileny after the pair-normale instead of the brothers.”

“The would-be bakers? Why Sileny?”

“It has been some time since she has been allowed to take such actions. Because you have taken her mouth, this is the only way she might feed, and she requires sustenance in order to work effectively. The brothers obviously have no deficit of sustenance.”

“Rafe, you bloody canteshrike bastard!” Glueg said with a derisive, drunken snigger. “Sileny needs a morsel, eh? I’ll give that slattern something to feast upon!”

Hedon leered. “That’ll do you no good, you stupid sop. She ain’t got a mouth for that, neither!”

The brothers waved glistening lamb-smeared hands and howled with delight.

“Enough,” Enervata said sharply, unwilling to suffer the petty annoyances he normally permitted. The ruckus settled immediately. “This is the last time, do you understand? I cannot be bothered with these trivialities. After this, the undoing of the bond-recherché becomes our sole focus.”

Enervata turned to Sileny, his patience waning. “So be it; you shall have your way with this pair-normale. Send a former lover to the accountant’s home while the cook is away. Let there be flowing wine and music, the ideal recipe for lust. Make certain that the cook returns home in the midst of it. And so you may have your meal of broken pair-normale, let there be a weapon nearby, a firearm of some sort that the cook may find handy when she discovers her man in bed with another.”

He turned his back to them, dismissing the lot. “There now; that should fatten you enough to maintain strength for the coming weeks.” He thought of everything Rafe had just told him. “Each of you must excel this time.”

4

NEW YORK

JAMIE CLEARLY DID NOT BELONG HERE. She’d always been a jeans girl and felt like an alien every time she attempted to wear a dress. The one she was wearing tonight had become her emergency standby: loose pink cotton and rayon blend, decent enough. But it pinched at the neck and she found herself checking her knees every five minutes, unaccustomed to seeing them sticking out from under a dress. Something else was off in the outfit, but she couldn’t figure out what.

She scanned the room. Other women seemed more flowing. Gloria’s dress fit her perfectly, not loose, but not tight. Jamie tugged her cardigan closer around her shoulders. She eyed Gloria again and realized she didn’t have on a cardigan; she wore a wrap with her dress. And upon further appraisal, Jamie saw that other women wore wraps as well.

Note to self: get a wrap.

No—scratch that. She only forced herself to dress up once in a blue moon. A cardigan would do fine.

“Why do you keep tugging at your clothes?” Candace asked.

Jamie shrugged. “I just feel so out of place.”

Candace’s gaze darted from side to side, a gesture exaggerated by the thick, Triscuit-sized lenses of her glasses. The square frames matched the square of her jawline and figure, and her hair swung in a simple brown bob. She wore a sensible aquamarine dress. And a wrap.

“I know,” Candace said. “I get real uncomfortable in these places, too. Crowds make me nervous.”

Jamie shrugged. “It’s not so much the crowds as the clothes.”

“Well maybe you should take off that sweater. Looks itchy.”

The two had only known each other since the fiesta a year ago when Jamie’s best friend Bruce had started dating Candace’s best friend Gloria. Jamie thought Candace a little on the skittish side, but they held unique common interests and that meant a great deal to Jamie.

Jamie looked over to Gloria, who was shaking hands and laughing with some very distinguished-looking folks. Jamie could tell they were all perfectly comfortable in their formal wear. And they weren’t sitting at a table like Jamie and Candace. They stood laughing and talking, drifting from group to group.

Jazz played as they waited for the programming to begin, a bass locking its rhythm under an acoustic guitar and drum while a saxophone loped atop the melody. Jamie had been to the museum many times before, but she’d never even realized this lounge existed and had no idea they could close the entire place for a private event. The tables dotted the upper level along the wide circle of railing that opened to the main floor below. Jamie peered down and guessed that the actual programming would take part down there while the guests watched from their tables above. She’d have a clear view throughout the entire performance, including when Bruce’s troupe took its turn.

A few tables away, Bruce appeared, and when he did so, Jamie relaxed a hitch. Conversely, Candace tensed.

Jamie watched Bruce plant a kiss on Gloria’s cheek and greet the other folks as they stood gesturing elegantly with their glasses of wine.

“Maybe we should have some wine,” Candace said with a hand to her brow. “It’ll help us both relax.”

Jamie fiddled with the straw in her soda. “No thanks.” It wasn’t that she didn’t drink; she just didn’t like wine and would have felt stupid ordering a beer amid all this elegance.

Candace eyed Bruce and Gloria. “Well, it’s only a matter of time before I start fidgeting, too, I guess. I always get bored at plays and I hate these sorts of things.”

“I’m actually looking forward to the performances,” Jamie said. “They’re only going to do a twenty-minute excerpt from Bruce’s production. I’ve been waiting to see it since the company started on it. Bruce talks about it endlessly. It sounds great.”

Candace’s eyes glazed. “I don’t know what I’m even doing here.”

“Oh yes you do. Did you forget who you were talking to?”

Candace looked like she was about to say something, but she bit it back and her eyes suddenly filled. Jamie put a hand to her arm. She was about to ask Candace what was going on with her, but the jazz band wrapped the song and the lights changed. Candace just shook her head and blinked away the moisture.

Jamie looked down to the lower level and saw that the MC was about to begin. Bruce and Gloria threaded their way over to the table and Jamie and Candace stood to greet them. Jamie decided to get rid of her cardigan before they arrived, draping it over her chair.

Bruce clasped Jamie’s hand and gave her a friendly peck on the cheek. “Howdy, Tink. I didn’t know Urban Outfitters sold pink dresses,” he said with his trademark wry smile.

She smirked at him. “Thanks. You look very nice, too.”

“Actually, you look great. You should play dress-up more often.”

Their eyes held in an affectionate smile and then Bruce turned to Candace. For a second, Jamie thought he was going to kiss Candace as well, and she saw Candace stiffen. Bruce just smiled at her and said, “Hey, Candace, good to see you.”

Gloria leaned over, kissed her best friend, and then greeted Jamie with a cordial kiss, touching her on the shoulder.

“You look so pretty,” Jamie said.

Gloria’s hand was still resting on Jamie’s shoulder. Now she eyed the back of Jamie’s neck with a mystified expression.

Jamie raised her hand to the place where Gloria was looking—and found a tag standing at attention.

“Your dress is on inside out!” Candace exclaimed. And none too quietly. Folks from the other tables turned and gaped. Jamie felt the color rise to her cheeks.

“Aw, you can’t tell,” Bruce said, smoothing Jamie’s hair and patting her cheek.

Gloria’s eyes traveled from Jamie up the length of Bruce’s arm to his face. Jamie took a step back. As brilliant as Bruce was, he seemed particularly dense about things like understanding that women didn’t want their fiancés caressing other women—even women they’d known from infancy.

Candace leaped to her feet and took Jamie’s elbow, moving quickly as if grateful for an excuse to get away. “Come on, let’s find the ladies’ room.”

Jamie walked with Candace along the back wall as the MC addressed the crowd from below. “I’ll make it quick,” Jamie said as they entered the ladies’ room and she ducked into a stall. But the wrongside-out zipper proved tricky to disengage.

“Take your time. I don’t really want to be here, anyway.”

And with that, Jamie had enough. She swung the stall door open and glared at Candace, dress still hiked to her hips. “What’s gotten into you tonight?”

Candace looked taken aback and ducked her chin like a pouty child. “I just don’t like—”

“Don’t hand me that. You’ve been nervous all night! Unzip me!”

Jamie turned her back to Candace sharply, hand on hip.

Candace blew out a breath. “It’s just that I don’t know why I have to tag along to Bruce’s stuff, too. I’m here for Gloria.”

The zipper slid awkwardly down under Candace’s fingers and Jamie yanked the dress over her head and gave it a flip without bothering to close the stall door again.

“It’s a package deal now, Candie. The fact that they’re together is all the more reason why we gotta be around as much as possible.”

Candace pinned her eyes on the door. “Jamie, aren’t you ever . . . doesn’t it scare you?”

Jamie pulled the dress back down over her head and around her hips and turned around again. She sighed. “Of course I get scared. But that isn’t going to help any.”

Candace’s lower lip began to tremble. “When I think about what may come, what’s probably going to happen now that they’re together, it’s like I can’t breathe. I’m so terrified I don’t even want to leave my apartment.”

“Don’t be,” Jamie said. She put a hand to Candace’s hair. “Believe me, I know how you feel. But it’s up to us to help them find a way. Some very important people have put a lot of faith in us.”

Candace steered Jamie around and pulled the zipper up her back. “I know,” Candace said softly. “I don’t want to let them down. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

Jamie turned back to her. “Look, I know it’s hard. The second Bruce met Gloria I could tell things were about to change. Knowing what you and I know, it’s very scary. But you’re brave, Candace, and you can face this.”

Jamie put a hand to her neck. Mercifully, that pinch was now gone. It must have been the inward-facing zipper. She put a hand to Candace’s elbow and stepped toward the door. “We’d better get back so we don’t miss Bruce’s piece. Thanks for the—” She waved at her back. “You know.”

“Yeah, well, thank you, Jamie. For the—” Candace fluttered her hand ambiguously. “You know. Setting me straight.”

“Hey, we’re practically family now, right?”

Jamie saw Candace take a deep breath and blow it out slowly through her lips. “Yes. Family.”

5

NEW YORK

THE REACH OUT AND READ fundraiser wasn’t one of hers, but Gloria’s boss asked her to go anyway in the hopes that she might meet new benefactors. They were always on the lookout. Gloria felt as though she was pitching potential Woven Hillside donors in her dreams.

A table bearing flowers, hors d’oeuvres, and a champagne fountain stood at the center of the room. Above it, a grand chandelier hung so low that Gloria could reach up and touch the luminous crystals. She thought about her coming wedding and imagined how nice it would be to offer such a sparkling display to the guests.

Not exactly in the budget, though.

This event showed up on her calendar at the last minute. Ordinarily, either Bruce or Candace would tag along. But she hadn’t had a chance to speak to Candace and Bruce was busy with the show.

Still, she scanned the crowd expecting to find Bruce. He said he was staying at the theater, but with Bruce, you never knew. Perhaps he was planning to surprise her.

She smoothed her little black dress. Even if his back were turned, she’d know the posture. No, no Bruce here.

However, something did catch her attention. In a shard of crystal from the chandelier, she saw the reflection of a pale golden eye in a luminous face. The white lady! She gasped and spun around.

Partygoers milled about, laughing and plucking dainty bites from the buffet table, but no one or no thing seemed to resemble the image she’d just seen in the crystal.

She cast furtive glances into the throng. No way would Gloria allow that strange glimpse to evaporate into crowds and tricks of light again. This time she was determined to find the origin of that haunting face.

Can’t you see he’s sent the yellow-eyed canteshrikes to watch you?

Canteshrikes. The man in the subway had said “canteshrikes.” What was a canteshrike? Gloria shivered at the odd sound of the word.

But as she scanned the revelers, saying hello and pressing forward, she found no one dressed in white. No pale golden eye.

It must have been some form of suggestion, similar to how a hypnotist plants an idea into someone’s head. Maybe the vagrant in the denim shirt had caused her subconscious to conjure images of strange people with yellow eyes. Yes. A likely explanation.

A good one, even. Except for one thing: she and Bruce had both caught that first glimpse before the vagrant ever spoke of yellow eyes.

She scrutinized the crowd. Hands balanced cocktail napkins and glimmering stemware, and people clamored their gossip with shoulder pads hunched. Lots of suits, lots of dresses; most in black. None in white.

She reminded herself that she should be socializing. After all, she had come with the intention of nurturing contacts. Nevertheless, she scanned the room once more.

No use.

And yet she still felt its eyes. As if a voyeur were watching from the darkness. But when she looked toward that darkness, all she found was her own reflection staring back.

She fixed her gaze inward, looking into the room instead of around it, and let her eyes fall again on the chandelier. She stared for a long moment.

And saw the briefest flash of white.

And with it, a whispering rush.

It sounded almost as if someone had caught her breath in surprise. That lone gasp rang with such musical strangeness, it could not be a human voice.

Gloria stared, knowing better than to look away from the crystal. She waited for one more glimpse. Just one. If she could only . . .

And in the farthest reaches of her awareness, she felt a shift. It began in the crowd itself. Bodies turned. Chins lifted. She saw their collective reactions echoed in the glass. And then she herself felt it. A kind of heat.

She refused to be distracted. She sharpened her gaze on the chandelier, studying and searching among each bend of light that relayed from one crystal to the next.

The heat washed over her. Came from all around. And with it, a quickening in her pulse.

She dared not tear her eyes from the glass, knowing that in another moment, just one more stir of time, she would catch another glimpse. One more and she would know for certain what was happening around her.

She focused.

“You could get lost in there.”

Gloria stiffened. The voice, rich and deep, came from just over her shoulder. Gloria hesitated, but she’d lost her delicate moment.

She turned toward the person who had interrupted her. “I beg your pardon?”

The man nodded at the chandelier. “Lost in the hall of mirrors.”

His soot-colored eyes rested on hers briefly before he turned away. A simple comment to a stranger. For him, an off-hand remark; and yet for her, a broken spell. Already his attention had moved on. A bug-eyed fellow in a tweed suit engaged him, attempting to draw him away.

“Mr. Vance,” the other man said. “A word if I may.”

Gloria eyed the chandelier again, feeling a bit foolish now for chasing yellow-eyed phantoms. She looked back at the two men. Then she realized that this man standing next to her—this Mr. Vance—embodied the shift in the room moments ago. The glances from the crowd. The heat.

She studied his face, noting the precision of bone structure that squared his cheekbones and angled sharply at the chin. Older than she was by about twenty years. He seemed impatient with the one wearing the tweed, and stood in such a way that rejected any advancing steps from the onlookers. And then—right there—he glanced her way again. His eye color repeated in the charcoals of his hair and brows. And in that heartbeat when he’d looked at her, his air of impatience lifted.

He was definitely attractive, but the crowd’s reaction to him truly set him apart. Even as she stood by, they began to form around him, practically lining up to bask in his aura though he exuded a vibe that somehow blocked them. And though she’d been there first, she began to feel self-conscious about where she stood, as though she were lining up along with them.

Gloria looked away. In fact, she stepped away. She had no business sizing up a stranger as though he was some finely tailored suit in a shop window. What would Bruce think?

Actually, Bruce would be gawking, too. It was only natural when in the presence of a powerful person. And this Mr. Vance, whoever he was, seemed a definite power player.

Gloria backed from the thickening circle and the bug-eyed man in the tweed suit grew more animated as he spoke. His gestures flourished suddenly and he knocked Gloria sideways. She stumbled and Vance grabbed her arm.

The bug-eyed man lurched. “I’m so sorry, Miss! I didn’t see you there!”

He reached for Gloria, but Vance maintained his grip on her, shifting with subtlety to block the other man’s touch.

She felt too embarrassed even to look at Vance’s face. Instead, her eyes traveled the vast breadth of his shoulders as they narrowed to a steep angle at the taper of his waistband. Her eyes flickered upward and again she found herself fixed within Vance’s ashy gaze.

“Are you quite all right?” Vance asked.

She shrugged with a discomfited smile. “I’m fine. Except . . .”

She touched the hem of her dress and turned her leg, looking down at what was now a fractured black high-heeled pump.

The bug-eyed man gasped and seemed about to launch into another barrage of apologies, but Vance blocked him once more. This time, verbally. “Please excuse us.”

Vance turned his back to him and the gawkers who’d gathered around. Supporting Gloria with one hand, he steered her away from the throng, leading her to a quiet alcove and seating her on a plush armchair while he settled opposite her.

“I’m Aaron Vance, by the way. Please call me Aaron.”

“I’m Gloria.”

He shook her hand and the simple gesture sent a wave of sensation from her palm to her shoulder.

“It’s a pleasure, Gloria. Now let’s have a look.” He removed the injured shoe before she even realized what he was doing.

Gloria gaped, lifting her eyes to the larger room beyond the archway where people continued to steal glimpses. Somehow, though, this Mr. Vance had managed to assume ownership of the little nook in such a way that no one dared cross the barrier of the arch.

Earlier she had hoped to find Bruce among the crowd, showing up unexpectedly to surprise her. Her eyes moved from her naked foot up to Vance as he flexed the broken heel and she suddenly thought it better, after all, that Bruce was not here at this precise moment.

“It’ll be all right,” Gloria said. “I’ll just walk with extra care.”

Vance peered inside the shoe. “Let’s see, our Gloria wears a ladies’ size seven. There’s bound to be a shoe store somewhere nearby. I’ll send someone out to pick you up a fresh pair.”

“What? Oh, no! That’s not necessary, really.”

Vance tilted his head. “What were you peering at, anyway?”

“I’m sorry? Peering?”

“Before I was ambushed by the tweed fellow. You were peering into the chandelier as if looking for something.”

“Oh, that!” She felt a blush at the full, bald-headed foolishness of her phantom hunt. She shook her head. “That was nothing. I just . . . thought I . . . saw something. A reflection, some beautiful woman, very pale, with eyes the color of—I could swear I even heard her catch her breath. But she wasn’t really there.”

Vance studied her. It seemed as though he knew precisely what she’d been doing. Gloria’s blush deepened and she dropped her gaze.

“Looking for angels?” he said.

She looked up at him again. What an interesting choice of words. What she’d glimpsed had been no angel. But then again, perhaps that stemmed from the subway vagrant’s warning. She remembered the strangely musical inhalation she’d heard along with a flutter of wings. Could it have been the voice of an angel? A few moments with this stranger Aaron Vance and her entire perspective was changing.

Gloria shook her head. “I don’t know much about angels.”

Vance smiled at that, something at once disturbing and enticing. It was as though he owned a secret that he might be persuaded to share if she behaved according to his bidding.

He rested back on the chair, her shoe still in hand. “I have studied a thing or two about angels and their counterparts.”

Her brows lifted. “Oh?”

He nodded with a shrug. “Historically, the demons and angels maintain a balance. In the texts of ancient Zoroastrianism, they call it asha, truth and order, at odds with druj, falsehood and disorder.”

Gloria’s lips parted in rapt confusion.

His voice continued in a baritone so deep it pushed the limits of the natural human scale. “Conflicting primordial entities represent each. And they attempt to guide humanity toward their own end.”

She drew in her breath and opened her mouth, but could think of nothing to say to this.

“If you believe in such things,” he added with sudden mildness. “For me it’s not so much the entities, but more a fascination in the context of aesthetics, really. Angels in literature, art, and architecture.” He paused, watching her eyes. “And demons, of course.”

Gloria moved into the conversation, happy that it had shifted to art, a topic she knew well. “Yes, of course. Aesthetics. Like the serpent who seduced Eve. So often portrayed in the paintings as a destructive demon.”

Vance all but rolled his eyes at this. “Unflattering images, usually. You know, I always liked the simple woodblock prints they used for elaborate typesetting in earlier times. Adorning the initial letter of a chapter in a fancy pictorial. You often found a demon crouching between the styles of a capital E.”

“Yes!” Gloria delighted at the way her brain flexed to keep pace with this man. “In Celtic knots. Or just scrolling letterforms. You found angels in them, too.”

He appraised her for a moment. She considered the intensity of his gaze. For a flash, she wondered whether the skin beneath his collar would burn her fingers if she touched it. Excitement coursed through her.

She tried to offer another comment, to add something to whatever it was she’d just said, but she found she couldn’t reliably follow the train of thought. It was as if he and only he held control of this conversation.

“You have an active mind, my dear. A rarity these days. So.” His voice lowered. “Is that what you found in the chandelier, then?”

She laughed, feeling more comfortable about this. “I don’t know. The crystals cast such strange reflections. It’s like you said, a house of mirrors; you could get lost in there.”

He rose to his feet, handing her the torn shoe. “I don’t believe in getting lost. Actions should always be deliberate. Excuse me for a moment.” He removed his cell phone. “Though if a house of mirrors were to cast reflections as becoming as yours, it would be a pleasure to get lost.”

The heat. It radiated from him. Gloria felt a strange weight in her lungs, almost a vibration, though slow and heady.

He started to tap out a number on the keypad. “Wait here while I get my assistant. If you won’t allow me to arrange for new shoes, the least I can do is offer you a car home.”

“Honestly, Aaron, that’s not necessary. I appreciate the gesture but I’ll be fine.”

“After you came rushing to my aid with all those people crowding in? I won’t hear of it. You threw yourself on your shoe for me!”

She laughed aloud, bending forward with the hilarity of his imagery. But while he was obviously teasing her, he himself did not laugh nor smile. The darkness in his eyes simply shifted slightly.

“I’m not getting any cell reception. Very strange. Excuse me; I’ll only be a moment.” He turned and left her seated and holding a broken shoe.

So different from Bruce, she thought. This Aaron Vance was so serious. And obviously not accustomed to being refused, even in the context of “No thank you, I’ll manage.”

And yet, not entirely different from Bruce.

Gloria’s reaction to him, sensing him, feeling the heat of his presence and the slow, heady wave in her lungs—that had only happened to her once before. The day she met the man who would become her fiancé.

Now as she sat waiting, the alcove grew cooler and guilt stole in.

It occurred to her that, since her engagement, this marked the first time she maintained a complete conversation with a stranger without once mentioning the man she loved. She felt unclean. Like those biblical artistic interpretations she’d so lightly referred to moments ago; she’d conjured the shame of Eve, suddenly aware of her nakedness and shielding herself with a fig leaf.

Her cell phone rang and she cried out. No problem with cell reception for her. She was surprised to see her hands shaking as she retrieved it from her bag. The name on the display read Candace.

She answered. “Hi, Candie.”

“Hi, Gloria! I saw I missed a call from you.”

“It’s—it’s nothing. I was just calling to see if you wanted to come with me to a fundraiser.”

“Are you all right? Your voice is shaky.”

It was indeed. All over a silly chance encounter. Gloria made an attempt at a dismissive laugh. “I’m fine.”

“Where’s Bruce?”

“He couldn’t make it. He’s at work.”

There was a long pause. Then Candace said, “Where are you, exactly? I’m coming right now.”

“No, really, it’s all right.”

“No, I’m coming. Stay right where you are.”

“Honestly, Candie, there’s no need because I’m leaving right now. I just don’t feel like schmoozing tonight. In fact I have to go.”

There was another pause, and then, “Are you sure? You’re leaving right now.”

“Dead sure. Bye, sweetie.”

“All right then. Bye-bye.”

Candie’s familiar voice did little to soothe Gloria’s nerves. In fact Candie sounded strangely over-protective, even for her. Or maybe it was a matter of intuition.

Gloria’s hands still shook as she severed the dangling heel from her shoe. She clenched her jaw and snapped the heel from the other one. Ballet flats now instead of pumps. She put them both on and slipped out of the alcove.

Aaron Vance stood at the other end of the main ballroom speaking to a wide, slovenly, red-haired man who seemed to be taking direction from him.

Gloria moved quickly, making a broad arc to avoid Vance. She couldn’t look at him again and hated that she’d already done so in the way that she did. She feared that excitement. So very wrong, the way her body and mind had reacted to this man, almost as if he had somehow marauded her spirit and found the very passions she had reserved for Bruce. She couldn’t leave soon enough.

She exited to the street and hailed a cab.

Enervata struck Isolde’s cheek.

Rafe raised his head.

Enervata glared at her, his tail twitching, having shed his human shell to once again recall his Macul form. Stricken though she was, Isolde’s canteshrike face was so fine-spun she did indeed look like an angel. Until one noticed the golden eyes lined in black. And the slender taper of a downy opaline leg that ended in a trident bird’s foot.

Enervata bared his teeth at her. “Careless. To think you might rule the wild-lands with the same irresponsibility. They saw you on the street—both of them saw both of you—and yet you continued to remain careless. Please explain to me how that is possible.”

Isolde turned her face from him. A burning smudge already wept red at the bone below her eye. She lifted her left wing in a movement ever so slight, cringing from his gaze.

Enervata pressed her wing and leaned toward her, lowering his voice to a near-whisper. “You have been caught on two occasions now, my dear Isolde. If I had not interrupted Gloria, she would have seen you yet again. She even heard you gasp. Even sensed the music in your voice.”

“It’s because of the bond,” Rafe said. “It brings them heightened power. They are becoming more sensitive to the forces around them.”

Enervata’s face darkened. “Indeed. Which is why I told you to take every precaution. I made it perfectly clear that there are to be no mistakes! And you, Rafe, you would have me show mercy upon Isolde?”

“Mercy? I spoke not of that. It is my belief that Isolde’s recklessness requires actions that are punitive, not merciful.”

Isolde’s lip tensed, revealing the sharper teeth at the corners of her mouth.

Rafe’s stature held. “I am concerned for this errant strength the lovers have achieved. It has made of them potentates, though they themselves have little awareness of such. To mine own end, I wish to act with haste lest their bond become impenetrable and our opportunity lay wasted.”

Enervata turned away from Isolde and she folded her arms about herself. Sileny fidgeted but did not raise her hands to speak.

“Have you something to say, Sileny?” Enervata said.

Sileny’s ragged hand flew in quick sharp gestures.

Rafe is right. The bond grows too strong.

She clenched her fists and knocked them at the tops of her thighs.

Enervata turned his head. “Yes. I have already decided to accelerate our schedule. You are a dedicated servant, Rafe, though I sometimes wonder at your sympathies.” His eyes creased. “But no, avarice is your sympathy. Your dedication to me is driven by your lust for power in the new world I shall create. So be it.” Enervata drew in his breath and spread his hands. “But let us not forget the matter of dear Isolde. Isolde the Fair.”

Hedon spoke, licking fat from his lips and gesturing with a swine’s rib. “If you’ll pardon my saying so, master, why not leave the matter of Isolde to me and me chap Glueg ’ere. We fancy takin’ on these matters o’ discipline. And anyway it’d be a distraction you don’t right need otherwise.”

Enervata sighed. “I have no wish to indulge you gluttons. Her punishment shall reflect her sin. Isolde, approach.”

She turned, regarding him first over her shoulder. Then she stepped toward him reluctantly.

“Even now you lack respect!”

Isolde quickened her movements and sank, bending crooked legs and resting on the tips of her talons so that she knelt in the manner of formal presentation before Enervata, Macul of Love Maligned.

“Lord, I bewail my lack of care. In future matters I shall beware.”

Rafe looked on, raising his chin. “A fool too late bewares when all peril is gone past.”

Enervata gave a harsh laugh. “Rafe truly wishes to see you suffer, Isolde. To imagine he was once your lover, bonded to you almost as strongly as our Bruce and Gloria. Almost. But now look at him. You are but a nuisance that has put his ambitions at risk.”

Enervata reached toward Isolde and she flinched. His fingers forced her chin upward. “Just as you have put mine at risk, Isolde the Fair. Now let us see. You frustrate me. I need you to be able-bodied so that you might serve, and yet your deed cannot go unpunished.”

His fingertips gripped her chin with greater force. “Your vanity is what induced your carelessness. Too acquainted with a looking glass, as are all canteshrikes.”

Isolde’s breath quickened.

“Suppose we punish your vanities.”

Enervata released her chin and began to circle her. He lifted her delicate arm as if evaluating a bolt of fine cloth, admiring the smooth, goldpearled skin that extended below her breasts to her torso, where it then disappeared under skirted feathers of the same color. Isolde’s fear showed in the shallow rise and fall of her chest.

“Yes, beautiful skin, gilded and pearled, as are your feathers. I believe I might lift that sheen from you. How would the other canteshrikes react if you lost your luminosity? If you were but a gray, plain wretch? I dare say you’d no longer be the central attraction at the orgies of Canteshrike Grotto. Fickle creatures. Obsessed with lust and luster. I do believe you’d be shunned.”

He cocked his head. “And hunting pixieflies would be near-impossible, as you would lose that hypnotic glow. Your prey would be well aware of your approach and of your intentions.”

Isolde swallowed and a faint cry escaped her throat.

Enervata’s eyes blazed. “Ah, thank you, I nearly forgot. That musical voice of yours. You allowed Gloria to hear you, didn’t you? From this moment on, you speak only at a whisper.”

He completed the circle and stood before her, shaking his head. “Even I shall miss that voice.”

Enervata raised his hand and Isolde screamed.

Her body erupted in an indigo flame. She struggled, falling sideways and writhing beneath the scorching glow. Her amber eyes sparked and her cries fell to hisses.

Sileny turned away and tapped her knuckles on the sides of her head.

Finally, Isolde fell still and the indigo flame rippled across her a few moments longer before extinguishing. Her body lay arched on the marble floor with skin and plumage of metallic gray. Her lower leg and talon now gleamed black. One arm folded over her silver breasts. The other canted behind her so that her fist rested in the small of her back.

Hedon set down his mead and rose, waddling to where Isolde lay. He nudged her hand gently with his foot and she recoiled in unconscious pain and then lay still again.

Hedon grinned at Enervata. “After all, it seems a waste to just let her darken your floor like ’at, isn’t it? We’ll remove her safe and proper, we will.”

Enervata looked at Rafe. “What say you, Rafe? Shall I let the brothers have their play?”

Rafe shrugged. “Matters not to me.”

Enervata nodded. “Sileny?”

Sileny’s wide eyes flickered over the brothers and she stroked the hairs of her mole as if they were a rat’s tail. She moved her hand in a single motion.

Mercy.

Enervata smiled. “You wish her mercy. Yours is a gentle heart, is that it, Sileny? Show poor Isolde a little pity from the nasty brothers? Or is it because the last time I threw you to the brothers, I gave Isolde to them as well? Yes, I do believe that’s it. You fear that if I give them Isolde now, I’ll also give you to them.”

Sileny clenched and unclenched her fists, eyes to the ground.

Enervata waved his hand to Hedon. “No matter. Take Isolde to your little hovel. But you have one day only. And no broken bones. She must be able to serve without injury.”

Glueg rose gleefully and waddled to Isolde’s other side. He and Hedon began to tug at her and she jerked in agony at their touch, though she still did not rouse.

“But,” Enervata said and the brothers halted. “You must remove Rafe as well. I don’t care to look at him darkening my floor for the next day or so.”

“What?” Rafe’s voice was sharp.

Enervata turned to the other canteshrike. “You might as well keep her company. After all, you failed to keep her under control.”

Rafe’s eyes flashed and then suddenly indigo engulfed him as well. He roared, swinging and struggling, until his consciousness waned. His crooked legs stumbled, talons scratching against the flame, and he fell to the marble.

Enervata watched with satisfaction. “I will let him keep his voice. His was never a proper canteshrike’s voice, anyway.”

The others nodded. Rafe had never spoken with the chiming intonation, nor had he adapted the canteshrikes’ iambic lyricism as Isolde had.

Eventually, Rafe lay still and the indigo flame continued its dance.

6

NEW YORK

“GLORIA, YOU HAVE A VISITOR.”

“Really? It must be Bruce sneaking out for lunch. I’ll go let him in.”

Bruce’s timing was perfect. Gloria’s concentration had forsaken her for much of the morning. She couldn’t shake the memory of the man she’d met at the Reach Out and Read fundraiser. They’d had such a strange conversation and, in her hurry to escape, it felt like an unresolved one. She’d poked around a little online and found his name associated with some other fundraising interests, but little else. Maybe it was destiny that they met the way they did. Maybe he’d turn out to be a megabenefactor for Woven Hillside. Who knew?

On top of this, Candace’s mood lately had unsettled her. They’d talked about maybe grabbing a noontime sandwich, but Gloria tried calling Candace all morning with no response. Candace probably couldn’t get away. Or maybe it was something else entirely. Candace always seemed so nervous these days. She seemed loath to leave her apartment, but horrified anytime Gloria told her she’d gone somewhere alone. It almost seemed as if Candace dreaded talking to her, didn’t want to hear something that was going to make her anxious.

Gloria checked herself in the mirror that hung near her office. Lunch with Bruce would be a welcome respite from everything else on her mind. She wore a pinstripe skirt suit with a crisp white button-down blouse, buttoned all the way up, of course. She grinned with mischief, unfastening the top button.

Hey, it’s Bruce; she could dispense with office etiquette.

She strode through the corridor, wondering if her stride had become “sleek and catlike,” because Bruce and his magic pheromones were in the vicinity.

But the man who stood waiting at the reception desk was not Bruce. Not at all. It was Aaron Vance.

Gloria froze.

Vance turned and his eyes appraised her. Gloria opened her mouth to say something but hesitated, attempting to regain her poise in the suddenly charged atmosphere. “Mr. Vance.”

“Aaron,” he said, as though it were a direction rather than a request.

“Yes.”

He smiled. “Forgive me. I probably should have called.”

How did he know where to find her? She hadn’t so much as given him her last name or told him about her work at Woven Hillside. And yet here he stood.

“I . . . that’s . . . of course that’s all right, Mr. . . . Aaron. How may I help you?”

He took a step closer. “So it’s to be that way, is it, Gloria? So very formal.”

Again, her mouth wanted to speak, but she refused to let it. Even as she stood in the reception area, the heat of him radiated toward her, danced at the open V of her button-down blouse. Waves of oxygen vacated her lungs.

He advanced another step. “After all, the reason I came to your offices, in case you were wondering, was because of the unusual rapport you and I forged at the Reach Out and Read event. I wasn’t mistaken about that, was I?”

She felt so very strange. Something like what she felt when she spied those images in the store window or heard the voice in the chandelier.

“No, Aaron, I think it’s safe to say that there was something unusual in our last meeting.”

He tilted his head slightly. “I’m glad of that.”

“How did you find me?”

Her tone was abrupt. Sharper than she’d intended, but her sense of caution wrestled its way to the forefront.

“You?” Vance said casually. “After you left I asked some people about you, and they told me where to find you. It seems you are notorious, working with teams to raise record-breaking donations. Your name is on the most ambitious grant proposals—grants that get funded. You, Gloria, were easy to find. You come highly recommended as a philanthropic consultant.”

Gloria raised a brow. “I see. So you are looking for a philanthropic consultant.”

He regarded her, expressionless.

“. . . for your interests of benefaction.”

“It is something that requires a certain rapport, don’t you think?”

That he still hadn’t answered her question wasn’t lost on Gloria. Her mind reeled, striving to make sense of this strange game.

Vance turned toward the door and lifted his hand. “Perhaps we might discuss this over lunch.”

Something told her that Vance’s intentions had little to do with her professional advice. At the same time, though, she felt a force beyond flirtation at play. There was something more going on here. Something just barely out of reach.

So be it. She was damned if she wasn’t going to face this head-on, whatever it was. If Vance had dubious intentions, she’d just set him straight. One luncheon, she’d figure this man out, and then she’d either have him dole out huge funds for her charities or neatly exorcise him from her brain forever.

“Fine.” She lifted her chin with something akin to defiance. “See? I already have my coat.”

As they left, she felt the eyes of her colleagues follow. People finding reasons to pass the reception area. She didn’t sense any judgment; her coworkers were simply exhibiting the same fascination the crowd at the Reach Out and Read fundraiser had shown. Vance certainly had a high level of magnetic pull—she clearly wasn’t the only one who thought so.

Vance placed his hand at the small of her back. It was a simple gesture. Chivalrous. Still, Gloria swiveled slightly to disengage it and remembered how Vance had used his own posture to prevent the man in the tweed suit from offering his assistance to her at the fundraiser.

Outside a Maybach idled at the curb with a driver standing by. The driver was a plump man with curled red hair and beard, the same one she’d seen Vance speaking with at the event.

Though he never instructed the driver where to go, the car meandered through the streets and pulled up in front of an ornate building with scrolling cream beaux-arts trim. She’d never noticed the place before, but then again they weren’t exactly dining at her usual sandwich shop. The driver helped her out of the car and the doorman led them into the restaurant. When she walked inside, an attendant accepted her coat. Everyone there knew Vance. Despite herself, Gloria’s posture lifted two degrees.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Vance.”

“Right this way, Mr. Vance.”

And to Gloria, with the most elegant gestures, “Mademoiselle.”

They sat in a private room wrapped in boiserie of carved rosewood. Gloria settled into the chair and regarded her beguiling dining companion. She’d lunched with extremely wealthy benefactors many times before, but by any standards, this was extravagant. Was Vance trying to impress her? It was difficult to tell because he seemed so aloof.

“I take it you come here often,” she said as the staff continued to swirl around them.

Vance gave a sideways nod. “I recommend the langoustines.”

Gloria looked at her menu, a copy of which Vance didn’t require before making his recommendation. Langoustines airfreighted from Scotland with pickled peaches and a reduction of Jurançon. It sounded magical. A fascinating alternative to the Cobb salad she might have had if Bruce had met her for lunch.

She looked at the waiter. “All right, the langoustines.” Then she abruptly turned to Vance. “Tell me about your existing interests. Philanthropic, that is.”

Vance laughed. “All business, aren’t you?”

She tensed, suddenly ashamed of her mistrust. She was usually much more conversational with her lunch dates. But in truth, she did intend to keep this meeting “all business.” She offered Vance the tiniest smile.

Vance settled back in his chair. “My current interests lie in the arts, mostly.”

Gloria had minored in Art History. “Oh? Given our conversation the other day, I’m not surprised. Visual arts, then?”

“In part.”

He spoke of some of his endeavors, and they discussed the trend toward post-modern mannerism: sad and sweet, sentimental and repulsive, or cute and creepy. Gloria learned that he’d sponsored a juried exhibition that featured one of her close friends.

The langoustines arrived, honeyed, rich, and melting. And with it another glass of wine, a Pinot Blanc from Alsace. Gloria felt herself beginning to relax.

“I’m also interested in archaeology. I’ve added my support to the restoration of historic structures—Mexican pyramids and ancient roads of the Aztecs and Mayans. Fascinating historical artifacts.” He shrugged. “Built using slave labor, of course.”

“Slave labor?” It was a surprise to hear him speak of it so casually. Most of the people in her circle would have accented the phrase with derision.

“It’s a fact of history. And you must admit that the greatest structures of the world have all been built using slave labor. I sometimes wonder if that’s what’s necessary to create something remarkable. Our modern architecture could never meet the artistic detail of many of the ancients. To enslave a society can be to achieve new levels of aesthetics, science, and municipal infrastructure.”

Gloria’s eyes narrowed. “You’re saying that the end justifies the means?”

“What do we have now but the end? We can’t go back and change the means. And if we could, I’m not so convinced I would. What is slavery but a lower balance of power? Throughout the ages, if the strong did not lord over the weak, then the weak would arise and take control. It is the duty of the strong to provide structure and purpose to the weak. Without it, society would have no livelihood and we would be left with only chaos.”

Gloria wasn’t sure how to respond to Vance’s extreme philosophy. She reached to take another sip of wine and then thought better of it.

Vance waved his hand as if to dispel the weight that had settled across the table. “But I digress. We were speaking of the arts and of various interests of benefaction. I dabble in the theater as well. I’ve backed some productions, though I’m still searching. Lately, I’ve set my sights abroad. There is a project in the Moscow Art Theatre.”

Gloria leaned in, fingertips curled on the linen tablecloth. “Really? Moscow?”

Vance nodded. “There is a play that evokes the tale of King Lear, but actors wear local costumes of fur and bone fragments and tin- and copper-cast adornments. What’s most fascinating is that they don’t speak the dialogue; they sing it khoomei-style in the traditional sonnets of the Yakutsk.”

“Khoomei? I haven’t heard of that.”

He shifted toward her. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever imagined. The way they sing, they modulate their voices to sound almost inhuman, emphasizing the ‘oos’ with a soloist and choir. It’s gorgeous and strange. What you’d envision a forest sprite’s lullaby to sound like.”

Gloria’s thoughts wove through images and music. She tried to fathom how these songs might sound. “How incredible. And how wonderful that you found it—that’s exactly the blend of art and culture that we’re at risk of losing.” She shook her head. “I wish they could play in Manhattan. I would love to be able to see something like that.”

“You can.”

Gloria’s heart jumped. “They’re playing here?”

“There’s a gala two nights from now. The players enact the entire story amid the guests in a turn-of-the-century Moorish-Revival mansion. They’ll sing from the grand staircase. It’ll be an experience like no other.”

Her mouth opened, but words escaped her. He was inviting her, and if she were to accept, Bruce would clearly not be welcome.

Bruce.

She had to say no. Of course, she should say no.

Vance’s eyes were on hers, the aloof air gone, and she felt the full force of his intensity. “We could leave tomorrow. We’ll be sampling caviar fresh from the Caspian by the first sonnet and be back before the new week begins.”

“I, what? In Moscow?”

Gloria blinked. To be whisked away into a living fairytale, waited on like a queen and living in a manner she’d never dreamed of, if only for a weekend.... It was such an outrageous proposition!

Outrageous, yes. One could even call it an outrage.

“I, I . . . Aaron, I’m afraid I’ve let this conversation head down the wrong road. I am engaged and I’m deeply in love with my fiancé. In fact, I shouldn’t even be here at this moment.”

With a shaking hand, Gloria withdrew her napkin and gathered her handbag. She couldn’t believe she’d slipped control so badly yet again with this man.

Vance rested back in his chair. “There’s no reason to be upset. Forget I said anything. In the meantime, you can’t possibly leave without trying the restaurant’s hazelnut torte.”

If Vance intended his tone to soothe Gloria’s nerves, he failed. She stood, shaking her head, ashamed at the level to which she’d let this progress. “I’m going to have to leave. If you’ll excuse me . . .”

“No.”

Gloria paused, taken aback, and looked at him. “I’m sorry?”

“No. I’ll not excuse you. You aren’t going anywhere, my dear.”

She stared at him. His words were brusque and even rude and Gloria felt her anger rising.

But something else had happened. Vance’s bearing—that intoxicating heat—had somehow blackened. He no longer seemed mysterious. Now he simply seemed dangerous.

Gloria’s blood turned to rust. She knew she had to get out of there. Now. She took sideways steps toward the doorway. In it stood Vance’s driver, who was eyeing her like a toad who’d just spied a mayfly. She paused, and then steeled herself to push past him.

But even as she lifted her chin and strode forward, the room changed. The rosewood boiserie fell away and dissolved into black, and she felt as though the floor had vanished and that she was falling. Her handbag slipped from her fingers. Something caught her at the waist and saved her from spinning away into nothingness.

And then all at once the tilting stopped.

She found herself draped backward, Vance’s arms encircling her. She regained her bearing and tore away from him.

The restaurant no longer existed.

Gloria looked around wildly. They stood in a sweeping penthouse loft with marble floors, gilded objets d’art, and a carved mantle over a burning fireplace.

She felt cold. She turned to Vance, though she was barely capable of moving. His eyes burned with a terrifying intensity, somehow even blacker than before.

“You shall be surrounded by opulence and may have anything you desire. It behooves you to settle in to your new life quickly, my Gloria. Because you must never leave me.”

Vance reached for her hand and took it to his lips. Gloria felt as though all of her actions had become involuntary.

“Never,” he said.

7

NEW YORK

CANDACE AWOKE TO THE SOUND of kitschy music. She rubbed her eyes and blinked. The TV showed a woman demonstrating how to bend copper wire into swirling decorations for a picture frame, and beyond the TV, the afternoon sun cast sharp rays through the blinds to an assortment of unkillable houseplants.

She frowned. How long had she been sleeping?

She’d been so anxious that morning that she decided to take the day off. So worried about Gloria. She wondered how Jamie remained so cool; she was in the exact same situation but somehow didn’t seem scared by it.

Lunch. She and Gloria had casually planned to get a bite together. Probably Gloria had given up and grabbed something with Bruce by now.

A creeping mite of guilt scrabbled up from her stomach. Had some part of her deliberately taken that nap, knowing she might sleep through lunch? She had to make herself leave the apartment these days, and seeing Gloria left her that much more anxious.

She went to the kitchen and poured a can of soup into a pan, then punched Gloria’s number on her cell phone. It went straight to voice mail. Candace was about to leave a message, but her mouth was too dry, so she just clicked off and poured herself a glass of water before returning to the living room.

The TV droned. She flipped the channels, sighing, until she came full circle to the same craft show and the swirling copper creations.

She checked the clock. She should have left a message on Gloria’s voice mail.

Candace returned to the kitchen and stirred her soup, thinking about how she and Gloria used to prowl the library together, loading up until they could barely handle the books they checked out. Candace always kept fierce watch over Gloria. She was always leery of anyone who tried to step in too close. Because of this, she had never taken a serious boyfriend—just a casual one from time to time—and never even had other close friends for fear of screwing up her purpose.

Then Bruce came along. At first, Candace was as leery of him as she had been of anyone else who showed real interest in Gloria. But deep inside she knew. This was it. The relationship that defined everything.

But instead of sharpening her awareness, instead of kicking her into a higher gear, Gloria’s romance with Bruce spiked her anxieties. Candace just wanted to hunker down, and she wanted Gloria to hunker down with her. She wished she could just tell Gloria why, but she wasn’t allowed to do that. Not that Gloria would have believed her, anyway. Gloria would have thought she’d gone nuts. Of course, considering the way Candace was acting lately, Gloria probably thought she was nuts, anyway.

The soup began to bubble, lumpy browns and oranges with pale chunks of something that might be a pastalike substance or perhaps had once been barley. Candace gave it a couple more stirs and then emptied it into a bowl. She grabbed some smiling fish crackers and wondered at the notion behind biting the smiles off their little cracker heads. Even that managed to give her a chill.

She headed back to the living room, bowl in hand and cell phone tucked under her arm. The soup and crackers went down, more texture than any flavor beyond salt. When she finished her lunch—pizza near Gloria’s office would have been so much better—she tried Gloria’s number again. Again it went straight to voice mail. This time she left a message.

It was strange that Gloria’s cell went straight to voice mail. It should have rung a few times first, even if she were on the phone with someone else. Dead battery? Possible, but unlikely. Gloria kept a charger at her desk.

Her intuition buzzing, Candace tried Gloria’s office phone at Woven Hillside. After a few rings, the line reverted to the receptionist, who informed Candace that Gloria was out. The receptionist, of course, had no idea when Gloria would be back.

Candace pressed her finger over the End Call button. Something was not right. Candace knew she had a tendency to be paranoid—who wouldn’t in her situation?—but she was utterly convinced that this was not paranoia.

She grabbed her bag and headed out the door, moving for the subway. She went all the way to Gloria’s offices at Woven Hillside, hoping beyond hope that Gloria would be back at her desk. No such luck. The receptionist knew nothing more than she did before and Candace spoke to another colleague who didn’t even realize Gloria was out.

Candace trudged out to the sidewalk in a daze. She looked left and then right, and suddenly the city seemed terribly vast.

It had happened.

Somehow, right under her nose, it had happened.

It wasn’t exactly under her nose, though, was it? Candace had turned her nose away. She had cowered when Gloria needed her the most.

She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. She’d find Gloria. She knew her better than anyone did—even Bruce. She’d use what she knew to find Gloria, and she’d try to get her back herself. And if she couldn’t, she’d call Jamie. She couldn’t face her just yet, though. God, what would Jamie say when she found out?

Candace kept her eyes squeezed shut. She was good at this. She’d always been a Finder, something Jamie never mastered. She let the image of Gloria focus in her mind, let that essence settle over her. Slowly, there came a tingling along her left side.

Fine. She turned to her left, half-opening her eyes, and took two steps in that direction. Yes. The sensation continued. She strode all the way to the corner and paused again, looking deep inside. She felt certain that she was on the right track. But it was like trying to read extremely fine print with a microscope, where the dime-sized lens only revealed half a phrase at a time.

She crossed the street. After another pause, she felt the distinct compulsion to follow in the same direction. She continued in that vein, agonizingly stilted though it was, until she had traveled north for nearly twenty blocks. Finally, though her senses told her to continue north, she also felt the inclination to move slightly east as well. She crossed the street in an easterly direction and continued down that block.

She came upon a neighborhood park. Here, the atmosphere shifted. People were milling about and two in particular seemed strange. A pair of obese and red-haired men who looked like brothers. They were looking back at her, which caused Candace to turn away.

Off in the distance, a single cloud, a green cloud that looked no more than the size of a nickel, danced along the blue skies. It seemed to be approaching.

Candace closed her eyes, pulse quickening, and tried to resume her internal search for Gloria. But the strange atmospheric shift seemed to clutter her sensitivities. When she opened her eyes again, she looked toward the two fat men and found them still staring at her.

She turned north again and strode the full length of the park before she felt a shadow fall across her. She tilted her head back. That tiny cloud had drawn near enough to block the sun and rested directly overhead, though now that it was closer, it seemed bigger.

And then it broke.

The sudden shower came gently, surprising the passersby with its light, almost refreshing sprinkle at first. Candace didn’t even bother to duck for cover. She turned and looked over her shoulder at the fat men. They hadn’t pursued her, but their eyes tracked her.

A moment later, she lost focus on the men because the rain began to burn.

Candace backed toward the nearest building and flattened herself against its facade. The drizzle that earlier kissed her skin now inflamed it, seared it. Fat red welts mushroomed along her exposed flesh. A woman across the way began to scream. A newspaper, though wet, ignited along the edges with flames.

Candace suddenly felt cold and terrified. Across the street, a subway stairwell led to the underground. She looked back at the two men who now watched her intently and seemed impervious to the scorching drizzle. A wadded tissue hissed with fire near her feet and she sidestepped it with a cry. Her forearms and hands began to tremble. The shallow awning of the building mostly protected her, but errant droplets found their way to her skin.

She looked again toward the subway stairs. She couldn’t imagine exposing herself to that burning again, even if only for the length of time it would take to run across the street to those stairs. But how else was she going to escape this acid torrent? Someone else was screaming now, a man, and she saw him writhing on the ground in the park, unable to muster enough sense to duck for cover.

“Get out of the park!” she screamed at him. “You have to find shelter!”

He staggered to his feet, arms flailing, feet heavy. The wind changed and blew the drizzle directly into Candace’s face. She screamed, instantly blinded despite her glasses. She used the underside of her shirt to dab at her skin. She was sure her bra was showing as she wiped her face but she didn’t care. The burning liquid striped her flesh, tightening, and she felt boils bubbling up around the frames that protected her eyes.

She shook her head, blinking and squinting as best she could, and made a dash for the subway.

The rain sliced at her flesh and sizzled in her scalp. She cried out, wracked with agony and panic, running and then sliding down the stairs, tearing open her knee and the palms of her hands.

And then at once she was safe.

She whimpered, hugging herself. She fanned a shaky hand to sluice the moisture from her arms as the last residual liquid ate into her flesh.

A train was coming, and she limped toward the end of the platform. She didn’t care where the thing was going. Others crushed in behind her. Most seemed to have no notion of the atmospheric phenomenon that was occurring just beyond the ground surface.

She closed her eyes, weeping, and groped inside her heart once more for Gloria. The reality of what just happened left her feeling more ashamed. It was an incontrovertible reminder of the tremendous power and evil behind what they faced. To think she’d literally fallen asleep on her watch and allowed her friend to be taken without the slightest resistance.

I’m so sorry, Gloria. Where are you now?

She could no longer sense the location of her best friend. One sensation did filter through, though. Something angry, searching. Something evil. It came from just behind her. She opened her eyes but didn’t dare look over her shoulder. She concentrated on that feeling and knew, like watching a rattlesnake whose black eyes fixed upon a field mouse, when it would strike.

She looked to her left and saw the train approaching, its Cyclops eye emerging from around the bend, and she felt that snake behind her.

She jerked to her left just as hands pushed forward at her back.

She felt the awkward motion as they lurched harmlessly past her, glancing off her spine and into the crush of people. If she had stayed still, those hands would have forced her off the platform and down in front of the train. Someone gasped, Candace heard a scream, and she watched in horror as another woman teetered at the edge of the platform. But someone yanked the woman’s arm and pulled her back to safety.

Candace scanned the faces, looking for the fat, red-haired men she’d seen in the park above. She saw people in business suits, people with children, and a wide-eyed lady with a hairy mole on her cheek dressed in full Arabic headscarves that covered her mouth. She saw no one she recognized and could not tell who’d tried to push her.

She stepped onto the train along with the throng, moved down the car and, just as the doors were about to close, stepped off again. She ran down the platform without looking back. Another train loomed, screeching to a halt, and she hopped onto it. No one else boarded along with her.

She squeezed her eyes and tears wrung from them with continuous flow down her stinging cheeks. She concentrated and felt certain that whoever had tried to push her in front of the train was now a good distance away. She began to pick up traces of Gloria again, a vague sense that she was somewhere nearby.

The train sped through the underside of the city. After two transfers and a crossover, she was back in Brooklyn.

She would go back after Gloria again soon, but she needed a better plan. She tried to think back on what that woman had told her so many years ago. The woman from the Auxilium. They talked about what to do if Gloria’s lover was taken. But what was she supposed to do if the Pravus abducted Gloria instead? She searched her mind to remember the instructions.

Join the quest. You’re the Finder.

“Join the quest.” That’s what the woman told her to do. What did that even mean? Why hadn’t the woman been more specific? Why didn’t Candace ask more questions when she had the chance?

Bleeding and burned, Candace stumbled back to her apartment and locked herself inside. A look in the mirror showed her skin torn and blistered on her face, arms, and hands; the outline of the glasses marked two Triscuit-sized patches of unharmed skin beneath. She peeled off her clothes, sobbing and shaky.

She had to call Jamie. Jamie would know more about the quest, she was sure of it. Jamie didn’t run away from frightening prospects. Jamie cared too much to let fear win.

The battery on her cell phone was stone dead. She’d never bothered to hook up a home line—it seemed so pointless these days. She limped to the outlet and plugged the phone in, and then tried powering up. It flashed to life.

She took a moment to steady her shredded nerves before dialing. As she took three deep breaths, the image of a diner in Maine popped into her mind. She’d never been to Maine. How did she know with such certainty that the diner was there? There could only be one reason.

Candace punched in Jamie’s number, but only got Jamie’s voice mail. She steadied her voice and tried to speak slowly, telling her that it had begun and where they should start. But despite being plugged into the wall, the phone’s battery blinked out again.

She had to go see Jamie in person. To talk about the quest. To do everything she could do to save Gloria.

A pounding came at the front door.

She nearly dropped the cell phone to the linoleum. Her heart went to her throat. But beyond the pounding, she could hear Gloria’s voice on the other side.

“Candie! Oh God, Candie! Please help me! Candace! They’re right behind me!”

Candace tore open the locks, swinging it wide.

But Gloria was not there. Instead, two fat, red-haired men stood leering.

One of them snaked out a hand and caught Candace by the wrist. He spoke in Gloria’s voice, that unmistakable sanded rosewood intonation that belonged only to Gloria. His horrible, crusted mouth and bulbous nose impossibly resonating with her lovely, soothing inflections, though not her words.

“Why, hello Candace, dearie. Gave us quite a run, didn’t you?”

8

NEW YORK

ONCE AGAIN, BRUCE DIALED GLORIA’S cell phone. Once again, it clicked over to voice mail. Once again, he wanted to throw the phone against the wall.

He hadn’t spoken to Gloria since he walked her to work that morning. They hadn’t had their usual lunchtime phone conversation. And now, at almost midnight, there was still no sign of her.

He dragged his fingers through his hair.

He wracked his brain, trying to think of a business function he might have forgotten about. But that wasn’t it—they would have discussed something like that on the way to work. Some social function with Candace or one of the people at the office? No, she would have made a big deal about his remembering to eat dinner if she knew she wasn’t going to be around. Whatever took Gloria away was not on the radar screen this morning. And that worried the hell out of him.

Bruce felt that he always knew where Gloria was. He imagined he could reach out with his mind and see her whenever he wanted, catching a virtual glimpse of her at her desk or in a power meeting. In the time they’d been together, Bruce felt a growing keenness to his perceptions as they related to Gloria. He even knew when she had a bad day before he saw her.

And now he felt nothing. It was as though someone had stolen his sense of taste or smell. Something was wrong. Decidedly wrong.

He’d made numerous calls. The people at the office knew nothing useful. One of her colleagues thought she’d seen her in the hall that afternoon. Another recalled a conversation, but then couldn’t remember if they’d had it today or yesterday. The receptionist said she went out to lunch, but didn’t know who she went with and had no memory of anything else that happened that afternoon. Candace’s phone bounced to voice mail as quickly as Gloria’s had, and none of her other friends knew anything more than Bruce did.

The clock clicked over to twelve o’clock and Bruce’s anxiety ratcheted up. It was a new day. Why did that seem so daunting?

He had to call Jamie. He realized she wouldn’t know where Gloria was, but she’d been his go-to person since preschool. If nothing else, she’d give him a little perspective. And if not perspective, he could at least freak out with her and know she would understand.

He hit the speed dial.

“Hello?”

The sound of Jamie’s voice was a salve to his nerves. Instantly, he started to wonder if he’d been overreacting.

“Hey, what are you doing?” he said a little sheepishly.

“Not much. You know, sleeping, that sort of thing.”

Bruce cringed. “Right, sorry. Listen, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“What’s wrong?”

The tone of Jamie’s voice caught Bruce by surprise. “Why’d you ask me that?”

Jamie’s voice got a little sharper. “Bruce, tell me what’s wrong.”

His anxiety was returning. “Nothing. I mean, it’s just that Gloria hasn’t come home yet and that feels weird to me.”

“Oh God.” Jamie’s voice came in a flutter as though the call was breaking up.

“I’m overreacting, right?” Bruce said nervously. “Can you imagine how possessive I’m going to be once we’re married?”

The little bit of levity didn’t muster even a chuckle from Jamie. In fact, she didn’t say anything. Maybe she was formulating kind ways to explain how Gloria was a big girl and how he needed to give her the latitude to be caught up in a business meeting and lose track of time without worrying about checking in with him.

He waited for Jamie to tell him these things.

But she never said any of that.

What she said was, “It’s happening.”

“What’s happening?”

“I’ll be right there.”

“What? Why will you be right here? What’s happening?”

The line went dead. He dialed her again.

Jamie’s voice came labored, as if she were hurrying. “I’ll be right over. You really don’t want to do this on the phone.”

“Do what? What are we doing? Do you know where Gloria is?”

But when she replied, her voice crackled through the receiver. “I’m go . . . down . . . phone’s gonna drop. . . .”

The call dropped.

Bruce squeezed the phone as if doing so would coerce it to cough up some answers. Why did Jamie react the way she did? Why couldn’t they “do this” on the phone? How could she know something about Gloria that he didn’t know?

The pent-up energy in his body felt combustible. He wanted to move, to take action. But what kind of action? He didn’t have a clue. Jamie was maybe twenty minutes away. How could he possibly wait twenty minutes to hear what she had to say? How was he going to feel after he heard what she had to say?

He lowered himself to the floor and knocked out some push-ups until his arms turned to spaghetti. He wasn’t really the exercise type, but he needed to do something. He flipped over and did sit-ups, then over again to squeeze out more push-ups. His muscles ached, but he wasn’t any less anxious.

He went to the window. Why wouldn’t she just tell me over the phone?

Jamie finally arrived, coppery pixie hair mussed and blue eyes wide.

“I have a lot to tell you and you’re going to be tempted to interrupt often,” she said sharply. “Avoid that temptation.”

Jamie never spoke like this. What was going on? “You do realize I’m borderline psychotic at the moment, right?”

Jamie’s expression softened and she reached out for him. She held him close for a few seconds—and then she pushed him onto the couch. “Sit and listen,” she said as he looked at her, mouth agape.

She marched into the kitchen and filled the kettle with water. “You know how you always joked that the reason we’ve been best friends all our lives is because we hit it off so well in the nursery?”

“What’s this got to do with—?”

“Bruce! You know I’m not going to jerk you around, so humor me!”

There was a simple explanation for Jamie’s brusque tone: alien abduction. Though he was feeling more nervous by the second, Bruce placated his best friend. “Yes, that’s always been the joke.”

She set the kettle on the stove and joined him on the couch. “Well, you were almost right about that. Here’s the thing: it’s no accident that I was born one day after you. I was born because of you. From the moment you were conceived, you were marked as someone unusually passionate. I mean crazy passionate. Off the charts passionate. Don’t ask me how that works at conception; I’ve been wondering that for years.”

“Jamie . . .”

She put a hand up. “This means you’re likely to accomplish great things—could be, I don’t know, incredible works of art or leading a revolution. Writing works—plays, for instance—that change the way people think. That’s major stuff. But as it turns out, not the most major stuff. The thing about people like you—and trust me, I’m no expert on any of this, as much as I’ve tried to be—is that we knew you’d seek a life partner who was equally passionate.”

“We?”

Jamie tipped her head downward. “You’re interrupting. I asked you not to interrupt, didn’t I?” She sighed. “Yes, we. I was put here to watch you. To guard you.”

Bruce’s ears rang, striving to process the nonsense that poured from Jamie. “Wait a minute. Hold on. Who’s ‘we?’ And if I’m so special, why would you have to guard me? Where the hell is all of this coming from?”

Jamie waited a beat, but didn’t scold him again for interrupting. “‘We’ is me and . . . oh God. I’ve been visited by—hang on, one thing at a time.” She tugged at a curl that spiked down over her ear. “The reason I am guarding you is because your potential increases exponentially if you fall in love with someone like you. Amazingly, you managed to date a bunch of lightweights for a long time. Then Gloria showed up.”

Bruce snorted. He’d never heard her talk so crazy before, and if it were anyone other than Jamie, he’d be whistling for the paddy wagon by now. But he took it all in, thinking he’d sort out the truth from the insanity later—if only she’d get to the part where she told him where Gloria was.

Jamie continued. “Both of you, you’re unusually committed and passionate people. And you found each other and fell in love. That’s an amazingly rare thing. It shoots the potential the two of you have up into the stratosphere. But it’s also a dangerous thing. It draws attention from a kind of darkness that would love to pervert your power. And when it does—no, if it does; we have to make sure it doesn’t—it would destroy you. And not only you.”

Jamie didn’t have to worry about his interrupting any longer. Bruce was officially speechless.

She took a breath. “With that kind of power in the wrong hands, it could destroy the world. When you met Gloria, I knew there was a serious risk. I’ve been waiting for this phone call ever since.”

The teakettle began to whistle. Jamie rose to attend to it.

Bruce stared into an empty space. Dark powers watching them? Where did that put Gloria now? His stomach rolled. Too much, just too much. He shook his head. He was barely aware when Jamie set a teacup before him.

Jamie punched a number into her cell phone and listened, then shook her head, ending the call. “No Candace. I got a voice mail from her, but the only word I could make out was ‘Maine.’ I thought she was telling me she was going on vacation. Now I wonder. . . .”

Bruce sharpened his gaze on her. “I don’t believe any of this.”

Jamie kept her eyes on the teacup for a moment before lifting them to Bruce. She spoke softly. “Yes you do, Bruce. Yes you do.”

Bruce felt tears approaching. He shook his head slowly. “Yes I do. How could I possibly believe this?”

“You believe it because it’s the truth. You can recognize it as the truth because you’ve reached a new level of understanding.”

A new level of understanding. Unusually committed and passionate. He didn’t ask for this. He just wanted to have a great life with the woman he loved. He didn’t want dark forces watching him. He didn’t want Gloria to be at risk.

What he wanted was a shot of tequila. He reached for the bottle on the sideboard.

Jamie stopped him before he could take a drink. “You’re going to need to be sober for this.”

Jamie’s stomach was pitching flips and somersaults. She removed a bundle of herbs from the teapot and filled the cups with the hot, stained liquid. “This might help.”

Bruce sipped.

She began.

“Somewhere Gloria is being imprisoned by a Macul known as Enervata.”

“A Macul?” Bruce’s voice sounded dubious.

Jamie hadn’t expected him to get it all at once. Of course he wouldn’t. “A Macul is a high-ranking Pravus, which is an order of dark beings. Each Macul and his Pravus army is looking to destroy a particular human virtue. For Enervata, it’s love. There’s only a handful of his kind in the world, but they’ve been around for more than a thousand years and each is looking for an opportunity to enslave humanity. Enervata has been waiting for an uncommon kind of love affair since the Dark Ages. One like . . .” she shrugged.

“Like me and Gloria?”

Jamie nodded. She breathed in the flowered fragrance of the tea, keeping her gaze fixed on the brew so as not to look upon the wildness and disbelief in Bruce’s eyes. “There have been a handful of occurrences over the centuries where passionate people found uncommon love. If Enervata had been able to divide the lovers and seduce the woman, turning her toward darkness, he would have achieved great power. The other Maculs do similar things, though they’re trying to destroy different virtues. In each case, Enervata or one of the others has tried to harness that power to enslave mankind.”

“Sounds like they’re not real good at it,” Bruce snorted. “Last time I checked we were pretty much okay.”

“Well, that’s partly because they’re always sabotaging one another. Each Macul wants to be in power, so they’re essentially competing and have always found a way to wreck one another’s chances.”

Jamie chanced a glance at Bruce. He looked overwhelmed.

“You’re sure Enervata’s the one who’s got Gloria?” he said.

“He has to be, because he’s the one who wants to destroy love. He’s looking for the rare love, the bond-recherché as they call it, and the other Maculs will try to somehow spoil Enervata’s seduction attempts. If they do, he loses his chance at power.”

“So that’s a good thing. Humanity’s safe.”

“Except for the fact that the woman usually winds up dead. And the man for that matter. Or worse.”

Bruce’s eyes dropped and he shook his head.

Jamie squeezed his hand. “Enervata has taken Gloria because he believes he can seduce her and turn her to his side. And if Enervata can reverse a love as strong as yours between two people as passionate as you are, he gets it all.”

“And if he can’t turn her?”

“I can’t say for sure, Bruce. But likely, he’ll kill her.”

The color drained from Bruce’s skin. He seemed to be wrestling with disbelief, anger, and sick, sick worry. He spoke, and his voice came out ragged. “How do you know all of this?”

Jamie looked down at her teacup. “It started when I was in high school.”

Errant bits of peppermint leaf floated in her cup, and the scent of it strove to calm her nerves.

She looked up at Bruce. “First day of high school, actually, as if that wasn’t weird enough. It was after school, I was in my room, and my computer started talking to me. It was that stupid paperclip thing. You know that thing in Word? That Help tool that winks at you?”

He nodded. “Always drove me crazy.”

Jamie gave a rueful laugh. “Yeah, me too, especially when I was trying to get work done for class. But this time,” Jamie paused. Her gaze drifted to the window. “This time everything was different.”

The homework on her first day was overwhelming. This was going to be much tougher than middle school. Jamie got out her books and sat down at the computer, revving up Word.

But there was no way she could concentrate on the essay she needed to write with that paperclip winking and blinking at her. She turned it off. It came back.

She turned if off again. It came back again.

She rebooted her machine.

The images on the screen swooned and went black, and then the CPU buzzed and clucked and flashed the log-in page.

Jamie’s fingers were poised, ready to type in her username and password (Jamie / Tink). But there it stood, that animated paperclip, winking and blinking. And it grew bigger on the screen.

And then the cartoonish icon danced, swirled, and leaped out of the monitor.

Jamie gasped and tumbled backward, legs splayed, as the paperclip arched and ran across her keyboard, leaped over her desk, and joined her on the floor.

“Hello, Jamie!”

She backed away from it. But more from confusion than fear. The voice was so sweet, so soothing. Jamie’s body curled and she sat up, looking at the odd thing. I’m hallucinating. Man, the first day of school was more stressful than I thought.

The clip bent itself over and stretched, growing bigger yet again. It exuded a golden light, bathing the room in warmth as it expanded and changed, wavering. Jamie watched dumbstruck as the clip went through its metamorphosis. Eventually it became a beautiful lady, elderly and smiling.

Then the woman was sitting in a golden chair, and flecks of gold shimmered within her emerald eyes. Her hair was white and wound into a knot just above her neck. Jamie felt a remarkable sense of peace coursing through her as the woman spoke with a voice kind and motherly, soothing and beautiful like her eyes.

She told Jamie she was “an Auxilium,” come to explain about Jamie’s purpose in life.

The Auxilium woman told her many things. She said that she was glad that Jamie and Bruce had naturally developed a loving friendship. She told her that Jamie had been placed by Bruce’s side as his guardian.

And then, though the lady’s voice remained warm and soothing, her words took on an ominous warning, striking fear into Jamie’s heart.

The Auxilium held Jamie’s hand and told her that she was going to have to be very brave. And then she described to Jamie the world of the Macul. And Enervata.

Rage bubbled up inside Bruce. “You never told me any of this! My God, you’ve been carrying this around since high school?”

Jamie’s cheeks colored. “The Auxilium warned me not to say a word to you. Or anyone else for that matter, until it began. It’s the only secret I’ve ever kept from you. If I told you, it might have prevented you from seeking true love in your life. That would have been wrong for you and terrible for the world.”

Jamie turned her face away and Bruce saw a watery shimmer at the corner of her eye.

His stomach threatened to empty involuntarily. If he’d taken a swig of tequila it probably would have. He reached out a shaky hand and grasped the cup of tea.

Jamie turned back to him and laid her hand on his forearm. “The thing is, Bruce, you and Gloria are destined to achieve great things together. If you can make it through this.”

She withdrew her hand and sipped her tea. Bruce sipped his, trying to find some way to put everything into context.

Bruce slowly filled his lungs. “So you’ve kept this big secret this whole time, huh? I don’t even know what to make of this.”

Jamie shrugged. “It’s been good for me in a way. The Auxilium woman told me to do whatever I could to encourage you to never settle for less—that was easy, because by then we’d practically been best friends since we were born. And she told me about Enervata, and how we can stop him.”

Bruce’s eyes lifted to hers. “So what do we do?”

Jamie slid off the couch and kneeled on the carpet, clearing a space on the coffee table. She flipped a magazine over.

“Okay. We need to head out into other parts of the country. We can take my van.”

She reached into a bag of pretzels and laid four of them out, one by one, at various points on the magazine.

“Along the way, you have to seek out something called the Four Pillars of Humanity. When you find all four, if you can face him before Gloria is completely turned, you might be able to defeat Enervata.”

“What do you mean before Gloria is completely turned? She’s not going to fall for some thousand-year-old demon!”

Jamie shook her head. “You don’t understand, Bruce. They all fall. He’s going to brainwash her. He can’t directly use magic or lie to her, but he’s extremely powerful. He can do things like only show her small pieces of the truth, take things out of context to confuse her.”

This Enervata guy didn’t know Gloria if he thought that kind of thing would work on her. Still, what Jamie said earlier echoed in his brain. If Enervata thought he couldn’t succeed with Gloria, he’d probably kill her.

“Where are these pillars?”

Jamie shook her head. She waved at the pretzels with a shrug.

Bruce felt his frustration rising again. “Do we at least know what they are?”

“The old woman wouldn’t tell me what they are, what they represent, or where to look. She said there were reasons for this. All I know is that once we head out, we’ll receive signals along the way, and that the search itself is a necessary part of building the power we need.”

“How long do we have?”

Jamie’s face took on the cast it got when she felt flustered. “I wish I knew, Bruce. I . . . maybe I just didn’t ask the right questions. Just know I’ll be with you every step of the way. Start packing tonight. We’ll load up my van and leave in the morning. But first, we need to go to Candace’s place.”

“What? What time is it?”

Jamie shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve been trying to reach her ever since I got your phone call. Candace was sent here to watch over Gloria in the same way I was sent to watch over you.”

Bruce’s eyebrows arched. “Candace? Really?”

“This is not a good time to be catty. And don’t underestimate Candace. She’s got a natural talent. She’s a Finder. We’ll need her on this trip. Come on.”

They rose to their feet and Bruce grabbed his keys and wallet, somewhat grateful for having a task that would keep him bodily occupied. They maneuvered out of the building, into the lightly misting streets, and began heading toward Candace’s apartment.

Jamie scowled at her phone. “Her cell must be turned off because it’s going straight to voice mail.”

“Just like Gloria’s.”

“Yeah, and it worries me a little.”

“Any reason to believe Candace might be in trouble?”

Jamie’s eyes were solemn. “It’s Candace’s job to watch over Gloria. If she somehow got in the way . . .”

They bent their shoulders and quickened their pace. But when they rounded the corner to Candace’s apartment, they encountered blue swirling emergency lights and clusters of neighbors. Bruce could hear the whispers even as they approached.

“. . . attacked in her own home . . . the lock wasn’t forced . . . Candace was such a sensible thing otherwise . . .”

They slowed and then stopped just as two paramedics wheeled a stretcher out of the apartment building. Jamie gasped and Bruce knew why without even looking.

Candace was dead.

Jamie buried her face in Bruce’s shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her and held her tight. She began to gasp and shudder. He gripped Jamie to him, as if in that single gesture he could wrap enough protection around her and then send that protection out into the vast somewhere until it got to Gloria.

I’m coming, Gloria. I don’t know what’s going on and I don’t know where you are, but I’ll find you.

I’ll find you.

9

NEW YORK

GLORIA SAT AT THE VANITY, eyes gazing toward the window. She had only a vague concept of the hour, having watched the sun go down and come up again, reaching its apex to mark that a full day had passed. Now it was sinking back down on the horizon.

A dubious pastime, being a sun spectator.

Bruce had to be frantic by this point. He must be calling everybody. He might even be imagining the worst. But he could never guess what had happened.

The hopelessness of it suffocated her.

She strode to the window and ran her hand along the sash, looking for a latch of some sort. She’d gone through this futile drill a hundred times already, and she’d do it again even knowing the outcome, if only to push back at the futility that reached for her. Perhaps running her hand along the seams of the window would give her ideas for how to escape.

She’d already thought about and discarded the idea of hurling the chair through the glass. Her intuition told her that she was being held by something more powerful than locked doors and windows. Maybe she’d throw one, anyway. She’d relish the terrific crash it would make regardless of whether it broke through the pane. It would show Vance that Gloria wasn’t the butterfly-in-a-net type.

She looked around. For a butterfly net, the room certainly offered its share of luxury. It was spacious and beautiful with appointments that included a bedspread that looked similar to one she’d had her eye on—but never could afford—since she and Bruce had been together. In the bathroom she’d found all her favorite soaps and lotions. The delicately scented ones. Expensive ones.

On the nightstand rested a photograph of the dog she had when she was a little girl. She smiled at the dog for a moment, as she did whenever she saw a picture like this. But she took no comfort from it. How could she when she knew that someone else had placed the picture there?

The whole thing was eerie. Vance or someone in his employ had obviously been stalking her, studying her. Did they think placing these objects in the room would make her more compliant? Did they think they’d make her like being held captive? Would anyone?

On the wall, flowing from the vaulted ceiling, hung an opulent tapestry. The one she and Bruce had been admiring only a few nights ago. A shimmering peacock in gilded fringe and threads of green, blue, and violet, with paisley feathers. She’d thought it unapologetically proud when she’d seen it. The way she’d felt when she’d pulled off a big fundraising event. Or stood hand in hand with Bruce.

Now the bird seemed different to her. It seemed trapped, with the backward thrust of its head and the arc of its swanlike neck. Even the wings seemed to grasp for freedom from the binds of the tapestry.

She could not imagine what Aaron Vance wanted from her. And why was this elaborate ruse necessary? He could make a dining room disappear and keep her captive through charms and tricks. Why not simply use these to extract what he wanted?

The door opened, and he entered.

Terror threatened to consume her again. She squashed it.

Vance regarded her. “Would you care to join me for dinner?”

It was a casual request, like he might as easily have been offering her a souvenir program at the opera. Gloria was aghast. “Dinner?” she said, spitting the word. “Dinner with you would be poison in my stomach. Do you really think no one will come looking for me? I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish by holding me captive, but my fiancé will rip you to pieces when he finds out.”

Vance smiled slowly and Gloria felt her blood chill.

Mercifully, he left the room without another word.

Gloria shuddered. Her knees felt weak and she sank to the floor. This time, she allowed the sobs to escape.

Three minutes. You only get three minutes of this.

She wept and gasped, leaning her head against the foot of the tapestry while her fingers stroked the threads. She poured out as much frustration, fear, longing, and anger as she could—and then she grit her teeth and shut off the tears.

She stood, washed her face and combed her hair, and returned to her place at the vanity.

A few minutes later the door opened again and Vance returned. Gloria steeled herself.

But he did not address her this time. Not right away. He carried a tray of food and set it in the corner on the little inlaid granite bistro table. On it rested a plate with a fillet of swordfish that lay atop a molded round of fragrant risotto, with a smattering of watercress and nasturtium petals. A place setting accompanied the plate, complete with a silk napkin and a small vase holding a single calla lily.

“You must be hungry,” Vance said. “Perhaps you will feel more comfortable if you dine in privacy tonight.”

He left the tray and exited, locking the door behind him.

MAINE

Jamie breathed the autumn woodland, and it smelled like the moon.

Despite having driven all day to reach the wilderness well after dark, the two were wide awake, their footfalls snapping through the forest. Bruce and Jamie said nothing. The shock of Candace’s death cast a gray mist over any conversation. Bruce hadn’t bothered with a jacket, and though his fists were clenched, he seemed impervious to the cold. Not Jamie. She tucked her nose into her wooly scarf.

A single, cut-off message on her voice mail from Candace. That’s all she’d had to go on. Candace the Finder. Candace had said “Maine” and Jamie interpreted this as a sign. Jamie wished she had more to go on than that. But she’d spent years of introspection and reading to come up with the right collection of herbs and incantations. It seemed only fitting that she invoke these things in the midnight forests of Maine under a full moon, and then just see what happens. Something was sure to happen, wasn’t it?

“What time is it?” Bruce said, his breath streaming white.

She cast her eyes up to the full moon. “Almost midnight, I think.”

The frost shimmered in the nocturnal glow, so brilliant and sharp that despite the canopy of trees the path shone cleanly in a rolling brocade.

“Midnight. The witching hour.” He fell silent for a moment, and then: “Do you think he’ll hurt her?”

Jamie considered this. She guessed that Enervata would certainly cause harm to Gloria if he believed there no longer existed any chance of her succumbing to him. But Jamie was sure some time remained.

She tried to sound authoritative. “No. She’ll be safe for now. He’ll be trying to seduce her.”

Bruce hunched his shoulders. “Safety by seduction. Not exactly good news.”

Their footfalls continued along the crisp leaves of the path.

Jamie wondered if they were in the right place, though she didn’t say as much to Bruce. She had always assumed the plan would emerge with such clarity that she could snap her heels and proclaim they go to Someplace and do Such-and-Such. That there would be some grand moment of tolling intuition.

But alas, no tolling occurred. The notion to come to Maine was maybe a tinkle in a pot. Jamie puffed. A chamber pot at that.

She wondered what Bruce would say when he realized she truly had no idea what she was doing. What if they were just wasting time galloping around in the woods while Gloria slowly folded under Enervata’s manipulations?

She cut her eyes at Bruce.

The leaves under their feet became less brittle and spongy, compacting on a hardened subterrain of granite. The trees fell away from the path.

“Look at that.”

Bruce pointed to a shallow but vast bank of fog that lay ahead. In the distance, the sound of rushing water intertwined with the rushing in the trees. Bruce and Jamie quickened their pace, their feet disappearing as they entered the fog bank.

Jamie marveled at the way the fog tumbled and swirled like a rolling pod of dolphins. As they continued forward, the bank deepened until it rose halfway up their knees.

Bruce looked around. “It’s like a river.”

And indeed the fog had begun to flow in a concentrated direction, rushing to catch at their ankles and then accelerating so that the current moved even faster than they did.

Jamie breathed in the cool air. “It’s a sign! It means we’re in the right place!”

They strode faster, as if keeping pace with the fog that urged them forward.

Perhaps a tinkle in a pot was enough after all.

Bruce breathed out silvered puffs. “Why wouldn’t we be in the right place? You weren’t sure?”

She hitched. “Sure? Well, there’s no doubt now. It sounds like there’s a river nearby. Or a creek.”

“Watch out!” Bruce shouted.

He grabbed her by the hood of her sweatshirt just before she stepped off a ledge.

Jamie gave a startled cry. The granite shelf ended abruptly, though the eager fog continued to surge forward, concealing the shift in terrain until the very last moment.

Jamie clutched Bruce’s arm with a hand to her heart, catching her breath. “I didn’t even see it. How far down does it go?”

They looked over the precipice to where the fog now poured as if from a waterfall. The sound of a rushing stream bubbled somewhere below.

Bruce shook his head. “No telling. It looks like it goes down about thirty feet, but with the fog it could be much deeper.”

They panned the vicinity. The granite shelf rimmed the drop-off in a broad circle so that the lower terrain looked like a great sinkhole. On the opposite side of the higher ground, towering pine and beech trees lined the cliff in a semicircle.

“We could walk around,” Bruce said.

Jamie scanned the trees and turned her head toward the forest beyond. She slowly shook her head. “No. I think we’re meant to go down into it.”

He eyed her. “How do you know?”

She shrugged. “I just do.”

Still no sign of a tolling intuition, but she’d take what she could get.

He frowned into the sinkhole. “All right. If you’re absolutely sure we’re supposed to go down there.”

It was a good thing Bruce faced away from her so he couldn’t see Jamie’s expression at that point.

Bruce stepped gingerly over the side and lent a hand so she could do the same, and they traversed a steep, narrow path leading downward. Cheeks burning, Jamie followed him down, winding, picking, until they reached the bottom.

The sinkhole lay broad and open, with rivulets of water trickling down from the cliff and gathering in a stream that ran along the outer perimeter. The fog now swirled above and around them and it glowed among the red maple trees in white wisps under the full moon.

Both the mist and the stream seemed to be flowing in the same direction. Jamie and Bruce followed that path, which first wound along the cliff wall before turning sharply toward the center of the sinkhole. They clutched at each other’s elbows to keep from stumbling, because while the moon provided drenching illumination, the fog created a dense veil throughout the basin.

When they reached a clearing at the center, the stream once again took a turn back toward the cliff. In its wake, the fog dissipated. This left a cylindrical gap through which Bruce and Jamie could tilt back their heads and see the stars glimmering above.

The maples rimmed the clearing, rich and red behind the curtain of fog, their limbs canted like the folded arms of skeptical observers. A lone stump nosed up from the center of the meadow. Rooted within its hollows, a single yellow sapling was growing. It was the only tree in the vicinity with shimmering gold leaves and it beamed with jubilance in the moon’s spotlight.

“That’s it!”

Jamie rapped on the stump with the palms of her hands. Her fingers ran along convoluted indentations in the gray bark, shapes that seemed strangely geometric for such a natural canvas. “They must be symbols.”

Bruce knelt beside her. “What do we do now?”

She continued to finger the markings, chewing her lip. “Do?” She cleared her throat. “Now we . . . um . . . we should probably . . .”

Her face angled squarely on the wood, but her eyes darted toward the cynical maples beyond. It seemed their leaves were whispering with the brook, as if the entire forest were listening with Bruce, waiting for Jamie to speak.

Oh, tolling intuition? Hello? Your party is waiting for you.

And yet nothing.

Jamie willed her voice to sound authoritative. “We must make an appeal. Come here.”

She rose and positioned Bruce so that he was resting on the stump.

He sat very still as she began to walk in a circle around him, her fingertips lingering at the golden leaves of the sapling. She made three rounds. On the third, she began to speak. The breeze waned and the whispering of the forest hushed. Even the brook quieted. As her fingers brushed Bruce’s shoulder, she felt him shiver.

Jamie spoke in a downy voice, soothing and imploring. She appealed to the north, to the east, to the south, and to the west, asking at each point for guidance and strength. She invoked a protection from evil:

His loyalty switches

He who bewitches

The injurious aspect, the evil eye

“Jamie?” Bruce whispered.

She ignored him, eyes half closed, maintaining concentration.

The malevolent lip, sorcerer spry

Bruce coughed. “Uh, Jamie? Jamie.”

She opened one eye and threw a look at Bruce.

He pointed in the opposite direction from which she had made her appeal.

“That way’s north.” He pointed again. “And that’s south.” He waved his hand right and left, his words falling off in a mutter. “East, west.”

She looked around, wide-eyed, and glared at the moss growing at the base of the stump. “I guess you’re right.”

The wind erupted once more and with it came the hissing of the trees.

An echo rolled from the opposite end of the basin, a strange sort of heh that sounded inhuman, like the intonation of a forest creature. It bounced off the cliff walls and rippled among the maples that surrounded them.

Bruce looked up. “What was that?”

“I don’t know. An owl? Or maybe a limb broke off.”

He shifted. “You should probably start over.”

“Yes.” Her voice took on a higher pitch.

She couldn’t believe she’d botched it once already without even having started. She made her circles again and repeated her appeals. To the north. The east. South. West. Injurious aspect; malevolent lip.

She tried to force herself to slow her pace. Bruce’s focused attention after her gaffe put a glimmer of sweat to her brow. But at least this time her appeals landed on target. The midnight breeze stirred and with it came a concentrated scent of pine.

She stopped. She listened.

And then, under the staring moon, in the clearness of the well that formed within the fog and frost, there came:

Nothing.

She cocked her ear.

Still nothing.

Bruce hitched on the stump. “Is something supposed to happen?”

She wiped madly at her nose, which was beginning to run in the cold night air.

“Not necessarily.” She knew her words sounded strangled. “Well, er . . .”

Her eyes popped open and she began rummaging through the pockets of her jeans and sweatshirt. Her fingers closed over a small bag and then fumbled, dropping it, and the contents spilled onto the mat of leaves and pine needles.

“Dang it!”

Bruce arched forward on the stump. “Jamie, do you think you can tell me—”

“Wait,” she said sharply, throwing up a finger. She was rarely so impatient with Bruce, but tension tore at her temperament.

As silence fell between them, the forest erupted once again with the strange heh sound. Bruce and Jamie looked around.

Bruce furrowed his brow. “Weird echo. Must be from all the granite.”

Jamie’s eyes scanned the rim of the cliff above. “Yeah. Except the echo isn’t the same sound over and over again. One’s kind of like a ‘heh’ and there’s one that sounds more like a ‘ha’ or a ‘ho.’ Do you think there’s something out there? Some things out there?”

Jamie knew instinctively that there would be dangers associated with this quest. All she needed to do was call up the image of Candace’s sheet-covered body for confirmation. If something in the woods was stalking them, what defense did they have? Would the Auxilia intervene? Could they intervene? Jamie knew there was an uneasy balance between the Auxilia and the Pravus, but what if the balance had shifted? After all, no one was around to protect Candace.

Jamie realized how foolish her visions of this moment had been. In her dreams, she canted mellifluous appeals that resulted in epic, shimmering magic—magic powerful enough to whisk Bruce’s true love from harm’s way and back into his arms. When she’d acted these things out in her mind over the years, she’d never gotten her north and east crossed. And she certainly never expected an ethereal volley of hehs, has, and hos to berate her while she tried to concentrate.

Bruce stamped the leaves. “I guess there could be something out there. I doubt we really have to worry about it, though. It’s not like the place is full of lions and wildebeests.” He eyed her. “It’s cold out here.”

Jamie slapped at the items in her bundle. “I told you to bring your coat.”

“I guess I had other things on my mind. Like saving a life.” He furrowed his brow at the satchel that had absorbed her concentration. “What do you have in there, anyway?”

“A candle, some marjoram, and mint.” She shrugged. “A mushroom. Other stuff.”

“Did the clip lady tell you to bring them?”

“I came up with this on my own. I’ve done a lot of reading over the years.”

“There are books about this?”

Jamie frowned. “About this? No. I’ve had to make a lot of assumptions.”

Bruce threw up his hands. “This is insane. We’re just supposed to figure all of this out by ourselves?”

Jamie looked at her satchel, deliberately not making eye contact with Bruce. “I think that’s the way it has to be.”

Bruce let out a frustrated grunt and ran a hand through his hair. The glade fell still. And then there came another sound from off on a far hill. Animal keening. Like the howl of a wolf, only not quite so round and long. A coyote, maybe. Ordinarily Jamie might think it spooky, but under the circumstances, it didn’t faze her much. This, at least, was the call of a recognizable creature.

Taking a deep, trembling breath, she pulled herself up. She was determined to get things right, blinking away the glisten of frustration that had formed at the corners of her eyes. She made her third set of circles around Bruce and the gilded tree. North, south, west, and—wait, no. North, west, south, and . . . and. Northeastsouthwest.

Bruce stood. “Jamie, what exactly are we doing out here?”

She stopped in her tracks, turning toward Bruce, her stare as sharp as pine needles.

“Stop interrupting me!” She tried to sound forceful, but the words caught in a tremulous gulp.

He rubbed his lower back. “I’ve been sitting on that knobby stump while you run around without a compass, and somewhere some thousand-year-old monster is pawing at my fiancée, and it just occurred to me that you actually don’t have a clue what you’re doing!”

All around the crackling echoes of heh and hah and ho burst from the trees and reverberated among the cliff walls, as though they were inside a bag of microwave popcorn. It shook the very earth below them and rattled in the brook.

Jamie began to tremble. “What is that sound?”

Her voice broke on the words and she burst into tears, her knees falling weak. She sagged to the stump. Jamie tried to bridle the humiliating tears but couldn’t. A stolen glance at Bruce revealed he didn’t know whether to address the otherworldly heckling or her, the weeping woman on the stump. Either choice was probably equally disturbing to him.

Jamie strove to contain herself. “The trees, the creek, the entire dang forest is laughing at us. At me.”

She waved a hand in disgust at the maples behind the veil of fog, whose branches, which once seemed folded in skepticism, were now waving about in frenzy. “The trees are laughing at me.”

She folded her arms around herself. “You’re right, Bruce. I don’t know what I’m doing. I thought that when the time came, I’d get a little guidance. I thought a vision would come to me, or I’d have some special knowledge, or something. The . . . the tolling intuition.”

She sniffed again, slapping madly at her nose with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “All my life I’ve been preparing for this moment. I thought I had everything ready. I was going to be the Joan of Arc of true love and lead us to victory. But now that it’s happening, I don’t have a single clue. I don’t even know where the battleground is.” She gulped a deep, thirsty breath and let it out slowly. “I am scared to death we’ll lose. That Enervata . . . and Gloria . . .”

“No,” Bruce said firmly.

She stopped, closing her lips together.

He turned and nudged her so that she shifted and he sat down next to her on the stump. “That ain’t gonna happen. There is no way. There is absolutely not going to be an ‘Enervata and Gloria.’”

He folded his arms and dipped his chin. Then he looked at Jamie and put an arm around her shoulders.

“This isn’t your fault, Jamie. You didn’t make this; you didn’t decide this. You just got roped into it. I assumed you knew what we’re supposed to do. But obviously you’re just as baffled as I am. We’ll figure it out together.”

He dabbed at her tears.

She blinked them back. “I just wish that paperclip woman would come again.”

The forest simmered to a more sedate rush of whispers and rustles.

“Well, it doesn’t look like she’s going to do that.” Bruce eyed the canyon above. “What made you come to this place, anyway?”

“That voice mail from Candace. She said to go to Maine. Beyond that, I didn’t know what to do.” She shrugged, gesturing at the sky. “Full moon at midnight. A New England forest. I guess I’ve been reading too many fantasy novels.”

Again, the forest rippled with the strange chuckles. This time Bruce and Jamie allowed for some nervous laughter of their own.

He gave her a sidelong smile. “I liked the thing about the malevolent lip. Nice touch.”

She smiled back, though hers was sheepish.

He rose and gave a hand to lift her from the stump. “Let’s head back. You couldn’t have been too far off if we landed in a forest where the trees can laugh at you. Not exactly typical.”

They retraced their steps, following the creek to the path at the cliff wall, and picked their way up the steep incline until they were out of the sinkhole.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” Bruce said. “We’ll find a place to sleep for the night, then come back here tomorrow. In the meantime, you see if you can summon that paperclip thing.

“We’ll pull together and get Gloria back.”

10

NEW YORK

ENERVATA’S TAIL SHIFTED. “All right, canteshrikes, what have you to report?”

Rafe began. “As you requested, we monitored—”

“Not you.”

The male canteshrike paused. “Did I misspeak?”

“Let Isolde convey the report.”

“Isolde’s ability to speak has been—”

“Impaired, I know. You forget. I impaired it.”

A look of darkness came over Rafe. Enervata wondered at its source.

Isolde raised her head, though not as high as usual, and stepped before Enervata. Her eyes avoided the brothers.

Her words came just above a whisper. “The male of our lovers has—”

Enervata shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t hear you. Come closer, my dear.”

“We can’t hear you, either!” Glueg chortled from the couch, slapping his knee. “Come have a sit. We ain’t gone sick of you yet!”

Hedon leered. “A woman who can’t fend you off and can’t answer back? There’s something I’ll never go sick of!”

Sileny scuttled to the far corner of the room.

Isolde turned toward the brothers, and the intent in her eyes said that she may no longer have much voice, but she had regained enough strength to fend them off—until they bled.

Glueg belched. “The look on that one says she just might just sink her teeth into you. Course that could be a right fun turn as well, mightn’t it?”

“Enough!” Enervata snapped. “Have I indulged you swinish brothers to the extent you cannot discern when to hold your tongue?”

The brothers quieted and turned to their pint jars of honey wine for sympathy.

“Now, Isolde, you may approach me. Put your lips to my ear and tell me what you have to say.”

Isolde stepped closer, the slender taper of her waist turning sideways as she leaned her now-silvered breasts toward him.

She spoke in a melodic whisper. “The male of our lovers . . . has begun his quest.”

She paused, drawing a labored breath before continuing. “We have masked all signals at your behest.”

“Is this going to take all afternoon, Isolde?”

She rasped more quickly. “I suggest we act without delay, lest we risk our bond-recherché.”

She coughed, and as she backed from him he could see a red stain forming at her lip.

“There, now you’re no longer gray from head to toe. The effort of speech has caused you to bleed. Perhaps if you entered Canteshrike Grotto with lips so red, they may admit you back into their nights of debauchery.”

He turned from her and muttered, “Assuming your day with the brothers hasn’t cooled your lust.”

He addressed the other canteshrike. “All right, then, Rafe. You may speak now. Have you anything to add?”

Rafe shook his head. “Only that I concur with Isolde. We must act without delay to thwart this quest, hide the young man Bruce so that the other Pravus armies can’t kill him, and preserve the power of the bond-recherché until you have cultivated it.”

Enervata frowned. “Do not intervene yet. Continue to mask the signs given to him. He’ll run his quest into the ground.”

He turned to the brothers. “I take it you swine have found no indication that I have competition? Not from Kolt or any of the others?”

Hedon wiped his mouth. “No sign, master. Seems none has caught on to our little bond-recherché yet.”

“Good. All the more reason to proceed with restraint. Very well, then. You all have your assignments. Let there to be no misunderstanding. We have passed the realm where mistakes are acceptable. No more leniency. Should any of you slip in your tasks, death shall be the only punishment. Now get to your posts.”

The Pravus lieutenants began to disperse and Sileny rushed to clean the area where the brothers had been sitting.

Isolde strode in the direct path of the brothers. Enervata watched her with curiosity, thinking it odd she didn’t avoid them. And predictably, as she passed, Hedon reached for her and muttered something with a leering grin.

Isolde wheeled upon him, lashing a trident talon in a movement so quick it seemed but a flash. She then continued without pause.

Hedon gaped after her, unsure what had just occurred, until the blood pouring from his nose had reached his lips. His tongue flickered and he swiveled his eyes in confusion.

In that one quick movement, Isolde had used her talon to slice open his nostrils so that they resembled the snout of a pig.

And ironically, in his outrage, Hedon now squealed like one.

Enervata smiled.

MAINE

Bruce breathed in the autumn woodland, and it smelled like the sun.

He and Jamie strode along the same path as the night before, only this time the monochromatic silver landscape exploded with brilliant hues of fall leaves and pebbled mosaic trails. There was no sign of the fog from the previous evening.

They decided to follow a different track, abandoning the hiking trails and veering into the unsanctioned wilds. Jamie had had no more luck this morning summoning spirits than she’d had before, but Bruce encouraged her to try again later. Realizing she was going solely on intuition, he understood now that he needed to pay more attention to his own. He felt certain things were about to change, that some sort of breakthrough was coming. He hoped that wasn’t only his desperation speaking. He focused intently on the wood, looking for any sign he could decipher.

Until he fell into a crevice.

He heard Jamie give a cry above. “Bruce! Are you all right? I can’t see you! Say something!”

“Agghh.”

“Say something else.”

“I think I’m okay. I can’t see you, either. Except . . . wait.”

Pain shot from his tailbone as he rolled and fumbled to his feet, spitting dirt, and angled to a patch of sunlight. He could see the silhouette of Jamie’s head above. It seemed very far away.

“Are you hurt?”

“Not really, it’s just . . .”

He rubbed at his backside, shaking his head with a bitter chuckle. “Just my butt.”

“Can you get out?” He heard a strangle in her voice, and could tell she was making a determined effort not to laugh.

“I don’t know.”

He looked around. The fissure formed a barrel with the wall and ceiling curving upward. In the darkness, he saw no viable exit.

“It’s kind of wet and slippery down here.”

He attempted to scale the dripping wall, but he found no place for a foothold. He wouldn’t have been able to reach the roots dangling above, anyway, assuming they even proved stable enough to grab.

“Nah, I’m stuck.”

“Oh my God,” he heard Jamie say. “What should we do? Oh my God. Wait there—I’ll get the park ranger!”

“No, hang on. That’ll take too long.”

Bruce eyed the snaking fissure, lit only by occasional patties of sunshine. He could see no real end.

He tilted his head up toward Jamie. “It makes a kind of a narrow passage down here. I’m going to follow it along. See if there’s a way to get out farther down.”

“Sounds kind of dangerous.”

He took ginger steps along the slick granite. It felt like trying to walk along the edge of a very long, wet ruler. But he could manage.

He pushed his fingers off the muddy wall for support. “Can you follow along up above? Listen for my voice.”

“Okay. But if it gets dangerous, stop.”

He walked on a little.

“Bruce?”

“Yeah.”

“Keep talking. I don’t know where you are.”

“Okay. I’m walking along. Walking, walking. Looking for a way out . . .”

He fell silent again.

“Bruce? Bruce! Come on, keep talking.”

Her voice grew muffled above.

He was running out of things to say.

Up ahead, a plant had managed to root itself in a patch of sunshine, the seed having found just enough light and soil on a dark sheath of granite. Valiant little thing. He stepped over it. It was a maidenhair fern, thin black stems invisible, giving the illusion that the emerald leaves hung suspended in air.

If Gloria were here, she’d want to know about it. She always seemed to enjoy the stupid trivial facts he shared with her. He told her everything he knew, and when his knowledge ran out, he made things up.

“You’re fading away! Where are you?” Jamie sounded like she’d put a pillow to her face as she spoke.

Bruce tilted his head back and boomed. “I’m looking for a way out! Looking for a rock to climb out on. Looking for, I don’t know, the stairway to heaven.”

That gave him an idea. Instead of maintaining an aimless monologue, he’d sing.

“There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold and she’s buying a stairway to heaven.”

Every now and then, the earth would yawn open and Bruce could see up to the brilliant sky and the trees that peered down at him. He wondered at the roots dangling from the black soil above, guessing at what kind of shrubs they anchored.

If Gloria were here, he knew exactly what he’d have told her. He’d have said those were ape crabapple. Her face would have brightened but with a fold at her lip—that ruthlessly sweet thing she did when she tried to hide a smile—and she would have cocked an eye.

“Ape crabapple,” she would have said.

And he was certain that her hair would shine blue-black in that spill of sunshine.

“Yes,” he would have told her. “Though they’re known to the scientific community as malus primaticus.”

At this, her lips might twitch, but he wouldn’t quite have her yet.

He’d have held her elbow to keep her from slipping, because her feet would have been wet like his, and he’d have told her that the ape crabapple got its name because the roots were so very sturdy. And if one were to find oneself groping along in the dark, stuck in some rotten cavity of Mother Nature’s tooth, one could make use of said ape crabapple by grasping the roots and swinging from clump to clump in the same way that apes swing through the forest trees.

And if she were here, and he would’ve said that, he absolutely would’ve had her.

She would have laughed out loud. There would have been no more fold at her lip. She would have thrown back her black hair and laughed. And then she would have hooked his neck with her fingers.

“Bessy-me,” she would have said. And he would’ve kissed her.

A dragonfly dipped into the fissure. It lighted on a thick root just ahead. Like Bruce, it didn’t belong down there. But unlike Bruce, it could fly right back out again. Fly straight over to Gloria if it wanted.

“Dragonflies can travel up to eighty-five miles in a day,” he said to Gloria, who still wasn’t there.

This was a “true fact,” not a “fake fact.” The real fun happened when Gloria couldn’t tell the difference. He picked his way past the dragonfly.

“Carry that kiss to Gloria for me. Tell her I’ll be there soon.”

“Bruce!”

Jamie sounded so far away she might have called from beyond the surface of a body of water, not a fissure in the ground. The dragonfly swooped, dipped, and looped back above the fissure.

“Sorry!” Bruce called back.

He launched into the rock-out part of “Stairway,” hamming it up for Jamie; hamming it up to make his feet move faster.

“There walks a lady we all know-a-woah-woah!”

Hamming it up so that he wouldn’t think of a lock of that blue-black shine in someone else’s fingers.

He splashed and brayed. And then all at once his feet gave out and he buried the lyrics to “Stairway” under a scandal of curses.

He slid on his back, the granite having become a mudslide in an abrupt shift to the south. (Or was it the east?) And he was moving fast.

“Bruce!” Jamie called from very far away. He could only reply with one word, though he repeated it with machine-gun speed:

“Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit!!!!!”

Ahead of him, the very thing he’d been waiting for opened up. The end of this godforsaken fissure. The way out. If only he were not approaching it as though he were on a luge.

He grasped at the tangle of roots and managed to slow himself only a little as the Earth regurgitated him from its belly. He landed on his back, sprawled in a cold rush of creek, his mouth neither drawing nor expelling air.

And even through the mounting anxiety of not being able to breathe as he lay gaping at the sky, it seemed to him that the sky gaped back. Or rather, from above him the mouth of a small canyon gaped back.

In fact, he was laying in a big, round sinkhole, rimmed on the far side by a stand of beech and pine. And filled with a grove of maples.

The same damn place they’d landed last night.

His lungs awoke from their momentary narcolepsy and sucked in air. He filled them hungrily, too hungrily, and began to cough and gag. He rolled over in the creek, already wet so he might as well rinse off some of that sticky mud, and spat.

And as he raised his eyes, he could see in broad daylight with the absence of fog, a clearing in the red, red trees. And in its middle, there stood a lonely golden sapling rooted firmly in a stump.

He stood and squeegeed his sopping clothes with his palm.

“Oh my God!”

He looked up and saw Jamie picking her way down the canyon wall. He thought he detected a threat of nervous, hysterical laughter lurking in her voice. She had her hand clamped firmly over her mouth.

Bruce wore his darkest expression as she approached. After last night’s weird display among the trees, she’d damn well better not get the giggles.

She inspected him for injuries. But aside from the abused tailbone, he was fine. They decided to look again at the stump.

Jamie’s velvet bag was still laying forgotten from the night before, along with the discarded herbs and whatnots it had contained. He picked it up and looked inside. All that remained was a map she’d printed before they set out.

The old rotted stump stood just as gnarled and twisted as it had appeared in the moonlight, but under the drenching sun, he could not see the strange symbols.

He frowned. “Weren’t there some kind of markings?” He ran his hand along the gray bark, then slogged around the side of it, shoes creaking with brook water on each step.

“Hey, wait. Look.”

Jamie moved next to him.

He positioned her shoulders so that in her field of vision, the golden sapling stood centered among the red beeches along the cliff ledge above. The symbols now emerged clearly visible within the folds of bark.

“Odd,” she said, taking a step to the side.

He followed her movements, and as he did so, the markings vanished within the rolling wooden bumps and curves. Faded into a trick of shadow and perspective.

Bruce and Jamie repositioned themselves so they could see it again.

“Can you read it?” Bruce asked.

Jamie shook her head. “I have no idea what it means.”

At this, they looked over their shoulders, as if the forest might erupt again in cackles of derision. But this time, mercifully, no such thing occurred.

“If those damn trees were gonna have a laugh, they’d have done it when I rode on my butt into the creek.”

Jamie gathered some berries from the woodland. She smoothed out the map and turned it over, then squeezed them over the back, clumsily using the juices to copy the markings on the tree stump.

“I have no idea what to do with this. But we might as well capture it.”

“Good idea,” Bruce agreed. “We’ll figure out what to do later. Right now, I’m cold, wet, and starving. Let’s get out of here.”

They trudged back up the trail toward the van. In essence, they were no wiser than they’d been the night before, but Bruce felt different this time as they got into the car. He felt as though he’d learned something. He wasn’t in the least bit sure what that something was, but he felt it nonetheless.

NEW YORK

That strange woman entered again. The one with no mouth. She’d been coming around in the mornings and evenings, scraping and cleaning, so dreadfully silent. Gloria was uncomfortable even looking at her, certain that her appearance had something to do with the force that kept Gloria captive.

Still, Gloria preferred the mouthless one to Aaron Vance. In fact, she was starting to feel so isolated that it became a comfort to know this cleaning woman would be coming by from time to time.

The woman held Gloria’s plate of food, which as usual she’d not touched. How could she eat when she felt so sick? The woman gestured to Gloria, and though Gloria did not understand sign language, she understood that she was asking whether Gloria was finished.

Gloria nodded.

The woman acquiesced, but Gloria saw in her the slightest hint of disappointment, possibly even pity, at Gloria’s having refused another meal. Before turning to carry the plate, the mouthless woman patted Gloria gently on the arm.

A gesture so small, yet one of kindness. It caused tears to stir in Gloria’s eyes.

“Wait,” Gloria said.

The other paused and turned to her.

“What is your name?”

She thumped her chest, and then moved her hand in quick formations.

Gloria rose to her feet. “Hold on. I don’t know sign language, but I do know the alphabet. Can you do it again slowly?”

The woman repeated the formations with deliberate pacing.

“S-I-L-E-N-Y. Sileny?”

Sileny nodded and, despite not being able to smile, managed to bring warmth and lightness to her eyes. Gloria began to feel guilty over having feared her.

“I’m Gloria.” She clumsily spelled it out, though she realized the woman had no trouble hearing.

Sileny nodded and repeated the hand formation. She paused, awkward, and then retrieved a tissue that she used to dab at the corners of Gloria’s eyes.

“Thank you,” Gloria murmured, and sat down again.

“I’m just trying to figure out what’s happening. My fiancé Bruce must be frantic. He worries about me if I get so much as a hangnail, let alone . . .” she gestured at the penthouse.

Sileny stepped forward. Gloria believed she saw sympathy in the woman’s eyes.

“He’s just—he’s just probably worried I guess. And I’m worried for him. What he must be going through.”

Sileny laid a hand on her shoulder, pointed to Gloria’s eyes, then pointed ahead of her. Gloria tried to understand, but she could not figure out Sileny’s meaning.

Finally, Sileny gave up and gestured for her to wait. She disappeared and returned moments later with a book of what looked like children’s folktales. Sileny pointed to a particular page and gestured for Gloria to read, then returned to her task of cleaning.

An elaborate, scrolling illustration covered the facing page, with what looked like bristled dogs and a maze filled with alternating dust and water. Gloria read the passage.

Like their brethren coyotes, the Ketox pack scavenged the plains, eating flesh of the dead that crawled with worms, and wallowing in dust to keep cool under the baking sun.

One day a stranger came. He fed them clean meat and gave them toil, showing them how to round muskrats into the gulley. With the stranger’s guidance, the coyotes learned to terrify the muskrats in such a way that they cowered in the gulley, digging their burrows.

As the muskrats dug, the river slowly seeped into the burrows and flooded the gulley. The Ketox pack snapped those who tried to escape.

“There,” said the stranger. “In this way shall you coax the river into the plains. Your toil divides you from the others who feed on worms and wallow in filth. Now eat of the fauna that come to drink. Bathe in clean waters. Always move forward. Do not turn back to the path the river has already forged.”

The Ketox pack toiled daily in the service of the stranger. As bidden, they drove the muskrats forward each time the river crept into their burrows. They partook in the river’s cooling waters under the baking sun, and fed on the prey that came to the river to drink.

One day a storm bore down on the Ketox plain, and no hare nor grouse came to drink from the new creeping branch of the river. With the flooding rain, the river surged, and the muskrats scrambled to vacate their burrows.

A coyote named Tawehash hungrily watched the muskrats struggling in the water. The other coyotes bade Tawehash move forward, as their new master had warned them not to turn back. But Tawehash longed to fill his belly, and he turned back to the swollen fork of the river to feed on the muskrats.

The next day, the water subsided and the coyotes returned to their toil. Tawehash did not join them. In the distance, the Ketox saw a sandstone mogul at the fork where the old river breathed life into the plain. They knew it for the drowned body of Tawehash, who defied the master and his gift of toil.

Gloria looked at the illustration once more. A strange tale, to say the least, and much more so because Sileny had given it to her to read.

Sileny finished her cleaning and regarded Gloria.

Gloria shook her head. “Thanks for the book, but I’m afraid I still don’t get your meaning.”

Sileny approached her. She pointed at Gloria, and then pantomimed wiping a tear from her eye. She then shook her head and wagged a finger.

“You’re saying I shouldn’t weep.”

Sileny nodded. Then she indicated the book, pointed at Gloria’s eyes, and pointed forward as she had before.

“You’re telling me to look forward.”

Sileny nodded. She watched Gloria for a moment, and then caressed her cheek. She gathered the food tray and cleaning items and left. Gloria heard a click as Sileny locked the door behind her.

The coyote folktale seemed a variation on the biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah, when Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. A strange variation, anyway. Mutant variation.

Was this Sileny person trustworthy? Who knew? Who cared?

Gloria went to the window and rested her forehead against the glass. The city surged below her. Almost within reach and yet worlds away.

A leaf swirled up to where Gloria stood at the window, so sudden that she gasped. It stopped near the sill and she examined it more closely. Not a leaf; a dragonfly. It opened its wings and closed them again gracefully, then repeated the motion.

Strange. This was awfully high off the ground for a dragonfly.

Gloria put her fingers to the glass where the dragonfly rested. When she did so, she felt an immediate longing for Bruce.

Eyes forward, Sileny had told her. Don’t look back.

What does that mean? Was Sileny suggesting she turn her back on Bruce? Gloria shook her head. It was beyond impossible.

If he were here, Bruce would have made up one of his fake facts about the dragonfly. Like it could sail to outer space or something. Or maybe he would have given her a true fact. Something fascinating he’d picked up from God-knows-where.

Tears streaming, she pressed against the glass and her fingers made a small halo around the dragonfly.

“Bessy-me, Bruce.”

11

MAINE

BRUCE STARED AT HIS PLATE. Jamie stared at the empty row of barstools that ran along the counter.

He had been famished, though now that the food sat in front of him he felt no desire to eat. Whatever energy he felt coming out of the woods had dissipated.

Jamie seemed to feel the same. A waitress had been filling whitecapped red squeeze bottles with ketchup at an unoccupied table next to them. Jamie brought several over to her table and arranged the bottles in a row, then in a box formation, and finally into a circle before growing bored and dropping her hands to her lap.

“Candace was the Finder,” Jamie said. “If she were with us things would be different.”

Bruce frowned. “I can’t believe what happened to her. The Pravus don’t exactly screw around, do they?” He studied Jamie’s soft face. Had he ever met anyone gentler? What would those demons do to her if they had a chance? The thought shook him so much that the table moved.

Jamie tipped her head in his direction and smiled slightly. She had no idea what he’d been thinking. Thank God.

“You’d better eat,” she said. “You’ll need your strength.”

He snorted. “For what? I’m not exactly slaying dragons here. My fiancée is probably shackled in some dungeon being taunted by a hideous beast, but all I can think to do is slide down a creek to some pagan altar and wait for the fairies to jump out.”

He laughed and shook his head.

She put a hand on his arm.

“Besides, you’re one to talk,” he added. “You haven’t touched your food, either.”

She inspected her cheeseburger. “You’re right. And this is silly. We have to eat. All I need is a little mustard and this burger’s as good as gone.”

Bruce nodded, picking up his own cheeseburger and signaling to the waitress. She returned with a tray of yellow squeeze bottles and placed one in the center of the ketchup Jamie had arranged.

A single mustard within a ring of red ketchup.

In his mind’s eye, Bruce saw the golden sapling in the stand of red maples. He blinked.

The tableside jukebox came on.

They looked at each other. Neither of them had put money in the machine.

Stranger still, the song that came through was “Stairway to Heaven.” What an odd coincidence.

Jamie took a bite of burger. “Hey, listen!”

“I know, I was just singing this song.”

“No, listen.”

The song continued in the lilting-taunting style of Robert Plant’s voice, but the lyrics that emerged were nothing like the ones they’d heard a thousand times before.

“That’s not right, is it?” Jamie said.

Your heart is humming and it won’t go,

In case you don’t know,

The Earth is waiting for to draw you in.

Bruce frowned.

If you should find your love is true love,

Then do you know,

That you must wander toward the whispering winds.

The song played in the unfamiliar way for a moment, then reverted to the usual lyrics. Bruce and Jamie dropped their burgers to their plates and flipped through the pages in the jukebox.

Jamie tapped on the glass. “There it is. But it’s not by Led Zeppelin—it’s by a guy named Charles Forte.”

Bruce shook his head. “Odd. Whoever he is he did a pretty good Robert Plant.”

He skimmed the other songs in the jukebox, flipping through the selections, and then returned to the listing for “Stairway.”

This time, the song showed Led Zeppelin as the artist. No sign of the Charles Forte version, neither on the display or in the familiar lyrics that were once again playing.

They looked at each other.

Jamie’s face broke with a wide smile. “That happened, right?”

“That definitely happened—whatever it means.”

They returned to their cheeseburgers, this time wolfing them down with ravenous zeal. During their occasional pauses, they mulled over where to go next. Bruce wondered if perhaps the four pillars somehow represented the four corners of the United States: northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest.

Jamie ruminated on the idea. “Maine is obviously the northeasternmost state. Maybe we should hit Florida, California, and Washington?”

They pored over the road atlas.

“I don’t suppose there’s a Stairway to Heaven in any of these states, huh?” Bruce said.

Jamie smiled at him. “Do you really think anything is going to be that obvious?”

“I can dream, can’t I?”

They paid their bill and resolved to head west to California. This quest seemed to be about going with one’s gut and Bruce’s gut wanted the OC. They climbed back into the van, fortified with a renewed sense of purpose, and headed down the sleepy street.

“STOP!” Jamie cried.

Bruce slammed on the brakes and looked around. “What?”

There were no furry animals or small children darting out into the road. Some pedestrians, however, had been strolling by, and they turned their heads in dazed surprise over the sudden screech of brakes.

Jamie was twisting in her seat, rolling down her window. “Back up,” she ordered, pointing at a shop behind them.

Bruce threw the van in reverse and rolled backward a few feet. A poster hung near the door, advertising a concert at a local club. Bruce’s eyes swept down to the featured artist:

Charles Forte.

His pulse quickened. “When’s the concert?”

Jamie leaned out the window to get a closer look. “Tonight.”

They gawked at each other.

“We’re finally getting somewhere! To think, I was gonna take us all the way out to California!”

She grinned. Bruce tingled with relief.

CANTESHRIKE GROTTO

Grotesque are they! Let us run away!

The canteshrikes galloped from Rafe and Isolde as if pursued by banshees. Were they not in service to Enervata, Rafe knew the flock would likely have descended upon them with talons flashing.

Service to Enervata. Rafe found it ironic that it should protect them from the other canteshrikes’ wrath when Enervata had been the one to cause their exile. And now, Rafe and Isolde both knew, Enervata would likely cause their death.

The young man and his guardian now pursued Charles Forte. The destruction of the bond-recherché would not be so easy.

Lifetimes had passed and yet sometimes it seemed only yesterday that Rafe and Isolde had stood in the virtuous glow, the glorious light that beckoned evil from the far corners of the Earth. Centuries ago, there had been a scourge, a pestilence that raked through the villages with death in its tines. Isolde’s parents perished. Alone and frightened, she summoned her will to fight the disease that threatened to wrack her own body. And once she survived it, she traveled to her neighbors’ crofts, and to the crofts of her neighbors’ neighbors, tending the sick and imparting the healing vitality of her own warm heart.

Rafe had assisted her. Young and able, he brought her supplies—medicine, a butchered doe, a bushel of turnips—whatever he could scavenge from the land or those who were willing to help. He did this just to look upon Isolde. To tell her tales of his inevitable someday. He spoke of when the villages of the region would escape this plague, when he would realize his ambitions, working first in the shrieval system and then riding in constableship to the king himself. Once he earned a reasonable sum, he vowed to take Isolde away from the seaside villages, to ask for her hand.

But it was not to be.

Isolde’s deep dedication to service, Rafe’s intense commitment to helping maintain the peace, and their tender love for each other called clarionlike to dark forces. The Macul of Corrupted Compassions, Kolt, approached Isolde. Cloaked in the false skin of a gentle human form, Kolt used Rafe’s musings of “someday” to entice her.

“Why wait?” the Macul posited. “Suppose your young man could enter the shrieval system now. Nay, suppose he could enter the constableship now. Imagine, when you touch Rafe’s skin, yours are the fine, soft hands of a respected lady. You bear his children. Isolde the Fair, a beauty of face and figure, you should be the mistress of an esteemed household. A maiden like you should never be mopping the piss and puke of strangers.”

The offer had to have been very appealing to Isolde. She’d toiled hard against the formidable opponent of disease. She must have found the notion of foregoing her challenges and living in luxury appealing, especially if she knew she could give Rafe his dream at the same time.

And yet, she had resisted.

The memory of her parents still bright in her heart, she had been unable to turn her back on the sick. She had allowed that Rafe should seek his fortune of his own volition, even though it meant leaving her behind with naught but promises of that beautiful someday.

But in demurring at Kolt’s temptation, she unwittingly laid her neck upon his block.

It had been up to Rafe to save her.

They had survived, but only by means of an unclean promise to Kolt’s rival, the Macul of Love Maligned, Enervata. Through that promise, Rafe and Isolde laid down their mortality, set aside their purity, and defiled that which had been beautiful.

They continued to live through the ages. The price of this extended vitality was living century after century in forced association with each other. The once impassioned lovers now despised each other desperately.

But here, centuries later, there came once again the breath of mortality at Rafe’s neck. And Isolde’s. A whisper of an end.

Isolde and Rafe gazed into the heart of Canteshrike Grotto and watched the dance unfold, a dance in which they would never again participate.

She snorted with derision. “Unlikely refuge this should make us. They call us hideous and then forsake us.”

Rafe nearly smiled. “Your voice is healed then. You still speak at a whisper, but you no longer seem pained.”

She regarded him with a sidelong glint of yellow.

“Truth be known, you are still becoming this way, Isolde. More so, even. Your skin and plumage gleam like the forged steel blade of a dagger. Or like the ice cave walls when the moon is out.”

“Or the slimy scales of a steelhead trout!”

Rafe laughed, a sensation that had not filtered through him in years, perhaps a century.

“I speak the truth, Isolde. Do you really believe I would engage in idle flattery with you? Only such beasts as these canteshrikes would be repulsed by your plumage. They are obsessed with the silly snowy whites.”

She regarded them, puzzled, and returned her eyes to Rafe. “Thou hast ne’er taken the canteshrike way, not in thought nor in what you say.”

Rafe nodded. “I defied it, from the moment of onset. When I lost you, centuries ago, when he changed us from our human forms into these beasts and my memories of our love was still bright, I avowed then to ne’er forget. And on that first night when I watched you dance in the heart of Canteshrike Grotto, frolicking with the others, watching them pet you, stroke you, I knew then deep hatred, and avowed ne’er to adapt their ways.”

“So implausible, quite unnatural.”

He laughed, but this time with harshness. “Speak to me not of that which is unnatural. Woman, what are we if not unnatural? Once lovers, now we exist only from our hatred. Even now, you sting me with every mate you so casually take in this wretched grotto.”

Isolde tilted her head in hissing derision. “You begrudge me for my mates in this glacier? But you were the first, Rafe, to lay with another. You had betrayed me. I showed naught but loyalty. Your jealousy is a queer beast to discover.”

“I lay with another, yes Isolde, for one reason alone: to save your life. It is as you say. You resisted temptation from Kolt all those centuries ago, but you would have succumbed eventually and Kolt would have killed you. And then came Enervata, in his intent to undermine his adversary. He presented to me the only way to save your life. To lay with another and break our bond myself. He offered immortality to us. For this I have shown . . .”

His voice trailed off, knowing that the last of his statement no longer held bearing.

He sighed, and spoke it aloud despite himself. “Eternal gratitude.”

Isolde closed her eyes. “Eternal servitude.”

Laughter from the heart of the ice cave drifted toward them. The sun descended over Canteshrike Grotto, filling it with splashes of amethyst and sapphire.

“And what of this immortality?” Isolde finally said. “That promise has proven a falsity. Replaced by a darker guarantee.”

“Yes.” Rafe stepped into a glimmering niche of the cave wall where a nest of white feathers stretched over a mossy divot. He tucked his legs under and sat.

“Yes, indeed. A guarantee of our deaths. This quarrel we have hashed century after century may become moot. Likely we will die from today’s failure, our immortality lost. We have allowed a sign to filter through to Bruce and his guardian. The first prize of the quest is within their reach.”

Isolde nodded, her eyes distant. “We failed Enervata’s request. A failing that could mean our deaths.”

“Mine for certain, but he may spare you. But do you think that our deaths would be such a terrible thing? Methinks it should have occurred six hundred years ago. You spoke before of what is unnatural. Had we simply died with our bond between us, that would have been a natural thing and ours might have been a gladder story than this.”

She cast her eyes down. “We lived on as his servants, gulping pledges from his warrants.”

“Yes. As his second, he promised me reign over much of the Earth. And to you, reign of the wild-lands. We have long since learned that his promises bear decay. And yet we continue on in this staged immortality, fearful of the kind of afterlife that awaits us after what we have become. Such an existence asks its price when one’s soul has turned to the blackest oil.”

He paused, regarding her, and then addressed her in an ancient way long since familiar to their ears.

“Wilt thou come and sit by my side, my former love? For thee whom I have loved and thee whom I have hated, thine eyes now beest mine only comfort on this, the eve of my death.”

Isolde’s eyes glimmered momentarily, and an expression that Rafe had not seen in six centuries flickered over her.

She moved into the niche and sat with him. “Not for you speak in the ways of old. I sit here because this grotto is cold.”

He chuckled. “And because we are now shunned?”

“I’ve other kin to help me cope.” She nodded at Rafe. “Our band of merry misanthropes.”

Rafe laughed wholly now, throwing back his head with a roar. The other canteshrikes lifted their heads from the center of the cave and looked on.

He chuckled, shaking his head. “Sitting cold in a cave of ice are we. Shunned, damned, and awaiting our deaths. How did we get here, Isolde?”

He gazed at the pixieflies drifting at the far corner. “Ironic, is it not? In making us outcasts, Enervata has brought us together. Even one week ago I could not have imagined you and I might sit so companionably in a niche of the ice cave.”

She smiled. “Because we’re shunned, we share this room. That and our impending doom.”

He stroked her hair. They sat quietly together for a long while.

He sighed. “We must get back.”

She nodded, but instead of rising, laid her head on his shoulder. Her fingers played at the downy bend of his crooked knee.

And then she moved her hand up to his cheek and caressed it.

He looked down at her, and she up at him, and again there passed an expression they had not shared in six hundred years. The memory of it, so stridently evicted, came coursing back. And in her amber eyes that had once been hazel, he saw what she had been, not what she had become.

Isolde tilted her head back and he kissed her. Felt the smoothness of her skin. Remembered. Oh, he remembered.

Rafe and Isolde had not joined together since their bond had been broken centuries ago. Now, with his fingers tangling her hair, he pulled her close, and she clung to him, silvered breasts pressed into his skin.

They shifted, sliding to the spongy moss that tufted the floor of the ice cave. Rafe felt her fingertips all around him and he entwined his legs around hers and gripped her with his talons. Two tendrils of ivy coiling about each other, impervious to the inevitable winter, reaching only for the sunrays of the moment.

She let her teeth graze his ear. “Transport me to a foreign place. Where at your hands I might feel safe. So often have I yearned for Rafe.”

“I shall transport you and in doing so transport myself.”

She swirled him, engulfing him in soft skin and satin feathers, and she pressed his shoulders into the moss. She entitled herself to him and he to her, measuring each curving plane of her body.

She spun and leaped to her feet and he was on her, teeth at her shoulder, chest to her back.

For the span of an advancing tide, they forgot. Their bodies came together as canteshrikes, but their minds flew to another world. Another time. And they could allow for love, fear, hatred, and ambition in that span, releasing these sparring anxieties into that tide.

The moon rose over the ice cave. In the center danced the flock and Rafe and Isolde were as they once were.

They returned slowly, becoming gradually aware of their burdens once again. But it seemed some of those burdens no longer pulled at them.

They lay back down on the feathered divot of moss and she nestled into him with tenderness. “I’m glad we end our lives so sweet, ’fore Enervata we must meet.”

He kissed her temple, and she sighed.

“It is the right way to end this. We have loved and we have hated, but always together. Throughout the centuries, Isolde, always together.”

“Six hundred years of service. Six hundred years of sickness.”

He rumbled a bitter laugh, then considered their plight.

An idea formed within him. “Perhaps the sickness need not end. As I ponder this, my inclination is to not tell Enervata of today’s developments. To hide that Bruce and his guardian discovered the sign.”

Isolde lifted her head sharply.

Rafe raised a hand. “How would Enervata know, but for what we report to him? The brothers are drunkards who care not to extend beyond their immediate task, which is to lay in wait for enemies.”

“You just bespoke futility toward our immortality. He would find out eventually, and death shall befall you and me.”

“It shall befall us anyway, Isolde. He’ll not show mercy. If we do not report this, perhaps we might uncover some way to thwart Bruce and his guardian and keep this slip ever hidden from Enervata.”

Isolde scrambled to her feet, eyes ablaze. “After all your flowery prose of a natural end to this journey of souls, how could you now speak with fear of death? Scraping minutes and counting breaths? Your flowery words, your empty prose, I should have swallowed none of those!”

Rafe lifted himself to stand beside her. “Your outrage derives from your own fear! I know this of you, for I above anyone know you. I will not deliberately participate in that which may mean your death, or mine. Tell him, then, if it so galls you. Report to him that I, Rafe, the leader, failed to suppress all the signs and the quest persevered. So many damnable signs. Tell him it was I and let your words be the end of it for me.”

“If you will it not, I can’t accept . . . ” Her voice caught, a momentary softness, and she swept past it with rage. “Responsibility for your death!”

“Then forfeit this misplaced suicide and let us defy him! Perhaps we might find a way to rid Enervata of our lives and of this wretched world! If not, we at least gather more moments before we die.”

Isolde sneered at him through clenched teeth. “So be it! I will share your stage, though it does fill my heart with rage. You disgust me. Coward! Our tie is severed. I despise you now, Rafe, more than ever.”

12

NEW YORK

“I’VE BEEN WONDERING WHEN YOU’D COME by, Sileny. I—” Gloria stopped suddenly. “Oh. Excuse me.”

Vance regarded her from the doorway. “Excuse me. You were expecting Sileny?”

Gloria shrugged, self-conscious.

He gave a very small nod. “Would you care to join me for dinner this evening?”

Gloria swallowed. She had truly hoped Sileny would come by. Her isolation had been preying on her despair. She had never been alone this much.

She considered Vance’s offer. She knew she should hold only hatred for this man, but she longed for some level of contact. She could not bring herself to actually say “yes,” but she nodded.

“I would welcome that. I’d be delighted to have your company.” He spread his hand through the doorway, beckoning her to pass.

She stepped out of her room. The living quarters indicated that Aaron Vance was a collector of art, fine art of a caliber she could barely conceive. Gilded crown molding, marble floors, a Rococo secretary, an ebony reproduction of a bust from Egypt in the time of the pharaohs. Wait. Gloria stole a second look. The bust was not a reproduction; it was an original.

Vance led her to a carved table already set for two, adorned once again with scrolled stems of fresh calla lilies.

She sat and he poured the wine. She had no intention of touching any of it.

Sileny appeared bearing a charger, and inclined her head at Gloria. Gloria greeted her warmly. Sileny set two plates before them on the table then disappeared.

Just seeing Sileny made Gloria relax a degree or two. She dipped her fork into the amuse-bouche, a single smoked oyster dressed with a vinaigrette of apples, shallots, and some kind of herb. Perfectly balanced, luscious flavors that reminded her of her infrequent high-ticket business meals.

She thought of her dinner with Bruce just a few nights ago at Carlotta’s when they discussed how you could tell a good soul by the way he or she cared about certain things. Carlotta cared about good food. Apparently, Sileny did as well.

She took another bite. “I can’t tell what the herb is in the apple vinaigrette. Sage maybe.”

“Rosemary,” Vance replied. “I have a special fondness for cooking with it.”

Gloria gave a start. “You made this?”

“I cook at home whenever I possibly can. It is one of my passions.”

Gloria looked toward the kitchen. How idiotic of her to think that Sileny, the woman with no mouth, had prepared this.

“If you enjoyed the oyster, my dear, I think you’re in for a treat. The main course is a Madeira roast duck. One of my specialties.”

MAINE

Looping arpeggios sailed from Charles Forte’s guitar before he crunched them in a series of titanic power strokes. The crowd went berserk.

Bruce couldn’t believe the incendiary performance. Though his mind never wandered more than a step away from Gloria, he still marveled at Forte’s scorching guitar riffs.

“Did I really just hear that solo?” Jamie cried over the euphoric crowd.

Bruce applauded and put his fingers to his mouth, giving a loud whistle. The solo was nearly unimaginable. Forte was back at the microphone now. He wasn’t nearly as accomplished a singer as he was a guitarist, but he had powerful pipes. At once lilting like Colin Meloy and growling like Eddie Vedder.

He nodded at Jamie. “He’ll be headlining at the Garden; it’s just a matter of time.”

The song ended with an expertly orchestrated shuffle—the band was tight all the way around—and Forte drank in the audience’s appreciation. Bruce clapped along, but a tingle of frustration worked its way into his heart. He hadn’t divined anything from the show that might have been a sign. Forte did some Hendrix early on, and later tunes by Mitch Ryder and Marvin Gaye. The rest of the show was original material. No Zeppelin. No “Stairway to Heaven.”

Jamie read his expression and her smile slipped. “Yeah, I’m not sure why we’re here, either. It’s hard to believe the Auxilia just wanted us to enjoy a good show.”

Bruce pursed his lips. Forte kicked into another song, announcing that it would be the last of the evening. “Let’s see if we can talk to him when he comes off.”

They hung around. They waited. Bruce ordered a soda, worried that anything stronger might dull his senses. The crowd pressed in and Bruce kept his radar up, but nothing seemed relevant to what they were looking for.

Finally, Jamie spotted Forte.

Bruce threaded his way to the other side of the bar where Forte stood looking as if he were trying to get the bartender’s attention.

Bruce stuck out his hand. “Great set tonight. Can I buy you a drink?”

Forte shook Bruce’s hand. “Yeah, thanks. I’ll take a Rolling Rock.”

“One Rolling Rock for the rock-and-roller.”

Bruce placed the order and introduced himself and Jamie. The three of them chatted about music. Jamie did most of the talking, thank God. All Bruce wanted to do was grab Forte by the jacket and shake out a sign. Demand he explain his place in all of this, what those diner lyrics meant. That probably wouldn’t have been the best approach.

Jamie made conversation, gently probing. Bruce shifted his weight from one side to the other. He glowered at the beer bottle in Forte’s hand and his eyes rested on the number thirty-three. If Gloria were here, he’d be telling her . . .

If Gloria were here, she’d be safe and he’d have taken her to this show just for the sake of going to hear a red-hot musician. In fact, they probably wouldn’t have even come across Forte because they never would have been in Maine, and they wouldn’t have seen his show until some distant day when the guy made it to the Garden.

Bruce sighed. No, if Gloria were here he’d be telling tell her about that number thirty-three on the label of Rolling Rock. How during the Great Depression, the company had come up with a thirty-three-word slogan that they wanted printed on the label. That the printer mistook their meaning and printed the number thirty-three instead of the thirty-three-word slogan.

He’d tell her that they filled those bottles with beer and sent them out into the world, screwed up labels and all, because they never wasted anything during the Depression.

A true fact, not a fake fact.

It was another one of Bruce’s stupid useless facts—facts that had stopped being useless when he met Gloria, because they made her smile and even laugh.

The thought of Gloria’s smile made it impossible for him to remain patient.

“So, Forte,” he said, interrupting Jamie mid-sentence. “How come you didn’t do ‘Stairway to Heaven’ tonight?”

Forte’s black rough-cut hair spiked around his face. His forehead still glistened from being onstage. He cocked an eye at Bruce. “Why would I do that overplayed crap?”

Bruce felt confused by this response—and surprisingly angry.

Jamie picked up on the look in Bruce’s eye and stepped in front of him. “What my friend here means is, well, we heard something of yours.”

She began to sing:

If you should find your love is true love,

Then do you know,

That you must wander toward the whispering winds.

Forte’s eyes narrowed as Jamie sang more of the revamped lyrics. Bruce saw it in his face. This guy had written them all right.

But Forte struggled for an air of nonchalance. “Where’d you come up with that?”

Jamie tilted her head. “We heard it on the jukebox. At a diner not far from here, and your name was listed as the artist. That’s what led us to find you tonight.”

Forte shook his head with a laugh. His expression seemed to flicker, a click of recognition before slipping away under a posturing smirk.

Bruce got angrier.

Forte shrugged and turned to Bruce. “Weird, man. You know what she’s talking about?”

“Yeah, I know exactly what she’s talking about. I was there. And you know what else? I think you know exactly what she’s talking about, too.”

Forte shifted. He held on to the smirk a moment longer and then couldn’t seem to keep it up anymore. He grew serious. “This is too weird, man,” he said, looking down at the floor. “I don’t get it.”

He rubbed his hair back and forth.

Jamie laid a hand on his arm. “Just tell us what you know about those lyrics.”

Forte shrugged. “Nothing, really. I wrote’m down a long time ago, must have been about a year. I was bored, just screwin’ around, you know? I sure as hell never recorded it. I don’t have a clue how you could have seen my name on the jukebox. That ain’t right.”

Bruce took a step closer. “Well it is weird, and it is right. A lot of weird things have been happening lately. But that’s exactly the way we heard it. And for us, it means something way more important than you can imagine.”

Forte did that hair-rubbing thing again. “Look. I can’t tell you how strange this is. Bruce and Jamie, right? Where are you folks from?”

Jamie smiled at Bruce, a soothing smile. A shut-up-and-let-me-handle-this smile. She turned that smile back to Forte.

“We’re from New York, both of us. Bruce and I are real good friends. There’s this, this . . . we’re trying to find . . .”

Bruce cut in. “I’m having a little trouble with my fiancée. Got me pretty worried.”

Jamie’s blue eyes looked at Bruce as if she wasn’t sure whether he might fly into a fury or spill all of the insane, truthful details. She needn’t have worried. Bruce wasn’t quite that far gone yet.

Forte was clearly intrigued by even these vague hints. Where he’d been the picture of the aloof rocker minutes ago, now he seemed focused. He put a hand to each of their shoulders.

“Tell you what. Bruce? Jamie? I think you guys need to drive me to my next gig.”

13

NEW YORK

GLORIA TRIED THE DOOR. Amazingly, it opened. She’d expected it to be locked, but no; it opened into the most amazing penthouse living area she could imagine.

And she was alone.

Completely, utterly, alone. No Aaron Vance, not even that gentle mouthless one, Sileny. Gloria ran to the main vestibule and groped for a door.

None existed.

No external door in the entire penthouse flat.

All right. At least she was out of that bedroom. Still more freedom than she’d thought she had.

She stepped into the kitchen and checked the cabinets. Inside them was every appliance she could imagine. And the cookware! Single cast. Not assembled, anodized, or plated. Single cast bonded metals for perfect convection. Her mind ran through the inventory of what she’d find in her own cabinets. Cheap materials that transferred a haphazard distribution of heat from the stove.

She could cook here if she wanted to. It seemed wrong to have shared a meal with Aaron Vance last night and she didn’t want to do that again. Better to prepare her own meals. She checked the refrigerator. Foie gras. Octopus? She even found black truffles the size of golf balls. Whole black truffles! Casually stored in plastic for ripening in the crisper tray.

She could make anything. Anything.

If she were going to be kidnapped and imprisoned, she could think of worse facilities in which to be held hostage.

Her heart fluttered. A sickle of unease sliced at her. What was the point of appreciating any of her surroundings? She was being held against her will, period. It could never be acceptable, no matter how luxurious.

And yet her body insisted that she eat. She wouldn’t make anything extravagant. Let it be dry toast and cold cuts. She would eat only the simplest food, wear the plainest clothes, and utilize only that which was necessary. She would let her actions and attitude speak of her protest, if not through outright words. Yes, that’s what she would do.

But for right now, she was famished.

MAINE

“You want to tell us where we’re going?” Bruce said, drumming his fingers on the van’s dashboard. They’d picked the musician up at first light. Though the guy had rocked the house the night before, he seemed impervious to the lack of sleep, and that suited Bruce just fine. Sleep got him nowhere closer to getting Gloria back. If he could, he’d skip sleeping altogether until she was safe.

Forte patted him on the shoulder. “Relax, buddy! We got time. It’s a full day’s drive.”

“What!”

“That’s fine,” Jamie said quickly, her hand gripping the steering wheel. “We were looking for a new direction.” She glanced over at Bruce and then back to Forte. “How long have you been playing guitar?”

Forte shrugged. “Started playing when I was three. Got my first gig when I was ten. Pretty much been on the road ever since.”

“Has anyone offered you a record deal yet?” Bruce asked him.

Forte shook his head quickly. “Contract offers come along every now and then. One’s half decent, another one’s not. When I know it’s right, I’ll sign. Right now the road is what’s right.”

“Sounds like you’re waiting for the skies to open up,” Bruce said.

“I’m not really waiting for anything, to tell you the truth. My girlfriend says I should just go for it. I don’t know, though. I could put out my stuff now, but it’s not ready yet. You know, right? You heard it last night.”

Jamie glanced over her shoulder. “I thought it was pretty hot.”

“Thank you. But I can do better. I feel like I’m just outside of where I need to be. Just barely outside. When I do the record contract, I want to make sure I got something that’s gonna hold the fire a hundred years from now. It’d be stupid to go through the motions just to get paid when I’m so close. Anything I put out, my name’s on it. Forever.”

“That’s actually very commendable,” Jamie said.

Forte lifted his shoulders. “Whatever. You want to know the truth? It ain’t time. I don’t know why, but it just ain’t time yet.”

Jamie’s eyes found Forte in the rearview mirror and Bruce swiveled to look at him.

“You know, don’t you?” Jamie said.

Forte returned a blank expression, and for a moment Bruce thought he was going to plead ignorance. Then his lips parted and he fixed his gaze on the window.

Finally, he spoke. “The extra ‘Stairway’ lyrics came one night. Right around Cinco de Mayo last year. My buddy was into all this silly shit. He called it ‘automatic writing.’ So I’m like, ‘Okay. Whatever.’ He gave me the pen and told me what to do. I let it fly. I’m thinkin’, ‘Okay, you know. This is where the road takes me.’ I write down some shit and it’s weird, I mean, I wasn’t expecting to feel so slapped around by it. But it was like I’d been run over by a train after.”

He nodded at Jamie in the driver’s seat. “And now here we are a year later with you singing back to me the stuff I wrote that night.”

He laughed, an easy, inviting laugh, and his eyes traveled with the mile-markers moving past on the road beyond.

Bruce sat on edge. Jamie was right—Forte’s gig was probably exactly where they were supposed to be going. Bruce hoped. He looked out the window, watching the rows of crops that sped past in strobe. This is taking me somewhere, he thought. At least I pray it is.

“I’ve been trying to figure it out, ever since last night,” Forte said. “I just don’t get it. I figured I’d talk to you guys this morning on the road cuz everything always comes clear on the road. Figured I’d get it. But I still don’t get it. And for some reason I get the feeling it’s okay, I got all I need to know for right now, and it’s cool I’m just sitting here shooting the shit with you guys. Something’s going down here. Something serious. And I don’t believe it’s just girlfriend trouble.”

Bruce looked at Jamie. Her eyes showed hope, but he could see she wanted him to keep quiet. Last night she’d privately told him they should wait until they got to know Forte before telling him anything about their plans. Bruce no longer agreed.

“Here’s the thing,” Bruce said.

He took a breath and then told Forte everything that had happened. He left nothing out. Not even the stuff about Enervata that he barely comprehended himself. He knew by the way she white-knuckled the steering wheel that Jamie was worried. She probably figured he was sounding a little too strange for the peripatetic rocker—that Forte would make a mad dash at the next rest stop. Bruce didn’t care. If Forte thought they were crazy, then fine. They need not waste any more time with the guy.

But when Bruce finished the story, the musician only shook his head. “So, we’re on a quest, huh?” Forte crossed his arms and nodded, a slow, rocker-wise kind of nod. His eyes flickered across the front seat of the van. “I should get some really good tunes out of this.”

NEW YORK

“Got a bit of a situation, haven’t we, master?” Glueg tapped his fingers along his pint jar.

Enervata turned. “What is it?”

Rafe held his breath, certain that the brothers had discovered their secret and were about to expose it.

Hedon piped in. “We’ve a small opportunity ’ere. An unexpected development, isn’t it? Overseas, yes, there’s a prince and a duchess who’ve gone made eyes at each other. No one notorious, not in the dailies. But it’s a pair-normale any way you look at it.”

Rafe let out his breath in a slow, inaudible stream. He noted the slightest relaxation in Isolde’s posture as well.

Glueg continued where Hedon left off. “So this pair-normale, with the right kind of encouragement, could cause a minor international incident, you understand? Maybe even a war. Somethin’ to think about, yes? She were to play a part in it, our Sileny would be right fat as a toad now, wouldn’t she? I know you said our primary focus should be the bond-recherché, but under the circumstances . . .”

Shadows danced over Enervata’s bronze face. He turned and smiled at Hedon and Glueg.

The other Pravus took a step backward.

“A small war,” Enervata said with a twitch in his tail. “How delightful. How satisfying. How utterly . . . distracting.”

Hedon and Glueg began to roll in their seats, muttering affirmations into their jars of honey wine.

Enervata curled his lip, narrowing his eyes at the brothers. The pint jars flashed suddenly and then shattered in their hands. They sat back in surprise. Enervata grabbed Glueg by the throat and yanked him out of his seat, speaking his words slowly, deliberately, as Glueg gulped for air.

“Now hear this. All of you. No more distractions. No errors. The sluggish pace is trying my patience.”

His face hovered inches from Glueg’s. “As for you two, I warned you that I wasn’t to hear another word on any matter unrelated to the bond-recherché. I said you are to watch my enemies. Focus on Kolt.”

They nodded with vigor.

“You sots can never seem to devote your attention until blood is shed.”

He released Glueg, who then fell to his knees, coughing, eyes bulging. Glueg spread his hands and apologized profusely.

Enervata glowered at Sileny and the brothers.

“Rafe and Isolde seem to be the only ones who can carry out their instructions. At least the quest is stymied and we need not concern ourselves with interference from the young man Bruce. As for you, Glueg, on your feet.”

Glueg’s eyes grew wide. “Master? On my word, I’ll not trouble you again.”

“No, you will not. I shall see to that. On your feet.”

Glueg began to weep. He pointed at Hedon. “Please! It’s his fault. Me brother don’t know when to let it go, he don’t! I told him you wouldn’t approve! Have mercy on me, master! Take me brother instead!”

Hedon gaped, his blood-crusted piggish nostrils flaring, and his face grew deathly pale. He uttered not a word.

Enervata growled. “I said, on your feet!”

Glueg lurched to his feet as if grasped by an invisible force. He wailed and thrashed. And then he rose higher, feet dangling just above the floor. He clawed at his own neck. A snaking trail of steam escaped from his clothing and he began to shriek.

Glueg smoldered and burned. Not in the morphing indigo flame that had transformed Rafe and Isolde, but in the manner of a witch at the stake. He burned rapidly, wholly incinerated in a matter of moments until all that remained of him was the lingering stench of charred hair.

Hedon’s gaze rested somewhere else, the slightest tremor to his right hand.

Rafe’s throat clenched. His eyes flicked to Isolde, who showed no expression.

They would survive at least another day.

14

MICHIGAN

“HELLO ALL YOU CATS AND KITTENS. Shannon Power here. Are you ready to shake it up and rock it out?”

Bruce and Jamie grinned at Forte, then returned their attention to the stage where the sparkling choppy-haired brunette was making the introductions. They’d been listening to this Shannon Power, the local DJ, on the way up and finally Forte confessed she’d been his girlfriend for the past year. Bruce could tell by the way Forte was watching the stage that he was inside out, head over heels for her.

Shannon draped a hand over the mic stand. “I know folks. You want me to tell ya something good. Well get ready cuz I got something good to tell ya. Yessir, we got one hot rocker in Ann Arbor tonight.”

The audience cheered.

She looked offstage to where the sound guy was replacing some connections. The stage manager shook his head and gave her a thumbs-down.

She tossed her hair and looked back at the audience. “Okay, in just a couple of minutes we’ll bring that cat on up here. He’s probably the only cat won’t make me sneeze, neither.”

A ripple of laughter from the crowd.

Someone shouted, “Give us your one-minute Fashion Statements, Shannon!”

And from someone else, “Talk to us, Shannon!”

She grinned. “All right. Speakin’ of cats, my roommate’s got one. That thing can tell I got serious feline issues, too. Probably why I got cats on the mind tonight. It ain’t that I don’t like cats, ya know? Cats are fine. It’s just that they make me sneeze and break out in hives! My roommate’s cat comes in and allasudden I’m the one hacking up a hairball. It thinks I’m nuts. It also thinks my shoe makes a good litter box.”

Jamie snickered.

Shannon Power eyed the stage manager and continued. “You know what I paid for those shoes? I’ll tell you what, cost more’n my car. That’s like, what, fifty bucks?”

A ripple of laughter from the audience.

“I got my revenge, though, on both of’m. Yesterday I got to help my roommate give the kitty its pills.” She grinned, wiggling her brows. “My roommate says, ‘You hold the kitty, and I’ll pop the pill in its mouth.’”

Shannon wagged her finger. “I’m all, ‘No no no. You hold the kitty and I’ll cram the pill in its little mouth.’ So we tried it, and the kitty shredded her blouse, spat out the pill, and scratched two Xs on her arm. Kitty gives her the injurious aspect, the evil eye.”

She paused. Jamie and Bruce looked at each other.

Shannon continued. “With that malevolent lip . . .”

She stopped again, blinking as if she hadn’t intended to say those words.

Jamie squeezed Bruce’s hand and whispered, “The malevolent lip, the sorcerer spry!”

Onstage, the DJ shook her head. “Anyway. So my roommate got a new blouse and we tried it again. This time she put kitty in a pillowcase with her head sticking out. Kitty shredded the pillow case then shredded the new blouse, spat out the pill, and bit two holes in her arm.”

The audience guffawed. Forte jogged over to where the sound guy was working.

“So my roommate said to me, ‘You want to try it one more time?’ And I said, ‘Why not. Kitty gets one more shot at an X-scratch or O-bite and you’ll have tic-tac-toe.’”

The crowed clapped and cheered.

Shannon grinned. “I said to her, ‘What’s the pill for, anyway?’ You know what she told me? She said . . .”

She paused, backing away from the microphone as she laughed and shook her head. She put her lips close to the mic and continued, “It’s for anxiety.”

The audience roared. She shook her head and spread her hands. “I’m all, ‘Anxiety? Kitty’s anxious? Maybe it’s because we’re stuffing it in a pillowcase. Can’t you just give it a little catnip tea or something? Bake some catnip into special brownies?’”

Forte jogged back to his position and both the sound guy and stage manager gave her the thumbs-up.

“All right, here we go ladies and gentleman. Somethin’ to make you purr. Whenever I see this next rock-and-roller, I know I purr. Rrrrrrowrr!”

Her voice grew jubilant. “Let’s show our love for Mister Charles Forte!”

She jumped and raised her hands over her head to applaud. When she did, her leather jacket opened slightly to reveal her T-shirt underneath. Red with a yellow heart in the center.

The audience whooped and Forte launched right in with a smoking guitar solo.

Bruce and Jamie zeroed their sites on Shannon Power as she left the stage.

NEW YORK

The library carried as comprehensive a selection as Gloria could imagine. She found the classics of course, and all her favorites, but she discovered a few indulgences, too. The types of things she read just for fun. She pored through them all, and found herself curled on the couch, lost in an illustrated vintage copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland when Aaron Vance entered.

She caught her breath, suddenly self-conscious, and started for the bedroom.

“You don’t need to leave,” he said. “I would welcome your company this evening.”

She paused at her bedroom archway. A grand carved door framed him in the foyer, a door that did not exist until moments ago.

She gave a rueful laugh. “Exactly what is it you want of me? How long do you plan to keep me here?”

Vance inclined his head. “I would like to apologize. I realize the way I have handled this must seem a little extreme. You have to understand, things unfold differently in my universe.”

He gestured toward the couch where she’d been sitting. “Please, I owe you an explanation at the very least.”

Gloria’s chin pointed downward, but she allowed her eyes to lift to him. Yes, he did owe her an explanation at the very least. She stepped to the couch and sat down.

“Thank you.” Vance bowed slightly, and then walked to a panel in the wall that opened when he pushed it. A backlit selection of wine bottles formed the inner lining. He took two glasses and ran his fingers over the bottles, extracting one. He sat opposite Gloria.

“This is difficult to explain. As you might have surmised, I live in a different world.”

She allowed for a bitter laugh. “A world where doors vanish and then materialize later?”

“Something like that. I have lived long beyond what most people think is a normal lifespan. When you exist as I do, you tend not to consider minor details. What I think of as deceits of the now. In my world, I see only what is meant to be, true destiny. And in you, I feel an unusual connection. Something that occurs once in a lifetime. In a lifetime such as mine, that is saying quite a lot.”

He opened the bottle, a twenty-year-old Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, and poured two glasses.

Gloria shook her head. “No, thank you.”

He shrugged, having already poured, and lifted his own crystal to his lips. “I realize in retrospect that I may have come off as abrupt in seizing upon what I saw as destiny.”

“In other words, you’re still asserting that the end justifies the means.”

“But it does, my dear. It is like pulling a bandage from a healing wound—a necessary step in the process. Better to do it quickly.”

“Perhaps. Except for one thing. My destiny is with Bruce.” She lifted her hand and showed him her engagement ring.

Vance set his glass on the table. “I understand that you believe that to be true. I only wish you could see the world from my vantage point. What you thought was your destiny is simply a deceit of the now. You will come to understand your new path. You were always meant to be with me, Gloria.”

“If you truly believe that, then let me go.”

He stared at her, silent.

She gave a rueful shake of her head. “That’s what I thought. How can you possibly pretend to know my destiny? I have created my life exactly how I want it, Aaron. I’ve worked hard to get a job at Woven Hillside that gives me both professional and personal satisfaction and gives something meaningful to the world. I am in charge of my own destiny.”

Before she realized what she was doing, she put the glass to her lips and sipped. The wine felt like velvet and tasted of cherries and Asian spices. And the scent of it! A perfumed bouquet that imparted a beautiful swimming sensation.

She would not take another sip. Absolutely not.

She looked at him. “My destiny is my own. And I am in love with Bruce. We’re going to be married.”

Vance set his glass down on the table. A smile—or was that a smirk—played at his eyes. He seemed confident in some cache of knowledge that lay beyond her grasp.

He evened out his expression and looked at her. “You will find soon enough, my Gloria, that Bruce is no longer an option.”

15

MICHIGAN

“SO WHAT, YOU JUST RIDE around the US collecting people? You’re like human flypaper or something? Never thought I’d be so excited to be a fly. Mama always said my bug-eyes would come in handy some day.”

Bruce smiled at Shannon. The DJ was nervous, and why shouldn’t she be? She’d just agreed to help track down a love-killing monster. They were crunching through the moonlit gravel parking lot to the van to make a grocery run for the next day while Forte packed up his equipment.

Jamie clicked the unlock button on the keychain and they climbed inside.

Bruce nodded at Shannon. “You were great up there tonight. We couldn’t stop laughing.”

She sparkled. “Thanks. Wasn’t expecting that little impromptu sesh. Thought I was just gonna introduce my boyfriend and that would be that. But they had some kind of technical problem and I just had to wing it.”

Bruce laughed. “The kitty tic-tac-toe thing? You didn’t plan that?”

She put her hands up. “It really just happened yesterday! Not quite that way, but I hammed it up a bit. Just kind of let go and said the first thing that popped into my mind.”

“You must have done stand-up before.”

“I’ve done a bunch of local gigs. The cats out here in Michigan are so good. They’re real loyal, so I usually have an audience. But life happens. My world changed. I couldn’t do the stand-up thing anymore, so I stick with the radio station. It’s nice and steady.”

“Why couldn’t you do stand-up?” Jamie said.

Shannon inclined her head. “Ah . . .” She looked away. “My mama got sick. I was the only one who could look after . . . she . . . she . . . got real sick.”

Jamie’s eyes softened. “I’m sorry. Is she okay now?”

Shannon looked back at her with a pain that brightened her eyes as if it were fresh. “I lost her. She’s gone. Couple of months ago.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. It was good. She’s not suffering anymore. Anyway, Mama was the real theatrical one. She was brilliant! She taught me the thing about how to open up your mind and just improv the funny. Just let the funny roar! So when things go down and I gotta tap dance a little onstage, I don’t sweat it. That’s what happened tonight.”

Jamie gave her a sidelong look. “The injurious aspect, the evil eye?”

“Oh, that!” Shannon put a hand over her mouth. “Don’t know where that came from. That’s Mama’s trick I use with improv. You just kind of open your mind and let whatever comes flow through you. Usually, it comes out funny! But that thing about the evil eye—I don’t know, I guess the method kind of backfired.”

Bruce looked at Jamie, then back at Shannon. “Did you hear it somewhere before?”

She shook her head. “Just automatic talking. No compass, no map.”

They pulled into the parking lot of the twenty-four-hour grocer and hopped out.

“Well I’m so glad you’re coming with us,” Jamie said. “How long have you and Charles been seeing each other?”

Shannon looked up at the stars. “We met at a Cinco de Mayo fiesta last year. He was doing a gig up here and I was totally blown away. I see a lot of artists in this business, but he’s a legend in the making. Anyway, the night I met him after that first show, he was having a hard time. Nothing real serious, just something happened that upset him. Something about Led Zeppelin that he doesn’t like to talk about. I guess I was just the only one around that he could decompress with. For whatever reason, he and I connected.”

She closed her lips over a smile that became suddenly shy. “He comes up here to Ann Arbor whenever he can. We talk on the phone a lot and, you know, it’s nice to have someone to text at night.”

Bruce watched her curiously. Cinco de Mayo a year ago, Gloria and I found each other for the first time. “What exactly happened that night you met?”

“I don’t know. He never really wanted to talk about it. But I’ve been opening my show with ‘Stairway to Heaven’ ever since.”

“Must be hard,” Jamie said. “Being apart all the time.”

Shannon nodded. “Yeah. But he’s a road warrior and I . . . I just couldn’t do that. Not with Mama. But now . . . I just haven’t pulled it together after that, not yet. The morning radio show’s good for me. And emceeing at the clubs. Keeps me swingin’. I just wish Charlie weren’t gone so much.”

Shannon breathed deeply and clapped her hands together. “And apparently he can talk me into anything, because here I am! Hope you guys don’t mind another backseat driver on your road trip.”

NEW YORK

“I need you to contact someone for me.”

Sileny backed away from her, shaking her head.

“Please, Sileny, you’re my only hope!”

Sileny moved her hands rapidly. She made a V with her two fingers at Gloria’s eyes and then pointed forward.

Gloria felt tears welling and her voice caught. “You don’t understand. My fiancé is worried about me. I have been missing for days and he’s probably frantic. I have to tell him where I am so he can come for me!”

Sileny shook her head vigorously, closing her eyes.

“You have to help me! I’ve tried everything, but I can’t get out of here!”

Sileny grabbed Gloria’s hands and pulled her to the settee. She smoothed Gloria’s hair, and once again her hands advised her to keep looking forward, to never look back.

“I can’t,” Gloria wept. “You don’t understand. Bruce is my life. If you could just tell him—”

Sileny’s hands flew. Gloria did not understand.

Sileny sighed, looking away. She sat still for a moment, and then used slow, deliberate gestures.

Gloria watched. “You never leave here, either?”

Sileny pointed to her own face.

Of course she didn’t leave. She didn’t have a mouth. Here, where the unusual prevailed, Gloria no longer thought anything of it. But out in the world, Sileny would not be able to function.

“No e-mail, or even snail mail?”

Sileny shook her head. She pointed at herself, and then down at the floor, and Gloria understood. Whether by choice or by dictum, Sileny wandered no farther than Gloria did. Gloria wondered if the poor soul even had a friend on this Earth.

She turned from her, feeling tears come to her eyes. She stared into nothingness. “If only I could see him. Just for a moment. Just look at him. I think it would give me the strength I need.”

Sileny breathed deeply, and then nervously tapped her knuckles to her head.

She breathed in sharply as if making a decision, and bent to rest her forehead for a moment on Gloria’s. She raised a finger to tell her to wait.

Gloria blinked tears at her. “Sileny?”

Sileny strode to the door and opened it, slipping through. Before the door closed behind her, Gloria could hear voices. One of them sounded like Vance’s. But the moment the door shut, all sound outside her room disappeared.

The strangeness of it unsettled her. They occupied a penthouse flat, yet it seemed in another dimension. Closed doors meant more than a barrier to the next room, and beyond the outer walls lay something much more distant than neighbors. The structure rested at the topmost floor, but Gloria would have expected to hear something of the outside. Music, or structural sounds at least, like plumbing or an elevator chime.

But no, nothing.

Sileny opened the door and again came the sound of voices, this time agitated.

How many times would Gloria wonder about Vance’s daily life? Before, her life had been simple: go to work, come home. Now her routine moved with even greater simplicity: read; wait for Sileny or, if she felt she could brave it, Vance.

The door closed and the voices vanished. Sileny sat down next to Gloria on the settee. She slipped her hands under her apron and withdrew a dagger.

Gloria gasped.

She looked up at Sileny and saw her watching her intently, face angled in smooth lines but for her enormous eyes and the mole at her cheek.

Sileny placed the dagger in Gloria’s hands. Her fingers made the V at Gloria’s eyes, but instead of pointing forward, she pointed back. She then raised the dagger before Gloria’s face.

Gloria understood. She breathed deeply, thinking of her life before she met Aaron Vance. How she went to work every day at Woven Hillside, met with clients, and raised funding for projects that gave her a great deal of satisfaction.

The dagger gleamed silver, a ruby-eyed dragon with emerald scales snaking the hilt.

Sileny’s fingers brushed Gloria’s lids and she closed them. Gloria thought of Bruce. Bruce walking her to work. Making her laugh. Holding her hand.

She opened her eyes.

The dagger gleamed before her. And in the shining surface of the blade, she saw no reflection of the room. Instead, she saw Bruce.

Blue skies framed his face and his sandy hair glinted in sunshine. In the frozen moment captured within the dagger, Bruce was smiling. But someone’s head lay on his shoulder. Not Gloria’s. The other likeness Gloria saw in the dagger had round blue eyes with coppery hair canted at opposing angles in a pixie cut.

Jamie.

Gloria’s fingers tensed, and the sharp blade slipped from her hands.

16

MICHIGAN

“MAYBE ONE OF THESE DAYS we’ll get a good night’s sleep,” Jamie said, resting her head on Bruce’s shoulder as they waited on a bench outside Shannon’s apartment building.

Bruce shook his head slowly. “Only one thing is going to give me a good night’s sleep at this point.”

Jamie smiled and patted his arm. “We’re going to get her, you know.”

Bruce put his hand over Jamie’s. “I know. We are going to get her. I’m certain of that. What I’m not certain about is where we’re going next. Any thoughts on that one?”

Jamie rolled her eyes. “Not a clue. And I mean that literally.”

Shannon and Forte bounded out of the apartment building carrying a leopard-print duffel.

“Charlie cancelled all his gigs for the next week!” Shannon announced.

“That’s right! Never done that before in my life!” Forte took Shannon’s hand and spun her around on the sidewalk.

They loaded the bag into the van and then strolled the few blocks to the deli. Bruce chewed his lip. Might as well take a stroll. Might as well take all the time in the world. We don’t know where the hell we’re going next, anyway.

He opened the jingling glass door and the four of them stepped through. The lighted display case glowed with tantalizing morsels of sweet and savory, and although the sun had barely risen, Zingerman’s Delicatessen buzzed with a long line of locals in the know.

Shannon definitely seemed in her element. “Don’t bother sitting down. This place is about the food, you know? ’Sides, we gotta hop on the van-wagon and scale those Pillars of Humanity. You may want to split something because everything’s humongous. Charlie and I’ll get the breakfast BLT. You want the breakfast BLT, babe? That’d be a nice hearty pre-Armageddon breakfast! What do you guys like? Do you like bagels? Get the ham, egg, and cheddar, it’s insane!”

Forte hit some chords on his air guitar and sang in a falsetto, “Ham and egg bagels with cheddar CHEE-yez, it’s in-SAY-eee-YANE!”

Apparently, Shannon and Forte were both morning people. Bruce wished for one of those breakfast BLTs now just so he could stuff it in their gobs and shut them up. Their good humor and sense of abandon ratcheted up his sense of desperation. “I just want coffee,” he muttered.

Shannon chortled on. “Oh, they have great coffee. But you’d better get something more substantial. We got a long road ahead and—”

Bruce’s eyes swerved to her. “How do you know?”

Everyone turned to regard Bruce, surprised at the edge in his voice.

He puffed through his nose. “How do you know we have a long road ahead? Does anyone know where we’re going? Anyone?”

Three pairs of eyes regarded him in silence.

He lifted his shoulders. “I’m sorry. I just can’t get the image out of my mind, with Gloria and . . . I can’t stand . . . I just wish I knew for sure what I should be doing. I don’t even know why we’re standing at this deli in Ann Arbor.”

Jamie tugged at her cropped coppery hair. “I know this is frustrating, Bruce, and I wish I’d gotten better preparation for all of this. But I’m convinced we’re on the right track. We were supposed to meet Charles and Shannon; I’m certain of it.”

Bruce sighed.

The trail of people behind them in line grew longer. Folks streamed in and out, sinking their teeth into steaming fragrant breakfast sandwiches or carrying paper bags stuffed with baked goods. The woman behind them waved at someone across the room, accidentally nudging Jamie as she did.

Jamie turned back to Bruce and the others. “I think we need to keep moving, keep touching down at different places, and keep our eyes open. Things’ll keep falling into place.”

Bruce breathed deeply, and then gave a nod. “I suppose. It just seems crazy to even get in the car if we don’t know which way to turn.”

At that moment, the woman behind Jamie shouted, “Dayton, Ohio!”

They all swiveled to look at her. She was still addressing someone across the room and did not even realize she had captured their attention.

Forte furrowed his brow with wide eyes. “Um, is that meant to be our answer to where we go next?”

“Dayton. Dayton, Ohio!” the woman repeated.

They all looked at one another. Bruce felt the tension in his jaw muscles lift.

Jamie grinned, and mouthed the words, Dayton, Ohio.

“That would be a left out of the parking lot, no?” Bruce said, suddenly thinking a ham, egg, and cheddar bagel sounded good.

NEW YORK

A suicide bless’d. A welcome rest.

Rafe’s centuries-old pact with Enervata had forfeited their souls and stripped them of humanity, changing their bodies forever. The time had come for that to end.

Isolde had watched over Bruce and his companions in Michigan. Though she strove to suppress all signs, they still filtered through like water droplets in a sugar bowl. Forming patterns without introducing any new elements, just assuming their natural shape in things that already existed. How could she block such forces?

It was fortunate that Rafe had been called away for a new development concerning Kolt. Having failed alone in this task, she need only assume responsibility for herself. She would tell Enervata of the incident in Ann Arbor. Rafe had not been present, so his cursed blood need not spill. She would tell Enervata that she had failed in her task and she would look upon her capital punishment as welcome succor.

Ever since Rafe spoke of an end to this damnable existence, what relief may come in a simple death that should have occurred centuries ago, Isolde had longed for that relief. Of course, Rafe immediately rescinded the notion. Planted the seed in Isolde’s psyche and then backpedaled. Cowered. Coward!

Rafe probably delighted over Kolt’s emergence. Enervata’s focus would be diverted. As of yet, Rafe and Isolde had not even reported the addition of Charles Forte and Shannon Power to Bruce’s company. Ridiculous! Were Enervata to learn that Rafe and Isolde had not only failed in their tasks but also failed to report it, his rage would transcend simple murder. Enervata had ways to make a body long for death. And diversion or none, Isolde and Rafe both knew that time slipped ever closer to the hour when Enervata would find out.

Let it be now.

Her pantry lay barren of Enervata’s meager rations of repose. Holding reign over the wild-lands now seemed as empty a promise as any he’d ever offered. And now she even lost the comfort of her community. Transformed as she was, her own canteshrikes shunned her, and she could not even so much as hunt pixieflies.

Isolde saw Rafe’s assignment to the Kolt development as a gift. Her quick death; no bloodstained hands, blood of her hated former lover.

A gift of freedom from her hated former lover.

Finally, after so long, to tear away.

She entered the penthouse flat.

Enervata greeted her with the warmest, most uncharacteristic smile. “Ah, Isolde the Fair.”

17

OHIO

THEY’D BEEN DRIVING FOR HOURS. Shannon and Forte had been talking nonstop since they left Ann Arbor, but a few miles back even they’d slowed down. Bruce figured it was time for a break. While his emotions told him to move constantly until he found a way to defeat Enervata, his instincts told him that all of the questers needed to stay fresh. He took the next exit and started down the off-ramp.

Jamie, who’d seemed absorbed in her thoughts as she looked out the window, suddenly sat up straight, grabbed his elbow, and shouted, “Bruce, slow down!”

“What? It’s not like I’m going that fast.”

But even as he spoke, the van slowed—not because he’d hit the brakes, but as though someone else controlled the pedals. The van followed the sharp curve of the exit ramp and Bruce saw a petroleum tanker sitting in the middle of the lane.

Everyone cried out.

Bruce swerved and avoided the truck. As he passed it, though, he could see someone inside the cab, looking out with a dark, distant expression. Bruce felt a chill as he watched the man, something more intense than the icy rush that came with a close, dangerous encounter.

Something deeper. And more insidious.

Hidey hidey hidey ho!

His grimace clenched in place, he sat in the cab of the petroleum fuel truck. That decent tool fuck. Yes yes yes. Yes yes yes. The fat little leprechaun told him so.

His eyes swam toward ye olde rearview mirror. And just as told by that pot of freakin’ gold, he saw that van come nearer.

Halllloooooooo! Halloo, van!

It swerved. Careened. And he had to snicker.

Here he sat in the cab, loose in his ways. Waiting outside the Tollie-Do town. Somewhere in Ohio. O!

Hidey hidey hidey ho!

It careened! Ravined . . . retrieved.

Van moved on.

Ho.

Screechy careenie. In that rearview mirror, another came nearer. Who cares? Not the van.

This one was some other.

A 4x4.

His grimace clenched in place. He let it firm his face.

The one in the 4x4 got out and walked toward him with no sway and no shimmy. He said to him, “Hey, buddy, you okay?” and, “You need a lift?” and, “Can I make a phone call for ya there, buddy? Dangerous, your petroleum tanker sitting at that curve of an off-ramp!”

The grimace clenched in place, he replied, “Hoodie hoo de hooo!” “Fuckin’ moron. I’m calling the cops.”

And the 4x4 one left. Van was loooooooooonng gone, anyhows.

Grimace clenched in place, he picked up the CB and pressed the little button.

“That’s a ten-four, Hedon!” And then a snicker. And then, “Hidey hidey hidey hi!”

And then bye-de-bye-de-bye.

He leaned his head on the steering column. Let his eyes blinky goodnight. Let the world sail out of sight. Let the lungs stop. Lungs stop. Lungs stop their pumpin’ delight.

That leprechaun goin’ nighty-bye. Tattle-tell it, Hedon! Hidey hi during! Bye-de-bye-de-bye. Hedon.

Grimace.

Clenched.

In place.

The van angled around the tanker and continued down the exit ramp.

Bruce stole a glance at Jamie. “How did you know to slow down as we came off the exit ramp? One of those tinkles you told me about?”

Her face white, Jamie nodded.

“Good save, man! I thought we were gonna hit that truck for sure,” Forte said, letting out his breath.

Shannon laughed nervously. “Lucky I wasn’t driving, cuz we would have. I’d’ve come barreling down that off-ramp and plowed right into’m. We’d be Quester Crisps.”

“You do drive fast, babe.” Forte patted her knee.

She grinned. “One time? My mama? She asked me to take one of her friends to her weekly bridge game. Thought it kind of weird cuz Mama could have just as easily given her a lift herself, bein’ as she’s already goin’ there. But no biggie, so I pick this woman up—I think her name was Pearl. And Pearl is just this angry, cranky old bat. And she’s spewing the entire way. Doesn’t like radio or radio people, which I am. Doesn’t like the way I’m driving. Doesn’t like this; doesn’t like that. But I think it’s cool that Mama’s lookin’ out for her friends, making sure they get a lift to her bridge game and all. But later when I talk to her, Mama says, ‘Shannie, you were great with Pearl! Your driving rattled her nerves so bad she kept her gob shut through our entire game. Can you pick her up again next week?’”

Forte draped an arm over her. “Your mom was great. You remember before she got sick? That night when she had us over for dinner? The woman was, like, always late. We went over to Shannon’s mom’s and knock on the door and there’s, like, no one home. We’re standing out there on the porch and finally she drives up, and she’s all smiles and gets us inside, and then she starts sweeping, but she’s sweeping like it is her military mission. Still got her coat on and her purse on her shoulder, but she’s sweeping the floor like crazy.”

“Mama hated dust.”

“And then she brought out the good stuff, all those pictures of you when you were a tyke! She’s all, ‘Look at little Shannie in her bloomers! And here she is with a pinto bean stuck up her nose.’”

Shannon threw her hands over her face and tilted her head back. “I know! She was so bad! Here I am, trying to charm the hot rocker boy and Mama’s gotta dig out that bean picture!”

Jamie swiveled to look back at them and grinned. “Looks like you charmed him, anyway.”

Shannon eyed the sign as Bruce pulled into a gas station. “What is it? Four Pillars of Humanity Quickstop? It’s about time! Last quest I was on, the driver refused to ask for directions and we were circling Mount Holy Grail for hours and didn’t even realize it.”

Bruce snorted. “Last quest, huh?”

“Oh, sure. Haven’t I told you guys? I’m addicted. Unquestionably a questaholic.”

Bruce pulled over and hopped out. “Switch.”

Jamie scooted to the driver’s seat and Bruce jogged around to the passenger’s side.

He shut the door. “The truth is, I would have hit that gas truck back there, too. The van slowed down on its own. Jamie, I think we need your radar skills at the driver’s seat.”

She blinked at him grimly. “Fair enough.”

Jamie pulled the van back out, crop fields running beyond the shoulder and a smattering of housing developments in the distance.

“What do you mean the van slowed down on its own?” Forte said.

Bruce shook his head. “When Jamie said to slow down, I never hit the brakes or anything. I didn’t have time to react. The van just kind of eased up suddenly.”

A loud crack tore overhead.

Shannon gasped. “What was that? Sounded like someone just chomped us with a nutcracker!”

Another crack.

“I think it’s hailing,” Jamie said.

The sound erupted all around them, and then suddenly hailstones were pelting the van like buckshot.

Jamie leaned forward. “Oh my God! I can’t even see!”

She slowed the van to a crawl and the hailstones thundered so loud it sounded like artillery fire. Suddenly, the windshield cracked. Jamie screamed.

“Pull over!” Bruce cried.

Plum-sized ice bore down upon them. Jamie eased the van to the side of the road and stopped.

The hail stopped.

Bruce and Jamie frowned at each other and Shannon and Forte clutched hands.

Bruce craned his neck, opening the door to get a good look outside. “What the—?”

There was no hail on the ground. The crack in the windshield seemed the only evidence that something had happened. Bruce shut the door.

Shannon cleared her throat from the backseat. “Questers take note. For those of us present who thought maybe we were on a wild-goose chase, I think it’s safe to assume we are probably on the right track.”

Bruce nodded. “It would appear that way. Try it again, Jamie.”

She shifted the van into gear again, but as soon as the tires started moving, the clamoring hail recommenced. When Jamie stopped again, the hail stopped again.

They sat in silence for a long moment.

Bruce shifted. “Well we can’t just sit here all day.”

“If I keep driving, we’re likely to get in a wreck.”

Bruce thought about this. Jamie was right, but they had to keep going. They couldn’t stop moving forward for any reason.

“Say that thing you were saying in the woods that night. The thing about the malevolent lip.”

“That? It didn’t work, remember? That was just something I made up.”

Bruce swung a thumb toward Shannon. “Well you must have made up something pretty powerful because she started saying it up onstage in front of hundreds of people.”

Jamie’s cheeks flamed. She turned her round blue eyes toward him and he could see her reluctance.

He touched her elbow. “Come on, Tink. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. We need to try, though.”

Bruce reached into the glove compartment and retrieved Jamie’s little velvet sack. Handing it to her, he said, “Give it a shot.”

They all got out of the van and walked to a patch of grass. Jamie took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She spoke the words she’d recited amidst the jeering maples in the Maine forest:

His loyalty switches

He who bewitches

The injurious aspect, the evil eye

The malevolent lip, sorcerer spry

She opened her eyes and looked nervously toward the horizon.

“I appeal for assistance,” she said, swinging the sack forward. “I call to the North.”

She paused, darting her eyes, and took a breath. “To the East.” She stopped again.

Forte gently took the sack from her hand and waved it. “To the South.”

He handed it to Shannon, and she swung it in the final direction. “To the West.”

Jamie nodded. “The unburdened sumpter with faith shall fly.”

Bruce put his hand on her shoulder. “Good job. Let’s try this again.”

They piled back into the van. Jamie turned the key and swung the gearshift. The wheels turned. A single amoeba of a cloud blackened and stretched over the sky and a light trickle fell toward them.

The moment the rain touched the van it evaporated.

NEW YORK

“Master, I have news to report.”

“What is this, Isolde? No rhyming lyric? Have the canteshrikes shunned you to the extent you now shed their ways?”

His words affected amusement, but Isolde heard the menace beneath them. Smelled the smolder of his fury. Good. Let him act with haste.

“I have failed thee.”

Enervata breathed in very slowly and turned from her without exhaling. Isolde’s eyes traveled to Sileny and then to Hedon and his gaping nostrils. Strangely, at this moment he neither gorged himself nor clutched a pint jar of honey wine. In fact, he even stood on his two feet instead of wallowing on the couch. Perhaps losing his brother had changed him.

Neither Hedon nor Sileny met her gaze.

Rafe was not here. Isolde felt a strange sharpness in her heart. As much as she hated Rafe, she had hoped he would be nigh in the moment of her death.

She addressed Enervata’s back. “The quest is underway. Signs have filtered through and the male, Bruce, has already acquired two of those he seeks, in addition to the guardian. They journey now to Dayton, Ohio.”

Enervata’s back remained to her. His only reaction was the bristling of the black hair that tufted his tail.

“As stated, I have fail—”

“I heard you, Isolde!”

He faced the window, and for the first time, she noticed his mien. The bronze skin sheathing his sinewy muscles glowed with a layer of sweat.

Someone had been here. Someone upon whom he had expended significant physical exertion.

He turned, and when he did, she saw a pool of blood glistening at his chest.

A Pravus under Kolt, then, perhaps even a lieutenant. This was good news for Isolde. If Enervata had unleashed his fury by extracting information from one of Kolt’s minions, he may not be so inclined to drag out Isolde’s death.

Enervata spoke deliberately, and though his black stare leveled at her, he did not address her directly.

“Hedon, kindly relay to Isolde the new development with the Macul of Corrupted Compassions.”

When he spoke, Hedon sounded gruff and, for once, stone sober. “Kolt has been working on a philanthropist named Jonathon Raster. Well-known bloke. Liable to win the Nobel Prize. We think Kolt might be on the verge of corrupting Raster, and if he succeeds . . .” Hedon swallowed. “The impact on humanity ought to be a good sight devastating. Enough power in it for Kolt to take the throne then if he pulls it off. Enslave humanity. Us too, of course.”

Enervata stepped toward her with savagery in his eyes. She saw his desire to spill her blood. His tongue spilled from his lips in a doglike pant. He spoke through his teeth. “So you see, Isolde, today is your lucky day. We must now divide our efforts and break Kolt’s philanthropist. We cannot lose another single Pravus lieutenant.”

Isolde wanted to laugh. Wanted to throw back her head and scream. To have assembled the courage to face her death, request it, practically, only to be thwarted by this.

Enervata growled. “Hedon shall be devoted to watching this Jonathon Raster and ruining Kolt’s plan. You shall continue to follow the quest and prevent any further progress.”

“I am unable to suppress the signs. They prevail though I know not how—”

“Silence!”

Enervata’s claw struck her face and she tumbled to the marble floor. Before she could gather herself another blow came, a kick, and with it she heard a snap as her left wing broke.

“I knew of your failing, Isolde! Hedon reported it to me!”

He knelt where she lay, teeth gleaming at her ear. “I almost killed you. Do you know that? As much as I cannot spare another single resource, I intended to kill you the moment you arrived. The only thing that saved your life was your immediate confession.”

This time she did laugh—a shuttering, moist gurgle that he likely mistook for weeping. She found in this laughter that her rib was broken in company with her wing.

Enervata grabbed her hair and yanked backward. “Explain to me now how you failed.”

Isolde shuddered. “I repressed the signs. But there are so many spirits attempting to get through. They use tricks now that I cannot anticipate. Speaking through random vessels in a crowd. It is too much for me. I have failed and shall continue to fail.”

Enervata struck her again.

Hedon cleared his throat. “Suppose we pay a visit to the girl in Blue Ash afore they even get there, eh, master? I can be there in a jiff. Stop her heart like I did the driver of the gas truck once I’s done with him.”

“Yes, Hedon, you managed to kill a driver on an interstate off-ramp. And what was your intention? To cause the van to ram the truck and destroy them all!”

“At first! So shocked I had to do something. But I had to keep Bruce alive to keep the bond-recherché intact, so I slowed the van and sent a hailstorm instead. All happened so fast when I saw what they were about that I thought it better to rush back here and report than to—”

“Shut up. I grow so very weary of your puling.”

Enervata wiped his knuckle on his chest, adding Isolde’s blood to the existing stains. He would have employed extreme means in order to extract the information about this philanthropist, Jonathon Raster. Isolde knew many of Kolt’s Pravus, and wondered which one had shed the blood that now mingled with hers on her master’s chest. Jachai perhaps, as she knew Hedon had been watching him. But she dared not ask. Whoever the Pravus was, he likely met an unthinkable end. The specter of smoke still lingered in the air.

Enervata stood. “Why do none of you choose to think? If you can’t even suppress signs, what makes you think you’ll be able to get at the girl in Blue Ash? Don’t you think perhaps she might be a bit protected?”

Isolde put her hands to the floor and pushed up, wincing.

“Sileny, bring me my dagger,” Enervata said.

Sileny scurried, stepping first toward the Rococo cabinet and then pausing. She turned and left the room.

Enervata’s dagger. The only instrument that could pry through the spell of immortality he had cast centuries ago. Perhaps he would end it for Isolde after all.

Her heart thundered. If only he would move with haste.

Where was Sileny? Why had she not taken the dagger from the Rococo cabinet where it belonged?

Sileny returned, running a soft cloth over the sheath. She must have taken the dagger in with the polishing. Sileny placed it in Enervata’s hands, never once looking at Isolde.

“On your feet, Isolde.”

Despite the slicing pain in her ribs and wing, she would accept this death in a dignified fashion. She would not beg nor weep as had Glueg. She rose to her feet and let her eyes rest on Enervata’s.

“You are a brave one, Isolde. I give you that.”

He mopped his brow with his discarded outer-shirt and then cast it aside. “You think I mean to kill you. But as I said, you shall not die today. I will not forget your failure to carry out my instructions, but your good fortune has allowed you a small reprieve. Perhaps you shall find a way to remedy your deeds before this breaking of the bond-recherché is complete.”

Sileny slipped a belt diagonally between Isolde’s shoulders and fastened it at her waist. A leather pouch that matched the shape of Enervata’s dagger hung above her hip.

Enervata placed the sheathed blade in the pouch. “Rafe awaits you in Canteshrike Grotto. Bring this to him.”

NEW YORK

He was older. Not by much. She could tell by the change in his hair, the roughening of skin, the tiny lines at his eyes. And she saw the seriousness of his expression, how it had now become his permanent state. No hint of playfulness. It was funny how a person could change in a span of maybe five years.

And he looked so handsome. Bruce was wearing his tuxedo. A groom on his wedding day. He looked at Gloria’s picture. Looked at it for a very, very long time.

“In a way, she reminds me of you,” he said to the photograph.

He stared at it for a while longer.

“Good-bye, Gloria. You’ll be with me forever.”

He put the picture away. Face down.

Gloria awoke with a start, a cold sweat dampening her brow. She climbed off the bed with unsteady feet and walked to the window.

The knife lay on the dresser. She refused to look at it.

The door opened and Sileny appeared. She saw Gloria and paused, looking back over her shoulder. Then she gave a nod as if she was going to leave.

“Please, Sileny, stay with me a moment.”

Sileny held up a hand, indicating she would have to come back. She darted forth, took the knife, and left, closing the door behind her.

Gloria wrapped her arms around herself. The image she’d seen in the dagger that morning still unsettled her. Bruce and Jamie—she had not dared look at it since. But what truly unsettled her were the deeper images. The ones that filled her mind when she slept.

Good-bye, Gloria. You’ll be with me forever.

She turned on the radio to the station that played Spanish ballads and listened. Soft, gliding classical guitar. Beautiful, yes. But not the song on her mind.

She put her fingers to the windowpane, wishing for the dragonfly.

Later, when Sileny returned, Gloria was kneeling under the sill. Sileny set a tray of tea on the little bistro table and regarded Gloria with a solicitous inclination of the forehead.

“Thank you, Sileny.”

Gloria blinked away tears and rose to her feet. A fleeting tension shadowed Sileny’s face.

“Are you all right?”

Sileny nodded and the tension dissipated. Or at least it hid.

Gloria nodded at the door. “Is something going on out there?”

Sileny shook her head and poured Gloria’s tea.

Gloria resisted the impulse to ask whether Sileny would join her in a cup. Of course she wouldn’t. Not for the first time, Gloria wondered how Sileny found sustenance.

The music turned and Gloria looked toward the stereo. The opening of the song sounded similar, but it wasn’t what she thought. She shrugged at Sileny. “I heard, I thought I heard . . . ”

She shook her head. “I told you about my fiancé. There’s this . . . ”

She expelled a deep lungful of air. “Do you know how we met? On Cinco de Mayo. You know, the Mexican independence celebration. About a year ago. We didn’t actually meet. I saw him and he looked at me. There was this song playing. A jazz song on Spanish guitar. ‘Besame Mucho.’ I didn’t know who Bruce was, but I kept catching him looking at me. Unfortunately, I had to leave before we even said hello.”

The tears came again and Gloria closed her eyes for a moment. Her heart and mind filled with the easy, sumptuous melody.

“I saw him again a month later. Purely by accident. Bumped into him at this little coffee place. I was so surprised to see him I just stood there. I didn’t know what to say. And he was looking at me like—”

She shook her head. “And then he said, ‘Bessy-me.’ And I laughed, and we both knew.”

Sileny reached a hand out and stroked Gloria’s hair, causing her tears to come harder.

“The thing is, Sileny, I had this dream. Only I don’t think it was just a—”

Gloria stopped. Sileny stepped closer.

“He put my picture away. Face down. It was so real. It almost felt like, like a premonition. As if he’s done. Already moved on. I think I might have seen his future, and I just don’t exist in it.”

18

CANTESHRIKE GROTTO

THOSE SHRIEKING VOICES, melodic even in their fury. Isolde panned the ice cave looking for Rafe.

The flock seemed to be in the midst of a hunting expedition and they had fallen upon their prey with zealous bloodlust. Talons slashing and lips smeared with blood, yellow eyes agleam—another type of dance she had shared with them before Enervata dulled her skin. She remembered it, the drunken excitement, the delicious release of fury, the taste of wet copper at her lips.

Isolde moved in the opposite direction. It was prudent to avoid their attentions when they frenzied so. Individual canteshrikes would never dare harm her due to her standing in Enervata’s service, but as an ensemble, the flock bore no sense of reason.

She stepped along the icy path, jaw set with disgust for Rafe. She loathed having to speak with him. Let this discussion be quick. She wondered if he even knew of Hedon’s discovery.

She looked into the small niche in the ice wall they had recently shared but found it empty. Enervata had said that Rafe would be waiting for her in Canteshrike Grotto. Likely in another corner of the cave, then.

She scanned the gleaming walls and fingered the dagger strapped in a diagonal across her chest. It was a detestable sensation. Canteshrikes never tolerated clothing nor anything else touching their persons save for another canteshrike.

The dagger was likely for Kolt or someone in his high command. Enervata had likely tasked Rafe with a mission of assassination. It would be a dangerous mission, near impossible even with Enervata’s dagger.

Isolde stepped to the soft, down-covered moss and sank to her knees, then reclined, curling into herself. Her wing and ribs ached so. Her longing to abandon this existence ached so.

She had managed it with Rafe when they had shared this niche. But the abandon was fleeting. Now she could only continue an intolerable life of service.

She turned her face to the moss and breathed in, recapturing a scent of that escape. A lone tear trickled down her face. She dispatched that tear—that hated tear—and scrambled to her feet. Should Rafe appear now and witness her wallowing, he would seize upon her weakness. He would speak in flowery prose to entice her to his contrivances.

And Rafe’s contrivances invariably yielded misery.

Isolde lifted her eyes and panned the cathedral center of the grotto. The only signs of life were the canteshrikes themselves. Even the pixieflies had vanished, receding into their burrows at the raging song. The song of the canteshrikes eviscerating their prey.

Isolde’s pulse slowed. She listened to the arc of harmonies puncturing the stillness of the cave.

As always, the canteshrikes’ voices joined in the manner of a practiced choir, with the pace and unity of a sewing machine. More a hive than a flock.

She stepped toward their canting. Down below. Near the pool.

If she could speak above a whisper, she would call out to them now.

No, she would shriek to them. Would spear her voice high above all others and dominate their cries.

She ran, heating the cold air with her lungs as her talons gripped the ice. Ran straight for the flock.

And those with loose attentions saw her coming. Their eyes lit with a manic hunger. They cried out to receive her into their bloodbath, to abandon their limp prey and turn their frenzy upon her, Isolde the Fair. Isolde the Formerly Fair.

Isolde hurtled herself the final distance. She leaped from the ledge and burst her wings open to their full span, ignorant of the pain in her broken bones. She shared in their hunger for the taste of blood. But her hunger was angrier, fuller with an infestation of hatred.

In the milliseconds before she landed, those who saw her coming stepped back, their bloodlust tempered to fear. She kicked the trident razors of her feet at them, spinning her body in the furious, graceful canteshrike ballet of murder.

Two of them fell. The flock let out a collective shriek, voices coalescing into a single note of high A. She felled another. The flock lunged at her, but their movements dimmed with uncertainty.

Isolde felt no awareness of the injuries Enervata had inflicted, nor did she take notice of sharp talons that striped parallels into her flesh. The canteshrikes sliced at her, shrieking, bewildered, and as one talon whipped toward her face, she coiled her arm around the leathered leg and snapped it.

They turned. They ran from her. All of them.

But Isolde’s lust remained unsatisfied. She pursued them and caught one, descending upon his back. She curled her head around his neck and tore the flesh from his throat, abandoning him before his tenor cries had even extinguished.

Then another, the one whose talon had tried to slash her face. With her leg broken, the young canteshrike could not escape with the speed of the others. Isolde fell upon her and beat her, using elbows and the full force of her body to sate her own desperate thirst to shatter bones. First the neck, then the wrist, and then bone after bone turned to gravel at her blows. Isolde glutted herself on the satisfaction of it long after the younger canteshrike lay still.

When her strength finally waned, Isolde heaved, straddling her latest victim.

She looked down and realized she still wore Enervata’s dagger, but had never even pulled it from its sheath. Even had she thought of it, the blade would have been too distant a means for imparting death. Isolde wanted to feel the murder in her talons. Feel it in her flesh and teeth.

She stood, backing away from the body, and looked up to see her own reflection in a plane of ice. Silver turned red. Lips black with the blood of another canteshrike’s throat.

Five canteshrikes had fallen to her fury. Canteshrikes she’d lain with.

She turned toward the flock. They milled at a safe distance and none looked at her. Most had entered the pool and were cleansing themselves. Ridiculous, vain creatures. She had just reduced the flock to three-quarters it size and those foolish narcissists could think only to beautify themselves. Unable to tolerate any stains on their downy white bodies. Stains from their wounds and Isolde’s. And the one they preyed upon when Isolde arrived.

“Isolde,” came a voice in a whisper. A voice she knew too well. A voice she would know as long as she breathed.

She began to shake.

“Isolde.” The whisper was weaker and more desperate.

She turned, trembling with fury and exhaustion. She strode past the bodies of her prey to seek out Rafe.

The canteshrikes’ prey.

The moment his agony-wracked eyes lifted to hers, she felt as though a broadsword had cleaved her.

“Rafe!”

She sank to her knees before she even reached him, for her legs refused to carry her that small remaining distance. His body lay eviscerated. The canteshrikes had torn at him. While she lay curled, wallowing in the tufted bed they’d shared, the canteshrikes had been upon him.

He did not lift his head; could not, probably. His fingers stretched toward her.

“Isolde.”

She crawled the span of ice that lay between them. She touched him gently, terrified of inflicting further injury upon him and yet unable to refrain from touching him. Tears scalded the blood at her cheeks and each breath she drew came in a shudder. She gathered him to her, cradling his head to her breasts, resting his skull on her downy thigh.

She pressed her lips to his brow. “Rafe, oh my hated love. What has happened?”

“’Twas as you said it would be, my dear Isolde.” Each ragged breath seemed to cause him pain. “He learned of what happened in Maine. Hedon discovered our secret and told him.”

Rafe coughed and she lifted his head, turning him so he could spew blood.

She grazed her knuckle to his lips. “Do not try to speak, my love; it pains you so.”

Rafe wheezed, eyes glazing. “He knows not of your involvement, Isolde. I told him that I had dispatched you to the forest to conjure false signs and that you had no knowledge of my failure.”

Isolde’s eyes traveled down the length of him and she saw burns lining his body. Enervata had exacted his wrath before throwing him to the canteshrikes. And how those beasts must have delighted in turning on Rafe, who stood at Enervata’s right hand, who had never fully adopted the canteshrike ways. How they must have despised him.

As she had despised him.

But no, her spite did not resemble theirs. Isolde’s hatred for him harbored an impurity: love. An otherwise solid carbon stone made brittle by the diamond at its core. That terrible love for Rafe had defined her for centuries and brought her naught but the greatest anguish.

“Isolde, my love, dispatch me.”

Rage flooded her eyes. No, not rage.

“Rafe, do not ask me that! My hated love, you know I can’t!”

To think an hour ago she might have been murdered at Enervata’s feet and spared all this! To have escaped! The only abomination worse than her existence now would be to continue without Rafe.

Sobs wracked her body. She bent her face to his hair and rocked, breathing in his blood and sweat and the appalling odor of burned skin. But beneath all she found a thin, exquisite scent that belonged only to Rafe. A scent she would lose forever.

How long would Enervata force her to continue?

She felt his fingers at her ribs. And when she looked, she saw they grasped at the dagger. It seemed he could barely speak now, so torn was he, and yet still denied the freedom of death. Under the spell of immortality, Rafe could perish only at the sting of Enervata’s dagger.

“No!” she moaned, stroking his hair. “I cannot let you go. Rafe, please don’t ask me so!”

How he suffered, she knew. Each breath extracting tremendous pain. It seemed not a single bone existed in him that had not been crushed; not a span of skin that had not been burned or torn.

If only the spell allowed her to use the dagger upon herself. She would have dispatched her misery long ago. This Enervata had foreseen, even before Isolde realized the hell of her immortality, and he had decreed that the dagger could only find purchase in the hands of another.

“Isolde.”

His words so faint, she felt them in her heart more brightly even than she heard them.

“Isolde, my sweet, transport me to a foreign place, where at your hands I might feel safe.”

Her jaw seized. She threw back her head and shrieked, a roaring hiss that bore no sound but for the rush of poison air that escaped from her lungs.

She gripped the hilt and tore the dagger up into the air.

She wanted to cast it away, into the pool, anywhere. That scream she could not vocalize wracked her broken body.

She plunged the blade into his heart.

NEW YORK

Gloria found another book like the one Sileny had brought her, with tales of the Ketox coyotes. She read a parable about an old woman in the desert whose husband died and the only thing left alive to keep her company was her little calico cat.

As the story unfolded, she befriended a coyote from the Ketox pack. She left food out for him and he sang to her at night. But the old woman in the tale was poor and one day she ran out of food. Instead, the coyote took her calico cat. He carried it out into the desert and ate it.

When she read this, Gloria felt a strange sickness creeping over her. It burned at her nerves, and in its wake, left her senses numb. She wanted to look away, didn’t want to finish reading the parable. But once begun, she always felt compelled to finish reading a story. She turned to the final passage.

The old woman wailed with grief. When the Ketox coyote returned, she besought of him contrition. “I have fed and loved you. How could you devour that which I have loved?”

The coyote only heckled her. “Why do you seek my repentance? It will not restore your pet to you.”

“Do you know no love for me?” the old woman moaned.

“I know only the extent of that which one such as myself can know.” And then, belly full, the coyote sang to her, a sweet keening enterprise.

Gloria snapped the book closed.

Enough of that!

She would not waste a single other moment on tales of loneliness or loss. There were so many books here. There was no reason to read anything upsetting. She ran her fingers instead, along the spines of the other books and lost herself in the decadence of the library.

The ironic aspect of her captivity was that not only did she have plenty of time to catch up on her reading, but she even had time to go back and revisit some of her old favorites. Interestingly enough, Vance’s library was fortified with both.

And when he returned that evening with another book in hand, Gloria lingered without bothering to retreat to her room.

He added the new volume to the shelves.

“I see you’re reading again,” he said. “Well, we must be sure to keep you in fresh supply. Do let Sileny know if there’s any book you want.”

“It’s hard to think of any that I can’t already find on these shelves.”

She eyed the spine of Vance’s new book. “Hugo Martin? I’m a fan of his.”

“Are you?” Vance removed his coat and disappeared to the kitchen.

She peeked inside the Hugo Martin title and realized it had been released that day. She skimmed the pages and found herself absorbed immediately.

The scent of sweet onions caramelizing drifted in. Vance reappeared and handed her a glass of wine.

“You’ve read his other works, then, I take it.”

Eyes still on the pages, she sipped absently. “Mmm.”

“This latest one promises to offer a keen focus on group theory.”

“Oh? He touched on that a little in the last one.” Gloria followed Vance into the kitchen, where he assembled a simple onion tart and put a sear to a marinated pork loin. He’d rolled his sleeves to just below his elbows, and was deftly chopping roasted vegetables for a salad.

She slid into the pages again, and when she glanced up from them, she caught his bemused gaze. She colored slightly and took another sip of wine. “Anyway, in his last book he’d talked about the influence of things like religion, community, state. Oh, and education, of course.”

Vance nodded. “In this one he supposedly takes a closer look at the community factor in change theory. With an emphasis on corporate community.”

“Oh! I’ve studied this extensively. I’m so glad Martin’s taking it on. You know, people are so quick to judge with corporations. They want to think of them as evil empires. But honestly, corporations are just made up of individual people. All the same change theory principles apply. You have to start with the individual and let that individual find matching ideas among the community.”

Vance regarded her with a sidelong glance. “True. One must instigate the proper motivation, followed by a systematic method of employing the change. Of course this is best managed with the support of other factions, such as state and educational systems.”

She smiled. “Yes. And corporations can have a positive impact on society. A bigger impact than individuals.”

His soot-colored eyes drifted. “It’s a powerful thing, to be able to impact society. You challenge me with your observations. I’ve always wanted to test some of the principles of change theory in a controlled environment. I’ve often thought of how it might be done on a smaller scale.”

Gloria let her imagination dance over the possibilities. With Vance’s resources, he certainly could test out those principles. And the way his mind hungered for exploration made her think of what she imagined Bruce to be like several years from now. Bright and innovative but with sharper, more developed objectives.

Bruce.

Suddenly she felt suffocating pain. The image she’d seen of Bruce, what she knew about him moving on to a life without her. She couldn’t bear to think about it.

She looked up at Vance. He seemed so hungry for her company. It felt easy to lose herself in conversation with him. To explore the electricity of his mind.

But a tide of sadness already coursed through her. She set her wine glass on the counter. “Excuse me. I—I think I need to spend the rest of the evening in my room.”

Vance’s gaze snapped up from the stove. “Did I say something to upset you?”

Gloria backed away. “It isn’t that.”

“Then have dinner with me.”

“Are you going to force me to have dinner with you, in the same way you’ve forced me to stay here as your prisoner?”

His face showed surprise. “Of course you’re free to join me only if you wish.”

Gloria’s heart thundered. “This entire situation is wrong, Aaron. It’s just so wrong, and you know it!”

She left him alone in the kitchen and fled to her room, closing the door behind her.

OHIO

Bruce turned toward the backseat. “What do you think, guys? You wanna hit that diner?”

“Nothing could be finer!” Shannon chortled. “I love a good greasy spoon, especially if they serve biscuits and gravy. That’ll throw an extra wobble on these hips!”

Forte gave her a wicked grin. “I’ll wobble your hips, baby!”

“Eek!” Jamie said, flipping her blinker. “You’re freaking me out back there.”

She pulled the van up to a stop sign. There were no cars behind them and none in traffic. But Jamie did not advance. The blinker tapped out a turn-to-the-right, but her gaze seemed fixed to the left.

Bruce followed her eyes. Just beyond the intersection stood a restaurant. Not a diner, an Italian joint. And spaced along the facade, four columns ran upward to a hip in the roof.

Shannon looked around. “Hey, why aren’t we moving? Oh, wow! I think we may have just found our Four Pillars of Humanity Quickstop.”

Jamie switched the blinker and turned left to the restaurant. They piled out of the van and went inside. It was nearly empty. A middleaged waitress, an Italian woman with a sad smile to her eyes, greeted them and told them to sit anywhere.

They assembled at a booth and the waitress passed menus around. Her nametag read Bedelia.

“Something to drink, kids?”

“Some water, please.” Bruce said.

“Sure, honey.”

She nodded, and she even smiled a bit, but there seemed a heaviness about her. A vacuum that gave her the look of an observer who saw life through a two-way mirror. Bruce suddenly wished he could think of something to cheer her up, something that would turn her smile into a true fact instead of a fake fact.

She turned her back and walked toward the kitchen.

Shannon cocked her brow. “Whaddaya think? Suppose old Bedelia is trying to concentrate on how to deprive power from depraved Pravus hordes?”

Bruce watched the waitress disappear into the back, her apron cinched at her waist in a generous bow.

Mama bear.

He thought of the night he and Gloria talked to Carlotta, when she’d explained how to get the escarole just right. A lump formed in his throat.

“Excuse me; I’ll be back in just a sec.”

He went to the men’s room and then took his time making his way back to the table. He stole a look into the kitchen and into a utility room. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

As he approached the booth, he saw that Bedelia was standing in front of the table with shoulders shaking and a tear on her cheek. He slowed his steps. He’d caught that sad look in her eye when they first walked in and wondered how that might have escalated to full-on tears in the time it took him to go to the bathroom. But then he noticed everyone else at the table was rocking with laughter and that Bedelia’s tear was from laughing as well.

He slid into the booth next to Jamie.

Shannon’s hands were waving about her head. “I took the rollers out and looked in the mirror, and I’m like, I don’t know, a Chia Pet or something. So I’m thinking that’s cool. You know. I’ll rinse it out and maybe it’ll calm down. So I do that and it didn’t, and then when I brushed it I noticed all this hair in my hairbrush. It was falling out. Like, a third of my hair. Breaking off where the hairbrush hit it. But the hair that remained was still standing on end, not even curly, but kind scary-jaggedy looking. So now I’ve gone from Chia Pet to looking like a milkweed.”

Bedelia wiped her eye. “I take it you didn’t go to your interview?”

Shannon shook her head, eyes wide. “Oh no, I went all right. Figured I had nothing to loose but another fistful of curly locks. They didn’t hire me for that job, though. They didn’t think I was cameraready, go figure! But the station manager took pity on me and hooked me up with his buddy in radio. You don’t need hair to be on radio.”

Bedelia laughed. “Well, whatever happened to your hair then, honey, it looks like it’s grown back beautifully now.”

Bedelia’s cheeks glowed with pink circles of cream blush. Two distinct lines ran down from either corner of her mouth, giving her the cheerful look of a marionette. She cast her gaze back toward the kitchen, shoulders still giving the occasional shake. “Your order’s probably up, kids, I’ll be right back.”

Bruce watched her go and noted how that distant, sad look in her eye had vanished.

Forte rubbed the back of Shannon’s neck. “You got a good heart.”

His gaze lingered on hers a moment longer and she blushed. “That waitress just looked like she needed a laugh. When I saw her I thought, the way her brows and her nose came together, it looked like, reminded me of . . .”

Forte nodded. “I thought so, too. Thought she looked like your mom. Totally different personality, though.”

“Reminded me of someone I know, too,” Bruce said, thinking of Carlotta.

You will have beautiful babies.

His smile slipped. He and Gloria would have those beautiful babies. He’d solve this, fight this, whatever it was he was supposed to do, and bring her home.

Bedelia returned with their food and lingered awhile, chatting with them as they ate. When Jamie told her where they had come from and where they were going, she brightened.

“I love going for long drives! My late husband and I used to go on road trips all the time. It’s weird you should mention it, because last year I saw this van all decked out for the Mexican Independence Day celebration. It was painted all red and green and white, and it had this big-toothed, smiling donkey on it that looked so weird it made me laugh. Ever since then I keep having one of those recurring dreams where I’m going for a long drive in that painted van to see my sister Gloria.”

Bruce caught his breath. He might have been distracted before, looking for clues and scrutinizing the place, but the name riveted his attention.

Bedelia continued. “But my sister passed away a long time ago. She’s gone, husband’s gone, even my daughter’s gone now. An asthma attack. One day she was there and the next . . .” she blinked. “It never occurs to you that you might outlive your children.”

The distracted sadness returned to her eyes. She looked up at them again with a steeled resignation. “It’s just me now. But in the dream, Gloria doesn’t even look like my sister. Not the way she looked when she died, or even when she was younger. In the dream she looks entirely different—pretty young Spanish thing.”

She shrugged with a laugh, apparently self-conscious. “So silly of me. Dreams don’t mean anything to anyone but the dreamer. I’ve just been getting them so often.”

Jamie eyed Forte and Shannon.

Bruce was on the edge of his seat. “Those columns out front. Have they always been there?”

Bedelia shook her head. “They went up right around the time I saw that funny-looking van. I took leave from work when my husband was in the hospital. Then later when I started working again, there they were. I guess the owner thought it’d make the place look more substantial.”

She turned and regarded the room with a wave of a dishrag. “Hasn’t helped business much, though.”

Jamie leaned forward. “That dream you were telling us about? What happens in the end? When you get to your sister’s?”

Bedelia shrugged. “You know how it is with dreams. I always wake up before it ends.”

She wandered off again and the four looked after her as she busied herself in the dining room, wiping down tables that didn’t necessarily need wiping.

Bruce turned toward Jamie. “Do you think you can talk her into it?”

Jamie nodded. “It’s worth a shot.”

They all pitched in for the check and Jamie gathered the money to go pay.

Bruce overheard Jamie’s voice. “Bedelia, do you believe in fate?”

Bedelia gave a nervous laugh, and then cautiously said, “I don’t know anything about that, really. But if I did I’d say those dreams would have something to do with mine.”

Bruce nodded to himself as he wandered outside with Forte and Shannon.

Shannon linked her arm with Forte. “Weird stuff happening today, but I guess there’s no doubt we’re on the right track.”

Bruce nodded.

Hang on, Gloria.

He took a careful look at the columns out front. There was nothing unusual about them. He half-expected to find the symbols that had appeared on the stump in the forest in Maine. But there was nothing.

Still, the columns seemed to have an unusual quality to them. They didn’t look like they’d been there a year. It almost seemed as though someone had sanded and painted them the day before.

Jamie’s smile filled the doorway when she joined them outside. “Seems our new friend Bedelia agrees that she’s long overdue for a road trip. She’ll have her bag packed and waiting for us in the morning.”

19

NEW YORK

ISOLDE PAUSED BY THE ARCHWAY, filled with hatred for Enervata.

Her loathing for Rafe used to be an effective anesthetic, but that was gone. Gone forever. Replaced by the pain of loss and remorse over what might have been.

Enervata’s voice drifted through the archway, along with the agonized groan of another. Not Hedon. She stepped inside.

Isolde did not find them in the main hall. She hadn’t expected as much. She knew to follow the corridor to the west room where a door stood ajar, a door that would not even exist during times when Enervata allowed his new fixation to roam free. It was the door that led to the Hall of Amusements.

Enervata’s voice again: “All I ask is for a simple explanation.”

A cry of agony.

“You can put an end to this, my friend. Tell us how Kolt plans to turn Jonathon Raster. Tell us and we’ll let you fly away home.”

Another cry, this time shriller, followed by a convulsive groan.

Isolde could see that, once again, Enervata stood in his natural form, mopped in sweat and blood. She stepped inside.

All eyes turned toward her. Enervata and Hedon regarded her openly. Surreptitiously came the gaze of Jachai, one of Kolt’s Pravus lieutenants, who lay prone on the floor, bound in chains.

But also watching her were the eyes of the imprisoned: those in cells, those on chains, and those in boxes or jars. Those who had, at some point, infuriated Enervata beyond the mercy of murder. Those who should be dead, but who Enervata maintained through a spell of immortality. They lived on, most of them silent, in those cells or boxes or jars. Forever suffering. And they thrived on moments such as this when the torture of another soul meant another joined them in their misery.

Glueg had been lucky. Even Rafe, though first subjected to torture, had been lucky. Should Isolde openly defy Enervata she would not be so lucky.

“Look what the canteshrikes dragged in,” Enervata said, casting aside the tool he’d been using.

He lifted a brow at her. “Had a little sport, did you?”

Isolde lowered her eyes and examined her body, slashed from head to talon with yawning wounds and the odd broken bone. She had bathed in the pool along with the other silly, vain creatures before returning here, but the gashes still wept.

“Good sport refreshes my body and mind. The same way you, master, choose to unwind.”

Enervata’s black liquid eyes had been searching her face, watching for her hatred or fear or nonchalance. She’d give him the latter only. Let him guess at what burned within her heart. She even affected a smile.

He seemed satisfied and even impressed by her demeanor.

“Walk with me, Isolde. Hedon, please continue.”

The wretch on the floor whimpered. He was crouching naked, hands bound, the chain encircling his neck at a length of no more than twelve inches from the floor. Isolde wondered whether Enervata had begun torturing this servant of Kolt after Rafe, or alongside him.

Isolde and Enervata left the hall and entered the living area where Sileny stood dusting an Erté figure.

“Some Courvoisier please, Sileny.”

He turned to Isolde. “I must admit, I wondered over your reaction to Rafe’s departure. Your hatred of each other was obvious, but . . .”

He wagged a finger at her. “One never knows.”

Isolde inclined her head but said nothing.

The sound of Jachai’s screams filtered through the corridor.

Enervata’s eyes drifted back toward the Hall of Amusements. “Strange. I have been to see this philanthropist Jonathon Raster and found no vulnerability in his character. Kolt has virtually no chance of corrupting him.”

“With Kolt, one never knows his plan. He corrupts e’en the most virtuous man.”

Sileny appeared, filling tulip glasses with Courvoisier and presenting one each to Isolde and Enervata.

The malice fractured around Enervata’s eyes. Beneath that lay a strange sort of frustration.

“She drinks only wine, you know. I can’t seem to persuade her to try a little cognac.”

Isolde tilted her head. “She?”

Enervata waved a hand at the north wall, beyond which he kept the young dark-haired woman, Gloria.

“She’s a woman of discriminating taste. Quite remarkable, really. Her palate. If she would only open herself up to try the cognac, I believe she would be able to divine the nuances from one region to the next.”

Isolde regarded him quizzically. His concern over this woman’s palate transcended the strategic maneuvers of his mission.

Enervata’s expression shifted. “Now let us return to the Hall of Amusements. Care to join in the fun?”

“My sporting need not have an end. I may learn something from our friend.”

“You may indeed, though I think I’ll leave it to Hedon after all. He has a rare talent in matters of torture. Pity it does not make up for his failings.”

Isolde caught the darkness of Enervata’s expression. This pretense at equanimity—casually chatting over a glass of cognac—did not fool her. Had he not slain Glueg and Rafe already, both Hedon and Isolde would likely be dead or displayed on some pedestal. But his resources were now dwindled and he lacked time to recruit replacements at their level.

Isolde knew that she and Hedon would both be dead at Enervata’s first opportunity. What she didn’t know was whether she would die quickly, slowly as Rafe had, or worse.

The sound of Jachai’s whimpering rang in her ears as she reentered the Hall of Amusements.

“Made a bit o’ progress, haven’t we, master?” Hedon nudged Jachai with his foot. “Tell the master what you just told me, lad.”

Jachai garbled in reply.

Enervata frowned. “What’s he saying? I can’t even understand him.”

“Och, that’ll be because most of his teeth are laying around ’ere somewhere. Mouth full o’ blood and spit. But I can make out what he’s saying all right. The way a mum knows the words of’r own babe.”

Hedon laughed with delight at his own joke, the period of grieving for his brother seeming to have passed.

“Says our good philanthropist Jonathon Raster has an auntie, he does. Poor dearie’s in sad health and our Raster’s just beside himself over it.”

Enervata’s eyes narrowed. “And Kolt is promising her return to health in exchange for his corruption?”

“Would appear that way. This auntie’s like a mother to’m, it seems.”

Enervata frowned, considering this. “That is a problem for us. Do you think Jachai’s hiding anything more?”

Hedon shook his head. “My experience, we’ve got all there is from him.”

Enervata nodded. “I agree.”

He turned to Isolde and grabbed her wrist.

For a moment, she thought he meant to drag her to the center of the room and chain her down alongside the now-toothless Jachai. But instead, Enervata lifted her arm and grabbed the hilt of the dagger that hung from the strap across her chest.

He withdrew it and approached the quivering, prone wretch on the floor.

Jachai’s eyes flew wide. He babbled an indecipherable plea.

Isolde shook her head. Did he really believe Enervata would let him escape? Didn’t he even realize his good fortune?

Another might have passed the dagger to Hedon, but Enervata preferred to carry out the final stroke himself. He grabbed Jachai by the hair and yanked backward, exposing the white arc of the Pravus’s throat. The blade flashed.

Isolde averted her gaze.

She looked down instead at the glass in her hand, the amber liquid the dark-haired one had refused to taste. Isolde smiled. Odd, despite the bleakest environs, how one might find ways in which to entertain oneself.

She sipped her cognac, letting the golden heat turn her lips and tongue to silk.

OHIO

Bedelia listened carefully to Jamie as she explained the events of the last several days. The woman laughed softly. “And I thought all of the adventures in my life were over.”

“Maybe your adventures are just beginning, Betty Lou,” Forte said.

Bedelia tilted her head. “Betty Lou?”

Forte went into one of his wild air guitar contortions and sang, “Betty Lou. Betty Lou. Betty Lou got a new pair of shoes.” He stopped “playing” and shrugged. “Sorry, I don’t know any songs about women named Bedelia.”

Bedelia patted him on the arm. “That’s okay. You sing very well, you know.”

“Well I guess you’re who we were supposed to meet in Dayton,” Shannon said.

Jamie shook her head. “And we have no indication of where to go next. Something tells me we should head south.”

Bang!

The van lurched and Bruce cursed under his breath, trying to maintain control as he pulled over to the shoulder. He and Jamie hopped out and circled the van to discover a flat tire on the right rear passenger’s side.

“Charlie and I are experts at this!” Shannon said as she climbed out of the van. “We can slap a tire on faster’n a doughnut to a cop’s belly.”

Jamie grinned. “You won’t hear me complain’.”

She rummaged through the back of the van for the jack and the spare and Bruce dragged them out.

“My dad was a cop. Knows the best doughnut places in Brooklyn. Bagels, too.”

Bruce put the spare down and turned to Jamie. “What did you say just before the tire blew?”

She blinked. “Just that we should continue moving south. Oh.”

Bruce panned the fields that spread out beyond the road. Jamie followed him. There was no sign of civilization for miles.

“I guess either the good guys are giving us a thumbs-down or the bad guys are,” he said.

Jamie frowned. “Seems to me the ‘good guys’ have been leading us little by little, not blocking us.”

They turned toward the road, where a green Cadillac approached. It slowed and pulled over.

“Maybe these are the good guys coming to bail us out.”

The woman who stepped out of the Caddy wore a green suit and a green wide-brimmed hat. Her face stretched longer than most and ended in a riot of red lipstick.

“Ooh, had a squeaky blowout, did you, pumpkins?”

She stepped in her high-heeled shoes with exaggerated care across the gravel to where Forte and Shannon bent over the jack.

“Can I call you a tow truck, mm?” She blinked at them with enormous eyes lined black at the inner lid. When she smiled, her lower lip leaped high over stained teeth to join the upper.

Forte smiled at her over his shoulder with hesitation, and then narrowed his eyes toward Bruce and Jamie. He cranked the lug nut wrench.

“Looks like we’re managing, but thanks,” Bruce said.

“Oh, this is your problem!”

She picked up the lug nuts and held them in her palm.

“What’s wrong with them?” Bruce said.

“Why, they’re all wrong. Here, pumpkins, let me fix them for you.”

As she spoke, Jamie’s attention veered to the green woman’s stained teeth. She thought she saw a flutter within them.

Bruce grabbed the woman’s wrist. “Put those down!”

Her hand closed over the lug nuts. “Why, I’m only trying to help!” This time Jamie was certain of the movement at the woman’s stained teeth. It was a black-winged insect crawling along her incisors. The woman opened her hand again and the lug nuts had somehow transformed—into roaches.

She blew on the roaches, and as she did, hornets poured from her mouth.

Bruce jerked backward. “Everyone get in the van!”

Blister beetles poured from the woman’s jacket sleeve. She dropped her long jaw and laughed, coughing out clouds of mosquitoes.

The insects swarmed them; seemed to be coming from everywhere. Their wings crackled and hissed. Within seconds, they each expanded so that the mosquitoes grew to the size of hummingbirds and the hornets swelled to ratlike dimensions. Forte swiped at them with the tire iron.

Jamie shrieked as one of the mosquitoes descended upon her and sank its beak into her neck and then another found her thigh. Bruce clapped first one and then the other, feeling the crack of exoskeletons. Human-looking blood smeared his palms.

“Come on, kids, get inside!” Bedelia, the only one left in the van, had opened the door. She shrieked as the insects dove for her. Bruce, Jamie, Forte, and Shannon rushed to the van and stuffed themselves inside, snagging a hornet and a blister beetle in the door as they slammed it behind them. But by then a horde of sizzling beasts had already slipped inside.

Forte went ballistic with his tire iron and Bruce grabbed a thermos and used it like a hammer. Shannon used her nail file like a bayonet. Bedelia shrieked, yanking at a blister beetle that clung to her leg. Bruce tried to get to her but she managed to pull it off on her own and smashed it against the window until it cracked into pieces.

A popping sound came from the roof and then another at the windshield. A hornet loomed outside and it slammed into the van. Then several more repeated the action until the front passenger window cracked near Shannon’s head and she screamed. The glass held.

The giant cockroaches and blister bugs began to swarm the exterior. Soon they covered every inch of glass. The interior of the van grew black. The effect was unsettling, but at least it prevented the hornets from slamming into them.

They fought the scuttling, crackling, and sawing in blind darkness. Jamie heard the whip of Forte’s tire iron followed by a yelp from Shannon.

“Sorry, babe!”

Bruce fumbled at the driver’s seat and the interior lights came on.

Jamie cried out again. The mosquitoes wouldn’t leave her alone. She tugged at one that had latched to the inside of her arm but she could not dislodge it. Bruce threw his arms around her and squeezed hard, crushing the nasty thing between her elbow and rib cage. He shucked it and threw her onto the seat, covering her with his own body so that he faced outward, swinging his thermos like a baseball bat one moment and a battering ram the next.

Slowly, the paroxysm inside the van dwindled, and the only nonhuman left wiggling was the blister beetle that they’d caught in the van door. Bruce rose from Jamie and eyed the horrible creature as it skittered and scrabbled at the metal jamb. One red-and-black striped wing flapped and its long antennae lashed wildly above the black egg-yolk eyes that sat on either side of its head. Bruce lifted his thermos and squashed it.

The underbellies of supersized insects squirmed along the glass. Were it not for the dome light, they’d still be sitting in pitch black.

Bruce looked down at Jamie, who lay pale and damp-faced. “Jamie, you all right?”

She nodded, but did not reply.

“She’s lost a bit of blood,” Bedelia gasped, leaning over the seat and clamping a hand down on the wound on Jamie’s thigh. As she did so, Jamie saw pustules forming on Bedelia’s arms where the bugs had attacked her.

“You saved us all, Bedelia,” Bruce said. “They swarmed us before we even knew what was happening. If you hadn’t called out to us, I don’t want to think what might have happened.”

Bedelia looked at him with a quivering lip. “Thank you, son, but I don’t think it’s over yet.”

“Look!” Shannon cried.

She shrieked and parried the vent with her nail file. The feelers and pinchers of a blister beetle slithered from the other side of the grate. Jamie watched this distantly, as though it were happening in a movie. She felt faint.

A cracking sound came from the windshield where a rat-sized cockroach had dislodged a wiper blade and was carrying it off.

Forte put a hand to Shannon’s wrist and then swatted the vent with his tire iron. “God, they’re taking this van apart. We gotta do something, man!”

Shannon turned to Bruce. “Jamie’s appeal! The malevolent lip . . . ?”

Bedelia shook her head. “She needs to stay quiet! I’m worried about how much blood she’s lost. I think she might be in shock.”

Jamie opened her mouth as if to speak but said nothing, her forehead glistening.

“Oh my God! Charlie, watch the vents!” Shannon sprang to the backseat and took off her hooded jacket, rolling it into a ball and putting it under Jamie’s feet. Bruce draped his own jacket over Jamie.

“I’m all right,” she whispered.

Forte swung at another vent. “More incoming!”

“His, um, his loyalty shifts,” Bruce said unsteadily. “The malevolent lip. The malevolent eye. Or, he who is spry . . . ?”

Shannon shook her head. “That’s not it.”

Jamie wanted to help them, but found that she couldn’t.

“Hang on! Maybe she wrote’m down.” Bruce released Jamie’s hand and dug into her little velvet bag. No such luck.

He did, however, find her depiction of the symbols from the stump and the sapling, replicated in berry juice on the back of the map printout.

“Maybe this’ll work.”

Hands still smeared with the blood of the mosquito, Bruce used his finger to draw the symbols on the window above Jamie’s head.

Insects began to fall away from the glass.

“It’s working!”

Forte swung the tire iron. “Get the front!”

Bruce repeated the motions, but the blood on his hands had dried.

“Bruce,” Jamie whispered and raised her arm. A bright red stain bloomed at the underside of her bicep.

Bruce winced. “Jesus, Jamie.”

He touched his finger to the blood and drew the patterns on the front of the windshield. The insects fell away and retreated from the vents. Bruce repeated the steps on the other two sides.

Shannon pointed at the field beyond. “Look!”

The insects retreated in hordes, flying, scurrying. One by one, they burst into clouds of ash.

The five travelers remained inside the van, silent and watchful, for several minutes beyond when the last insect disappeared. Finally, Bruce opened the door and took a cautious step outside.

The van looked like it had just gone through a jungle safari. A snaking crack slashed the front passenger window, almost as if in continuation of the one in the windshield that had appeared compliments of the hailstorm.

There was no woman in green.

Forte appeared at Bruce’s elbow. “You in one piece?”

Bruce looked down at his body. Slashes, cuts, torn jeans.

He shrugged. “Basically I’m fine. But the spare has a hole in it almost as big as the one in the tire that blew and we’re still missing four lug nuts that sprouted wings and flew away. How’s everyone in the van?”

“Jamie’s pretty weak, but she’s okay. Bedelia’s all blistered up. Shannon’s fine except for where I accidentally hit her little finger with the tire iron. God I feel bad about that.”

Forte squinted at the horizon. “We’re gonna need to go get help. Need a new tire and some lug nuts. Might as well get a new wiper blade while we’re at it. Shannon and I can start pounding sand if you wanna hang back here and look after Jamie and Bedelia.”

Bruce shook his head. “It may not be safe out there.”

Forte shrugged. “I don’t think we have a choice, do you?”

Bruce took a deep breath and grit his teeth. Forte was right. And the longer they delayed, the more time Enervata had to get at Gloria. He strode back to the van and retrieved the map with the berry-juice symbols on it. “Here, at least take this.”

Forte squinted at the symbols. “The bugs might come back, you know. What if you guys need the symbols back here?”

Bruce rolled his eyes toward the blood-smeared van windows. “We got four copies.”

20

OHIO

CHARLES’ SHOES CRUNCHED THE GRAVEL along the shoulder. “You were great back there, you know.”

Shannon cocked her eye. “What, fighting the giant insects?”

“When you picked up that nail file, I thought you were crazy. But you were like Bruce Lee with that thing.”

“Never underestimate a girl with a nail file.”

She stole a glance at him, and saw a trickle of sweat working its way from his hairline. The sky shone white with haze.

She waved the map printout at the distance. “How far do you think till we find an auto store?”

Forte squinted at the endless expanse of fields. “Well, remember how you were telling me you’d have to figure out a way to get some exercise during this road trip cuz you’d be sitting around in the van all day?”

Shannon snorted. “Did I say that?”

“Yeah. Something tells me we’ll get all the exercise we need looking for an auto parts store.”

Shannon scoffed. “Be careful what you wish for. . . .”

“What else do you wish for?”

Shannon’s brows arched. “Huh? What do you mean?”

Charles shrugged. “You know, what do you wish for now?”

“You mean aside from a chili dog?”

“That goes without saying.”

“Well, let’s see.” Shannon wrinkled her brow. “I wish for Bruce’s fiancée to get home safe.”

“What about after that?”

“After that, I think it’s time for me to focus on my career again. See about doing the comedy club circuit in Ann Arbor.”

“What about your home life?”

The questioning made Shannon feel self-conscious. Her rocker boy didn’t usually ask questions like this. She decided to kick into her radio DJ safe mode. “Homey life? Guess I need to slippity-slide on into that so I could wish for something to put in it. Wow, this map’s a mess. Got any idea what the freaky symbols mean? Think I saw’m once before at a football game when a plane flew overhead and smoked’m out in skywriting. Lions won for once that night. And no mosquitoes.”

Charles pursed his smile. Shannon always thought he looked like Mickey Rourke circa Nine 1/2 Weeks when he did that. He took the map from her, flipping it over from symbol-side to map-side and back. “You’re right, this is a mess. Good thing we don’t need it to navigate.”

Shannon frowned, dropping the DJ act. “Wait a minute. Turn that thing over again. Look at that.”

Her fingernail hovered over Ann Arbor, Michigan, where berry juice had seeped through from the other side. “There’s a stain over Ann Arbor. And one over Dayton, too.”

Forte brought the map close to his eyes. “That’s not really Dayton. It’s closer to Cincinnati.”

“Where are the other berry stains?”

“This one is just outside of Portland, Maine, where I met up with them. That one’s New York City.”

Shannon grew eager. “Oh my God, does that mean we’re supposed to go to New York?”

Forte shook his head. “Wow, I don’t know, babe. They started in New York.”

“Well any way you slice it we’ve made all the right stops, so we’re all definitely supposed to be here. But what about the pillars?”

They scrutinized the map, but aside from the four berry stains, it showed only mottled blots from blood and dirt.

“I don’t know.”

Charles handed the map back to her, and Shannon folded it carefully. “I can’t wait to show Jamie. Another day or two of walking and I’m sure we’ll make it at least as far as a tree.”

Charles snorted. “Well, looks like signs of civilization up ahead.”

A couple of warehouses dotted the road in the distance, and beyond them, barely visible, a gas station.

“Thank God! Now maybe I can score that chili dog I’ve been wishing for!”

“I know what I wish for.”

Her eyes darted up and sideways to him. “What?”

He cocked his head with his easy smile. “Less wasted time in my life. More of it spent with you.”

She gave a start and the flush that crept up her neck had very little to do with the blazing sun. She waved. “You just like me because with my motor mouth you never have to carry the conversation at parties.”

He shook his head, smile still holding. “You always do that to yourself.”

“Do what?”

“Never mind. Come here.”

He grabbed her hand, stopped her, and placed his fingers at the top of her spine. “Over this past year, every time I see you I want more of you.”

“I—you’re just—”

“Shut up, babe. I’m telling you that I love you.”

He kissed her and she was grateful that he did so with his eyes closed so he could not see the glistening at her lashes. For so long she had both longed for and dreaded hearing him say these words. She’d dreaded them because she knew it would start a whole new chain in her life, one she was afraid to begin.

He whispered it again into her hair. “I love you, Shannie.”

“I love you, too, Charlie.”

And with arms wrapped around each other on the side of the road, dotted with bug guts, scrapes, and bruises, Shannon felt an overwhelming sense of joy.

NEW YORK

“This woman, Gloria. She has an active brain. I would almost find it a disappointment to lose her company.”

Isolde nodded. She could only imagine how such a thing might manifest. Two hundred years ago, Enervata had taken Sileny into service because she had helped to betray her mistress. But she too had delighted him. For all the good it did her. Her sharp-tongued wit—the very element that caused Enervata so much amusement—ultimately led to her tortured current life when the Macul tired of her irreverence and took her mouth.

Isolde suspected that Enervata’s infatuation with Gloria would inevitably sour in the same way. Considering the young woman’s strong-willed temperament, she would eventually misspeak and then feel the full extent of his wrath. Perhaps Gloria and Isolde both would one day find themselves sisters in misery in the Hall of Amusements.

Isolde shuddered.

“I would prefer it if I were not in such a hurry in this business of turning her,” Enervata continued. “I am rather enjoying the game, much more so than with any of her predecessors. This Gloria, she’s a complex one.”

He regarded Isolde. “Do you know we were speaking the other night, having a perfectly rousing conversation, and she abruptly removed herself to her quarters?”

“As the heart is inclined, there ensues a fickle mind.”

He turned from her. “Yes, so very reminiscent of the sordid affair between you and Rafe, isn’t it?”

Isolde’s eyes alit with rage. Had he not turned his back to her at that moment he might have witnessed her bared teeth. How she longed to taste the flesh beneath his throat, as she had recently tasted that of her own kind.

“Did you dispatch your soldier of plagues to them, Isolde?”

She breathed slowly, willing herself to a more functional state.

“An insect swarm, they are stranded now but they will re-form.”

“So much for your prized soldier. She will answer to me, then. I presume you’ve exercised extreme caution. The male, Bruce, must remain alive.”

Isolde did not reply. Enervata seemed to take no notice of it.

In truth, Isolde had not used caution. She had been reckless. The hordes of insects could very easily have killed any or all of them, including the young man, Bruce. Since Rafe’s demise, Isolde could not seem to conjure any sense of prudence.

Hedon’s hulking form darkened the archway.

Isolde sighed. “And in the spirit of plagues maligned, we now receive Lieutenant Swine.”

Enervata turned.

Hedon snapped, “Mouthy little cunt for someone who can’t speak above a whisper, aren’t you?” He stepped from the archway and into the incandescent light of the main hall. His clothing hung torn, blood streaked his skin, and black smudges rimmed the underside of both eyes and were beginning to swell.

In conjunction with the notched nose Isolde had given him, the black eyes now added to his piggish appearance. Isolde threw back her head and laughed with hissing glee.

Enervata stepped toward him. “Hedon, what has happened?”

Hedon swung his arms and looked away. “Unfavorable news to report, I’m afraid, master. Lost two men today.”

Enervata’s lips peeled apart. “What did you say?”

Hedon swallowed. “As you know, we been watching Kolt’s subjects and working to infiltrate his operations. Today we were ambushed. Dinno how they spotted us. Made off with two of ours.”

Enervata spoke through his teeth. “You mean they killed two of ours.”

Hedon began to lick his lips, but seemed to lack adequate saliva to do so and bit inward instead. “I wish I did mean that, master. I wish they’d’ve just killed’m. I managed to kill one of our lads before they carried him off. But I couldn’t get t’other. They’ve got’m now. Alive.”

Isolde raised her brows. Kolt did not keep a Hall of Amusements, certainly not one as notorious as Enervata’s, but no doubt he would employ similar tactics.

Empurpled with outrage, Enervata advanced toward Hedon.

Hedon raised his hand and spoke swiftly. “I’ve taken care to make sure my outfit is largely kept in the dark. They won’t get much out of him, will they?”

Enervata’s lip curled around one word. “Much?”

“He only knows he’s been trying to infiltrate Kolt’s operations, and I daresay that comes as no surprise to them. Knows nothing about our bond-recherché, except . . .”

Enervata’s face loomed inches from Hedon’s. He said nothing.

“Well,” Hedon continued, “that’s the other thing I have to report, master. The word’s out about the bond-recherché. Several other factions have caught on to it, what with all that ruckus along the highways.”

He shot a sour expression toward Isolde.

“Giant insects, please! A little subtlety maybe next time, dearie?”

Enervata’s eyes flamed. “Are you reporting to me, Hedon? Because you seem to be addressing Isolde. Never have I known such chronic failure!”

Hedon’s jaw worked, but no words escaped.

Isolde steeled herself for Hedon’s punishment. She disliked him and delighted at the notion of his elimination, but Enervata’s capacity for cruelty surpassed even the palate of a blood-lustful canteshrike like herself.

Though Enervata had no room to lose another Pravus, let alone a lieutenant, his fury often outshone discretion. Hedon would pay, of this Isolde was certain; would pay in epic suffering. The only remaining question was whether that suffering would be followed by the blissful release of death.

But Enervata turned away from Hedon. His fury seemed to dissipate suddenly. He rubbed the knuckle of his claw over a book on the library shelf. “I suppose it was only a matter of time before they found out.”

Isolde and Hedon both gaped. Their eyes met in a moment of uncharacteristic camaraderie, marveling at Enervata’s nonchalant acceptance of the news.

“In the matter of Kolt’s philanthropist, Jonathon Raster, I will take steps to publicly sully his reputation.”

Hedon cleared his throat, his voice hopeful. “Very good, master. That might awaken his bleeding heart enough to make him think twice about who he’d become if he gives in to Kolt.”

“Indeed,” said Enervata, turning. “But more important, the media will fixate on him and he won’t be able to get away with anything radical when he’s under their microscope. Now as for our travelers.”

He turned to Isolde.

She spread her hands. “I’ve stymied them now but they’ll likely regroup. And they’ll find the place where the ash trees grow blue.”

Enervata shot a frown to Hedon. “We must wrap up this business with Kolt so we can throw our resources into blocking these travelers. Isolde, use all means necessary to prevent any further progress.”

She nodded even as he turned his back to her. Her eyes narrowed. No bloodshed, no fire, not even a striking blow. Neither to her nor Hedon. Enervata had killed valuable servants over less disturbing news than he’d received just now. Strange how his fury seemed to shrink. His rage had always been his most potent source of power.

And he hadn’t even caught her negligence, though she went to no trouble to conceal it.

He’d been too busy mulling over the shifting temper of a doomed young woman with long black waves of hair.

21

OHIO

BRUCE BANDAGED JAMIE’S ARM AND LEG with torn T-shirts and Bedelia fixed a square of gauze with ointment and medical tape at the back of her neck. Jamie was glad she’d packed the first aid kit years ago in anticipation of this very journey.

Jamie displayed a tired smile. “I always said mosquitoes love me. Now I know.”

She poured bottled water over the blisters that practically enveloped Bedelia’s leg. Jamie’s strength had slowly come back to her since Forte and Shannon had left on foot a couple of hours ago. Though still a little dizzy, she didn’t say as much to Bruce or Bedelia. Primarily she was just famished. Fortunately, Shannon and Forte had called on the cell to say they’d not only gotten the parts they needed, but had managed to get a lift from someone who’d recognized Forte and was eager to help out.

“We must be getting closer to the pillars. Between the bugs and that hailstorm, things are heating up.” She gently blotted Bedelia’s leg with a paper towel.

Bruce gave a grim nod. “Yeah, makes you wonder what’s in store for us when we do find them.”

“And then we’ve still got to find your Gloria. Thank you, dear.” Bedelia nodded at Jamie, wincing as she unrolled her torn trouser leg back down over her ankle. She tilted her head sideways. “We’re going to make it through this just fine. This monster won’t be able to stand up to us. We have each other. Demon negativity never pays.”

Jamie lifted her brows, a smile forming on her lips.

Bedelia hunched her shoulders. “I suppose I’m just guessing, aren’t I? I guess I don’t have any idea how ancient battles between good and evil go. But I would imagine all that negativity wouldn’t pay. My experience is that it never does.”

They fell quiet for a few minutes. Jamie ruminated over what lay in wait for them over the next few days. The stakes were going up, no question about it. Up until now, Jamie had felt certain that she could handle anything the quest threw at them. The incident with the bugs threw her for a loop, though.

Bedelia broke the silence by patting Bruce on the leg and asking, “What’s Gloria like?”

Bruce looked away.

Jamie knew what he was thinking—what he’d been thinking every time he thought about Gloria since the quest began. She decided to answer the question for him. “She’s smart and really strong. When she’s hot on something, she goes after it down to the miniscule detail. Like when she threw the surprise party for Bruce’s birthday.”

She grinned at Bruce. “She was like a maestro. Had the apartment decked out, all the food, and a plan that got Bruce out of the house, got all of his friends there, and got him back for the big surprise without his suspecting a thing. She thought of everything.”

Bruce nodded, his expression warm. “She’s that way with everything. You should see her at work.”

Bedelia smiled. “What does she look like?”

“She’s . . . wait, you tell me. What did the Gloria in your dream look like?”

“In my dream, Gloria was a real beauty. Not like my sister ever was, bless her heart, though in her day she was pretty in a different way. In the dream, she was Spanish-looking with long, wavy black hair. Big brown eyes with thick lashes. Wide smile.”

Bruce raised an eye to Jamie and then punched the buttons on his cell phone. He handed it over to Bedelia. “Sounds like my Gloria. Take a look.”

Bedelia rummaged in her pocket for her glasses and then peered at the image on the tiny screen. She nodded, then looked with wide eyes over the rims at Bruce and Jamie. “Exactly.”

She returned the phone and then pointed at the two of them. “You know, I was surprised to hear about your fiancée when I first met you. I thought for sure you two were together.”

“We are,” Jamie said, “just not that way. We’re practically brother and sister. Oh, we tried on the idea of getting together when we were still in school, but it felt way too weird.”

Bruce nodded. “Yeah. Way too weird.” He flicked his eyes over to her. “No offense, Tink. You know I love you like crazy, right?”

Jamie smiled warmly.

A car approached and they all turned to see if Forte and Shannon were inside. No such luck. But as it whizzed by, a bit of paper swirled up and landed in Bedelia’s lap.

She picked it up and held it out to Jamie and Bruce. “Hey, look at this napkin. ‘Sal’s Place: Best eats in three states!’ Ha, I could use the best eats in three states right about now. Blue Ash, Ohio, it says.”

Bruce lifted his chin at the road. “Well, it’s either a sign or just some cheesy advertising. It looks like it’s time to find out.”

A white truck loomed and slowed when it neared the van. Grinning from the passenger seats were Forte and Shannon.

NEW YORK

Gloria didn’t peruse the library today. Instead, she spent most of the day curled up, temples aching and heartsick, unable to concentrate on even the lightest reading. She’d hoped Sileny would stop by for her regular housekeeping routine, but she didn’t.

I have to get up. I have to shake this off. If I give in to despair, I’m done.

She stood and walked to the shower. She stayed under the spray a long time, tended to her hair and face, then decided to explore the enormous walk-in closet for something to wear. Until now, she had buried herself under loose, oversized clothing though she could have had her pick of any of the stylish garments draped on satin-padded hangers. She’d denied herself wearing them as if her defiance gave her some scrap of power.

But now that seemed silly. Regardless of whether she wore loose cotton or tailored pinstripes, the clothes still did not feel as though they belonged to her. And unless she intended to wear the same thing day after day, she might as well make peace with it.

She entered the closet, switched on the light, and brand-new garments spaced at precise intervals of three inches lined up before her. Labels from the most elite designers; cuts that decorated a woman’s body with the perfect balance of flattery and edge. Sewing that was deliberate, not mass-produced like her other clothes, and luscious fabrics with natural fibers, the odd synthetic appearing only sparsely in blends. She could never afford to wear these things in her normal existence.

Still, Gloria chose with restraint.

She selected a simple, mid-length black shift that angled in a classic line from nape to knee. It exposed skin below the neck, though without cleavage, and it fit her perfectly. She slipped on a pair of strappy heels and regarded herself in the mirror.

Her very being seemed to lift at the prospect of dressing not for a job, a man, or even friends, but just for simple indulgence.

She returned to the closet and tried on another. Royal hues of plum enriched with scrolling emerald patterns.

And another. A business suit: plush but sharp-edged. She imagined herself meeting with investors in this. She could garner endless partnerships and support for Woven Hillside. She remembered how Bruce had described her a few days ago—had it been a week now?—saying she looked like she was about to lead a marching band. Now she saw it.

One more. What else did she have to do? An evening gown. Sumptuous and flowing, caressing her skin, revealing the occasional shock of her figure and yet still coming off refined. Even regal.

From the rooms beyond came the scent of lavender—she could swear it was that—being rendered over intense heat.

Vance.

She folded her arms over the gorgeous dress.

She would say hello. Had to say hello. Regardless of how she decided to proceed with him, it made sense to maintain contact. It was better to cultivate his charming side. She hoped never again to feel the intensity of that first day, when they’d had lunch and he’d taken her away. The darkness in his eyes still caused gooseflesh to rise on her arms. She would make contact tonight, however brief.

But not in this. She changed back into the first outfit, the simple black dress.

She strode into the kitchen. “What is the lavender going into?”

“Dumplings,” he said as he glanced at her, then paused and turned slowly to regard her fully. So intense was his gaze that she had to look away. Perhaps the black dress was not conservative enough after all.

He cleared his throat. “I’m, er, making some dumplings for an artichoke ragout. Forgive me for saying this, but you look spectacular.”

No, she wouldn’t forgive him saying it.

She turned and strode back to her room where she found a long, easy sweater. She draped it over the black dress and returned to the kitchen.

“Did you catch a chill?” he said with what sounded like disappointment.

She shrugged.

“Remind me to have the air conditioning ripped out.”

Unbidden, a smile threatened her lips.

The summery perfume of lavender disappeared and an acrid smoke pinched her nose. Vance turned suddenly and pulled a pan from the stove, but the artichoke hearts were now blackened.

He sighed and switched the vent hood on, then turned to her. “No matter. We’ll go out.”

Go out? Gloria’s heart pounded.

“Aren’t you worried someone might recognize me?”

He shook his head. “No.”

She hadn’t intended to accept another meal in his company, but under the circumstances, it seemed prudent to accompany him.

“All right, then,” she said carefully.

Vance took her by the elbow and led her to the front door—a door that did not exist moments ago—and they stepped through it to the elevator.

And then, simply, fabulously, they were outside.

A light evening in summer, the sun seemed reluctant to forfeit the day and it stretched its farthest reach into the park. They strolled through it and Gloria felt absurdly casual.

She could make a break for it. Could simply run. If not here, then at the restaurant.

But somehow, Gloria knew better. If Aaron Vance could make doors disappear and reappear—or an entire restaurant for that matter—he likely had a way of keeping her on some unseen leash. Perhaps he even meant to test her. She did not really believe the burned artichoke hearts were accidental.

For now, she would go along and see what happened.

22

OHIO

FORTE SAT ON TOP OF THE PICNIC TABLE strumming a languid ballad on his guitar as the sun began to sink over the park. He paused from time to time, jotting notes on paper, then returning to his strumming. Jamie and Bruce both rested their heads on their hands, and Bedelia gazed at the children playing on the swings.

Bruce tried to force the image of Gloria and Enervata out of his head. He wondered what this Macul might look like. Scaly skin and pointed teeth? Jamie said he could probably change his appearance and that he might have turned himself into a hunky-looking man that he thought Gloria might find attractive. Could Gloria possible find anyone attractive under those circumstances?

Bruce felt the urge to drop and knock out some push-ups. Sitting in the van all day was making his heart restless and his muscles stiff.

Shannon waved at Sal’s Place with a wrapped peppermint candy she’d scored on the way out. “I don’t know if I’d call that the best eats in three states. Best eats in three streets, maybe.”

Bedelia patted her. “You never did get your chili dog, did you, dear?”

Shannon shrugged. “Maybe the next place will have ’em. Honestly, I was so hungry I could have tackled one of Jamie’s giant mosquitoes and slathered some butter on it.”

“Goodness!” Bedelia blanched. “But you hadn’t eaten in so long. I still can’t believe it took us five hours to get here! It should have taken one. But all those roadblocks, and the traffic . . . I don’t know how you held on until we got to the restaurant. I had to dig into some of those chips in the van. But Jamie barely ate anything. Didn’t even touch her ham and cheese from Sal’s!”

Jamie poked the white paper bag. “I’ll eat it later. With all the excitement my stomach’s kind of in knots.”

A little boy began to cry on the playground and they all turned to look.

Bedelia frowned. “Look at that baby standing there all alone. He looks no more than three years old.”

The boy’s sobs escalated and he called for his mother. Jamie and Bruce rose from the picnic table.

“Better check it out,” Bruce said, and he and Jamie started for the playground.

But as they approached, a ten-year-old girl in a ponytail galloped over to the little boy and put her arm around his shoulders, kneeling down next to him. He balled a fist in his eyes and, as she spoke to him, he nodded.

Jamie and Bruce turned back. A landscaped cluster of miniature rose bushes bloomed in a circle of red and green. In the center of them, a lone sunflower stretched for the sky. Bruce paused, thinking of the golden sapling growing within the ring of red maples. And Shannon’s T-shirt the night they met her—red with a yellow heart in the center. He frowned and scanned the park.

Jamie tossed the white bag with the ham and cheese sandwich into the trash can.

“You’re not going to eat it?” Bruce said.

Jamie sighed. “Given the tango going on in my stomach right now? I don’t think I can hold it.”

Bruce knew that, given Jamie’s recent blood loss, she’d do well to have a decent meal. But he didn’t push it. Jamie knew what she could handle.

They strode back to the others. Jamie waved toward the little girl leading the younger boy away as she and Bruce settled back at the picnic table. “Looks like his sister showed up.”

Forte switched to a slow blues tune. “I think one of my cancelled gigs would have been around here somewhere. It was near Cincinnati. What’s the name of this town again?”

“Blue Ash,” Jamie replied.

Bedelia scratched her chin. “It just seems wrong, us sitting here like this. Shouldn’t we be moving? Maybe we were supposed to go somewhere else?”

“Between the berry stains on the map and that napkin that landed on Bedelia from nowhere, this is the only thing that makes sense,” Jamie said. “We could get back on the road, but where would we go?”

Bruce’s stomach rolled. Jamie was right, but the frustration was wearing on him. He felt as though they’d managed to gather troops but got lost on the way to the battlefield. What was the point of all of this? And where were those damned pillars, anyway?

Bedelia shook her head. “I keep wondering why I’m here. I’m not sure how I can help you kids bring Bruce’s Gloria home.”

Jamie looked at her. “You already helped with that swarm of insects. You’re here for a reason, Bedelia. All of us are. And it’s not just a matter of getting Gloria back. If Enervata succeeds, our lives change forever. Everyone on Earth. We’re his slaves.”

“He’s not going to succeed,” Bruce said dully.

Bedelia shook her head. “It’s just a lot for me to try to understand.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes at the park. Resting against the trunk of a spreading blue ash tree sat the little girl with the ponytail. There was no sign of the little boy or a mother or father. He excused himself and rose, walking over to the tree.

The girl sat with her legs folded eating a sandwich from a white paper bag. Bruce stole a glimpse at the trash can and did not see the sandwich Jamie had thrown away just a few minutes ago.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked over at the slide.

He turned to her. “Hey, how’s it going?”

She swallowed a bite of ham and cheese and looked up at him. “Fine.”

“You okay?”

She shrugged. “Fine.”

Bruce rubbed his chin. “I saw you helping out that little boy a few minutes ago. That was very nice. Is he your brother?”

The girl shook her head. “I’m just the guard. Kids get lost all the time; you’d be surprised. Sometimes a family’s having a picnic and one of the kids wanders off.” She cranked her voice to a bubbly falsetto and cocked her brow. “Gots to keep the old eyes open!”

“Well, it sounds like they’re very lucky to have you helping out. Who appointed you guard?”

“It’s just my job, you know? The safest thing? You make a chain. All the kids hold hands and then you know for sure you have every one.”

The girl took another bite of sandwich and looked off. Her demeanor was considerably older than her years.

“Do you live around here somewhere?” he asked.

She nodded.

“I’m Bruce.”

“Emily. Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise. Do you mind if I sit?”

Emily shook her head. Bruce sat next to her under the shade of the towering blue ash.

“Emily, is your mom nearby?”

The girl shrugged, a momentary pinch to her nose.

“How ’bout your dad?”

She took another bite and offered him a conflicted expression.

A warm breeze swelled the leaves above, bringing with it a scent of arbor foliage followed by a hint of smoky sausage and burgers on a grill.

Bruce pointed at the picnic table, where Jamie and the others were stealing glances his way. “I’m here with some friends and we noticed you helping that boy. But I gotta say, you seem a little young to be on guard. That’s why I’m asking about your mom and dad. You live here in the park, don’t you?”

Emily blinked twice as she chewed the sandwich, half-moons the size of Bruce’s thumbnail trimming the grilled bread. “My dad dropped me off here and told me to wait for him.”

“When was that?”

She looked down, twitched her feet, and then shrugged again.

A shriek of delight filtered toward them from the north field, where children were playing tag. Overhead, an airplane yawned, and the great blue ash tree seemed to breathe in the languid air through the rustle of its leaves. Away from where they sat, everything seemed carefree. No awareness of Gloria’s abduction or the possibility of these freedoms vanishing at the whim of a brutal being. No awareness of a little girl in a ponytail who monitored lost children in the park but had no guardian of her own.

“I knew my dad wasn’t gonna come back,” Emily said distantly. “It’s been a long time. It’s okay though because I met Stay.”

“Stay?”

She nodded at him, ponytail bobbing. “He’s a collie-beagle mix. He came up after those first few days and snuggled next to me while I was trying to sleep in the little fort house. And then in the morning, I looked at his collar and it said Stay. He’s been following me everywhere ever since.”

“How long have you been in this park?”

“I’m not sure, really. The first day I came here, everyone was having a party with piñatas and chips and salsa and fun music with lots of horns. I don’t know how long ago that was. They have bathrooms and showers or whatever here but they lock’m up at night. I’m glad it’s summer again. If it weren’t for Stay it would have been awful tough when it got cold. Plus in the summer there’s more people here and sometimes they’re real nice, ’specially when I find the lost kids. Lots of times they give me cookies and stuff. In fact they just did another piñata day.”

Bruce tugged at his ear. “You know, there are lots of places for kids like you. Sometimes they can find you a nice family to live with.”

Emily shook her head. “Before I came here? When I was with my dad? There were lots of kids around who’d been in foster. Bad things happened to them all the time. That’s why I stay away from the police and stuff. It’s much better in the park.”

“Don’t you get scared here all by yourself?”

“Stay always looked out for me.”

Bruce panned the park. Some teenagers in baseball hats were playing Frisbee with a black lab, but there were no other dogs in sight.

“Where’s Stay now?”

Emily wrinkled her brow. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a collar. A single tag bearing the word Stay dangled from the metal clip. Emily’s eyes glistened and she swallowed hard. “This morning when I woke up he was gone. I don’t know where he went.”

Bruce sighed, inclining his head and lifting his eyes to her. “I’m sorry, Emily.”

Her words came as if she were chewing through them. “He’s never left me since that first night and he always waits for me when I have to go to the bathroom and stuff. I don’t know how he got his collar off.”

Bruce put a hand on her tiny shoulder. “You know, there’ve been some strange things going on lately. The past week or two I learned a lot about why things happen the way they do. In fact, maybe I’d better explain.”

Bruce told Emily everything that had happened since the time he and Gloria went to dinner with Carlotta. The little girl tilted her head as she listened and Bruce saw disbelief alternating with flickers of wonder on her face. Knowing that she had probably been in the habit of concealing the details of her situation when talking to adults, Bruce guessed that Emily had taken a significant risk in speaking so candidly of her situation. He returned the favor by leaving nothing out, right up until they arrived at Sal’s Place by a sprawling park in Blue Ash.

When he finished, Emily regarded him with suspicion. “Aren’t you a little old for fairy tales?”

Bruce laughed. “It’s true. Every word of it. Here, look.”

He stretched out the underside of his arm to display the slashes and blisters that had resulted from the showdown with the insects.

Emily grimaced. “Eew!”

He rested his arm on his knee. “I know, it looks crazy and it is crazy. I hardly know what to think of it myself. I just, I’m so worried about Gloria. If this is happening to us, I can’t imagine what might be happening to her.”

“You guys were gonna get married, huh?”

Bruce nodded, a lump forming in his throat. “Are going to get married. I just wish I knew if she were okay. I don’t know if she’s hurt or scared or what.”

Emily listened carefully, then shook her head. “She’s not scared.” “You don’t think so?”

“She probably was at first, but now she’s just wondering. Wondering about you and whether you feel different about her. Probably trying to think of what to do next, but she knows she’s stuck.”

Bruce pondered this.

“Is that how you felt after your dad dropped you off?”

Emily tilted her head and looked off again.

A mosquito buzzed his ear and Bruce was quick to slap it. Quicker than he’d ever been before in his life. He gave a rueful laugh. “The thing is, Emily, every step of the way we’ve gotten a signal to go somewhere. We got here to Sal’s place because of the napkin and the berry stains on the map, and then here we find you. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Now that Stay is gone, I think it makes sense for you to hang out with us for a while.”

Emily still looked doubtful. “If I leave here, there’ll be no one to guard the lost kids.”

Bruce rose to his feet. “You’re right about that, but you may find you have a bigger job to do. I’ll tell you what. At least come meet my friends over there and we’ll have a chat. Meanwhile you think it over.”

The girl gathered her backpack and followed Bruce to the picnic table, where he introduced her to the others. Shannon had made a run back into Sal’s Place and bought a round of milkshakes to go, including an extra one for Emily, and she handed it over while Bruce explained the situation.

“We should be getting some vegetables in you,” Bedelia said.

Emily gave her a sheepish smile. “No thank you. The milkshake’s good.”

Bruce put a hand in his pocket. “Emily’s thinking of relinquishing her post at the park and joining our guard.”

Forte strummed a chord on his guitar, then lifted the strap over his head and set it aside. “That’d be real cool. It’d be even cooler if she came along and we had some clue as to where our next guard post was supposed to be.”

“New Orleans,” Emily said.

Five sets of eyes turned to her.

She nodded solemnly, eyes wide. “New Orleans. Absolutely-resolutely!”

NEW YORK

She amused him. Delighted him even. And though her beauty caused a restful ease to spread within his soul, her engaging intellect was what commanded his attention most. He found himself wanting to lay underdeveloped theories before her just to watch the way she might challenge them.

“Are we closer to breaking through the bond-recherché, master?” Hedon asked.

Enervata clouded. He stood in his human form, pulled a charcoal cashmere sweater over his undershirt, tucked it in at the belt line, and then combed his hair.

Hedon coughed back his inquiry. “That is, I know these things take time. I do believe I will be able to devote more resources to focus on the travelers soon. There’ll be an exposé on our Jonathon Raster in the Daily News tomorrow, as you advised.”

“Good. Anything factual in it?”

Hedon shrugged. “Hard to find anything on our man Raster, even if it’s a wee twist o’ the truth. Good sight why there’s so much power in it if Kolt can corrupt him, isn’t it? No, the report’s all fabricated. But even if the paper rescinds it it’ll have its effect.”

Enervata nodded. “That should be enough to close him off to Kolt. Isolde, what is the status of the travelers?”

Isolde raised her yellow eyes to him, and in them he saw failure; and in that, challenge. Where had her humility gone? Were he not in short supply of lieutenants, Enervata would have dispatched her alongside Rafe.

But Isolde surprised him with her answer. “The girl is in their company. But they do not return to our fair city—the Gulf Coast is where their journey leads.”

“You’ve diverted them to the south? Bravo, Isolde.”

Perhaps he’d misread her expression. True, allowing the child to join the travelers had been a failure, but he knew it was inevitable. To divert them to the southern coast seemed a brilliant coup indeed.

“Hedon, keep an eye on Raster’s developments, but send some of your resources to assist Isolde. Let us see if we can slow their progress even further. Perhaps our chef should prepare a personal menu for them. The young musician is traveling with them as well?”

Isolde lifted her chin. “Yes; he joined them from the first. They found him through an altered verse.”

“Then arrange for a reception by our own talented Pravus.”

Hedon and Isolde both nodded and Enervata turned toward the mirror. “That will be all. Gloria and I will be dining at a Michelin-starred restaurant this evening.”

23

KENTUCKY

BRUCE WATCHED BEDELIA’S NIMBLE FINGERS work Emily’s hair into two neat braids. First one side, then the other. Though the adrenaline fire still burned inside him, his mind was sagging. Sleep had been evasive since Gloria disappeared.

Emily sang contentedly:

Oh, wouldn’t it be loverly?

How did someone her age even know that song?

The green rolling hills of the Cumberland River Gap filled the van with the scent of pine. They eased through the underbelly of the mountain from the Kentucky end and then burst into bright daylight in Virginia.

“Is it about time for a diner?” Bedelia said as she snapped the band around the end of Emily’s braid.

Bruce shook his head. “No diners today. Let’s try to find a little stand or something instead so we can keep moving.” Stopping for bathroom breaks was a necessity, but for food, it was better to grab and go. Hours disappeared all too easily when they stopped at diners.

Bruce had no idea what waited for them in New Orleans, but the way Emily had called it out with such certainty had him wondering. Every other destination had popped up in the form of external cues. The last time he and Jamie decided to follow a whim, they almost headed off to California when they were meant to stay in Maine.

“Hey, Emily, tell me again why you think we should go to New Orleans.”

“I just know,” the girl said, tugging at the freshly plaited rope of hair.

Right.

Emily swayed in her seat and went back to singing.

Oh, so, loverly sittin’ abso-bloomin’-lutely still!

Bedelia dug into her purse, pulling out a mirror. “I haven’t seen you sit abso-bloomin’-lutely still since I met you.”

Shannon chortled from the driver’s seat. “I don’t think we’ll find a diner out here, anyway. There’s nothing but mountains and trees. Smell it? So beautiful. Oh my God, look! A chili dog stand!”

The van lurched suddenly and they grasped at armrests.

“Sorry, guys. I can’t believe there’s a chili dog stand out here in the middle of nowhere.”

Bedelia retrieved the mirror from between her feet where she’d dropped it at the van’s sudden movement. “That is odd. It’s hard to believe they’d park it right there on the shoulder. Do they even eat chili dogs in Kentucky?”

She held the mirror up for Emily.

“We’re not in Kentucky anymore,” Emily said with authority. “We’re in Virginia. Hey! I look weird!”

Emily tugged her braids out sideways and made an O with her lips. Bruce grinned at her.

“Watch it, kid,” Shannon said. “We might just nominate you the new Quester Jester.”

Emily beamed with pride. Shannon parked along the shoulder and they hopped out, Emily swinging her head from side to side to make the braids whip at her neck.

The guy inside the stand nodded at them with a placid smile. Or maybe it wasn’t a smile; his thin wide lips might have just spread across his face in a blank expression that resembled a smile. He wore little round glasses and kind of reminded Bruce of a frog.

“Hello, folks,” he said.

Bruce surveyed the tiny setup. “Hi. Got any sandwiches?”

The frogman shook his head. “Just hot dogs and chili dogs.”

“I guess that makes the choice easy. We’ll take six chili dogs.” Bruce scanned the mountain behind him. “We got kind of sidetracked leaving Cincinnati. Do you know how to get back to the interstate from here?”

The guy licked his lips and darted his eyes from side to side.

“Which way ya headed?”

Bruce sighed, still not bought in to the idea. “New Orleans. I guess at this point we’re trying to get to Knoxville.”

The frogman whistled. “You’re a ways off, buddy. Your best bet, take 63 on over to I-75.”

Bruce shook his head. “Detours all over I-75. That’s how we wound up here.”

“Umf. That case take 33 on down to Knoxville. It’s slower but it’s sure.”

Emily cocked a brow at him. “How do you know it’s sure?”

“It’s a reliable road,” the frogman replied.

“But how do you know?”

Bruce knew what Emily was up to. They kept getting blown off course. First from road signs that pointed in the wrong direction, then from a series of detours and seemingly bad omens. Bruce had switched driving with Jamie who then switched with Shannon, as if changing drivers might make a difference.

Somehow, they seemed to keep getting nudged northeast when they meant to travel southwest.

The frogman shrugged. “People come through here all the time. Get to talkin’. They all seem to be going 33.”

Emily narrowed her eyes. “And where do you come from?”

“Harrogate.”

“And where is Middlesboro?”

“Kentucky side of the tunnel.”

“And Meldrum?”

“What are you, the inquisition?”

Emily raised her brow. Bruce suppressed a smile.

The frogman sighed. “Meldrum’s on the Kentucky side, too.”

Emily frowned. “Wrong, it’s on the Virginia side.” She passed a sidelong look to Bruce.

The frogman looked exasperated. “Is it? Jeez, little lady, I don’t know. Don’t go to Meldrum much.”

She shrugged. “Actually, it is on the Kentucky side. Just seems like if you live around here you’d know for sure.”

“Look. You folks want cheese and onions on your chili dogs?”

Bruce turned to the rest of the troops. Five yeses and one cheese only.

Bruce eyed little miss cheese-only herself, abandoning the interrogation and suddenly a little girl again, pursuing a tabby cat into the bushes.

“Cute kid,” the frogman said, his tone less than convincing.

Bruce gave a mild shrug and called after her. “Careful, Emily. I’d feel better if you stayed close.”

“Okay.” She turned back toward the stand, waving at the cat with one of her braids, and Bruce relaxed slightly.

Everything brought paranoia. Emily’s inquisition was borne from a string of suspicious moments along the highway. An old woman in a Buick who blocked their passage. A wild dog that glowered at them outside a rest stop. Everything they saw could be another version of that green woman with mosquitoes in her teeth.

Or just coincidence. It was maddening.

For all he knew, the cat could suddenly turn into a nine-eyed pig monster intent on devouring all of them. Bruce wasn’t about to take any chances. And if Emily felt the need to grill the poor hot dog guy/frogman, Bruce wasn’t going to second-guess her.

Forte shuffled closer, scanning a folded newspaper. “Check it out! Skynrd’s in Nashville tonight. Aw, man. Don’t you think we should go there instead? Maybe this newspaper’s a sign!”

Bruce shook his head with a laugh. He’d like nothing more than to see Lynyrd Skynard himself, especially in the company of a musician like Forte. “Sorry, man. But hey, New Orleans is a big music city, too.”

“Yeah,” Forte groaned. “But it’s Skynrd. We’re talking classics from the Ronnie Van Zant days. But his little bro plays a mean guitar now. He really makes good. Their later stuff is awesome, too. Just hard to live up to that first legacy before the plane crash.”

His face contorted and he pretended to cry. “Skynrd!”

Shannon patted him on the shoulder. “You know what we ought to do? We ought to take a road trip after this is over. It’s so gorgeous out here. I didn’t even know about the Cumberland Gap. And we can head over to Nashville and take in the music scene.”

Forte swung an arm around her. “That’d be cool. I always wanted to go to the Bluebird Café. It’s like all low-key, pure acoustic and no more than two instruments at a time, but they give the local songwriters a chance to perform, and they’re real picky. And they don’t allow people to talk while the musicians are playing. I love that. It’s the real deal. Hey, if you took a little Skynard, and then canked it with a little Cumberland Gap bluegrass. You know? Like blaudeyowdanka danka dinga. That’d be a cool start for a tune.”

He grabbed a wadded up piece of paper and a pencil stub from his pocket and jotted it down.

Bruce watched them. It was bittersweet to observe them spending so much time together and to see the effect it had on them. They seemed closer every day. It gave Bruce a sharp yearning for Gloria. He’d love to take her to the Bluebird Café, too. And he’d take her into these mountains to show her all of the plants and trees and geological curiosities of the Cumberland Gap.

The frogman handed over two grease-spotted bags of chili dogs, one to Bruce and the other to Emily.

“That’s the cheese only,” he said to the kid.

“Thanks.”

The tabby returned and rubbed its face against Emily’s leg. Emily responded by digging into her bag, pulling off a hunk of meat, and tossing it to the cat.

Bruce put a hand to her head. “Careful, Em. You just never know.”

“Gots to give the helping hand,” she replied with a bubble to her voice. And then, with her expression growing serious, “Do you and Gloria have a cat?”

“No,” Bruce said. “Gloria wants one, though.”

“Maybe you should bring her this one.”

“Bad idea. Shannon’s allergic. I’ll have to wait till Gloria’s home safe.”

“Okay.” Emily watched the cat eat and then looked back up at Bruce. “What’s Gloria like?”

Bruce drew in a slow breath, the pine-scented air seeping in. “She’s pretty. Brilliant. Curious about things. So much so that if I run out of things to tell her about, I start making them up. If she were here right now, I’d be telling her all about the Cumberland Gap. About the trees, the minerals in the soil, that sort of thing.”

“And what would she be telling you?”

“Telling me?” Bruce blinked. The sounds of the highway trickled off, and in their place a swelling wind fluttered the pines. “She would be telling me to listen. Listen to the people around me. Hear how they talk.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m writing a play. I can’t seem to nail down the way the characters should come across. Gloria keeps telling me to watch the people around me. And listen. Funny; now that I think about it, Shannon reminds me a lot of how my leading lady is supposed to speak and act.”

“What about me?”

“You? You know, you’d make a good Howie, actually.”

Emily looked scandalized. “Howie? A boy?”

Bruce laughed, a sudden barking release, and the cat turned toward him and crouched with an ill-humored growl. Bruce frowned at the thing, suspicious. He was suspicious of the frogman, too, and of everyone and everything that wasn’t part of their core group.

“It’s okay,” Emily said to the cat in her bubble voice. She looked back up at Bruce. “I think he’s lost.”

Bruce snorted. “We are, too. The fro—I mean, the hot dog guy said our best bet’s to follow Highway 33. Do you think you could find that on the map?

She straightened. “Absolutely-resolutely!” And in a flash, she was off galloping for the van.

Forte gave a salute and strode for the woods. “Be right back. Gotta find me a tree.”

Bruce joined the rest of them, stretching by the van, where Shannon was now using a comb to back-brush Jamie’s hair. He handed the chili dog bag to Bedelia.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’d feel better if we had some green vegetables. I guess broccoli stands aren’t as plentiful as chili dog stands. Here, everyone at least take a multi.”

She produced a handful of multivitamins and passed them around, then distributed bottles of water from the cooler.

“Coke for me, please,” Shannon said.

“Why don’t you have water this time, hon?”

“Yes, Mom.” Shannon rolled her eyes with a giggle and went back to fiddling with Jamie’s hair. “There, girlfriend, now you’re all edgy.”

Jamie laughed at her reflection in the van window.

Bruce rolled his eyes. “Between Bedelia braiding Emily’s hair and Shannon doing Jamie’s, it’s getting a little girlie for my comfort zone. Where’s Forte when you need him?”

“Ha!” Shannon said. “I’d do his hair the same as Jamie’s. Tease it, spike it, mess it up! Mama was the best, though. She used to cut my hair when I was a kid.”

Jamie grinned, looking more like a rocker and less like a pixie. “I never let my mom touch my hair. Style just isn’t her thing. But she can really sew! She sewed my play clothes growing up.”

Shannon snorted. “My mom couldn’t sew on a button. If a button fell off my shirt, I’d have to hide the stapler.”

Shannon offered an outsized laugh before she continued. “She’d just as soon take a chewed piece of bubblegum to a button than a sewing needle.”

The others chuckled, but their laughter became puzzled as they watched Shannon’s face crease with tension.

“Yeah,” Shannon said. “My mom was so . . . she was so . . .”

She stopped, her eyes suddenly brimming.

Bedelia put a hand on her arm. “You all right, honey?”

Shannon nodded, lips tight, but did not speak.

Bedelia leaned over and put her arms around Shannon’s narrow shoulders, and Jamie closed over her from the other side. Tears began to stream down Shannon’s cheeks. Bruce and Emily each laid a hand on her.

Shannon sniffled. “Every once in a while it just hits me out of the blue. I’m okay, though.”

“I know just how you feel,” Bedelia said. “Sometimes it just hits you.”

Emily pulled them both in close. “We love you. We’ll be your family.”

The girl jumped in the van and grabbed some tissues, handing one to each of them, and then flitted around seemingly aghast that she couldn’t do more to help. In the end, she just hung her head, braids drooping over the knobbed bones of her upper spine, and wrapped her arms around them again. “How long has it been since your mom went away, Shan?”

Shannon blinked hard, and the moisture retreated. “Going on four months now. She had such a tough time there at the end. The cancer just ate her up. I knew she was just hanging on for my sake.”

Bedelia patted her hair. “I’ll bet she was real proud of you.”

Shannon smiled. “She always wanted the best for me. Worked hard, you know, single mom. Her and Charlie got along real well, too. They were a lot alike. Real intense but real easy at the same time. At the end? When Charlie came to visit? He would pick her up and carry her into the backyard so she could sit in the sun. And he’d get out his guitar and sing her favorite songs, ‘Do Wah Diddy’ and ‘Hang on Sloopy.’”

Forte emerged from the woods beyond, chortling from the distance. “Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy doo-WOO-oh-WOAH!”

They all turned and looked at him.

He stopped just short of the van. “What’d I do?”

Shannon smiled, fluttering a hand over her face as though she were brushing away the down of a milkweed instead of tears.

She shook off the sadness and her smile suddenly affected mischief. “Nothing, baby. We just decided we were going to switch off the radio and have one of us play air guitar all the way to Knoxville. Drew straws. You lost.”

Forte shrugged with a grin. “Is that acoustic air guitar or electric? How ’bout a little slide?”

Forte walked over to Shannon and kissed her on the top of the head as the others stepped back. He hugged her head to his chest and then they looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment.

Bedelia produced a box of premoistened napkins. “Here, now everyone take one of these towelettes to wash your hands before we eat.”

Emily did as she was told, then narrowed her eyes at the tree line. She trotted over that way while Bedelia passed around the chili dogs. Bruce watched Emily as she bent over the cat. He tensed.

But Emily immediately came running right back again.

Bedelia raised the chili dog to her lips. “Not the healthiest thing in the world, but I’m starv—”

Emily bounded up to her and slapped at the chili dog. The thing missiled out from the bun and went flying, chili spiraling along with it.

Everyone froze.

Bedelia’s blouse was covered with chili. Shannon, who’d been standing next to her, got it in her hair.

Emily gaped. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I saw . . . a bug!”

Bedelia shook globs of chili from her shirt. “It’s all right. It was an accident.”

Jamie passed around Bedelia’s premoistened napkins again.

“Here folks! I’ve got a replacement!”

Bruce jumped. He turned and saw the frogman standing right behind him. He frowned, looking from him to wide-eyed Emily.

“Thank you,” Bedelia said, accepting the new chili dog with a puzzled frown.

Jamie raised her eyes to Bruce. “Well, we’d better hit the road. We’re losing time you know. We’ll eat in the car.”

The frogman nodded with a curl at the corners of his mouth, white clouds reflecting in his glasses.

They assembled in the van and Bruce got behind the wheel. The frogman stood there, continuing his curl-mouthed nod like a bobblehead figurine as they pulled away.

“What is it, honey?” Bedelia said to Emily. “Is there something wrong with the food?”

Emily drew back her lips under her lower teeth with a shake of her head. “The stray cat barfed. But it wasn’t just barf, it . . . it was . . . eew.”

Jamie grabbed a pen and picked up one of the bags. She closed the top of it and folded it over twice, and then on the broad side of it she drew the symbols from the golden sapling.

They watched. They listened.

And then it sounded like something moved inside the bag. A wet crackling. It grew louder.

“Bruce, pull over!” Jamie barked.

But even as he slowed, the sound in the bag increased and then turned to buzzing. Jamie’s knuckles gripped the crimped edge of the bag. She folded the top in one more turn. The buzzing grew louder and was joined by popping sounds.

“Pull over!” Jamie shrieked.

Bruce slammed on the brakes.

The bag expanded. Jamie opened the door, leaped outside, and threw the bag away from her. It exploded in a confetti of blowflies. The bag, now torn, gaped with the food still inside. Even from the distance, they could see worms squirming over what remained of the chili dogs.

And then the flies and the dogs puffed into ash and disappeared.

The travelers gaped.

A bird chirped from the woods beyond and the breeze rustled in the bushes. As if nothing freakishly insane had just happened.

“Do the other one,” Emily commanded.

Jamie did, and they watched it go through the same metamorphosis, this time from a safe distance like spectators at a fireworks display.

Bedelia’s voice held a tremor. “I was just about to eat one of those things.”

Shannon’s lips curled back. “I had that stuff in my hair. I think I have just been cured of my obsession with chili dogs.”

Bruce turned to Emily and brushed a hand over her head. “Standing guard for us all, are ya, kid?”

He suddenly felt much more confident in their decision to follow Emily’s advice and go to New Orleans.

NEW YORK

In previous efforts, Enervata would have never been so careless as to risk giving another unsanctioned access to his bond-recherché. This oversight would be all Isolde required to exact her vengeance. Rafe’s vengeance. For to spill the blood of the dark-haired woman would be to sever the bond before Enervata could manifest its power. And considering his unqualified fascination with her, the loss might be damaging enough to weaken him permanently. Perhaps even to destroy him.

Isolde opened the door.

The young woman, Gloria, was standing at the window, fingers pressed to the glass. She turned her eyes slowly, almost sluggishly, and caught her breath when she saw Isolde.

They stared at each other for a long moment. And then Gloria moved, at first with trepidation and then with determined acceptance, stepping toward Isolde.

A lovely thing. Her simple, lace-trimmed dress might be but a modern version of that worn by a vestal virgin awaiting sacrifice.

Isolde smiled.

“You,” Gloria said. She lifted a hand and almost touched Isolde’s cheek, but then she paused. “I know you. You’re beautiful. He sent you to watch me, watch us, Bruce and me. Didn’t he?”

“It’s true, my lamb, and I did as bidden. Though from your keen eyes I could not stay hidden.”

Gloria blinked, hands open, soul open, throat open. Ready for the razor point of Isolde’s swift talon.

“You’ve changed. You were all in white then, when I saw you on the streets and then later in the chandelier.”

Isolde nodded and shifted her body ever so slightly, preparing for her warrior strike. There was no need to cause suffering. Let this child’s death be quick. Like the death she herself craved but would forsake in slaying this young woman.

Isolde’s own treachery assured her place in the Hall of Amusements. And she didn’t even care.

Gloria turned her eyes back to the window, her openness like the scent of jasmine in a summer arbor. “You’ve come to kill me, haven’t you?”

Isolde paused.

Gloria kept her gaze leveled at the window as if watching for a ship that might at any moment pull into a phantom harbor. “I could tell the moment I saw you in the doorway. I thought it might be Sileny. I knew it wouldn’t be him. But when I saw you, I thought, ‘There’s the canteshrike. She’s come to end it.’”

Gloria turned then, meeting Isolde’s eyes once again.

“And if you don’t, and if I give in to him, something bad will happen, won’t it?” Her gaze pierced through Isolde. “I don’t know what exactly or why I believe that . . . I just have this feeling. He’s not telling me something. I wish you would tell me.”

Isolde paused. This young woman surprised her. No vestal virgin. Gloria’s perceptions seemed as sharp as one who’d lived for centuries.

Gloria’s eyes wandered. “It would almost be easy to give in to Aaron. Bruce is gone from me. Gone forever. I know it. And I could just lose myself in Aaron’s mind and his conversation. I could dress myself in lovely things, share his table, sip aromatic wines. Try to forget.”

Her gaze rested at her feet. “If you don’t end this, canteshrike, I might just give in to him. He is too powerful. I would hate myself but I might just do it. It’s an aphrodisiac. It’s like he’s invincible.”

Isolde wet her lips, searching for the desire to spill this blood. She turned her head back toward the door, seeing the living area that Gloria had frequented, and in her mind, seeing the Hall beyond it, which Gloria had not.

Isolde felt a sting at her throat. “Not invincible. His heart betrays, and he falters while beneath your gaze.”

Gloria looked at Isolde and Isolde felt as if those eyes pierced her very being, exposing waves of centuries that purled a lifetime: the lustful indulgences, the sustained decay of her soul, the bitter love of Rafe.

Gloria drew in her breath. “What about the other? There was another canteshrike. I saw him in the window on the street. Is he here with you?”

Isolde’s stance grew slack. Gloria turned toward the door, looking for that other, for Rafe. Somehow, that simple question, posed by one who knew nothing of their history, seemed agonizingly empathic.

Isolde felt a welling of grief. Sudden and molesting. She would not allow for it, no. She burned it, invoking with desperation her canteshrike urges. Probed for the bloodlust that would finish this, finish her.

But as she looked upon the skin of Gloria’s throat, she yearned not to open it, but to taste it with gentleness; to let her fingertips linger down the soft fabric of Gloria’s dress.

From beyond, there came the sound of a door opening.

Gloria gasped.

Isolde listened.

Enervata.

In a moment, he would discover her. But within that moment she might yet complete the task she’d set out to accomplish. If she acted with enough speed, she could dispatch this young woman to the next world and greet Enervata’s wrath with sneering acceptance.

Isolde and Gloria regarded each other. Gloria’s face was expectant.

Either way, Isolde would find herself at Enervata’s mercy when he discovered her.

But her talons stayed. A failure that meant she would face Enervata’s wrath without even having exacted her vengeance. Isolde began to shake as the sound of Enervata’s footsteps drew nearer in the living area beyond.

Gloria breathed in, her anticipation shriveling, and turned away from Isolde. She strode to the door before Enervata approached. “Hello, Aaron.”

She passed through it without a single backward glance. And then she closed it behind her, blocking Isolde from falling under Enervata’s gaze.

Buying her another day to weigh the salts of survival and revenge.

24

LOUISIANA

FORTE WATCHED THE NEIGHBORHOODS whiz past. Even the old, worn-out houses here had fancy trim on them.

Emily pointed to the green sign. “Look, we’re in Slidell!”

Shannon grinned. “Sliding out of Slidell, sliding into New Orleans!”

“Well, laissez les bons temps roulez!” Forte reached over and grabbed a hunk of Shannie meat just below the knee. She squealed.

“Bea, will you braid my hair again before we stop?”

Bedelia cocked her head at Emily. “I thought you said the braids made you look weird.”

“They do! But I like them. They keep everything in order. And I don’t have to worry about getting hair in my food.”

Food. Forte’s stomach began to rumble. They’d all kind of lost their appetites after the chili dog gig, and then they’d been too suspicious to really eat anything since.

In sync as always, Shannon snagged that thought. “Speaking of food, I am STARVING! Let’s hit an oyster bar! Fried oysters, chargrilled oysters . . .”

Bedelia nodded. “That sounds good.”

“. . . Oysters on the half shell, oysters Rockefeller . . . Ooh! Oyster Po’ Boys!”

Emily squinched her lips. “I don’t know. I never had oysters.”

Shannon gave her a wink. “When in Rome, baby.”

Emily frowned. “Rome? But we’re on our way to New Orleans.”

Bedelia patted her hand. “It’s a saying, sweetie. Oysters are really good for you. Lots of iron and important vitamins. It’ll balance out some of the things you’ve been missing.”

“I don’t know,” Jamie said. “I don’t like the idea of eating anything we can’t check out.”

Forte groaned. “Come on, live a little.”

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t eat them, I guess. I just want to be able to screen them first. You get a bag of fast food or something, it’s easy to draw the symbols on it and see what happens.”

The van fell silent. Right now, fast food sounded about as happening as elevator music. Forte made a mental note to grab Shannie and slap some sidewalk as soon as this starship landed. Bruce and them were cool and all, and Forte wanted to help out, but he really didn’t know what to do for Bruce’s girlfriend and—God! They were gonna be in New Orleans! He couldn’t not check out the music scene. Or the chow.

Bedelia braided Emily’s hair again as the van rolled over a hazy stretch of Lake Pontchartrain and into the Big Easy. They found a place to park in the Quarter and buzzed out of that van like, well, like hornets from a freak’s teeth.

Hot wet air filled Forte’s lungs. He made a mad-dog scope of the scene, planning his escape.

Bedelia eyed a tchotchke stand and hollered for Emily. She picked up a pink wide-brimmed hat with a plastic daisy on the front. “Come here, sweetie, we need to get you a hat to keep that sun off you the rest of this trip. You’ve suffered way too much sunburn already for a girl your age.”

Emily blanched, and looked like she was going to hurl on the floppy pink hat. “I don’t know, Bea, what about this one?”

She picked up an olive green baseball cap and tried it on.

Shannon whooped. “Ha! With that hat and those braids you look like a little soldier!”

Bruce put his hand on her back. “Standing guard.”

Emily looked around suspiciously. “You never know what might happen. We have to stick together. Everyone make a chain.”

She grabbed Bedelia’s hand and then Jamie’s, and looked expectantly at the others. Bruce smiled, taking Jamie’s free hand, and it looked like Shannon was about to join in.

But Forte hooked his fingers into Shannon’s, preventing her from joining hands. “So, you know, I’m thinking the thing to do is to divide and conquer, you know? See if we can find some pillars and stuff.”

Forte’s internal dowser started pinging in the general direction of Bourbon Street, and he started making tracks. “You guys can draw symbols on food, and we’ll, you know, hook up later with, like, pillars.”

Bruce gave him a suspicious look but his eyes were smiling. “You got your cell on you?”

Still backstriding, Forte waved his phone in the air.

Bruce shook his head and Forte didn’t wait around to see what might come next. He figured Bruce was a big meaty-muscle guy. He could handle stuff on his own without a scrappy rocker for a while.

“Come on, babe,” he said, pulling Shannon along with him.

Shannon laughed.

Bourbon Street was tilting! People were cackling and swaying, carrying plastic cups filled with something other than soda pop, and it wasn’t even dark yet. Shannon looked kitty-cool in her sleeveless tee and denim skirt.

They strode hand in hand, heads going back and forth at the gaggle like they were watching a tennis match. He didn’t know whether to sniff out some tunes or troll for chow. Some old guy was playing horn on the sidewalk and Forte chucked a fiver into his case.

Shannon eyed him. “Are you sure that guy’s okay? He looked a little unusual.”

Forte groaned. “Oh no, not you too, babe. Ease up! We’re in New Orleans. Everything’s unusual.”

She gave him a dazzle. “I’m just trying to look for signs.”

An electric strum sounded from a dark doorway across the street, and that internal dowser of his went wild.

He crooked a finger. “You’re right. I hear a sign right now. We’d better go check it out.”

Shannon rolled her eyes and allowed him to drag her into a skeevedout bar. The crowing guitar filled his head and got his blood pumping. The bar wasn’t much but the place was good and packed. Forte knew the tunes were what brought them in. He led Shannon to the front where the dude onstage was letting it fly.

Aside from the lead guitar, they had a bass player and some drums, plus a guy on keyboard. But those others were sitting back and letting the lead guitar do his solo thing. And rightly so.

Shannon rose up on her tiptoes and called into his ear. “Charlie, I don’t know about this.”

He swung an arm around her and gave a squeeze.

The dude onstage was shredding through riffs like he owned them. The base song was preordained and intact, but Forte could tell that he was ad-libbing a good chunk of it, too. He cranked the chords just a taste so they went from a C major to a B minor, and it threw a whole new feel down the side. Forte’d seen a lot of cats try to make something like that happen in an improv, but very few pulled it off.

Not this guy. He knew how to use his instrument.

The guitarist was rubber band thin and his hair curled low over his ears, making his already-broad nose look broader. When he concentrated, his chin dimpled up into his lips. He wound the tune to an in-yourface finish and Forte pounded palms. Shannon got into it, too, giving her little whoop and bounce that was always so dastardly cute.

Forte put two fingers to his mouth and sailed out a whistle. It caught the guitar player’s attention because he looked him straight in the eye.

The guy bent down and lifted his chin at him. “Hey pal, you a player?”

Forte gave an easy shrug. “Sure, I can swing an axe.”

But the guy shook his head. “No you can’t.”

Forte snorted with a narrow-eyed laugh. “Matter of fact, pal, I beg to differ.”

The guy straightened back up again and got on the mic. “This dude down here says he’s a player. But what he don’t know is no one can throw down with me.”

Forte laughed, shaking his head. Straight up, if doves had carried the invite on the end of a satin ribbon and dropped it in his lap, he couldn’t be more raring to go. He leaped up onstage and the crowd responded with “woos” and “whoas.”

Shannon whooped and bounced.

The guitarist nodded with a smirk. He grabbed the mic. “I think this little pissant wants to get slapped.”

Forte wrinkled his brow. He’d been messed with before, but this guy had some serious attitude. So much for southern hospitality. But then again, the way Mr. Mouth talked, he didn’t sound much like a southerner.

Mouth handed Forte a Stratocaster, and Forte slipped the strap over his back like it was a Superman cape. Mouthy self-righteous guitar players or not, it felt good to be back onstage.

Mouth dipped his wild curls in rhythmic nods to the drummer and the drummer caught it and hooked the rest of the band with a healthy twelve-bar blues progression. It wasn’t Forte’s usual rock and it might have intimidated some, but the twelve-bar and Forte were old friends in a “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” kind of pattern. He’d had lots of practice with those kinds of jams special just for Shannie’s mom. This was just a blues spin, that’s all.

But the other player threw down like he thought he’d just pulled out the light saber of blues playing, and tickled the strings with the same smirk he’d used to introduce Forte. Prick.

He finished and gave a nod to Forte. Forte nodded back and took it on down. No big frickin’ deal.

Back to you, curlylocks.

The guy didn’t blink, but did another one, this time down-in-thegutter and a little self-indulgent for Forte’s taste. But fine. Forte let him wallow around in it, then did a little wallowing of his own and threw in a new riff for good measure.

A curl formed at the other guy’s lip. The poor bastard was taking this way too serious. But the weird part was Forte could tell he hadn’t even really let loose yet. Why was he getting all pissy if he wasn’t even shooting off his best ammo?

The two volleyed back and forth, adding a new sting or a righteous blaze each time. Forte ignored the cranked-out vibe coming from the other guy, and just enjoyed. He felt like he’d gone days without water and finally hopped in a lake. Bruce’s quest seemed the right thing to do, but a guy’s got to get his fix every now and then.

There went the chin. The other guy got that look of concentration with the dimpled chin up into the lips, and Forte knew he was about to launch it. Fine. Forte wanted him to know he’d be ready.

His turn came around again and he had to cavort a little. He let his fingers do the talking.

Backa-bow zippy-wow-wow inchanaga muthahfuckah!!!

The crowd really dug that one, and curly-top really hated it. His mouth cinched up so that his lips completely disappeared. He placed his fingers high on the neck and cranked out some serious vibes. Face-off or not, Forte was impressed. The tone was so intense that it came across to Forte almost like an electric charge. He was still dazzled when his turn came again.

He played the riff back and felt like he did it some justice, but he didn’t add anything else.

And when curly took his turn again, that weird electric charge once more seized Forte at the fingertips, this time much more intense. He suddenly had trouble moving his hands properly. His fingers could move up and down the frets, but that weird charge paralyzed his hand so he couldn’t let go of the neck. He was able to return the riff, but it felt like doing so caused the blood to dry up in his veins.

He looked at Shannon.

She was clapping, rocking out. She had no idea.

Forte took a hard look at his opponent. Slowly, sickeningly, he realized what was happening. This guy wasn’t just a straight guitar player.

He was on the quest attack.

It was Forte’s turn again. He played through it as best he could, and though he executed okay, he contributed nothing interesting. He was afraid to. Still, even playing it safe, he once again felt his blood turn to sludge.

Suddenly Forte felt incredibly stupid. He’d made sure they broke away from the others, and now here he was, pinned onstage, freakishly magnetized to a guitar, with his life or soul or something getting sucked out of him by this musical vampire.

And where does this go? Was he going to die right there onstage if he kept it up? And what would happen to his soul if he went down at the hands of the Pravus? Something bad, really bad was about to happen, and the only woman he’d ever loved was standing a few feet away, watching.

The curly-haired demon scorched through the next riff, spidering chords in a way that Forte had never even attempted before.

Back to Forte, and he barely kept up. Hands still spelled by the guitar. But somehow, though the style was new to him, he managed.

The band had long since quit backing them up and were just sitting there watching like alley cats at a cockfight, tails twitching.

Back to the other. Forte stole a look at Shannon, and he could see that she knew something was up. Her face looked worried. When he met her eyes, she raised her hand and beckoned him. Let’s get out of here.

He blinked at her, helpless, feet unable to leave the stage and hands still pronged to the instrument.

The killing sound of that guitar was tearing it up, throwing down some wild progressions Forte could barely follow, let alone play back. The guy flicked his eyes at Forte for just a moment, then all concentration went back to the guitar. But in that momentary look, though the chin was still up, he imparted a sneer that said the challenge was over. Forte was as good as gone. Now he was just playing it out.

Forte felt a sudden sense of outrage. No way was he going to roll over and let this guy sap him. He had no idea what kind of musical ability he was up against, though considering his opponent was the Pravus homeboy of some thousand-year-old Macul, he was probably in trouble. Any more tricks and Forte would fall hopelessly behind.

Screw that.

He reached down deep and tapped into the early days, when he gleaned every shred of energy from his heroes. Hendrix, Satriani, Van Halen, Gibbons. Even Ottmar Liebert and Steve Morse. And while we’re at it, what the hell—freakin’ Glen Campbell! He conjured all their energy and then amped it with his own.

Forte took his part again before the other one even finished. Chomped that vainglorious little lick in one big hefty bite. The searing electricity rippled through his wrists and up his arms, and he ignored it. The crowd went insane. He jammed down, and the sweat was flying from him in that spotlight like sparks from an exploding transformer.

Back to you, pal!

Forte wasn’t about to let some mouthy, curly-haired, big-nosed Pravus suck out his life and soul. Damned if he’d go down like this.

Well, maybe not damned. Better not think in terms of damned.

Ain’t no way he was going down like this, that’s all.

His opponent curled his rubber-band body around his guitar and worked back a mirror of what Forte had just done. Forte smiled. Now this cat had to keep up with him, not the other way around. Even better yet, Forte noticed a strange muscle popping in the guy’s forearms. It looked like he was getting back some of that sucking electrical charge, only Forte-style.

He wrapped it up and once again Forte skewered the final riff before he’d even finished, screaming in with a single Howitzer note. That crazy energy lassoed around him and wanted to choke him down, but Forte fought it, brought it home, and used it to whip back at the other player. He charged it all in, breathing flames through his guitar and injecting his signature arpeggios into machine-gun fire.

He got so lost in his own atomic meltdown, he was only barely aware of the writhing, twitching jerks wracking his opponent’s body. He kept firing away, unshackling himself from twelve-bar blues and totally shattering the architecture altogether, taking on shit he’d only dreamed about, and yet absolutely, blazingly nailing it.

His mind raced with the dim awareness that he should really, really remember what he was doing so he could write it all down later.

The Pravus roared. Forte looked up but kept it coming. He saw the other guy’s eyes roll back in his head, his body spasming.

And then he collapsed. Forte’s arms suddenly whipped back that fiendish electrical charge and seemed to pulse it into the other guy.

Forte felt exhilarated, terrified, triumphant. That dude was gone, but he kept it flying at him anyway, afraid to stop. But it was over; the whole mad, horrible, impromptu gig was wrapped. Time to bounce.

Forte tore off the Stratocaster and leaped offstage while the crowd frenzied in appreciation, having no idea what had actually just happened.

He grabbed Shannon and ran.

NEW YORK

Enervata knew Gloria wondered at not being recognized on the street. By the furtive look she gave to a passerby, he presumed she saw someone she knew—someone that did not look her way. They had even passed several policemen on their stroll.

He had wrapped her in a mask of anonymity so that no one would recognize her. But her face showed that she believed her precious Bruce had omitted filing a report with the local authorities. Enervata could see her hope rotting.

The city receded into a rummy, windblown mist. The dampness caused Gloria’s hair to bend into acanthus curls about her face, and she brought her wrap over her shoulders with a shiver. He offered her his arm.

“Thank you, Aaron.”

Her fingers curled around his bicep, and they felt as cool and light as champagne. The first willing physical contact. Enervata smiled inwardly; the rest was only a matter of time.

Something in her manner had shifted. She seemed to have come to a decision—a favorable one, by the way she responded to him. He wondered what exactly had prodded her his way. Perhaps she had taken Sileny into her confidence again and Sileny had persuaded her to relent.

He was so close. He would have her, taste her, smell her. And when he did, the entire world would be in his grasp. Perhaps he would even lie with her tonight.

He looked at her as she strolled with him through the park, her eyes heavy with introspection. No. She was nearly there, but it was still too soon.

“You started to say something about change theory and King Lear,” he said, nudging her from her heavy thoughts.

Gloria blinked back to the present and her eyes lightened. “Yes, I just meant it as an example. You’d been telling me a while back about that King Lear production in Moscow.” She breathed in, casting her eyes toward the trees. “How they use that special indigenous music? It just got me thinking. On the one hand, you have a traditional style of singing practiced for centuries. And on the other you have a centuries-old tale, Shakespeare’s story of King Lear.”

She turned her head toward the misted streets of the brownstone neighborhoods. “But they’re brought together in a nontraditional way. It’s a change. And by stepping out of the local environment—presenting the play in Moscow and making it available to the international audience—that’s an even bigger change.”

Enervata nodded. “True. If one should leap from the initiation to the end point, the change is too sudden and involves too much risk.”

“Right,” Gloria said. “And if that kind of unorthodox folk music were brought out solely on its own, it would likely not catch on in the outer world and would probably eventually be forgotten in the local one. Maybe even die out altogether. But by making incremental steps toward change—combining it with the familiar tale of King Lear and bringing it to a wider, but still local stage—the change occurs. The music goes from local to available to the world. And in that change, the music survives.”

He nodded and they walked on a bit in silence.

“When you think of it,” he said, “the same could apply to the tale of King Lear itself.”

Gloria frowned in thought, and he could see that she was now free from whatever introspective considerations had been absorbing her earlier. Now her mind seemed completely released to the discussion. She was stunning this way.

“Do you mean in the way that the heirs fought over the kingdom?” she said.

He nodded. “Partly. But also in the destruction of the dynasties. If Lear’s enemies had attacked, his army would have resisted. In fact, they likely would have banded together to resist outside siege. The same is true for Gloucester. And yet the families were still destroyed. Not from enemy assault, but from their own deconstruction. Their internal, incremental change. Unknown, unseen enemies triumph without ever having had to lift a finger.”

Her face clouded. “You’re right. I never thought of how the reverse can be true, too. I always think of change theory in terms of social improvement.”

He averted his gaze. “Of course the families needed only make different kinds of changes internally. Had they instead laid down their avarice, set aside those things they loved, they would have removed themselves from the annihilation.”

“Set aside the things they loved?”

“Yes. Don’t you agree?”

“Perhaps I—I suppose.”

They entered the lobby where the soft, warm hues of Rosso Ramello marble belied the true nature of the stone: hard and cold. It formed a wrapper of alternating Rosso and Bianco tiles across the floor, the Rosso continuing partway up the wall in wainscot panels to where molded posts marked each corner.

They strode to the gilded elevator that, as always, stood open and waiting for them. Gloria’s hand still rested at his elbow. The doors closed around them, locking them inside the chamber, and the digital display changed with each floor they passed as they rose to the top.

Enervata examined Gloria’s face, and couldn’t tell where her train of thought had gone. He decided to probe a bit.

“But enough of change theory and all that. Did you enjoy your dinner tonight?”

She smiled softly. “It was wonderful. These past few nights, eating at restaurants I’d only ever imagined. It’s been quite an experience.”

She turned, cheeks burning, as if she’d just revealed something that brought her a measure of shame.

The doors parted to reveal the penthouse foyer and they passed through.

Gloria walked toward her room and stopped. “Do you think it really would have mattered to King Lear’s heirs? If they had set aside their desires, those things they loved, as you say? Do you think it truly would have prevented their destruction?”

Enervata regarded her. He saw the indecision in her eyes and saw that she found indecision to be a foreign state. He stepped toward her. “I think it might have made all the difference in the world.”

She nodded, lashes low.

“Good night, my dear.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek.

She did not turn from him, but accepted the kiss with the slightest upward angle to her face.

“Good night, Aaron.”

He stood, watching after her as she retired to her room and closed the door. He remained watching for several seconds after she was gone. He saw to it that her door locked securely, then turned, opening his privacy to the Pravus.

Presently, both Hedon and Isolde appeared in the doorway and Sileny emerged from the far hall. For a fleeting moment, he forgot himself and wondered where Rafe and Glueg were, then dashed their memories. His council seemed so thin now.

He breathed in and exhaled slowly. “What of New Orleans?”

Isolde stepped forward. “The musicians travailed, but theirs prevailed while ours did fail.”

Enervata’s brows drew downward. “How is that possible? After we’ve been coddling and preening our musician for this moment.”

Hedon waddled to the sofa, pint jar of honey wine in hand, and sat. “Took the liberty of tying ’im down in the Hall of Amusements, master. But I couldn’t say the lad didn’t throw in his best. Their force is a formidable one.”

Enervata stared toward the far corridor, where the door to the Hall of Amusements now stood ajar. “You deal with him as you see fit, Hedon. Isolde, at least you managed to veer them off course brilliantly. New Orleans is a good distance out of the way.”

She all but shrugged. And was that a smirk?

He inclined his head, tunneling his eyes into hers. Something was off here. He couldn’t define it and that meant he didn’t like it.

“One dangles a butterfly in their path and they go skipping after, into morass.”

He nodded, though not fully convinced by her airy manner. But it mattered not. Mere days from success, he would keep Isolde in his service and then strike her down.

He turned his back to both of them. “Then let us continue in this vein. See to it that they are diverted even further. Dangle your butterflies, Isolde, and may they be at the farthest end of the country when Gloria takes my hand.”

Hedon smacked his lips and piped in. “We’ll have them practically to Mexico, master.”

Enervata breathed in and released slowly. “So be it. Now leave me.”

He turned and glowered at them. Isolde was already striding toward the archway, her scarred back to him and her hips swaying with a seductive carelessness. Hedon snorted through his notched nose as he heaved left and right to work his body from the sofa. Sileny bent her head and scurried for the corridor.

“Not you, Sileny. Bring me a sherry.”

Isolde left, and Hedon disappeared to the Hall of Amusements.

Sileny returned with a silver tray and crystal, and poured from a bottle of Oloroso.

“Sileny, have you spoken to her recently?”

Sileny lifted a brow, shaking her head.

“She has changed somehow. As if she has taken someone into her confidence and has made a decision. She seems resolved.”

Sileny fashioned her hands to express that, as requested, she had refrained from communication with Gloria for the past few days.

He nodded and waved her off.

Gloria excited him in a surprising way. To think, two conquests at once. Perhaps this was the secret; to allow himself a trifling bewitchment from a woman. Perhaps in his past efforts at breaking the bonds-recherchés, if he had allowed the seduction to flow in both directions, he might have met success earlier.

No matter. He had made this discovery now. And he would savor it.

25

LOUISIANA

BRUCE KNOCKED ON THE DOOR and, after several moments, Jamie appeared to let him in. He scanned the flowered and papered guesthouse room and saw no sign of the others.

“Where’re Emily and Bedelia?”

Jamie cocked her head at the window, her eyes not quite their usual silver-dollar brights. “Em was antsy so Bedelia took her out for a stroll. She said they’d be around Jackson Square if we wanted to join up. I was just . . .” She flapped her arm at the room. “I really need to try to contact . . . my . . . you know.”

Her voice was gravelly and a line creased the skin from brow to ear.

Bruce frowned. “Have you been sleeping?”

“I, what? No! Well . . .” Jamie’s head dipped two inches. “Okay. I guess I must have dozed off.”

“I thought you were going to contact your guide, Jamie.” He tried to wrestle the tension from his voice, but he was getting frantic. Every hour that passed felt one step closer to losing Gloria.

“I’m sorry, Bruce. I tried. For a while. It wasn’t any different from the other times.”

Her hand went to the back of her head, and she kneaded her long neck with frustration. Her eyes glistened. She turned and walked away from him, slumping into the chair at the little desk at the far corner.

“Sometimes it feels so impossible,” she mumbled. “I feel like I’m trying to catch a single drop of steam with a fishing net.”

The glistening in her eyes bubbled and Bruce could see them filling at the corners, even from across the room. He sighed, stepping toward her, his frustration giving way to gentleness for his lifelong friend.

“It’s all right, Tink. Everyone needs to catch a snooze every now and then.”

The tears spilled over at that, leaving streaks down her face. She looked like she was about to say something, but she pressed her lips together and only snuffled.

Bruce knew that way about her. She was thinking they weren’t going to make it. She wouldn’t let herself utter those words, but that’s what she was thinking.

He laid his hand on the back of her neck and kneaded the balled masses in her muscles. Her bony frame swayed under the pressure of his hand and she closed her eyes.

“You’ve been working hard to try to figure this thing out, Tink, and I appreciate it. It felt like we were on the right track for a while. But now I don’t know.” Bruce’s eyes drifted to the window, where a geranium bloomed red in potted soil. “New Orleans doesn’t feel right. But I don’t know where else to go.”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.” Her eyes were still closed as she spoke. “If I could just call up a visitation from my Auxilium friend, she could tell us where to go next. I don’t understand why it’s not working. I can only guess something is blocking us. Half of me wants to just go back to New York.”

“We’re not giving up.”

“I don’t intend to give up,” she said quickly. “But what if we’re supposed to go back to New York?”

Bruce shook his head. “I don’t see how. We’re supposed to find the Four Pillars of Humanity and so far we haven’t even found one.”

Jamie lowered her head again. “I feel like that time when we were in high school and you were working on the school play. It was right after I had that first visitation and I was determined to watch out for you.”

Bruce smiled. “Is that the time you got locked in the closet?”

Jamie sniffed, and though he stood at her back while she sat, he could see her smile form in the reflection in the mirror.

She bent her head to the pressure of his hands. “Yeah. I was going be your guardian angel, full of this sense of purpose. So I’d been hanging out, making sure everything was safe in the prop room. I was all paranoid that there’d be some accident or something.”

He laughed. “All this time, I always wondered what you were doing in there.”

“So now you know. I still don’t understand how that closet door could get locked from the inside. I felt so stupid.”

“How long were you in there?”

“Six hours!”

Bruce shook his head. He tried not to laugh but couldn’t help himself.

“Go ahead. It was funny.” Jamie’s grin broke wide.

She tilted her head back again and her eyes were back to silver dollars in blue. He planted a kiss on her forehead and released her neck, turning toward the bed, where he sat down.

“Thanks,” she said, rubbing her shoulders and moving her head from side to side.

Bruce laid back, feet still on the floor but his back now stretched across the bedspread. He groaned. “Oh, man. I can see why you took a catnap. I’m beat.”

“I just wish I knew more about what to do. I felt useful at first right after Enervata abducted Gloria. But now it’s like I’m going nowhere.”

“Well, you’re not locking yourself in a closet again, if that’s what you’re thinking.” His speech slowed. He rubbed his face.

“You might have been put here to watch over me, Jamie, but you’re my buddy, and I’d love you regardless of whether you’re a guardian angel or a fruit bat. Doesn’t make any difference.”

Jamie returned a smile that seemed both quiet and private. She turned back to the desk and lit a candle and he watched the reflection of its wavering flame in the mirror. It reminded him of that night not so long ago when he’d made love to Gloria in “the clouds.” He closed his eyes.

He thought of Gloria’s eyes, so strong and sure. He thought how frightened she must be. Or perhaps confused by this whole thing. She didn’t have Jamie to explain what was happening. Candace was lost before she even had a chance to help her.

He imagined Gloria standing before Enervata and he imagined himself stepping between them, arms spread to protect her, staring down into the eyes of a thousand-year-old demon. His fingers curled into fists.

There came an urgent pounding on wood.

Bruce drew in his breath and sat upright, rubbing his eyes. Jamie darted to the door. He must have fallen asleep, because the sky was now colored three shades darker and the candle had worn down.

Jamie turned the handle and Forte entered with Shannon in tow.

Forte strode to Bruce. “Something really weird just went down, man. I’m not sure, but I think I just battled for my life with a Stratocaster!”

THE DEAD GOUGE

Enervata entered the Gouge using the energy state of his natural being, as was the custom in meetings such as this.

Presenting oneself in this energy state allowed for a one-way interaction with the environment. In this case, the Dead Gouge was certainly better suited to one-way interactions, as it glowed red with the molten rock of the Earth’s lithosphere.

Enervata found the Gouge a place of comfort. The core, the place where the planet could most easily swallow its hijackers. It wanted to draw all things into its molten center, swallow them, and homogenize their proteins into its mixture. How fine it would be to watch those in Bruce’s party melt away into the shifting tides of a place such as the Dead Gouge. They would feel the cold, dead wind at the surface. And then as they plunged deeper and as the Earth stretched out its invisible tongue of gravity to draw them in, they would begin to feel the heat, and then the heat would increase until it penetrated their simple lifeforms. Cooked them before it ate them.

Yes, this was a place of comfort indeed.

When two powerful Maculs such as Enervata and Kolt come together for a private audience, only the most secluded of parlors would accommodate. This one lay miles below the Earth’s crust, situated at a gap between two divergent tectonic plates. The East African Rift ran along a vast north-and-south trail, and the Dead Gouge burrowed into the Arabian tectonic plate along the eastern side. Were they to rendezvous at the same grid of the Earth’s surface, they would be standing in the middle of the Dead Sea, or under it, as it were; hence the name Dead Gouge.

And though in this state interaction with the environment transpired only as a one-way endeavor—Enervata’s physical being knew no damage from even the molten lava—he was still able to communicate freely with Kolt in a limited two-way interaction. He could pick up a stone and hurl it into the lake of fire, but should that lake of fire creep toward him he would know only a buzzing of new energy.

Similarly, because they both appeared only in the form of energy, he and Kolt could see each other and converse, but they lacked the ability to touch, or better stated, harm each other.

Were this not the case, they would likely not be meeting.

Enervata had agreed to this rendezvous solely out of curiosity. He had effectively neutralized Kolt’s target, the philanthropist Jonathon Raster. Whereas Enervata’s target, Gloria, remained enticingly within reach.

Enervata had come early, relishing the solitude. He stood at the mouth of the Gouge, looking down into the whispers that swam up from the mantle. No color existed save for red and black.

“I am pleased that you came.”

Kolt appeared at a deeper corner of the Gouge and, like Enervata, the energy likeness presented him in his natural state. No need to cloak oneself in human form. After all, they were, in a perverse aspect, members of the same brotherhood.

Enervata nodded. “No harm in a small social call.”

Kolt slithered toward the mouth where Enervata stood, his claws barely adequate to lift the bulk of his trailing nine-foot frame. If one were to observe him only from the shoulders up he would almost look human but for the absence of ears and the bluish tint to his skin and eyes. Inside the Gouge, however, the blue appeared magenta, and his eyes burned with orange reflections of the inferno beyond.

Kolt peered down into the roiling abyss. “So. You have taken an interest in my philanthropist, Jonathon Raster. And,” he stole a sidelong glance at Enervata. “My lieutenant Jachai, for that matter.”

Enervata managed to keep his expression neutral. At face value, the insult of desecrating one’s lieutenant should garner a vengeance paid only in blood, and doubtless Kolt would endeavor to pursue it. But as they stood in this neutral theater, Kolt could not hide a glint of admiration.

Enervata rolled his shoulders. “You would expect nothing less from me, I presume.”

Kolt rasped a rueful chuckle. “No, I would expect nothing less from you, the Macul of Love Maligned. A blow it was to me. One that resulted in a small setback. But I shall recover. And already I do recover.”

Enervata’s laugh took a derisive edge, spidering with sarcasm. “Then you have my heartfelt congratulations on your presumed victory over humanity.”

Kolt’s reptilian teeth, short and pointed, gleamed amber. “Mock me then. But be warned, I do recover, Macul, I do indeed. And I daresay the dark forces favor me. Jonathan Raster was raised by his aunt, and that aunt has been stricken by an incurable illness that imparts a slow, painful death. I only regret I didn’t think of such a thing myself.”

He grinned, a snake peering into a nest full of eggs. “We are on the same path, you and I. Parallel trails that lead to the same end.”

“We have all been on that path, Kolt. For the span of a millennium. All of us bidding for the same end. Some of us have simply advanced closer to that end.”

Kolt stiffened and Enervata could see that he wrestled to contain his notorious temper. To provoke him was for Enervata so tremendously entertaining that he wished he could somehow bottle the experience for his Hall of Amusements.

“Oft one thinks one has advanced, only to find that the trail ends before the destination is met,” Kolt said. “There is talk among the brethren. And strange they find it, that Hedon has not been seen in the company of his brother Glueg for quite some time. Hedon and Glueg have been otherwise inseparable, much like Isolde and Rafe. How are my old friends, Isolde and Rafe, by the way?”

The aluminum and silicon walls of the gouge formed millions of agate-sized, jagged black mirrors, reflecting back upon one another in infinite replication.

Enervata did not reply.

“Then the rumors are true,” Kolt said with a gleam. “You have killed Rafe. And Isolde the Fair, what shall become of her? I remember those days of their youth, when you ruined my plans for dear Isolde. Such a pure heart she had. Selfless and righteous. But I nearly had her, had only to appoint Rafe’s constableship in the king’s company and she would have laid all aside for him.”

Enervata remained silent, his fury building.

“She would have done anything for him. Anything. How she must burn, now that Rafe is dead.”

Enervata barely contained his annoyance. “You speak of an incident from six hundred years ago as if it were yesterday. I can assure you, Isolde no longer bears a heart of purity, nor of selflessness, and certainly not of righteousness. And Isolde and Rafe had long since forged a healthy hatred for each other.”

Kolt sneered. “Perhaps you don’t know the fissures of your own weaknesses, my Macul brother. There are those who laugh at the foolishness of sacrificing Pravus lieutenants at such a critical point in your mission. And yes, all are aware of your current mission.”

“Really, Kolt, have you something you wish to discuss with me? I find your reminiscent drivel quite tiresome.”

Kolt’s eyes lit and Enervata knew his fury had begun to percolate. Perhaps this meeting might prove entertaining after all.

But Kolt demurred. “I invited you here to discuss a matter of strategy. As you know, our brethren share our ambitions, though none is currently as close to success as we are. I trust you heard the rumors that Nor, the Macul of Maligned Temperance, has managed to weaken a boy in Amsterdam.”

Enervata nodded, though in truth he did not know this. Such an egregious lack of intelligence gathering likely stemmed from the thinning of his staff of lieutenants. Not for the first time, he regretted having lost both Glueg and Rafe. “Nor is a fool.”

“Indeed.” Kolt rasped a chuckle. “And so it is quite interesting that now, after a millennium of striving, two should come so close to achieving the ultimate power, and that those two should be you and me.”

“Which makes us archadversaries.”

Kolt advanced two slithering paces. “Or allies.”

“Hmm.”

Enervata had suspected as much from Kolt. Having doggedly pursued a constant objective for more than a thousand years, few things surprised him. Centuries had passed since he had known any new sensations, discoveries, or ideas. Though with Gloria, some sensations indeed felt different.

Kolt seemed to misinterpret Enervata’s reverie for a gleam of interest. “Imagine: no more worry of another advancing to our place at the throne. No need to struggle quite so much. With you and me in alliance, we are guaranteed success! The world is at hand, waiting to do our bidding.”

Enervata considered. “In the past, Macul alliances have never succeeded.”

“Of course not. But those were quite different from what I’m suggesting. Past alliances have formed only in the interest of ruining another Macul’s success, and once that occurs, the alliance naturally splinters apart. Never before have two Maculs joined in the interest of mutual success.”

“You seem to be overlooking one significant detail. For me, success is inevitable, and the world is already within reach. Your situation lacks that guarantee. Unless, of course, you were to convince me to join with you.”

Kolt’s face dismantled to a black hatred. “You speak with a salient lack of respect, Macul brother!”

“Perhaps that is because I have no respect for one who comes crawling, or in your case, belly-slithering with pious talk of alliances. Where were you when you had the upper hand, Macul brother? Do you really expect me to give away half the Earth when I can just as easily have it all?”

Kolt’s grimace of fury stretched to the full extent of his jawline. “You are so certain. And yet I seem to recall a time two hundred years ago when you were also very certain. Even with the assistance of a treacherous handmaid, you were not able to successfully corrupt a bond-recherché.” Kolt’s voice lowered with guttural derision. “And when you tasted failure you threw a hemorrhaging fit, killing all involved, the girl, the man, your Pravus lieutenants. You even wiped away the mouth of the handmaid who had assisted you. Rafe and Isolde would never have advanced as officers in your force were it not for your temper.”

“Curious you should ridicule my anger, Kolt, when our brethren laugh at you, the Macul of Corrupted Compassions, and refer to you as the Macul of Conniptioned Passions!”

Kolt’s eyes flew wide with rage, jaw working. But he caught himself, seeming to rekindle his objective. He even laughed. “So. Do they now? Conniptioned passions? Perhaps they are right, and perhaps even you are right.”

His nose wrinkled involuntarily, drawing in his upper lip. “Perhaps under the circumstances, a more enticing division would be a one-third to two-thirds split. More than fair, considering I am not the only Macul who is aware of your seduction efforts; others are even now plotting your sabotage. You must admit it is an extremely generous offering on my part.”

Enervata made a show of considering this. “Perhaps. Though I am not so certain that would be a fair reflection of success. Suppose we were to divide the Earth’s spoils in a ninety-nine to one percent balance. I would be willing to entertain that. So long as your one percent does not impinge upon my vast domain.”

Kolt’s eyes blazed and he crept forward until he was within inches of Enervata’s energy field, speaking between tiny razored teeth. “You, Enervata, have the arrogance to mock me? You believe that because you have enjoyed some modicum of success that already the Earth is yours? Your pomposity, like your dare, is beyond imagination!”

Enervata chuckled openly. “There, now for your insolence your kingdom just shrank to a small island, not even one percent. Perhaps in my generosity I’ll give you a speckled rock off the coast of San Francisco in America: Alcatraz Island.”

Kolt roared with fury, swiping his claws toward him. But his nonphysical form passed straight through Enervata’s without harm. He reared on his haunches, bellowing and flailing, growing ever more frustrated at not being able to lash out properly.

“Smug Macul! I shall see you fail yet!”

“I’m afraid that would require competence, Macul brother.”

Kolt raged, thundering at Enervata with impotent fury. He dislodged a boulder from the wall of the Dead Gouge and hurtled it through Enervata’s being and into the molten pool beyond, where it splashed into roiling waves that geysered toward the crust. He flung himself at the wall again, all the more comedic in Enervata’s eyes, for Kolt’s anemically formed front claws seemed ridiculously puny in contrast to his massive bulk and squatting haunches. But his power lay not in the physical strength of his narrow wrists, nor even that tent of a body, but in the momentous energy of his Macul core. He sheared off an even greater expanse of rock and sent it bobsledding into the flames. The entire Gouge shuddered with injury.

Enervata grinned. A site, this.

Enervata’s mirthful expression seemed to strike another bolt of fury within Kolt and his head rolled with echoing roars. With one final demonstration of tantrum, Kolt slammed into the broadest side of the Gouge. Not at a boulder, nor at a fissured wall. He balled his energy into a single assault of rage at the densest, most solid stratus of rock. Raking thunder tore through the Gouge and Enervata watched as the entire African tectonic plate slid backward under Kolt’s fury, drifting entire inches on the molten lake.

Enervata laughed heartily, clapping his hands and offering a “Bravo!” even as he began to fade to another plane. Clearly, his business with Kolt in the Dead Gouge was over. He would direct Hedon and Isolde to be especially wary of other Pravus, and reiterate that Bruce must remain alive in order for the seduction to realize its full power.

But first, perhaps he would disperse to the surface above the Gouge, above the Dead Sea.

Were Gloria of a different state of mind, he would relish sharing this spectacle with her. Kolt’s shift of the African plate would translate as an earthquake above, and probably even cause a great wave to tear through the Dead Sea. A farm or two might be wiped out; possibly even a village. It was certainly worth a look.

26

LOUISIANA

BRUCE’S THOUGHTS TURNED GRIM as Forte and Shannon explained what happened onstage at the bar. It was a terrible idea to have let the group disperse like that and he wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Bruce steered them out of the modest bed-and-breakfast and they hastily made their way over crooked sidewalks toward Jackson Square.

Shannon was visibly shaken. “I knew something was wrong, I just couldn’t figure out what was happening. Then when I did, I didn’t know what to do about it.”

Forte rubbed her arm as they strode. “There was nothing you could do, babe. We got waylaid.”

Bruce’s sights fixed on the Renaissance peaks of St. Louis Cathedral and he led the others in that general direction until they came upon Jackson Square. Artists straggled along the sidewalk, their mounted paintings resting against the black wrought iron fence that framed the perimeter. The occasional tourist sat to have his likeness illustrated for a take-home keepsake.

A steaming fog had settled over the city. Bruce frowned, scanning for Emily and Bedelia. Lights dotted the square, casting round halos that sparkled in the shrouded mist. About forty feet away, a statue of Andrew Jackson on horseback reared up from the center of the square.

“We gotta find Bedelia and Em,” Bruce said grimly.

The others looked at him and he could see the dread in their eyes.

“Should we split up?” Jamie said.

Bruce’s reply came almost as a bark. “No! Stay together. From now on we need to all stay together.”

Shannon hugged herself. They scanned the faces of the passersby.

Bruce felt a lump forming in his throat. Emily, that courageous little girl, was also achingly vulnerable. If anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself. After Forte and Shannon’s disturbing recounting of the face-off, Bruce’s imagination reeled with the possibilities of any number of terrifying fates that might have awaited Bedelia and Emily.

“There!” Jamie pointed. “That little girl in the chair. Is that Emily?”

They trotted in the direction that Jamie was pointing. It was Emily. And even closer stood Bedelia, who smiled and waved as they approached.

“Hi, kids. Emily wanted to have her fortune told so we—”

Bruce broke in. “We need to get moving again. Now.” He arced his head toward the little girl. “Emily!”

Emily looked up from her seat, where a tall, lanky man sat bent over her hand. She said something to the man and looked back down at her palm.

“Is something wrong?” Bedelia asked.

Jamie folded her hand over Bedelia’s wrist. “We’ve had a scare. Charles and Shannon got caught in some sort of trap.”

“Emily!” Bruce shouted again.

Emily raised her finger and nodded. “Just a minute!”

Jamie sighed. “Well at least we’re all safe. Should we load the van?”

Bruce nodded. “I think so. What does your gut tell you?”

“I don’t think there’s much else for us here in New Orleans.”

Finally, Emily bounded up to them with the lanky fortune-teller in tow. He gawked at them with long-drooped eyes and thick hackled brows.

“This is Ichabod Sparks,” Emily said. “He just told my fortune and he’s absolutely-resolutely brilliant!”

Ichabod Sparks found himself squared in five sets of suspicious eyes and the subsequent five mouths stretched in what almost passed for smiles.

“He’s supposed to come with us,” Emily added.

Now Ichabod took his turn at the dubious spread. “Willful little thing, isn’t she?”

“Not everybody can just up and jump in the van with us, Em,” Bruce said.

Emily gestured for Bruce to lean down and she put a hand to his ear, speaking with a hoarse murmur. “You don’t understand. He told me everything. Everything. The park, the bugs in the chili dogs, everything. He knows, Bruce. Knows it all.”

Bruce looked at Ichabod suspiciously. For some reason, a thousand-year-old Macul who abducted women was easy to believe. Exploding chili dogs was easy to believe. But a fortune-teller who could actually tell fortunes? Ludicrous!

Ichabod sighed, an expression that began at the top of his head and wavered down the length of his spine. He spoke slowly and with fully expressed consonants, pronouncing every letter, even at the end of a word. “Truthfully, I wouldn’t even be taking a moment here, folks, but the reading was good and powerful.”

His voice grew quiet and a faraway look set in his eyes. “It still gives a chill to think about it, all that I saw. You folks are in big trouble, all of you. And you must leave right now.”

“We were just about to do exactly that,” Bruce said, nodding.

“And Ichabod’s one of us,” Emily added. “He’s coming, too.”

Ichabod’s smile traveled no farther than his two front teeth. “I would be arguing that point till the cows come home about now. It is not exactly convenient for me to come along. But I must say, that was in the reading as well.”

Jamie glanced toward Bruce and Bruce could see the doubt in her eyes.

“Can you excuse us for a minute?” he said to Ichabod.

“Of course.”

Bruce and Jamie huddled while the others chatted with the fortune-teller.

“What’s your take?” Bruce said.

Jamie lifted her shoulders. “Beats me. He definitely seems to have a connection with what we’re about.”

“Yeah. Hard for me to buy it. He seems a little creepy, kind of like Boris Karloff in The Body Snatcher.”

“Invasion of the Body Snatchers?”

“No, the 1945—never mind. I just don’t know who to trust.”

“I know.” They stared at their feet, hands in pockets.

“Well,” Bruce finally said. “He certainly does know about our situation. I guess it’s a good thing we have a van. It seems that picking up people along the way is part of the process.”

Jamie nodded. They stepped back over to the group.

Bruce stuck out his hand to Ichabod. “Welcome aboard.”

Ichabod shook it. “Thanks. I have this feeling I may be of help on the coast.”

Jamie’s eyes shot up. “The coast?”

“Yes, the west coast. The reading pointed to California as the next destination.”

NEW YORK

“You bring me excellent news, Isolde. Despite Hedon’s failure with the musician.”

Hedon licked his lips. “I’ve punished him a good sight, haven’t I? The musician lad’s always pulled through for us before, master. It’s just that the Forte fellow has something in him that goes beyond even his ability. He should’ve crumbled. But you could actually see the things that went through his head up there onstage and you could see him adapt. Stiff-necked little shit, he is.”

Isolde’s eyes drifted with boredom. “Talent matters, but more so does will. The music world requires both skills.”

Enervata turned to her. “True, Isolde. No matter now. But I wish to reiterate the importance of keeping Bruce alive. I have recently met with Kolt in the Dead Gouge, and it appears that many Maculs are aware of our efforts. Let us guide them safely to the west coast and keep them there to chase their tails.”

Isolde nodded.

Enervata watched her face and stepped toward her. She did his bidding and pointed Bruce and his company astray to the opposite coast. And yet ever and anon this suspicion of Isolde arose. Something had changed in her. He didn’t like it.

She stiffened when his advance came so close as to become invasive. He could see the clench of her talon. He put a claw to her waist and slipped the other around her wrist, raising her arm, and smelled her. Searching for a scent of treachery.

She turned her lips so that her musical whisper danced at his ear. “Scent alone seems such a waste. Care, my lord, to have a taste?”

Enervata lowered her hand, surprised, then laughed with a fullthroated bellow. “Poor dear Isolde. Deprived from the lack of canteshrike orgies, are you? Well, know that you may lord over them to serve as your sex slaves if you so wish. Mere days remain now. Perhaps even tomorrow Gloria will succumb to me and you’ll have your reign of the wild-lands.”

Isolde’s eyes narrowed and that suspicion came leaping back to him.

She turned away and, with that gesture, Enervata felt he could not wait to spill her perfidious blood.

27

TEXAS

FROM THE REARVIEW MIRROR, Ichabod Sparks cocked his head and blinked a long, drawn eye. “You seem a little tired. Would you like me to drive awhile?”

“Nah, I’m used to it,” Bruce said.

“Very well.” Ichabod nodded. “After all, you hardly know me. It’s good you’re being prudent.”

“It’s not that,” Bruce said, though when he thought about it, Ichabod was right. Bruce was reluctant to hand over the steering wheel to the newest member of the quest. He was about to offer up some explanation as to why he preferred to drive, but instead let it pass. His mind was just too bleary to be judicious. Better to shut up than insult.

“I’ve never seen such fixation from the powers of darkness,” Ichabod said, his long eyes peering from under splayed brows. “I have seen many things. Troubling things. But this is an unusual case indeed.”

Bruce flicked his own eyes, sandy and bloodshot though they were, at the mirror. “What kinds of things do you usually see?”

“I see much of what exists in people’s lives, beyond that which lies within their visible periphery. An illness. A secret admirer. A treacherous friend.”

“Wow, that’s quite a gift.”

“I must confess this sight brings with it a degree of anxiety.”

Bruce’s sleep-fogged mind fixated on the way Ichabod pronounced every vowel and consonant so that the last word sounded like anks-eyeuh-tea. The rest of what Ichabod said rolled by in waves.

“. . . did not ask to see such things. I feel compelled to speak the truth even if people do not wish to hear it. Oftentimes, people hold me responsible for the things I tell them.”

Bruce chuckled, straining his eyes toward the road. “Shoot the messenger, eh?”

“Precisely. And I do feel compelled to warn those who never even seek my services in the first place. If I see something lurking, I feel it is my duty to advise. If I say nothing, it becomes a burden for me. And then there are others who are lost and would benefit greatly even from the thinnest illuminations but have no money to pay a fortune-teller.”

Bruce eyed Jamie in the seat next to him, wondering if she’d be ready to take the wheel soon. But like the others, she slept deeply. Even Emily was gonzo. They’d been driving too hard for too long and the human body could only manage so much. He struggled to maintain his focus.

Fortunately, Ichabod’s deliberate, galumphing prattle helped to keep him alert.

“. . . In such cases I cannot in good conscience accept a fee. So often, I find that to charge for my services is to undermine them. A fortune-teller’s burden extends almost to a vow of poverty.”

Bruce was about to offer a grunt of understanding, but the effort of making a sound in his throat proved too much. Instead, he only nodded. His head went up and then it went down . . .

And Ichabod continued. “I am a small man, a humble man. Being poor I have had to do much that I did not want to do.”

. . . and Bruce’s head continued down and landed in a soft pillow of darkness. A luscious warm hedonistic darkness. A wrong darkness.

He jerked his head back up again. The van swerved into another lane. He slammed on the brakes and gasped, steering to the shoulder and coming to a complete stop. Fortunately, there had been few other cars on the road.

Ichabod watched him from beneath those brows with a crowlike stare. None of the others had stirred despite the sudden movement in the van, and the only sign of change was a few hiccups among the soft snores. Their exhaustion seemed that thorough. Bruce could sympathize.

“Perhaps it is time to stop and rest,” Ichabod said.

He was right. Bruce couldn’t keep it up.

But Bruce shook his head. “Time’s running out. We’ve got to keep going.”

He turned and regarded Ichabod, the van idling in rhythmic cycles along the side of the road. “Maybe I ought to take you up on your offer to drive after all.”

Ichabod shrugged. “I certainly don’t mind. Are you sure you feel comfortable with that?”

Bruce sighed. Ideally, he wouldn’t be taking any chances, ever. But to continue driving now was to wreck the van for sure. And to stop was to risk losing Gloria forever.

“Have at it, my friend.”

Bruce unclasped his seat belt and hopped out, as did Ichabod. Bruce settled into the decadence of the backseat, and somewhere from the sienna haze of the distant horizon, he heard an inquisitive keening. He closed his eyes.

“Hear that?” he said, because he was still reluctant to give in to sleep altogether.

It felt unfair to lay the entire burden of staying awake on Ichabod, even though he hadn’t been suffering ongoing sleep deprivation like Bruce and the rest. The guy was all right. Bruce realized he was feeling a sense of completeness in the van. Like they’d assembled a collection of personalities that comprised the corners of a complex jigsaw puzzle and now all that remained was to fill in the center. Perhaps that was where Ichabod and California figured in.

He tried to talk to him or at least to prompt Ichabod to talk.

“That sound. Some animal out there. That’s exactly the kind of sound I’d expect to hear on the Texas plains,” Bruce said.

“Yes, coyotes,” Ichabod agreed. “I’ve heard a few tales of coyotes.”

Bruce managed just enough alertness to prod Ichabod along, and the fortune-teller indulged him with a monologue about coyotes and twisting rivers. But despite his efforts to stay awake, Bruce’s mind disengaged and settled into visions of the California coastline that awaited them. The coyote cries along the plain melted to sea lions barking in the waves; waves that crashed upon the Four Pillars of Humanity.

And atop the pillars, a lone siren.

A lady in white, with amber eyes and plumage that ran the length of her torso to her tapered, crooked leg. She chanted her siren song to a distant seaworthy van, beckoning the pilot upon the rocks, a musical voice that rose barely above a whisper.

“Take them to their final end. Of metal and fire, no hope to mend.”

Then Ichabod’s voice, faraway and echoing from somewhere that seemed never actually to pass his lips: “The instructions were to keep the leader alive.”

“Your orders have changed and you shall obey. Lest you wish to befall the same fate as they.”

“There’s no need of that. I was hoping for the chance for a little sport.”

The seaworthy van accelerated in the direction of the pillars, charging with the glory of the ocean’s waves while the siren spread wide her wings to embrace the onslaught.

She’s mesmerizing. A beautiful, terrible thing, the canteshrike.

And Bruce’s mind tumbled under a hemp chain of sleep-deprived diurnal cycles. He fell hard into dreamland where a dragon loomed on the eastern horizon, waiting hungrily in case the van should change its course. And to the north, a giant cloud, a cumulonimbus of bubble bath formed along the broad stretch of sea. And in its lightning flashes, Bruce saw himself going with Gloria to a formal dinner for the President of the United States.

The siren laughed, a canteshrike’s delight. The seaworthy van bore down toward her waiting embrace, toward the pillars. Waves exploded with anticipation. The vessel tore through the ocean with such g-force speed that Bruce’s muscles tensed to a sweat.

And he sat up.

And the van was tearing down the highway at a crazy speed. An impossible speed.

Bruce gripped the seat. “Ichabod!” The nauseating velocity continued. Obviously, the van was running at its max. “Ichabod! Hey!”

Bruce unclasped his seat belt and climbed to the front of the van, nudging Shannon and Forte as he did. But they seemed completely lost in their own dreamlands. He gave Jamie a good shake at the front seat. Her eyes fluttered and then slid shut again.

They were not sleeping a natural sleep.

And insane though it was, knowing that a deadly collision was nearly certain, Bruce felt tempted to lie down on the floorboard and go to sleep himself. He wrestled toward wakefulness and shouted again at Ichabod. The look in the fortune-teller’s eyes was one of determination and bloodlust. He darted his gaze at Bruce and then back to the road, and a grin formed at the corners of his mouth. Bruce recognized that grin. He’d seen it in the clenched grimace of a truck driver who’d parked his petroleum tank on a treacherous bend of a highway off-ramp.

Ichabod’s foot pressed the gas pedal all the way down.

Bruce lunged at him. But Ichabod’s thin body seemed made of iron. Inhuman, unswayable. He backhanded Bruce with surprising strength, sending him tumbling backward. The van shifted to a slightly new angle. Bruce used Bedelia’s slack arm to climb to his feet and saw a gas station looming directly in the van’s path.

He looked around wildly. They were all going to sleep through this!

“Ichabod!” Bruce lunged at the fortune-teller again, and again Ichabod shook him off as casually as brushing a cobweb from a stair rail. The sheer steely power of him was humbling. Bruce had no prayer of fighting him off. And even if he did, he would likely crash the van in the process.

For one sick, stupid moment, he thought of tearing open the van door and throwing the others out, one by one. They’d almost certainly die in the process, but they were absolutely going to die when they crashed into those gas pumps.

The air escaped his lungs. There was no way out. They were really going to die. Perhaps that strange, peaceful slumber that overwhelmed them all was a merciful thing.

In a flash, Bruce’s mind raced through all that would be lost. Bedelia, so willing to walk away from her job to help a stranger reclaim his love. Forte’s music, so inspiring and energizing, Shannon’s humor, sharp but always human, Emily’s compassion, both blind and wise.

The van advanced toward those gas pumps at a sickening pace. He saw trotting movement in the distance, converging toward the pumps from a different direction. A pack of coyotes.

In the front seat, Jamie’s head lolled to the side, and her hand fell from the armrest. She’d devoted her life to protecting him. Ensuring that one day he would give to the world those creations he had yet to conceive. Things he would now never conceive. But it wasn’t just him. Jamie might have cared about him more than she did anyone else, but she cared about everyone. Just look at the way she treated the others. How could that spirit incinerate now?

And somewhere far away, Gloria stood in the shadow of evil. She was about to disappear into that shadow. If only he could at least say good-bye. If she were here right now, he would tell her . . . if she were here right now . . . he would touch her hair and say . . .

Bullshit.

If she were here right now, he’d make damn sure some Jack Sprat fortune-teller didn’t blow everyone he loved to smithereens.

And he did love them. He loved them for their sake and he loved them for the beauties they bestowed upon the world.

Bruce seized Ichabod from behind and wrapped his arm around his neck. He clamped down thinking of Forte and Shannon, a phenomenal musician and a sprightly soul who made everyone laugh. He imagined he was forcing the beauty Forte and Shannon created straight into the fortune-teller through his Adam’s apple.

Ichabod gripped Bruce’s arm with one hand, the other still clamped on the steering wheel. In the rearview mirror, Bruce could see the grimace of fury on Ichabod’s face, and beneath that, a bloom of surprise.

In that moment, Bruce knew he had him.

He doubled his concentration, calling on Emily, who despite being abandoned had found it within her heart to watch over the lost children of the park. He thought of Bedelia, and his beloved Jamie, whose heart had such capacity. Bruce gripped that Adam’s apple and let it all pour in.

Then he let Ichabod feel the electricity of his own vast love for Gloria.

He bore down on that Adam’s apple as if to fill it with love and ideals was to free Gloria.

The accelerator let up ever so slightly.

The gas station loomed closer. Bruce drew from everyone around him, leveraging this new strength that was not physical. The same strength that woke him from his dream when he should have been stuck in dreamland under the demon drug.

Ichabod began to tremble under him. Bruce sensed that whatever he was, Ichabod could not be asphyxiated or overwhelmed physically. But somehow, Bruce was overpowering him.

Bruce threw his entire force into that sensation and Ichabod’s trembling intensified. The van slowed even more. Ichabod fought back, his foot mashing at the accelerator in lurching kicks.

The pumps now stood no more than a few hundred feet away and closing. Bruce saw the coyotes again and they darted, confused by the movement of the van, though they hovered near the station like flies over carrion.

Bruce roared, calling out all his reserves as he ratcheted his intensity one more notch. Ichabod jerked once.

And then burst into a cloud of ashes and sparks that rained through the van and out into the desert beyond.

The van decelerated.

Bruce slumped onto the back of the empty driver’s seat, feeling as though his veins were coursing with wet concrete. He cast a gasping glance at Bedelia, and saw that she now wore a fine film of ash. The others did as well.

The van continued toward the island, but the lowered speed caused the steering to become sensitive to shifts in terrain and it veered away and passed the pumps. It rolled on instead with an amble toward nothing, the gas station now falling farther behind. The van loped upon a dusty mound and finally stopped.

Bruce’s arms and legs felt as though they were made of concrete and his lungs failed to serve him. He didn’t know what part of him had battled Ichabod, but that part seemed to have sustained some kind of injury. He thought for one crazy moment that maybe he himself was going to burst into a cloud of sparks and ashes and the thought made him cough out a wheezing, hysterical chuckle.

He crawled to the side door and used his last reserves to open it. Straining for oxygen. The door opened. A wind bloomed into the van, brushing away the fine ashy residue that had settled over the occupants. They stirred.

The coyotes danced, coughing and huffing. One of them came in closer with a warning heckle. Its face was angled into three pie wedges; two triangular ears every bit as long as the triangular snout. Its hair was the color of the dust and sunset.

Bruce tried to struggle to his feet. He pulled his body forward, reaching for the outside.

“Bruce?” Jamie’s voice seemed very distant, as though she’d spoken his name from the other side of a broad lake.

The floorboards fell away from beneath him, and he was tumbling, sliding. He tasted the chalky earth of the Texas soil, and his vision faded to complete darkness.

28

NEW YORK

GLORIA WATCHED THEM as they lay in bed together.

Bruce’s eyes were closed. Jamie stroked his brow. The sight of them sent a dagger through Gloria’s heart. She couldn’t hear them at first; she could only see them. Then their voices emerged and she heard Jamie refer to herself as “your wife.”

“I’ve been connected to you since the moment I was born,” Jamie said to Bruce. “Losing you is something I just can’t handle.”

At this, Bruce reached up and smoothed the top of Jamie’s hair, similar to the way he used to smooth Gloria’s.

“Not going anywhere, Tink. Love you too much.” His voice came groggy, even blissful. Gloria had heard him speak that way so many times before. After they’d been intimate and his body was completely relaxed.

“I’ll always watch over you, Bruce,” Jamie said.

Gloria shook her head, tears welling. “Bruce?”

She sat up.

Bruce and Jamie disappeared and Gloria realized she was in the library inside Aaron’s penthouse. She’d been reading and had looked up for a moment, spotting the dagger resting inside an ornate Rococo cabinet. It was the one Sileny had brought to her several days ago.

Sileny. What had happened to her? For a time she’d made Gloria feel less alone here. Now that she was gone, no one could do that. Except Aaron.

Gloria must have dozed off after gazing at that dagger. Its shining surface now held no hint of the vision it had conveyed to her. No evidence of the truth it cut into her.

She swallowed. She had known this already, that Bruce was lost to her. Their time together had been blissful. Singular. But it was over.

Sileny had been right to tell her to keep her eyes forward. And eyes forward meant eyes toward Aaron. Though Gloria couldn’t fully guess what Aaron’s ultimate intention was with her, she knew he wanted her. And she sensed that by winning her Aaron stood to achieve some greater gain. Beyond that, everything was a mystery. Maybe Aaron was her salvation. Maybe he was her ruination. Maybe he was both.

All Gloria knew was that she was weary from fighting him. Weary from being angry and indignant for so long without relief. Would it be such a terrible thing to get used to this, the luscious finery of Aaron’s lifestyle? She could release herself to Aaron’s heat, allow herself to be drawn in by that intoxicating sooty gaze. The massive, overwhelming power of him. The scent of invincibility.

His heart betrays, and he falters while beneath your gaze. The canteshrike had said that to her when she visited her. When Gloria was certain she would die. What did the canteshrike mean by this?

Gloria steeled herself and rose, trying to dash away the sick heaviness that strangled her. But cobwebs from the dream still lingered in her mind and heart. She shook it off. Tried to shake it off.

How could Bruce forget her so easily? They were supposed to be eternal. How could he turn to Jamie so quickly? And why now after they’d known each other so long?

She faltered, and her knees buckled. She sank to the floor under the weight of her misery as ghastly, searing heartache overwhelmed her. Sobs leaped from her throat.

She allowed the tears and sobs to wrack her. She had no idea a person could carry this much sorrow. She tried to squelch it, but her body would not comply. She could not stop the tremors or the gushing tears, nor could she muster enough strength to stand.

“Gloria?”

She looked up and saw Aaron in the doorway.

She turned her face, unable to speak. Loathed the exposure during such a private moment. Aaron entered the library and knelt before her, taking her hand.

“What’s happened?”

She shook her head, mortified. And yet her strength and her composure still failed her.

“What is it?” Aaron urged.

“It’s—it’s nothing. Please.”

“No, tell me!”

He startled her with the solicitous urgency of his tone. She slid a finger under an eye and then grazed the other with her thumb. “I can’t talk about it. Please, Aaron.”

“No!” He grasped her shoulders, pulling her toward him so that her head tilted back.

His eyes burned. “Don’t you understand, Gloria? I am your lifeline. I am your world. When you are in distress, I shall remedy it. If you are in want, I shall provide. You must confide in me.”

She blinked, stunned, though her breaths continued in gasps.

“It was just a dream,” she said, and she strove to make her voice sound as though she truly believed this. “About Bruce. He was . . . intimate with another woman.” Her chest convulsed, and the words tumbled from her. “He used to tell me they were just friends, but I always . . . wondered . . .”

The pain of it seared through her afresh. She had become so accustomed to the thought of sharing her life with Bruce. So certain of her path.

Aaron’s eyes softened. “But you believe it was more than a dream, don’t you?”

She tried to blink the tears from her eyes. She looked away, unable to speak. She gave a small nod. She didn’t just believe it; she knew it. What she saw in the dream was a vision that the dagger had transposed to her mind, and the dagger relayed the truth with the cold indifference of a steel blade. She waited for Aaron to say something damning about Bruce.

But he didn’t. Instead, he folded her hands into his as one might caress a newly hatched bluebird, and he surprised her with his words. “You mustn’t blame him. He cannot help but follow the inclinations of human nature.”

He reached a hand to her hair and brought her to him. She didn’t resist. She laid her head on his shoulder and allowed the agony to course through her unbridled. It was so soothing to be able to unburden herself.

“He is but a mortal and cannot possibly grasp that a rare jewel has come to be in his midst. He sees every woman as varying degrees of beautiful, intelligent, and witty. They all see women that way. Hear me when I say you would be squandered in his company.”

Gloria could not speak. Could not argue. She wasn’t sure how she’d go about doing so even if she’d managed to remaster her body to a more functioning state. Aaron’s intoxicating heat pulled her in, warmed her frigid bones. She longed to disappear, even if only through an escape of the flesh. She knew she could use her own body to sever the tie with Bruce, and in doing so reclaim some shred of control.

Aaron’s fingertips rested in her hair. And as he soothed her, she sensed his arousal. His flesh had grown taut beneath his clothing. Yet he only seemed to want to comfort her.

Her convulsing grief lessened, though she knew she still lacked the bodily strength to stand, or walk. Or push Aaron away.

As if he’d read her thoughts, he said, “You want to go to your room?”

“Yes,” she whispered, though she wondered how she’d manage it and felt self-conscious about making her way weak-kneed under Aaron’s gaze.

He shifted so that his hands moved under her knees and he stood and lifted her into his arms. Her eyes closed at his shoulder, her hand curled around his neck. And she allowed him to carry her. She didn’t have the strength to protest even if she wanted to. The wall of his chest breathed warmth back into her blood. She felt intoxicatingly aware of his hand as it curved from her knee to her thigh in the otherwise chaste manner with which he transported her from the library to the living area to the bedroom. She felt his breath at her spine and it caused her flesh to tingle in a shiver that traveled from the nape of her neck to her shoulders, nipples, and stomach.

He laid her on the bed and kissed her cheek. He made no other advance. She reached up and grazed his fingertips with her own. “Thank you, Aaron.”

He nodded, touching her chin with his knuckle.

And then he left the room and closed the door.

She knew she could have asked him to stay and he would have. She knew she could have lessened her pain, if only for a short while, by sharing her body with him and finding escape. She wasn’t ready for that yet. Still, she wondered how much longer it would be before she learned to fix her eyes forward.

And she wondered about the other side of Aaron, that dark side that she’d only glimpsed. The part that caused a choking fear to seize her breath and send whispers into her psyche, reasoning with her to comply with Aaron’s wishes. That to oppose him may mean her demise.

And beneath it all, the strange, musical words of a canteshrike.

Gloria closed her eyes, and the moment she did, her vision filled once again with the image of Jamie laying in bed next to Bruce.

TEXAS

Jamie lay stretched on her stomach atop the crisp white sheets of the hospital bed. Bruce blinked at her and she could see him struggling to maintain consciousness. An IV ran from the crook of his elbow to a clear plastic bag hanging on a hook over his bed. The scare of his near death still gripped her.

“I’ve been connected to you since the moment I was born,” Jamie said to him. “Losing you is something I just can’t handle.”

Bruce’s hand reached up and smoothed the top of Jamie’s hair. “Not going anywhere, Tink. Love you too much.”

“I’ll always watch over you, Bruce.”

“I know you will, Tink.”

“When the paramedics came, you had such a low pulse and you were barely breathing,” she told him.

“I’m breathing now,” he slurred.

“You want to know something stupid? If I hadn’t told them I was your wife, they wouldn’t have even let me visit you. They’d’ve let you just fight it out alone. How ridiculous is that? As though only husbands and wives can support each other.”

“Doesn’t matter, Tink.”

“No it doesn’t,” an elderly nurse said, a kind, abundant smile sparkling in her eyes as she entered Bruce’s hospital room and laid a hand to his forehead. “But he is going to need to rest.”

Jamie’s heart fluttered, embarrassed at having been caught trying to pass herself off as Bruce’s wife. She pulled herself up off the bed, cheeks burning, and turned away.

But then her breath caught. That elderly nurse—the kind, abundant smile in her eyes!

“It’s you!” Jamie said.

“You who?” Bruce said in a voice that bordered on delirium. “Yoohoo?”

He did not see this nurse. Jamie realized that she was probably the only one who could see the nurse. Because this nurse, with her familiar smile, had first visited Jamie many years ago when she sat in a golden chair and held her hand, explaining Jamie’s purpose in the world.

Jamie’s eyes filled with tears. “You’ve finally come. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Bruce shifted, tension clouding his face. “He’s sent her to watch us. Them to watch us. Me and Gloria. Candy stripes.”

A dazzling pearled atmosphere surrounded the nurse and she took Jamie’s hand and led her from the hospital room.

“I’ll be back, Bruce,” Jamie whispered over her shoulder with excitement.

“Tink.”

She paused, afraid to spare a moment lest the visitation disperse. The Auxilium had already left the room.

“Can you bring the mirror closer so I can see the candy stripes? Candy stripe. Looks like there’s only one.”

“Oh God, Bruce. You really need to rest. There aren’t any candy stripers around here.” But she adjusted the little round mirror that stretched on an accordion arm near his bed.

He narrowed his eyes at it. “Where are your pearly feathers? Used to be white. You’ve changed. Candy stripe. Canteshrike.”

Jamie hesitated, suddenly worried for him again. She put a hand to his forehead and found it clammy. “Bruce? What do you see in there?”

“Don’t worry, Tink. I’ll be fine. I just gotta ask her about Gloria. Gotta do this.” He seemed to be fighting to keep his eyes on the mirror. “I’m not afraid of you, canteshrike.”

Jamie gripped his hand. He was delirious, of course. She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder. Was the Auxilium still out there? She looked back at Bruce.

“Sweetie, I have to go, but I’ll be right back. It’s the Auxilium. She’s finally appeared.”

“Go, go ahead, Tink. Love you. Remember that, whatever happens.”

A bolt of fear jumped in her heart. Whatever happens?

But she had to talk to the Auxilium. She would know what to do. Jamie gave his hand one last squeeze and jogged for the door.

29

NEW YORK

ENERVATA’S TAIL FLICKED as he watched Hedon use his fingers to desecrate a goose breast stuffed with onion and lard-fried sheep’s kidney. He downed each bite with grunting gulps of mead. The sheer gluttony once amused Enervata, particularly when Hedon’s brother Glueg joined him in such frenzies. But today, though stray bits of sauce dribbled from the corners of Hedon’s mouth and slicked his beard, Enervata had no interest in the revulsion of it.

He frowned at Hedon. “Where is Isolde?”

“Owzat? Oh, dinno, master.”

Hedon smacked his lips and they disappeared into a burrow between his notched nose and thick beard, now a confetti of hair and stuffing. “Seeing to it that the damnable company of fools is off to California, last I saw. Shall I check in on her?”

While Isolde had failed to prevent Bruce from gathering those he sought, she had at least managed to divert the van farther away. First to New Orleans, and now to California.

Enervata furrowed his brow. “Have you noticed anything unusual about Isolde?”

“What, since her man Rafe is gone? Seems a might bit more relaxed these days, doesn’t she? Not so anxious to start waving that talon about, carving away like some blasted nimble-footed ninja.” Hedon rubbed his scarred nose.

Enervata nodded. “Perhaps. And your instructions are quite clear, are they? For both of you?”

“Aye,” Hedon said. His eyes seemed mystified and slightly nervous at Enervata’s question. Likely, he interpreted it as Enervata laying the groundwork for punishment in case of some sort of breach.

“Tell me,” Enervata said.

“You did want me to reconnoiter activities among other Pravus, master, didn’t you? I’ve had a look, I and my own Pravus troops. There’s been a mite bit of mischief building up but we’ve managed to crush them.” His voice took on a thrust of pride. “It’s what I’ve come to report after all, isn’t it. Our Pravus soldiers are superior in training and execution. Even on a bad day one of mine’ll outmaneuver five of any of theirs.”

Enervata leaned in slightly. “And Isolde?”

“She, well, you instructed her to divert the van, didn’t you. West coast United States is it? California? That the young man Bruce must remain alive. I . . . I can summon her, master. Shall I?”

But Hedon’s words sounded accurate enough. They were clear on their mission and Isolde’s change in demeanor stemmed from a release in tension over Rafe’s death. And Enervata was loath to retrieve her if she was managing any form of success with Bruce’s company.

“No, let her be,” Enervata said. “The forces of light are all around them. I want her to suppress those forces and keep herself hidden from them while she continues with her mission. Interrupting her might jeopardize that.”

Hedon nodded. “Yes, master.”

“So. Let’s hear what you’ve come to report. Tell me about these skirmishes. Any of Kolt’s Pravus armies involved?”

He listened to Hedon recount the events of late. He smiled as he heard of the swiftness with which Hedon’s troops squashed Kolt’s traps and those laid by the other Maculs. Incompetent fools, his brethren.

But even as Hedon spoke, Enervata’s mind wandered to Gloria and the silken skin of her neck. His need for her body had neared an overwhelming fever when he’d carried her to her bedroom. How he longed to take her by force. Such a sad joke that in order to manifest the power of the bond-recherché, she had to engage in the seduction willingly.

It almost seemed worth the sacrifice of opportunity to overpower her, to imbibe her fear as he tasted her flesh. The imagined sound of her screams caused an ache in his groin that brought water to his brow. Yes, it would almost be worth sacrificing the bond-recherché just to let his first taste of Gloria be one of exquisite domination and terror.

Almost.

But no, it was out of the question. To enslave humankind was itself an achievement, but oh, to lord over his fellow Maculs! As if they were little more than a team of stout-backed horses to drive at his bidding and then leave to nibble sprigs while he feasted at the banquet of the Earth. That was a plum of honeyed nectar.

In particular, he looked forward to seeing Kolt nibbling sprigs. The very idea was ecstasy.

In truth, he would relish taking a woman like Gloria, even if she were willing. Almost especially if she were willing. At least at first. And when he grew bored of that, he would keep her alive a little longer and then he would enjoy her in a context of fear and physical pain. He could have it all. Would have it.

“. . . coming into place nicely, isn’t it, master? How do you wish for me to proceed, then?”

“Hmm?” He’d barely heard a word of Hedon’s report. Something about the hordes of Pravus armies circling. But so close to success—days, possibly even hours away—the threat seemed just shy of moot. Enervata could hardly be troubled.

He shrugged. “Oh, yes. Proceed at your discretion. You’ve managed well, Hedon.”

“At my discretion?” Hedon gawked, a cocoon of onion and kidney lolling about his tongue.

“Do you feel unequal to the task?”

“No! Certainly not! I’m just not accustomed to your being so . . .”

“Just do it! And advise Isolde to report to me the moment she is back in contact.”

TEXAS

Jamie left, thank God. Outside this hospital room, away from him, she would probably be safer. Bruce needed to face this on his own.

She took so much on her shoulders, his little Tinkerbell. He’d never known a more caring or giving person on this Earth. He’d wanted to tell her as much as she lay next to him, but the battle with Ichabod had drained every ounce of his strength. He’d barely been able to get any words out at all.

Besides, he needed whatever reserve of strength was left to him to face the canteshrike.

She grinned at him from beyond the mirror. Openly, not in glimpses through a kaleidoscope of reflections. She watched, motionless, in a dead-on, yellow-eyed stare. Bruce remembered her musical voice from his dream in the backseat, when she instructed Ichabod to crash the van and all of its living cargo. Now she had come to this hospital room to finish things herself.

And with Bruce laid out in bed in a thin, polka-dot nightie, no sign of his shorts laying around, he wasn’t exactly feeling on top of his game. But now was not the time to back away from a fight. As long as Gloria was in danger, Bruce was ready to face any challenge.

“Hello, canteshrike. Come to kill me in my sleep?”

The beast narrowed her eyes. “Though your mind does creep, you hardly sleep.”

“True, I’m not asleep. But you can hardly call this a level playing field.”

Her grin widened to reveal sharp, gleaming canine teeth at the corners of her mouth. “It matters not if the fight is fair. Even at your physical best, you’d not compare.”

That might be true, Bruce thought. Then again, it might not be. He thought about his confrontation with Ichabod. That battle seemed unwinnable, too, didn’t it?

The canteshrike advanced closer in the mirror, although she existed nowhere in the room.

“Where’s the other guy?”

The beast advanced closer, saying nothing.

And though Bruce knew his life was in jeopardy—that the quest was in jeopardy—his eyelids failed him. A wave of exhaustion hit him and he shut his eyes. When he tried to open them again, he found he couldn’t.

He could hear the canteshrike breathe. And then, God, he could smell her! The warm blood beneath her skin like the scent of laundry that had been hanging in the sun. He heard her laugh.

And then slowly, in alternating waves of color and black, once again he saw her. Not in his hospital room, but in the murky tunnels inside his mind. Standing again atop clustered pillars on a craggy California beachfront. Bruce was there with her. Her spun-silver hair tumbled down the length of her wings to the backs of her thighs, and it danced upward again with the sweep of the wind. Her body was naked, with silver skin shimmering in the reflected ocean’s sparkle, feathers rippling from the sea breeze. Her eyes were like cognac.

“Where’s the other canteshrike?” he said again. “There was a male, wasn’t there?”

Her lips parted in malice. “She too asked that question, as you just did. A pointless query, misunderstood. You need only one of us to spill your blood!”

Bruce breathed in the salted green air that billowed over him. “Well if you’ve come to kill me, canteshrike, you’ve certainly picked a scenic place for it. It would’ve been a drag to go down in that hospital room.”

She shrugged. “This venue sprouted from your own mind. It stands outside of place and time.”

Bruce looked down the dizzying length to the shore below, where mighty waves slammed into the base of the pillars. The sea had left its mark in hidden pictures on the columns, here what looked like the shape of a heart, there a swirling treble clef.

“Outside of time. It’s nice to think of it. Then you don’t mind if we talk a little first? Or maybe, just stay here awhile.”

She did not reply, but instead lifted her head to the north. It seemed that she too indulged in the rich oxygen and rolling sunshine.

So maybe this was a dream. Or a sort of dream. Lucky for him. She had a lithe, muscular body. A warrior’s body. She looked as though she could shred him in an instant.

Not knowing what else to do, Bruce turned to face the sea and settled down on the smooth stone. It felt good, being outside of place and time as she put it, because he was outside of his exhaustion as well. He took a moment to consider it and realized that he felt strong. Very, very strong. He looked out on the water again. Were the waves forming in the shape of hands clasping? It certainly seemed that way for a moment.

He turned and lifted his gaze. “Can you tell me about her? You’ve seen Gloria, haven’t you? Is she safe?”

The canteshrike did not answer, but a change in her expression hinted that Gloria was at least alive and unharmed.

“Is she afraid?”

The yellow eyes flicked toward him. “She seems not to listen to what fear divulges; a stranger whose company she hardly indulges.”

He laughed. “That’s Gloria. She wouldn’t be scared for long, would she?”

“Confusion surrounds her, and anger as such. But mostly there is sadness. Though fear, not so much.”

“Yes, I figured that.” Bruce paused, scrutinizing that yellow gaze. “It sounds like you’ve come to know her fairly well. You must have spent a lot of time with her lately.”

“I met her but once, and then for mere moments. I’d watched you together though you both sensed my presence.”

“When you talk, it’s like you’re singing.”

He looked over the ledge to the base of the pillars. They protruded from black rocks that glistened in the spray, slicked with green algae and studded with cone-shaped limpets. The waves were shaving matter from the surface of the pillars at a rate so tempered that not even a halfcentimeter of stone would wash away in a year’s time. And the seemingly motionless limpets were ever-so-slowly polishing the black rocks.

Bruce felt so alive. Why hadn’t the canteshrike killed him yet?

For someone who claimed to have only observed Gloria from afar and actually met her once, this canteshrike seemed to know her quite well.

“I get the sense that you . . . admire Gloria,” he said softly.

There was no reply.

Bruce pushed himself up to a standing position and faced the canteshrike. “She reminds you of yourself, doesn’t she?”

“She resembles not the thing I’ve become. Though my former self is to me long unknown.”

“Long unknown? You mean you weren’t always a canteshrike?”

“A quondam maiden, my pre-assonantal. Ensnared within a Macul’s portal. A bargain left me changed, immortal.”

Bruce gave her a long look. That posture, the swivel of chin. The sharp-hewn thoughts. Yeah, she was a lot like Gloria. And he’d be willing to bet the canteshrike thought so, too.

He nodded at her. “So you were a maiden before. And you do remember it.”

Her face darkened. “Long centuries, laden. The memories faded.”

“Bullshit!”

Her eyes flashed and she turned toward him.

Bruce shook his head. “You remember. I don’t care if it was a thousand years ago. I bet you remember exactly who you were before you became this . . . this Pravus.”

Her teeth gleamed. “You know nothing of my strife! You’ve barely lived one single life.”

“You know what I think? I think you and the other canteshrike love each other. You look at him and you feel like your lungs fill at the same pace. That when you touch, your thoughts and hopes and everything you care about tangles together like ivy. And I think you look at me and Gloria and you maybe know what it means to be so connected to another person.”

“Stupid fool!” she said venomously. “Don’t misconstrue all this as empathy for you. Your bond means nothing, your life even less. It’s all a trifle, love and death.”

“Oh? It means nothing to you? And who exactly are you? The ‘quondam maiden’ from before, or the thing you are now, the Macul’s pet canteshrike?”

Her pupils constricted to pinpoints. “You dare address me with that tone. I’ll shuck the flesh from you insolent bones.”

She maneuvered sideways as if preparing to strike.

Bruce held his ground. “I don’t think you will, canteshrike. Because I’ve figured out why you came to see me. You hate him, don’t you? When you told that boogeyman fortune-teller to wreck the van, you were going against orders. I heard it. You could have killed me then, but you ordered him to do it instead. You could have killed me in that hospital room, or five minutes ago, or even now, but you’re not doing it. You haven’t made up your mind what you want to do.”

She quaked with rage, and for a moment Bruce felt sure that she was about to strike him down. He wondered how she would do it. His eyes dropped to the talons, those sharp, hooked trident feet. His pulse slowed.

He would fight her if he had to. He might have little chance against her, but he would throw everything he had into this battle.

She didn’t strike, though. Bruce’s frustration boiled.

“What do you want from me?” he shouted, and the words echoed down the cliff and collided with the waves.

And then, searching her face, he repeated it, this time quietly: “What do you want?”

Suddenly, he imagined her centuries ago, as though that fresh young maiden were Gloria. And he saw the hatred-fueled beast she’d been forced to become, a defiled perversion of her former self.

“You . . . you want . . .”

Beyond the violence in her eyes, Bruce saw pain. Gouging, suffocating anguish. He saw it so distinctly that he found his heart softening for her.

That’s when he understood.

“You want revenge.”

The canteshrike stared at him, and her hands flexed. Her lips parted.

“And the other canteshrike—something must have happened. Is he . . . is he dead?”

She drew in a deep, faltering breath.

“He is. And you loved him. And now you want revenge against Enervata.”

Her eyes shone. “If I kill you, the Macul’s power’s lost. My vengeance cometh at such small cost.”

“My God.” Bruce let the air flow in and out of his lungs. It never occurred to him before. “I should have realized this earlier, but now it makes perfect sense. If I die, Enervata loses his chance at that power. And Gloria . . .”

His mind ratcheted forward. If Bruce were dead, Enervata would no longer have any use for Gloria. He’d kill her then. He certainly wouldn’t just shrug and let her go.

“If you killed me, you’d have your revenge, but he’d probably kill you for it.”

The canteshrike laughed. “A death complete would only be so sweet!”

“It sounds like pretty weak vengeance to me. He’ll just get all pissed off and then wait till he can start over with some other couple. Right?”

The light of hunger and fury dimmed in the canteshrike’s eyes. “I agree that your point is fair, though a bond like yours is exceedingly rare.”

Bruce felt emboldened. “Help me, canteshrike. Help me stop him. That would be your revenge. Don’t bother putting some dumb little hurdle in front of him. Let’s stop him once and for all. We can make it so he never does this to anyone again.”

The canteshrike lifted her chin, a bitter, mirthless laugh in her voice. “Oh, this I crave; this, above all. I fantasize to see him fall! But he is one who cannot die; he will live on, here and by.”

“Is it?”

She stared at him a long while and then her gaze traveled over his shoulder to the sea beyond. “Fine world, this, from the mind of a knave. Methinks it finer than the icy cave.”

Bruce heard keening from beyond, off in the far distance. It was a sound like the coyote’s call in the Texas desert. The canteshrike turned from him and stepped toward the ledge.

“At least tell me where the four pillars are,” Bruce pleaded.

The canteshrike didn’t even pause. Her back still toward him, she shook her head and waved at the pillars where they stood. She raised her wings, hands lifted behind her like a swimmer preparing to tumble from the diving board.

“Wait!” Bruce said desperately. “It can’t be impossible! Enervata must have some kind of weakness.”

She turned and regarded him over her shoulder, shimmering hair flying in the wind. “Your lover exposes something else. His greatest enemy is himself.”

She arched her back and let herself fall down toward the violent waves. Bruce gasped and staggered back from sudden jarring vertigo as he watched her. The canteshrike swerved upward, shooting into the sky and back above the cliff.

And then she was gone.

30

TEXAS

JAMIE SAT WITH HER HANDS FOLDED under the clasp of soft, elderly fingers, and the small hospital chapel wrapped them with the glow of natural wood and colored glass.

The Auxilium still wore the bright lavender nurse’s uniform as she spoke. “Our Bruce has delved deep during this journey. The power he used against the fortune-teller came from within himself. Two weeks ago, that kind of battle would have killed him, as it would have killed anybody. But he’s grown so much and gained tremendous inner strength. It’s what he needed to do to prepare. Gloria has also prepared in a different way. She’s touched the darkest hearts with rays of light. So far, she’s managed to resist them. So far.”

Jamie bent her head to the Auxilium’s hands. “We have to get to her soon. But I had no idea we were even on the right track. I’ve tried so hard to reach you. We couldn’t tell where to go or what to look for.”

The Auxilium’s fingers smoothed Jamie’s hair. “We’ve been up against tremendous forces of evil. Much of what we sent to you was lost, though it looks like what trickled through was enough. You picked up the right people along the way.”

“But we haven’t found anything.”

“You found Charles and Shannon, and Bedelia and Emily.”

Jamie ran her thumb along the satin wood of the pew. “Yes, and I’m grateful to have them. But we still don’t know where to look for the Four Pillars of Humanity.”

The Auxilium smiled, and those kindly eyes sieved the anxiety from Jamie’s heart. She placed a hand under Jamie’s chin. “You do know where to look.”

“We do?”

“Yes. And that’s an important thing, because your greatest challenges still lie before you. I wish there was a way to make it easier and keep you safe. But you’ll have to face the worst possible dangers. The pillars are the difference.”

Jamie straightened, head raised. “We’ll do whatever we have to do. We all know what’s at stake.”

The Auxilium smiled softly. “We will help you in any way we can, but the future’s in your hands now.”

A look of deep concern and love formed on the Auxilium’s lips and it transferred renewed strength to Jamie’s heart. “You’d better get back to Bruce. But don’t wake him. He’ll be very drained. Let him come around on his own. He needs his strength.”

“Okay,” Jamie said. She kissed the woman’s cheek, tears dotting her eyes. “Thank you. Thank you for coming.”

The Auxilium touched her face, but then her gaze wandered and her eyes took on a shroud of worry. “Go watch over Bruce now. As you always have.”

Jamie gave the Auxilium’s hands one last squeeze and then left the warm wood of the chapel to go to the white hospital room.

Bruce lay in his bed, a pinch to his brow. Jamie watched him struggle through phases of a troubled sleep. It seemed as though something were wrong, though, something beyond a bad dream or restlessness. Bruce’s breath turned ragged, and his lips parted.

Should she wake him? The Auxilium had told her not to. But then Bruce’s breathing quieted again, and his breathing changed.

“I’ve been watching him.”

Jamie nearly jumped out of her skin. She turned and saw Emily emerge from a closet door in the cabinetry.

“My God, Emily, how’d you get here?”

Emily shrugged, braids grazing her thin shoulders and her olive green cap pulled over her head. She looked like a yearling gazelle, her legs impossibly long and thin for her little body, her posture awkward and bright with energy though her eyes seemed frightened.

“He said something about candy stripes.”

Jamie regarded Bruce. “I heard him say that, too. Maybe he saw you and thought that you were a candy striper.”

Emily shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. Do you think?” Her eyes darted away. “Do you think he’ll be . . .”

The words disappeared and Jamie saw tears filling Emily’s eyes. She reached a hand out and reeled Emily in, locking her tight under her arms. “Bruce is going to be fine. He just needs to rest.”

Emily nodded and sniffled, arms limp around Jamie’s neck, tears streaming silently.

Bruce opened his eyes and saw Emily sitting nearby with her head resting on Jamie’s shoulder. He smiled. “Hey, Tink.”

Emily and Jamie jumped. Bruce struggled to a sitting position, scratching a chin that had grown shaggy from not shaving.

Emily threw her arms around his neck, which caused him to chuff out a blast of air. The kid had a heck of a grip. Bruce’s hand came up and circled around Emily, rubbing her thin shoulder.

Emily pulled back. “Where does it hurt? Who’s the president? How many fingers am I holding up?

Bruce laughed. “Nowhere that can’t be fixed, no one that can’t be replaced, and three.”

Emily kissed him on the cheek and turned to beam at Jamie. “He’s good. I’ll go get the others.”

She bounded out of the room.

Jamie grabbed Bruce’s hands as the tears burst from her. “Oh my God, Bruce, I was getting worried. Something about the way you were sleeping . . .”

He squeezed her hands. “Tell you all about it later, Tink. I’m just so glad to see you sitting there. Your heart is keeping all of us afloat.”

She was sobbing now. “The Auxilium came to me and told me that we’re close to finding the pillars. We’re about to face the most dangerous part, but we’re going to get Gloria back.”

Bruce held her tightly. “I know, Tink, I know.”

“See, he’s awake!” Emily said, bounding in with Forte and Shannon.

Jamie reached for a tissue. “Where’s Bedelia?”

“She went for a walk,” Shannon said, seating herself on the edge of Bruce’s bed. “Man, it’s good to see you awake. You sure gave us a scare. When we all woke up, we couldn’t figure out what happened. We figured that Ichabod was no good when we saw all the kitty litter dusting over everything”

Forte clapped a hand on Bruce’s shoulder and sat next to Shannon. “The quest wouldn’t have been the same without you, man.”

Jamie still held Bruce’s hand. Emily tucked herself in under Jamie’s shoulder and looped an arm around her waist.

Emily grinned. “Look! We’re all in, like, a chain.”

“Well, Em, let’s close the chain then,” Shannon said as she reached across Bruce for Emily’s hand.

Emily’s fingers curled around Shannon’s and suddenly Bruce felt as though he’d been shot out of a cannon. He felt a surge, like an intense electrical charge. It let up a little and then rose again. With each wave, the room seemed to alternate between light and dim.

Bruce heard Emily gasp. Jamie’s fingers tightened in his hand.

And then Bruce saw something emerge from the waves of darkness. At first, all he saw were shapes, but then the shapes became faces.

A fat, red-headed man that grinned and turned into a monstrous, scaly thing.

Hordes of winged creatures, some of them hairy, some of them beautiful, all of them evil.

Shannon screamed. Forte’s grip tightened on Bruce’s shoulder, and in the waves of light that passed, Bruce saw the others clinging tightly as well, eyes wide. Then another wave of darkness came.

A single face replaced the hordes. It had leathery skin and wiry hair down its spine that ended in a greasy tail. It peered from the balcony of a Manhattan penthouse. When he looked down onto the street, Bruce could see a curved driveway. How many apartment buildings in Manhattan had a driveway of any kind?

Suddenly the vision switched perspective again. He glared into the face of the leathery demon. Stared it down. Refused to relinquish his gaze. Until the demon roared, the world went dark, and Bruce felt himself spiraling through space.

For several long seconds, there was nothing but darkness. And then Bruce heard the sound of water lapping against a shore. He found himself back at the California beachfront where he’d encountered the canteshrike. However, where Enervata’s lieutenant once stood with him on the pillars overlooking the ocean now stood Jamie. And Forte. And Shannon. And Emily. They stood tall and utterly unbowed.

“Man, I look good,” Shannon said with a nervous chuckle. “Can I get an 11 x 14 of this picture?” Her voice didn’t come from the vision. It came from the hospital room.

The waves subsided and the room once again seemed ordinary. Shannon had a smile on her face but, like the others, she stared at him with round eyes.

“Whoa,” Forte said, “I haven’t experienced anything like that since I gave up, you know, artificial inspiration.”

“They’re you guys,” Bruce said softly.

They looked at him, confused.

Bruce pulled himself higher in his bed. He tipped his head toward each of his compatriots in turn. “One, two, three, four. You’re the four pillars.”

They looked at each other, stunned.

“Um, sorry, could you say that in human?” Shannon said.

“I should have figured this out earlier. It was you who helped me take down Ichabod. Each of you generated strength inside me. Different kinds. The kinds that you’re full of. The four pillars are what you carry inside of you.”

Shannon offered a wry smile. “Really? You mean the four pillars of humanity are bad hair, a weak stomach, flatulence, and grimy fingernails?”

Forte leaned his head onto Shannon’s. “Babe, the flatulence thing was supposed to be our secret, remember?”

Bruce patted Forte on the shoulder and the guitarist threw him an embarrassed gaze.

“I’m guessing that the four pillars are art,” Bruce said, still looking at Forte. He turned to Shannon. “Humor.” He smiled at Emily. “Compassion.” He reached out and squeezed Jamie’s hand. “And unconditional love.”

“That’s why that movie happened when we made our chain,” Emily said.

“That movie has some scary parts,” Forte said. “Do you think we could fast-forward past those?”

Bruce began to struggle from his bed. “I wish we could, but I’m afraid not. We have to get going now. Did you guys see that New York penthouse? Did you notice the driveway? I’ll bet there are no more than a handful of apartment buildings in the city with that driveway. We can probably figure out where Enervata lives by looking online. Where are my pants?”

“Hold on,” Jamie said, putting a hand to his arm. “You’re not recovered yet.”

“He looks pretty good to me. Welcome back, stranger.” Bedelia strode into the room and the others got up to give her access to Bruce.

She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him tightly. When she backed away, she smiled at him. But there was more than a hint of sadness in her eyes. Bruce wasn’t sure what had just happened. All he knew was that he wanted to hug Bedelia again.

“Hey, let’s do the chain thing with Bedelia and see if we get the crazy movie again,” Emily said brightly.

Bedelia wrapped an arm around Emily’s shoulder. “That’s okay, honey, you can just tell me about the movie. I think we were looking for Bruce’s pants.”

“Got ’em,” Jamie said, handing them to Bruce. Bruce put them on absently while he continued to watch Emily and Bedelia. The girl wrapped her arms around Bedelia’s waist and said, “Love you, Bea.”

“Love you, too,” Bedelia said, kissing the top of the girl’s head. Bedelia caught Bruce’s gaze and saw the heaviness in her eyes. He wanted to ask her what was going on, but before he could say anything, Bedelia said, “Don’t we need to get moving?”

Everyone darted around the hospital room, gathering Bruce’s things. Bruce yanked the IV from his wrist, setting off a hospital alarm.

“That’ll expedite the checkout process,” Bedelia said. She looked at Bruce again and winked. “It’s time to get out of here.”

Bruce’s stomach coursed with a rush that spread all the way to his fingertips. Yes, it was time to get out of here and get back to New York. He not only knew where to find Gloria, but he had the weapons he needed to face the Macul.

And he was so very, very ready.

31

NEW YORK

“THE COMPANY KNOWS WHAT THEY HAVE. The van now takes a northeastern path.”

Enervata frowned, looking toward Hedon and then back to Isolde. “I thought they were going to California. What happened to the fortune-teller?”

“The young man Bruce had guessed his plans. He killed him with his own two hands.”

“Bruce killed him? He has managed to gather enough power to overcome one of our agents?”

Hedon shook his head. “Hard to understand the whole thing, isn’t it? Something that gives power to the realm of light might be the same thing that weakens the darkness, and vice versa.”

“You can corroborate what Isolde reports then, Hedon?”

“Aye. Inasmuch as one of my scouts did see the van back on the highway. They seem to be coming this way.”

Enervata simmered. “Listen carefully. I want them dead. All of them except Bruce.”

ARKANSAS

The no-nonsense highway motel squatted like a layered torte along the road, a blue swimming pool reflecting the stark blue sky. Shannon felt so tired she wanted to crawl from the parking lot to the hotel room. They’d been forced to stop because no one was left with enough gray matter to drive the van. Other than Emily, of course, who seemed lively but whose legs lacked the ability to reach the gas pedal.

“Wanna go for a skinny-dip?” Charles said, wiggling his brows as he swung their bags over his shoulder.

Shannon laughed, looking toward the far end of the property where the pool was. “Sure! And considering the pool’s fishbowl-public in broad daylight, we’ll get thrown in jail. The clink’s a great way to get out of those pesky quester duties.”

Charles gave her one of his ridiculous grins. “I’d cool off in the clink with you any day, babe.”

The others had already dispersed to their rooms. One of the doors opened and Emily emerged, heading toward the pool. She skipped around it, giving it careful inspection. Shannon watched her lay what looked like a fat hackberry leaf on the water’s surface. Even from the opposite side of the complex, they could hear the little girl chortle to herself.

“Anchors aweigh!”

Shannon shook her head. “Poor Emily. How long do you suppose it’s been since she’s had a chance to just go swimming?”

“I wish we weren’t so beat. I’d take you both swimming and show Em how to do motorboat songs à la Springsteen. You put your mouth right at the surface of the water and blow bubbles while you sing ‘Born to Run.’”

Shannon snorted. “Why Springsteen?”

“Cuz he’s the boss!”

She almost asked him why “Born to Run” as opposed to “Born in the USA,” or any other Springsteen song for that matter, but she wasn’t likely to sift through the Charlie-logic with her brain all fogged out from lack of sleep.

Shannon scanned the greenbelt. Beyond the Interstate exit where the hotel sat, plush green hills bounded into the horizon. She sniffed the scent of woodland from the warm, wet air.

Charles followed her gaze as they strode the sidewalk toward their room. “Nice here, ain’t it, babe? It said this place is called Hot Springs. A place with that kind of name has to have somewhere around where we could go skinny-dipping.”

“Yeah, yeah, sounds fab. Except for the part about me having only enough energy to stagger into the shower and stumble to the bed.”

Charles nodded at her, his face bright but his eyes red. “Yeah, me too. It’s fun to think about, though.”

Shannon slid the card into the door lock and they slipped inside.

“First thing’s first. Gotta take out the old axe.” Charles swung his guitar case onto the bed. “You want out, puppy?”

He freed the guitar from its shell and leaned it against the wall between the window and door while the duffels of clothes still hung from his shoulder.

“There. Puppy’s safe.”

Shannon left Charles to revel in his tender moment while she readied herself for the shower. Off with the shirt; threw it on the bed. Skirt unbuttoned without even bothering to slide it off her hips. She let it fall off on its own as she marched toward the bathroom, and when it made its way to her ankles she stepped out of it without even breaking stride. Off with the underclothes. She turned on the bathwater, adjusted the temperature, and then switched it to the showerhead.

Then, and only then, did she take off her sandals and earrings. In she went.

And the shower felt so good! The shower curtain billowed inward from the air currents. She swatted it away and scrubbed off the road, the hospital, the insane worry—lathered it all up and sloughed it right off her skin, watching it swirl merrily down the drain.

She wondered what was waiting for them tomorrow, thinking of the terrifying visions they’d seen together. And then she pushed it all aside. Right now, she only wanted to wrap herself in the moment. If she was to face it all tomorrow, she needed her relaxation today. And this shower, humble though it was, offered respite.

“What’s going on in there?” she heard Charlie say from the other side of the curtain. And then his face popped in, grinning at her.

“What are you doing?” she said, laughing at him.

He admired her body with a smile. “Following the trail of bread crumbs you left me from the door to the shower.”

She giggled. “It’s nice in here.”

“And it’s lonely out here. Your place sounds better.”

And off went his bread crumbs, flying backward to the bedroom beyond. He hopped in alongside her, his chest instantly slick and shining under the spray.

She touched it.

“Mmm, Shannie.”

She smiled. He ran his hands from her shoulders to the crooks of her arms, and she turned her neck toward the pleasure. She couldn’t believe how comfortable she’d become with him.

“Wash my back?”

She rolled around, turning it toward him. He lathered it up and ran his hands down, washing her back and her waist and her hips. Not in the way he might have touched her in the early days, with the eagerness of someone who’d just discovered her body, but with the deliberate, savored motions of someone who cherished it.

He pressed against her and she felt the readiness above his thighs, but he still did not indulge. They washed themselves and each other without discerning which was which.

At last, she faced him and his mouth closed over hers.

“God I love you, Shannie,” he said, pulling back momentarily.

“I love you, Charlie.”

He ran a hand down her side. “Why isn’t it like this every day?”

She tilted her face down, and he did the same so that their foreheads touched.

She sighed. “Separate lives. Your tour. My—whatever it is.”

“We need to change that.” He ran his hand through her wet hair.

“Now that I know how perfect it can be, since this trip. Except for, you know, the whole problem with the megademon trying to enslave the Earth and all.”

She laughed and pressed a wet face to his wet shoulder.

“But really.” He smiled, and he looked at her the way a little boy might look at the latest, coolest video game or skateboard. Or guitar, depending on the boy. “Really, babe. We need to change that. What if we screwed this up? What if all this ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ leads to losing you? That would suck beyond belief. I want to crash your shower every day.”

She reached behind and switched the water off. The stillness enveloped them in the form of steam. Even the shower curtain relented.

“Come on, baby,” she said, stepping out.

He followed her. He had a towel in his hand before she could reach for one, and he caressed her body with it, sliding it over her with reverence. She smiled and tilted her head back, letting him dry her.

She stepped toward the bed, and as he followed he toweled himself off, barely—the eagerness had perhaps crept back. She threw herself back on the bed, her arms stretched over her head, and he tumbled after her with his hands locked in hers.

“I love you, Shannie.”

“So you’ve told me.”

“I can’t say it enough.”

He gripped her hands. “I love you, Shannie.” He said it into her ear. And then he said it into her hair. And then he said it to her collarbone, and her breasts, and her stomach. She let him say it, let the truth of it wash over her, hold her in its embrace.

“I love you, Shannie.”

As his skin met her skin, she felt it in her body. God how she felt it! She felt it curl from her hips in a ball of ecstasy. The absolute trust, the aching, gorgeous release.

She cried out.

He gripped her.

It washed over her in unrelenting pulses. Colored waves that radiated from her center toward the outer reaches of her body. She gasped and reveled, eyes open but not seeing, and then closed but seeing everything.

She told him she loved him, too. Her words were caught, strangled. She said it breathless and shuddering.

“Say it again, baby.”

He was over her. His lips at her ear. “Let me hear it again, Shannie.”

She swerved her hips away, ticklish now.

His hand gripped her and held her still. He pressed himself up against her, held back.

“Say it again, baby. I wanna hear it.”

“God, Charlie. Don’t! You know!”

She was crazy sensitive. But still so hungry. His muscle was right there, scorching, pressed at the center of her and yet not entering. God, it was tantalizing.

“Let me hear it again, Shannie.”

“Charlie, you—”

“Let me hear it again, Shannie.”

“I love you. I love you, Charlie. I love you like I’ve never loved anything before.”

His mouth enveloped hers. His legs gripped her legs and he pressed forward, upward, inward.

She cried out. Her head flung back, pressing the pillow down under her neck. A glisten of sweat beaded her brow, her arms, her stomach. His stomach. She wrapped her ankles around his and yearned him in.

He filled her with shards of heat. She lost herself in that heat. She arched her back and pressed herself forward. His lips grazed her collarbone. Her nipples demanded the feel of his skin and her head swung to the side in yearning. Her body was only a veneer for something timeless, something that sewed them into harmonious, pure rhythms of life.

He strained and she gripped him fast. They stretched toward each other in the span of a coursing moment. It was impossible to get any closer. The muscles in his chest and shoulders flexed. His head thrust back.

She closed her eyes. His hands squeezed hers. She drank in a long breath and he held her so very tight for a lingering, sparkling, blessed moment.

He exhaled.

His back went slack and his head dipped over hers, though his arms remained flexed.

“Relax,” she breathed, touching his thigh.

“Don’t want to crush you,” he mumbled into her hair.

She giggled with a sleepy, stretchy shiver. “You won’t.”

He relented, settling over her. She felt discombobulated, home.

“I meant what I said earlier, Shannie. I need you. I want you in my life every day.”

“I think I would love that, Charlie.”

“Mmm! It’s going to be so nice.”

“I can’t imagine how we’d work it out, though. I’m about to switch gears with my career. I’ve decided I’m going to get serious about the stand-up circuit. That means travel. And you’re always traveling with your—”

“Shh, baby, shh. We’ll work it out. If we both want it, and it’s really important to us, the rest will work out.”

Her eyes closed, and she allowed herself to surrender. She must have dozed off then because when she opened her eyes again he was laying beside her with his arm about her waist and his nose in her ear.

She rolled over to the edge of the bed. His hand grasped her wrist. “Where ya goin’, babe?” he said with a slur.

“Just going to get cleaned up. I’ll be right back.”

She tiptoed into the bathroom, groping her way through the darkness, and switched on the light. First hot water and then cold. She combed her hair, thinking it a fruitless effort because it was liable to get good and wild if she slept on it. Hey, maybe it would scare away the evil spirits.

She left the light on in the bathroom and pulled the door to allow for a sliver of illumination because the hotel room was now pitch black. Was it really nighttime already? It seemed like it shouldn’t be that late.

She went back to the bed and stopped just shy of it.

“Eek! It’s smelly over here! Good God, Charlie, what have you been eating!”

“Hmm?”

He lifted his head, hair standing on end, and cocked an eye at her. She fluttered her fingers in front of her nose.

He laughed. “I didn’t do anything. Here, smell.” He waved a hand over his backside and then reached for her.

She squealed and evaded him. “I’m not getting in there with you. You’re toxic.”

Charles chuckled. “Honest, it wasn’t me! It must’ve been you.” Shannon harrumphed.

Charles wrinkled his brow. “That is pretty strong, whatever it is.”

“I’ll open a window.”

She went to the curtain and peeled it back, using the heavy fabric to shield her nude body. But when she lifted the curtain, there was nothing on the other side but solid wall. No window.

“That’s strange. Look.” She drew the curtain all the way open for Charles to see.

The smell grew stronger. And Shannon noticed a faint sort of hissing sound, as if air were moving rapidly. Like gas from a pipe.

Charles sat up with a start. “Where’s the door?”

“What?”

Shannon looked along the length of the wall, confused. She thought the door had been right there, right next to the window—or the curtained wall that was supposed to be a window—but the outer wall spread solid from corner to corner. Then she noticed Charles’s guitar resting up against it.

“Wasn’t your guitar sitting right next to the door?”

Charles got to his feet and switched on the light. “Yeah. The door was right there.”

The odor increased and Shannon’s lungs began to burn. “Charlie?”

She looked from left to right, scanning for a door even along the interior walls. Perhaps she’d just gotten confused? But the only door in the entire hotel room was the one that led to the bathroom.

“Hey!” Charles slapped his palms against the barren stretch of Sheetrock. “Hey! Anyone out there? Hey!”

Shannon pounded on the interior wall, the one adjacent to the next room. “Hey! Help!”

She grabbed the phone. She’d call the desk or, better yet, call Bruce or Jamie. But the phone was dead.

That horrible hissing! That horrible smell! It smelled . . . malignant. Shannon’s fists bounced harmlessly off the wall and she started to feel light-headed.

“Hey!” She picked up one of Charles’s shoes and banged on the wall. “Hey! Help!”

Her breathing grew very labored and her lungs burned. She knew she should try to remain calm, but that was going to be a very serious challenge.

“Hey!” One more bang.

“Shannie!”

She had somehow slumped to her knees without noticing. And then she was on her butt on the carpet. Charles was beside her and the room was starting to spin.

He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Shannie! Baby, hang on,” he said, putting a T-shirt over her face. “Breathe slowly, baby.”

But she could see that his eyes were starting to lose focus, too. She looked back at the place where the door should have been, where the guitar stood. Only the guitar was gone.

“Look!” She pointed to the place where the guitar had been. Charles’s “axe” had been replaced by a real axe.

Charles leaned her against the bed and lunged for the axe.

Shannon struggled to keep her eyes on him, though her vision zigged away and then zagged askew. He swung the axe and embedded its blade in the wall, heaved to release it, and swung again. Shannon smiled, a distant observer, thinking he looked like a lumberjack in a porno film. Still naked, that axe wasn’t the only thing swinging. And he seemed very far off. Disappearing at the end of a dark tunnel, her little pornojack. Her head lolled backward. She fought to lift it up.

A patch of daylight burst into the room, tiny but true. Enough to pry her eyes open. Charles kept after it. Shannon felt her head swing toward the mattress. She shifted, changing her position in a way that forced her posture to keep her head aloft and her eyes open. But they failed her. She heard a sound like a giant filbert breaking open under the crush of some massive nutcracker.

“Shannie!”

His arms were around her again. Shannon felt herself being lifted, and felt searing light that shone red beyond her eyelids.

And then a fresh cool breeze.

“Breathe, baby!” Charles’s voice was labored under gasping breaths.

Shannon did. Had been doing that, hadn’t she? It wasn’t like she’d stopped breathing or anything. Her lids swam open. She was head-tohead with Charles, both of them gasping like guppies at the dinner plate-sized opening in the wall. Her lids, arms, and legs grew lighter, and the fog in her head dissipated, leaving behind a crackling headache.

“I . . . I can breathe.” she said, nodding. “I’m much better.”

Charles squeezed the back of her neck. “Okay, baby. Take a deep breath and then hold, and stand back.”

She did and he went to work again on the wall. She held that juicy oxygen in her lungs as long as she could, and when her lungs began to contract, she let it out slowly.

When she filled her lungs again, the air was tainted, but not so much as it had been earlier. Even standing away from the door, she could feel a luscious breeze that filtered through the hotel room.

Charles alternated hacking with the sharp end of the axe and picking with the hooked end until he’d carved a sizeable hole in the Sheetrock and studs.

“Come on, Shannie!”

He dropped the axe on the bed and took her hand, guiding her to the gap. She slid sideways through the opening and glorious afternoon sunlight blistered her vision to near-blindness. Better yet, pine-scented fresh air filled her lungs. Charles stepped through behind her and joined her on the concrete breezeway.

There was no one about. That was good, as they now seemed safe enough—and were standing there naked as ballpark franks.

Charles’s hands rested at her elbows.

“Look,” he said, tugging at her arm.

She looked back over her shoulder at the hotel room. There was no hole in the wall. Looking through the window that wasn’t there a minute ago, she saw there was no axe on the bed. Instead, Charles’s guitar now lay diagonally across the rumpled bedspread. The hotel room door creaked innocently where the hole had been.

Charles caught it just before it swung shut and locked them out.

32

NEW YORK

HE HELD HER IN HIS ARMS, smelled her hair, felt the lithe fluidity of her movements. Gloria was his. He could tell that she had already changed in her heart.

Enervata danced with Gloria in the glittering lounge. Onlookers watched them, trancelike, unaware of what they were witnessing on a conscious level, though he knew they were instinctively mesmerized within their primal selves. Enervata was accustomed to these reactions from mortals. The staff, the patrons, the spies, everyone. They were alert to the sheer power, not only of Enervata himself, but of what he represented in dancing with Gloria.

Her hand was in his hand. Her arm draped over his shoulder. She had willingness in her eyes; hunger even.

He was surprised to find that he wanted to draw this out longer. He chose to maintain this slow, sustained pace. A sure pace. He wanted to savor these moments that brought all of humanity to their collective knees before him.

“Aaron,” she said.

“Yes, my dear.”

“I wonder if you know what’s happened to Sileny. I used to see her all the time. But now, it’s been a while.”

He frowned. He wanted her attention, all of it. Sileny had been useful in getting Gloria accustomed to her new life, but he was loath to allow the two to spend too much time together. He wanted to keep Gloria yearning for his company.

“I believe Sileny has been otherwise occupied.”

“It’s a shame. It was nice to have another woman around.”

He watched her face, unsure what to make of it. Then Gloria’s gaze lifted to meet his. And in that moment, he saw that she did have motives. She seemed beautifully corrupt. Perhaps she had become spoiled by the luxury of her surroundings, the beautiful clothes she wore. Being waited on by a handmaid.

Her eyes drew him in to her, like the heated chimney of an open hearth might beckon a banshee on a clear cold night. He relished the thought of turning that hearth to ice. Already, the crystals had begun to form.

He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her. Long, sumptuous. She did not resist him.

WEST VIRGINIA

Forte and Shannon looked like hell. When they’d come pounding on the door in the Arkansas hotel room with stories about deadly gas and Forte’s guitar-cum-axe, Bruce had wanted all six of the questers to pile into one room to keep an eye out for one another. Things were just getting too dangerous. But Forte and Shannon refused, deciding instead to sleep in the van. They were too spooked to be able to relax inside a hotel room, though Bruce couldn’t imagine that things were actually safe anywhere. And the van’s seats couldn’t have been a hospitable substitute for a bed; they didn’t exactly emerge all bright-eyed and bushytailed.

Meanwhile, he, Jamie, Bea, and Em did all pile into one room with two king-sized beds. Bruce was not about to take any more chances and he didn’t want the group to split up. As it was, he barely slept; he kept checking outside to make sure Forte and Shannon were okay.

Now as the road arced between the mountains of West Virginia, he felt as though his eyes had turned to sand.

“Keep going on this road until we get to Charleston,” Emily was saying from the backseat. “And then we turn onto I-77 going north.”

Her chatter was a welcome diversion and he wondered if she was making a deliberate effort to keep him company and keep him awake. Everyone else was asleep. Jamie’d passed out in the front seat next to him, and in the back next to Emily, Bea was also out of it, her cardigan wadded up and tucked between her neck and shoulder in a makeshift pillow. In the very back, Forte was sawing logs with Shannon’s head draped over his shoulder.

Bruce cut his eyes to the rearview mirror, where he could see Emily sitting bent over the road atlas. She leaned forward as far as the seat belt would allow and spread it out for Bruce.

“And then I-77 brings us to guess where—right back to Ohio.”

“Does it look like there’s a town or a rest stop anywhere soon?” Bruce had to pee so bad he was beginning to sweat.

“Yup. There’s an exit coming up close and it looks like it goes to a town.”

Bruce glanced down at the atlas. In the top right-hand corner, he saw a black thing that looked like a dragon squatting in the blue stretch of New York Harbor. It looked suspiciously like a creation of Emily’s felt-tip markers.

“What’s that?” he asked her.

“Treasure maps gots to have sea monsters, ain’t they?” she said brightly. “I make treasure maps for the little kids in the park sometimes. I always put sea monsters in ’em.”

Bruce chuckled. “There’s treasure in your park?”

“Well yeah, but I gotta get the treasure and bury it myself. There’s a lost and found there, and if nobody claims the stuff they just throw it out. Usually there’s, like, matchbox cars and balls and stuff. I bury ’em in the sand by the jungle gym and put an X on the map where the treasure’s buried. The little kids like to hunt it out. I have to do separate treasures for girls and boys. I once saved up some mismatched earrings and beads and all and put ’em all in a box. That was the best buried treasure ever!”

“You never keep the stuff yourself?”

“More fun to send the kids on a hunt. But I keep the books sometimes. Then when I’m done I take ’em to the library next to the park. You ever read The Boxcar Children? It’s my favorite. I read it when I was little-little. I saw it again in the library once when I brought in some park books to donate, but I couldn’t take it with me because I don’t have a library card. I’m too old now, anyways. Actually, you wanna know the truth? It’s an absolutely-resolutely dorky book, but I don’t care—I totally love it!”

Bruce laughed aloud. “I never read it. Did you ever read Ender’s Game? That was great. And there was this book called The Cay. And you wanna talk about sea monsters, I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea I don’t know how many times. You read that one?”

Emily cried out and began flapping the map.

Bruce grinned, thinking her reaction meant that she’d read it and was having flashbacks of the giant squid. But when he cast a look over his shoulder, he saw smoke coming from the map.

Bedelia snapped to attention, blinking the sleep from her eyes. “What’s going on, hon? Oh, shoot!”

She grabbed the cardigan from her shoulder and swatted at the atlas like she was smacking a wasp.

Good God, please no more insects!

“What is it?” Bruce said, shooting a glance at the rearview mirror.

“The map caught on fire!” Emily exclaimed.

Bedelia produced her glasses from somewhere within the folds of her clothing and shoved them to an awkward cant over the bridge of her nose. “How strange. Now that the fire’s gone, the only thing that’s left is a little slash. It didn’t even burn through.”

“Yeah,” Emily said. “And look where the burn mark is. I think that’s right about where we are right—”

Bruce slammed on the brakes. A crater lay just beneath a dip in the road. He hadn’t seen it until he was almost on top of it. The van screeched, sliding, back end swerving as if in a race with the front. Jamie woke up screaming. Bruce’s foot jammed down hard, his arms locked and shoulders thrown back as if by pushing away from the steering wheel he might prevent the van from plunging into that abyss.

They slowed, but too late.

The van lurched at a horribly wrong angle, Jamie’s side leading at a downward diagonal. There was a moment when everything was suspended, everything jostling, waving in the air—the road atlas, empty and partially empty plastic bottles, Bruce tethered only by the seat belt that seized around him. And then a tooth-cracking jolt as the van jerked to a stop.

Everything that had been small and loose in the back now piled atop the dashboard on Jamie’s side. Bruce groaned. For a second, he felt as if he’d woken up in a strange hotel room, his face in a fluffy white pillow, and he saw Jamie sleeping with her face buried in her own pillow. His vision took in the bedspread that looked like a map. And it took in a creeping black line that slowly trailed along the interstate on that map to show the progress of the van. Texas. Arkansas. Kentucky . . .

He blinked and these jumbled things revised themselves. There weren’t pillows beneath their heads, but air bags. And as Jamie slept on her nonpillow, the black line was trailing not along the map, but from her temple; black on her face but smearing red when it touched the air bag.

“Jamie? Oh my God! Jamie!”

He reached for her. She moved without resistance under his touch.

“Jamie! Jamie!” Emily cried. Her face was wild and she clawed at her seat belt. “Jamie’s hurt!”

“Don’t undo it, honey!” Bruce shouted. “Just leave yourself buckled up for now.”

Emily nodded, her breath coming in short gasps. “Okay, Bruce. I’ll . . . I’ll check on everybody.”

The van lurched another inch and a collective scream erupted among its occupants. Bruce grabbed Jamie’s elbow. “Jamie? Tink? Can you hear me?”

Jamie groaned. She was alive, but she was obviously not coherent. Ahead, Bruce saw mostly darkness outside the van. There were occasional shadows of rocks and even snaking white roots, but mostly what he saw was black. Behind and to his left, daylight streamed through dust motes. Gravity was pulling him hard to his right, toward Jamie’s side of the van.

“Bedelia’s okay,” Emily reported from behind him. “Shannon is . . . Shannon looks okay. Charlie?”

“Okay, tyke.”

“Charlie’s okay. I think we’re all okay except for Jamie.”

Bruce’s hand cupped the back of Jamie’s neck. He was afraid to move her. Afraid to touch her—back injury, neck injury, and all sorts of unthinkables raced through his mind—and yet he couldn’t not touch her.

“Come on, Jamie-girl. We got some Pravus trouble and we need you to give them that Tinkerbell hell.”

“Nngh?” Jamie’s head drifted from side to side as her spine began to straighten. “What happened? Did we hit a pothole?”

Bruce laughed with such a wild expulsion of air that it made his eyes bulge. He coughed, spittle flecking his chin.

“Yeah, well, it’s one helluva gigantic pothole. Okay, listen. We gotta get out of here. Nobody on the passenger’s side move. We’re hanging down on that side. Emily, can you open your door?”

He heard the sound of a rattled handle followed by a creak.

“It only opens a few inches.”

“Okay, close it back up.” Bruce tried his. He was wedged in tight.

Jamie was blinking now, the sleepy confusion transposing to bewildered alarm. She reached for her door.

“No, Jamie, don’t!”

But she’d already opened it and it immediately swung downward with alarming suddenness.

“Oh my God!”

Jamie’s legs slipped down after the door and Bruce lunged for her, grabbing her elbow and left thigh. The seat belt held her blessedly snug. A half-empty water bottle that had landed on the dashboard glanced off Jamie’s shoulder and tumbled past her, past the door, and on down, disappearing into the black. Bruce gaped after it, waiting to hear the sound of it bouncing at the bottom, but that sound never came. The only thing he heard was rushing air; groaning, creaking air moving below him, shifting inside an inhospitable blackness that seemed unaccustomed to and invaded by the feel of oxygen.

“Just . . .” Bruce gulped. “Just . . . nobody move okay? We’re all okay. We’re all okay.”

Suddenly the urge to pee returned, ridiculously insistent this time. A worm of perspiration slithered from his hairline to his nose, dove off the end of it, and spattered on the shriveled air bag in front of Jamie.

“I’m gonna . . . I’m gonna try to . . .”

Schlack!

There was an explosion next to Bruce’s ear as the driver’s-side window shattered. He flung his arms over his head. Everybody screamed. Gravel drizzled in, bouncing off Bruce’s neck in a lazy stream, and then stopped.

The van lay still.

Bruce made a mental diagnostic check of his person. He hadn’t wet his pants and he was still basically injury-free. However his body sparkled with breakthrough glass like sequins on a Hollywood starlet.

“Hallooooo down there!”

Bruce looked back and to his left, though he had to move his head through the busted window in order to do so. He saw a silhouette framed by the sun with hair so red it looked like a man whose head was on fire.

“Hello!” Bruce called back. “Oh my God, hello!”

“Sorry ’bout the window. Dinna think you heard me calling.”

“No I . . . you . . . you broke the window?”

“Seemed the only way to get you out, now didn’t it? Just give a hop through the window and up you go.”

Bruce swiveled his head out through the opening. It looked like the guy was standing behind the rear driver’s-side tire. A landslide of dirt had buried much of the van, covering the very back and Emily’s window, ending just shy of Bruce’s.

“He’s right. I can crawl up through there and help you guys out.”

“I don’t know, Bruce,” Emily whispered from the back.

He turned and looked at her. “Why are you whispering?”

She lifted her shoulders, turning a creased brow up toward the voice, dim splashes of light slanting across her face.

“I don’t think we have much choice,” Shannon said.

“Oh dear God,” Bedelia said.

Bruce turned his head out the window again. “Hang on just a minute.”

He unfastened his seat belt, gripping the overhead handle as he moved. He crawled gingerly downward, down toward Jamie.

The voice from above became alarmed. “What’re you doing down there, lad? Don’t be stupid!”

Bruce didn’t reply. He braced himself with his legs as he reached across Jamie. She squeezed her eyes shut. Nobody breathed.

“Sorry lot this is! Come to save the day and he’s off gallivanting. What’re you doing down there, really? Give us a hint!”

Bruce locked his legs and feet around Jamie’s seat and reached, stretched, grasped at the door. His fingers found the handle and he pulled it up and closed with an ever-so-gentle click.

He retreated and saw a glisten of tears streaking along Jamie’s face parallel to the blood.

“It’s okay, Tink. We’re getting out now.”

“Just be careful, Bruce.”

He hoisted himself from the window.

“Well it’s about time, I’d say! Paused for tea, did you?”

Bruce moved carefully, exerting as little pressure against the van as possible. He looked down, which was a mistake. The crevasse gaped to a black void. It was as if they were clinging to the thin ledge of an iceberg that sank to nothing less than the entire ocean below.

He averted his eyes, focusing on getting them out. He crawled up along the buried section above Emily’s window toward the man with the red hair who still crouched behind the rear wheel of the van.

Bruce reached across the expanse of asphalt and hoisted himself up. “Do you have some rope? A winch or something? We could secure the van and then help them . . .”

He stopped, gaping. “Are you . . . are you holding the van up with your bare hands?”

“And took your own sweet time with it, didn’t you! Got me squatting’ere like a proctologist to a hippo with my finger up the bloody thing’s arse!”

And then, bizarre as it all seemed, crazy unbelievable already, what happened next came with such surreal incongruity that Bruce’s brain failed to register it. At first.

This peculiar, hunched, red-haired, red-bearded fat man, this stranger with his finger lodged, as he put it, in the van’s arse, stood up.

Removed his finger and stood up.

“No!”

And the van sailed downward.

“No!”

And from inside Bruce could hear them scream.

A cacophony of rock shrieking against metal, dirt flying, all of them screaming! Shannon, Forte, Bedelia. Oh God, Jamie! Emily! No! No no no!

The van grinding, sliding down, forward, down.

And then it stopped.

Below the surface now by about fifteen feet, it stopped. A grumble of rocks trailed along the broad side and disappeared.

“Oh bloody hell!”

Bruce lurched, hope filling his heart. The van remained well within sight, and from the exuberant screams that still drifted from the crevasse, at least some of the travelers, if not all, were still alive.

The fat man wasted no time. He hopped down into the crevasse, slipping on the dirt and losing balance. He fell on his butt with a trumpeting fart.

“Blah-dy fah-cking hell!”

He righted himself and stuck out his tree trunk of a leg and pumped it against the rear of the van. The vehicle rocked under the force of his foot, and Bruce could hear renewed shrieks from within.

He scrambled back into the crevasse. “No! My God! Stop! Oh God, get out of the van!”

Only they couldn’t. Because the van was now angled in such a way that the nose pointed directly down, and to crawl through the window was to fall into a black depth that seemed to have no bottom.

He grabbed the fat man by the shoulder, but was immediately thrown backward.

Those screams!

The ache in his bladder contracted with incongruent demand. Bruce cast around, looking for something, anything he could use to bash the fat man and make him stop. He thought about his battle with Ichabod and realized he would choke the bastard to dust if necessary.

Another sound pierced through the screaming.

A sudden, buzzing rumble, escalating sharply and drowning out all other sounds.

Bruce staggered up the berm and looked wildly up the road. A 4x4 burst over the side of the hill, dust and rocks flying. Not just a 4x4. A monster truck.

The red-haired man jerked away from the van and scrabbled out of the crevasse and back to the surface. His mouth worked inside his beard in a streak of curses that fell off under the roar of the motor. He bowed his arms and legs and dug in, facing the truck like a sumo wrestler. The truck bore down on the red-haired man and he stuck out his meaty hand and seized the thing by the hood.

The red-haired man held his ground and the truck came to a halt, wheels spinning but unable to advance. A small landslide danced toward Bruce and he had to sidestep to avoid it.

For a minute, the 4x4’s front tires seemed to rise up and Bruce thought the red-haired man was going to actually lift the thing up into the air. But then the giant vehicle began to heave and rock—it almost looked like a lizard engaged in a mating dance—and it crept forward.

The red-haired man bellowed. His legs buckled. The truck gnashed him up, pinning him under the tire.

Bruce gaped, but only for a moment. He turned back to the van, which was no longer visible. All the commotion had loosened more dirt atop it. He saw a mound of earth suspended in the space where it had come to a stop. Bruce’s stomach reeled.

He heard the 4x4’s engine go silent and he turned to see the driver’s-side window roll down. The red-haired man was still lowing like a fallen bull. But though he lay pinned under a tire, he seemed uninjured and appeared to suffer only from raging indignation.

Bruce scaled back to the surface. From the driver’s window an elderly woman appeared, white hair woven in an elegant twist. She inclined her head toward the massive brute she held pinched under the truck. “That’s enough, Hedon.”

“Fucking harpy! Get this pile of scrap metal off of me!”

She tsked and shook her head, then regarded Bruce. “You’d better hurry. There’s some cable in the back of the truck. And take this.”

She turned and rummaged around the seat, then tossed him what looked like a harness. “Make sure it’s secure around your waist so you don’t fall.”

The red-haired man she’d called Hedon let loose with a string of expletives. “Fucking scrap heap . . . !” His fists pummeled the tire. “. . . piss on your bleeding . . .”

The lady frowned and bent her head, and the truck once more began its lizard mating dance.

“. . . rip you from limb to limb, you festering c—”

The words pinched away as the truck and the lady bounced atop him. Bruce could see the lady’s furrowed brow as she concentrated, somehow maintaining an air of poise as she bucked, her back straight and jaw set.

The rocking subsided and Hedon’s mouth hung expletive-free, the reserve breath having been milked from his lungs.

Bruce sprang into action and scaled the truck. A spool of cable sat bolted to the bed and he released the arms, pulling the braided steel free.

“Let me give you a hand,” the lady said, climbing through the window and into the bed with the deft grace of a gymnast. She wore a blue jumpsuit and high-heeled shoes, though they didn’t seem to slow her down.

Bruce donned the harness. “Are you the Auxilium who came to visit Jamie?”

“Just get moving,” she said as she clipped the harness in.

He didn’t need to be told twice. He made his way out of the truck and down into the fissure.

“Jamie? Guys? Can you hear me?”

“Bruce! It’s Bruce! Hello?”

Jamie’s voice, strong but muffled. He went down, sliding and spelunking to the mound of dirt atop the rear of the van.

“Is everyone okay in there?”

“We’re all right, just get us out!”

“I’m coming. Nobody move.”

He used his hands like a bulldozer, scooping dirt away from the back of the van until he found the tow hook and attached the clevis.

He turned back and called to the Auxilium. “It’s on.”

While she ratcheted the cable taut, Bruce let his vision swim into the void below the van where he saw a few more feet of torn earth. And beyond that, nothing but black. A surge of vertigo made him fold into a crouch. There came a swirl from below, an ominously cool wind that smelled of minerals and wet stone. It chilled the sweat at his temples and slid into his shirtsleeves.

He had a sudden bizarre urge to pee into that void. He resisted it.

“Everyone buckled up?” he called.

Emily’s voice in reply: “Check!”

It was too risky to carry them out one by one now that the van was angled straight down. The safest thing to do would be to pull the van out with them inside.

“Everybody hang on real tight!” He worked his way back out of the crevasse with as much speed as he could muster, hands filthy and bleeding as he gripped the steel cable for support.

The Auxilium was back in the driver’s seat, sprinkling sand out the window and over Hedon where he lay beneath the wheel. Incredibly, he seemed to have dozed off. In fact, he was snoring with deep, lusty oinks.

The Auxilium winked at Bruce. “Stand back, sonny.”

The monster truck roared to life and, with an anticipant hiccup, lurched forward. The added weight of the van didn’t seem to bother it much. The front wheel rolled forward over Hedon, then the back wheel followed suit. All the while the fat man slept.

The van lumbered into view. At first, only its hindquarters were visible at the end of the tow cable, like a mouse being carried off by the tail. It gave some resistance as it broke the plane to the surface, at which point the Auxilium put the truck in reverse and then forward again, once more treating Hedon like a speed bump as she did so.

And then the van was out.

Hedon groaned and pulled himself up to a sitting position, rubbing his eyes.

“Sandman trick, I should’ve known. Naughty, naughty!” He blinked, eyeing the van. “Oh, bloody hell.”

The lady scaled out of the truck and down to the ground. Hedon rolled, but could not get away from her fast enough.

She grabbed him by the scruff of his collar. “You leave these people alone. And I’ve had just about enough of your foul language.”

Bruce raced to the van. Jamie and Emily tumbled out first, followed by Bea, Forte, and Shannon. Hands went to shoulders and faces, inspecting, hugging. They shook and cooed to each other.

Jamie looked around. “I didn’t think we were going to make it. How did you get us out?”

Bruce turned and pointed to the monster truck, and then stopped, puzzled. It was gone. And the Auxilium was gone. That horrible Hedon guy was gone.

“Where’s the hole?” Emily said.

Bruce looked. The fissure was gone, too. And although no other cars had passed during the entire time the van had been a chicken bone stuck in Mother Nature’s throat, the freeway was now flowing with steady traffic in both directions.

The van itself rested, intact, on the side of the road. Just in front of it gaped a relatively innocent-looking pothole.

33

NEW YORK

“I AIN’T SEEN NOTHING LIKE IT BEFORE, master. They’ve got protection like madness!”

“Am I to understand there has been not one single casualty?”

Hedon’s arms spread wide. “It’s rather precise surgery, isn’t it? First, I’ve got to separate the bloke from the others, and only then can I get down to business. I wouldn’t’ve minded a little help on that one, hey!”

Hedon angled a nasty curl of the lip toward Isolde, who answered with a barely stifled huff. If Hedon was attempting to exhibit any reserve of temper, his efforts proved shoddy.

Enervata felt acid seep into his blood. These lapses of deference among his lieutenants seemed increasingly overt.

He stood in human form because he would be joining Gloria soon, but that wouldn’t stop him from exacting discipline first.

Hedon must have sensed Enervata’s mood, for he returned to a more humble—if not whining—tact.

“And then there’s the matter of that lady showing up. I can’t be expected to hold me own against one of those.”

Isolde gave a snide grin. “A wave of the hand, a sprinkle of sand. Our Hedon slips off to slumberland!”

Enervata shot out his arm and slapped her. “Amusing to you, is it? You find this funny!”

Her face registered no shock, no mortification. Her head merely swung under the force of his hand and then returned as if nothing had happened. She seemed utterly impervious and it made him want to flay her.

But he didn’t. He wheeled instead upon Hedon and threw a punch to his jaw, and then another, and another until Hedon was on the floor, coughing and spitting blood and flesh. Enervata kicked him in the stomach then and Hedon heaved a fetid expulsion of breath and began to gag.

Enervata turned his back. He didn’t care to watch Hedon disgorge. He turned instead to Isolde, craving to sink his black, violent hunger into her. But to his surprise, she was not gawking at Hedon. No smirk rested upon her face. She was looking away, as though her gaze dwelt within another time and place altogether.

But most curiously, most fascinating, Enervata was certain that within those yellow eyes he saw evidence of tears. Actual tears.

Could they be from fear? After all these centuries, to see fear again in Isolde’s eyes! Not just anxiety or foreboding, but enough true fear as to cause her to weep. The thought registered with such an immediate endorphin rush that he felt a surge of blood to his groin.

Was it really fear? Her expression seemed so strange. Wild. Almost foreign. But it had to be fear, because he could imagine nothing else.

And then she seemed to return to the present and her gaze dropped dully to the floor.

He left her alone and strode to the silver charger that lay atop the demi-lune commode, pouring himself a glass of Taylor port. “When you’ve finished regurgitating your supper, Hedon, perhaps you’ll see fit to report on our philanthropist, Jonathon Raster.”

Hedon coughed wetly and then snuffled. “I didn’t—that is, Isolde was just there . . .”

“I am not asking Isolde. I am asking you!”

“Of course, master. Everything is as you asked. I was the one who set it up, really. Isolde just ran reconnaissance.”

“Hedon . . .”

“He’s resigned! Jonathan Raster’s resigned.” Hedon coughed again, finishing with a long, hoarse grind of air that left him smacking his lips. “Announced his resignation just this morning, he did. Claims his innocence but wants to remove himself so the foundation isn’t tainted by all the scandal.”

Enervata nodded. “Excellent news.”

“Course Kolt’s all up in a lather. Didn’t take kindly to the way we publicly yanked his knickers up his bum.”

Hedon rolled to a sitting position and looked around—no doubt hunting for his honey wine—then thought better of it and folded his hands. “Kolt’s put out the word to all the others that he’ll make just about any deal he has to just to get back at us.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Enervata said. “It’s much too late for that. Tomorrow Gloria will be mine.”

Enervata saw the excitement in Hedon and Isolde’s eyes. And the doubt. He knew they wondered where they would stand in the new world.

Yes, let them wonder.

He waved his hand as if brushing dog hair from a velvet cushion. “Out. Get out, both of you. And when you next report back, you’d better each come with your fingers tangled in the blood-soaked hair of the travelers. One head in each hand for my Hall of Amusements.”

Hedon and Isolde said nothing and took their leave.

Enervata revealed Gloria’s door. She could now open or close it if she chose to wander through the penthouse.

He took his time, sipping his port, thinking of the tantric allure of Isolde’s fear. So many delights awaited him. He would never kill Isolde. Neither would he allow her to taste the power of reign over the wild-lands. But she would indeed taste fear again, that fear he’d glimpsed in her, along with the complementary flavors of despair and pain. Yes, he would indulge himself in her misery repeatedly through the drifts of eternity.

And perhaps when he’d tired of Gloria, he could rekindle his passion by defiling her in the same manner. Perhaps he would enjoy them both, side by side. This, the purest love.

The door to Gloria’s room opened and Sileny emerged. She avoided his eyes and skirted past him to the rear chambers. It was pitiful that Gloria had sought the company of this wretch, the mouthless one. Sileny exuded a kind of fear so acrid and constant that he took no pleasure from it at all. Only revulsion.

Sileny returned, this time bearing a mother-of-pearl box and, head bent, slipped back into Gloria’s room. She left the door open behind her.

Enervata stepped toward it. Tonight he would take Gloria to a performance of the Peking opera, Forest of the Wild Boars, portrayed in the acrobatic ballet style of Wusheng. Sileny was no doubt helping Gloria to dress.

He would shower and ready himself. More important, he needed to revise his state of mind to assimilate more to Aaron Vance and less to Enervata. He still felt heady with the lust of releasing violence upon Hedon and still felt the sensual ache from Isolde’s misery.

But he wanted to see Gloria, perhaps catch a glimpse of her as she prepared herself for him. And he wanted to look upon her, unobserved, while he still bore this mantle; wearing the sweat of violence, Hedon’s blood at his knuckles, Isolde’s despair like an aphrodisiac. He wanted to gaze upon Gloria with the taste of the world to come still in his mouth.

But the risk was too great. If she saw him, she might see the black echoes within him. He turned for his room. But he paused and looked over his shoulder.

And then he saw her.

She stood reflected in the great mirror. A gown of rich, shimmering jade hues clung to her body in angled folds. It draped from one single shoulder down the length of her breasts and tapered waist, past her thighs, and then flared out at the knee to a bell shape, where the colors created a hologram of green, blue, and purple. Sileny had adorned her with a golden scalloped necklace, so delicate the shape only emerged when Gloria moved and the light chanced to glimpse it. One slender shoulder lay bare and, from the other, a sheer cascade of translucent chiffon feathered its way down her back.

Sileny was tending her hair now, which was pulled into shining folds that echoed those in the dress, a spray of tiny emerald, sapphire, and amethyst jewels winking as if suspended in a halo.

And beyond Gloria, perfectly, stretching the length of the wall, hung the peacock tapestry.

Gloria inclined her neck, graceful and long, and she was the human embodiment of that tapestry. A thing of pride, leisure, and astonishing beauty. A thing that should be his. Would be his.

She turned and saw him. Enervata knew he should move on, pretend he hadn’t seen her and continue to his room to get ready for the opera. But he couldn’t. Could not take his eyes from her. He expected her face to register shock at his accidental voyeurism, or that she might look away in modesty.

But she did neither of these things. Instead, she gazed back at him, bold.

In that moment, Enervata realized that he’d been wrong. He’d told Isolde and Hedon that he would have her tomorrow.

Seeing the willingness in her eyes now, though, he knew he’d have her tonight.

34

PENNSYLVANIA

BRUCE HUGGED THE CELL PHONE to his ear, brows knit, his gaze traveling through two panes of glass and an expanse of pavement to rest on Jamie.

Jamie held her phone to her ear, brows knit, her gaze traveling through two panes of glass and an expanse of pavement to rest on Bruce.

He stood inside the convenience store while she sat in the van by the gas pumps. On that expanse of pavement that lay between them was utter bedlam. But neither Bruce nor Jamie said much as they gawked at each other. What was there to say?

Bruce tried the glass door again. “I still can’t get out.”

Jamie’s hand made a helpless up-and-down chop. “Why would you want to get out? It’s, um, being handled.”

She looked like she was about to say something else, but she just sighed and turned to watch a snaking nozzle at the end of a hose arc through the air like a seahorse, rearing over a retired man in a Hawaiian shirt who duly cleaved it in half with a machete.

Bruce blinked. “Er, yeah.”

Bruce had been making a drink run when the gas pumps had come to life and begun to attack the van, banging and squeezing like the giant squid that tried to eat the Nautilus. Inside the Quick-Mart, the door had suddenly locked, leaving Bruce standing helpless next to a bewildered attendant and a bleary-eyed truck driver who kept shaking his head and saying, “This is why I usually drive at night.”

Bruce had thought for sure they were going to lose somebody. The hoses had stretched to impossible lengths, shooting out from all eight pumps and descending with ferocity upon the van.

But then the tour bus showed up, and the tourists piled out and . . . and . . .

Well, here they were.

Bruce watched a curly-haired woman bearing a fanny pack and pink sunglasses as two wild black hoses descended upon her from opposite ends. She wrestled them both to the ground and jammed her feet on top of them, bending them and pretzeling them together. She then yanked, cinching them into a tight knot. The hoses and nozzles flapped and banged until the machete-toting guy with the Hawaiian shirt came up and lopped their nozzles off.

The entire parking lot roiled with whipping gas hoses, but furious as they were, they were grossly outnumbered by the rabid tourists. Fanny-packers beat, yanked, stretched, and sliced the hoses to shreds. And the wounded hoses oozed a sticky red something that didn’t quite look like blood but didn’t look like gas, either.

Bruce heard a high-pitched, buzzing shriek and he turned to see a lady in a muumuu with one hand gripping a twisting, writhing nozzle. In the other hand she wielded a scorching red curling iron—at least it looked like one except that the barrel glowed like a hot poker—and she burned through the rubber mesh of the screaming hose.

Bruce heard a click at the door and reached for it, finding it open.

“Wait, I don’t think it’s safe yet,” he heard Jamie say, and saw her twisting in her seat to confer with the others in the van. “And . . . did you get the drinks? Bea says we have to make doubly sure to hydrate.”

“Hydrate? Oh. Oh yeah.” Bruce had actually left all the drinks at the counter, still in the bag where he’d abandoned them just as the pumps had come to life.

“And Em wants cashews.”

Bewildered, Bruce fetched the drinks and attempted to pay the attendant for the cashews. The poor man only gaped at the spectacle beyond the window.

The truck driver approached the register and shook his head. “It’s why I usually never like to drive during the day. Nothing but crazies on the road during the day. Could I get a packet of Marblows?”

The attendant blinked, seemingly unable to move, an odd gurgle in his throat.

Bruce laid down a couple of bucks for the cashews and turned back toward the window to watch and wait.

“What are they?” Bruce said into the cell phone. “Some kind of angels come to protect us?”

A bent old man jammed an umbrella down the snout of one of the nozzles and began beating it against the concrete.

Jamie turned back to Bruce with a shrug. “Hard to say.”

Bruce shook his head. “It’s not exactly how I expected divine creatures to act. They’re kinda, I don’t know, ruthless.”

After some time, the tourists neutralized all the pumps but one. The sole surviving hose turned and tried to escape them, bolting for the freeway like a sidewinder. The bus itself took off after it, accelerated, overtook it, and then squealed its brakes as it pinned it down. The pack of tourists swarmed over it.

Jamie’s voice came through the cell phone again. “You know, they’re fighting the bad guys, but something tells me the tourists aren’t necessarily good guys. I don’t know what they are. You’d better make a run for it while you have the chance.”

Jamie was right. He dove through the door, leaving the truck driver and the shocked cashier behind him.

NEW YORK

Clashing cymbals burst through the whine of a Chinese twostringed fiddle. The plush red theater lay dark but for the stage, and Enervata observed the sea of heads below where he and Gloria sat in their box seats. To think, by tomorrow these people would all fall under his rule. If they only knew what awaited them before dawn, would they spend their last moments of freedom sitting idle in a theater?

Onstage below, the actors’ movements flowed in graceful arcs, even in the subtle turning of the head as the warrior shifted his whiteand-red painted face from side to side. Though he carried a sword and wore a costume of full battle armor, he pivoted and leaped in movements that defied gravity.

Enervata heard a subtle cough from behind and he turned to see a round silhouette darkening the archway.

“Excuse me,” he whispered to Gloria.

She nodded, the reflection of stage lights glimmering in the jewels that adorned her hair.

He joined Hedon at the rear of the box seats and they stepped back into the hall.

“More problems, master,” Hedon whispered. “We can’t get to the travelers because Kolt’s got every Pravus who’s ever sullied the earth out there turning everyday folk into bloomin’ warriors.”

“Keep your voice down,” Enervata said slowly and quietly. “Where are they?”

“They’re coming here. They’re almost to New York. Master, we can’t get near ’em. We’re up against both the light and the—”

“I will only say this once more. Either you bring me those heads, or I will take yours. Do you understand?”

Hedon stared at him, notched nose flaring and drawing in curls of his mustache. He nodded. “Yes, master. I understand.”

35

NEW YORK

MANHATTAN GLITTERED IN THE DARKNESS across the river. Jamie’s stomach was in knots. She knew precisely where to go. They’d found the place online after the glimpse they caught of the driveway. Now, as she guided the van over the familiar roads, through the tollbooths, and onto the George Washington Bridge, she realized that over the next several hours they could very well determine the fate of the world.

“It’s beautiful,” Emily breathed in the backseat. “So big.”

Jamie checked the rearview mirror and saw Bruce put his arm around the little girl. But he said nothing, his gaze fixed on the city beyond as it winked to life. In fact no one else spoke, not even Bedelia who, like Emily, had never been to New York City before. In fact, it seemed as though Bedelia watched the city emerge with trepidation.

I can hardly blame her.

Jamie brought her eyes back to the road ahead and felt a strange quickening in her pulse.

“Something’s wrong,” she said.

Next to her in the front passenger’s seat, Bedelia’s hands went to the armrests. “What is it, hon?”

Jamie scanned the road intently. “I . . . I don’t know. Something’s out of place. I can’t tell what.”

Everyone sat up straighter.

“It’s the cars, man!” Forte said from the far back. “Where’d all the cars go?”

“My God, you’re right,” Bruce said.

Jamie’s hands gripped the steering wheel. It was true. She couldn’t see a single headlight in either direction. As they rolled onto the bridge, the Hudson flowed in darkness hundreds of feet below, the black water catching ripples of reflected light. Her eyes scanned the rearview mirror.

“You thinking of doubling back?” Bruce said, reading her mind.

“It might be the only . . . my God, look!”

The road behind the van suddenly groaned and stretched backward, the bridge expanding so that the tollbooths seemed to fall back several miles. Doubling back was no longer an option.

“Gun it!” Bruce shouted.

She did.

Jamie floored the accelerator, centering the van among the empty lanes to allow as much room for error as possible. This bridge had always seemed invulnerable and vast. Now, with the speed maxed out—not exactly racecar velocity, but the van could haul when necessary—the bridge suddenly seemed puny and narrow.

The van zoomed across, the travelers inside barely breathing, and Jamie saw the exit for the Henry Hudson just ahead. She felt a sprout of hope. Perhaps they’d moved quickly enough to avoid whatever was about to happen. She inwardly congratulated herself for having become so attuned to clues, developing reflexes of steel acuity and—

The suspension cables moved. In the sharp-angled glow of the bridge’s spotlights, they shifted and folded into themselves, and then expanded, fanning out like butterflies. Shannon screamed.

The thing that had formed itself from the suspension cables now arched its spine, taking the build of a massive, braided-steel dragon, the scales of its back crisscrossing in the same latticework patterns of the bridge’s towers. It turned, bent, and leaped down into their path, fixating upon the van with predatory posture.

Jamie slammed on the brakes. The beast’s eyes were silver, lizardlike, and the size of Jet Skis.

The motor of the van hummed, its occupants too shocked to scream.

And the metallic dragon’s nose flared.

“I’m going out there,” Bedelia said.

Jamie looked at her.

“What?” Forte yelped. “That’s crazy!”

Bedelia turned to Jamie. “Listen to me, hon. I’m going to run out there to that thing. And when I do, you gun the van past it.”

Jamie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

She shook her head. “No way, Bea.”

Jamie threw the gear into reverse, but she did not hit the gas. The lizard stepped forward, causing the bridge to quake. Jamie knew that the van could never muster enough speed to outrun the beast.

Bedelia’s hand went to the door handle.

“No!” Jamie flipped the automatic lock. “No, Bea, what’re you . . . just . . . no!”

Bedelia turned to her sharply. “I know what I’m doing. I’ve seen it in a dream, knew it from the first moment I hugged Bruce at the hospital. It’s what I’m meant to do and it’s okay. I’m proud. It’s okay, honey. I’ll be with my husband and my daughter and my sister.”

She flicked the lock, and then the door was open. She was out of the van before Jamie could reach out to stop her.

“Bea!”

But Bedelia was already running toward the ghastly lizard. Everyone in the van screamed, Emily in hysterics. Bedelia shot one look over her shoulder and met Jamie’s eyes. And in that instant she conveyed to Jamie how deeply she meant what she’d just said. That Jamie had to honor her instructions.

And then Bedelia turned. She ran straight for the dragon without so much as a pause.

Horrified, disbelieving, shaking, and weeping, Jamie obeyed. She threw the van back into drive and jammed her foot on the accelerator, following behind Bedelia just as the horrible, wretched beast stretched its massive jaws toward the gentle woman, its pupils narrowing to elliptical spikes as the silver lower lids rolled upward.

Emily was shrieking in the back. Searing, anguished wailing. Tears streamed down Jamie’s face, and she must have been screaming as well. She couldn’t look at the creature, couldn’t see what it was doing to Bedelia as the van rocketed past. What Bea had done, the sacrifice she’d made, had given them all just enough time.

They started for the off-ramp. The bridge quaked beneath the wheels of the van. Jamie shot terrified eyes toward the rearview mirror and saw the lizard turning. Its tongue darted out, long and metallic like a playground slide, and forked at the end. In the split second it appeared, it gouged the pavement behind the van. Shannon screamed.

But it missed them. The seconds it had taken to do whatever it did to Bedelia had left it just far enough behind. The beast reared up, tried to make up the distance. When it lunged, though, it lurched sideways, getting tangled in the suspension cables that held the bridge taut.

“It’s falling!” Forte shouted.

The great tail of the beast whipped from the towers to the underbelly of the bridge and its massive black nails scraped at the web of cables. Two of them popped and the bridge groaned.

And then the giant lizard vanished. There came a vacuum of silence followed by a terrific, earth-shuddering splash from the Hudson River below.

Emily wailed, calling out Bedelia’s name.

Jamie wanted to wail as well. Wanted to beat her hands on the steering wheel over the unconscionable price Bea had paid for their freedom. But she knew there was only one way to honor her friend’s sacrifice.

She drove.

36

NEW YORK

ENERVATA HAD LEFT GLORIA in her room while he went to pour their Courvoisier. Now, as he approached her door with the glasses, he heard her voice whispering fervently. He paused without entering.

He’d only left her alone for a minute. If she were taking Sileny into her confidence, it would probably be best to let her have her moment. Though he didn’t like it, he had to trust that Sileny would guide her to him tonight.

Tonight.

He allowed for this privacy, a thing he would never have to do again, and replaced the Courvoisier and the glasses. He went instead to his wine storage room. Gloria disliked cognac, anyway. Tonight was not the night to attempt to expand her palate.

He ran his hand over a prized possession, a Château Lafite more than two hundred years old that, etched in the glass, bore Thomas Jefferson’s initials. Gloria would be delighted. But no . . .

The wine might prove so extravagant as to distract. Tonight must be flawless. And, perish the thought, but excellent cellaring or no, the likelihood of the Lafite surviving to be supremely quaffable was a distant . . .

He lifted his head, suddenly wondering how Hedon and Isolde were managing with the travelers. How many heads might they have collected while Enervata and Gloria enjoyed the Peking opera?

And then he returned his attention to the wine.

What else . . . A 1952 La Tâche. Perfect. He withdrew the bottle and exited the cool wine storage. He was surprised to see Isolde there, just as she was departing through the archway.

He frowned, annoyed. Gloria’s door was even open. Reckless canteshrike, what if she’d been spotted?

“Isolde, what the devil are you . . . ?”

She disappeared without paying heed to him.

Enervata’s fury burst within him. He thought to pursue her and kill her on the spot. If she had not disappeared like that, he would have.

He turned toward Gloria’s door, which remained open.

He paused. He looked down at the bottle still in his hands. The La Tâche was a Romanée Conti. He’d already served her wine from that chateau once before. He wouldn’t want her to think him unimaginative. It would be better if he selected something else. In fact, perhaps he should forego Burgundy altogether and surprise her with an entirely different region. Bordeaux.

He returned to the climate-controlled storage and swept his gaze over the gorgeous collection.

Gloria was a woman of complex, delicate layers. A woman to be savored. Enervata bristled at the notion that an obtuse mortal might have ever enjoyed her before he did. He would torture Bruce for that before he killed him.

The 1989 Château Pétrus. Magnificent wine—a lovely Bordeaux from Pomerol. It would probably go for about five thousand dollars a bottle at auction. Perhaps a far cry from one of his other treasures, but as far as drinkability for such an important night, it was a desirable choice.

Oh, but he did so love La Tâche. No; let it be Pétrus.

They could have La Tâche tomorrow night.

“Bea saved us for a reason, tyke,” Forte was saying from the backseat, his arms wrapped around Shannon as he spoke to Emily.

Emily buried her face in Bruce’s chest and he smoothed her hair, kissing the top of her head.

“I know,” Emily gulped. “I just . . . I loved her!”

“Shh,” Bruce soothed. “Shh, baby.”

The van slowed and then rolled into the curved driveway. Before them stood an ornate stone building with broad arches topped in scrolling, buttercream trim. Jamie turned, eyes solemn as she unbuckled her seat belt.

Bruce looked up at the pale expanse of stone and the great, foreboding entryway. He patted Emily’s hair. “You wait in the van, okay?”

Emily pulled back from him, fists to her eyes, and lifted her chin. “Don’t make me do that. We should stick together.”

“She’s right,” Jamie said. “You’ll need all four of us. Besides, it’s probably more dangerous to leave her in the van.”

Emily looked at Bruce with wide, blinking eyes. “I want to be brave for Bea. I want her to be proud of me.”

Gloria accepted her glass.

Enervata admired the long, flowing lines of the green dress spilling over her figure. “Was that Sileny I heard you speaking with earlier?”

Gloria tilted her head at him. “Sileny?” She set her glass down on the tray.

His brow creased at her untouched wine. “It’s a 1989 Pétrus. Very rare at this point.”

Gloria moved slowly, her body lithe and her back to him, the spill of chiffon flowing behind her so much like the feathered tail of the peacock in the tapestry. She stood before it now.

Perhaps he should have followed his instinct and poured the La Tâche after all.

She turned back to him, her expression intense. Tall, proud, and gilded. Her eyes shone; dark eyes, but with brilliant flecks of gold and emerald, not unlike the colors in . . .

“Those feathers,” he breathed.

Gloria stiffened. Her gaze swept to Enervata’s feet. He looked down.

No more than six inches from his shoe, curled, with their finer hairs swaying from the gentlest air currents, lay two silver feathers.

A black fog bank stole in about him. “Isolde?”

Gloria stepped forward. “The performance was amazing tonight, Aaron. I’d never experienced the Peking opera before.”

“What have you been doing in here?” He grabbed her wrist and yanked her.

She swayed under the force of his hand, a flicker of terror waving across her face. It excited him.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she gasped. “You . . . are you angry? You’re frightening me.”

He released her wrist, his pulse racing. Isolde. He would kill her now—kill that reckless canteshrike! He tried to calm himself.

“I must leave.” He said, gritting his teeth. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

“Really? Do you have to go?”

He struggled to deal with his fury. He had to tend to Isolde. Immediately.

But he couldn’t leave Gloria frightened and wondering. He looked down at her.

She was watching him closely, eyes wide, dark, and searching.

He looked toward the door. Why had Isolde been here? Did Gloria see her? He didn’t dare ask.

“Aaron, I . . .” She stopped.

Her words drew his attention fixedly upon her. He could smell her perfume. And beneath it, the scent of her skin. Warm and womanly, but uniquely Gloria. This creature had been squandered on a mortal whose olfactory senses were probably so obtuse he couldn’t smell that skin unless his nose was pressed to it. Enervata’s mouth watered to taste her now. Thoughts of Isolde drifted silently away.

Gloria extended her hand to the wine, moving ever so slowly. “Did you say this was Pétrus? Won’t you share a glass with me?”

She lowered her eyes. “Of course if you have business to attend to, I completely understand. It’s just that,” she raised her chin again, eyes meeting his. “Just that I’d rather not be alone tonight.”

Hedon. Bruce recognized the fat man from when they’d fallen into the crevasse in West Virginia. Hedon stood leering at the travelers in the cold marble reception. As Bruce paused in mid-stride, several other uniformed attendants filed in from a back room. Bruce guessed that they were something other than security guards.

Hedon’s grimacing face chilled Bruce’s blood. That man had snored through a monster truck massage.

“Steady, everyone,” Bruce said to his four.

“Join hands,” Jamie whispered.

They hovered around Bruce and linked up, fingers hooking with other fingers, and they felt the same now-familiar shock they’d experienced in Bruce’s hospital room. But this time, there were no visions of leather-skinned Maculs. Just a tremendous, coursing, surge of power.

“Take their heads off!” Hedon shouted.

The guards lunged.

Gloria took Enervata’s hand, sitting him down on the chair at the vanity. It caused the tiny hairs to rise on his skin.

“There,” she murmured, handing him his glass.

He accepted the wine, but did not release her hand. He took it, turning her wrist so that her palm faced upward, and he smelled her skin.

And she let him. God, she accepted his touch. Basked in it. After he’d breathed in her scent, she lifted her fingers and combed them through his hair from his temple to the base of his skull.

Shannon screamed.

One of the guards hurled himself at Jamie but stopped just shy of her. Bruce’s fingers remained locked with Jamie’s. He wondered why the guard paused.

“Concentrate, everybody!” Bruce shouted. “Remember who you are.”

They continued to grip one another’s hands, terrified. Emily whimpered. Another guard leaped over the reception desk and plunged after her. Bruce gasped, wanting to lash out and strike him, but he held firm. Their only hope was the focus of their own minds and hearts.

“He can’t touch you, Emily!” Bruce shouted. “Because you’re pure and full of compassion. He’s evil and that makes him weak against you!”

He hoped the sentiment gave her strength. More important, he hoped to high heaven it was true.

The guard bellowed, his lips mere inches from Emily’s face, and the others crowded in too. A squat guard with an Edward G. Robinson frown pounced as if he were going to break Forte’s neck. They snarled and slashed at them, though their flesh never actually touched a single quester.

Hedon seemed the most dangerous by far. He roared, sour breath tangling into Bruce’s hair, and stamped his foot so hard it smashed the solid marble floor.

But strangely, as he loomed over Bruce, a trickle of blood slid from Hedon’s nose. Hedon blinked as he realized he was bleeding and took a step backward.

“We can stop them!” Bruce said. “Draw on everything you have. Remember why you’re here. Remember who you are.”

A guard drew out a hunting knife and thundered at Emily. She stiffened, and Bruce gripped her hand. She squeezed her eyes shut. The guard took on a look of acid delight. He held the knife, drawing a slow trail in the air over Emily’s neck.

“Just keep concentrating. He can’t hurt you, Em!”

Bruce willed the power of his own soul at the guard.

The guard’s hand jerked back. He seemed stunned for a moment, but recovered quickly and feinted at Emily, sneering.

Bruce saw the fear in Emily’s eyes and he thought of the little girl tending to children in the park, tending to him in the hospital.

Bruce thundered, focusing the power in his mind and in his heart. His love for Emily, and Jamie and Forte and Shannon, for Bedelia and her sacrifice. His love for Gloria. Gloria was so close to him now, somewhere in this very building.

He released it on the guard.

Enervata slipped his fingers around the satin bow that bound the dress at Gloria’s shoulder. Gently, softly, slowly she swung her head and her hair moved to the side, over the shoulder that was already bare. He tugged, and the smooth green knot released, the bow pulling apart. A drift of satin and chiffon whispered down her back.

He ran his hand along the curve of her waist, feeling the tantalizing warmth through the fabric, and he found the zipper that lay hidden beneath the folds at her underarm. He pulled that free, too, and the dress opened to reveal her.

The surge of energy exploded from Bruce.

For just a moment, the guard’s sneer remained on his face. Then both he and his knife combusted in a putrid cloud of dust.

Hedon looked from left to right and took another step backward.

The guard with the Edward G. Robinson mouth lumbered sideways. He stopped and regained himself, then leered at Shannon.

“Focus, everybody!” Bruce shouted. “We’ll kill them all this way! Every last goat-smelling one of them!”

“Get this one here!” Forte shouted, glaring at the demon who was hovering over Shannon.

And five minds began bending with concentration. Edward G.’s hard-angled mouth clenched, and he writhed. The five watched him.

Hedon shrieked, “Stop this ninny hopscotching and spill these mortals’ blood!”

The other guards looked at one another. Edward G. began to tremble and perspire. The Pravus’s eyes rolled in his head.

“Keep at it!” Bruce shouted.

The guard shrieked. And then shimmered into a volcano of dust.

Hedon’s jaw went slack and his head tilted backward slowly as he watched. “Bloody fucking hell.”

And then the five turned their minds, trained now and more efficient in their ability to execute, upon the other guards. One by one, they shattered into dust, the lobby a rolling mogul field of Pravus dander, until none was left standing except for Hedon.

Who turned and ran.

“Hey, look!” Forte said.

Bruce turned toward where Forte pointed and saw a familiar pattern. One of Jamie’s symbols. It sat inscribed in a post that stood just above the level of the marble wainscot in the corner, long and fluted with a capital at the top. A small stone figure crouched from above, something like a cherub. Upon closer inspection, Bruce saw that it had a long nose and ears, and a wrinkled grimace, like a miniature gargoyle.

Bruce hadn’t before noticed the symbol etched into the grooves of the flute, but now the fine layer of gray dust from the guards’ residue filled the indentations so that the unusual shape emerged.

Forte strode up to it and tugged until it tore away from the wall, the gargoyle tumbling and smashing onto the floor below.

“There’s more!” Emily darted to one of the corners and tore another post from the wall, much like the one Forte had grabbed.

And then Shannon and Jamie were at the other two corners, tearing away until they freed the posts and the gargoyles lay fractured.

His gaze traveled the length of her skin, along the satin plane that lay exposed from her head to her waist. Her full breasts sloped and curved upward to end in points of dark coins. A thin blousing of green fabric rested at her hips.

Ah, to take one’s time like this. To savor, as he did fine wine and the torture of rivals. He’d never known it was possible to enjoy a woman in this way.

He put his hands to her middle and slid them down the warm curve of hourglass between her rib and hipbone.

She stiffened at his touch.

But that was to be expected. She wasn’t a brazen harlot. He paused.

She took a step backward.

A rejection? He removed his hands with a small start.

But no, she put her own hands where his hands had been, settling them at the curve of her waist. She slipped her fingers into the band that secured her tap pant. And in a movement as graceful and tempered as a breeze caressing a stem of high aster, she bent, sliding the last bit of fabric down the stretch of her legs and casting it beyond her feet.

“Let me see one of those posts,” Bruce said.

Forte handed him his. Bruce was surprised at the density of it, not wooden like he’d guessed but made of some kind of stone, like marble only not quite so heavy or brittle. It had the kind of shape you’d expect from a corner post, quarter-round on the facing side, with the other two planes flat and long. At the bottom, horizontal lines rimmed the facing side, almost like a musical stave, finishing in oddly shaped gouges at the ends where it had been attached to the molding. And at the top, a sharply pointed finial.

“We’re gonna whomp some serious Macul ass with those!” Forte said.

Bruce smiled at him, but shook his head. “I think I have to do this part alone.”

“He’s right,” Jamie said. “I think we’ve done everything we can. Now he needs to face Enervata by himself.”

Forte blinked and shook his head. “Oh, man. That’s heavy.”

Bruce took a deep breath and scanned their faces. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am to have met you, all of you, and that you took on this journey.”

Bruce lifted Forte’s post. “I’m gonna borrow this, if you don’t mind.”

“Yeah, of course!” Forte said. “Here, wait. Em? Emmie! You got your Sharpie on you?”

Emily dug into her pocket and produced a thick black marker. Forte took it and drew a curling treble clef on the post.

“For good luck,” Forte said, handing it back to Bruce. “It’s always worked for me.”

“Here, take mine, too!” Emily said. Before giving it to Bruce, she drew a chain of stick figures with linked hands along hers. “It’s me with the kids in the park.”

She handed the Sharpie to Jamie, who drew a heart on her own post, kissed it, and handed it to Bruce.

Shannon drew a smiley face on hers. “Sorry,” she said, handing over the post. “I can’t draw.”

When he held all four of them in his hands, the images the others had drawn took on a silvered hue. As did the symbols that had served them since that night in the Maine woods. It made Bruce recall the interlude with the canteshrike on a rocky coastline, and how the waves had carved hidden pictures in a colonnade of pillars.

Bruce looked over at Jamie and saw tears in her eyes. He put his arm around her. “This is going to work, Tink. It’s almost over.”

She nodded, hugging him tight, then knuckled a tear and pressed the elevator button. Shannon, Emily, and Forte stepped in to hug him, too. He’d never felt stronger.

The elevator door opened and he stepped inside.

“You are exquisite. A perfect human form.”

Gloria inclined her head. “Human form?”

She put her hand to her head and removed the ornaments from her hair, setting them on the vanity next to her glass of wine, shaking loose her hair as she did so. The black waves curled down her back and chest, bending as if to pattern the curve of her breasts.

Her dress lay in a shimmering sea around her feet. He took her hand, and she stepped out of her satin shoes.

The elevator car rose higher and higher and it seemed with each passing floor Bruce’s stomach constricted in acid-churning spasms. He clenched the posts and closed his eyes, thinking of everything that had transpired since Gloria went missing. And a strange sort of calm settled over him. He still felt amped and battle-ready, but at his core he felt an implacable stillness.

The elevator came to a stop and opened. He stepped out into a grand foyer, but there seemed to be no door. He looked left and right. Inside the elevator, he’d pressed the button labeled PH, but this seemed only an empty chamber. He was about to return to the elevator when he saw something in one of the spear-posts.

When he moved it in front of the wall, the post seemed translucent, the way a glass-bottom boat allowed for underwater viewing when the water’s surface looks otherwise opaque. And through this spyglass effect, Bruce saw a door.

He tried it, and it opened.

Inside, a vast marble floor spread to an ornate room. A spill of light came from an open door to the left, and down the hall to the right, a shuffling noise. His heart hammered, but that calm still pervaded. He had striven so long and far. He would save Gloria now. Save them all.

He chose to follow the door to the left, and when he entered, he saw Gloria.

Standing naked. Her hand in another man’s hand.

The man stood tall, bare-chested, and wearing black dress slacks. He raised his dark gaze to settle on Bruce.

And then Bruce realized that this other man, nothing like what he’d imagined, was Enervata. That regal, handsome face, with dark hair and eyes, was only a distant likeness of the mummified, beastly skin in the vision he’d witnessed in the hospital room. And yet the features, if Bruce imagined them in the burled face of the vision, were similar.

Gloria turned her head toward him and, before her eyes registered recognition, he saw an air of anguish and resignation about her. No straightness to the spine, no easiness to it, either.

And then her eyes widened, and for a moment she looked like she might lose her balance. But she steadied herself, eyes watering to a diamond shimmer, and she spoke with a trembling voice.

“You did come.”

Bruce shook his head, his own eyes threatening to fill. “Of course I came. Our love is forever.”

Enervata stepped toward Bruce. “Your love for her is meaningless. She loves me now.”

Bruce turned toward the demon and saw the murderous intensity in his stare. He forced himself to look away and reach toward his fiancée. “Come on, let’s go home.”

Gloria stepped forward and reached out to him. And then her eyes flew wide. “Sileny, no!”

The room suddenly went dark. Someone had thrown something over Bruce’s head—some kind of sack made of black fabric—and yanked him backward. He fell to the ground and kicked out his feet. He was being dragged backward. Gloria was screaming.

“Bring it to me,” he heard Enervata say.

Bruce felt a release in the tension around the sack and he tore it from his head.

“Sileny, no! Please don’t!”

Bruce saw Gloria struggling with the woman she’d called Sileny, a woman with long, straight brown hair who looked like she had no mouth. She struck Gloria in the head, knocking her to the ground. Then Sileny stretched her hand toward Enervata. In it she held a jewel-encrusted dagger. The dagger cast a mosaic of reflections, strange reflections, and Bruce even saw himself.

Sileny offered the hilt to Enervata. He extended his hand toward it.

There came a hissing shriek, a stream of silver, and the canteshrike appeared, leaping between Sileny and Enervata. She grabbed Sileny by the scalp and spirited her up off her feet and into the air. Sileny flailed, grasping at the tapestry that hung at the wall. It tore free and slid to the floor over Bruce and Gloria. Gloria clutched it to her chest as if to protect herself. The canteshrike landed on the other side of the room and hurled Sileny against the wall.

“Come on!” Bruce said, grabbing Gloria’s hand once again.

“Gloria!” Enervata roared. “You must never leave me!”

Gloria’s head jerked toward Enervata. She trembled against Bruce, hugging the fabric of the tapestry tight to her body. They ran for the door.

But the door disappeared before their eyes. And the furniture, and walls, and everything wavered. Melted away into a wide, stainless steel chamber. At first, Bruce thought they were in the jaws of the lizard that had taken Bedelia. But then he saw four cell-like metal walls. No ceiling above, only a sky full of scarlet clouds.

Enervata lunged. Bruce pulled out one of the spears, the one with Forte’s treble clef, and thrust it at Enervata.

The Macul knocked it to the ground, casting his dark gaze toward it, and it burst into flames.

In the corner, the canteshrike’s wings and arm moved in a frenzy of violence. Sileny’s hands flailed and they were streaked with blood.

Enervata closed on Bruce. Bruce withdrew another spear, Shannon’s spear, and slashed at the demon. The cut dug deep into his skin.

Enervata pulled back, but grabbed at the spear at the same time. The spear burst into flames in his hand.

He grabbed Bruce by the shirt and threw him backward. Bruce felt his back strike the cold metal of the wall, and he slid to the ground.

Enervata came after him again. His bare chest heaved with exertion, black gaze burning.

“Aaron!” Gloria cried. “Please don’t hurt him!”

Enervata turned to her, his anger fogging briefly. “Do you love me? Will you give yourself to me willingly and forever?”

Gloria’s eyes flashed with confusion. Then her gaze narrowed. “Not even for a moment,” she said.

Enervata seemed anguished by Gloria’s declaration. Did he really think Gloria would fall for someone like him? Then the darkness returned to his expression and he said, “Then I will very definitely hurt him.”

Bruce reached inside of himself, calling on the spirit that drove him to defeat Ichabod Sparks in the Texas desert—the spirit of those who’d joined him on this journey. Then he lunged at Enervata with Emily’s spear.

The post dove deep into Enervata’s flesh. The Macul roared with fury and pain. He shot out his arm and sideswiped Bruce, sending him sprawling and causing him to drop the last spear, Jamie’s spear. It spun away across the slick metal floor.

Enervata pulled Emily’s spear from his side. It left behind a hole, weeping freely. He cast down the post, turning it to ash. He threw back his head and let fly another furious roar. As he did so, his body changed. His skin turned to leather, like the mummified creature in the vision, and a sharp whip of a tail emerged. Gloria gasped.

In the corner, the canteshrike stood with her talon cupped around Sileny’s neck. Sileny lay still, lifeless eyes staring into the roiling red sky. A crimson rose petal of blood formed just above her chin, and Bruce could not tell whether the canteshrike had cut a mouth into her, or whether Sileny’s mouth had just materialized in death.

The canteshrike reached down and withdrew the bejeweled dagger from Sileny’s fingers. She leaped into the air, arcing, hissing, and bearing down on Enervata. Enervata whipped his tail and slashed the canteshrike as she flew, and she tumbled sideways in a ball of silver feathers. The dagger dropped from her grasp.

Enervata and Bruce both lunged for it. Bruce knew that he and Gloria both would die if he failed. Enervata’s mission had already failed, but the Macul would continue until he found another man and woman. Again and again, until he succeeded and the world became a place of such desolation that no living creature would exist outside of intense suffering.

But Enervata found the dagger first. Bruce scrabbled, desperate, looking for something else, anything to use as a weapon. Jamie’s spear was nowhere nearby.

The canteshrike coughed, ruby blood staining her lips and feathers. She cried with whispering fury to Enervata.

“You stupid fool! Diseased soul! You sneaking, stinking prairie wolf! You think yourself high, but all can see—you’re naught but a hound with a hide of fleas!”

Her venom flew with such heat that it seemed a calculated taunt. As though she would prefer to feel the bite of Enervata’s dagger than for him to turn it toward Bruce.

But Enervata seemed beyond awareness of her. He was ruled by something else, something that kept stealing looks of longing toward Gloria and murder toward Bruce.

“No!” Gloria screamed.

Enervata lifted the dagger, taking aim. And in a suspended, unreal moment, he hurled it toward Bruce.

Gloria lunged, facing Enervata and throwing herself in front of Bruce.

The dagger struck. But it did not find its intended home. Gloria’s back arched, her spine growing rigid, and she sank to her knees. The jeweled eyes of a serpent leered from the hilt protruding at Gloria’s breast.

Bruce caught her, his hands at her waist. He wanted to scream, but he found that he couldn’t.

She went limp, draping backward in his arms, her eyes glazed.

Enervata balled his claws and bellowed. And then his cry patterned toward the howling keen of a desert coyote and the sound echoed through the chamber and beyond, repeating in the distance as if some canine pack were answering his hollow call.

Bruce rocked with disbelief. “Gloria.”

Her breath came in rasps. “I love you. Bruce, I love you.”

She gasped, and from her mouth came a trickle of red. “The canteshrike . . . She stopped me. Tonight I was going to tell Aaron that I would rather die than spend a lifetime as his prisoner.”

She hitched.

“Don’t talk.” Bruce buried his face in her hair and found it cool and damp.

“I couldn’t live as his pet. She told me to wait. That he had fallen for me and if I . . . that you . . . get here . . .”

Her voice trailed off and her lids sank over her eyes.

She opened her lips in one last reach for oxygen. And then she was gone.

Bruce felt everything in his core begin to crumble.

“Take this weapon, let it fly.”

The songlike words, whispered in a Siren’s melody, came as if from a great distance.

Bruce registered little beyond the throbbing pressure of blood that ached in his ears. He saw the look of mortal anguish on the Macul’s face.

Something was moving in a whisper like the turning blades of a fan. And he could see it spinning toward him. White, substantial. He lay Gloria gently down.

He recognized the intonations that floated to his ears: ragged, and yet still pearled with music. The canteshrike was speaking.

“And let us watch this Macul die!”

He reached for the spinning object and it came to a halt in his hand. Jamie’s spear, the spear of love.

Enervata tore the dagger from Gloria’s breast, touching her wound and bowing his head. From deep within his throat there came a deep, almost inaudible wail, and it disappeared amid thunder that shuddered from the far horizon.

Bruce stared. Enervata had no right to grieve for Gloria. Whatever unclean emotion this Macul felt, it was an abomination.

Enervata raised his eyes to Bruce, his lips peeling backward into a snarl of hatred. His claw curling tight around the dagger. But Bruce was quick. For Gloria’s sake, he couldn’t let this demon continue to spread his sickness into humanity.

He lunged forward and sank the spear into Enervata’s heart.

The pure white heft of it slid through bone and tissue.

Enervata wailed. He swung the dagger drunkenly and Bruce ducked from him. He gathered Gloria up again into his arms, and she hung limp. Arms and hair spilling backward, eyes closed.

Enervata let out a thundering cry, a cry of a thousand years’ hunger that would go unsated. His skin began to blister and roil.

Bruce inclined his head over his lover’s shoulder. He rocked her, wept into her hair. Cried out against the tearing of spirit as it cleaved within him. No longer whole. Never again whole.

He raised his gaze to the Macul. The leathered body now coursed with sizzling boils. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second, and then Enervata slowly, methodically, disintegrated. He came apart slowly at first, and then the particles of the demon swept into a cone, like an infernal tornado. Bruce felt the wind whipping through him and watched, awestruck, as the cone swept upward, leaving nothing of the Macul but a fine trail of dust on the floor.

Bruce bent his head over Gloria once again. He knew no sense of time. He felt only Gloria in his arms, Gloria in his heart, Gloria in her death. Two vines intertwined, where to pull one from the ground is to rip out the other.

Bruce tried to imagine the coming days without Gloria. He found that he couldn’t. Maybe he was going crazy with grief, but his thoughts refused to take him in that direction. Instead, they drove him to see her as they kissed on the sidewalk before she went to work on the day she disappeared. To see her in her mid-forties accepting the accolades of a cheering group at a charity dinner. To see her blabbing nonsense words at their infant grandchild. The images bathed him, swaddled him, radiated from his soul.

The canteshrike unfolded herself from her feathered heap on the floor. She stretched forward a slender arm and pushed herself up, limping on an injured talon, to where Bruce sat.

“I’ve kept my bargain, to his demise. And now it’s time to claim my prize.”

But Bruce processed nothing of what she said. His spirit remained with Gloria. Remained in a place where he saw and believed only what he wanted. Where that belief traveled from him out into his immediate universe.

And he believed that he felt Gloria moving.

He searched her face and her eyes fluttered open.

“Oh my God!”

He laughed, or maybe it was a cough, and he was believing and disbelieving all at once. He didn’t dare hope that what he saw was real.

Gloria bore no stain of blood, no gaping wound where the dagger had been. Her eyes found his, and she reached her hands up to his face. And then she threw her arms around him.

“Gloria, my God!”

They wept, clinging to each other. Their souls once again intertwined and whole.

But an insistent whisper pervaded. “Enough sniveling. Your debt is owed. If you don’t pay, your blood will flow.”

Bruce lifted his head in surprise.

The canteshrike bared her teeth. Her yellow eyes gleamed with no apparent patience for sentiment.

Gloria turned. “Of course. You can have it.” She looked around. “Where did it go?”

Bruce blinked. “What?”

“I promised the dagger to the canteshrike. As I tried to explain before, she stopped me from going to tell Aaron that I wasn’t going to be his prisoner any longer. She told me that he had actual feelings for me.”

Bruce felt giddy. “Wow, and I thought I was the one with killer pheromones.”

Gloria patted his face. “She said there was only one way to slow him down. And that if I did, you would get here. She said that in exchange for this she wanted the dagger when it was over.”

“Yes,” the canteshrike said, and she seemed to regain her sense of humor, if a little on the black side. “A promise made when death is nigh is oft regretted, by and by.”

Bruce had no idea what she meant about regretted promises, but it sent an icy shard of unease through his soul.

“I told you how to bring about the end of that horrid lout.” The canteshrike narrowed her eyes. “Now tell me where the dagger’s about.”

Gloria blinked and shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“He’d taken it,” Bruce said. “Just before I killed him, he took it out of Gloria, and then . . .”

Bruce shrugged, remembering the column of dust. His eyes lifted to the space above the chamber. Gloria and the canteshrike followed his gaze up to the red, boiling sky.

The canteshrike sighed, bowing her head.

Then Bruce looked down and saw the dagger, maybe twenty feet away from them. He wrestled with the idea of pointing this out to the canteshrike, but she’d already followed his eyes. With remarkable grace, she leaped toward the dagger and held it to her chest, her expression solemn.

Then she crouched, and vaulted upward, wings outstretched, disappearing over the wall to the sky beyond.

“What does she want with that thing?” Bruce said, looking upward.

“The proper ending,” Gloria said with a touch of sadness. “That’s what she told me.”

Gloria sat up, gathering the tapestry around her, and then Bruce helped her to her feet. Slowly, wall by wall, desk by chair, the stark metal chamber disappeared back to the bedroom in the penthouse. Gloria slipped into her old clothes, kicking the tapestry to a heap on the floor, and they made a dash for the elevator.

As soon as the doors closed, Gloria wrapped her arms around Bruce’s neck and they both held tight, gripping as though they feared letting go meant losing each other forever. When they finally relaxed, tears were streaming down Gloria’s cheeks.

“It must have been an awful shock when you saw me standing there with him like that.”

Bruce furrowed his brow. “Yeah, just a bit. As you can imagine, your conspiring with the canteshrike wasn’t the first thought that came to my mind.”

The doors opened and they stepped into the lobby.

Jamie, Emily, Forte, and Shannon cheered and embraced Bruce and Gloria. Gloria knew Jamie, but she had never met any of the others. They introduced themselves in exuberant chatter. Bruce had never felt so whole in his life.

“I guess this quest has played itself out, huh?” Forte said when everyone fell quiet.

Bruce tilted his head and looked toward the door. “One part’s never gonna be over, you know.”

Shannon threw her hands up in the air in mock frustration. “Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you let him get away. If we’re reenlisting on this quest, I want a bigger van and spa treatments once a week.”

Bruce leaned over and kissed Shannon on the cheek, which elicited the goofiest smile he’d ever seen on her face. “Enervata’s dust; don’t worry. What I was trying to say is that I think we’re all connected now. With what we’ve been through, that’ll never go away, no matter where we wind up.”

“I know where I’m gonna wind up,” Emily said brightly. “I’m moving in with Jamie.”

Jamie and Emily gave each other a squeeze. “Yeah, we’ll go through the steps, get her enrolled in school here. Emily says she needs someone new to take care of.”

Bruce watched them and saw the sadness beneath their smiles. He thought of Bea. Emily, who’d been abandoned and who was so hungry for maternal love, had latched on to the woman so readily. But she and Jamie would make an unstoppable team.

Forte slipped an arm around Shannon’s waist. “As for me and Shannie, we’re going on a road trip. I guess we’ve kinda gotten used to it after the past couple of weeks.”

“Yeah,” Shannon said, “I’m gonna work on my stand-up and Charlie’s gonna write down all those songs he’s been coming up with while we’ve been out here. Then he’s gonna put ’em together and sit down with those people who’ve been talking to him about a recording contract.”

They all moved out of the lobby, blinking at the bright sunlight as it washed over them. Bruce tilted his face to the sun and let it shine directly upon each slanted plane.

Gloria put a hand to Jamie’s shoulder and regarded the group. “You’ll all be around for the wedding, right?”

“Wow,” Emily said. “I’ve never been to a wedding.”

Gloria kneeled down to her. “I think I might have a very special job for you to do there.”

Emily’s eyes widened and Jamie laughed at the sight of it.

Gloria stood up and Bruce wrapped her in his arms.

“Yep,” Forte said as he pulled Shannon close, “this was worth saving.”

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

“Stairway to Heaven” by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant

“Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe

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Copyright © 2008 by The Fiction Studio

eISBN : 978-0-981-60878-5

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First Story Plant Printing: September 2008