The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
Author: David Grann
Date: 2023-04-18 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: History; Non Fiction; Adventure; Adult; True Crime; Survival; Crime; Historical; Mystery
Description: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon , a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager , showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire. “Riveting...Reads like a thriller, tackling a multilayered history—and imperialism—with gusto.” — Time**** * "A tour de force of narrative nonfiction.” — The Wall Street Journal* On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel
Publisher: Doubleday
Rights: Copyrights as per source stories

Prologue

I was exhausted, exhausted to death by the long agony; and when they finally released me and allowed me to sit up, I realized that I was about to lose consciousness. The sentence, the terrible sentence of death, was the last sound that came distinctly to my ears ... The thought came slow and furtive, and it seemed a long time before it was fully understood; but when at last my spirit sensed and welcomed him, the figures of the judges disappeared, as if by magic, from my presence; the tall candles vanished into thin air; their flames went out completely; the black darkness took over; every sensation seemed to be swallowed up in a mad and precipitous fall as of the soul in Hades. Then the universe was silence, stillness and night.

EDGAR A. POE, The pit and the pendulum

The house screamed.

The scream was one of those cinematic ones, blood-chilling, for which the scream queens protagonists of many horror films were famous. It seemed to shake the glass in the windows of the small building, shaking its walls. The lower frequencies made the foundations throb, the high-pitched howl soared towards the flat roof, shaking the crushed stone and tar paper that covered it.

The voice was quite similar to Jamie Lee Curtis's, Count Mishka thought.

And in fact it was Jamie Lee Curtis, his voice dubbed and manipulated like a Tarzan cry. A digital cut and paste based on classic expressions of anguish and despair taken from both Terror Train and Don't enter that house.

The boy, all dressed in black (black shirt, black boots, black jeans, black t-shirt, black earring, black nose piercing, black eye pencil, short black hair, black scarf, black jacket; non-trivially black clothing and accessories, but of an elegant gothic black) laughed.

He pressed the button on the new bell again.

Another woman's scream, this time a little shorter and suddenly muffled, as if a killer had suddenly cut off the head of whoever was emitting it.

How beautiful.

Darkness, cold and autumnal, fell over the cozy neighborhood of Baltimore. A dog barked in an alley. A woman wrapped in a hooded coat headed for her destination. The smell of freshly spread tar drifted through the air from a construction site some building away.

A seagull, escaping from its natural environment around the harbor, swooped repeatedly over the row of tiny terraced houses at Fells Point.

Clutching the booty under one arm, Count Mishka, known to his parents and registry office as Richard Mark Henneman, put the key into the lock on the front door with his right hand.

The door opened, accompanied by the rattle of keys. The tail of the last scream recorded and processed by the Count dissolved into the shadows like a cloud of dark smoke.

The house seemed to be swept by an icy gust of wind.

Richard shivered, not just from the cold.

What story is this? he wondered. Won't this house be haunted?

Stay calm, he told himself.

The gang would approve.

For a year now Richard Henneman had allied himself with a self-styled "elite" group, the Goths, local and funereally decorated representatives of that post-punk subculture whose ferocious rejection of consumer society was often overshadowed by equally rigid and narcissistic obsessions, from an absolutist sectarianism and an unhealthy passion for black nail polish. Lately, however, the Goths had morphed into a much closer group. A group united not only by a blood pact ... but also by money. A lot of money. That would become even more in the future. Yes, the Goths were quickly taking on the guise of a business: Goths Inc.

And all this because of a small, insignificant murder.

What a delight!

The Count's corridor was dotted with spatters of blood.

Human remains in the form of movie posters.

Dracula with bloody canines belonging to different generations, from Bela to Gary, looked out threateningly. Wretched women with wide necklines raised their arms to the sky, screaming. The posters were flanked by a series of framed collages, created by Richard with photocopied images from his favorite film magazines, Fangoria, Shivers, Midnight Marquee, European Trash Cinema, and other lesser-known publications devoted to the genre. Exotic works by film make-up artists and depictions of violence. Severed heads. Quartered bodies. Slobbering monsters who left behind a trail of steaming entrails, rarely their own.

Art, pure and simple.

Immortalized moments of pure pop cinema at its peak.

Smiling with satisfaction, the Count turned on the living room light, closed the door behind him with a kick and headed straight for his sanctuary, the entertainment corner. He gave a slight bow to the Buddha positioned above the television. "We have a lot of incense to burn tonight, O Illuminato!"

He dropped his treasures on the couch and rummaged through the CDs until he found the new one by Iggy Pop; well, not exactly new, since it was a remixed version of Raw Power, a reinterpretation twenty years after the classic album that had been "ruined" (according to hardcore fans) by David Bowie's attempt to make it more commercial, in the past, when Mr. Pop was still known as Iggy Stooge. The Count inserted the disk into the reader and pressed the «random play» button (the most important innovation in the field of modern home comforts after the remote control). Immediately Iggy and the Stooges began pouring a flood of authentic proto-punk through the new Bose satellite speaker system.

"Rock my world, Iggy!" urged the Count. He paced through the narrow dining room to the narrow kitchen, where he opened the refrigerator from which he took out a large can of Fosters. He pulled the tab, letting the foam flow out in the best Australian tradition. Back then he had been forced to drink anonymous American brands. Now the Count could afford to drink good stuff. "Go, Iggy, go!" He laughed, letting the beer run down his chin and shirt.

The Stooges answered the call electronically.

The bass throbbed and the guitars sounded screeching. The drums rolled and pounded. "I am the world's forgotten boy!" shouted Iggy.

Iggy shook the walls, adorned with Gothic rock images, icons of the darkwave. Sisters of Mercy, The Cure, The Mission, The Damned and the Bauhaus; more recent bands like Switchblade Symphony, Laibach, Chem Lab, Attrition, Lycia, Dorian Gray, Die Laughing, London After Midnight; but also slightly moldy representations of old guards like David Bowie (hey, Trent likes it), Kiss and Alice Cooper (Marilyn Manson should pay the royalties to all of these for stealing his image and spectacle) to affirm the catholicity of his tastes .

Iggy shook the bookcase, which held books on film and television and a few horror novels. Iggy shook the shelves loaded with comics protected by plastic bags. Iggy shook the CD racks and stacks of records. Iggy shook the multimedia corner, crowded with hundreds of videos arranged next to the thirty-one-inch Sony TV and a series of video players, besieged by more videotapes, laserdiscs and DVDs.

Iggy made everything tremble.

The Count's collection of pop culture and exhalations burst out of the living room, invading the dining room. More stacks of videos and CDs climbed the stairs, up to the top, the upstairs rooms, also filled with bookshelves, comics, posters, figurines and Japanese robots.

Many of the items were stolen.

Richard was an excellent shoplifter. Even before puberty he had found that his hunger for comics and related goods far exceeded the possibilities of his boater. With an agile hand, a quick foot and a large coat, he found his specialization in theft. He began to sell or barter items he had no interest in keeping, thus laying the foundations for a wonderful collection. At the age of fourteen, he had broken into a comic shop overnight, cracked the lock of the box containing the collectibles and stolen an authentic treasure trove of Marvel and DC comics, and even some EC publications dating back to the 1950s. . At the age of eighteen he owned such a number of comics, books, cassettes,

Alas, he had been kicked out of college in his sophomore year, accused of numerous disciplinary infractions. Not at all discouraged, he had continued his fraudulent activity by refining his techniques and expanding inventory and turnover; but his insatiable hunger for new stolen goods had the effect of limiting his vision, making him a victim of his own compulsive appetites.

Then he had met the Goths, or rather he had begun to frequent the Salon des Gothiques, a smelly basement that served as a meeting place, presided over by a certain Baxter Brittle.

His talents soon came to the attention of Brittle, an alcohol-addicted artist, former editor of Tome Press and recently the beneficiary of an unexpected inheritance (the Cork'd Sailor bar, under which the basement was located). His collections were also often augmented by the Count's activities. Considered at first just a pimply loser with a velvety hand, Richard Henneman's social life began to intensify. He became the "Count Mishka". He even managed to get, albeit not with absolute regularity, some services from some of the female Goths attracted by Brittle's rough temper (and free drinks).

However, it had only been in the past year, with Brittle's entry into the inner circle of trusted men, that his financial situation had noticeably improved. He had purchased a small row house in Fells Point, where he had moved all the contents of the previous apartment and warehouse. Of course, he would soon be forced to rent another space at the warehouse, but the volume of the flow of material that passed through his hands (in some cases even bought, such as tonight's loot) was such as to allow him to continue to sell and make profits to add to the money earned working at Tome Press.

Iggy shook the chest of books.

The inlaid chest, an authentic solid oak antique, had been a gift from the Tome Press ("for the extraordinary services rendered," Brittle said). All latches had been replaced with modern locks and the interior had been made air and moisture tight, ideal for storing rare books, just like the trunks used by William Blessing to house his famous collection of Poe's works. .

Iggy Pop continued to sing of penetration and "shake appeal," and the Count laughed again. Shaking her head, she smiled the key card into the ancient plate that concealed the new lock on the chest. He opened it and went through the most precious of his treasures, consisting of items that deserved a double protective plastic bag.

Here! First editions. First autographed editions, always the best investment for any collector, whose rise in value was guaranteed. Everyone was there, from Stephen King to Anne Rice, to Clive Barker, to Dean Koontz, to Ramsey Campbell, to Robert Bloch, and again Shirley Jackson and Richard Matheson. And the copies in excellent condition, or better still signed but never browsed, had an intrinsic value higher than any savings plan or pension fund. There was a first edition of Bram Stoker's Dracula, signed. An Ambrose Bierce. Some valuable Lovecraft. Dozens of gorgeous collectibles.

Really great stuff.

But the first-rate material he had recently obtained ... the most precious, the oldest ... the most magical ...

And what's more, free!

It was there, before his eyes: a complete series of first editions by Edgar Allan Poe. They dated back to a time when the first editions had a circulation of a few hundred copies, and were often published only in private form. The result of that terrible night four months earlier which then turned, who knows how, into a stroke of extreme good luck.

As he used to do every evening, he let his fingers run along the leather ribs of the old handcrafted blankets (in themselves precious relics), which protected the fragile volumes from the corrosive action of light, air and useless handling. He felt a palpable emotion, feeling a thrill of exquisite energy within those receptacles of magic.

Yes, who could have foreseen that by means of a death and a theft such a fortune would fall on his collector's head!

The Tome Press thrived like never before, expanding in great leaps. As a member of the inner circle, Richard Mark Henneman was now the Vice President responsible for Special Projects. This implied, in addition to the usual and easy task of supervising the transformation of a small printer into a large one, the search for other ways of expansion. Being a music lover and a lover of cinema, it was natural that the Count's interests were stirred by the desire to "produce". And judging by the idiots already engaged in the field, the Count concluded, it must not have been such a difficult activity. That same day he had told some film students about Tome Press's intention to produce his first horror film. And he was sure he could persuade one of the recording studio wizards like Trust Obey to take care of the music, and then strike deals for the score with some band like Projekt, Tess or Cleopatra. The possibilities were endless.

God, what a buzz!

Touching those volumes of Poe was like receiving shocks of pure energy.

Raw energy!

Goth Inc. was on its way to the stars!

"And we'll be traveling with you, won't we, Iggy?" the Count said closing the precious edition.

In response, Iggy continued to scream, moan and belch.

"Give me danger, little stranger, ”they sang together.

He took another sip of Fosters, then swayed around the living room. He jumped carelessly back (after placing the can on the coffee table, already crowded with cool) falling back on the sofa.

He grabbed one of the remote controls.

He took aim. He hit a button. Off with Iggy's head!

He hit another button and Interview with the Vampire swiped across the thirty-one-inch screen. The Earl mimed a few lines from Brad Pitt, reciting them from memory, then took another sip of Australian beer.

Oh yes, after a long day in the salt mines it was time to indulge in some well-deserved rest. Provided he recovered in time to go to Fletcher's, where Death On Two Legs played, a new band that interested him a lot. He would take a look at the girls, drop some Ecstasy ... chat with friends ...

And maybe he would find a willing female (his personal goal: a genuine girlish splendor featured on the Goth Girl of the Week website) to take to the den, watch trailers of sixty horror movies and indulge in a bit. of unbridled sex.

Guys, what a perfect prospect for an evening!

Lulled by the disturbing soundtrack of the vampire video, the Count felt pervaded by exhaustion, which he had found in beer an ally. It wasn't bad to sleep, but all in all he would have preferred to do it during the day. The night, in his view, had always been pregnant with many other possibilities.

Falling asleep he dreamed of flying on the back of a gigantic black bird. The creature swooped down and hovered over mist-shrouded grounds dotted with mysterious castles, topped by rainbows. Lightning and lightning raged accompanied by heavy metal music in dark caves.

What a story, he thought. Incredible.

Dreams were cool. Even the ugly ones.

Maybe especially the bad ones.

"After all," he murmured half asleep, beginning to wake, "without the dreams I would be unemployed."

He reached out wearily to the can of Fosters to help get the neurons back in motion. The hand closed over the void, where the can should have been.

"What the hell ..." he exclaimed, placing his feet on the ground with his senses still clouded.

"Were you looking for this?" asked a voice.

A dark figure stepped forward and pressed the can into his hand.

«I got you a fresh one, Count. Hot beer is no good when recovering from a nap. "

Is someone home ...

Who?

The Count looked up from his bed on the sofa.

The figure seemed to dance evanescent in front of him.

The light from the dining room cut out the figure, but the head seemed to be surrounded by a halo of total darkness.

Somewhere (perhaps from upstairs?) Came the sound of a flapping of wings.

The metallic click of a dog.

All the gears started up again and he shook himself from the torpor.

"Hey friend. There isn't much to steal here. I have some money in my pocket ... my television, and ... "

He turned to the entertainment corner and pointed to it.

Where a brand new thirty-one-inch Sony XBR had once towered, there was now only a void.

"Christ! You already got it! "

He started to get up.

The figure leaned forward.

He put the barrel of a Heckler and Koch HK-4 into his nostril.

The Count dropped back onto the sofa.

He recognized the gun.

It was his.

"Shit. Apparently you have the whole situation in hand. I guess now you'll take everything you want, right? "

“I know exactly what I want, Mr. Henneman. That's your name, isn't it, Conte? Richard Mark Henneman. "

The man's voice was hoarse and harsh, strangely wrong ... like a special effects voice, altered in register, communicating anger through clenched teeth.

"Yup. Yes I am." The barrel of the gun was cold and heavy inside his nose. And it hurt like hell.

“Listen, I'm sorry I'm in the way. Take what you want, okay? I do not care. But don't shoot me. "

"No?"

"No! It would be ... really nonsense. "

"You say?"

"What are you trying to do?" Any psychological games? I told you to take what interests you. If you want, I'll show you where all the stuff is, okay? But take the gun out of my nose! "

The gun retracted.

The figure took a step back.

Apparently it was a man wearing a black coat, but as he stepped back some of the darkness that enveloped his face seemed to dissipate. He was a man of a certain age, with tired, tight skin. He wore a pair of dark glasses. Was he being robbed by a pensioner?

Magnificent!

“Listen to me, Grandpa. I promise to cooperate. You can also take the gun. It cost me an arm and a leg, believe me ... "

IS I wish I had always kept it on ... By now, pieces of your head would be scattered throughout the living room ...

He wasn't really capable of shooting, but that thought cheered him up and helped keep his fear in check. Mick Prince had accompanied him to buy the gun and would show him how to use it. Mick was showing the Count a lot of new and interesting things.

How he wished Mick was there with him right now.

He would know how to behave.

"You have no idea who I am!" the man shouted. "You have no idea!"

Without warning, the man swept the coffee table with the hand in which he held the gun, throwing the books, videotapes and the box containing the necessary drugs to the ground.

Objects flew across the room.

Two glasses smashed against the opposite wall.

For an old man he had the strength, that guy!

Instinctively, the Count curled up. He started kicking on the sofa in an attempt to get away from the man and make himself safe.

With surprising speed the Man of Darkness reached out and grabbed him by the shirt with his free hand. He then dragged the Count to the coffee table and slammed him violently on it.

The Count was stunned to the point of barely perceiving the successive movements of the Man of Darkness. He tried to get up, but soon realized he had been tied up. It was held in place by a series of leather straps. He could only move his head, hands and feet, but not by much.

"Shit! And now how can I tell you where the stuff is? " he complained, not at all happy with the way things were, slowly becoming aware of reality.

"I know exactly what I want and I know where it is," said the Man of Darkness. "But now I need some things I can only get from your brain."

"Huh? What do you mean? Information? Christ..."

The stranger appeared dark and evanescent in every part. Rituals had been lit and arranged throughout the room, but high above the ceiling, darkness reigned. The Count sensed a shape, a presence up there, in some ways awkward, but enormous and threatening.

For a moment the Man of Darkness was silent, perhaps to allow the fuse of terror to ignite in the prisoner's heart.

Then she knelt beside him.

"Now I have powers ... strange powers ... I perceive things like I've never been able to do before ... things about life," he said in a solemn whisper. “Things about life, Mr. Henneman. I perceive, Mr. Henneman ... Count Mishka ... that beyond the sins and petty atrocities you have already woven into the cosmos, there are greater evils in your destiny. Imagine, Count ... Imagine, for example, if Joseph Goebbels of the Third Reich had been recognized in time as the criminal he would become. The world would have been better if its existence had been severed. The scissors of fate are always on, Count. But all too often they act too late for the world. I'm seriously considering helping those scissors to work tonight. " L'

"Jesus! What do you want to do with those? " panted the Count. "Look, I told you that ..."

"You have no idea who I am, do you?" asked the Man of Darkness. "Let me inform you." Approached. “I am Dr. Phibes, sir Henneman. I'm the slandered Shakespearean actor of Vincent Price's Bloody Oscar. I'm Peter Cushing in Tales from the Grave. I'm Claude Rains in the Phantom of the Opera. I could go on, Conte. Do you understand me now that I speak your cinematic jargon? "

"What are you ... I'm not ... not ... You're raving!" squeaked the Count.

The shears took off.

The Man of Darkness knelt beside him and took off his dark glasses. The glow of the candles was reflected from her scaly gray skin. The Count felt a faint stench of putrefaction. He looked into those eyes and saw something he thought he remembered. Something that had happened a few months ago.

Then he recognized them, those eyes.

He opened his mouth to speak, or at least scream, but he couldn't make a sound.

Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God ...

"I see the spark of recognition in your eyes, Richard," observed the Man of Darkness. He slowly put on his dark glasses again, then stood up. “This is good for my soul. I think maybe something good will come out of my death. And that's why I'm here. See, it's not just about revenge. Not just about redemption. I'm here for the sake of future generations! "

Still paralyzed with horror and incredulous, the Count watched the Man of Darkness take something out of his pocket. It was her TV remote ... But what the hell did she want to do with? ...

Click, click.

The ungainly shape whose presence had been sensed by the Count in the darkness near the ceiling suddenly lit up.

It was his huge Sony XBR television, who knows how hooked for the antenna and power cables to the ceiling light fixture. In gorgeous technicolor, Peter Cushing's Van Helsing held a wooden stake, furiously shaking his hair as he wrestled with Dracula Christopher Lee.

The giant television hung two meters above Richard Henneman's head.

The Man of Darkness began to recite.

“'Now I observed, needless to say with what horror, that its lower end consisted of a crescent of shining steel, about a foot long from horn to horn; these were facing upwards and the lower blade appeared as sharp as that of a razor. And like a razor it felt massive and heavy, tapering off the blade and welding itself into a solid, wide frame overhead. It was suspended from a heavy brass bar, and the whole thing hissed as it swayed in the air. '

“Time for the quiz, Mr. Henneman. Where did this quote come from? "

"I ... I don't ... know ..." the Count managed to mutter, terrified.

"Perhaps I should approach the subject through the means of communication most familiar to you."

Suddenly, scenes from a film the Count knew flashed on the screen. Vincent Price wearing a cape. Steps of stone, a dungeon ... A woman with large breasts ...

Then the protagonist of Millennium (great series!), Also wrapped in a hood. A dungeon. A woman with large breasts, naked ...

"The well ..." he said. "The well and the pendulum."

"Correct answer, Count," complimented the Man of Darkness. He lifted the shears up and gave the television a strong push. It began to rock back and forth, back and forth.

The light produced a stroboscopic effect.

"There was Roger Corman's memorable performance ... followed by the more recent version of Stuart Gordon," the Dark Man informed. "And you will certainly remember Dario Argento's vivid quote from the story a few years ago."

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Stroboscopic light on the dry and parched skin of the Man of Darkness, reflected by the lenses of his glasses.

"What's this all about?" the Count asked shouting. "Baxter! What jokes are they? Baxter? Is all this the result of your sick and twisted sense of humor? "

The television rocked back and forth, propelled by the Dark Man's shears.

Back and forth.

Strobe light.

The mighty cathode ray tube shot movie scenes, gaudy Night of the Living Dead sequences, old Universal horror movies, 1950s monster movies, 1980s splatter movies, Stephen King movies, forgotten movies that the Count had bought from Sinister Cinema and Video Search in Miami, after reading the reviews in Video Watchdog ...

Back and forth, the images swayed.

Strobe light.

«What a rainbow of delight, Count! Pain and blood and horror in ninety minute packs! A rather decadent form of entertainment, isn't it? But certainly not as fun as participating in the melodramatic death scene I prepared. Not as fun as jumping on the wagon of my estate, headed full-speed to commercial hell. "

"That's enough!" pleaded with the Count. "Stop it now!"

"Maybe. Maybe I'll let you go if you tell me where your other noble friends are. The ... Marquis, I think his name is, right? "

"At the Cross Club," the Count did not ask. "Yup. These days of the week he usually hangs out over there. "

"Thank you."

However, the Man of Darkness who claimed to be William Blessing, risen from the grave, did not free the Earl from the bonds that held him down.

"Mmm. I see you also collect these authentic models of culture ... comics. " The Man of Darkness limped over to a bookcase and grabbed some.

Back and forth...

The Sony swayed hissing above his head.

"Look look. The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. " He limped back and threw the stack of comics on the Count's chest. «All these editions are centered on that elusive invitation to prison called Death. I want to make a deal with you, Count. You explain to me exactly what these comics would mean and I leave you free. "

"What do you mean?"

«In my eyes it is evident, but after all I am a professor of language and literature. Listening to the opinion of a true enthusiast of the genre, I will perhaps be able to grasp some nuances that had escaped me, don't you think? "

A horrified expression had appeared on the Count's face. How could he answer quiz questions with a forty-five-pound television dancing over his head like the steel ball for demolition?

“Sandman is… um, kind of a prince of dreams… and he comes and goes through mythological scenes… and he's kind of… how to say… smart, deep… and… "

"No. I knew you wouldn't be able to explain it to me, ”the Dark Man said with a faint note of sadness in his voice. “What's the point of collecting something if you don't even bother to understand what it is? Is it cool simply because others like it or because you like it? You understand what I mean, right? Well, whatever it is, you will soon understand perfectly. "

The Man of Darkness reached up and cut the TV cables with one motion of the heavy shears. Ciac.

The thirty-one-inch Sony XBR stereo television swooped down, interrupting the commuter motion, with unnatural speed, as if it had been thrown from a much greater height.

The Man of Darkness watched him fall.

He felt no joy or satisfaction.

But neither regret nor regret.

The edge of the television slammed like an anvil on an apple on the bound man's face, grinding it to pulp (scattering splatters of blood and brain fragments all over the place) before falling back to one side of the table and smashing that too. With a loud crack of wood, similar to that of a melon crushing, the television crushed one side of the table to the ground, moving the opposite side upwards, which like a whiplash tore apart the victim's body further, breaking it.

Shards of glass were thrown in all directions, hitting the Dark Man's legs in multiple places.

Splinters tore at his flesh, but he barely registered the pain.

Electric sparks exploded from the television and, for a moment, from the severed cables. The debris and human remains were engulfed in smoke.

Then, with a pop, the electric current went out.

The Count's feet were shaken with a spasm, then remained motionless.

The Man of Darkness stood silently for a few moments.

From an inside jacket pocket he pulled a black pen.

It was the feather of a raven.

He slipped it into the Count's hand.

"Now fly into darkness, my enemy," said the Dark Man. "Fly to a place we don't know, neither you nor me."

Then he turned and walked away in the direction of the next task ...

... while memories crowded in his mind.

... the first bullet penetrates his chest. The impact is tremendous, the bullet goes through the skin, tearing apart ribs, right lung, veins, arteries, then exploding out of the shirt and cashmere sweater. It is as if a grinning demon had pierced him with an incandescent poker, burning him and causing him excruciating pain ...

But the demon wears the twisted mask of a wild-eyed madman on his face, holding out a huge gun in front of him.

The Man of Darkness walked the streets of the night, the streets of Baltimore, headed for the next appointment. Those men had killed him, they had destroyed everything that had been dearest to him in life. Now it was their turn to die.

The Man of Darkness walked the streets of Fells Point.

... haunted by memories ...

... Amy! Oh my God! Amy! Don't hurt Amy!

... Thieves! Crazy people! Assassins!

Help! Jesus! Help!

He is thrown, in agony, against the bookcase. Ancient and precious volumes fall to the ground. The smell of parchment and aged paper, the smell of wax mixed with that of freshly spilled blood.

The image of the attacker is burned into his mind, every slightest contraction of the facial muscles, every detail of the pores and the curve of his nose. Lips hard and thin. The thick, curled brows. The granite eyes. The greasy black hair, tied in a pigtail at the nape of the neck by a bone ring ...

And, looking out of the corner of his eye, the image of the other attacker, who has immobilized his wife. A muscular gorilla of a man with crew-cut hair, a protruding browbone, no chin, a lustful look in the pig eyes.

He tries to get up, looking for a hold on the shelves of the library with his hands, determined to keep fighting, a single thought in his mind: "I have to save Amy, save the collection ..."

Then the man with the gun gives him a scornful grin ...

... and he is certain, in the depths of his soul, that it will not be possible.

The Man of Darkness walked the streets of Baltimore, his home.

Baltimore, Maryland.

He was born in the city and grew up there, imbuing himself with its history and its promises. Now he could smell the waters of Inner Harbor, the pier just south. Baltimore, which stood on the Patapsco River estuary in the Chesapeake Bay. The largest city in Maryland and one of the largest natural harbors in the world. A city characterized by American economic growth, American architecture, American cultural heritage. Now, as he walked, he could almost taste the steamed blue crab, cold and cheap beer, the rich spices of the bay in the air, amidst the bad smells and humidity.

Baltimore.

A good place to die.

But not to rest ...

Not yet.

The Man of Darkness walked through the dark meanders of Little Italy ...

... haunted by memories ...

The weapon explodes a second shot and the impression given to him by his senses sharpened by pain is that the bullet comes out of the barrel, in a halo of fire, in slow motion. He senses her attempt to deny what is happening, to shout "No!" to use some sort of inner power to fend off the lead that is darting in his direction.

When he arrives at his destination, the brutal force of the impact throws him against the base of the bookcase where he ended up after the first shot. The bullet sinks into the abdomen, piercing and tearing the shirt already soaked in blood, a circular saw of pure power, committed to devastating his flesh and his life with total abandon, spitting out pieces of his body that fall bloody on the floor. He feels her making her way inside him, shearing his solar plexus and internal organs with insane indifference, chewing what remains of his life and then spitting it out.

His attacker is saying something, but he can no longer hear it. He realizes that the attacker has been talking all the time, making accusations, but he has not recorded them ... he has not received them.

All his thoughts are on Amy, his wife, his love ...

And his feeling of helplessness, how he feels consumed by pain.

Blood blood blood ...

He falls to the ground in a bloodbath, his conscience drowned in a pool of blood.

She sinks into the thick, dark blood of unconsciousness by holding on to one thought: Amy.

The Man of Darkness walked the streets of Baltimore.

He passed the clean new walls of Harborplace, past the aquarium and the hotels with the twinkling lights, past the reflection of the moon in the windows of the office buildings.

But he is not dead.

... Not yet.

He manages to escape the darkness, back, to save Amy, to save the collection, to save ... to save ...

He opens his eyes and lets out a moan ...

He is forced to look horror greater than any other in the eye ...

The Man of Darkness walked towards the Cross Club.

He felt a flap of wings, looked up and saw a dark shape flying along the canyons of the city, above the cars and the animation of the nightlife.

He followed her.

And as he followed the crow, the Dark Man remembered his dream.

His dream of Edgar Allan Poe.

1

I pray to God that he can lie down

Forever with closed eyes ...

Deep in the forest, dark and cold,

May a high sepulcher open for her

A tomb, which often has its black ones thrown open

And vampire wings of stone

Triumphantly fluttering over the funeral vestments

Of his old family funeral.

EDGAR A. POE, To the benevolent heart, "Irene"

December 8, 1811

In the forest under the winter sky there was a bird.

"William," Edgar had called. "William! A bird! "

A large bird.

A black bird.

Black as the gloomy basements under the theater where he and William played while their mother was busy rehearsing. Black as the night when all the candles in the guesthouse went out and the clouds like a gigantic pair of wings darkened the stars and the moon. Black as the dress worn the day before by the gloomy doctor when he came to visit his mother.

"Where is it?" In the porch his brother William rose from where he was sitting.

"There! on the tree ... "

But there were now only branches where Edgar pointed out. Skeletal branches, stiff memories of trees once laden with green leaves, fruit and life, but now bare in the cold December.

"I don't see any birds, Edgar," said William, who had continued to play toy soldiers while excluding Edgar from the game.

Edgar was now standing by a window. With him in the room were the nurse, with little Rosalie, who was one year old, and a small group of family friends, mostly theater people, gathered around the bed. William, his face blank, clung to a woman who had spent all night at her mother's bed.

Edgar sat by the window, rubbing his hands and staring at the trees outside. The great bird fascinated him. With its vibrant croaking and conscious eye, sharp beak and powerful claws, it looked both extremely strange and yet perfectly in tune with the context. As if it could provide the mysterious answer to a riddle. He continued to look for the bird because the words of the adults present in the room disturbed him, although he did not exactly understand their meaning, and this not only because they were whispered.

"He won't be able to last much longer."

"What will become of the poor children?"

«I certainly won't be able to help them! I already have enough of mine to look after! "

“They will have to be separated. What a pity. They give the impression of loving each other so well! "

"Poor woman. What a talent! A nightingale voice. I believe he will now sing for Jesus himself. "

"He will certainly go to a better place than this."

Mom going somewhere? But how was that possible? Edgar had wondered. She was wearing her nightgown and was in bed, tucked neatly under the covers. No, the adults were wrong: even though he was only three years old he knew perfectly well that before going anywhere you had to get dressed ... or at least get out of bed. But it had been days and days that my mother had been resting in bed ...

Of course, it wasn't really like her. Mom was almost always on her feet. Mom was an actress. A famous actress, William claimed. "He stepped on the boards from Richmond to Boston!" her five-year-old brother had once declaimed, assuming a melodramatic pose. «Gentlemen, with his melodious voice he has conquered even the cold hearts of the inhabitants of New York and Philadelphia. She is simply the greatest actress and singer of all time. "

Edgar knew well that his mother was the most beautiful creature in the whole world. But his mother was the woman who took him in her arms, put on his coat, tied his strings and comforted him when he fell and peeled one knee. The woman who put on her face, wore fluttering ornate dresses and sang in Time Tells a Tale, or who cried and despaired in the melodramas Tekeli or The Siege of Montgatz, seemed to him almost an unknown person ... but still wonderful.

A tremor of a wing ...

A moving black spot ...

There it is ... just above the horizon of that dismal Sunday morning. What was that strange bird?

"I wonder if your husband knows she is ill."

"That rascal! David Poe! Nobody has news of him. He left his family last year, that drunkard. "

"A bad father."

Edgar barely remembered his father. Deep inside, he had some memories. Deep inside, he also had some feelings. However, at that moment what mattered most to him was not the whispers of the people buzzing around his mother's bed, but the chance to catch a glimpse of that obscure emissary in the form of a bird.

Where had he gone?

"Edgar? Edgar, come here dear. Your dear mother wishes to speak to all her children. " Edgar recognized the voice. It was that of Fanny Allan, who had worked so hard for her family. He liked Fanny very much. She was a sweet lady. Her husband John, on the other hand, was stern, contemptuous and frightening. Edgar wasn't sure he liked John Allan.

"I'm looking for the bird!" Edgar answered. "I know it's out there!"

"You'll look for him later, dear," Fanny insisted. "Your mom wants to talk to you immediately."

Edgar sighed. She got out of the chair by the window and walked over to the bed. William was already there, sad and confused, holding his mother's hand in his. Another woman was holding Rosalie, Edgar's little sister, who stared at Mum with big dark eyes without making a sound.

Edgar moved to the side of the bed and leaned against it.

"Edgar?" called a faint, uncertain voice. "Edgar, is that you?"

"Yes mom."

His voice was strange. Mom had a very feminine voice, but she was also the powerful voice of a soprano. The voice she had just heard was only the ghost of Mama's, and it seemed to be struggling out of her throat, as if it had to cross a barrier of pain.

With a gasp, William Blessing woke.

He was sweaty and panting. The sheets were wet with sweat.

"Oh, dear," his wife Amy consoled in a sleepy voice, turning to put a hand on his shoulder in a gesture of comfort. "Did you have that terrible dream about Poe again?"

"Yes," William Blessing admitted. “That dream again. That dream with the crow ... "

"Maybe you should write a good romance novel next time," she whispered.

2

Gaily dressed,

A gallant knight,

With light and shadows

He had been traveling for a long time now,

Singing a song

In search of Eldorado.

EDGAR A. POE, «Eldorado»

Mick Prince opened the door.

Alcohol vapors and drug fumes poured into the corridor, followed by the stench of stale food and vomit. The lowered Venetian blinds, in a very bad state, let the morning filter through, allowing it to rest on inert bodies, still under the effects of the night. They were sprawled on the filthy carpet in the living room and on the sofa torn in several places, half-smeared despite the infernal din that resounded around them.

The big-bodied man in a long coat grabbed the closest of the boys by the ear, pulled him up and put the barrel of the semiautomatic pistol into his mouth.

"Grimsley," Mick Prince growled. "Where is it?"

A thread of drool had started flowing from the corner of the boy's mouth. Now his eyes were wide open and he began to cough, choked. The man in the long black coat took the gun out of his mouth to allow him to speak.

"I don't know," said the boy, who now gave off a stench of sweat mixed with urine.

Mick sank the rod again, breaking his tooth.

"Think carefully."

Tears and blood began to flow. "In the bathroom," he stammered. "I think I saw him go to the bathroom."

Mick heard the metallic click of a weapon. He wasted no time checking what it was about by turning in the direction of the noise: with an automatic reflex he aimed and leveled the gun, pulled the trigger and fired a burst.

The first bullets hit a long-haired white boy asleep on the sofa, who woke with a start just in time to die, his chest ravaged by two bullets that sent bloody masses of flesh and skin the size of fists. Mick continued the movement making the burst rise upwards, cutting down the gunslinger who had drawn the weapon. Two of the hits went missing, breaking a plastic gong and chipping the surface of the table it rested on. The third crashed into the black man's skull, making a perfectly circular hole in it and splashing out his brain and blood. The hand holding the pistol snapped and fired a couple of bullets into the wall, forming clouds of pulverized plaster.

The other three junkies awoke amid rotting pizza boxes, coke straws and abandoned syringes, wrapped in a fine mist of blood and bone that fell through the cordite-laden air. One of them wore an underarm holster from which the butt of a pistol poked. The others looked unarmed.

Not that it mattered.

The man in the long black coat redirected the weapon.

Mick Prince recalled reading the historical reconstruction of the attack by Catholic forces against the city where the Cathar heretics had taken refuge. When asked for orders regarding the opportunity to show mercy towards some members of the sect, the heir of St. Peter replied: «Kill them all. It will be God who will recognize the just among them ».

That pope wasn't just wise, Mick Prince thought. He was also an extremely practical pontiff.

With proven ease the man emptied the rest of the clip against the three still alive. The victims died splashing blood, wriggling and twitching as if invisible hooks had been dropped from above to pierce them into spastic puppets. When the magazine was empty and the pistol nearly red-hot, a cloud of smoke hung over the lifeless bodies like incense, and the walls, ceiling and floor appeared repainted in a shocking, damp crimson.

Without stopping a second, the messenger of death plunged his hand into one of the pockets of his coat and took out a new magazine, which he replaced the empty one. He had been hired to kill the leader of that group, and while his principals would undoubtedly be thrilled with the carnage and terror he would cause among gang leaders and drug lords, he had not yet completed his mission.

With great strides Mick Prince moved into the adjoining room, erect and determined, looking for the bathroom.

Mick had spent most of his life in institutions of all kinds. Each of the institutes was equipped with a library. And he had read its contents, mostly paperback volumes. If he had been a movie buff, he would have identified with Clint Eastwood, the mercenary with the expressionless face and the icy eyes, doing his duty in the Wild West. However, he preferred to see himself as a kind of modern Parker, the protagonist of the detective stories written by Donald E. Westlake under the pseudonym Richard Stark. Parker, the cold and ruthless unscrupulous professional, elegant, swift and deadly.

Here is Parker moving in the structure of simple and straightforward prose, Mick Prince thought. Modern and trendy, the protagonist of a pre-Quentin Tarantino noir raid, committed to earning the money necessary to take a few months off and pursue a postmodern dream. Here is Parker in the updated version. Sicario, a professional in crime ...

Writer!

Committed to earning enough money to isolate himself somewhere with the notebook and the computer, to write sharp tales of pure, unbridled horror.

Parker killed, but he wasn't a professional killer. Mick Prince, on the other hand, was. He worked mainly in the drug dealer environment, characterized by the large availability of money. When he became a rich and famous writer he might have done a chore every now and then, just to keep fit. But he intended to stop doing it as a profession as soon as possible.

Mick Prince wondered what his Writer's Digest School teacher's reaction would be to his latest piece. The story suffered from structural problems, he feared, and perhaps needed to be shortened. The fact that it was a horror story certainly didn't help, given the current situation in the publishing market: so the Pittsburgh teacher would certainly have said. But for some time Mick hadn't been able to write anything else.

He passed a crumbling kitchen that smelled of refrigerator mold. As we advanced down the corridor, the stench mingled with that from the bathroom.

It was getting closer.

A pool of water spread out from under a closed door into the corridor. All the adjacent rooms seemed empty and the windows were closed.

Grimsley must have chosen the bathroom to nestle into.

The modern Parker advances, relentless and mechanical, along the corridors, a new post-Nietzschean man. He is the inmate who has read the most books in his prison, is able to quote philosophers, poets and pulp writers by chapters and paragraphs. However, in that Zen moment, everything is forgotten. He is at one with his metaphorical sword-gun, at one with his mission. The modern Parker, sophisticated samurai.

Street Warrior.

His sharpened mind is tuned to the Now and prepares for the future.

The ferocious enemy is lurking.

Raising his gun, ready to fire, Mick Prince took a series of long, silent breaths, as if reciting a mantra.

Then, like a martial artist in front of the audience, he lifted one of the metal-soled boots and kicked at the exact junction between the handle and the door jamb.

The fragile wooden barrier opened, splintering.

A second kick flung it open, sending it crashing into the side wall.

Mick Prince immediately aimed the gun, ready to fire a short volley of bullets.

But something stopped him.

The bathroom floor was tiled with black and white tiles, as was the fashion of the past, and half of them were cracked or raised. The walls were covered in graffiti, the mirror in the medicine cabinet long ago smashed, and the pipes cracked and rusted. A narrow window with no curtain had the glass broken and was half open.

On the chipped porcelain cup sat a man in a torn shirt. His boxers were pulled down and gathered around his ankles. He was leaning back, eyes half closed.

A rubber strap gripped his left arm. The needle of a hypodermic syringe protruded from the crook of the elbow. The arm was blue.

A thread of drool ran from the man's lips. He was breathing hard, but he was alive. He wasn't armed.

Mick Prince recognized him from the photograph that had been given to him.

It was Grimsley.

The smell in the room was unbearable.

A sudden, unexpected omen pervaded the man in the long coat. There was a hint of something in that place. Something that was born from the most terrible nightmares in the most hidden cells of prisons.

The other.

It had been there.

The man on the toilet looked up. His lids were so wide open they disappeared, and the skin on his face contracted to the point that Mick Prince felt as if he were staring at a living skull with exorbitant eyes.

'Mick,' said the Other, 'the Enemy ... is here! I'm the enemy! "

"No," contradicted the man in the long black coat.

He panicked. He raised the pistol and flexed his index finger. The barrel spat fire. The man on the cup was hit by a hail of blows. They lifted him upward like an invisible force, higher and higher, reducing him to a mass of shreds of flesh and cotton, splinters of bone and fountains of blood. But Mick Prince continued to hold the trigger, riddling the body with bullets. A wide eye popped out of its socket, the nose imploded inward on the skull. A few more bullets and the head of the corpse exploded producing the effects of a firecracker stuck in a frog's ass. He continued firing until he had emptied the magazine.

What remained of the drug lord's body hung in the balance for a few moments, as if flesh and blood were making a last, desperate attempt to regroup. Then the corpse slid downward, falling to the ground with a thud, kicking splashes from the pool of blood and urine.

The man in the coat stood silently for a moment, feeling his heartbeat and listening to the quick breathing.

The enemy.

That fucking Other!

It was there in Baltimore!

He had to find it ... track it down ... destroy it ...

A dark form, like a mound of soot consolidating into an indistinct animated figure, settled on the windowsill. A beak leaned inward. Open wings, to keep balance. The claws wedged into the wood. The head tilted to fix, with only one eye, Mick Prince, to look at him with dark intelligence.

The jaw of the man in the coat dropped down.

A crow!

What the hell was a crow doing there?

As a child he had lived on a farm. He knew that crows fed on carrion, cunning and cowardly scavengers of remains.

The crow stared at him for a moment, peering at him as if he could see through his skin, read his soul. Their eyes met.

It was as if the crow said: "I know you!"

Mick Prince shivered, unable to move. He had read many books, books of all kinds. The appearance of a crow was never a good omen.

"Shit!"

But the fact that he had read things didn't necessarily imply that he took them at face value.

He dropped the submachine gun and reached around his belt to grab his semi-automatic 32-caliber Beretta Cougar with a silencer. But the instant his hand touched the butt of the weapon, the bird spread its wings and leapt forward.

A pitch-black, fire-eyed spring rushed into Mick Prince's face, claws outstretched.

If it weren't for his feline highlights, the man in the coat would have lost an eye. A claw sank into his forehead, ripping it apart and pulling a long lock of hair off his scalp.

He drew his pistol, released the safety and fired. The hollow-point bullets darted from the weapon making a hissing sound. A shower of plaster fell on his head from the ceiling. But the winged creature flew off, unharmed.

"Shit!"

Mick Prince chased the bird and the heavy footsteps of his boots echoed down the hall. The crow bolted out the door. Mick Prince fired again, then executed it inside the living room.

The addict's den was reduced to a pile of corpses with a blood-soaked floor. At first the man in the coat thought the crow had disappeared. But then, as if to announce "I'm here!" he jumped on the back of the sofa and resumed staring at him, raising his wings, a bit disheveled but unperturbed.

He croaked, challenging Mick Prince with his eyes.

Common sense advised the man in the coat to let it go and walk away. The reaction in the bathroom had been automatic and understandable. It was a machine programmed to kill, and the crow had suddenly appeared in front of him.

But now...

Now he had accomplished his mission and it was better to get away. Despite being in one of the most deprived neighborhoods in the city, the longer he lingered, the more he risked being caught. The best thing to do was get out of that damn door, slam it behind him, and let the crow feast ... Give him the win.

But there was something ... something deeply disturbing about that creature. It was the largest crow Mick Prince had ever seen, and it possessed a strange presence, something that made the skin crawl, as if it came from beyond.

But the worst thing was that he perceived something of the Other in him.

The enemy.

Ever since his earliest memories, Mick Prince had always felt the presence of the Enemy. He had sensed it in his dreams, in the shadows of the days and in the distorted motives of those who had tortured him, those who had made his life so difficult. He felt as if his soul was older than his years, as if he had traversed the wastelands of time pursued by a dark and mysterious creature he had given the name of Enemy.

An enemy who wanted to destroy him.

An enemy who wanted to consume him.

For years he had fled with his head bowed in terror. But now things had changed. Now he was determined to track down his opponent, to face him ...

TO killing it.

"Who are you?" he asked.

The crow shook its feathers. He jumped down onto the arm of the sofa and tapped his beak in the air, as if using some arcane silent language.

"Why couldn't you be a fucking raven?" shouted the man in the long black coat. "'Said the raven ... Never again, Lenore!' And not a damned, disgusting crow? "

The crow waved its tail, as if to express indifference.

"Do you think I haven't read Poe?" Mick Prince asked. “That overrated hack! What a joke! Some French fell in love with him ... and that's it! The Jerry Lewis of literature! Well, let me tell you something: I belong to the old school. I say that Rufus Griswold was right. Edgar Allan Poe was a worthless bastard drunkard. " Mick Prince slapped the tip of the gun barrel on his chest. "And when I write, I certainly don't bow to his altar!"

The crow croaked.

He looked Mick Prince in the eye, unblinking.

"Fuck you!" Mick whispered. He raised the gun and aimed it at the bird, taking careful aim. He could already imagine he saw the bullet slash through its chest, shattering the creature's entire fragile bone structure in a firework of red and black tones. It would have been all a flutter of feathers, a shattering of the beak!

He had just begun to pull the trigger when the man entered the room. He wore baggy pants, a ripped sweatshirt and a Baltimore Orioles cap with a peak at the nape of the neck. In his right hand he held a Walther PPK.

"Son of..."

Without hesitation, Mick Prince shot him twice. Flowers of blood bloomed on the sweatshirt. The man staggered back two steps, swinging his arms as if to flee by flying to impending death. Mick Prince fired again and this time the shots shattered half of his skull. Bits of brain and splashes of blood added to the new wallpaper on the walls.

An extension of wings, then a beat.

The man in the coat snapped his attention back to the bird.

The crow flew in the direction of the corridor.

Mick Prince shot him, but the bullet missed the target and shattered a window.

The crow veered, reversing the direction of flight and following an erratic and unpredictable trajectory. She swooped down on Mick Prince, then swerved at the last moment.

The crow alighted on the window sill. He turned and looked into the man in the coat once more.

There was something about that look that kept Mick Prince from firing. There was something so intense, so chilling ...

He wasn't sure it was the wind, or maybe the house plumbing. It certainly wasn't the bird, because ravens didn't have the gift of speech ...

Still, the truth was that the dark creature's sharp beak had moved.

Not now, the wind or the pipes had said. Not yet. But soon!

Then the bird turned and spread its wings.

"No!" shouted Mick Prince.

He raised the gun and fired.

But the crow was gone.

Mick Prince ran to the window, screaming.

"No, damn it! Come back here!"

But when the crow appeared it was only a distant black speck on the horizon above the ghostly and corrupt city, under a sky that was the color of a newly appeared bruise.

3

A gloomy midnight, as I meditated weak and weary,

On many bizarre and curious volumes of forgotten knowledge,

While I was dozing, almost asleep, suddenly

I heard ticking,

As if someone lightly knocked on the door of the
my room.

“It's someone who comes to visit,” I told myself, “knocking
at my door.

Only this and nothing more. "

EDGAR A. POE, "The Crow"

There was something on the roof.

Something big and loud, and very, very annoying.

William Blessing's studio was located on the fourth floor of his large home in downtown Baltimore. Late at night, while working on his new novel, Dark and Shining Things, for Knopf, he had begun to hear a strange noise from the small roof of the terraced building.

... A ticking ...

... A scrape ...

... A beat...

A bird? he wondered, looking up from the computer keyboard. Could a bird have built a nest up there? In fact it was spring, the breeding season for small creatures. Blessing didn't want them bad. Far from it: the presence of birds in the city cheered him up. Robins, cardinals, jays, sparrows ... all played an important role for nature within the urban fabric. The same was true for pigeons and seagulls, all things considered. As far as he was concerned, if his beloved Baltimore had a flaw, well that, in all honesty, was the scarcity of trees. Most of the time, the construction of the ugly and tiny terraced houses in the less prestigious districts of the "city of charm", as it was called, had involved simply cutting down trees, giving the areas a bare and modest appearance. Fortunately, a plan had been approved for the restoration of green areas in those less considered neighborhoods. Not that Baltimore was totally devoid of trees, however. The huge parks were full of oaks, pines and cypresses, survivors of the luxuriant woodland heritage of Maryland, its true treasure, which had suffered the terrible attack of industrialization throughout history. Blessing considered himself a lucky man, not only for the huge house dating back to 1890 that he owned, but also for the neighborhood in which it stood, full of large oaks, benevolent and old sentinels against the advance of urban squalor, an expression of nature's will to resist. Fortunately, a plan had been approved for the restoration of green areas in those less considered neighborhoods. Not that Baltimore was totally devoid of trees, however. The huge parks were full of oaks, pines and cypresses, survivors of the luxuriant woodland heritage of Maryland, its true treasure, which had suffered the terrible attack of industrialization throughout history. Blessing considered himself a lucky man, not only for the huge house dating back to 1890 that he owned, but also for the neighborhood in which it stood, full of large oaks, benevolent and old sentinels against the advance of urban squalor, an expression of nature's will to resist. Fortunately, a plan had been approved for the restoration of green areas in those less considered neighborhoods. Not that Baltimore was totally devoid of trees, however. The huge parks were full of oaks, pines and cypresses, survivors of the luxuriant woodland heritage of Maryland, its true treasure, which had suffered the terrible attack of industrialization throughout history. Blessing considered himself a lucky man, not only for the huge house dating back to 1890 that he owned, but also for the neighborhood in which it stood, full of large oaks, benevolent and old sentinels against the advance of urban squalor, an expression of nature's will to resist. however. The huge parks were full of oaks, pines and cypresses, survivors of the luxuriant woodland heritage of Maryland, its true treasure, which had suffered the terrible attack of industrialization throughout history. Blessing considered himself a lucky man, not only for the huge house dating back to 1890 that he owned, but also for the neighborhood in which it stood, full of large oaks, benevolent and old sentinels against the advance of urban squalor, an expression of nature's will to resist. however. The huge parks were full of oaks, pines and cypresses, survivors of the luxuriant wooded heritage of Maryland, its true treasure, which had suffered the terrible attack of industrialization throughout history. Blessing considered himself a lucky man, not only for the huge house dating back to 1890 that he owned, but also for the neighborhood in which it stood, full of large oaks, benevolent and old sentinels against the advance of urban squalor, an expression of nature's will to resist.

So it could have been a bird, but judging by the noise it made it must have been a bird of considerable size.

Blessing stopped her work and looked up at the ceiling.

A flutter of wings.

A heartbeat.

A creak.

Curse! What a nuisance. He had hoped for a pleasant morning, and the weather had worked together in the best possible way, giving him one of those beautiful spring days with little humidity, a light breeze, low concentrations of pollen, a warm sun and some elegant cumulus clouds in a clear sky and serene.

It was Saturday, Amy was busy at school, and the new graduate wouldn't arrive until late afternoon. Stephen King had sent him his new book, hoping not simply for a good review from a fellow writer, but perhaps for a "caustic slashing to ease my weary back of the heavy burden of selling too many copies." Well, that would not have been possible because the book, which departed considerably from King's classic atmosphere, was truly a masterpiece and deserved an enthusiastic review, which Blessing hoped to be able to publish in the New York Times Book Review. Worse, the novel was one of the magical ones that kept the reader glued to the pages, and though Blessing had a lot of other things to do, nothing now seemed more urgent than getting to the last pages of the volume.

At the top of the top floor of the house, in the context of a series of renovations carried out by Blessing after the success of her third novel Black Soul in ambush, a sort of balcony had been created, connected to a small dome built in grandiose style Neo-Gothic of the eighteenth century. Combined with the gabled roof that the house already had, the dome made a wonderful sitting room in which to host friends and colleagues for a cup of tea or beer, and from which to admire the rooftops of old Baltimore. In fact, the splendid Victorian buildings that made up much of the architectural ensemble of Johns Hopkins University were also visible, where Blessing held a full professorship in the English Language and Literature department. It was on that balcony, on that beautiful day,

A rustle.

Hurry steps.

A scrape.

In principle, Blessing approved of the presence of birds.

On the other hand, a bird disturbing him with all that terrible noise while he was trying to write or read ...

Well, that was another matter.

He sighed, got up from his chair and went up to the area where the seasoned and inlaid wood gave way to the tiles, and from which the roof angled upwards towards the row of chimneys and walls that ran along the top. Leaning against a pole, he poked his head and looked up trying to see what had landed up there. It must be on the other side, he thought. There was no trace of the twigs or brambles with which the birds built their nests at that time. He was tempted to leave his seat on the roof, go down to the library, put a Bach or Chopin CD on the player and resume reading, enveloped and protected by the music. However, he was planning to have a party the following week, and that was one of the spots his guests most liked to gather to chat. The presence of a bird on the roof could be negative or positive, depending on your point of view, but if it was indeed a bird, he at least wanted to be able to discuss it with his friends. In addition to possessing a refined intellect and in-depth knowledge in a variety of fields, William Blessing had a keen curiosity and was an inexhaustible source of anecdotes. He loved to talk for a long time about the wonderful oddities, academic and otherwise, that his curiosity had helped him to discover. Undoubtedly Lincoln Holmes would have attended the party and, in the event that the bird had made its presence on the roof, certainly he would have asked which creature ever possessed such boldness as to build its nest on the roof of the house of the great William Blessing. Had he not been able to provide a comprehensive and detailed answer, Blessing would not have been Blessing. Not only would his friends be worried, but his more dangerous and jealous colleagues would start whispering over his shoulder: “Poor Bill. It begins to lose its enamel ».

Blessing knew about birds. It would take only a brief glance to understand what kind of bird it belonged to. Also, if the nest he was building was still in its early stages, he could have chased it away. Blessing certainly did not intend to remove him from any eggs or young; but the sooner he found out what was on the roof, the better it would be for everyone.

Despite his forty-seven years, he was in relatively good physical shape and it was easy for him to climb over the railing and up the groove in the roof, in the center of which an aluminum gutter passed. The tiles were still quite new and offered a good grip; moreover, although steep, the slope of the roof was not prohibitive. He was very careful, however, leaning forward several times to lean against the rough tiles.

On top of the roof, he hoisted one leg up, placed it on the other side, and sat astride the slopes, then carefully scrambled to his feet. Now he saw the Camden Yards stadium, where the Baltimore Orioles played, the large office buildings and hotels in the city center, clustered around the vital center of Baltimore's rebirth in the 1970s and 1980s: Inner Harbor. Mayor Scheafer had the old port dredged and an architect commissioned to redesign it in all its parts, after which he had made it a great center of attraction for tourists, the flagship of a tired and shabby city. Looking east, Blessing saw Little Italy's restaurants, the aquarium and, across the canal, the Science Museum. It was Saturday and dozens of pedal boats dotted the

There was a faint breeze, the scent of cherry blossoms, honeysuckle and tar in the air. Blessing looked down at the street. The six-story house, including the attic and roof, was twenty-two meters high; it didn't sound like much in words, but looking down from the rooftop toward the asphalt pavement, the height seemed remarkable to Blessing.

He was suddenly seized with dizziness. He felt dizzy and had to squat down to keep his balance. He took a deep breath. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to come up here, he thought. But what had prompted him to climb? It was precisely to avoid this kind of thing that money came in handy: better to let others risk breaking their necks. He would have done well to call a worker and ask him to investigate. An experienced person, used to walking on roofs and with an excellent sense of balance.

However, the dizziness soon subsided.

Well, he told himself, since there are ...

A little ahead of him rose the chimney, a brave old brick outpost still with its original, faded red ceramic smokestacks, proudly inclined to face the elements. And, beyond the chimney, a rustle, a scurry, a scratch.

Blessing took a few steps. If he could get a little closer, he would be able to look across the chimney. At that point he would find out whether or not there was a nest. If it was simply a large bird that had settled on the roof to rest for a few hours, or even engaged in laying the foundations of a nest, it would have chased it away, putting an end to all that. He shouldn't have called any workers and could have bragged to Amy about his exploits.

He reached the chimney. It smelled of soot and ash. Blessing saw nothing beyond the flank of the base of the fireplace. It was as if that damned bird had deliberately hidden itself from his sight.

If only he could stick his head beyond the brick base, the bird could no longer escape his gaze. At least he would see the twigs or whatever was used to build a nest, which would allow him to draw a conclusion. After that he would cautiously go back and be able to resume reading Stephen King's book knowing exactly what the situation was on the roof.

Suddenly an image flashed into his mind: it was Stephen King himself, seen through a wide angle, spying into his life, huge black-rimmed glasses on his nose.

Don't go down to the cellar, Bill!

"But I'm on the roof, can't you see?" Blessing laughed through gritted teeth. "And anyway, life isn't a horror movie!"

Using the grooves between the bricks of the chimney for holds, he slowly took another step forward.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed someone walking on the sidewalk. He heard footsteps going up a series of steps.

And then the shrill clamor of the front door bell.

Curse! Blessing cursed mentally. Who can it be?

Distracted, he reached out to cling to the tallest brick of the base of the fireplace, not noticing that years of exposure to rain, wind, snow and frost had eroded it.

Blessing placed her hand on it and pulled herself up to regain her balance.

With a crumbling sound that chilled his blood, the brick gave way.

Blessing found herself suspended in the air with her arms swirling. He dropped the remains of the brick, which tumbled down the slope of the roof, bounced off the aluminum gutter, and then crashed onto the gas barbecue in the back garden.

William Blessing fell on the other side.

He reached desperately with his right hand to cling to the tin canopy that ran up the top of the roof, but he couldn't. His body slammed heavily on the tiles and bounced. Then it began to slip. The slope of the roof was even greater than the side he had climbed from and he knew there was little hope that the thin aluminum gutter would hold his weight, even if he could grab it.

He began to kick with all his strength, trying to bring himself back up. The Rockport's soles rubbed against the shingles causing enough friction to at least temporarily stop her fall.

He threw out his left hand and closed it like a vise around the vertical gutter. The left Rockport slid over the shingles and began to descend again. He fell, and found himself holding all his weight with his left arm, but somehow managed not to give up and stop the slide at the last moment.

Blessing clung with all her might, realizing that the fall had left him breathless. He inhaled laboriously and in the meantime reached up with his right arm, trying to grab the gutter with his other hand as well. The first attempt failed, but on the second he gripped the aluminum firmly in his fingers.

He stood motionless for a few moments, his grip on the gutter firm, trying to catch his breath and gather his strength. After the short break he found he could use his feet (thank God for the Rockports, solid shoes with a sturdy tank sole!) And jeans to slowly climb the slope. Then he would throw his arms over the top and regain his balance. At that point he would only have to go down to the balcony: certainly it was not a floor that revealed brilliant gymnastic competence, but at least he would have regained a wooden plank platform that would have saved him from a fall of almost twenty meters.

However, just as Blessing was catching her breath and contemplating starting her forces, she heard a flutter and a flutter of wings.

And a croak.

Frightened, he looked towards the fireplace.

From behind the brick base appeared the largest bird William Blessing had ever seen in the wild.

His first impression was to see a black spot, as if someone had cut out a piece of the darkness of the previous night and hid it behind the chimney, where it now sprouted. It had to have a wingspan of at least one meter. He noticed it as it came towards him. She settled on top of the roof, a few feet from his fingers, and tilted her head to stare at him, as if to inspect him closely.

A crow.

A crow like the ones Blessing used to see flying high over the rooftops of Maryland farms, or perched on telephone wires in the countryside, scanning the fields for prey; but who rarely ventured into the city center.

At this close range, Blessing saw that it was not actually entirely black. It had gray legs, white claws, and red eyes.

"Shoo!" Blessing cried. "Pussa away! Shoo!"

Instead of taking flight, the bird approached, taking a few steps to the side, scratching the aluminum with its sharp claws.

He opened his sharp beak and looked Blessing in the eye as he continued to approach her hands.

4

But behold, among the crowd of mimes,

A creeping shape makes its way!

A blood-red thing writhes out

From the deserted scene!

Writhes! Writhes! Between deadly spasms

She makes her food for mimes,

And the seraphim sobbing at the wormy fangs

Soaked in human blood.

EDGAR A. POE, "The conquering worm"

When Baxter Brittle woke up seven minutes after noon, he found himself half drenched in blood that wasn't his.

The blood was sticky and had a sweetish smell. The hangover headache doubled in intensity as he sat staring at his hands, stunned, wondering what the hell had happened. He knew it couldn't be real blood. Had someone sprinkled fake blood around to recreate the atmosphere of an Insane Clown Posse concert?

Between the walls of the 'dungeon', the main room of the Salon des Gothiques, thundered the sound of the Lustmords. Shit, Baxter thought. I have to stop pressing the REPEAT button when I put the CDs on. The eerie vibrations echoed in every dark corner of the basement. Although he had made an effort to clean up and tidy up the place after inheriting the entire building from his parents (I told him they had to change the tires on the car), and despite the incense being lit continuously by the gang members, in the the air still hung the smell of mold and damp, the stench of Baltimore. All the walls were adorned with bird feathers, posters, chains, swords, swords and pieces of white muslin, and huge candles (the only valid alternative to torches!) Burned in torches, giving the ambiance, atmosphere and depth. Corridors led to a mysterious and never-finished basement, a project abandoned in the last days of prohibition. But the ceiling was too low and the altar was nothing more than a prop taken from the set of some horror film shot directly on video. Flamboyant and detestable, all of it, Baxter thought. If he ever managed to put together a decent amount of money, he would do it all his way ... or, better yet, walk away, let go of all that Goths thing. He would retire to the south of France, to drink red wine, eat snails and truffles and listen to Chopin. But the ceiling was too low and the altar was nothing more than a prop taken from the set of some horror film shot directly on video. Flamboyant and obnoxious, all of it, Baxter thought. If he ever managed to get a decent amount of money together, he would do it all his way ... or, better yet, walk away and drop all that Goths thing. He would retire to the south of France, to drink red wine, eat snails and truffles and listen to Chopin. But the ceiling was too low and the altar was nothing more than a prop taken from the set of some horror film shot directly on video. Flamboyant and detestable, all of it, Baxter thought. If he ever managed to put together a decent amount of money he would do it all his way ... or, better yet, walk away, let go of all that Goths thing. He would retire to the south of France, to drink red wine, eat snails and truffles and listen to Chopin. let go of all that Goths thing. He would retire to the south of France, to drink red wine, eat snails and truffles and listen to Chopin. let go of all that Goths thing. He would retire to the south of France, to drink red wine, eat snails and truffles and listen to Chopin.

He rose to his knees with a groan. She wore the long coat, black satin outside and red satin inside. Some of the pain he felt wasn't related to the hangover, but was concentrated inside his mouth. He pulled out the plastic dentures and placed them on an antique-style mahjong table he had bought from Goodwill. Damn! He didn't remember showing off his Dracula teeth the night before.

On the other hand, he didn't remember much. Barney and Wilhemina had taken their seats behind the counter around nine. He had remained in the room sitting at one of the secluded tables in the company of the first arrivals among the members of the gang. It had been an evening dedicated to the old guard Goths, with music from the Bauhaus, The Cure, Sisters of Mercy and The Mission. It competed with Orpheus and Hepburns, two inconveniently close venues, to win over the town's tiny Goth clientele, ranging from curious undergraduates to RenFest Celtic fans, and confused metalheads to old punks. Its two flagship DJs worked in two record stores in town, Modern Music and Soundgarden, and were starting to build a following,

He vaguely remembered drinking something green with blue streaks, no doubt an alcohol bomb. Oh yeah, then there was that new girl, a very pretty teenager with so much mascara and eyeshadow on her eyes that she looked like a gothic raccoon. Platinum spiked hair, torn Siouxsie and the Banshees t-shirt held together by chrome safety pins. Obviously a minor, but nice enough to convince him not to have her thrown out. In fact, when the gang had come downstairs for a meeting at the Salon des Gothiques, they had tasked Baron DeBaskerville with making sure she followed them. However, by then his memory began to get lost in an orgy of smoke, mirrors, pulsing electric guitars and shouting choruses.

The rest...

The rest was dark.

Baxter Brittle sat up. Curse! He had to open the bar. Despite the hangover from the previous night, it was Saturday afternoon, and it was his turn behind the counter. If he hadn't opened to welcome the afternoon's regular customers, he risked losing them to one of the myriad other bars near Baltimore's Little Italy. Given the current cash flow, it was not a good time for this to happen. Not a good time at all.

Baxter's real apartment was above the bar, and that was where Baxter had to move in to take a shower. But in a corner of the dungeon there was a wash-house with a tap, which he approached and where he bathed himself in cold water with a vaguely salty taste. His temples throbbed. His eyes were bleary. He returned to the mahjong table and looked hopefully at the surface. Yup! There was still a small vial. It contained enough dose for a snort.

The thin line drawn through a straw lightened his head slightly. For the moment he just wanted to get out of that stinking hole; he would deal with the "blood" stains, or whatever, later. But in Dr. Caligari's cabinet next to the altar of the Naked Horror chamber there must have been a bottle of good Napoleon cognac imported from France, and one sip would certainly have relieved the pressure of the claws that seemed to sink into his cerebral cortex. He staggered in that direction, pausing briefly to silence the cavernous thunder of the Lustmords (sweet, sweet silence!), And at his destination opened the fake walnut door of the cabinet. And indeed, inside he found the bottle. It was almost empty, but a few sips were enough.

A concentrate of wine and fire.

The liquid dripped burning down his throat, exploding in less aggressive heat in his stomach. He felt the alcohol stretch his soft and comfortable fingers along his torso, then further up towards his head, partly alleviating the pain that gripped him. The relief was so great that he took another long sip. The initial impact was minor, but still effective.

He put the bottle back in the cabinet, turned and retraced his steps with an uncertain gait, stepping on the carpet in front of the plastic altar worthy of a Z-series film, where ...

... risked tripping over the body lying there.

It was a naked woman.

He hadn't seen it before because it was half hidden under the table on which the ritual plates and goblets were placed, along with all the other black magic junk. It was elongated, and the head topped with black spikes of hair stuck out like a piece of flesh gray with drapery and funeral vestments.

"Oh shit," Baxter Brittle swore. "Hey! You can't stay here… ”Christ, that girl was in danger of getting him in trouble. "Wake Up! Can you hear me?"

He bent down and hesitantly pulled her towards him.

When he loosened his grip she fell back

The mascara and make-up that had covered her face seemed to have melted and then dripped down her cheeks and temples, and her red lips produced the effect of a handful of crushed cherries.

She no longer looked like a sexy punk slut.

She looked like a dead girl.

The silver handle of a knife protruded between her small, banal breasts. Despite the shock and horror, Baxter recognized him. It was one of the gang's ceremonial knives.

It, too, had been salvaged from the set of a Z-series movie, but apparently originally came, like many of the objects used in those movies, from one of the less respectable pawn shops in downtown Baltimore. Up until that point it had been one of the dungeon ornaments Baxter had been most genuinely proud of. Together with other Goths he had spent hours speculating about the true provenance of some of the pieces of the monstrous, macabre collection. The gilt-handled, beaded knife had been a favorite. It certainly came from the torture chambers of the inquisitor Torquemada! No. It had belonged to one of the soldiers of Vlad, the Transylvanian emperor, engaged in fighting the barbarian hordes! No. It was stolen from an ancient Buddhist monastery in Nepal!

Now, Baxter thought, it was just a sharp piece of metal driven into the body of a naked girl.

There was blood everywhere.

That was the source of the blood he himself was smeared with.

Beyond the corpse, there was a large pool, which was already coagulating.

Clinging to a faint hope, Baxter hesitantly placed two fingers on the side of the girl's neck, looking for a pulse.

Nothing. Just cold dead meat.

He retracted his fingers as if he had been burned. For a moment he felt a buzz in his head and felt himself faint. He staggered and had to lean against the table. The impact caused a chalice to fall, from which more blood, cold and thick, spilled, which went to stain the pentacle in the center of the placemat on which it had been placed.

He opened the cabinet again, grabbed the bottle of cognac and downed the last sips. He dropped it from his fingers, then walked away on shaky legs from the scene of blood, death, and more blood.

He had had better awakenings.

5

And the silky, sad, uncertain rustle of each curtain
purpurea

It made me shiver, filled me with fantastic terrors
never known before;

And to still the beat of my heart, now I repeated:

"And someone at the door, asking to enter ...

Someone visiting late, asking to come in ...

Only this and nothing more ».

EDGAR A. POE, "The Crow"

Donald Marquette pressed the bell for the third time.

He heard the sound echoing through the house again. It was strong enough to raise the dead, he thought. But where had Professor William Blessing gone? He said he was free at noon, and now he wasn't answering ...

Donald checked his watch.

Noon and seven minutes!

Marquette began to feel some anxiety. He had taken care to arrive on time. Although he had corresponded with Blessing and spoke to him on the phone, they had never met. He was keen to give a good first impression and thus start his literary and educational journey with William Blessing, the famous writer, on the right foot; William Blessing, the brilliant academic; William Belssing, international authority on Edgar Allan Poe; William Blessing, "the only author of certain value and solid academic training to enter the field of popular literature," according to the authoritative New Yorker, and ... and ...

"You're not worth anything, ”he thought he heard his father say. «You are a useless being! All you do is sit down there in the cellar reading. God! I'm not even sure you're really my son! You're just ... a mistake! "

And when his father had said those words, he had wanted to kill him.

Marquette tried to calm down by leaning on the railing. He realized that his heart rate had increased and that his blood pressure was probably skyrocketing. It was the moment he had been looking forward to for months and months and he was letting the situation get out of hand.Calm down, boy. Twenty-eight years is too short to die having the coronaries blown out. Sure, you're excited ... but Blessing pulls on her pants one leg at a time and probably, like all men, forgets to lower the toilet seat. All right, it's great! And it could be the vehicle to literary fame, economic fortune and academic recognition for a humble country boy from Dubuque, Iowa! And you love his novels, his short stories, his criticism, and his great work History of the Gothic tradition from The Castle of Otranto to Stephen King and beyond! But he himself said he can't wait to start working with you, getting to know you, promising to take you out for a drink with him (have a drink with him!) This afternoon in Fells Point,

Donald Marquette was a tall, lanky young man who seemed to be more comfortable walking the road from Iowa to the United States Congress in the company of Jimmy Stewart's Smith. He had long, dark hair that was tied into a pigtail with a leather lace, sincere eyes, a sensitive nose and thin lips of a typical Midwestern native. His ears were a little too big for the size of his head, which was highlighted by his haircut, which made him look like Dumbo. Marquette was grateful when the freckles that had covered his face as a boy two years ago had disappeared. Now he wore a mustache and a pair of dark metal-rimmed glasses to harden his innocent appearance and give him a more credible literary demeanor. He had never been attracted to cigarettes or pipes, but for some time he had abandoned the adolescent habit of chewing gum (instead starting to keep an eye on weight).

He was now on that beautiful Baltimore street lined with blooming tulips, manicured bushes, and other fragrant forms of greenery: a block soaked in the colors of history that his native country was sorely lacking. The breeze ruffled his hair, and as the butterflies fluttered in his stomach, the bees alighted on the dandelions in the lush green lawn in front of the old red brick house.

A twig suddenly fell on the steps beside him.

Then a small piece of tile flew down and touched his head.

He looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun with one hand.

Nothing else fell.

He looked back at his Timex, which was now staring at the digital time at nine minutes past twelve, and ...

Oh, Jesus.

The appointment was initially set for noon. But then Blessing had wanted to move it at one o'clock.

And he had completely forgotten about it.

God, what a gaffe!

He turned, intending to run away, walking away as quickly as possible before Blessing (probably wearing a bathrobe) leaned out of a window and yelled, 'Marquette, you idiot, you're early. Go back to the fields where you came from. '

But before he could get down the first step, the door behind him opened.

"Yup?"

Donald turned back.

He immediately recognized the man at the door, whose photos he had seen on the covers of many books. However, in those photos William Blessing had appeared far more professional and lucid. His hair was unkempt now, his flannel shirt pulled out of the waistband of his pants and all in all he looked… well, a bit of a mess, both mentally and physically. He had a fragment of dry leaf on one shoulder. He was about six feet tall, and although he was not overweight, it was evident that his only serious physical activity for some time now was walking to university, a feat he was proud of. He had clear eyes and a regular, anonymous face; but even seeing him in that state, Donald knew he must be a calm, friendly type. And he didn't seem irritated at all. The finding somehow helped him relax. Marquette held out his hand to the professor.

“I just realized I was early! I'm Donald Marquette, but I'll be back later, in the afternoon, and I'm really sorry to have bothered you, I'm mortified and ... "

"Ah, Donald!" Blessing exclaimed. His puzzled expression turned into a smile. He flung open the door and accepted the handshake. “Actually, you're a little early, but it doesn't matter. To be honest, I'm happy to have company. Being in company is one of the few things that I do well. "

Donald shook his hand vigorously, and the professor returned with a firm, encouraging squeeze. It was as if Donald's heart was suddenly relieved of an enormous weight.

"Are you all right, Professor Blessing?"

“Donald, please, I already told you: call me Bill and call me tu. I realize you're going to be my assistant, but we're still two authors, aren't we? We are colleagues. " Blessing uttered the word "authors" with ironic pomposity. “And this afternoon we're going to have a drink. God knows how much I want a beer today. But now enter. Come. Do you want a coffee? A cup of tea? I have a hot Kenyan blend coffee pot and I was just about to pour myself a cup. Anyway yeah, I'm fine ... just a little shaken. Come to the kitchen, Donald. This way."

Donald followed the professor through the hall. He had already been impressed by the front of the house, with the freshly painted door, the beautiful flowers and the red brick from the Victorian era. But the interior looked like it came straight out of a famous furniture magazine like House Beautiful. More than the comfort of its occupants, the house communicated their excellent taste. It was furnished with beautiful antiques. Fine paintings adorned the walls and the luxurious parquet was covered with magnificent oriental rugs. Silver mirrors and accessories glinted and glinted in several places, and in the large dining room beyond the entrance a gleaming candelabra dominated the polished surface of the table. The scent of wax and carpet cleaning products hung in the air:

"She is ... truly magnificent!" he exclaimed almost without realizing it.

"Thank you. It's my wife who keeps it so tidy ... And I have to say that before the sudden success I had ten years ago I really couldn't have afforded the army of domestic helpers we had to hire. But it's too big to deal with alone. So, do you want a cup of coffee too? "

"Yes thanks."

Blessing led the way to the large, modern kitchen. He opened a cabinet and took out two mugs, into which he poured coffee from a Braun automatic coffee maker set on the tiled worktop.

"Milk? Sugar?"

"Just a drop of milk."

“I drink it like that too. Great thinkers have the same tastes. I'll tell you what, Donald. Before my wife moved here, I didn't have all these modern appliances. I owned the house and a lot of antiques, but I had never bothered to arrange everything in an orderly fashion. Amy's first project was to refurbish it entirely and make it as you see it now. I guess he wanted it to impress other women, and of course it feels very comfortable and comfortable ... But in some ways I miss the confusion that reigned here before. He had a certain ... character, do you know what I mean? "

"Well, not being very rich, I too have lived in several mansions with a certain 'character'."

"Ah! Well said! But don't tell Amy. She is desperate for my studio, which is a real disaster. But that's my territory, and she's not allowed. What do you think, do I hurt? "

"I think the term used in psychology is 'borders' ... Bill."

'The language of the shrink! I love it! The host of a talk-show focused on psychology is one of the stars of my new book, ”laughed Blessing. “She is hanged with a telephone cord and electrocuted. And who says my fiction has no literary value! "

Donald burst into laughter. He felt much more comfortable. Plus, the coffee was yummy. He usually drank instant coffee, to wake up in the morning or as a stimulant while writing, when most of the time he let it cool until it became undrinkable. Blessing's coffee, on the other hand, had a rich and balanced aroma, and the flavor was complex and excellent.

"Do all successful authors make coffee that good?" he asked.

“No, it's not a prerequisite, but thank you for the compliment. I like coffee. And God only knows how much I needed it now ... maybe correct. Come with me.

Blessing nodded, then walked back to the dining room. At the opposite end of the large room, full of antique walnut furniture and dominated by an incredible French-style table for twelve diners, there was a well-stocked mobile bar, obviously custom designed to adapt to the aesthetic characteristics of the room. Blessing set the cup down on the table and opened a cabinet door. The row of bottles inside would have been enough to refuel a medium-sized cocktail bar. Blessing selected one and turned to her host to show it to him. 'Would you like a drop of Irish whiskey, Donald? Bushmills. "

“Er… no, thanks. I'll gladly take a few beers with you, but I don't drink spirits. "

"Good for you." Blessing unscrewed the bottle cap and poured a generous dose of amber liquid into her coffee, filling the large cup to the brim. "I don't usually drink at this time of day, but I have to confess, Donald, that my nerves need to calm down today."

Blessing took a sip, smacked her lips, then seemed to shiver. He looked like someone who had just had some sort of ... ghostly vision, Donald thought.

"Do you feel OK?" Of course, such an episode would have explained his disheveled appearance.

"A few more sips and I'll be better," Blessing replied. He lifted the cup, drank again, then put it down again. «Here. After all, how can a Poe expert be expected to stay away from whiskey? " The professor seemed vaguely restless and distracted. But then he looked at Donald Marquette and his eyes returned to intensity. "There was a crow on the roof."

'A crow? A raven? " Donald inquired.

"No. A real country farm crow ... One that farmers build great scarecrows for. But this was much bigger than usual. I was on the balcony, enjoying the spring sunshine and reading the drafts of Stephen King's new book, when I heard a noise coming from the fireplace. And I, being a real jerk, went up to the roof to have a look. I slipped, and I had to cling to a gutter to avoid falling down ... maybe right on your head! " He laughed and took another sip of coffee mixed with whiskey.

The piece of tile! Donald remembered.

“And while I'm holding on there, this crow jumps out and starts staring at me. He had big red eyes. It was really scary. He approaches my hands and for a moment I think, Jesus! now he's going to peck at my fingers with that sharp woodpecker! "

"Mamma Mia!"

“Stronger expressions went through my head at that moment, I can guarantee you. But that crow ... he looked at me. He studied me. It was as if he wanted to make sure it was me. He seemed ... gifted with intelligence. He stared at me for a few moments, which seemed like an eternity to me, then spread his wings, croaked and took off. I still have no idea if he built a nest up there. I'll have to send someone to check.

"But I certainly won't be going back," Blessing concluded. "You can count on it. Not me!"

Another sip of coffee, followed by a pause of silence during which Blessing studied Marquette.

The professor smiled. “No, Donald. You won't climb the roof at all. This is not part of the work we will do together. " He put a paternal hand on his shoulder and patted him. “You are here as my assistant. And to help me with the anthology. "

Blessing waved a finger in the air, feigning authoritarianism.

"You're not here to chase away birds that plunder the slopes of my roof."

“It's a relief. But if this is part of the tests necessary to work with a character like you ... Well I'm ready! " Donald declared.

"No, no. You will only have to read, write and conduct research. You will only have to get your hands dirty by doing some clerical chores. By the way, have you settled in your new home? "

"Yes, sir. The pension you found for me is perfect. "

“I knew you would like it. Older students should always have someone in charge of cooking and cleaning for them. Those with too many household commitments ... well they never have the time for their work. And since you are writing a novel ... and maybe you will have to give some lessons too ... No, we don't talk about it. Ms. McDonald's retirement is ideal. And you can walk to university. And also come here! "

"I'm really grateful to you for finding it."

"Very well. Therefore. Now I'll pour myself some more coffee and a drop of whiskey, then we'll go upstairs and show you the rest of the house. "

"Will you also show me the place where I will work?"

“Yes, your place at the oars of this splendid galleon, busy navigating the rushing seas of literature. All my slaves have their own cubicle in the computer department! "

Blessing laughed at the expression on Donald's face. “I'm kidding, of course. I have a couple of students who work for me part-time to keep the archives up to date and do some secretarial duties. Amy also gives me a hand. You know, writers have to deal with a lot of paperwork. "

"I guess you need a full-time aide just to read fan mail," Donald observed.

Blessing laughed amiably. "Oh yeah. The boy is well versed in the healthy, old art of flattery. Always a rather exceptional gift, I would say. Come, come my boy. " Blessing raised an eyebrow. “Cross the threshold into the world of Edgar Allan Poe and William Blessing. Abandon all hope, O you who enter! "

Donald followed, happy, feeling like a very lucky man.

Who would have imagined that the short stories made at university during the creative writing course would have brought him this far! He had always loved literature, both that found on the shelves of used book stores and in libraries. He was a voracious reader, enthusiastic about the emotions and purposes of fiction, and it had been a natural consequence of trying to steer his life in that direction. He had a bachelor's degree in English at the University of Iowa, with a pedagogical address in order to qualify for teaching. After university he had worked as a teacher at a high school in Dubuque, continuing to study in the evenings to obtain a master's degree in American literature. Meanwhile, he had also taken up a hobby that was beginning to prove profitable: writing short stories. At first he had devoted himself to detective stories and science fiction, but he soon realized he had an innate flair for horror. Most of his short stories had been published by small magazines such as Cemetery Dance, Bones of the Children, Frights and other semi-professionally run periodicals (several had since been forced to close their doors, such as Inquities and Midnight Graphitti). But some of his short stories had gotten publication in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and other more prestigious magazines (including a very short story in Rage, his first appearance in a monthly for men only). He had also written one of the books of eternal horror necklace based on the well-known TV series Dark Sunset. Unfortunately, it had been virtually rewritten by the television series editor, and his novel had fallen victim to the tendency of publishers to reduce the number of publications of fictional works destined for limited sales. In other words, the book hadn't sold much because it wasn't ambitious enough and the author was not yet a well-known name among readers. But it will soon be, he told himself. the book did not sell much because it was not ambitious enough and the author was not yet a well known name among readers. But it will soon be, he told himself. the book did not sell much because it was not ambitious enough and the author was not yet a well known name among readers. But it will soon be, he told himself.

The thesis he had been discussing to get his master's degree was titled "William Blessing and American Gothic Literature." He had been surprised and thrilled when Blessing had deigned to answer the questions she had asked him in a letter. And when he received a copy of the thesis, William Blessing appreciated Marquette's work so much that he encouraged its publication, as a monograph, by a small university publishing house. They had begun to correspond by e-mail, and when Donald had begun to harbor the ambition of pursuing a doctorate, Blessing had given him her full support. Having read and appreciated not only Donald Marquette's non-fiction but also his short stories, Blessing had proposed that he apply to Johns Hopkins University and had worked to get him a scholarship. Blessing was also curating a huge three-volume Gothic fiction anthology: one dedicated to North American authors, one to the British, and one to writers from the rest of the world. In addition to other editing tasks, Blessing hoped Donald might also be interested in helping him compile the anthology.

Of course, Donald had reacted enthusiastically to the proposal.

Teaching in high school was starting to frustrate him. Obtaining a doctorate from a prestigious university like Johns Hopkins would allow him to aspire to the role of assistant professor at some university. Furthermore, his collaboration with a character of the caliber of Blessing, both academically and on the front of popular fiction, could only have positive effects on his career as a writer.

With Blessing's help, his application was accepted by the Baltimore office. He had arrived in town before the start of the academic year in order to settle in and begin working together with Blessing on the ambitious three-volume anthology.

Now, the prospect of seeing the famous Blessing library with its incredible collection of artifacts, not only relating to Edgar Allan Poe, but also to other writers of the Gothic tradition, caused Donald such an excitement that he ran through it like an electric shock.

Aside from the strange story of the crow on the roof, the day was looking wonderful. Blessing, although clearly disturbed by the episode (and his close encounter with death) was a good person and Donald, although still nervous, felt much more at ease thanks to the kindness and warm welcome of the professor.

What a magnificent experience awaited him upstairs!

Blessing took a quick detour in the direction of the wet bar.

"Let's go," he urged, pouring another drop of whiskey into his cup, this time without diluting it with premium coffee. She smoothed her hair over her head and pointed to the ceiling. His eyes sparkled. It was clear that he loved showing his home and treasures to guests, especially those like Donald Marquette, who could fully appreciate them. "Let's go to the lab and see what's on the operating table."

"Lots of books, I guess," Donald said.

As they walked down the corridor towards the stairs, the front door opened.

"Ah! My wife!" Blessing exclaimed. He drank the whiskey quickly and wiped his lips with a sleeve. He passed the cup to Donald. "Do me a favor: hide the evidence, okay?" He took a balsamic candy from his pocket, freed it of the wrapper and put it in his mouth.

"Okay," Donald indulged. He paused for a moment to think, then walked back towards the kitchen. He walked over to the sink and turned on the hot water tap, rinsing all traces of whiskey out of the cup.

When he closed it, he heard two voices in the adjoining room: that of a man and that of a woman.

"Luckily you didn't get hurt."

“I guarantee you one thing: no one will be able to get me on that roof a second time. But come now, dear, Donald Marquette has arrived. "

«Splendid! I couldn't wait to meet him. "

The woman's voice was rich, sweet, mellifluous.

Marquette came out of the kitchen, furtively wiping his hands on his shirt, preparing himself for the encounter with what he imagined as an energetic and outgoing woman. Perhaps with a few streaks of gray in her hair, but solid in physique, with a gentle and mature smile, and the balance necessary to guarantee a great writer and academic like Blessing a firm anchor to rely on to face the raging storms of life.

"Donald! William has told me so much about you, ”the woman confessed when she saw him.

Donald Marquette blinked and froze.

Amy Blessing was one of the most beautiful and charming women he had ever met in her life.

And he couldn't have been more than twenty-five.

6

The lights go out - they all go out!

And on each trembling figure.

The curtain, funeral drape,

It descends with the fury of a storm,

And the angels, pale and exhausted,

They rise and reveal themselves

That the tragedy has the title "Man"

And the hero is the Conqueror Worm.

EDGAR A. POE, "Ligeia"

In the basement was a girl with a dagger stuck in her chest.

Baxter Brittle somehow managed to control the tremor in his hands as he poured a generous correction of French cognac into a glass of Coke.

A very, very dead girl.

Brittle drank gratefully, allowing the alcohol to detach him a fraction more of the problem he was struggling with.

The familiar atmosphere of the place he was in also helped him: the tactile sensation of the bottles, the smell of beers and cigarettes consumed the previous evening. Luckily Ed, the cleaning man, had arrived early as usual and had cleaned up the bar after the night's bacchanals. Baxter and the other bartenders made it on their own during the week, but on Saturday and Sunday mornings they absolutely needed the help of a professional.

Now all the empty beer cans were in a black sack on the sidewalk in front of the club, along with the other Friday night wrecks. Too bad the scavengers don't come by to collect the corpses too, Baxter thought.

It was a beautiful spring day outside, unfortunately. One of the best qualities of his bar were the shutters on the windows, which allowed him to control the interior lighting. Most of the time he kept them tightly closed. Baxter was proud that he was able to create a perpetual night in his club. At that moment, in fact, the shutters were closed. The interior was lit only by the dim light of a neon ceiling, by a few lamps behind the counter and by the light signal placed above the emergency exit that led to the back. Still, there was far too much light for Baxter Brittle's liking, given the delicate condition it was in. He was happy to have got into the habit of occasionally wearing dark glasses, inside and outside the club:

He knocked out the rest of the Coke, giving the cognac access to his body. Then he poured himself more, neat, and set the glass on the counter. Then he reviewed his domain.

Thank God there is no one, he said to himself.

He knew that sooner or later some staggering customer would show up, but he wanted to take advantage of every minute of peace at his disposal to get his brain back up and running.

After the intimate encounter with blood and death he had managed to drag himself to his upstairs apartment. He had taken a long and rejuvenating hot shower, which had contributed greatly to getting him back on track to regain a state if nothing else close to sanity. As she rubbed the shampoo into her hair and let the steam caress herself she had reached a conclusion.

Whatever had happened the previous night, there was time to deal with it.

Enough time had elapsed for some key memories to return to take shape in his mind, the most important of which was the fact that the girl had come from far, far away; she had run away from home, if she remembered correctly, and had just arrived in town, where she didn't know anyone. The other Goths were probably having a similar hangover, Baxter reflected. Even if any of them remembered what had happened the night before, he was reasonably sure they wouldn't go to the police. No, he knew too much about them and wielded enough power that he could count on them going to the bar, checking the situation and discussing what to do with him. No one had shown up yet, but that was no surprise. Many members of the gang never got out of bed before sunset. Baltimore Vampires! Better that way.

After the shower he had put on clean clothes, locked the access to the basement with a padlock and opened the front door of the room. He had concluded that the choice not to open the place could have aroused some suspicion. No, better hold on one more day, face another typical Saturday at work, then indulge in the horror in the basement at night after closing or the next day. That was why he had closed the basement door with a padlock. Sure, the cops could have broken through it, but it was an eventuality that he would have faced the moment it happened. For now, the right thing was to make the best of a bad situation, get enough drugs and alcohol into the body to appear normal, and continue serving customers drinks as usual.

He had just begun to think clearly, finally free from the wedge of terror and anxiety that seemed to penetrate his ass, when the door opened and the man dressed all in black entered.

He was a tall, muscular man. He had a V-shaped chest and was wearing a pair of tight blue jeans. From the immense shoulders a well-made coat hung down to the heels of the black leather boots. The long, wavy hair highlighted a face that seemed carved in stone. The eyes were set deep between the browbones and cheekbones, looking at Baxter with amazing intensity.

"Hey, Brittle," the man greeted, revealing wolfish white teeth in a predatory smile. "How about making me a nice vodka martini?" Shaken, not shaken. Just like you."

The smile turned into a grin.

Baxter stared at him.

He knew that man.

Yeah, she knew him ... and the pieces of the mosaic began to fit together.

Last evening.

This man was here in the bar last night!

But was he among those who went down to the basement?

Baxter Brittle's mind was running at full speed, but he couldn't remember anything else. However, that was enough for now. There was something important about that man's presence. Vital.

Hard to say exactly what it was, but he could buy time by making the cocktail he ordered.

Baxter smiled. "Hey friend. You are the first customer of the day. Double cocktail at a special price. "

"Cocktails are always paid for with more than just money," the man observed. He had a clear and resonant voice, full of irony.

Baxter forced a laugh. "Already. But they go down well. "

He took out the stainless steel shaker and used it as a scoop to scoop just the right amount of crushed ice. A generous dose of vodka, a tear of vermouth. Cover. Manual movement for shaking. Quickly, without allowing the ice to melt, he placed one of his classic martini glasses on a placemat in front of the customer. The mesh on top of the shaker held the ice as she poured the clear concoction. It was a ritual with precise rules, and the execution of the various phases gave him a strange but familiar comfort.

"Olive or twist?"

"What is it, a Charles Dickens novel?"

"Like? Ah, I understand." He looked at the man and winked at him as if to compliment, pointing his index finger at him. "Good. It's a bit early to understand certain jokes on the fly. "

"I believe it ... after what happened last night." The man leaned over the counter, showing his teeth in a Jack Nicholson grin. “I'll take both the olive and the lemon peel. Thank you."

Baxter opened the drawer that contained the condiment tray, selected a large stuffed Spanish olive, and skewered it with a toothpick. Then he pulled a curl of peel off a lemon and gently dropped it into the drink. With great caution, he ventured: "I don't think I understand what you mean."

He studied the man's face, trying to remember something more, but got nothing but the vague certainty that the man had somehow been involved in the events of the night.

The man took the end of the toothpick between his fingers, waved it for a few moments in the cocktail, then ate the olive. He chewed it methodically, then drank a finger of the drink, his piercing eyes still fixed on Baxter's.

“I hope you don't want to see me as anything but an ally, Baxter. I'll tell you more. I want to reassure you that I am in full agreement and harmony with everything you do in life. But I can guide you in the direction you wish to go. "

"I'm sorry, but I'm not following you." Baxter was afraid, but he was also irritated. “Look, I admit I drank too much last night. I don't remember anything that happened after ten. "

"But you recognize me."

"Vaguely."

"Good. Only this counts. By the way, make one too. I'll offer. "

"Thank you."

Baxter took a bottle of vodka, poured himself a shot, and took a sip. The sting of alcohol in his throat gave him a moment's respite from the anguish that was building in him. "What are you trying to do, to blackmail me?" Sigh. "If you're on the hunt for money, I'm afraid you've got the wrong person."

The man sipped his cocktail, continuing to stare intently at Baxter. It looked like a giant snake that had trapped its prey in a corner, busy looking at it and preparing for the deadly lunge.

“We are both looking for money, I realize that. But if we manage to develop a certain synchrony, those too will come later. " The man straightened his back, relaxed. “Your awakening must have been pretty shocking, isn't it Baxter Brittle? And I want to help you get out of the situation you're in. "

Baxter finished the contents of the glass. «Enough with the mince words. What are you proposing to me? "

"Did you see that movie, Pulp Fiction?"

"Sure."

“John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson accidentally blow the brains out of the guy in the back seat of their car. The result? A big mess in the back of the car. They take her to Quentin Tarantino's garage. The boss of the two hit men calls Harvey Keitel, who knows everything that needs to be done before Tarantino's wife arrives. He is the 'man who solves problems'. "

"What do you mean?"

"Call me Harvey." The man smiled. “You have a problem. I can solve it for you. Plain and simple. "

Baxter shook his head. "If you know I have a problem, then maybe you would be kind enough to tell me what happened!"

“Maybe you better not know, Baxter. You will sleep much better in the future if you just try to put this bad thing behind your back. And I'll take care ... of lifting dead weights in your life. Nobody else knows, Baxter. And nobody cares about the victim. In any case, I have the talent and the power to erase any trace that could lead anyone here looking for it. "

Baxter was infinitely grateful that there were no other patrons in the bar. The very essence of her person seemed to have closed its doors from the moment she saw that dagger stuck in the girl's body. Now something very like hope was taking shape in the back of his mind. He knew perfectly well that this man could be a strange kind of informant. Perhaps he was an investigator who dealt with satanic sects, engaged in investigating the world of the Goths and who had stumbled upon something much bigger than he had anticipated: the opportunity to nail the author of a hateful murder to the detriment of a poor innocent victim.

No. Scanning the man's stony face, Baxter read in it ambitions of another kind. Ambitions from which he already felt infected.

Baxter took a pack of French cigarettes. He took one and put it between his lips. That simple gesture was enough to make him feel stronger.

"Tell me your name. First I need to know what your name is, ”he explained, offering the stranger a cigarette.

The man took a Gauloise and brought it to his mouth. From one of the large pockets of his coat he took a lighter. He lit the cigarette. As he then brought the flame to the tobacco tube between his lips, Baxter Brittle noticed that the lighter was made of wood and metal, with the inlaid appearance of one of Notre Dame's famous gargoyles.

"Prince. My name is Mick Prince. "

Mick Prince. Yes, he had heard that name before. The night before, of course ... But also in another context.

«You are a subscriber! A subscriber to The Tome. IS..."

And you offered us stories and poems ... The most revolting and malignant prose and verses I have ever read in my life.

And I refused to publish even a single comma.

"... you sent us some material, if I'm not mistaken."

The man seemed to light up in a kind of hellish pleasure. "Exact. Nothing that matched your needs, I think. But this is one of the things we can discuss. You see, a whole new dimension is about to open up to you and to Tome Press. " A puff of smoke momentarily darkened his face. "And I want to show you how to get there."

Baxter understood everything in a flash. He bought time by inhaling a thick, aromatic puff of smoke and exhaling slowly through his nostrils while examining the tip of the carcinogenic Gallic stick.

That man was a psychopath. One of the unpleasant side effects that emerged among the extremist groups of readers of his magazine, of which he was editor and editor, and of the various books of the Tome Press. He belonged to that category of sad characters that Baxter knew existed but had always tried to avoid. But now, it seemed, one of them had managed to sneak onto the scene.

What had happened the previous night?

If only he could remember! Only by remembering could he judge to what extent he trusted that dark creature.

Brittle attempted to mentally reconstruct the scene. He imagined seeing the hedonistic sybaritics of the Salon, high and drunk, as they danced with Death ... Salon des Gothiques but also of personal freedom and the joie de vivre of Baxter Brittle.

Was it he who had held the knife?

Was it he who had screamed for joy as he penetrated the girl's chest with the blade?

No. The risk would have been too great. But the stranger knew about the body in the basement, and as well as not seeming at all willing to report it to the authorities, he was offering him help. He wanted to take care of the problem, solve it, making it disappear in a concrete cast of a viaduct under construction, or in the deep waters of the Chesapeake Bay, weighted by an anchor and destined to become food for the crabs.

Why not? Why not accept his help?

A deal with the devil?

No. Of course not. The devil did not exist, just as God did not exist.

As Brother Crowley said, dear old Aleister: Do what you want, that's the only law.

Well, what he wanted to do was to avoid being locked up in a prison or a state house, to offer fresh meat of the highest quality to sodomite predators!

"And why would you ever do that?" he asked. "Why do you want to help me?"

“I want to move to Baltimore. I want to join the Goths. "

"And why? Anyone with a modicum of ambition escapes Baltimore as soon as they can. If I didn't have this bar, I myself would be long gone. "

The man's agate eyes twinkled and narrowed. “Because I believe you have… potential. And I am convinced in the depths of my soul that I am the key to this potential. "

Again, her lips parted and formed that strong, hard smile.

Baxter Brittle shivered. The man had an impressive dark side. He tried to recall the poems and stories that the man had sent to The Tome. He vaguely remembered scenes of gutting, decaying bodies dripping with fetid humors, skinned children, pleading chants to forgotten gods ... the usual litany of adolescent death worship. But the material written by that man had something different; it contained an unhealthy intensity, an unbridled ferocity that was alarming. Frightening. And if it had contained only a hint, a shadow of literary value, Brittle would certainly have published part of it. However, the writings were rather childish, devoid of any sense of structure, rhythm, personality or other qualities that might make them noteworthy ...

Oh yeah. The man's ferocity made Baxter Brittle shiver.

But he was also intrigued by it.

And if he really wanted to save Baxter Brittle's ass ...

Why stop it?

He had no illusions. It was clear that he would have to pay a price. The man wrote like a devil and was proud of his work; he wanted to publish it. Plain and simple. Ah, the literary ambition! What a fascinating human condition! Sure, man ... All in all these poems are not bad at all. And the short stories ... well, they could benefit from a revision, some improvement in tone and smoothness. But we will take care of this. Sure! And while we won't be able to release more than a certain number of them in The Tome ... there may be an alternative. Naturally! A signed and numbered edition for collectors. Illustrated by ... by whom? Of course, Alan Clark or Harry O. Morris would be perfect for the dust jacket, and then one of those young emerging artists of Chaos! Comics or Verotik for internal illustrations. I really think we can find a deal, sir. And by the way, thanks again for making that naked spit girl disappear from my closet. I'm done with the alcohol-fueled surgery sessions, I guarantee you!

"Mmm. Yes ... the gang is always looking for new forces! "

The man held out his hand. He wore fingerless leather gloves. The movement of the hand was accompanied by a jingle of chains and bracelets.

Baxter gripped the glove in his hand. "Welcome to the club."

“No revelry tonight. Try to stay sober, ”the man advised. “You are a lucky asshole. Nobody else remembers what happened last night. "

"And how do you know?" Baxter inquired. Not that it worried him that much. The gang members were bound by a blood pact, and although some of them had been present at the unfortunate, accidental "human sacrifice," certainly now all suffered from the same confused amnesia as Baxter. No one would have been stupid enough to go to the police.

"Trust me, brother." He looked around. "Don't you ever have any customers at this hour?"

"Yup. It's just that they haven't seen each other yet. "

“Just as I thought. I only recommend one thing: keep the basement tightly closed. I'll fix everything tonight, after closing. " The man's long coat came alive and swung like a curtain closing to conceal a mystery. “I'll be back here at midnight. Be found. " He strode towards the door. In the doorway, he turned and once again gave his maniacal smile to Baxter Brittle. "It's nice to be part of the gothic tradition, isn't it, Baxter?"

And with that he disappeared, a black patch against the bright background of a sunny Saturday morning.

7

Yes, it's true! I have always been and still am very nervous, extraordinarily nervous; but why do you insist that I am crazy?

EDGAR A. POE; The noise of the heart

She gently took his hand in hers and gave him the softest handshake he had ever received in his entire life. The hand was soft, with long, elegant fingers, and he wished he could feel their touch on his body forever.

«Er ... Ah. Yes. Nice to meet you, lady ... "

What are you saying, you idiot? Caught off guard, Donald Marquette was looking for the right words. "Amy. Yes, please, Amy. "

"I was going to show Donald the house," said Professor Blessing.

Amy Blessing's eyes sparkled and her smile turned mischievous. “You should get paid at least ten dollars, Donald. All that old junk of yours can get pretty boring in the long run. "

Donald laughed and reluctantly released her hand. "You can't imagine how long I've dreamed of seeing that junk." He wasn't sure he'd been able to regain his ability to speak consistently. Deep down he still felt like an embarrassed teenager whose breath had been taken away. “And to be here, to meet you… to come to Baltimore to study at the university. It really seems like a dream come true. "

She laughed, expressing an almost childlike joy. "Good. It's nice to be part of someone's wonderful dream. "

Donald Marquette had never known a woman like Amy Blessing before. The first time he laid eyes on her it was like physically receiving a blow, a velvety blow that shook him in every fiber. She wasn't tall, five feet six at the most, but her vitality was such that her physical presence was overwhelming. She had long, perfectly styled blond hair, which fell over a simple black blouse and stroked neither small nor large breasts. She wore a pair of Guess blue jeans, which hugged her waist but allowed her rear to express itself in all its gorgeous apricot shape. At her feet, Reebok's simple black trainers acquired great femininity. A trickle of makeup accentuated the upturned nose, he had a sharp but not angular chin and high cheekbones. However, perhaps the most striking feature was the eyes. He had large hazel eyes, lively and sparkling; the eyes of innocence hungry for experience. Every gesture and movement of that woman betrayed a bright and vital temperament. Simply put, she was so beautiful that looking at her was painful.

And her eyes scrutinized him with genuine interest, as if to ask him: Who are you? I am very interested. I really want to know. I care about it.

Donald Marquette hadn't known many people in his life who really cared about him.

"Well, dreams are forbidden here," said Professor Blessing. “Only nightmares are allowed. They are the way to wealth, fame and well-being! " He laughed, emphasizing his irony.

"How are you retired?" Amy wanted to know. "Have you settled down? Should there be any problems, we have a guest room at your disposal. "

"No, no. I arrived yesterday and everything is going great. The lady who runs the pension is already spoiling me, ”Donald said. "I still haven't gotten used to the fact that someone makes me breakfast in the morning."

"What a mess," Amy said. “Well, you'll have to get used to eating with us too, because you'll certainly be invited often. I find the project you are working on with our dear doctor to be very exciting. " His eyes sparkled with happiness «You know, I'll give you a hand too. Of course, within the limits of my possibilities ... I'm quite busy. "

“Amy has also started writing, in the spare time that her studies to earn a master's degree in music allow her. If she weren't so busy you probably wouldn't have had this job, Donald, ”Blessing pointed out.

"I'm afraid you'll have to put up with my music studies while you work," Amy warned playfully. “I assure you that I try to keep my instrument well tuned. As for my performances ... and compositions ... Well, I promise you nothing. "

Donald didn't let the opportunity pass. "Ah! And what instrument do you play? "

"The piano," she replied.

"Concert piano," Blessing said. "And sometimes I think she only married me for my grand Steinway." He put his arms around her. She surrendered to his embrace with feline languor, raising her head to look at him with love, admiration and something else even more intimate.

"To tell you the truth, love, I prefer your organ."

Suddenly he blushed and put a hand to his mouth, laughing as he looked at Donald.

“Oh, what a gaffe. But the fact is that it really has a very beautiful organ, you know, a pipe organ, like those in churches ... "

Blessing blushed slightly too. "Now all you have to do is provide measurements and proportions, dear, and at that point my male ego will be definitively confirmed for the benefit of our guest." He smiled sadly.

Donald blinked, feigning confusion. "You must excuse me, but I didn't understand anything!"

Both Blessings laughed. Along with the embarrassment, every residual fragment of ice, of formality, also disappeared.

William Blessing reached out and placed it paternally on Donald's shoulders. But Donald paid no attention to that physical contact as to the impact of the scent of Amy's hair, floral and musky at the same time. “Don't worry, boy. Stand beside me and you will soon see that you too will be able to say nonsense over and over again. Now, how about we go and do that round the house I promised you? "

"In other words, I'm being asked to go get some food," Amy pointed out. "You're staying with us, right Donald?"

Professor Blessing pretended to faint and raised the back of one hand to his forehead, assuming a melodramatic pose. "What a shame! My secret has been revealed! My status as a politically correct writer is lost! I force my wife to prepare lunches. "

She raised an eyebrow and placed her hands on her hips. “As long as you don't send me around barefoot and perpetually pregnant, I guess I can handle the situation. But please stay, Donald. At lunch the professor can be so boring ... "

"All right, thanks," Donald agreed.

"Magnificent!" Amy waved to them both and walked away to get busy. Donald had to force himself to take his eyes off her. It cost him a considerable effort of concentration to bring his attention back to what the professor was saying as he led his way up the staircase with the period handrails. Her perfume, the traces of her passage in the air, seemed to persist as if for a splendid witchcraft.

“You are truly a unique couple. If I ever had to tell all this in public, they would come en masse to apply for a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. "

"I think our previous contacts have done a lot to make us feel comfortable with you, Donald," Blessing explained amiably. “You are an intelligent, talented, hard-working young man, and very promising in your field. It is my pride to be able to identify such qualities. Also, you have something that is perhaps as important as all these other qualities. You have initiative. "

Unintentionally, Donaid nodded. "I would say more precisely unbridled ambition."

Blessing stopped at the top of the stairs and turned, evidently impressed by the intensity, sincerity and conviction with which the new assistant had spoken.

"Well then. Far be it from me to do more than facilitate the rise of our new literary star! "

Donaid smiled at the streak of irony in the joke. But he also felt a searing tinge of anger.

Wait and see, smug bastard that you are nothing else.

I'll show you.

I'll show it to everyone.

'If I'm not mistaken,' said Donaid quietly, 'even as a boy Edgar Allan Poe was convinced that he would become a great poet. And I think I remember a few sentences from your early works in which you described your life's mission. That is why I am here, Professor Blessing. Bill. To be in contact with a character of great ambition and inspiration. "

"I have to repeat that compliments are always welcome when they come from the heart." He pursed his lips, pretending to be mortified. "Mmm. I believe you are referring to that short essay I wrote at the time of my doctorate, 'On the wings of Poe'. "

"Exact."

“I was quite young and foolish then. Convinced of my ideas as only young people can be. Now I'm just silly. "

“I understand, but then you invoked Poe as your inspirer, claiming that at times you even feel as if you were his reincarnation. And anyway it was as if I was invoking his spirit. You almost claimed ownership. An authentic display of audacity. A truly stunning piece. Power and passion, an explosive mix, yet managed with masterful control. God, it gave me goosebumps when I read it. " Donald shook his head in genuine and total admiration. "Literature possesses such power."

"Yup. In this you are right. It transcends the spirit. It transcends art. It transcends space and time and the petty things that our life is burdened with, ”Blessing said.

A pause of shared seriousness followed.

Donald Marquette noticed his new mentor staring at him strangely and concerned. He was weighing it, judging it, but at the same time a union was forming ... And a shiver of dark brightness caressed his heart. He felt a communion of spirits, but also an inexplicable sense of danger. And the two together turned out to be as exciting as the thought of Amy Blessing's lips gently touching his earlobe.

Blessing laughed again, breaking the spell. “Eh, yes, Poe! Poe! Let's go do something more than invoke his spirit. Let us invoke the glorious road that he has shown us! " He motioned for the host to follow him. He pulled out a set of keys. The sturdy door they reached was equipped with a combination lock and protected by an alarm system. Blessing typed a sequence of numbers. The light on the electronic device went from red to green and something in the door clicked.

Blessing inserted one of the keys to the large, jangling bunch in her hand. As he opened the door, Donald felt a rush of fresh air.

"Mmm ... Are you sure this isn't the HP Lovecraft room?" Donald asked.

“God, what sagacity! One line after another. No, it is only advisable to keep the temperature inside the room low; to better preserve the collection, you understand. " Blessing made a grand gesture improvising an imitation of Vincent Price. “Come on, my honored guest. Forgive me if I don't have the candlestick with me, but I'm having it polished. "

Blessing reached inside and flipped a switch. The room was flooded with soft light. He turned to look at his guest with a maniacal glint in his eye, then preceded him over the threshold.

Incredible, Donald thought as he entered the room.

The first thing that struck him was not so much the contents of the room, but the order that reigned there. It was a large room, with Victorian-style finishes, but furnished with modern tables, bookcases and display cabinets, all impeccably lit by hidden spotlights, or with light sources set in the lower part to give the objects a sense of depth greater than that given by three size only. There were clothing, glasses, pens, combs, glasses, bottles, shoes, furniture, sketches, paintings, photographs and daguerreotypes, all beautifully displayed and labeled.

But mostly there were books.

Books, magazines, manuscripts. Letters, notebooks, blocks.

The room was crammed with them, and their main subject indicated by the central position reserved for a bust of Pallas topped by an embalmed raven; on the wall, above the sculpture, a large, beautifully framed portrait, the subject of which flaunted the familiar arched brow, thin lips, mustache, dandy's clothes and gloomy gaze, with eyes that seemed to hardly survive their own darkness.

EDGAR A. POE were the words engraved on the plate under the fine portrait.

"You will have plenty of time to inspect everything closely, at your convenience," Blessing assured. "Some clothing and artifacts that belonged to man and date back to his time ..." He advanced into the room, gently stroking the glass surfaces of the furniture with a finger. "Letters. Autographed pieces. Everything. Testimonies and documents of the time spent on earth by a great person. And, of course, all the extant editions of his works, including noteworthy foreign editions, pirated editions and unauthorized translations. Tamerlane. Al Aaraaf. Tales of the grotesque and the arabesque. Collected Tales. Eureka. All first editions. "

He spoke emphatically, but Donald could barely hear his voice. He walked over to the cabinet Blessing pointed to and stared at it. The books in it looked rather modest, and they were undeniably old. However, they seemed to shine a further light in the eyes of the young writer and scholar.

The first editions of the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Had he held those volumes himself in trembling hands?

Had he autographed them for his admirers? Had he accidentally spilled wine on their pages? They were the children whose childhood he had been able to follow. Even in his wildest delusions, had their creator ever imagined how big they would become, how much admiration they would arouse?

“Of course, the rarer copies are protected by made-to-order cases, mostly from the great Baltimore private libraries of the time. Custom bindings were all the rage in those days. Publishers often made uncut copies available to their most passionate and wealthy clients for them to take to their favorite binders. It was a status symbol. They made use of exquisite craftsmen.

“Also, I was able to track down all the magazines from Poe's time in which his work appeared. Not only the Southern Literary Messenger, Burton's, The Mirror, The Broadway Journal, but also all the other publications in which he appeared or collaborated as an editor. I also own a few series of magazines that he may have collaborated on under pseudonyms, a practice in which we know he often indulged. I also believe I have discovered some short stories and poems previously not attributed to Poe. " Blessing's eyes burned with enthusiasm. “I'm writing an article on the subject right now, in preparation for the release of a booklet. Try to imagine! New stories and new poems by Edgar Allan Poe. "

Donald Marquette was speechless. It was unheard of. Hundreds of scholars must have thoroughly investigated Poe's life, his works and the magazines of his time; how was it possible that no one had noticed the origin of such material? His more rational half refused to believe in such a possibility. However, the Poe scholar in him found the idea of such a prospect exceedingly exciting.

“What you see here, Donald,” Blessing continued, “is the largest private collection of its kind. That's why I don't own a second home in the Hamptons! " He smiled. “I have invested too much time and money in all of this, but such are the privileges offered by being the descendant of a wealthy family of academics. My family included men of letters and scholars even before the American Civil War. Many pieces in my collection, and of course this house itself, are the result of the foresight of my ancestors. Even considering the resources at my disposal today, I strongly doubt that I would have been able to put together such a collection on my own. "

His gaze became distant, absent, as if he were having a vision. After a short pause Blessing turned back to Donald and smiled. “It is a source of constant inspiration for me to keep so much of Poe's life here. And I find just as invigorating the knowledge that I only have to take a short car trip to be able to visit his tomb, his earthly remains. It is as if all this constitutes an arcane microphone through which his spirit speaks to me, identifies with me, puts himself at my service as I am at the service of the voice that found sad and painful expression on his lips. "

Blessing produced a sly smile.

"Of course, all this also has considerable material value."

"Sure," Donald said. “But that's not why you made the collection your reason for living. You did it because you have passion in your blood. "

“And because I had the means to do it. The Blessing blessing, the blessing of the Blessing, we could define it with a play on words. I have other manuscripts and books scattered around the house. And elsewhere, safe; not even this big house would be able to contain all the material. " He walked over to the bust and touched the splendid example of taxidermy perched above it. «The collection is my hobby. At one time I was totally absorbed in it, perhaps to excessive levels ... then I met Amy. "

"Excessive? It sounds like an admirable passion to me, ”Donald assured him. "I mean, you yourself admitted that you have the time and money ..."

“Money, of course. Don't get me wrong, Amy appreciates my collection. It's just that it brought a good deal of mental balance back into my life. " Blessing shook her head and smiled. “I'm not saying I was deranged before. Maybe at times just a little monomaniacal. " He raised his hands to point to Poe's portrait. «God, how happy I am! Happy! I can't imagine what he did to deserve such contentment. No, contentment is not the right word, Donald. Happiness, Donald. This is the right word. Happiness. Thank goodness Zeus and company don't really hang out in Olympus. Otherwise they would be envious! " She caught the look on Donald's face, turned to face him, and pointed her index finger at him. "Of course. I know what you are thinking. How Is it possible that a mad and celibate professor could have known a wonderful creature like Amy? " His eyes lit up. “A wonderful young creature like Amy. He's twenty-five, you know? Twenty-five! "

I got it right, Donald told himself.

“I met her when she was twenty-two, at a world convention of fantasy authors in Providence, Rhode Island. He was in town to visit some relatives and he had known that I would be attending a meeting with the readers, to autograph copies of my new novel. She was not particularly fond of fantasy fiction, and at the time I was best known as a critic and writer of short stories. Black Soul Lurking had just been released, and rather muted, I must admit; at the request of my publisher I was there to promote it, even knowing that the congress was reserved for only seven hundred and fifty participants. But who knows how she knew my work, and was intrigued enough by it to come and see what I looked like. " He smiled thoughtfully. “Of course, I fell in love with her the moment I saw her.

While Blessing, the rapt gaze, abandoned herself to her pleasant memories, an awkward silence fell between the two men. Donald found himself desperately looking for something neutral to say. The impression left on him by Amy Blessing still hovered around him, delicately but insistently. "Did he already play the piano?" he finally ventured.

"Like? Ah, sure. Yes. And she was very good, but the thing that struck me most was that she composed. Creativity! This is the greatest gift that God has given to us human beings. Creativity and the ability to love. "

"And to collect!" Donald added.

"Well yes. However Amy was quite fascinated by all of this, I can guarantee you. But it was she who suggested that perhaps I should have spent more time on the creative side of my career. To make a serious attempt, in short. " He grinned. “And in fact, at the end of the academic year, during which I hope to settle down and complete one of the anthologies I am preparing with you, I will take a sabbatical. That could turn into permanent leave. We will rent a villa in Italy, overlooking the Mediterranean, where Amy will devote herself to composition, and I will write two novels. " Blessing showed him two fingers. "Count them. Two novels. See, I've signed a new contract that commits me to writing three novels, and I've almost finished the first one. I should have finished it this summer, actually.

"This promises to be a lucky year for everyone," Donald said. "I can honestly say that I have never been more excited by the direction my life seems to be heading."

“Then we're a good couple, Donald. A nice couple." She looked around happily, perusing her treasures, then rubbed her hands. “But before we go downstairs for lunch, let me show you where we'll work together. What do you say?"

"I can not wait."

On the opposite side of the corridor there was a living room. Donald peered in as he passed the half-open door. Chiffon curtains, tasteful wallpaper, antique chairs and a sofa. On one side stood a Steinway grand piano: black, shiny, elegant. The room smelled of fresh flowers.

"Is that the music room?"

"Yup. I thought I'd let Amy show you. You will hear it play often, I'm sure. But come now. I had this space prepared especially for you by our secretary, and I'm eager to show it to you. "

Donald followed him to the top of another flight of stairs. "How many floors does this house have?"

“Four, not counting the basement. The bedrooms and the living area are on the third. My studio is on the fourth. Going up and down stairs keeps me fit. And I go to university on foot. "

They reached the landing on the third floor. "Here, here's our office, and the two guest rooms." He pointed to one. “You can use this when you have to work late. Or when we've drunk too much and you won't be able to stagger back to retirement. "

Donald smiled. "Very well."

Blessing led him into a large room filled with desks, cabinets, shelves, filing cabinets, and computers. Again the scent of flowers (violets?), This time mixed with the smell of paper and toner for laser printers. Donald thought he could almost feel the taste of work and success in the air, tinged with a vague scent of stamp glue.

Blessing's index finger directed her attention to a corner of the room. Donald couldn't help but notice a stack of paperback copies of Blessing's second horror novel, The Black Waiting Room, on a desk.

After years of hard work in the anonymous realm of "serious" fiction, which had produced a series of well-written, intellectually engaged but emotionally arid works, Blessing had begun to write short stories inspired by Poe's fundamental creative principles. At first it was a personal challenge, to verify their abilities (those who are unable to create turn to teaching, reciting the maxim); but then he had acquired sufficient confidence to attempt the leap in quality. A lurking black soul would have summed up all the author's beliefs and interpretations relating to the tradition of Gothic literature. It was the book he had made it to, his Rosemary's Baby, his Exorcist, his Shining, his Ghost Stories.

And so it happened that, to his surprise and, at times, consternation, Blessing had experienced great commercial success.

Blessing's work contained something that had awakened a new wave of interest in the gothic tradition based on a taste for suspense and horror. The publishing market did not react with such enthusiasm to the appearance of a new author on the scene since Stephen King's debut. And, unlike King, critics around the world went out of their way to praise Blessing's novels and short story collections.

When asked what he attributed to the success of his books, Blessing replied simply: "Accessible literary values."

Seven million copies sold in the United States alone! Donald Marquette recalled admiringly.

"Here." Blessing's voice broke the spell. "What do you think about it?"

The question immediately shook Donald from his reverie. He turned and looked at what Blessing was indicating.

In one corner of the room a brand new desk had been set up on which a Compaq Computer, also new, was displayed, next to it a filing cabinet, a bookcase, a printer and an ergonomically designed office chair to ensure maximum comfort.

On the wall was a framed portrait of Edgar Allan Poe. Next, a Picasso poster. On the desk had been placed a bouquet of flowers held together by a ribbon, and the note that accompanied it read: “Welcome Donald, to the room of noble literary enterprises ... and of stupid video games at will, if you please. William and Amy Blessing ».

"I'm speechless," Donald said, coming closer. "Video games. Uau! "

"Already. We have organized everything for you. If I remember correctly, you called yourself a disorganized spirit. But even before I met Amy, I realized that having a well-organized office is absolutely essential to freeing the creative spirit. So we have taken the liberty of providing you with everything you need. If you wish, you can also use this office to write your stuff. Of course we wouldn't want it to interfere with the work you do for us, but if you should be inspired… ”Blessing shook her head, as if he had been suddenly kidnapped by a muse. "The creativity. The inspiration. We love them here, Donald. They are our guides, and we must revere them. Do you understand? Reverence them. Too many people think that writers just sit down, start ringing words and pum! done. But is not so!"

"I couldn't agree with you more," Donald assured him. "And besides ..." He was about to complete his expression when he suddenly saw something that made him gasp. Neatly gathered between two lion-shaped wooden bookends, he noticed a number of magazines and a single paperback novel that were familiar to him. He recognized the publications only after an initial moment of shock, after which he was moved to the point of not being able to utter a word anymore.

"Writing is difficult," Blessing explained. "You must always keep an eye on the evidence that you are capable of doing it, don't you think?"

"My published stories!" Donald laughed. “My stupid romance Dark Sunset. You have them all! "

“I told you I'm a collector. I have my contacts. But you have to understand that they are only there to be consulted. They remain mine. " Blessing smiled warmly. “And I hope that during your stay here you can find time to autograph them, for Amy and for me. All except the short story published by Rage. My wife might misunderstand, ”he laughed.

"You are so kind. Thank you! Of course I'll sign them for you, ”Donald replied.

Blessing leaned forward and ran her thumb over the collection of literature. He pulled out a neatly printed magazine, with a rather hard cover, which gave the impression of being some kind of cross between a literary magazine and a quality paperback.

"The Tome," he murmured. "They posted some short stories and a couple of poems for you," he said to himself.

"Yup. And I think they're also interested in publishing a collection of my work, ”Donald added.

"And their headquarters are right here in Baltimore."

"Yup. I thought I'd drop by one of these days. You know, to greet them, do some public relations with the editors. "

Blessing looked down at the cover of the magazine.

The cover featured a beautiful reproduction of a medieval-style engraving depicting Satan in the form of a goat, crouched in the center of a pentacle adorned with Barbie and Ken copulating in various positions. The goat showed fake vampire teeth, wore dark glasses and a velvet Dracula cloak. In one paw he was holding an electric guitar. In the other, a huge ganja joint, the mother of all joints.

Donald felt slightly uncomfortable, sensing Blessing's disapproval.

"These are the people I see dressed up as monsters and vampires at some of the fantasy conventions I attend, aren't they?" he asked sadly.

"Well, so to speak," Donald replied. “I'm not sure if they attend conventions. But I think they can be called a branch of the Goths. "

“The Goths. I have always found them rather harmless. A subculture that is in some ways fascinating, I dare say. " Blessing flipped through the magazine. 'Disturbing English rock'n'roll. European affectations. Layers of makeup. Arrogance. Skin. No, let's not neglect the skin. And ... decay. This is the term I was looking for. Byronic decadence. "

"It's just an RPG."

“Oh, sure. But I think the problem with the American subculture is that it doesn't offer enough variety. Then young people invent their own, affirming their individuality through group rituals and behaviors, ”Blessing concluded, realizing too late that he had moved on to adopt the usual professorial and academic tone. “I hope they pay; for the published material, I mean. "

"A few cents a word."

"Mmm. Better than most literary magazines. " Blessing looked intrigued. "Interesting. I could make it into an article, and… ”He was reading the inside flap of the cover. "Publisher and director, Baxter Brittle." The expression on Blessing's face became focused. He frowned. «This name is not new to me ... Ah, sure. I have received some letters and phone calls from this individual. He wanted me to write to him about Edgar Poe's influence on Aleister Crowley and contemporary paganism. Of course all this is absurd! I tried to explain it to him politely. In response he sent me one last, insulting letter, after which he never showed up again. Thank God." Blessing shuddered. "This group of Goths in particular has something I don't like."

"What do you mean?"

“They scare me a little. Of course, I know I have no reason to fear them. But if you go to meet them I advise you to be careful. There is nothing wrong with making contacts in the publishing world, but caution is needed. There are some very strange characters out there. Fortunately it is my secretary who handles the mail I receive from the madmen on whom I evidently exercise a certain attraction, and consequently my level of paranoia is still very low. However, I would stay away from this Baxter Brittle if I were you, Donald. "

Donald shrugged. "Of course that's not why I came to Baltimore."

"No, indeed," Blessing said. “But now follow me and I'll show you my sancta sanctorum. We still have a few minutes before lunch is ready. "

"Your studio!"

"Yup! If I'm not mistaken in one of your letters you wrote that you would have liked to see him. "

"Yup. It's just that I have the feeling ... the feeling that I would be inspired. "

"Well, thank you ... sometimes I wish it would inspire me more frequently."

Blessing laughed and headed for the study. He had left the copy of the Tome on the desk. Donald picked it up, grateful to have met this generous man of boundless talent ... but at the same time he felt a strange anger towards him.

Condescending bastard! he seemed to be accusing a voice deep within him. I'll do what I want in here, and I'll meet anyone who wants to meet!

He carefully put the magazine back in its place and followed his mentor.

8

The old man's time had come! With a cry I flung open the lantern and leapt into the room. He screamed, just one scream.

EDGAR A. POE, The noise of the heart

The crow hovered over the dreaming buildings.

Clouds bubbled before the half moon as darkness wedged into the streets and alleys of the Baltimore neighborhood, running like liquid fingers, touching and erasing everything.

The raven blinked, briefly covering his piercing brown eyes almost black with flecks of red.

It described wide circles and floated like a slice of sky cut out between the constellations, a portion of destiny stolen with a scissor stroke from the fabric of reality, lost and looking for a place to rest.

And below under its twirl: movement.

The wind rustled beside his ears as he swooped down with a flap of wings. It settled on top of the remains of an old dilapidated church. The building stank of pigeon guano, but the crow didn't care.

He tilted his head, his senses ethereally sharpened.

Over there.

Human figures.

They moved in the shadows, themselves seemingly made of shadow.

The crow leaned forward, like a gargoyle, following the figures as they whirled and whirled in the alley. The sound of the metal lid of a garbage can. The laughter of drunks echoing through the broken glass of the windows.

A current of air stirred the clouds and the moon returned to show itself, flooding the crow with silky light.

The bird croaked in alarm.

"Hey!" cried a voice. "And what the hell is that?"

"Brings bad luck."

A whistle.

An empty can thrown against the gutter, not far from where the crow had settled. Alarmed, letting an ancient instinct prevail over its indistinct mission, the crow took off again, grabbing the air with its great wings and pulling itself up, leveraging, regaining the sky, returning high among the stars .. .

... at the moment.

"You fucking flying parasite!" shouted Mick Prince, slamming his gloved hands against each other to free them of the dirt they might have picked up.

With a half-conscious laugh, Baxter Brittle watched the great bird explode into flight. A pen dropped idly against the bright background of the moon. The empty can fell back onto the cobblestones of the alley, rolling to Count Mishka's foot.

"Come by!" said the figure dressed in black skin, eyes blackened with make-up and long hair coiled around the sharp face. He kicked the can, aiming it at the Marquis de la Cinque and hitting him in the arm, protected by a thick black sleeve.

"Hey! Careful!"

Count Mishka raised his pale face to the moon and laughed savagely. Shaken by his laughter he staggered and had to support himself against a wall in the alley to keep from falling.

That bastard is even worse off than me, Baxter Brittle thought.

"A crow!" he repeated, returning with his eyes to the sky. The bird had been swallowed by the darkness. "What annoys you a crow?"

Mick had assumed a rigid posture and was as still as a statue. His fists were closed and brought to his chest, as if he was preparing to perform the first movement of an arcane martial arts move.

His great coat was blown up by the breeze, like the sails of a ghost vessel.

"I hate ravens," he whispered through clenched teeth.

The intensity with which he had uttered those words was comical! Baxter felt the drug begin to take effect and it seemed to him that his brain was inflating like a hot air balloon, soaring to the sky to be carried by the breeze and looking down on that great joke they called earth.

Don't worry, he warned himself. Don't get punctured by hitting the tip of a star!

"I wish I had my gun," Mick regretted. "I would have blown him away with lead shots from up there." He spat out the words like shreds of mangled flesh. His stillness was rapture. His presence catharsis. Baxter Brittle suddenly felt the drug rush through his body and hurl him through ...

Something.

The debris of destruction rose higher, higher, higher and higher, the brain unraveling in a whirlwind of consciousness. He felt as if he were soaring in the air on the wings of a crow, flying beyond the planets, beyond the constellations, to enter the vaults of Olympus and Walhalla, through the vertiginous verandas of the Cosmos ...

And all in the delicious stench of rotting orange peels, whiskey thrown in the trash, accompanied by a soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails.

He tasted the blood of delusional pleasure / pain in his mouth and it was exquisite, so exquisite.

Like the crow, he flew high, to the pulsating industrial beat, to the cocktail of Ecstasy, methadone, morphine and cognac in his brain, to the rhythms of his heart, a pounding soundtrack. He watched the gang members, the Avengers of the Gothiques, unleashed in Baltimore in the cool early autumn air at half past three in the morning.

Led by Mick, the Archdeacon himself, the Cleric of Chic.

Gravitating like that around Mick's presence, yet somehow detached, Baxter felt he could look back on the past few months with absolute clarity, and see the crystalline righteousness injected into the night's veins.

What a spirit.

What a dark and powerful spirit was Mick Prince, royal companion!

And of speech. The body of that unfortunate girl had been made to disappear forever. Baxter knew this. He'd been sifting through the papers for weeks after the fact. Nothing. Zero. The truth was, Baxter hadn't even had the faintest idea what to do with that knife, much less the body in whose chest he was imprisoned.

More than a release, Mick had been a divine gift. Exactly which dark god, Baxter didn't care. All he knew was that the Salon was suddenly stocked with the best drugs and the bar business was going well enough to force him to hire more staff, including a manager. Now he could devote all his time and energy to the activities of writer, editor and publisher. The Tome and Tome Press thrived like never before. The first newly published book was Screws of Hatred in the Corneas, a collection of Mick's short stories and poems that he had previously so foolishly rejected (Mick himself had participated in the printing costs). The limited edition, illustrated luxury edition by TM Caldwell was selling like hot cakes, and the commercial edition was enjoying some success. Granted,

The next step would be a large-scale paperback, however, and he had already made a deal with Publishers Group East to handle the operation. Mick was finishing his first novel, and with the new funding coming from growing publishing commitments, Baxter could have published more valuable works.

Now that Tome Press had drawn up a real release plan, the bookstores specializing in the works of small publishers were better disposed towards him, they also put on the shelves a good part of the catalog of works already published and some even began to pay punctually! He had worked to get his publications to become part of the Amazon.com online catalog and the websites of major bookstore chains, and now reviews and articles were starting to appear in university newspapers and alternative magazines.

Plus, he could now indulge in his all time favorite pastime.

Hustle and bustle, Beelzebub!

Ah, what a wonderful evening they had spent in the basement. No more girls who ran away from home and found naked and dead, that is not. But many other fun and stimulating things. Mick had introduced strange (and rather lousy) rites based on the Golden Dawn. At first they had been quite difficult to accept. Already. He had started with some chicken. Then the rabbits, a pig every now and then, and now goats and sheep. There had been some accident along the way, needless to deny, but whatever words Mick said as he cut and slashed, they undoubtedly contributed significantly to the good fortune of the Tome, the Cork'd Sailor, and life in general.

Angels of darkness!

Finding that young naked body upon waking after a mammoth hangover was like hitting rock bottom in her life. (And what a waste, he told himself later. The little girl had been a really nice pussy.)

Now it arched more and more towards the apex.

And what a trip!

"Baxter!" Mick growled.

Baxter Brittle, staggering and absorbed in his trance, was able to recover some consciousness and to regroup his swollen gray matter in his skull.

"Here I am!"

Baxter turned to look at Prince and blinked. The strong, strong face of the man was frightening in the expression it had assumed. His eyes were wide. Veins throbbed in both temples. He was grinding his teeth noisily. The tendons in the neck were taut and raised. Without warning his right hand darted forward and grabbed Baxter by the collar, bringing him within range of his heavy breath of garlic and French cigarettes.

"I feel. I feel it in the air. It's close, Baxter. " Even just in the moonlight and the glow of the streetlights, Baxter saw that Mick's eyes were bloodshot.

"The Enemy, Mick," Count Mishka shouted.

«I feel his presence. It would like to devour my soul. But I'll be the first to tear his heart out. I'll bite into it and chew its ventricles, then spit it back into the dust. I'll have to make sure that his spirit is torn to shreds and sinks into the underworld of creation. "

Suddenly Baxter remembered.

Yep, that was why he'd gone out to town in the middle of the night. They were lounging in the basement, minds ravaged by drugs and alcohol, the thundering stereo speakers of Usherhouse and Sleep Chamber, when Mick got up and yelled, "It's out there!"

Of course he meant him, the Enemy. The Anti-Mick. Whether or not Mick's obsession was a mental construction, there was actually something out there that troubled him deeply. That followed him. Which led him to swear that he would destroy him before becoming his victim. There was nothing wrong with a touch of paranoia, of course. Baxter Brittle had always been convinced of that, even in the days of idealism before that Bad Thing happened to his parents (he had told him to buy new tires, he was sure); even not being paranoid, it didn't necessarily mean there weren't people out there who wanted to fuck you. But Mick ... Christ, Mick seemed to go crazy at times, he was completely freaked out when he felt that presence ...

"That's why I came here," he'd once admitted, a wild look in his eye. “I have felt his presence all my life. I've been running away all my life. I don't know who he is or what he is. I'm tired of running away. I have decided to take matters into my own hands. I'm here and I'm gonna destroy that bastard! I will face it. It's the wall that I have to break through. To reach my destiny. Do you understand, Baxter? And you will help me. You understand me, right? "

Baxter understood, right. He understood that when Mick was happy, everything was fine. When Mick wasn't happy, things got tricky. And so when Mick decided it was time to go out, to venture out on an esoteric nocturnal hunting expedition, getting carried away by drug-fueled dreams, Baxter Brittle felt wiser to indulge him.

"There!" panted Mick, pointing an index finger across the street. “Over there, near the ruins of that castle. I feel. Forward, my brave knights of darkness! "

Puffing out that big coat of his he jumped forward and started crossing the street.

Baxter motioned for the gang members to follow their Prince, hoping nothing strange would happen. He felt the effect of the drug begin to subside, leaving behind the onset of a severe headache and lacking the medications necessary to ensure a soft landing. Well, now we're done with this and I'm going back to my opium pipette, he took heart.

With astounding speed Mick had sprinted across the street and was now creeping stealthily against a brick wall, a shadow melting into the darkness of the night.

Fatigued and panting, Baxter and the others found themselves at the entrance to the alley.

They tried to peer into the darkness. Baxter began to feel a certain apprehension, which seemed to go up his spine like a large spider. Something was wrong there. Something wrong.

"Here!" Mick's unmistakable hoarse voice cried. "Come!"

They heard the sound of boxes and the fluttering of newspapers.

"It is you!" The voice had grown harder, as though streaked with shards of glass. "I found you!"

A flashlight beam appeared. He walked along the alley, searching, swaying, then pausing. A grunt, followed by the sound of cans and bottles on the asphalt.

A sleepy voice from a garbage heap: 'Hey! I'm just trying to sleep. Fuck. Leave me alone!"

"You want to sleep?" Mick shouted. "MacDuff murdered sleep!"

"What the ..."

“You've persecuted me enough, you dirty mongrel. Go back to Hades, from which you came. "

Baxter and the others were now close enough to see what was happening. Mick was aiming a flashlight between the asphalt and the wall at the end of the alley, where there was a pile of cardboard boxes. Curled up in rags and newspapers, Baxter saw a bum with a heavy coat and a long beard, like the countless other homeless people he'd come across on the street in his life. Christ, why didn't they all move to Washington, where they would be together with others of their kind?

"What the fuck are you saying?" the man asked, stinking and stinking. He stood up, dropping an empty bottle of liquor.

"Mick," Baxter called. "He's just a bum."

Too late.

Mick stepped forward and kicked.

The tips of Mick's thigh-high black boots glowed silver, the dancing light of the flashlight reflected from the metal braces.

A violent blow, which took the victim's breath away.

The bum doubled over, gasped, and then threw up in the alley.

Wine, bile and bread in the process of digestion ...

... and blood.

Something clicked in Baxter's head. He stepped forward and took Mick by the arm.

"Hey friend! Take it easy!"

Mick pushed him back, pointing to the man on the ground. "You see? Try to spit his poison on me! Do not underestimate the cunning of the Enemy! Now you have to help me. Help remove my Enemy. Here! "

He passed the flashlight to Baxter.

Then he pulled something out of the folds of his coat. Something that shone more sharply and clearly in the uncertain light of the torch.

A black snap knife, with a blade at least eight inches long.

Before Baxter could even say a single word, the knife flashed in Mick's hand, sinking, wreaking havoc on living flesh. The bum managed a single gurgling moan before streams of red blood exploded from his neck and torso.

Mick stepped back, the blade and hands dripping with blood.

The homeless man trembled, splashed blood and fell into convulsions.

Mick turned to look at the gang members. “Now give me proof of your loyalty and fidelity to me. Begin his journey. Trample him, kick him with such fury as to throw him to the other side of the afterlife, never to return. "

"Mick ... Mick ..." Baxter begged, his head caught in a whirlwind, reality seeming to shatter before his eyes. "I can not..."

"Sure, Mick," Count Mishka replied.

"Here I am," the Marquis flanked him.

They stepped forward and began a macabre football match with the bum's bloody head.

Baxter couldn't move. He was petrified.

"What's up?" Mick asked. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" The blade of the snap knife sliced through the air, spraying drops of blood on Baxter. "Just do it. Just do it!"

Fear sank its quills into Baxter's bowels. He wanted to escape, to leave behind that madness, that boundless madness.

But he didn't dare. He knew that Mick Prince wouldn't hesitate to sink that same knife into his back. Baxter had the impression that he could already feel the blade, hot with blood, touching his spine ...

Making room for him, staring at him sideways in the torchlight, the Count and the Marquis moved to the side.

By separating sanity from the rest of himself, Baxter allowed his body to step forward and kick the prostrate body.

It was yielding, and lost more blood. Dead meat.

Baxter stepped back. “On the other side of the afterlife, Mick. An asshole lost forever in oblivion », he found the strength to say.

Mick grunted. "Bastard!" he shouted. He spat on the man just killed. Then he took a step back, inhaling victoriously deeply. "Yup! I am free! Finally free! Free!"

Silence.

A pause of silence and reflection, broken only for an instant by what seemed to be a beating of wings.

"Give me the flashlight!" Mick ordered.

Baxter handed it to him. Mick took it and directed it to the bloody mass at the end of the alley.

Mick sighed in disgust.

"Deceived!" he said, "He deceived me!"

"How would that be?"

Mick shrugged. "Is not he. It is not the Enemy. " He threw a punch in the air. "But I'll get you, you bastard!" Turned. "Come on, let's go. I need a drink. "

He strode away.

Laughing, the Count and the Marquis followed him.

Baxter, distraught and dismayed, could not help but follow them.

In the sky above him he thought he heard soft beats of wings, but he didn't dare look up at the darkening night sky again.

9

I was just living

In a world of trouble.

EDGAR A. POE, "Eulalie"

... The gentle flapping of wings in the night sky ...

Away from the alley, far away the crow flies.

Fly to the harbor, where the lights of the boats shine. From the sea comes the fog, dense, advancing on catarrhal peduncles, and smells of the sea, smells of dead fish.

... The gentle flapping of wings in the daytime sky ...

The crow turns and caws, flying to a new date, swooping down in the sunlight. It rests on a chimney on top of a roof, above the street from which the smell of tar rises.

He looks after the man named Marquette as he enters the bar known as the Cork'd Sailor. He blinks and stands alone on guard. The sun sets, the stars light up. Traffic growls and writhes in the streets, laughter and music grows and fades in intensity.

When the full moon falls, at the end of the night, the writer known by the name of Marquette leaves the Sailor, books under his arm ...

... staggering almost imperceptibly.

The crow croaks and launches into the space between the stars.

... The gentle flapping of wings in the summer sky ...

The crow turns and swoops down.

The black bird flies past the Washington Monument, past Johns Hopkins University, through the scent of hot dog and pretzel stalls and the rustle of oak fronds.

It is lowered and placed on the roof of a terraced house. Look down at the balcony, on which a table is set. The young writer named Marquette and Amy Blessing sit across from each other, eat salads and drink wine. They talk animatedly for a few minutes. Then the girl laughs and reaches out on the table to touch that of the young writer. He squeezes it, smiles, then releases it.

The bird caws and with a leap leaps into the space between the clouds, moving forward, darting forward ...

... The gentle flapping of wings in the autumn sky ...

The buildings of Johns Hopkins University stand out, venerable and massive, above the dying leaves. A cool current carries the crow, slowing its descent to the sidewalk.

There, wrapped in a cardigan, with a large briefcase in his hand and his pipe clamped between his teeth, the man known as Professor Blessing walks.

The crow glides and alights on the bench in a small garden, tilting its head and staring at the professor with a brown eye.

The professor freezes and looks closely at the crow.

"You!" exclaims the professor, stopping.

The crow remains silent.

“You're the one hanging around my house, aren't you? Since last spring. "

The crow remains silent.

"Well, I can only thank you that you're not a raven like the one in Poe's poem!" He laughs and shakes his head. He takes a half-empty bag of potato chips from his briefcase. The crow tilts its head again, as if asking a question.

“Okay, I admit I have some bad habits. Listen, let's make a deal. I leave you all the chips left and in return you say nothing to my wife. Okay? "

Empty the bag on the sidewalk.

The crow looks at them for a moment.

Then jump off the bench and start eating.

“You know, if I were superstitious I would have the impression that you are trying to tell me something, crow. You are a mythological symbol, did you know that? " He folded his arms over his chest. “Well, if nothing else, you don't seem intent on killing me. If you wanted to, you would have pecked my hands when I was clinging to the eaves of my roof like a fool, right? What do you say, crow? "

The crow says nothing. He just eats another chip.

It is not the time yet.

"Good. Have a good day, man. I hope your life is as splendid as mine. "

Laughing, the professor turns and whistles on the way home.

The crow continues to eat chips until the man disappears around the corner.

At that point, the flight into the space between the Victorian coils of Johns Hopkins University takes off again.

... The gentle flapping of wings in the winter air ...

Night falls in a January whitened by snow. Ice crystals glisten in the streetlights. The scent of roasted chestnuts rises from the stalls of street vendors.

The crow flies to a terraced house. Warm light spreads from one of the windows. The black bird glides over the windowsill.

Inside, in a large office, there are three people: Professor Blessing, Donald Marquette and Amy Blessing.

They are talking.

The crow looks at them, concentrated.

... The delicate flapping of wings in the air of the underworld ...

Soon.

Soon.

10

And the travelers, now, in that valley,

Through the red-lit windows they glimpse

Vast shapes that move fantastic

To the rhythm of a dissonant melody,

While, like a dismal river in flood,

From the waxy portal it breaks through

Forever a hideous crowd

Who laughs, but never smiles again.

EDGAR A. POE, "The bewitched palace"

The fist hit the man's face. Mick Prince heard the sound of teeth breaking. A splash of blood and saliva. The man's head was whipped back and the wooden chair to which he was tied tilted, creaked, then fell to the ground with a thud. The immobilized man wept and complained. Mick could smell her sweat, feel the pain and fear. His nostrils dilated to become intoxicated with those sensations.

However, they were peripheral to the focus of his attention. He was focused on the man with the iron fist. The torturer. There was something about him ...

A black man wearing an Italian suit raised his hand. The brass-knuckled torturer stepped back, allowing the elegant man to lean over the prisoner, careful not to get blood on his suit.

“So, clown. I heard you're going to change sides. "

They were in an abandoned warehouse. Night had fallen outside, like protective padding. A radio was spitting the latest Californian gangsta rap of the Mack 10 out through the speakers, alongside the other five members of the gang acting as audience. Mick had wondered why they brought him here. Now he knew.

The clown's eyes were almost out of their sockets, bruised with pain. His face had already begun to swell. "Shit, it's lies, Cobra!"

"Oh yes?" The long-limbed man with shaved hair in the Italian suit returned to position himself next to the table that had been set up in the center of the warehouse. He took a seventy-centiliter bottle of Cobra malt liquor from the ice bucket and poured the amber liquid into two long-stemmed wine glasses. He passed one to Mick. Mick hated that stuff, but accepted the glass anyway. If you want to do business with someone, you have to drink what he drinks. “You know what, clown? It might as well be true. But it might not even be true. Money, man ... money has the ability to screw up a man's brain. They are capable of making him forget the blood of his blood. "

"I haven't forgotten you, brother!" protested the man tied to the chair. "We've been friends for a lifetime."

"Already. For a lifetime. And that's why I won't kill you. "

The man whimpered, almost an expression of relief.

"I'll just screw you up a little." He turned to look at an imposing white man. «Theodore. Let him taste a little more metal, please. "

Having said the order, he indifferently raised the glass to his lips and took a sip.

Theodore advanced.

Mick thought he must have been between twenty and thirty, but his face bore the traces of a long life already lived. It was a face that looked forty. The man looked like a former marine, the typical hard-skinned blond. He wore black canvas pants fastened by a belt at his narrow waist and a perforated T-shirt that featured rock-hard abs, a weightlifter's chest, and massive biceps and triceps. He must have lived up to the daily training he started in prison, Mick thought.

The man appeared to be of Nordic origin. Probably as a boy he was in all respects similar to the Aryans whose photographs Hitler used to jerk off. But now he looked wiser and more hardened. He was a long-time professional. Yet his eyes weren't clouded. They shone with intelligence. They did not seem to derive particular pleasure from the task he was accomplishing.

Theodore raised his metal-reinforced fist and sank it into the man's abdomen. The victim doubled over. He coughed, spitting blood, gasped and struggled to breathe. Theodore charged his fist again, clearly intent on delivering a blow to the face. On the other side this time.

"No!" the victim yelled. "That's enough! Okay, okay, I sold a couple of sticks on my own. Shit! But it was DelRoy ... It was DelRoy who told me how I could do it. DelRoy is on the DC Crips payroll! "

"Holy shit!" One of the young men dressed in baggy low-crotch pants, oversized sweatshirts four sizes, and bulky tennis shoes with the tongue up stepped back and pulled out a gun. "I don't fucking break my face!" Everyone stop, assholes! Don't move a hair of your ass, or I'll fill you with holes, I swear. You bastards you sons of bitches! "

“DelRoy, my friend. I had some suspicions about you, ”the elegant man confessed. "Shit, what did you think of? Why did you do that?" The elegant man seemed calm, as if similar episodes were repeated every day.

Mick, on the other hand, was bursting with adrenaline from every pore. He just wanted to strike a deal with the gang for the benefit of the Tome Press, and not get his guts riddled for an internal skirmish.

“Why are you fucking freaking out! You are full of shit. You're recruiting white assholes, mafia men. Christ, I'm seriously thinking about getting my black asses up and getting out of Baltimore. I want to go to Miami. I have done nothing to harm you. So let me fucking go and let me ... "

The gunshot echoed through the warehouse.

A large hole appeared in the center of the black rebel's forehead. Splinters of skull, brains, and blood shot out from the opposite side of his head, accompanied by a fine red haze that settled on the sawdust-strewn floor. The semiautomatic pistol he was holding dropped from his fingers with a clang. The black boy's legs gave out and he crumpled backwards. The tennis shoe fell off one of his feet, shaking with a spasm.

Mick spun around.

Theodore stood motionless with a steaming Coonan .357 Magnum in his left hand.

"I'm ambidextrous," he explained.

"Nice fucking shot!" The elegant smiled and then gave in to a laugh of relief. “You are dear, friend. But you are worth what you cost. "

He went back to the table, took the bottle out of the bucket. "'Fuck it." He threw the glass away, and it shattered against a wall. He grabbed the bottle by the neck and took a few sips. When he was done, he offered it to Mick.

"No thanks. I'm fine, ”Mick said, showing him the half-full wine glass.

Cobra shrugged and pulled out a new bottle. “I guess you're not here to see you point a gun at him. You got scared, huh? "

"I'm not scared."

"What are you made of? Stone? Meet Clint Eastwood. "

"The nameless knight."

“Yeah, that's why I don't carve names on my bullets. Shit, you whites always have to prove how big you are. What do our Latin brothers call them? Cojones? Huevos? " He took another sip of malt liquor, then nodded to the others. The gang members walked over and took the remaining bottles out of the bucket, obviously shaken despite the gangster faces. "So, Mr. Eastwood, what do you want from the Cobra?"

«Peace, brother. Just like the old song goes. You see, I'm contemplating a career advancement, having recently moved to your beautiful city. The group I work with is expanding and engaged in a small trafficking in soft drugs. I heard that you are the man of reference in Baltimore, so I came to pay you my due respects. "

“You got it right, and I liked the way you said it. You're honest, but what is this group you're talking about? "

«A recently born company, active in the field of entertainment. A small publishing house. Magazines. Books. In the future also music and films. "

"What are you talking about?" The boss shook his head, as if to clear his hearing. 'What kind of magazines? And what books? You're not talking about those porn magazines with pictures of little girls and boys, are you? "

Mick had to put all his self-control to rest to keep from laughing. "No," he replied patiently. "Our genre is Dark Fantasy."

"And what is that?"

“You know, horror books, like Stephen King's. Vampires. Noir novels. "

"What a story!" Theodore exclaimed, although no one had involved him in the conversation.

Mick turned to look at him.

The big man was laughing. On his broad face, the smile produced a strange effect.

"You're kidding me, aren't you?" Cobra asked. “It's actually a cover for a pornography drug trafficking, I get that. But that's not a problem. We can find an agreement. "

Mick made another attempt. “Yes, we negotiate a bit of stuff to supplement, but only for some private circle, or as a personal favor to make some party more interesting. Fundamentally, the company's business is legitimate and clean, and offers a good chance of running a lot of cash, laundering dirty funds, and hiding it from federal agents. And when we have geared up we will make the leap in show business: music and movies. "

"A record company with a name like Death Row I can conceive of, but fucking books," Cobra said, shaking his head. "There is no gain in books, unless they are emptied to contain something else."

“I understand your point of view, but as the good reverend said, I have a dream. I believe there is excellent growth potential in the sector, which no one has yet had the foresight to exploit. " He smiled. "And the best part is, you won't see us armed around the streets shooting people." He gave a grin. “Ours is a peaceful operation. It's entirely legal. " He tapped his chest lightly. “Except for the business line I'm in charge of. And that's why I'm here. "

Cobra shrugged. "Mmm. The idea of laundering dirty money is interesting. " He pointed to the slain rebel. "But you have to remember one thing: I don't take shit from anyone."

"I like you like that," Mick replied with a smile.

“All right Clint, my friend. We'll talk about it. Come to my office. Tomorrow. 'Round Midnight, as the Thelonius Monk piece says. "

"Cobra!" called the man tied to the chair. “Hey, boss. You let me go now, right? "

Cobra raised a finger and showed it to Theodore.

Theodore took off his iron fist.

Then he passed the pistol to his right hand, took aim and fired.

The bullet hit the victim's heart with a thud, crossing it and smashing the back of the chair. Splinters of wood and torn flesh fell to the ground.

"Here," Cobra said shortly. "Go away." He turned to the others, who were staring at him trying not to be overly disturbed by the sudden carnage. "Guys, apparently we have the human remains of a gangbang sidewalk shooting on our hands." He snapped his fingers. “Get these traitors away, set them up in the right spot, and maybe they'll get the opening coverage of the six o'clock news tomorrow night. Their mothers will be proud of it. "

Mick watched the scene imperturbably, without reacting in any way. It was interesting to watch without participating. Mick didn't mind at all.

Cobra patted him on the shoulder. "See you, Clint." He waved his hand in the direction of his personal hitman, Theodore, who holstered the gun and followed his employer to the exit.

But the big man paused for a moment next to Mick.

"Horror, huh?"

"Yup."

“I like horror books. And horror movies. Even the yellows and noirs. You know, with the work I do… ”He shrugged. "They help me relax."

"I know."

“Maybe we can go have a beer together, or something. After Thelonius Monk time, of course. "

"Do you want to exchange some paperbacks?"

"Yup. Why not."

Mick shrugged. "There was nothing better to do in prison to pass the time."

"It was like that for me too."

Mick nodded. "Agree."

The man with the imposing and muscular physique nodded and gave a strange smile.

Then he stalked after Cobra.

Mick checked his pants and shoes to make sure he hadn't been hit by blood splatters. Then he made his way relaxed to the other exit of the abandoned warehouse. Books, he thought. Amazing how they help people get to know each other.

11

I assume you all have heard of me. I am Mrs. Psyche Zenobia. This I know for sure. Only my enemies call me Suky Snobbs.

EDGAR A. POE, How to write a Blackwood article

"This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever read in my life!"

Professor William Blessing stared at the letter and slapped it with the back of his hand, as if trying to make sense by force.

"Actually, dear, Donald told me about it," Amy said, smiling amiably. "And I think ... Well, that's a pretty interesting idea." He laughed, with mischievous gaiety. "Of course, I admit I'm not impartial, having been personally called into question ..."

Blessing looked up at Marquette. His assistant and pupil also smiled, but he looked uncomfortable. “Will you do me the favor of telling me exactly what role you played in this, Donald? I know you are in contact with these people. And they obviously know you're in contact with me ... but I'm still confused. "

"Er ... Bill ... maybe you haven't read it carefully," Donald ventured. “I just skimmed through Amy's copy. Maybe if you read it again ... "

"All right," Blessing conceded. He had some strange presentiments about Donald, and that letter only reinforced them. However, he himself, as Amy often reproached him, had a tendency to lose his temper.

A deep breath.

Two.

"Very well," he said, puffing out his professorial plumage to show no signs of weakness or irritation. "Then I think the best thing is to read it aloud, don't you think?"

"Great idea, Bill," Amy agreed. She jumped up to him and gaily put her arm around him. "And remember that you always promised you would help me become famous."

"Famous!" He had an impulse to exclaim "Nonsense," but held himself back. Instead of commenting further, he reached across the surface of his desk and picked up one of the many pairs of reading glasses he had scattered around the house, put them on, straightened the letter, and began to read:

Dear Dr. Blessing,

I am sure you have heard of me, or at least of the series of books of which I am the editor. My name is Roscoe Mithers.

Yup! Roscoe Mithers is the curator of the Dark Sunset series for the Paperback Gems publishing house. Sure! Naturally based on the series of TV shows and movies (which she undoubtedly follows, given the influence I see in her more than excellent work, although in all honesty I think you need to take a closer look at the vampires in Dark Sunset to learn more. on this particular creature of the night!) and a fixed presence in the charts of best-selling books compiled by Walden and B. Dalton, shoulder to shoulder with his worthy works.

One of our authors, Donald Marquette (Flowers of Torture, number twenty-one from the Extreme Dark Sunset series), informed me that not only is he her student in the fields of gothic and occult literature, but that he is collaborating with her as a assistant in compiling an anthology of horror masters.

As you undoubtedly know, the television series Dark Sunset and its offshoots Dark Dawn, Dawn of the Dark Day and Ricardo the Vampire, along with the cassette films inspired by them, have had the role of keeping horror alive in the eyes of the world. How else would her well-deserved popularity find the right audience?

Of course she was one of the first people I thought of when we managed to convince the Dark Powers that rule us (ha ha) of the potential effectiveness of this project: the Dark Twilight Anthology.

It would be a thick paperback volume (inevitably destined to be snapped up among the clubs of readers and therefore to see the publication in a hardcover version) containing original stories based on the most popular characters of the series: Rupert the Zombie, Hilda the Witch and , of course, Ricardo the Vampire.

We would be thrilled if you wanted to write a short story for the anthology. Indeed, I have already raised the possibility to the Dark Powers that, if she accepts, she may want to set him in the universe of one of her novels. (As if Stephen King were talking about Ricardo's visit to Castle Rock, right?)

Of course, we are also waiting for a story from Donald. Furthermore, he informed me that you have a charming wife who is also engaged in fiction. We would also gladly accept your contribution. Or, since we know you are a very busy man, a possible collaboration!

We at Tramonto oscuro are always amazed by the fascination that the series exerts on millions of readers and viewers. Just last week I was at a convention organized by Tramonto oscuro and once again I was able to verify with amazement how effectively the phenomenon embodies the use of the tradition of gothic and horro literature in modern culture!

I hope you want to join our growing ranks!

Thank you!

Roscoe Mithers

PS I have sent you, for your reference (and for your collection), the most recent publications of the Dark Sunset series, including the exciting debut title of our series for young readers, Backbone Shivers, entitled There is a I show in my mess tin.

After reading, there was a pause of silence.

Finally, William Blessing laughed rather forcefully. "Sure. Now I understand. This is a joke! A kind of April fool. "

He couldn't help but notice the hurt expression on Donald's face. "No, Bill. It's not a joke. Mithers is the editor who bought my book for Dark Sunset. And he suggested I write more, doubling my salary. "

"As well as the short story for the anthology, of course," Blessing observed, unable to avoid a touch of acidity. "I see. I just hoped it was a joke. "

Amy frowned. “Bill, please. Publishing that book was an important step for Donald. And you know he still hasn't managed to sell the other novel he wrote. It served to give him the strength to go on. Don't be so negative! "

Blessing tried to regain control.

He had had a series of invectives on the tip of his tongue. He refrained from uttering the words "childish," "ass," and "fool." However, he couldn't avoid a small comment.

"Apparently this ... Roscoe Mithers ... is ... um ... very busy with his work."

"Yes, it's true. You have to excuse him, ”Donald said. “Roscoe has been a huge fan of the television series since the first episode. Being able to deal with these books is for him a dream that has come true. He puts his heart and soul into his work. "

"Already." Blessing shook her head sadly, managing to calm her anger. Now he was simply plagued with mild depression. "Excuse me. Of course, you can write a short story for the show if you want, Amy. You're getting very good. And of course you have to, Donald. You already have the qualities of an excellent novelist. The experience you are gaining here has clearly improved your skills more than I would have expected. I was just hoping you aspired to more than publishing Dark Sunset material. "

"Don't you think you're a little pompous and elitist, Bill?" Amy objected, her hands placed on her hips, no longer pretty in her mood but downright beautiful. “I mean, get off your ivory tower! We are talking about a funny series, of funny books. I follow those shows, and we also saw the last film together! "

"Only because you forced me to," Bill said. His anger was mounting again. He couldn't believe that his wife was openly contradicting him on the matter in Marquette's presence. “Listen, I teach folk literature in college. I know everything there is to know about consumer literature. Do you know how many novels and short stories were published in the nineteenth century only to fall into the darkest oblivion? And we are talking about fiction of a much higher level than what is published in the Dark Sunset series. In my view, this wave of commercial books aimed at profiting from dubious publishing policies, now undertaken directly by genuine publishing multinationals, contributes to the gradual drying up of Western culture in the broad sense. We risk decline and fall, people. And you want to join the mass madness? All right, good for you. But I can't understand the bronze face of someone who has found the courage to ask me to write such ... similar ... chatter. "

"In that case ... maybe it's best to leave that other matter alone, Amy," Donald suggested timidly.

"No," Amy said to herself. "You have every right. And you promised to ask him. "

"But..."

"All right, I'll do it."

"But what are you raving about?" Blessing wanted to know.

"Bill, Mr. Mithers wanted to know, in case you weren't interested in writing a short story for the anthology, if you'd be willing to write a positive review for the book when it comes out."

"What?"

“You understand perfectly, Bill. A piece that praises the book ... or even the series itself. You always do it for your friends. Always write rave reviews for Dean, Peter, Stephen and Clive. "

Blessing saw red.

He turned and walked over to a bookcase. He leaned against the shelves, breathing deeply and slowly, trying to compose himself.

Finally, he turned.

“You know, one of the things I've always pointed out about Edgar Allan Poe is that although he wrote a lot in his life, he managed to do relatively little that he was really proud of: his poems and short stories, Eureka ... a few critical articles ... The rest of his time was spent doing monotonous work for literary magazines. What a torture it must have been for him, in addition to the other misfortunes of his life. Can you imagine what he would have been able to do if his hateful stepfather John Allan had really believed in him? What if he received a high-level education? Or what if he managed to get a teaching job like Longfellow? Or what if some patron recognized his worth and took him under his wing? But no. He was forced to work for a pathetic and seedy industry,

“This was what Poe had to do. And what little he could write in his short life triumphed.

“But now the senseless scribbling work, the stupid, sensationalistic nonsense of popular taste, the inconsistent capitalist minds, have subverted what were the aims of the tradition that he so well modernized. And what do we have today? Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Xena? And, God forbid, Dark Sunset. "

Sigh.

"And you thought I would agree to link my name to a kind of product I abhor!"

Blessing felt her blood pressure mounting. It was a sacrilege! The denial of all his ideals, of all that he himself represented! There had been nothing to do. He had had to express his indignation. They were fundamental questions for its existence. Didn't they realize it?

Amy rolled her eyes. “For God's sake, Bill! Nobody wants to harm your integrity. And you can do it perfectly on your own anyway, it seems. Forget everything, okay? Let's not talk about it anymore. "

She looked at him, and the anger flashing in her bright hazel eyes shook him.

"I'm sorry, Bill," Donald murmured. He looked uncomfortable and hurt, evidently embarrassed at having been involved in a spouse's argument.

Control your anger, heck. Count to ten.

And so he did, quickly, moving his shoulders inside the cashmere cardigan, loosening his tie to facilitate blood circulation. "You hit a nerve, that's all."

"I'm really sorry. I doubted you would like the idea, ”Donald admitted. "But ... in the end we decided it would still be worth a try."

The expression on his face seemed to add: We certainly did not expect you to blow up any valves.

"I don't deny that I have a very strict position on this matter," Blessing conceded. "But I can't betray my principles." He cleared his throat and ventured a glance in the direction of his wife. “Listen, dear. I apologize. Do what you want. You have every right. But I don't want to get involved in such an operation. There are more worthy things to devote my time to, and more noble purposes to which to bind my reputation and all that I have done so far in the academic and literary fields. The pursuit of commercial success does not necessarily force an author to descend to the level of the lowest common denominator to obtain it. "

"But that's usually how it works, there's no doubt about that," Amy railed. “God, Bill. Sometimes you're just ... just an asshole! " Amy raised her arms to the sky. He turned and strode out of the room, clattering first down the hall and then the stairs.

Worried, Donald started to follow her.

"No," Blessing called. «It will pass. She probably went for a walk or called one of her friends to complain and chat for a couple of hours. I'll apologize later. "

Marquette didn't seem convinced.

“Excuse me if I acted foolishly, I ask you please. But since you're here I would like to talk to you about something. " Blessing still felt the adrenaline rushing through his veins like a collection of tiny, sharp razor blades. He walked over to his desk, opened a drawer, and took out a half bottle of Johnnie Walker red label and two glasses. "Are you drinking with me?"

For once, Marquette didn't hesitate to accept the offer of a hard alcohol. "Yes thanks."

"Good boy." Blessing poured inadvisable doses of scotch into both glasses and passed one to Marquette by sliding it across the surface of the desk.

"To Poe!" he exclaimed, repeating the toast he and Marquette used when they went out for a few beers together.

"To Poe," Marquette echoed, with less enthusiasm.

Blessing immediately took a long drink of whiskey. The liquid left behind a trail of pungent and aromatic fire, then poured into the acid cauldron of his stomach. He immediately felt the heat expand along tentacles of calm and wink at oblivion.

Oblivion? Was this what Edgar Poe had been looking for? A respite from the overwhelming agony of everyday life?

He should have known if she really was Poe's reincarnation.

He looked at his assistant and protégé. Donald was getting into it too with his whiskey. He had already drunk half of it.

He felt a slight shiver of fear run down his back.

About what I want to talk to him about ...

The nine months spent with Donald Marquette had been positive. The boy was learning incredibly quickly. He absorbed his directions like a sponge and worked hard. The first volume of the anthology was almost completed, Marquette's doctorate was progressing well, and the articles he wrote on "Manifestations of the Gothic Tradition in Modern Prose", as well as being based on excellent research, contained brilliant insights. In addition, he produced his own fiction at great pace, as if irrepressibly inspired by Blessing's long-winded seminars and by closely observing the master as he wrote and reviewed his work. When giving him his advice and teachings, Marquette was always focused, focused and extremely attentive.

Reminds me of me as a young man, Blessing thought. But something's wrong, and I can't figure out what it is ...

And then there was that last story of his.

In addition to being very good indeed, the style and mastery of the use of tropes and allusion complemented the exciting and original plot perfectly. More than one reader could have mistaken it for a William Blessing work.

It was an alarming but at the same time quite gratifying finding. No, that wasn't the problem. The question that worried the professor was another.

Blessing took another sip of whiskey, then put down her glass. Marquette, on the other hand, held his tight in his hands as if he sensed something unpleasant was approaching. It still contained a finger of scotch, but Donald stared at the bottle on the desk as if he was struggling to keep from asking for more. In her eyes, Blessing could already see the effects of alcohol.

"Donald. Tell me what your ambition is, ”Blessing began amiably.

Donald's eyes looked fiery. "What ambition? Literary immortality? "

"Yup. It's not a small achievement, doesn't it seem to you? It was Poe's own ambition. Ever since he was younger than you are now he thought he was great. Of course Tamerlane is certainly not the most beautiful of poems, but he reveals a very strong ambition, don't you think? " Blessing contemplated her drink. He put the glass back on the desk and sighed. "You're good," he said, getting up and going to get his big leather satchel. “You are a good writer, gifted with great talent. And you keep improving. You're too good to waste time on childish projects like Dark Sunset. If you need the money ... Well, I'll raise your pay. Hell, they're willing to pay you room and board and stationery, if that's what you need. But this story of Dark Sunset ... "

"It's just that it helps me feel confident in my means," Marquette explained in a very conciliatory tone. "It stimulates me, it serves to keep me active, and to see my name in the bestseller charts ... well, that's part of my dream too."

"Mmm. We can discuss this later, I think. " Blessing opened her leather bag and pulled out a hardcover book. "By the way, congratulations." He put the book on the desk. Dreaming Demons, the title proclaimed. Tales Suspended on the Brink of Donald Marquette.

"Published by the Tome Press, I see," Blessing remarked.

“Ah, you got a copy. Yes. It just came out. I wanted to give you and Amy a signed copy, ”Donald said, still rather apprehensive.

“You've been there, haven't you? You socialized with them. "

Marquette shrugged. "Yup. A few business meetings. "

Blessing shook her head. "Agree. I just wonder why you haven't turned to some other publisher. "

"Well, frankly, no non-specialist publisher accepts collections of horror stories around this time."

“And why not turn to some other small publisher in the same, but more respectable field? Why them? "

"They were willing to publish me." Marquette ran out of whiskey. “That's all, Bill. Plus their headquarters are here in the city. It allows me to be more involved in project management. And anyway they are certainly no less respectable than Necro, Subterranean or Terminal Fright. The small horror publishing sector is certainly not what it was in the 1980s, when Sream Press, Underwood Miller, Dark Harvest and dozens of other houses were competing for a booming market. There aren't many alternatives these days. "

"Well, I hope it doesn't affect your reputation badly." Blessing took a deep, painful breath. "And I hope it won't hurt mine, since your name is now associated with mine."

"I do not understand. The Tome Press is doing extremely well. They've already released half of the first run and are working on a paperback version. I don't see what's wrong with it. "

"It happened before in horror last time," Blessing replied. “Some disturbed writers have taken advantage of this to promote their own psychopathologies. And some publishers have fallen into the trap of believing that what people love about gothic literature, which as you well know is my much preferred definition, is its rawness and gory. These psychic and misguided people simply want to upset the minds of readers, give vent to their personal hells of pornographic violence by making it a sort of manifesto. This is my opinion of the Tome people. And I can add that I have heard troubling things about them from several other sources. There are rumors of satanic rites and blood sacrifices. These are bad things, Donald. To us, as serious writers,

"They didn't make a bad impression on me," Donald said. “Maybe I'm a little off, granted. They define themselves as aficionados of extreme Goth, as they call it, but they care about literary quality. They take their job very seriously. "

«I don't doubt it. But seriousness doesn't imply good intentions. " Blessing crossed her arms across her chest and put a finger to her lips. "These people ... I have a bad feeling about them."

"Just because you've heard bad things about them from the mouths of spineless writers with no life to brag about!" Donald protested.

"Donald," Blessing called him back. “Your appearance in their magazine and the publication of this book probably won't do me much harm. I care a lot about my reputation, and given the nature of some of my material I have to pay close attention to my acquaintances. What I am trying to tell you is that as much as I respect you and am fond of you, if you continue to have relationships with these people, our paths will have to divide. "

Marquette gave the impression that he wanted to say something in his defense, in defense of the Tome Press, but he held back.

He nodded. "Okay. I'm sorry you see it that way. I think you're getting a little paranoid, but deep down I understand you. " Marquette smiled a little. "Do you still want me to sign a copy with a dedication for you and Amy?"

«Please! It would be a great honor. "

Considerably relieved to see Marquette accept his request, given the boy's talent and excellent work in preparing the anthology (not forgetting the fact that he was now becoming part of his family), Blessing relaxed.

In the corner of the office, next to a bookcase, stood two Eames armchairs with footstools and a coffee table. Blessing grabbed the whiskey bottle and glass and motioned for Donald to follow. “I admit your decision is a great relief to me, Donald. Because I don't want to lose you. And I'm sure Amy would have been very sorry and angry with me too if we had to break up our relationship. "

"I would have been sorry too."

Blessing walked over to the stereo and turned on the radio, perpetually tuned to a classical music channel. Sweet Bach melodies spread throughout the studio. The professor poured another drop of whiskey into Donald's glass and invited him to sit down.

“I've started a brand new project. Now that we've solved our little problem, I feel I can tell you about it, ”Blessing admitted.

"Really?" The enthusiasm on Marquette's face was genuine.

"Yup. It's pretty amazing and no one has ever done it before. If it is successful and I am allowed to make a case of it, it will spark debate and controversy. Not only in the academic world, but also in everyday life. "

«I'm dying of curiosity. Does it have anything to do with Poe? "

"Of course." Blessing reclined back, leaning back in the comfortable leather chair. "Donald, we've already discussed how fascinated Poe was with cryptography and riddles, haven't we?"

"Of course. Like in the Golden Cockroach, for example. "

"Yup. Exactly. Well, let's go a step further. Do you know the theories recently advanced on Jewish mysticism and the Old Testament, on which the current debate on the so-called biblical code is based? "

"No. I haven't heard of it. " He took a sip of whiskey. "Sounds like an interesting topic."

“As a gossip subject for Hollywood cocktail parties it is. First-rate pseudoscience and very much in vogue. However, the debate led me to consider some aspects of Edgar Poe's work. "

“But I guess the code we are talking about has to do with forms of esotericism dating back thousands of years. What is the connection with Poe's work? "

“Hidden messages, Donald. You see, there seems to be a great many messages and prophecies hidden in the original biblical texts, which a certain researcher would have been able to discover thanks to a program that allowed his computer to read the pages from bottom to top, from left to right and back, like a puzzle based on diagrams of words to be identified. The fact that arbitrary elements such as page margins are necessary for the decoding technique to work is downplayed by the proponents of the theory.

“I could go further into technical details, but all of this is irrelevant. All esoteric groups, from Templars to Rosicrucians, have always claimed to be aware of secret teachings. Just read Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum to confirm this. But according to a book on the subject, recent events such as the assassination of the Israeli prime minister in 1995 have been heralded in these ancient writings. Of course it's a ridiculous theory, but, as I explained to you, it led me to think about the fascination that such things had on Poe. "

"Then I guess you have begun to conduct similar research on Poe's work," Donald urged, trying to get Blessing to finish his speech.

"Yup. I downloaded a version of this decryption software, made some changes, and glimpsed fascinating possibilities. I still have a lot of work to do, after which I'll publish an article that could serve as a starting point for a book. "

"Did you find something? Secret messages from Edgar Poe? " inquired Marquette, now totally focused.

Something cold and serpentine seemed to unwind in Blessing's womb. He shivered, unable to control himself.

Then he leaned forward and revealed it all to Donald Marquette.

12

One night, as I sat half-dazed in a miserable den, my attention was suddenly drawn to a black object on top of one of the gigantic gin or rum barrels that made up much of the decor of the place. I had been staring at the barrel for several minutes and it surprised me that I hadn't noticed the object above it before. I walked over and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat, a very large black cat.

EDGAR A. POE, The black cat

"Pray for me," Donald Marquette called. "Because I'm a damned soul like never a soul has been damned before."

The group burst into laughter.

Donald grinned and took another sip of beer. "This is the message the good professor believes he has found hidden in Edgar Poe's work."

"Like some kind of Captain Planet secret decoder ring, isn't it?" Count Mishka commented, waving his fingers, showing off the many jewels he adorned with and his long lavender nails studded with glitter.

"Or the Batman!" relaunched the Marquis. The Marquis went through a retro New Romantic-inspired phase, mimicking Gary Oldman's Dracula and Ministry's Alan Jorgensen. Tonight he wore a purple velvet coat, a floral evening shirt (only a few wine stains so far), the felt top hat worn flat on his head, as required, metal-rimmed glasses and purple lenses , and black and shiny nail polish on the nails. She was seriously considering getting her hair lengthened with fake locks the following week. That look seemed to suit him.

The group gathered around the table laughed at the tale.

"That's out of his mind, in my opinion," said Baxter Brittle, who sat at the head of the table in a high-backed, inlaid Victorian chair. He was lying down, his legs dangling over one of the armrests and a goblet clutched to his chest. Lately Baxter had adopted Oscar Wilde looks and attitudes: eyelids always half closed, dark hair parted over the forehead, a large Edwardian coat and black trousers with spats. “I like how Oscar dressed, I admit it. But I don't like sucking cocks, as he loved to do », he repeated daily to prevent anyone from starting to have doubts about his tastes in the bedroom.

The pungent smell of absinthe hovered upward from the jewel-encrusted goblet. For some time Baxter had made it his favorite drink, having successfully and successfully distilled an acceptable version of it for sale in the bar. Thanks in part to Trent's video The Perfect Drug, the exotic liqueur, twice as strong as vodka, with mild hallucinogenic properties and well regarded because associated with artistic personalities of the caliber of Hemingway and Rimbaud, was experiencing a notable resurgence in popularity among the Goths.

Donald Marquette grimaced and looked down at his British-style imperial pint of Old Peculiar beer, another recent addition to the list of spirits for sale at Sailor. That high alcohol beer with a rich and distinctive flavor was quickly conquering him.

Damn bastard, he thought. I'll show you it! I'll show it to that arrogant asshole!

"Yes, he will make it the subject of an article," he reported after another, leavening sip of beer. "And since he enjoys such high regard in academic, literary and even popular circles, people will take him seriously."

"Here's a man who deserves to be debunked," Baxter decreed, waving his absinthe lightly and then tapping the goblet with a fingernail to make it ring like a bell.

"It's a big balloon," said the Marquis, using a comical tone of voice a la George Sanders (having given up on the hardly credible imitations of Peter O'Toole and James Mason).

Donald smiled, then sighed.

Already. Just an inflated balloon.

He could feel the murmur of beer in his veins, and the drug they'd smoked in the basement earlier was turning his mind into an Escher study. It was a good feeling. He was fine. Very well. Resize it. You bet! Arrogant piece of shit!

"There's more," he added.

It was a Wednesday night at Cork'd Sailor, the night of the "luxury bar," which had not met with particular success among the irony-free clientele with whom Baxter was forced to live. However, the air was still saturated with blue-gray smoke. The smell that lingered was that of cigars, matches, and beer-soaked sponge placemats. Yet Donald was perfectly at ease. The place was dark and reassuring, with walls decorated with pictures and all sorts of Victorian objects. The rows of spouted spirits bottles leaning against the mirror behind the counter created the impression of a beautiful glass garden, sparkling in the soft light. Although too close to Little Italy for his liking, the place possessed the exotic character and atmosphere of Fells Point.

"More?" Baxter shuffled, raising his clouded eyes to his author.

"Yup. He was furious when he saw the collection of my short stories published by the Tome Press. He understood that I come here often and that I know you. Now he wants me to break off every relationship I have with you. No more short stories for The Tome, no more books for the Tome Press ... and I guess if he were to find out that I keep coming here just to drink beer, he'd fire me. "

Saying those words made Donald rage again.

As if everyone had a number of alternatives available!

And with the workload he had to manage, it was natural to want to dump in the company of friends every now and then! Professor Adolf Hitler Blessing was treating Donald as if he were a teenager, and moreover his son!

In fact, Donald had only frequented the club on weekends. It had all started innocently, with a couple of business meetings. But after signing the contract to publish the short story collection, Baxter had begun inviting him to the bar on weekends and offering him drinks. Donald had made the acquaintance of his clique, whose members had all read his stories and found them fantastic. In their eyes, Donald was now almost a celebrity. They hung on his lips, especially when it came to literature. Baxter had soon offered him a job as a co-editor, "to bring prestige to this humble magazine," but Donald had declined. He had too many other commitments. However, he had been genuinely flattered, and the respect that was bestowed upon him in that circle,

He had undoubtedly learned to appreciate the liquor they drank. And also some of the drugs they used, although it was strictly limited to that front. He only accepted them on special occasions, to be honest. During the holidays. But when the pressure exerted by his workload began to get the better of him, he tried to take one or two of the stimulant pills the boys had given him. And what a blow, what a charge he had received. He was able to work a lot more and sleep a lot less. In his opinion, the drug also had the effect of improving the quality of his writing. It was as if he opened a door within himself, allowing his raw creativity, yes, his genius to flow.

Spree with the Goths.

It was very, very funny. Of course, that Mick disturbed him at times ... there was something in the look, in the attitudes and in the way he dressed. And the stories. Donald had to admit that Blessing had hit on that aspect of the matter. Both Mick and his prose were hard, forced, strange, threatening. Donald realized that Mick himself had inspired a couple of his most recent and most successful stories. But now, on what would be his last visit to the club for a long time, he felt some relief at Mick's absence.

"Fuck," Baxter said irritably. "What a damned bastard."

Already. To the point, Donald noted, to shake the owner of the bar, the publisher and editor, from the numbness induced by the pressures of the world and alcohol.

Something burned in his eyes like the end of a severed electrical cable.

"This thing gets my blood pumping," Baxter said.

More than flattered, Donald was moved to see Baxter's reaction. He had often thought that the Goths were simply condescending to him, because they found him funny and interesting. He had figured they would receive his announcement with a simple "hello, baby, too bad for you."

But it was different.

They cared about him.

He really liked him ...

Donald Marquette had always been quite a loner, and never had much success with girls or in social relationships. He still felt slightly uncomfortable in the presence of William Blessing, whom he found very friendly but still pompous and a little too formal. The good humor he displayed in the presence of the famous writer and scholar was often false or forced. After all, the reason he was there was to improve his knowledge, learn the art of writing and, above all, promote his career.

He had never had relationships with such composed, self-confident, up-to-date and informed people.

The Goths, on the other hand ... were ... well, good. And he liked the fact that they thought him good.

It was a really good feeling to be accepted and respected.

Baxter Brittle rubbed his chin. Then he stood up, tucking the absinthe flask into one of his large pockets. «Come, Inner Circle. This is indeed a very serious problem. We have to go down to the fetid sancta sanctorum to cogitare. "

With consummate ostentation he walked towards the basement. The Count and the Marquis followed him. Believing he had also been included, Donald rose to follow them too.

However, before reaching the door that opened onto the basement stairs, they were interrupted by the arrival of a young couple, elegantly dressed as Goths vampires.

"Baxter Brittle," the girl called, holding up a black silk gloved hand.

"At your service," Brittle replied with an obsequious half bow. "What can I do for you, Lady Jessica and Prince Knowlton?"

The girl, a bubbly guy, bordering on punk, with colorful hair, took a step forward, approaching Baxter. "A lot of weird things are happening among your people, Baxter."

"I apologize?"

“Listen, I love the Goth scene as much as anyone else in the business. Maybe more than anyone else, ”the slender girl said. "But things are happening that I don't like at all."

"Oh yes? And what are you referring to? "

"Some people I know who were perfectly fine in the past six months have turned into real addicts," Lady Jessica reported firmly. “I'm certainly not a saint, nor do I always say 'I prefer to live', but things are getting serious. It is no longer fun. And the Prince came home last night with his cloak stained with blood! "

"Have mercy!" Baxter exclaimed. “A vampire with a speck of blood on him! What a scandal. " Brittle staggered slightly, obviously under the influence of the absinthe.

"I don't remember anything that happened last night!" declared Prince Knowlton. "And that's something that makes me shit on fear!"

"This Salon des Gothiques story began as an interesting and decadent form of entertainment, not just an excuse to drink and take drugs like degenerates," Lady Jessica said accusingly. “Most of us get up on Monday morning to go to work, or school or whatever, and have to face the real world. I'm sorry about what happened to your parents, you know, but we don't have a legacy to live with. I'm not blaming you, don't get me wrong, but you guys are starting to dig too deep into the darkness. " He shook his head. "Too deep."

"Please," Baxter said. «Concision is the soul of wit and spirit. And I must say that you are lacking in sprit. "

"We have decided to leave the Goths," Lady Jessica revealed. “We are forming our own group. Me and Knowlton and a few others. We decided to drop this scene and, above all, get away from you. "

Baxter spread the fingers of one hand and brought it to his chest. "Gasp! You Hurt me!" he exclaimed sarcastically. "Am I really that bad, crazy and dangerous?"

"Come on, Prince," Lady Jessica said, taking him by the arm and pulling him in the direction of the door. "Let's get out of here."

"Oooooh!" called Baxter behind them. “Are you going to get tea with the other vampires? Remember to keep your little finger up when you drink, please! "

Donald found himself laughing along with the others.

"Too afraid of getting burned, huh?" Baxter said cheerfully. But suddenly the expression on his face hardened. He looked at his inner circle, the Marquis, the Count and Donald Marquette, then asked: "You, on the other hand, are in it, don't you?"

They all nodded. They weren't afraid of getting burned.

Yes, Donald thought, I'm in it. These are my friends. It's the kind of company I've always been looking for. And they're not the only ones digging in the darkness ... I do too.

We all do it, actually, in the depths of our hearts.

It was a quote from one of his stories and he knew it was true.

The group passed the rattling bead curtain behind the counter, crossed the kitchen as Baxter removed the keys from his pocket, then descended into the dungeon.

If Donald had found the cleverly decorated and charmingly mysterious "salon" the first time he went down to the basement, now ...

Well, now the financial situation of the Tome Press was improving visibly and, along with it, the opulence of that den of debauchery grew. Baxter Brittle had purchased a series of spectacular oriental rugs which now covered the floor, lending luxury and warmth to the room. Antiques and expensive framed paintings had added to the decor. Necklaces, crosses, and esoteric and occult symbols hung here and there, glittering in the glow of the flames of large aromatic candles. The rich, dense scent of incense, combined with the smoke from Baxter's French cigarettes, lingered in the air. Tallow, tobacco and incense ... and traces of exotic scents and alcohol.

Baxter led them to a beautiful round oak table surrounded by richly inlaid chairs. He gestured with one hand. "Sit down." He took out his flask and goblet and placed them on the table in front of him. "What are you drinking, brothers?"

They all chose to drink beer. Baxter pointed to the icebox. "Help yourself."

Donald took another bottle of Old Peculier.

They sat down again.

"We have a problem," Baxter announced. “We are facing a dilemma. On the one hand, it is a very good thing that some members of our group are leaving us. On the other hand, we have to watch them carefully to make sure they keep their mouths shut. " Her eyebrows twitched slightly as she spoke those words. "Then, we have a friend here who does not intend to abandon us, but who is forced to do so for professional reasons by his mentor."

"William Blessing!" shouted the Count.

"An illustrious and powerful person," the Marquis pointed out.

"Maybe we should invite Blessing to join us!" proposed the Count.

"Several times in the past I have communicated our availability," confessed Baxter. “But apparently the good professor lives in an ivory tower. He considers himself superior to us. He despises us. Easy, when you have plenty of money and enjoy success. Yet, brothers, do we not draw from the same source? The literature, philosophy and emotions that run through our gray matter, that run through our veins ... aren't they the same that run through William Blessing's? Our friend Donald Marquette recognizes this. We recognize it. Others recognize it. But evidently Blessing is a necromancer who denies the sulfur smell produced by her spell. He thinks he is impervious, powerful and immune from the delicious vapors of the night that cloak us. "

Baxter paused for silence.

The flames of the candles beside the table fluttered as if a demonic wind blew through the premises.

"Maybe we should give that Blessing a wake-up call," the Count suggested.

"Yes," the Marquis agreed. "He should wake up and take note of the reality."

"Easy in words," Donald said. "But at the moment all the people I'm meeting, all the contacts in the publishing world ... and I mean the publishing houses in New York ..."

"I see. But there is always dark sunset, right? "

"Unfortunately, that didn't go down either."

"Hey!" protested the marquis. "But it's my favorite series!"

“I have to admit I'm not being impartial,” Baxter said. "But let's face it: they could call the Star Trek writers to write that stuff and they'd sell the wrath of God anyway."

"Hey!" This time it was the Count's turn to protest. "I like Star Trek books!"

"Not everyone has a taste when it comes to literature," Baxter said, leaning forward and rubbing his nose to try to get inspiration from it.

Donald sipped his beer. The situation looked black to him. He simply should have taken refuge even further into work. It was hard to stay in Blessing's house all the time and have to put up with the man's eccentricities. God, how talkative he was, and he always talked pompously and mostly about himself. Bite your tongue and smile, Marquette. Kiss that hairy ass! The Great Authority has spoken and shown the way! Everyone pay attention to the new tedious mental masturbation!

But the worst was Amy's closeness.

He had fallen madly in love with her from the first moment he saw her, and his feeling had only grown. God, how hard it was to be close to her and keep from holding her in your arms, kissing her forever. He was such a physical person. She loved to touch it. Lately she had also taken to hugging him. Feeling her breasts against his chest, or arm, was electrifying. The warm fragrance of her perfume sent him into ecstasy. At Christmas she had given him a kiss under the mistletoe. On the cheek, sure, but ...

He wants me, he thought, drinking more amber liquid. Maybe he doesn't realize it yet, but he is!

If only he had more power to handle the situation.

If only...

Suddenly, slow, precise footsteps were heard coming down the stairs.

Baxter Brittle lifted his head, interrupting the flow of his thoughts. "Who could it be?"

The rustle of a long coat.

The cadence of the leather soles of the boots.

The flap of the coat lengthened and gradually took on the slender, gloomy shape of Mick. He was holding a bottle of Courvoisier in one hand. In the other he was holding an elegant jockey whip. He used it to hit the handrail as he went down.

The candle flames languished. Oddly, the air seemed to grow colder as he entered, streaked with the smell of fog, the stench of sewer rats and seagulls.

Behind him a second pair of boots, this time not touched by the hem of a coat. The black boots fit smoothly into a pair of black leather pants. As the legs descended the steps, revealing themselves to the eye, Donald noticed that the trousers were decorated with chrome studs. The trouser legs were long, and at the top they wrapped a pair of powerful buttocks, opening in a codpiece at the front. Climbing further he saw a flat, tight stomach, a leather shirt open to show his well-formed abs, then huge pecs, broad shoulders and a football player's face, square and rocky. Crowned with a black leather hood, with other studs.

"Come on, Theodore," Mick said. "Do not fear. I guarantee you that these people don't bite. " He produced a grin. "But I don't doubt you'd have fun if they did."

Mick turned to the others. “Gang, this is a new recruit. This is cousin Theodore. He wishes to become a beacon of literature. "

The mountain of muscles grunted.

"Do you want to drink, Theodore?" Mick offered.

"A Becks."

"Of course. Help yourself. The fridge over there is well stocked. "

The big man walked over to the icebox as Mick walked slowly towards the table. He tapped the surface lightly with the whip, then sat down on one of the chairs.

"A meeting in my absence?" he asked suspiciously, making the words think. "Something wrong?"

Baxter leaned back in his chair and indulged in a maniacal laugh. "Not anymore."

Mick frowned. "What the fuck do you mean?"

"Your arrival is the solution," Baxter explained. "I have an idea. An idea for a wonderful solution! " His face, previously dark and absent, was now radiant as he turned to look at Donald. "And in addition to allowing you to further earn the esteem of our beloved Dr. Blessing, and to continue to associate with us, he will make an immense contribution to our cause!"

Donald was now ready to consider any idea.

He took another sip of beer, laced his fingers together, and leaned forward on the table to listen.

13

Then I opened the shutters and, with a frantic flapping of my wings,

A majestic raven of the holy times entered that
were;

He did not bow, nor did he pause for a moment;

But acting like a gentleman or a great lady he perched
above my door.

He perched on Pallas's torso above my door.

He settled down, sat down and nothing more.

EDGAR A. POE, "The Crow"

William Blessing had always heard of that kind of evening. However, all his celibate life he had despised the idea. Stupid dull chatter, he told himself. Nonsense nonsense, a form of propaganda evoked to undermine independence, to force the male to bite the brake and force him to continue to drag his genes across the expanses of time, towards an ineluctable, icy and total winter.

Now, sitting in front of the fireplace, Blessing realized that not only was all of this quite pleasant, not only did he feel contented and satisfied like never before ...

But he was also happy.

He tasted pure, pristine happiness!

The glow of the crackling fire in the fireplace enveloped him in a warm blanket of peace. The rich and aromatic smell of burning cedar wood blended perfectly with the diffusers of poutpourri essences that Amy had lit the candles for. The taste of the chocolate on his tongue beautifully complemented the strength of the drop of whiskey with which he had corrected it. He had in his hands a very well preserved and wonderfully illustrated 19th century copy of the novel Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, the book in which he loved to take refuge in those days of tranquility, seeking escape from the rapids of the literary world to dive into a protected world of words. magical and immortal characters. It was a pleasant Saturday evening in February, and together with his beloved he was safe and warm in his beautiful home,

A crackle from the fire.

He looked up at the flames, alarmed, but immediately reassured himself, seeing that a spark had shot off the logs and was now dying on the terracotta tiles. Nothing more. He looked around.

The truth, of course, was that her contentment, or rather, happiness, was entirely due to the person who now sat in the chair opposite hers, immersed in Jane Austen's reading of Mansfield Park, after putting aside the knitting needles. .

Amy.

Its Amy.

He couldn't help but stop and admire it. She was so beautiful, and her beauty seemed to move something deep in her soul, something resonant and pure ... and sacred. Youth contributed to that beauty but, even if it faded, maturity would take its place to create perhaps even greater and more complete beauty.

She teased him, claiming that his obsession with Poe had gone beyond all limits, that just as Edgar had married his thirteen-year-old cousin so William Blessing had taken a child bride. Of course, when they started texting and talking on the phone after that first weekend together at the fantasy writers convention (a chaste weekend! The first such experience for the bachelor Blessing), it was evident that in many ways, on the emotional and sentimental side, Amy was the more mature of the two. Then, a few months after the excitement of marriage and honeymoon, weeks of being built together, of flowers, cards and all other expressions of the joy of love, his jokes about the age difference had ceased. Quickly and quite naturally they had merged into a domestic unity marked by passion, love and mutual understanding. They had established an incredible bond that transcended age and flesh, celebrated by sex. In Blessing's eyes, Amy embodied the best of poetry itself: beauty, taste, musical talent ... and a sweet and gentle soul. He had sensed it from the moment he laid eyes on her, on her shy smile, and from time to time he wrote lines dedicated to her with an ancient pen, dipping the tip into the ink and making it vibrate as it scratched. on paper. When he completed the notebook in which he wrote the love poems, he would close it with a red ribbon and place it on his pillow before setting off on one of his travels.

God, how he loved her!

He looked up from the book again to admire those perfect features, as he often did during evenings devoted to reading, and caught her looking at him rather oddly.

"Amy, are you okay?" he asked.

"Yup. I think so, Bill. "

"You look ... upset."

"Mmm. I'm having a hard time concentrating. I am a little bit worried."

"About what?"

"I do not know. It's just a weird feeling ... "

He got up and put down the book. He walked over to her and knelt beside her chair, putting his arm around her. It smelled of jasmine and Earl Gray tea. Her hair glowed in the firelight. "Are you still upset about the bickering we had last week?"

"What? That Dark Sunset story? " He laughed softly. "Why never? I won. I will write a short story and they will publish it for me, despite your arrogant and presumptuous attitude. " She squeezed his nose gently between her fingers. "And I must confess that I am not at all sorry if you advised Donald not to meddle with these strange people."

"You know, dear, you mustn't think that I a priori disapprove of groups of people who dress and behave strangely, although I never did as a young man."

"Already. You were too busy writing footnotes. "

He smiled in appreciation of the joke. “It's just that I have read the material they publish and have been quite upset by it. Unfortunately I managed to create a good reputation for myself, who knows how, and I have to be very, very careful about how I move. Do you understand me?"

"Sure. And Donald doesn't seem to have taken it badly. Although I wish there was a girl. He needs it. Maybe we were wrong to keep him too busy. I tried to introduce him to one of my friends from Peabody, but he doesn't seem interested. "

“Was that him you were thinking about, Amy? To Donald? "

"Well, no ... not only that." She bit her lip, looked at him with sad eyes and stroked his cheek. “Bill, sometimes I think we're both… too busy. We have too many things to do. I wonder if our lives aren't devouring us. "

"Do you think we should take a vacation?"

He laughed. «You know me well. I always need a vacation. No." he stopped to think. “You know, I was thinking. Years go by. I know I'm young, but you ... "

"Am I aging rapidly?"

"No, what are you saying? Well, maybe you better spit the toad. I know we've talked about it before ... starting a family ... and we've decided to postpone it. But now I think if we wait too long ... maybe you won't fully enjoy the children. And then, who knows? " He smiled sadly, his eyes swollen with tears. "Who knows what the future will bring us? I would like to have ... grandchildren, and be able to cuddle them with you ... and enjoy all the other silly sentimentality. " He sniffed and turned his head. "It's too much. Not long ago I was reading Herman Hesse and listening to Kurt Cobain. Now I want to start making sweaters for the grandchildren and organize cruises for retirees! "

He laughed, deeply moved.

Before meeting Amy he had repressed or denied many of his feelings. Now it seemed to house a luxuriant cultivation ... he felt the owner of a Matisse garden full of wonder and vitality, the whole spectrum of love in all its nuances and artistic representations.

"I knew it. Our age difference eventually starts to worry you. "

"Excuse me," he said. "You know I'm uncomfortable expressing my feelings."

"Don't worry," he assured her. "There's nothing wrong. And you're not just expressing your feelings. You are facing a concrete and logical question. An issue that we must address together. "

"I was afraid you would get angry."

"Jokes? Do you think he's so vain that he doesn't want to admit that I'm getting old? "

"You are not old. This is not the problem."

"Of course not," he laughed. "I know." She had turned her head again. He reached out and turned it around, looking into her eyes. He kissed her gently on the cheek. “You're absolutely right, honey. There is no reason not to have children. We should do it right away. I admit I've been very selfish up to now. I wanted to have you all to myself as long as possible. "

His eyes filled with amazement and joy. "Bill! Are you serious?"

"Well, we'll have to make some financial sacrifices, but you know what they say: when you have children you always manage to get back what you need in some way."

She spoke in a child's voice. "I can write a novel for Dark Sunset, Dad!"

Then, finally, she hugged him.

She squeezed him hard enough to give him the impression that she wanted to merge with him. And if it were possible, William Blessing would have no objection at that moment.

He held her to him, and her softness, her intoxicating fragrance and warm essence enveloped him in an aura of erotic sensations. They kissed, and it was the sweetest and most tender kiss of his entire life.

Without even realizing it, the next moment they found themselves intertwined on the floor caught in a whirlwind of passion, next to the fireplace. His love for her burned like embers in the fireplace. But it was meant to last much, much longer.

"You know, love," Blessing said. "Even the charm of Charles Dickens pales in front of you." He raised a finger to point to the ceiling. "And you know what? Despite your claims, I think I'm a little too old to roll on the floor. I think I'd be much happier to commit to getting pregnant in our warm, beautiful and very expensive bed. "

"Party pooper," she said jokingly.

Amy jumped athletically to her feet and helped Blessing up. He mimicked a fit of rheumatism and staggered after her, letting her loving and mischievous gaze guide him to the staircase that led to the upstairs bedroom.

They were halfway there when the doorbell rang.

"Who can it be?" Amy asked, annoyed.

"It can't be Donald," Blessing said. “He has the key and would have gone in without ringing. And anyway he never comes on a Saturday night. "

“Forget it, Bill. Do not answer. Here we go." She pulled him by the arm. "Let's pretend we're not home."

"No. It is clear that we are there. It could be something important. " He gently freed himself from his grip and smiled at her to reassure her. "It begins to rise. Whoever he is, I'll send him away in a couple of minutes and then I'll join you. "

"No. I'll wait here." She crossed her arms across her chest, vaguely irritated by the insubordination.

“It's snowing outside. Maybe someone has been in an accident or their car is blocked by snow and needs to make a phone call, ”he speculated. "We would fail in our neighborly duties if we didn't open."

"In the city center? I don't think so, ”he replied.

Amy was a girl from the quiet American suburbs and living in a metropolitan context still made her nervous. However, theirs was a pretty safe neighborhood, and Blessing didn't believe that street criminals wandered around in the snow. Frozen streets and sidewalks weren't ideal for a quick escape!

Also, it was not necessary to open the door to see who had rang.

At the entrance, he turned on the security system monitor.

"Who is it?" he asked over the intercom. The monitor cleared but produced no images. Evidently the snow had covered the camera lens outside.

“I'm sorry to bother you, but there's been an accident. I need to call a tow truck, and maybe even the police. "

It was a woman's voice, slightly shivering from the cold. Blessing could hear the hissing of the wind and the great snowflakes settling on the window panes. Just listening to the woman's voice did he think he felt the bitter cold.

But he couldn't see her.

Damn snow. He didn't mind, usually, but at times like this he wished he had chosen to live in a place where the climate was milder. Winter on the east coast of the United States could be extremely harsh. Why that woman had chosen to knock on her door was a mystery. But he felt obliged to do his duty as a good citizen and to give her a hand.

He dialed the code that deactivated the alarm, unlocked the lock, released the safety chain and pulled the heavy oak door to him, opening it.

Cold air immediately burst into the house, quick and sharp, bringing with it a dusting of snow.

"What's going on ..." he began to say.

He saw at once that there was not a woman on the doorstep, but an imposing man in a long coat, a monolithic black figure against the lighter background of the snowy night.

Before he even had time to consider slamming the door, the man stepped forward and punched him in the solar plexus, with the precision and speed of an experienced boxer.

The snow lit up with stars. Blessing let out a strangled cry and his vision blurred. He doubled over from the blow he received and fell forward. The man held him up and pushed him into the hall.

Blessing felt as though he had been broken in two.

"Bravo, Professor Blessing," said a voice behind the man who hit him. “Give us some space. It's cold out here. "

The pain had begun to rise from his abdomen to his chest. He was losing and regaining consciousness, barely realizing that the other man had entered the house escaping the snow and was closing the door behind him.

The black coat was long, very long.

White fingers poked out of black gloves.

A hard, square chin.

A grin on his face.

«Here. That's better, ”he agreed in a sharp whisper. «Well, professor. There is no reason to suffer further, even if we have all the tools in case it is necessary, I assure you. "

"Yeah, fuck it. Knives and guns, ”the black-clad man growled.

"And some other nice tools," whispered the man in the long coat. “We are professionals, you understand, and we like our work. Therefore, we know that you have a magnificent collection, containing pieces of considerable value. Are you so professor? "

The breath escaped from Blessing's lungs, but without making a sound.

"I asked you ..." The man brushed his hair back and faced him, face to face. Blessing smelled alcohol, garlic, and something even worse in the man's breath. "I asked you if that's the case, Professor."

"Yes," Blessing managed with difficulty.

Sufficient adrenaline was now pouring into his system to allow him to focus on his eyes. In that instant he realized that the fear he felt was not for the possible loss of his collection of Poe memorabilia ... but rather for his wife's safety.

Amy.

They don't have to hurt Amy.

"Yes, please. There is no need to use violence, "he managed to say." You can take whatever you want. "

"What a man of common sense," said the man in the coat. "However…" He nodded his head.

The tall, bulky thug with a pitted face that looked like something out of a Marvel comic grabbed Blessing from behind, pulled his arms behind his back, and pinned his wrists.

A twinge of pain ran up Blessing's arms to her shoulders. It was as if the man wanted to take them off. He was on the verge of losing consciousness again, but as if he had sensed it, the man eased the pressure.

"Excellent. Now, we can make it very quick and, if not quite painless, certainly less tragic than it could be, ”the man in the coat said. «Please, professor. Show us your collection. I assume he's upstairs, right? "

"Yes," Blessing confirmed.

"Good. Now calmly and calmly let's go and see. But not too slowly. We could get impatient. "

Both men were bare-faced, and as their senses faded, Blessing mentally took note of every detail, every scar, every curvature of the nose and every follicle, burning them into memory.

You're making a mistake, he thought. They will get you. You won't be able to get away with it.

That was the thought that gave him strength, that allowed him to control himself and not attempt a reaction. Which prevented the formation of thoughts such as It cannot be true for the benefit of Justice will be done! and I have to protect Amy.

They pushed him up the stairs.

"Now tell us which door we have to open," demanded the man in the coat.

Blessing thought of offering them money and valuables to get them to leave, but she knew it would be useless. They clearly knew what they wanted and were determined to get it.

He had always known that such a collection of precious objects was vulnerable. But he had only feared that they might accidentally fall into the clutches of some house rat. He had never imagined that anyone could want those first editions and those artifacts to the point of organizing a theft on commission. How could they think of being able to resell them, of profiting from such a pillage?

Yet evidently the collection was the goal of the two. And that eventually they would not be able to get away with it seemed obvious to him. Blessing was concerned about the fate of the objects he venerated and for which he had spent exorbitant sums; however, the salvation of her life and Amy's was far more important.

He would obey their every instruction.

They reached the first floor the instant Amy stepped out of the bathroom. "Bill, is everything? ..."

As soon as he saw the two men holding Blessing back, his face twisted into an expression of panic. He turned and tried to escape.

"Amy. No!" called Blessing.

The man in the long coat sprinted after him. There was no story. He reached her at the first step of the flight of stairs, took her by the waist with one arm and held her.

She screamed.

"Shut up, bitch!" the man ordered. He shook her like a dog shakes a rabbit.

"Don't hurt her!" pleaded Blessing.

Amy stopped struggling. The man in the coat dragged her to the door where she had come out.

“Nobody gets hurt if you obey what we tell you. Agree?" He shook Amy again. She nodded, her eyes wide with fear. She looked at Blessing and seemed relieved to see him apparently unharmed.

"They just want the artifacts in the collection room," Blessing explained. "I'm going to let him take them."

"A wise and democratic decision, Professor," the man in the coat complimented. "And now, please ..." He pointed to the alarm system box. "You take care of it."

"I would if I had a free hand."

"Of course. But remember: we will not hesitate to harm Mrs. Blessing. And that's what will happen if he tries to be smart. "

The thug stayed close to Blessing and stared at him as he rubbed his arms to reactivate the circulation and then turned his attention to the controller. The professor typed in a few digits and the red light went out.

He put a hand in his right trouser pocket.

"Watch out, Professor," the man in the coat admonished.

"I'm just getting the keys."

"Very well."

Blessing pulled them out, tinkling. He showed them to the man in the coat, then chose the one he needed.

He inserted it into the patch.

He turned it.

And he pushed the door open.

When the door opened from the room, a draft of cold air came out, charged with the scent of leather, leather and paper. He reached inside and turned on the light.

The group crossed the threshold. The moment the man in the coat walked in and looked around, something changed.

Previously he had had a satisfied and arrogant grin on his face. Now, however, he looked vaguely confused. Disoriented. Troubled. Maybe even scared.

"Fuck," he whispered.

"What's up?" inquired the accomplice.

"Hold the woman," he ordered.

The brash complied, stepping sideways and grabbing Amy. “Not bad, the girl. It also smells good. "

The man in the coat reached into his pocket, staring blankly, and pulled out a gun.

"Son of a bitch!" he exclaimed.

He began to tremble. He turned to look at Blessing, her eyes now red and bloodshot.

He aimed the gun. The barrel bore was as black and cold as Blessing's senses had ever recorded.

"It is you!" accused the man in the long coat.

"What?"

"No!" Amy shouted.

Instinctively, despite the fear that gripped him, Blessing turned to look at his wife.

What was happening in the room had distracted the bully. Physical closeness to such a beautiful woman had evidently triggered more immediate desires than that of stealing. Her bovine nostrils were dilated and he had buried his mouth in Amy's neck, violently squeezing her right breast in one large hand.

"Leave her alone!" Blessing yelled. Without worrying about his own safety he threw himself against the energetic, hitting him in the face with a fist. The blow hurt Blessing's hand more than the attacker, but at least managed to get her attention. She looked up, her eyes full of lust and defiance.

Despite the pain in his hand, Blessing was preparing to deliver a second punch when he was knocked down by a tremendous blow to the back of the head. He fell across the room, hitting a pile of books and risking unconsciousness again.

She curled up on the floor, trying to stay conscious.

Stay awake! Stay alive!

For Amy's sake!

Then he realized that the man in the coat had stood on top of him and was pointing the gun at him.

"You!" he growled through clenched teeth. "My persecutor!"

"What?" muttered Blessing.

The tendons on the man's neck were all raised and the veins on his sweaty forehead were swollen.

"Finally I found you!" declared the man in the coat. His eyes vibrated wildly. "You won't bother me anymore ..."

"Tell that beast to get away from my wife!"

Blessing started to get up.

He was knocked back to the ground by two bullets.

The pain was intense, immediate and visceral. Darkness enveloped him quickly.

And they brought no comfort.

14

Then that ebony bird made mine smile
sad mood,

With the grave and austere decorum of his bearing,

“Though your comb is shaved,” I said, “you are not a coward

Horrid and ancient Raven that comes from night shores.

Tell me what your noble name is on the plutonia banks! "

The Crow said: "Never again."

EDGAR A. POE, "The Crow"

It was a brilliant plan!

Absolutely brilliant, Donald Marquette thought as Baxter Brittle's Volvo cruised the icy roads. The snow was now falling so thick that it obscured the street lamps. Marquette wore no gloves and, sitting in the passenger seat, kept his hands on the dashboard of the car in front of the hot air vent to warm up.

The marquis had been ordered not to drink that evening and now he drove the car assisted by heavy snow tires. Baxter Brittle and the Earl sat in the back seat. The inside of the car was filled with the sweet, nauseating smell of absinthe that Baxter hadn't wanted to give up, even though Marquette had insisted he stay sober. He wore a Victorian-cut fur coat and seemed fascinated, almost hypnotized by the snowflakes falling in large swirls from the sky.

"Night of peace and joy, huh?" Baxter trailed off. He began to hum the m dreaming of a white Christmas! in a shrill and out of tune voice.

"Here we are," Donald said. "That's the house."

"Park! Park! " Baxter urged. "We will bow with laughter!"

"Gladly," replied the marquis, looking around the night almost opaque with snow. "I just have to find a place, okay?"

Donald rolled up his sleeve and checked his watch. "Don't be too picky," he invited. "It's almost time for the appointment."

He himself, although not quite drunk, was quite tipsy. Although he had advocated sobriety as the ideal condition for that kind of situation, he had struggled to manage the excitement and nervousness while waiting at Cork'd Sailor. Nobody seemed to care that he had downed a few beers and stuffed a bottle of vodka into his coat pocket before going out. You never know, he told himself. He could always have thrown it.

A fabulous plan!

As the Marquis struggled with the steering wheel of the Volvo in an attempt to park it in the space he had spotted, the windshield flooded with snowflakes between sweeps of the wipers, Donald Marquette thought he was hearing Baxter Brittle again in the basement below. the bar explained his idea: "A simple and effective plan!" he said, waving the cup of liquor with one hand and pointing at Mick and Theodore with the other. “We have the solution before us. Here: two men with an imposing physique and a menacing appearance. They will enter Blessing's house, threatening him to the extreme but exerting the minimum of physical violence. I guess you two are there, right? " he asked, looking at the men dressed in black.

"It might be fun," Mick said quietly.

"Already. Why not?" Theodore agreed.

"Very well." Baxter Brittle had continued. «So. At this point our young hero, Donald Marquette, appears. What makes him visit the Blessing mansion that fateful Saturday night? But to iron out a disagreement, of course. To testify the very object of the dispute in the direct presence of the Blessings! The bad influences in the flesh! The Goths! To this end, as representatives of the group, the undersigned, the Marquis and the Count accompanied him, bringing with them peace offerings and perhaps some books to be autographed. "

Melodramatically he waved a finger.

«But what do our eyes see! There seems to be trouble! Yes, the home of the Blessing and the wonderful collection of Poe artifacts it holds are in danger! We, courageous and intrepid citizens, as well as excellent Goths, we launch to the rescue of the attacked.

"Pam! Pum! Slaps and punches to the bad guys! Take this, and this other! " Baxter Brittle was so empathized with the part that he stood up and began punching imaginary opponents.

He was huffing and panting, miming a boxing match. Then he finished with a mighty hook, whirled around and raised his arms to the sky in glorious victory.

“The bad guys are defeated. They run away, disappearing into the night. But Poe's collection of artifacts, the brilliant professor and his lady are safe and sound thanks to our value. They will hail us as heroes. " He had picked up the cup of absinthe. «Thanks Donald! Thanks Goths. Now we can only change our minds about you. Let's meet again in a moment of greater tranquility, have a drink together and become friends! "

Baxter had turned to look at Donald.

“And you, Mr. Marquette ... now we are so grateful and respect you to the point that we have no problem with your acquaintances; after all, they are splendid people! "

At that point he had laughed.

"Do you see? Very simple, but extremely effective. And who knows what added value could Tome Press derive from it? An exclusive edition of an unpublished and obscure tale by William Blessing? Why not? What a great idea, Baxter Brittle. You are a genius. " He had bowed. "Thank you! Thanks a lot to everyone!"

They then toasted together, celebrating the genius of the proposal.

Donald had found a perfect plan.

In addition to consolidating his position towards the Blessing, he could continue to hang out with his friends ... maybe even gain prestige within the group. They could have rewarded him by publishing a whole series of his books! Anything was possible. The only limit in that kind of situation was fantasy, and his fantasy was… well, that of a writer and therefore unlimited.

The impact of the wheels against the pavement, the whistle of the rubber friction on the ice. The car was parked. He got out, plunging into the freezing air. He pulled out the bottle. There was nothing better than vodka to warm a man's soul. He took a sip, then a second and put the bottle back in his pocket.

"This way."

He led them to the steps at the entrance to the terraced house.

The street looked like it was taken from a fairytale winter urban landscape. Stalactites of ice hung from tree branches like bizarre imitations of vampire fangs. The cars were covered in snowdrifts. Like a line of frozen giants, the houses were burdened with the weight of ice and snow.

From high in the darkness, from the point in the sky where the snow materialized, came a sound.

A croak!

Donald looked up. A piece of the night seemed to fly away from up there. Then a splash of snow that fell on his face from above forced him to lower his head.

Baxter Brittle struggled to walk on the snow, but with the help of the Marquis and the Count he managed not to slip, remaining on his feet. What a wonderful group of rescuers. Fortunately, the attackers were in league with them and would have pretended to fall under the blows, only to flee. The least use of force would have had the greatest effect.

Donald led the way and climbed the icy steps. He had to hold on to the handrail to keep from slipping. The door was locked, of course, and presumably the alarm system had been disabled. He didn't bother to knock. He could have claimed to have done so and, worried about not receiving an answer, had used the key given to him by the Blessing. "Thank God you did," they would have said, and they would never talk about it again.

The lock clicked.

The door opened with a creak.

Donald walked in and was surprised at what he heard.

Total silence.

He raised a hand, gesturing to the others.

"I don't hear noises."

"This house has thick walls," Baxter explained. “If they're already ransacking the collection room, we certainly can't hear them down here. Let us in! I'm freezing."

Donald advanced into the hall and the others followed him. He approached the steps leading to the first floor.

Dull blows.

A strangled cry.

More shots.

"Okay, let's go up," he said.

He swallowed and realized he was nervous and frightened, although rationally he had no reason to.

"We've heard suspicious noises," Brittle said. “So we got items to use as weapons. Guys! The kitchen is over there. Go see what you can find. " The Earl and the Marquis hurried to the kitchen as Baxter Brittle looked around. He pointed to the fireplace. “Yes, we heard suspicious noises and armed ourselves with pokers and shovels. Perfect!"

Baxter took the shovel, Donald the poker.

The Count and the Marquis emerged from the kitchen holding a small cleaver and a kitchen knife. Fortunately, they were dressed normally that night, and they gave the impression of being guys busy fighting a robbery, just as the plan intended.

They went up the stairs.

The door to the Poe room was open.

But the dull blows had stopped.

“You come in first,” Baxter said. "You're the hero."

Donald nodded. He raised the poker and crossed the threshold.

In the center of the room sat Mick, coat open and legs apart. His eyes were fixed on the pistol he was holding in one hand. Sensing someone's arrival, he looked up. Blurred eyes focused. He looked at Donald and gave him the smile of a demon-possessed person.

"My Enemy is dead!" he whispered hoarsely. "Finally dead! Now I can sleep at night! He won't haunt me anymore! "

A wave of terror swept through Donald. He stood still, his eyes fixed on Mick, not knowing what to do.

Then Theodore rose from behind a table. His face was red and his eyes were sleepy and shiny. His pants were pulled down to the middle of his powerful thighs. "Fuck, guys," he said. "Cool!"

Donald walked over to meet him. On the ground behind the table lay Amy Blessing half naked, her clothes torn, bloodied and unconscious. Donald didn't need to ask Theodore what he had done to her.

"Oh my God," she exclaimed.

He released his grip on the poker, which fell to the ground, bouncing with a blow on the carpet.

Baxter Brittle staggered into the room and looked at Mick. "Fuck," he exclaimed. "Mick! Mick! " she scolded him, waving a finger in his direction, as if addressing an undisciplined schoolboy. "This wasn't in the plan."

"Is dead! The Enemy is dead! " Mick repeated.

"How would that be?" the Count asked in a faint voice. 'Did he kill Blessing? Fuck, she killed him! "

The words echoed in Donald's mind. Part of him simply barricaded himself in denial and refused to believe it. Another part prompted him to action.

"What are you talking about, Mick?" he claimed to know, now on the verge of hysteria. The horror of the sight of Amy's naked, bloody body was already too much. Now the concrete fear that Blessing had been killed ... "Where is he?"

“To hell! I sent his soul straight to hell, away from me. An infinity away, an eternity! " Mick threw his head back and laughed.

A sudden awareness flowed through Donald like an unstoppable fever. He understood in an instant that the sense of unease and all the bad forebodings he had had in Mick's presence were nothing but feeble doubts compared to the reality that stood before him. The man was not a writer suffering from some character problem, but a real psychopath, a real killer with psychic disorders who delighted in writing when he was not around to torture his latest victim.

Donald raised his head and looked around.

Legs.

He saw a pair of legs emerge from behind a high-backed Victorian chair. Donald hurried in that direction. The legs were actually William Blessing's. His body was half lying on a pile of books that had fallen to the floor, under the raven placed on top of Pallas's bust. He had two bloody holes in his chest and he was stiff, immobile ...

Dead.

Dead!

Donald Marquette felt his whole world crack and collapse as he approached the mowed writer, seeing blood dripping from his chest and staining the floor, soaking the carpet in a deep red.

He whirled around.

"You're an idiot!" he railed at Mick. Then he turned to Theodore, pointing his index finger at him. "Why did you do all this? It wasn't… it wasn't part of the plan. "

Baxter Brittle shook his head disconsolately: "Oh my, what a mess!"

"Hey!" called the Count. "Look how cool they are here, though."

"It's true!" answered the Marquis. "We might as well take it all, right?"

"You just had to scare them!" Donald yelled. He lowered his voice. "And then we would have ... come ... to the rescue."

"The Enemy is defeated," Mick announced, laughing with a silly grin on his face. «The Enemy is kaput! The Enemy is ... banned! "

Donald was about to lunge forward and kick that damned gun out of Mick's hand. But he had to check Amy first. Yes, if Amy was still alive, just unconscious, it would still be possible to survive that nightmare. Maybe...

Something grabbed him by the trouser leg.

His heart leapt into his throat.

He whirled around.

William Blessing's eyes were open. He had reached forward and grabbed Donald Marquette's trouser leg with such violence that his nails were sinking into his flesh.

"You!" Blessing accused croaking. «Donald ... It was you! Why?"

As he looked down, in shock and horror, something deep within Donald Marquette froze. It froze in an ancient cold, like that of glaciers. The scene unfolded in slow motion, like slow motion for a winning football action. The icy Donald Marquette had time to observe, analyze, make the logical and absolutely inevitable decision.

"You ... you will pay," Blessing gasped, pushing herself forward, reaching out as if to grab Donald by the throat. "You will pay!"

Donald grabbed Pallas's torso and lifted it over his head, knocking the stuffed crow to the ground. While with all his might he knocked the bust over William Blessing's head with his mind he shouted: No, dear old man, you will pay!

With a sickening noise of fractured bone, the professor's skull split open.

Blessing made no more sound. He let go of Donald's pants and fell back to the floor, adding a new, bigger bloodstain to the carpet. Pallas's torso rolled down and stood on the floor with its face on the ground.

Stunned by what he had done, but still coldly convinced that he had no alternative, a different Donald Marquette, less alive and closer to death, turned to look at his companions.

"I had no choice," he said flatly.

"The Enemy ... wasn't dead," Mick said. He turned his head to look at Donald, his eyes filled with new gratitude and respect. "You ... you killed the Enemy."

"My goodness," Baxter Brittle said. He took out his flask and took a long drink. "Mamma Mia!"

Donald walked around the table and walked over to Amy Blessing. He knelt down and felt her pulse.

Yes, the heart was beating. She was still alive. Mercifully unconscious, but still alive.

"Now listen to me," Donald said, suddenly feeling totally sober and determined to take command. “Take all the stuff you can carry. There is no one outside. There are no witnesses, but we still have to be careful. We'll go ... then I'll come back and find out what happened. Understood? "

The others nodded.

"Let's move, then!" Donald ordered. "I'll show you which are the most precious pieces."

Mick's pistol had a silencer. There was no sign of alarm or curiosity from the adjacent houses. Good. Maybe they could get away with it.

They had to succeed.

It was Donald Marquette's only hope

And if they succeeded ... if indeed the investigators had concluded that the Blessings had fallen victim to drug and violent robbers ...

Donald looked at Amy Blessing, lying on the ground and bloodied but, incredibly, beautiful.

Amy will be mine!

And not just her, he thought, pulling out a handkerchief and starting to erase his fingerprints.

Outside Donald thought he heard a flapping of wings.

She ignored him.

15

Mimi, parodying God in the sky,

They murmur and mutter under their breath,

Flying here and there.

Mere puppets that come and go

At the hint of immense shapeless things

That move the scenarios back and forth,

Shaking from their Condor wings

Invisible Penalty!

EDGAR A. POE, "The conquering worm"

The rest was not silence.

Professor William Blessing awoke.

The first thing he saw was a soft light that penetrated through the stained glass of the windows. He looked up and realized that he was in a huge room topped by a rotunda. At the top of the roundabout a white bird fluttered, trapped. Focusing he saw that it was a dove. A dove flying from one point to another, alighting, looking for an escape route.

He looked down.

He was sitting in an old wooden chair. Under it a splendid tiled floor. He was surrounded by rows of tables. Reading tables, unoccupied. The curved shelves were filled with books, magazines and newspapers.

A library, therefore.

It was in a beautiful old library.

The scent in the air was that delightful blend of worn leather and paper, of silence and concentration. Dust particles danced in a ray of light, like atoms of free intellect, twirling in the corridors of wisdom.

He wore a dark Victorian-style suit. It was silky and comfortable. Looking around he saw, next to the librarian's large desk, which evidently had not yet arrived, a fountain of drinking water. Her mouth was dry and she got up to drink. The water was cold and refreshing, but brackish.

After drinking he turned and saw a man behind the large, shiny desk. He too wore a long Victorian jacket, wore strange goggles, bushy sideburns and a black bow at his neck, knotted with Byronic flair. He was old, but there was something familiar about the shape of his head and his gaze.

"Can I help you?" asked the librarian.

"I ... I don't know why I'm here," Blessing confessed.

"Of course you are here to use the library, sir," the man replied. "Can I see your card?"

"Of course." Blessing checked her pockets, but found them empty. "Apparently I don't have it," he said.

"Then obviously you're here to sign up," retorted the other, in a dark and brooding way. “Let me assist you. Go to the desk. "

Blessing obeyed, still confused and bewildered. The man in the dark suit, the bow, and the arched forehead pulled a sheet of paper out from under the desk.

"Your name, sir?" asked the librarian.

"William Clark Blessing."

"Date of birth?"

"Er ... December fifteenth one thousand nine hundred and fifty."

"Death date?"

Blessing blinked, then stared at the old librarian. "Excuse me?"

“I need the date of your death, sir. If you intend to enter or leave the library and consult the material it contains, I must have all the necessary information. " The man looked vaguely impatient and piqued. But there was more to his gaze: a kind of suppressed fury. An air of defiance.

“But I'm not dead! I don't know what he's talking about! "

“No recollection of his own death. Mmm. It is not uncommon, ”observed the librarian. “Well, maybe the registers can come to our aid. I have his name. Let me see if I can find anything. " He sighed, then made a sweeping wave of his hand. “Here are the most recent periodicals. Access to shelves, other reading rooms or crypts is not permitted without the card. However, while you wait, feel free to consult our newspapers. I'm sure that solving this hitch, you just have to have a little patience. "

More than patient, Blessing felt bewildered. The experience he was having had the altered reality characteristics of a dream, but all the sensations he felt were genuine. "Thank you." He couldn't say more.

"Excuse me."

The cadence of the librarian's heels echoed in the rotunda. Blessing looked up. The dove still fluttered up there. Looking for an escape. But all the windows seemed closed.

Blessing approached the newspapers and magazines neatly arranged on a table.

His attention was immediately captured by a title.

KILLED WRITER HORROR - THE CHAIN OF MYSTERIOUS MURDERS CONTINUES.

He read the article. Dean Koontz was killed despite the extraordinary security measures he had adopted after the deaths of Stephen King, Peter Straub, Clive Barker and, the first in the series, William Blessing.

The newspaper was the Washington Post.

Irony of fate! Dean had always claimed that he was not a horror writer.

Blessing felt strangely distant.

Detached.

It was as if his feelings were in a remote place, the same brain no longer well inserted in the skull but rather suspended overhead like a balloon, strangely equipped with a new sensory apparatus that he had no idea how to use.

Next to the Washington Post was a copy of the New York Times.

He leafed through it absently, looking for the ranking of the best-selling books in the last pages.

At number one, he found a book that bore his name but had never written. The fifth position was occupied by a book co-written by William Blessing and Donald Marquette. At number twelve a novel by Donald Marquette.

Blessing then checked the paperback rankings.

Number one was William Blessing presents the classics of Dark Sunset.

At number three William Blessing's Scary: the goblins ate my underpants!

In fifth position Soul Bite: the short stories of William Blessing, second volume, edited by Donald Marquette.

At number ten another novel he had never written.

He thumbed through the insert. He noticed the advertisement for William Blessing's The Occult magazine and the announcement of forthcoming novels written by him in collaboration with Donald Marquette.

Slowly, very, very slowly, he began to feel something like a feeling. At first it seemed to permeate him from the floor, like a flame that first warmed the soles of his shoes and then rose up to the height of his abdomen.

Beside the two newspapers he found People magazine.

He leafed through it more carefully. On the first pages he recognized two people in a photograph ...

The title of the article was: The Blessing Legacy.

The photo caption read: "Newlyweds Donald Marquette and Amy Blessing, William Blessing's widow, relaxing in their Maryland mansion."

The next page was dominated by a photograph of Amy Blessing in horseback riding a thoroughbred. In the next one, Donald Marquette was shown seated and surrounded by stacks of hardcover books, paperback books, videotapes and movie posters.

Blessing read the article carefully.

He discovered that after his death, inexplicably, some of his unpublished novels had been "found". Some were finished, others incomplete. In addition, there were numerous notes for long series of TV shows, a few scripts, and a quantity of notations of concepts and plots to keep several writers busy for many years. The rights to many novels had been sold for films and now William Blessing was hailed as the most famous horror author of all time, having surpassed even Stephen King in popularity, who, alas, had left no unfinished work on his untimely death. or unpublished, and moreover he had explicitly requested that his name not be exploited for commercial purposes after his death.

According to Marquette, after the launch of the magazine dedicated to Blessing, a necklace of William Blessing masks for Halloween and a series of figurines inspired by the characters he created were in the works.

Marquette also promised the making of a television series, a comic book series and envisaged the possible construction of an amusement park inspired by the Blessing universe. In those days he was working on creating logos and emblems inspired by ancient symbolism that would decorate a luxurious series of William Blessing porcelain plates and cups, available exclusively on request from QVC.

A passage in the article read: “'I was even contacted by a paper mill. They wanted to get permission to use the Blessing-inspired logos to decorate their toilet paper. ' Marquette, brushing his long hair away from his tanned and healthy face, leans back in his chair and laughs. 'But I had some moral qualms in this case!'

"However, after contacting Esquire Paper, People learned that Marquette, president of Blessing Enterprises, would approve the production of toilet paper 'William Blessing presents Edgar Allan Poe', with illustrations, excerpts of prose and poems by the famous American author, in the context of the 'Bathroom reading' product series'.

The article also focused on the boom of Tome Press, a subsidiary of Blessing Enterprises, and on the extravagant parties and eccentricities of which the staff of the Baltimore organization had become the protagonist at the conferences and concerts promoted by Tome Press itself. A new record label, Tome Records, was about to open its doors, followed by a television and film production company.

“When we asked Marquette if in his opinion William Blessing, a well-known scholar and university professor, whose excursions into the field of fiction were merely a second activity, would have approved the use of his name for the launch of such an intense commercial program, his response was: 'It is a question that I have not even considered. The works of the great dead men belong to history. I myself belong to the academic world and have taken on the task of ensuring that William Blessing's name is engraved in large letters in the stone of literary immortality. '

“And besides the immense wealth and fame he is earning with his current job, would Marquette also love to rise to literary immortality?

"'Why lie? I am just a humble hack ... But I believe that any of us aspire to artistic immortality. But that's not the thing that matters most to me, I assure you, and in any case I owe it all to the legacy Blessing left me. What makes me most happy is my beloved wife Amy, separated from William Blessing as she leaves for the last trip. '

“And if you could say something to William Blessing today, what would you say to him?

"'That I'm taking care of Amy.'"

When the article was finished William Blessing closed the magazine. The room seemed to have changed color. He looked up and saw that the sky above the dome of the rotunda had clouded over and that lightning was firing. It began to thunder and the rain began to drum against the glass.

William Blessing returned to the large, shiny desk, where he found the elderly librarian waiting for him, now holding a small plastic card in his hand. His head seemed to be surrounded by an aura of sadness, and a smile had appeared on his face that looked more like an evil grin.

"Now I remember," William Blessing announced.

He heard a flapping of wings against the sound of rain. Apparently it wasn't the dove. They were darker wings.

“Yes, I found the register. Unpleasant circumstances, no doubt about it. I have already written the data in the certificate in ink. All that is missing is his signature, after which he can make this wonderful, peaceful institution his home, explore the shelves of books or rest in peace, as he pleases. "

"There are some unfinished business," William Blessing said. He could feel the feeling rising up to his head, extending to his fingertips.

The feeling was fury, overwhelming and pure.

"We all leave unfinished business, Mr. Blessing."

Blessing raised her arms and head to thunder and lightning. He saw the dark form chasing the dove.

"It's me," he announced. "The crow is me."

From above came a furious flutter followed by a shrill cry. Pain and anguish rang and echoed in the rotunda. The flash of lightning, to illuminate for an instant the black of the coal that tore apart the white whiteness.

A tiny body landed on the desk, writhing in spasms, spattering blood on the shiny surface.

With one last thrill the dove died.

The black bird, the predator, descended from the dome.

He alighted beside the victim, eyeing Blessing and the librarian defiantly. Dark crimson spots stained his beak and chest.

"Said the Crow," William Blessing said.

Instinctively, Blessing stretched out her right arm and invited the black creature to perch on it.

16

As regards, then, Beauty as my domain, my next question was about the tone of its highest expressions - and every experience teaches that this tone is that of sadness. Beauty of any kind, in its supreme development, invariably induces the sensitive soul to tears. Maliconia is therefore the most legitimate of all poetic tones.

EDGAR A. POE, The philosophy of composition

The melancholy melodies of a Beethoven sonata spread from the top of the large town house.

“Wonderful,” Baxter Brittle said, looking up at the ceiling and crystal chandelier. "Sounds divine!"

“To tell you the truth,” confessed Donald Marquette with a hint of annoyance in his voice, “I'd rather listen to Roll Over Beethoven than this stuff. She does nothing but play melancholy and poignant classical music. When I work here, I have to wear headphones. "

"Wounds take time to heal," ruled the Marquis, inspecting one last time the arrangement of the seats, the glasses, silver cutlery and serving plates. "Done. I'd say we're ready. "

"Wait up!" exclaimed the Count. “We forgot to uncork the wine. It is a wine of great quality. He has to breathe ... "

Baxter Brittle took the large bottle to which they had already dedicated themselves and studied analytically the contents, which were rapidly diminishing. "Well, tell him to take a deep breath, because I think we'll drink it very soon."

Brittle wasn't wearing the Oscar Wilde suit.

In fact, that evening he was dressed in the traditional way, with a nice jacket, tie and leather shoes. Long hair was the only surviving element of the usual look, as it was for the Count and the Marquis. The decadent look and accessories, for once, were put aside. Tonight they were just elegant in their twenties busy checking all the preparations for dinner. The magnificent scent of exquisite Italian food, a mixture of oregano, basil, tomato sauce, extra virgin olive oil and homemade bread spread like a promise throughout the house.

The wine was also red.

Donald was wearing new casual clothes: nice pants, a light blue shirt, a tweed jacket bought from Saks on Fifth Avenue. They suited him well, and the recent influx of money that had allowed him to buy them suited him too. In fact, he liked it. The expensive Calvin Klein perfume he had sprinkled on himself gave him an extra touch of confidence and self-esteem, aided by the two glasses of wine he had already drunk.

However, he was trying to limit his alcohol consumption.

This was the big night, and although he needed to ease his nervous tension, he was determined to stop long, long before he got drunk. He had ordered the Count and the Marquis to do the same. With Baxter it was another story, since he held up very well and the wine was still like water to him, compared to the beloved absinthe. The evening would be over long before Baxter Brittle's level of intoxication rose above the threshold of pleasantness and sociability.

"One question, kid," Baxter said, looking up from the vintage red wine. "Why just Italian food?"

"It's Amy's favorite," Donald explained. «Blessing, on the other hand, hated the cuisine of southern Italy. He was allergic to spices, I think. They never ate it. "

"Good choice!" the Count complimented him. "And I went to get everything from the best shop in Little Italy."

"I'm watering!" said the Marquis. «I love Neapolitan cuisine. I've already tasted the cheeses ... to die for! "

"Bad choice of words," Baxter Brittle said. "You got the cannoli for dessert, I hope."

"Of course. The best!" assured the Count.

"Mmm. Very well. And very decadent, ”Baxter observed. "We are ready. Maybe you should go up and call the landlady. "

Donald nodded.

Yes. It was time.

He smoothed his jacket at himself in the living room mirror, then ran a comb through his hair. He took a deep breath and started up the stairs.

The Poe room was closed by two locks and a series of wooden planks. No one had entered the room after the completion of the inventory to find out what had been stolen. Since returning home from the hospital, Amy hadn't been able to look at that door, much less think about walking through the door. It was she who had crudely tried to brick it up. A shame, as Donald could have made use of the material still kept in the room. Which was far from cheap.

But if everything goes well tonight, I'll have the time I need, he thought as he climbed the stairs.

The first notes of a study by Chopin rang out, delightful, but slower than it should have been. It was not surprising. Everything about Amy was slower than it should have been at the time. However, she already found it a success that she was reasonably responsive and not locked up in a psychiatric institution.

Surprisingly, despite the death, blood and rape, things had fared much better than Baxter Brittle's original plan had predicted.

They had carried cartons full of Poe's books, letters, and artifacts to the cars waiting in front of the house. The others had fled to hide the stolen goods and not be found near the crime scene. Then Donald returned and "discovered" the horrible scene. He called the police, dialing 911 on the phone. The policemen had arrived. And they had believed his story; even if some clue had aroused suspicion against him, Amy's version, when he woke up two days later, would have completely cleared him. The manhunt began to track down the murdering thief and the raping thief, but without success. Tome Press had provided them with the funds they needed to take a long "vacation".

It was only after the incident, however, that Donald Marquette became aware of his true talent. In conversation with the police detectives his behavior had been perfect: he had played the role of the afflicted student, the horrified pupil, wonderfully. But it was only the dress rehearsal for the extraordinary performance provided for the benefit of the press.

Suddenly, with the limelight on him, Marquette had transformed into Fred Astaire, able to dance gracefully and capture the minds and hearts of readers in every corner of the world. Blessing's latest books, which were already selling pretty well, shot up to the top of the bestseller charts. The proposals that came from the world of cinema soon turned into production contracts. The rights were also acquired in those countries where no buyers had previously been found. And Donald Marquette, whose name was now inseparable from that of the famous murdered horror writer (and scholar!), Had managed to sell his first, hesitant novel without any problem, signing a contract that committed him to write two more in exchange for a considerable sum.

Of course, being aware of the killer's true identity, he also knew that he should never have paid a dime.

Minor chords rose and fell in intensity as he entered the room. That morning he had placed a vase of flowers on the Steinway and their scent was fresh and pleasant. Nonetheless, given the proximity to the crime scene, there was still a faint smell of clotted blood in the air. It wasn't that bad smell ... mixed with the scent of Amy's shampoo. She no longer used perfume and began to wear simple dark clothes, but in his eyes she was more beautiful than ever.

Now, as she sat on the stool, gently touching the keys and pressing the pedals, she appeared pale and precious, a breath of painful life in a still and frozen painting.

He leaned against the piano so that she could perceive my presence out of the corner of her eye, assuming the position of an intent listener. When he finished the Chopin piece he gently clapped his hands. "Very good."

She gave a hint of a smile. "Thanks, Donald."

"Hi."

She nodded, then rummaged through the scores on the lectern.

"Did you by any chance smell any particular scent coming up here from the kitchen in the last hour?"

She blinked. "Oh God! Are you making dinner? I forgot. "

"Yup. Would you believe it? Rigatoni alla bolognese with the addition of some Italian sausage to balance the dish. Preceded by an appetizer and with a side of fresh spinach salad because we must not neglect the vegetables. And the dessert: cannoli. " He comically mimicked the gestures of a waiter listing the dishes of the day. "Ah. And of course a good red wine. "

This seemed to cheer her up a little. Just a little, but it was enough to create the impression that the light in the room had increased slightly in intensity. She had never been a heavy drinker in the past, but now she had increased her consumption of red wine. It was one of the reasons Donald had opted for an Italian dinner. A rich tomato sauce needed to be accompanied by a red wine. The meal would encourage her to drink.

"Not bad." She looked away, distant and slightly troubled. "Wasn't there even more?"

“You forgot the best thing. I invited the guys from Tome Press. "

"Ah, yes. Your strange friends. " He tried a smile again.

“We will be relieved of the burden of conversation. Baxter has just returned from a convention of British authors and I think he has a lot of gossip and anecdotes to tell. "

She nodded, but remained seated, absent and disoriented.

She had been in that state, more or less absent depending on the moment, since she had awakened. It was as if the pain of her husband's death and the trauma of rape had made her, if not quite socially autistic, at least partially out of phase with the rest of her life. The doctors had assured him that his physical condition was now excellent, but had warned him that recovery on an emotional level would probably take much longer. Donald had vowed to do everything to make Amy's psychological recovery happen quickly but naturally. All the doctors who had treated her, as well as friends and relatives, knew how close the relationship had become between Donald and the Blessing, and they seemed convinced that if there was any. he was a person who could pierce the shell Amy Blessing had locked herself in, well this was Donald Marquette. In the meantime, however, Amy was perfectly capable of making the decisions necessary for the day-to-day management of the Blessing's estate, handling insurance, will, and everything else. He carried out these tasks apathetically, without wit or real interest. Four months after Blessing's killing, the situation with her books had become rather static. There was a new one whose publication was scheduled for the following month, but the novel he had been busy writing was only half complete. And his stories, articles, notes ... nobody knew much about that material. Amy kept everything under lock and key,

In part, that evening's dinner also had to do with such matters.

“The boys are hungry. For half an hour they have been drinking wine, eating chips and listening to your music. They told me to ask if you will play for them later ... but now I think we should sit at the table before the pasta cools. "

"Sure." He closed the keyboard cover. "I don't want to make them wait."

She stood up and he offered her his arm.

She took it and sighed. “This is a very symbolic gesture, Donald. I rely heavily on your comfort and help. I don't know what I'd do without you. "

"It is an honor for me to do all I can," he replied. “You are a very important part of my life. These days I only care about my job ... and about you. " He paused, as if a sudden commotion made it difficult for him to speak. «You are very important ... Fundamental. Absolutely fundamental. "

She reached out to caress him. “Yes,” he said, “it was tough. Very hard."

He pretended to compose himself, with difficulty. "Tough. Already."

He patted her hand reassuringly.

That was the trick, of course ...

Show her your grief and feelings, to flush her out. That way a bond would be created between them. They would begin to coexist in harmony. And, little by little, he could direct the composition he was forging towards the musical lands that he liked best.

This too was part of the strength he had discovered he possessed: the ability to withdraw into a cold, rational, analytical shell deep within his soul and manage his emotions like a puppeteer. The truth was that he still had a strong feeling for that woman. But now that his goal seemed more at hand, he was able to recognize even the aspects more related to lust and possession.

Now he had more goals. Love and desire were only two of many.

Targets.

Yup.

Inside he indulged in a mischievous laugh.

Donald Marquette had once believed that if he ever hurt someone, he wouldn't be able to live with remorse. He was not particularly religious but had always felt he was risking paralysis and moral collapse if he misbehaved. Now, however, after he had even killed a man ... Well, in all honesty he wasn't that bad. He was seized from time to time by feelings of guilt, but the fits of despair became less frequent with the passage of time. And as the benefits to him from Blessing's death became clearer, Marquette became more and more grateful to Mick and the rock-hard Pallas, who had smashed Blessing's skull. A man of talent and great culture, certainly ...

That man had been a real bastard.

"This kind of conversation won't help our appetite," he observed. "Why don't we go down and just try to enjoy a nice evening?"

He accompanied her downstairs, where the Goths and red wine galore were expected.

The dinner turned out to be a smash hit.

The food was exquisite, the wine full-bodied and high in alcohol.

The Count and the Marquis were talkative and showed themselves in top form, passionately discussing the cultural scene of which they felt part. Baxter Brittle showed all his charm and wit, careful to keep Amy always a part of the conversation, even if the words he spoke contributed to the minimum.

Marquette also paid great attention to her, without being overwhelming. He smiled at her often and made sure his glass was always full of wine. When the cannoli were finished (absolutely delicious!) Baxter even managed to get her a smile or two.

By popular demand he agreed to play the piano for his guests after coffee.

As they drank their coffee (cognac-corrected for Baxter, to a lesser extent to himself and more generously to Amy), Donald Marquette began to shift the conversation to the subject that was actually the main reason he had organized the evening. .

He had begun almost absently, making sure to refer to William Blessing on several occasions during the dinner.

"You know, I think we should be very grateful," he said, raising his hands. “Thankful to our late friend for this house, for all that he has left us. None of us know how long his stay on this earth will be. But being able to leave something behind, something of value, is certainly a success that must arouse our gratitude. "

"I will certainly be one of those who will cherish special editions of William Blessing's works," Baxter announced, raising his glass as if he were saying a toast.

"Me too!" agreed the Count.

"And I!" the Marquis joined the choir.

Amy shook her head, disconsolately. “I don't know if I'll ever be able to read what he wrote again. His work was so full of pain and anguish, dark feelings in a man actually so good, a man ... of light. "

"Mmm. Yet you are the curator of his literary legacy, my dear, ”Baxter Brittle pointed out. "You have inherited a rather daunting task, plus all the benefits of a healthy literary enterprise, of course."

“In any case,” Marquette interjected, “I have sworn to myself to dedicate a portion of my life to preserving and promoting the legacy he left us. I'm even thinking of writing a biography. " It was one of the coded signals to kick off the carefully prepared exchange earlier.

Silence.

He turned, annoyed, to look at Baxter Brittle, busy emptying the bottom of a bottle of wine into his glass.

"Baxter," she called back. "What do you think about it? A biography of William Blessing! "

Sitting across from him, he was able to give him a kick in the shin.

Baxter gasped. He could hardly avoid spilling the wine on the tablecloth.

Amy, still rather absent, didn't notice anything.

«A biography? Oh sure! A biography! What a splendid idea! " He sipped the wine, letting a few moments pass. He frowned thoughtfully. "But I honestly don't think that collecting William Blessing's legacy can mean limiting yourself to a biography ... In my opinion his contribution to literature, or rather to history ... well, I think he has much greater potential."

With excellent timing the Marquis asked, "What exactly do you mean, Baxter?"

“There are simply stories to be collected… letters to be published. Who knows, a couple of unpublished novels that Blessing was keeping aside might also turn up. And more notes, hints, ideas ... the incomplete novel ... and who can say anything else. " He turned to look at Amy, a sympathetic smile on his face. «I understand that talking about these things saddens you ... but ... No. It doesn't matter. Better to leave it alone. "

Great! Donald thought. Excellent interpretation!

Amy's interest, though still veiled in melancholy, had clearly been aroused.

He leaned forward to Baxter. "No Please. Speak, Baxter. You are always a source of good ideas. "

“Well… I was just thinking that our Donald… Donald Marquette knows your husband's work more than anyone. Who would be better suited than him to take on the role of assistant curator of the literary heritage ... or, if you want to free yourself from such a responsibility, that of literary curator in its entirety? "

Amy blinked.

Donald peered into her face. She wasn't refusing, but she didn't seem determined to say yes either. Lately it was very difficult to interpret his expressions.

He decided to adopt a tactic in line with Baxter's.

"I don't know ..." He hesitated. "It would be a very heavy commitment."

"Of course, Amy will have to decide," Baxter said. "But if I'm not mistaken, you're already doing a lot of work with the material Blessing left us."

Amy nodded. "It's true." He looked at Donald. He reached out to caress him. “Would you do that, Donald? I realize that you also have to carry on your work ... but it seems like a great idea. You would relieve me of a great responsibility and help perpetuate the role that William has played in literature. " She squeezed his arm. “I know you can do it. Besides, I trust you. "

"You know, I'd love to ..." Donald said. "But how will we do it? I mean, there's Bill's will and everything else ... "

"I know a few codes and articles of law," Baxter said. "Amy should just sign some paperwork."

Amy nodded. «I would do it with pleasure. And under the circumstances, I know William would approve with enthusiasm too. "

"In my opinion it's a wonderful idea!" exclaimed the Count.

"Yes," agreed the Marquis. “And you are a good writer! You could even finish that novel ... "

Donald shrugged shyly. "I'm flattered." He turned and looked intently into Amy's dark, pained eyes. "It's a big deal, but of course I'll do my best."

"Very well," Baxter concluded, rubbing his hands. “Then the matter is closed. But Amy had promised to play a few pieces on the piano. I've been waiting for this moment all evening. "

Amy nodded and slowly got up from her chair.

As he climbed the stairs behind her, admiring the movements of that delicious little ass, Donald Marquette knew exactly which song he wanted to ask her to perform, if he could.

Money money money!

17

The boundaries that separate Life from Death are at best elusive and vague. Who can say where one ends and the other begins?

EDGAR A. POE, The premature burial

When he awoke and started to rise, William Blessing bumped his head against the coffin lid.

The coffin was lined with padded velvet, so he wasn't hurt. In reality, what he felt did not seem to correlate in any way with the memory he had of pain. However, it was still an eerie and disconcerting feeling.

The sealed coffin was more than dark, and although it was a spacious coffin, it only took a few movements of the hands and feet to ascertain that it was a coffin. It smelled of damp earth, mold and decay.

He immediately concluded that he had been buried alive. The finding did not induce in him any reflection or meditation on The Premature Burial of Edgar Allan Poe.

Instead he unleashed an acute attack of claustrophobia, which filled him with total and devastating terror.

The scream rose in him instinctively and gushed loud and overwhelming from his throat.

The very violence of the scream, however, shook him enough to allow him to resume thinking, which he tried to do.

The gun, the shots ...

Donald Marquette with the bust of Pallas in his hands, as he threw it down on him, violently ...

Reason, in the form of a small, flat voice in the dark, said to him, "You're dead."

Then he remembered the library. And the librarian, the bloody dove and ...

"Are you going to hang out there all night?" a clear, definite voice asked. It didn't seem to come through hearing, but rather directly into his mind. Yet it possessed a distinct timbre and tone ... with a faint New York accent, more precisely Brooklyn.

He remembered the crow.

"Where ... where am I?" he asked.

"In a beautiful and private place, Doctor," replied the voice. "But I don't think anyone hugs here."

"I'm crazy," he concluded.

“Of course you're crazy. That's what you're here for. "

"Where is it?"

"Two meters underground!" the voice answered, exasperated. «In a sepulcher! In a tomb! Doctor, you are in a coffin in your grave! Funny, huh? "

Oddly, although he felt a growing panic deep in his soul, something was preventing him from gaining the upper hand. His powerful cognitive abilities, sure, but also something else. Another sentiment.

Anger.

Fiery anger, cold anger, all possible variants of anger. The anger spread from his mind and stitched together the cartilage, bones and flesh of his resurrected body. He set the fire of his being and pumped through his veins, which had once held blood, the substance of which vengeance was made.

He understood that he was resurrected. The truth caught him with a certainty as overwhelming as it was soothing.

"I came back from the dead," he declared in a neutral tone.

“You got it right, man! Welcome back! "

Whatever it was, he was still in a coffin underground, at a good distance from the surface. And it seemed like a bad place to start over. He didn't feel like he was choking, nor was he particularly hungry. But it wasn't a place where he could have stayed long.

"Who are you?" he inquired.

“Come on, don't ask stupid questions. Get your ass up and get out of there. You have work to do, ”the voice urged.

"And how?"

"Courage! You are the horror writer. How do bodies that come back to life manage to get out of the graves? Huh? Molecular transport? No, try again. How about trying to dig? Bingo! "

"I came back from death by the intercession of a supernatural entity," he pointed out.

"Certainly not through the intercession of the Ministry of Transport."

"So why can't I get out of here according to supernatural canons?" Blessing objected.

“Listen, friend. You're already supernatural, okay? Do you think a normal human would be able to dig out of a coffin? Trust me, give it a try. "

Indeed, as he contemplated the words spoken by the voice, he realized that he felt changed. He felt like he was on the verge of alien senses, of occult powers. The tissues and molecules that now made up his bodily form seemed charged with some sort of unfathomable energy.

Blessing raised her hands. She put her hands in front of her face and waved her fingers in the dark, imagining them ...

He saw them.

Despite the total darkness, he could see her fingers. They seemed to burn with a supernatural light. He was acutely aware of every wrinkle at the knuckle level, of every follicle, of every nail. He noticed that they had grown quite a lot; they were more like claws than nails.

She lifted them, resting them against the damp, silky velvet that lined the inside of the coffin lid.

He pushed.

The lid seemed to give a few millimeters. A handful of earth fell back into the coffin, which evidently had opened. He felt the pressure of the earth upon him, but strangely it didn't feel overwhelming. He perceived her as ... altered.

"So!" the voice encouraged. «I see that you understand. Insist! Insist!"

With an effort not at all excessive he pushed up the lid, which slowly opened. The earth began to fall on his face and body. It tasted of humus and stones and worms. He stank of memories, despair, regret.

The land fell upon William Blessing, but it was land he had never known before. Not dense, but opalescent, fluid, like cloudy water. It pushed upward and the earth slowly gave way, as if it recognized its dominion over its own grave, its triumph over the burial place. He began to lift his body and push his way through the strange substance, slowly but steadily climbing a stone stairway to the surface.

"Bravo, so!" laughed the voice. “You have already learned. It comes natural, doesn't it? "

He dug, pulling himself up, higher and higher, then, again reaching up, he felt his hand poke through the damp earth and wet grass into the cold night air. The sensation charged him with pure energy, which made the final part of his sortie easy. He emerged into the invigorating midnight air, breathed the damp mist, and freed himself from the pit where his loved ones had imprisoned him.

He collapsed to the ground, gasping and gasping, shaking the earth from his hair and face, feeling the night swell around him like a symphony of silence.

"I told you you could do it!" the voice rang out, now no longer just in his mind, but from somewhere in the darkness near him. "Congratulations!"

He spat earth and coughed. "Just like a EC horror comic," he said bitterly, tasting bile not only in his mouth but throughout his body. He turned his head in the direction of the voice. "And you would be the guardian of the crypt?"

"No. I don't have such obvious origins. In fact, if I weren't so absolutely true, maybe I'd marry into some very descriptive novel. Preferably French. Oui! Bon soir, monsieur. Welcome back to this magnificent planet. Ready to make raids? "

Blessing pulled herself up, staggered her legs back. Around him he saw headstones rising from the ground, white in the light of a crescent moon in the cloud-dotted night sky. His joints creaked like chains tightened around a soul in agony. The place reeked of history and exuded boredom.

"Where are you?"

"Try looking at your tombstone, sir!"

He struggled to focus his eyes and the supernatural glow came on again, as if he were wearing infrared glasses. The cemetery he illuminated was unlike any other cemetery he had ever seen, or even imagined.

Still, he recognized it.

Shaken, he stumbled and fell to the dirt, hitting his head on a stone. He looked up. Carved in marble he read two dates ... and his name.

«Beloved ... Rest in peace, beloved ... Never, never forgotten.»

He raised a hand and ran his nails over the engraved words.

"Amy," she whispered. "Amy."

"He could also have written something in Latin, don't you think?" provoked the voice. “Or in Greek. In short, in one of the classical languages. Classy stuff, in fact. You know them both, don't you? "

"Yes," Blessing replied absently.

“Kyrie eleison, man. And in the fourth month he rose from the grave and, listen, he broke his ass! "

Blessing, irritated, looked up.

The tombstone was actually a large Celtic cross. It must have been Amy's idea, as he had never particularly liked crosses, regardless of their shape. He had always joked that he only wanted to be buried with a laptop and a telephone line for the modem.

At the top of the cross, staring at him with intense dark eyes, he saw a large raven, of a radiant black.

"A crow," he said thoughtfully. "A raven ... one of humanity's oldest symbols."

"I know what you are thinking." The crow tilted his head. “But this isn't a comic, Blessing. This is noir reality. You are here for a reason. And I'm here to help you. End of speech. "

Blessing turned and looked around. He recognized the cemetery. It was the famous graveyard in which the great Edgar Allan Poe had been buried! Of course! Since he had bought a lot there (more as an addition to his collection of Edgar Allan Poe memorabilia than he really intended to occupy it) it made sense that he was buried there.

"To help me," he repeated slowly. "To help me."

"Yup. To help you… to do justice, ”the crow explained, suddenly serious and pragmatic. “There is only chaos in the universe. But chaos also creates order, albeit randomly. And order can be wrested from entropy, from the road that leads back to chaos ... by the greatest creation of order itself: the will. Conscience. Self-awareness. " The crow's voice changed to a harsh, contemptuous whisper. “And although chaos will eventually swallow everything… we can control what it swallows. Because the will, when it is really strong, knows how to detach itself from chaos… from death and nothing… ”The beak snapped. "For some time. Only for a short time. "

Time.

Short period.

Blessing surveyed the site of her burial.

It looked like a monochrome cemetery landscape rendered by Vincent Van Gogh, with gusts of blue and a surreal aura. A ghostly land, of allusions superimposed on illusions. Three dimensions sliding into the fourth ... decomposing and drying out, losing their bony grip on life, symbolism and architecture.

Rust to dust.

Ash shrouds.

Man lives only for a short time ...

... an unpleasant, brutal and short period ...

... deprived even of a dream.

"If I can't aspire to the dream," Blessing declared, "I'll settle for the nightmare."

He walked slowly through the haze, a corpse returned to life to complete a mission ...

And soon he heard the wings of his familiar bird beat behind him.

18

... the invisible figure, still gripping my wrist, had caused the opening of the graves of all humanity; and from each spread the faint, phosphorescent hatred of decomposition, so that I could see the most hidden recesses, and there I could see the bodies wrapped in sweat, in their sad and solemn wormy sleep. But alas! the sleepers were fewer, many millions fewer, than those who did not rest at all; and there was a feeble struggle; and a widespread, sad restlessness; and from the depths of the innumerable pits came a melancholy rustle of sepulchral vestments.

EDGAR A. POE, The premature burial

The city was alive.

For the first time, Blessing saw Baltimore as a beast, living and panting. Now he was sweating in the mist, breathing through the drains, snoring along the telephone wires.

It smelled of chimneys.

And it tasted like fate.

As he limped off the dreamlike cemetery, the winding streets seemed to twist and change, moving away from Van Gogh's style to approach Picasso's. Pieces and fragments separated, then subtly reconnected like a colorful lava lantern of triangles and squares and rectangles, but also containing shapeless clusters and spheres.

"I don't know ..." he gasped. "I do not know where..."

Behind him, wings that split the air.

“Concentrate, Blessing. Remember. Imagine. "

He stopped and leaned against a brick wall. He closed his eyes.

Baltimore.

My city.

When he opened them again he saw streets, buildings and neon lights again. The streetlights glowed with halogen light. The traffic lights flashed.

But nothing was quite perpendicular. Everything was slightly curved, surrounded by multicolored clouds. There was music in the air that had no sound, a silent vibration. He sensed these things, he saw them with senses he had never known he possessed before.

Arriving at the mouth of a wide avenue, on the slope of a hill, he stopped and looked down. Below him he could see the southern part of downtown Baltimore extend. The harbor sparkled and sparkled, the buildings silhouetted against each other with exaggerated sharpness. The sky looked like a giant cauldron of galaxies, chased by violent streaks of clouds. High above the hyperreal asphalt and concrete, the transdimensional brick, grotesque fragments of faces flowed, mutilated remains of bodies with eyes between the buttocks or mouths on the chest, lost and wandering aimlessly. At times a great mass of claws and teeth seemed to pounce on a lumpy ectoplasm, like a shark on a shoal of fish, to swallow it and then continue to sail maliciously, in search, to hunt,

"Good. Begin to take our hand, ”the crow encouraged.

Blessing shivered.

He looked away, staggering to take refuge in an alley.

The crow alighted at his feet and looked at him, from bottom to top. "Hey. Power. We have to get to work. "

"I have ... I just have to compose myself."

"Of course. In fact you are decomposing! "

"Oh God! My God!" she exclaimed, looking her hands in the light and fearing to see shreds of rotting flesh dangling from skeletal phalanges. Instead his hands appeared perfectly formed. Again he saw every detail of them, down to the detail of the thinnest epidermal ridges of the fingertips. She put a palm to her nose. He smelled no putrefaction.

He looked down at the crow.

«Don't ask me! You simply recomposed yourself thanks to willpower. But believe me, it can't last forever, ”the black creature warned, scurrying on the ground, snapping its tail and raising its wings slightly, as if to straighten its feathers.

"How much time do I have?" Blessing wanted to know.

"Some day. Maybe a little more. Who knows, 'replied the crow. “But you must remain firm. If the passion, anger and decision diminish in you, you will return to what you were. "

"Sky. I need a drink! "

"Something that contains a little preservatives wouldn't hurt you," the crow prodded. "If you turn the corner over there I think you'll find what you're looking for."

Blessing broke away from the brick wall, supporting herself with her arms, then set off tentatively in the direction indicated by the raven.

The bird landed on his shoulder. "I hope you don't mind if I get carried away from time to time."

"No."

“If you have any questions, better ask them now. I don't think they let crows into bars. They only accept old crows. "

"What do you say?"

"Old Crow. The whiskey. "

Blessing did not reply. Perhaps he had abandoned his sense of humor in the grave. Or maybe it had been segregated in the part of him that had now taken the shape of the crow.

When he turned the corner he saw the bar the crow had promised him. It was a neighborhood bar, with no name; it was indicated only by a huge neon sign depicting a cocktail glass.

"I don't know ..." he complained, stopping. "I don't know if I'll be able to do ... what I have to."

'Have a drop of whiskey? If I'm not mistaken, it's something you've done several times before, ”the crow retorted.

"You know well ... what I mean."

"Hey. They also sell bottled spirits. Get yourself a couple of bottles. All you need, man. Okay? " Blessing came to the entrance to the bar. "I have to go. I'll see you!"

The crow took flight from his shoulder and entered the night.

William Blessing opened the door and entered.

It was one of those seedy downtown bars kept in business by loyal patrons during the week and heavy drinkers at the weekend; the kind of bar that in the thirties and forties would have offered free meals to the most frequent visitors. Two lone drinkers sat well spaced from each other at the long, worm-eaten wooden counter. The bartender sat on a stool beside the cash register, smoking a cigarette and leafing through a copy of the Sun. No one seemed to notice his arrival as he walked through the door.

Blessing was nervous.

It was the kind of bar he had always avoided. The cheap liquor and depressing atmosphere reminded him too strongly of the specter of alcoholism that hung over the heads of all drinkers. As an Edgar Allan Poe scholar, he was well aware of the long-term harm of drinking. The curse of the writing class, he liked to jokingly define alcohol during his college classes.

Also, Blessing felt remarkably uncomfortable. After all, he was dead. How would the living treat him?

However, the craving for a good drink had been resurrected with the rest of her person. He needed a drink, and there he could.

He sat down at the counter. The bartender closed the newspaper and walked over, looking at him strangely.

"Hey friend! Where do you come from, from a masquerade party? "

He lowered his eyes to look at himself. Of course! He still wore his burial garments: his best tuxedo. It had been his will to be buried in that suit. "It fits me beautiful!" he had specified in his will.

“Er… Yes. That's right. A dinner, but served without alcohol. I desperately need to drink something stronger than iced tea. "

“Then you've come to the right place. What are you getting? "

"A double Old Crow," he ordered. "With water aside."

"Immediately."

As the bartender picked up one of the spouted bottles lined up in front of the mirror behind the counter, Blessing rummaged in her pockets for her wallet.

He found them empty.

Of course. Nobody was buried with money in their pockets, at least not anymore. He didn't have the money to pay for the drink.

The bartender returned with the double whiskey and the glass of water.

"It's three fifty," he said.

“I think I forgot my wallet… in the car. Do you mind if I go ... "

"No problem. I'll keep an eye on your whiskey. "

Embarrassed and frustrated, Blessing thanked him with a nod and walked out of the bar, wondering how he could get the money. One more reason to stop drinking.

Outside, perched on top of a parking meter waiting for him, he found the crow. It had a hundred dollar bill in its beak.

Blessing, surprised but grateful, reached out and took it. "Thank you."

“I predicted you'd need some small bucks. One does not leave one's grave without money, ”the crow warned. “You've never seen such a situation in Creature Feature on television, have you? After all, the resurrection has its negative sides! "

"Maybe you'd better buy a bottle," Blessing said.

He went back to the club and handed the bartender a hundred dollars.

"Wow," he said. He was a man of about fifty, plump, with a thin mustache, well on the way to baldness. "Don't you have anything smaller?"

"Let's do like this. I'll also take a bottle, okay? " Blessing suggested.

He noticed that the other two patrons had looked up from their beer glasses at that exchange. They both seemed closer to the grave than him.

The bartender shrugged. "They make another twenty dollars."

"That's fine."

"Now I should be able to change it for you," the bartender said, smiling happily at the unexpected cashout. He walked over to the cash register as Blessing took a seat in front of the drink. He downed half of it in one gulp.

And he waited.

For a moment he tasted nothing. Then, as if just awakened, his taste buds kicked into action. His throat burned and the familiar warmth began to spread through him. But strangely mixed with other sensations he couldn't identify ...

Nonetheless, however, a hint of oblivion and relaxation came from the whiskey, which he welcomed more than willingly. She took a sip of the water, cold and equally coveted. When the bartender returned with the change and the bottle, wrapped in a sheet of paper, had already emptied the glass.

"Another one, please," he ordered. "And more water."

"It must have been a tough night," said the bartender.

"You can't imagine how much."

The bartender poured him another double Old Crow, then paired him with a second glass of water.

Mission.

He had a mission and he knew what it consisted of. He only had little time to complete that mission. The fires of the whiskey merged with the fires inside him, the ferocious motivation that must have pushed him forcefully out of the grave.

Justice!

Vengeance!

However, as those fires continued to rage, the calming effect of the alcohol eased the pressure that seemed to tear his spirit like shards of broken glass on a bare nerve.

He closed his eyes.

Ah, if he could rest!

Let it go!

Surrender to the quiet and peace of the senses where the senses did not exist.

He could feel the very essence of the bar throbbing in sympathy with him. As he emptied the glass even the stale vapors surrounding him seemed to join the chorus.

Relax, they seemed to tell him. However, soon everything will be nothing. It all comes down to dust and oblivion in the end. You will join the lucky ones who came before you.

Peace, Blessing. Comfort and joy, and sweet, sweet darkness. Light is the lie. Darkness is the truth.

The River Lethe and its calm currents of ...

Open your eyes.

There was something in his whiskey glass.

It was a nose.

Instinctively, he put a hand to his face.

Where his nose had been before, there was now a hole.

He looked at his hands. The nails were cracked, the skin was drying and graying under his eyes.

No!

No, it was too early!

He poured his nose into his left hand, then pushed it back hard into the hole it had originally occupied, holding it in place. With his other hand he grabbed the change and the bottle wrapped in brown paper and hurried out of the bar, plunging back into the night.

The slap of cold air, panic and fear seemed to stop what was happening to him. But he still felt the skin on his face begin to recede from his teeth and eyes.

"No!" he gasped. "No!"

He stopped in an alley. He put down the whiskey bottle and touched his cheeks. The skin had begun to flake. He got his hand dirty with a green, mossy substance, slimy with pus and ...

What was it?

The fluid used by the embalmers?

As he stared at the crap staining his hand, whose unhealthy appearance was made even worse by the amber glow of the streetlight, he felt something hard and insistent pressing against his back.

“Okay, asshole. Give me the money and you will arrive alive in the morning. "

The voice was hard and determined.

There was no doubt what the hand of the owner of that voice was holding.

He saw the gun in the hand of the man in the long coat again.

He saw it fire.

He felt the fire, the impact of the two bullets.

"No," he said.

Turned.

He recognized the attacker. He was one of the two drinkers who had been seated at the bar. He must have noticed the quality of his suit and the hundred-dollar bill and concluded that he had identified easy prey. He had followed him out of the club, hoping to be able to surprise him in a dimly lit place.

"Christ!" the man exclaimed.

He fired.

Blessing barely felt the blow, a slight bump in the abdomen. He felt no pain. Just a tap that served to unleash the anger that was brewing deep within him.

"Scum!" he shouted.

Blessing pushed the gun aside, then raised the whiskey bottle and used it to hit the man's head. The bottle shattered, flooding the man's head with whiskey and blinding him. He tried to level the gun again and fire a second shot.

Blessing found herself, with incredible speed, power and agility, sticking the broken neck of the bottle into the attacker's torso ...

... piercing him, sinking his forearm into him.

Blood gushed from the man's mouth. He threw his head back, twitching, the light in his eyes growing dim ... and all this, in Blessing's perception, was taking place in slow motion, frame by frame.

His arm was covered in blood.

Blessing, in a kind of trance, supported the attacker like that for a few long moments (his body didn't seem to weigh much) ... then he simply lowered his arm. With a liquid and gruesome noise the man broke away, collapsing to the ground in a repulsive and inert mass.

The smell of whiskey and blood was pungent. Blessing lifted the neck of the bottle, now dyed red, and sniffed it. He felt invigorated. The night seemed to explode in a resonating, buzzing electrical charge, in harmony with his anger, outrage and grief ...

His fury.

He looked down at the corpse of his attacker and felt the personification of justice. That vile mass of human debris would no longer bother the living. As he stared at the carcass, which was already cooling, he saw the man's corrupt soul crawl out, tiny and shrunken, to mingle with the mist and the spirits of the night.

He had done humanity a service. This awareness had the effect of instilling a renewed resolve in Blessing. He felt the strength return to him ...

The decision.

A dark, winged shape settled on the corpse. He sank his beak into the steaming guts, grabbed a flap and swallowed it.

"Mmm. Whiskey entrails. What goodness, ”said the crow.

"I have to go ... I'm busy," Blessing said.

"Look look," said the crow, glancing at Blessing's ruined face. “We've lost some inner fire, huh? Apparently you will have to stop drinking forever. Assuming you still want to fix things. Assuming that, all in all, you don't prefer to see your killers enjoy a long and comfortable old age and delight in molesting kids on the Blessingland rides! "

Blessing's fury mounted.

"Assuming he doesn't want to see your traitor making his pigs comfortable thousands of times with your wife ..."

Blessing let out a moan, which turned into a kind of howl.

He threw the remains of the bottle against the wall. The glass shattered into hundreds of pieces.

«Here. This is the right spirit, ”the crow complimented him. “I'm here to help you, William. Just to help you. "

"My face," Blessing said. "My nose ..."

"Yes, I see. I would say a little plastic reconstructive surgery is needed, I hope you have put your fallen trunk aside. "

Blessing lowered her eyes. Yes, it was still in his left hand.

"Good. Apparently your face is also ... parching a little. Fortunately, we have a good dose of abundant fresh protoplasm here that can come to your rescue in the restoration work. "

"But how? ... I don't ..."

"Let me do it. Trust me. You have to be ready by tomorrow morning, right? Don't you want your dear Amy to see you without a nose? "

"Amy? But how?" Blessing asked. At the very thought of seeing her again, his whole being seemed to tighten in a grip of ice. "Why?"

“You must find out the name and address of at least one of your executioners, right? And also, I think both you and the librarian would greatly appreciate the recomposition of the Poe collection and its return to its original location. A little bird told me that our dear friend Donald Marquette introduced several members of his new club - members who played a role in your death - to Amy. " The crow paused and tilted his head thoughtfully. “Besides,” he continued coldly, “you must remember what you've lost, Blessing. Otherwise you will lose more than a nose during this mission. "

"Yes," Blessing agreed, abandoning all hesitation and closing her mind at all reflection. "Sure."

William Blessing knelt beside the steaming corpse of the man he had just killed and, using his long, sharp nails, followed the crow's instructions.

19

Tonight, Madame Poe, in her bedside prostrate with illness and surrounded by her children, asks for your assistance; and asks perhaps for the last time ..

Richmond Enquirer, November 29, 1811

"Good. Then you are all here, ”Eliza Poe said. “All my children. All my loved ones. Now I have to talk to you. " The corpse-pale woman's voice was faint and extremely sad.

He managed to distract little Edgar Poe's thoughts from the big black crow he had seen among the trees in the garden.

Edgar was confused, but remained silent to listen. He always listened when Mom spoke. He always had good and interesting things to say.

The room seemed to grow darker, despite the lanterns and candles. And colder, despite the well-fed fire that burned in the fireplace. There was a smell of camphor and tallow in the air, and the scent of black tea with cream that grown-ups seemed to drink incessantly. A tray of pastries and jam had been placed next to the teapot, but Edgar didn't feel like it, even though blackberry jam was his favorite and despite not having eaten much for breakfast. Oddly, he wasn't hungry at all.

Above the woolly sea of blankets, Eliza Poe's head seemed to sink into the white cotton of the pillow. Her black hair had been combed out to form a sinister black halo surrounding her head. She was pale, of a deep white pallor, the pallor of the worms Edgar found under the stones; only her cheeks and lips were red as cherries. He had thick, black brows and the biggest eyes Edgar had ever seen: big dark eyes that had always been full of life and curiosity ... but now they were filled with only sadness.

However, when they alighted on Edgar, a little spark seemed to strike them. Edgar felt a moment of happiness, because he saw in his mother's eyes the love and dedication she felt for him. There were times when he felt that the world was a cold and mean place, inhabited by cold and mean people, and when there was very little room for fun and joy. But he had always known, even in sad moments like this, that he was a lucky child, because in the world there was always, and everything for him, the deep warmth, the comforting love of his mother.

"Oh, Edgar," she said in her little voice. "Your Sunday tie has a crooked knot."

"Yes, Mom," he replied, trying to straighten it. The situation worsened and one of the old ladies present had to intervene to help her.

"Done. That's better, ”Eliza Poe agreed. "Come closer, Edgar."

Edgar walked beside William, who quietly gave up his seat and took her on his mother's hand. Eliza Poe stroked her son's dark hair, then ran her fingers lovingly across his face, touching his high cheekbones, sensitive lips, noble nose and well-drawn chin.

His hand was cold and sweaty and Edgar felt a shiver run down his spine. He was alarmed, and felt the urge to cry, but he knew he had to be brave for his mother's sake and held back the tears.

"Dear Edgar, no one will ever doubt that you are my son," Eliza said. "You have my eyes."

"Yes mom."

"Did you play good with our dear friends?"

"Yes mom."

"That's not true," William suddenly contradicted him. “Keep looking for a crow in the branches. He does nothing but talk about that crow, always the crow, the crow ... "

The mother looked back at him. “Edgar, you don't have to dwell on dark things. Do you love Jesus, Edgar? "

"Yes mom."

«Jesus is the Son of light, and in Him there is no darkness. Turn to Jesus, Edgar. And always pray to the Lord. "

"Yes mom."

Eliza Poe took a series of long, labored breaths, then closed her eyes as if to gather her strength. He opened his eyes and began to speak: “Children. I fear difficult times are brewing ahead of you, ”he whispered in a weak voice.

These were not golden times.

These were not dark times.

It was the end of 1811.

England would soon make one last, feeble attempt to recapture the lost colonies, but America already had an identity and power of its own. Cities grew, his self-awareness as a nation was strengthened. The Union had just been formed, and the states had a hard time considering themselves part of a larger nation, but the idea caught on and the majority of traders thrived. Thanks to the excellent ports, the Atlantic coast was enriched and the new, brave and beautiful cities attracted waves of immigrants looking for work. The new company needed entertainment and turned to theater and music. One of the most successful young actresses was Eliza Arnold, born of a family of actors, and from a duckling she had transformed into a splendid swan of the limelight. She was married to another actor named David Poe. Though gifted with considerable audacity and ambition, unfortunately Poe was not a good actor. His work was routinely cut short by reviews and he soon began drinking. At the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, alcohol was socially accepted, to the point that office workers took a whiskey break at eleven in the morning. However, drinking before morning breakfast didn't seem like a good idea, but David Poe couldn't control his love of the bottle anymore. When he realized he was a doomed actor, he packed up and left the family. His work was routinely cut short by reviews and he soon began drinking. At the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, alcohol was socially accepted, to the point that office workers took a whiskey break at eleven in the morning. However, drinking before morning breakfast didn't seem like a good idea, but David Poe couldn't control his love of the bottle anymore. When he realized he was a doomed actor, he packed up and left the family. His work was routinely cut short by reviews and he soon began drinking. At the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, alcohol was socially accepted, to the point that office workers took a whiskey break at eleven in the morning. However, drinking before morning breakfast didn't seem like a good idea, but David Poe couldn't control his love of the bottle anymore. When he realized he was a doomed actor, he packed up and left the family.

Eliza had chosen to fight and move on.

But now, at the age of twenty-four, Eliza Poe lay on her deathbed.

She had been sick for months. Some claimed that she had never been the same after the birth of little Rosalie, that the fever from which she had been attacked might have spared her if she had not found her weakened by pregnancy and childbirth. Deprived for some months now of the money that Eliza earned by treading the stage, the family had fallen into poverty. Only the kindness, hospitality, and good Christian hearts of friends like Fanny and John Allan had averted death from the hardships of mother and children.

However, young Edgar's understanding of the situation was minimal. He was sad because his mother was unwell and rarely got out of bed; but she had never stopped stroking him, hugging him and showing him her love, and this was undoubtedly an improvement over when her life had been a hectic journey from stage to stage, interspersed with parties she was forced to attend and rehearsals in the theater, which left her little time to devote to her children. And it had done him good to see how much joy his presence infused in her; the safety of the child and the awareness of his own worth had undoubtedly benefited him.

"Difficult?" William asked. “Papa always said that too. Things were always difficult in the actor's 'noble profession'. "

"We can no longer rely on your father even for maxims," Eliza Poe said. "Now we have to rely on the kindness of others ... And I have to rely on God's mercy."

He blinked and seemed on the verge of fading, but reacted, urging himself with a whisper, “No, Eliza, no. You need to talk to the children first. Talk to the children ».

One of the women gave her a dose of bad smelling medicine, feeding it with a large silver spoon, then helped her to drink hot tea with milk. She returned fully conscious and was again able to address the children.

"I'm about to leave," he warned. "Jesus is calling me."

"We're coming too!" Edgar immediately retorted.

«No, my son. Only I can go. "

Suddenly Edgar was very angry with Jesus. Jesus, who had been such a friendly and sweet gentleman before ... and now he didn't want to allow him to go with Mom. It seemed unfair to him ... Very unfair. Ed Edgar intended to communicate his disappointment to Jesus in no uncertain terms when he said the prayers that evening.

“You, William and Rosalie have to grow up and do good deeds and become good people. You must love God and love Jesus, and love your neighbor. "

As Eliza spoke, Edgar felt suddenly cold and abandoned. This was not his mother as he knew her, always ready to comfort him; she was speaking like the pastors who preached in the churches where they used to go to mass, cold and detached, generous with words and stingy with sweetness and comfort.

Eliza spoke to the children for a few minutes, reciting passages from the Bible and instructing them in matters of morals and goodness. Edgar couldn't help but notice that the others in the room, the adults in their stiff suits and high starched collars, smelling of raw soap and righteousness, nodded from time to time and added stern but full of "amen". approval of the instructions given by Eliza to her children.

Then Eliza kissed Rosalie and whispered something in the nurse's ear. At that point she motioned for William to come over to kiss her cheek. William did. She whispered something to him too and he nodded. William was pale in the face and his eyes swollen with tears of bewilderment. Edgar wondered if he had caught his mother's fever; he strongly hoped not.

"Edgar, please come here."

Edgar walked over and looked into his mother's eyes.

... black feathers ...

... beats of wings ...

... beats of wings ...

... the wings of an angel of darkness ...

Edgar backed away. His heart was beating furiously in his chest. He felt the need to go out. There was no air in there ... You could breathe nothing but black feathers and ...

The child stepped back and slammed into a man's leg. He felt big, hard hands drop on him. He looked up and found himself staring at John Allan's granite face. "Boy!" Allan scolded him in the same authoritative tone he used when giving orders to his servants. «Do your duty. Go to your mother! "

Terror mingled with bewilderment and further accelerated his heartbeat, but the words had the effect of blocking him and he found himself again beside his mother.

"Edgar," Eliza said. "Remember me. Please. "

... remember...

... remember...

The word echoed in his mind.

“You are so young… I fear you will forget the mother who loved you so much. To help you remember your mother, Edgar, I want to give you a miniature of a portrait of me ... "

... remember...

'Some letters I have written which I believe contain a little of my soul, and perhaps also possess a certain literary quality; I know you love to read, poems, short stories ... "

... remember...

“And lastly, I'll give you a watercolor of Boston Harbor. Do you remember Boston, Edgar? It's the city where you were born ... "

... remember...

"It's the city where your mother met her closest and most supportive friends, some of whom are here today."

Eliza's hands were cold to Edgar's touch. And Mom also had a strange smell, which made Edgar try hard to maintain the composure he sensed was being asked of him at that moment.

Mom said more, but the words began to seem less and less sensible. He raved about Jesus and God, about charity and strength, about love and honor, but he also uttered words that made no sense, in long and feverish whispers.

Eventually, Eliza Poe spoke no more.

A woman felt her pulse, then held a mirror close to her face and nostrils.

"God bless her, and we give thanks to God," he declared phlegmatically. "She left in serenity."

Fanny Allan gave in to a soft cry, but John Allan's face was as hard as a statue's. "And so the brat in the middle pinned us," he murmured.

Edgar didn't understand.

Why did they say she was gone? Mom hadn't gone anywhere! She hadn't gone to heaven to find Jesus. She was there ... beautiful as ever. He was sleeping ... didn't they see him? He was just sleeping!

"Edgar, William," called Fanny Allan. “Your mother is gone. Now give her a kiss to make her journey faster with your love. "

Diligently, William walked over to the bed, bent down and kissed his mother on the lips. He looked rapt, in a trance.

Then it was Edgar's turn. They had to help him get onto the bed. He looked at his mother's pale face and said, "Mom, wake up."

"Damn you, baby," John Allan growled. "She's dead. You do not see? Now kiss her and let's get it over with. I have a business appointment waiting for me. "

At John Allan's thunderous voice Edgar cringed with fear. He touched his mother's face. Oddly, it felt warmer than before. He kissed her lips and they too were very hot. "All right, Mom," she whispered. "I won't tell anyone you're pretending."

Then he heard a sudden ticking.

He turned to look at the window. On the windowsill, on the other side of the glass, the crow had alighted. It had spread its wings, preventing what little light that made its way across the overcast sky from entering the room. The sound of feathers banging against the window joined with the claws on the bricks and the patter of the beak on the glass, then soared, disappearing once again into the leaden and cloudy sky.

"Look, mom!" Edgar Poe exclaimed. “I told you! I told everyone ... A big black bird! "

But his mother didn't answer.

And he never spoke again, nor would he hug him or kiss him again, nor would he smile for him or sing laughing his wonderful songs.

Never.

Never.

Never again.

"Never again," Donald Marquette murmured.

He woke up, panting. He was disoriented.

The dream.

He had had that damned dream again.

"Poe," he said, reaching out for the glass of water from the nightstand. "I'm sick of Poe."

Dirty conscience?

Maybe. He strongly rejected the thought. There were a lot of things to do, difficult feats to accomplish if he was going to achieve his goals. Guilt was a luxury he couldn't afford.

The glass was cold. He sipped the liquid it contained ...

... and spat it out.

Curse!

It tasted like blood.

20

Take this kiss on the forehead!

And, now that we have to part,

Let me tell you ...

You're not wrong when you say

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if the hope has flown away

In a night or a day,

In a vision or nowhere,

Is it perhaps therefore less lost?

Everything we see or seem

It is but a dream within a dream.

EDGAR A. POE, "A dream within a dream"

Amy Blessing was in the kitchen bent over a cup of hot coffee when the doorbell rang.

Amy had never loved coffee much before William's murder. He had much preferred tea. The year before, she and Bill had returned from a trip to England loaded with tea of all kinds and qualities, purchased from Fortnum and Mason's in London. Darjeeling, Earl Gray, Lapsang Suchong, English Breakfast and many others, all preserved in beautiful tin cans. She also had tea from various Indian and Chinese provinces in the house, wonderful tea, top quality, extremely expensive.

But now he drank mostly coffee.

When she drank a cup made with freshly ground coffee beans she felt warm and invigorated ... and she felt close to Bill. She sipped the aromatic drink sweetened with a shadow of sugar and a splash of milk, closed her eyes and was with him again. The memory of his musky aftershave seemed more alive, like the sound of his voice, the taste of his skin between the crumpled sheets, his presence that had given her so much confidence.

She knew she had closed herself up in a hedgehog, but she didn't know any other methods to deal with the terrible loss she had suffered. At the conclusion of a brilliant and fun career as a college student, she had nurtured definite plans for her life. Professor William Blessing had been a shocking surprise. The young disciple would be horrified at the thought of marrying a man over twenty years older. Maybe the part of him that was a writer might have a certain charm on the girl, but the academic part? For charity! So arrogant, theoretical, painfully boring ... it was certainly not what he had dreamed of. Not at all. A life spent crossing oceans and jumping from continent to continent, hitting the piano keys passionately and chased by exciting foreign men with fiery eyes and an overwhelming urge to sink their sensual lips into her long, soft hair. Yes, that was what he had dreamed of. Then, later, she would settle down, finding a partner with whom to share the rest of her life and form a family; probably a musician. Someone to constantly duet with.

William Blessing had naturally represented a considerable deviation from the established course, but the meeting with him had seemed completely right, not to say predestined.

But fate evidently also had terrible things in store.

If only Bill had given up on keeping his collection of Poe's books and memorabilia at home and avoided making it public. If only he hadn't insisted on continuing to teach at the university and to live in the center of the city, helpless and vulnerable. With all the money he had earned they could have lived in a beautiful and large house in a protected neighborhood, away from the threats that beset those who did not turn away from the human viruses that society was now plagued with ...

If only...

They rang the door again.

He approached the control post.

After that terrible night, Donald having failed to convince her to leave her home, had insisted that Amy have the security system upgraded. It was an expensive operation, but he convinced her by saying that there was still a lot of money in the bank account, while life inside that house had already been halved.

The nerve center of the new alarm system (which included bars on the windows and the guarantee of impenetrability of the ground floor and basement) consisted of a video system for monitoring all entrances and windows of the house, as well as good part of the interior. One of the control stations had been set up in a corner of the kitchen. Amy walked over to it, clutching the cup of coffee in one hand like a talisman.

He turned on the monitor.

On the screen appeared a man with a hat on his head, dark glasses and a long coat, whose collar was turned up and covered his neck and part of his chin. Spring in Baltimore had been windy and cool, but certainly not cold enough to require such clothing.

However, it was morning, the man's clothing and hat looked of excellent quality and he himself looked anything but threatening. There was no reason to call the police.

He pressed the button on the intercom. "Yup?" he asked flatly. He was still able to play the piano, but he couldn't muster enough energy to restore the lost musicality to his voice.

"Mrs. Amy Blessing?" inquired the man. The voice was hoarse and muffled, but at the same time strangely familiar.

"Yup."

"I wonder if you'd be kind enough to ... I need to talk to you."

"Tell me."

"In person."

A shiver of fear ran down her spine.

That night when Bill had opened the door ...

It was a quarter to eleven in the morning. Donald arrived early and went to work in his office, but then he got a call and had to go out for a business meeting, or so he said.

She was now alone in the house and had no intention of going to the front door and talking to anyone in person. She would not give up the security offered by the two thick doors and the many locks that protected her from the outside world.

"I fear that..."

"I understand his condition," the man interrupted. “After the… tragedy she was recently struck by, you should be very careful. However, I can assure you that I do not intend to harm you at all. I have come from ... very far ... to talk to you. "

The man's voice, previously rather detached and cold, seemed to fill with emotion.

"Who is she?"

"I'm ... I'm Delmore Blessing."

'Is he a relative of Bill's? I've never heard of any Delmore ... Bill has never told me he has a relative who ... "

“I'm… a second cousin, a few years older than him. Our contacts were rather ... sporadic, unfortunately. But we were in contact by correspondence and shared our feelings and secrets with each other. Her husband and I had a relationship of immense mutual trust. " He paused. "I have to talk to her ... about some things."

She was undecided. Outcome. “How can I be sure that you are really my husband's cousin? Who guarantees it to me? I never found letters signed by her and I don't remember her ever calling us on the phone. "

“You can ask me what you want about William Blessing and I will do my best to answer you. But first I must warn you that I have very little time. I could start by telling her that ... her husband ... loved her very much. He told me that on the occasion of your last wedding anniversary he gave her a poem he had written for her, and that at the end of each month he gave her a clue for solving the riddle posed by the poem. Poetry would lead her to a secret place, where she would find a treasure. A treasure of love. "

Amy's heart began to beat faster.

The memory of that poem caused the breaking of something in his soul.

From that hole the pain gushed copiously, flooding her.

But along with it also flowed an infinite joy ...

He realized his eyesight was clouded with tears.

She hadn't cried since William Blessing's funeral. And although the tears seemed to burn her cheeks, she welcomed them with gratitude, for they were proof that she was able to feel emotion again.

“You… you know about that poem. Nobody knew anything about it. How is it possible?"

"I started him writing poetry," explained the man who had said his name was Delmore Blessing. 'And I also gave him some prose lessons when he started writing. It was I who gave him the first book of short stories and poems by Edgar Allan Poe. As you can see ... we were very ... very close years ago. "

No one else in the world could have known about the existence of that poem.

Now, logically, he should have asked William's mysterious relative why he hadn't called earlier to announce his arrival. She had never even heard of him.

But the poor man looked uncomfortable out there. And he had been on a very close relationship with William. It had to be like that.

And wouldn't being in the company of that man be like getting closer to her beloved dead husband again?

"All right," he said. "I believe you. Arrival."

He turned off the monitor and went to the front door to allow this strange but wonderful man to enter.

21

A dark and unfathomed tide

Of endless pride

A mystery, and a dream,

My past life must appear.

EDGAR A. POE, "Imitation"

"This is all terrible and disconcerting," Donald Marquette said.

"I have to admit I've never seen or even heard of anything like this," the policeman said. “But the world is full of madmen. All colors must be expected. Reality is stranger than fiction, I tell you. "

"Who else is aware of what has happened?" Marquette asked, feeling a strange and disturbing sensation of chains being dragged along his skin along his spine.

"Only the guardians."

"And where were they when it happened?"

The policeman was called Daniels. He had a donut of fat around his waist and his blue shirt was stained with sweat stains. He had a lump of snot hanging from one nostril. Best of Baltimore, Marquette thought. “That's the strange thing, Mr. Marquette. This cemetery has a top notch service. I mean, it's the cemetery where Edgar Allan Poe is buried, do you understand me? But the security people, the guards on duty last night, with whom I spoke, didn't see anything at all. "

Marquette looked down at the ground.

It was as if a grave had been dug in the grave and then hastily filled in the right way. Blocks and clumps of earth sprouted from the broken lawn and formed a track that led to the cemetery gate. The new, shiny, expensive Celtic cross on the tomb was intact and had not suffered any damage. Strange. If it had been an act of vandalism, the cross should have been the first target.

"Have you examined the coffin?"

"No. We have to dig it up. That's why we called it. We wanted to know if you have any suspicions about who may have attempted to exhume and steal Lord Blessing's body. You know, being a horror writer ... he certainly had a lot of weird fans. I heard that one time that other writer, Stephen King, was signing autographs when a guy walks up to him, cuts off his palm and asks King to sign his book with blood. "

"It was Clive Barker," Marquette corrected.

"Really? Fuck, I knew he was a fan of his, but getting to that point ... "

"No, I mean it was Clive Barker who was signing copies of one of his books."

They had called him that morning to inform him of the desecration of Blessing's tomb. Luckily the idiots hadn't had time to talk to Amy. He went straight to the scene to see what had happened, telling Amy it was a business commitment.

The kind of commitments one would gladly do without.

"Ah, sure. However I don't read those things. I like traditional yellows, you know? I like reading about real things. Do you understand what I mean? "

"Well, I guess we'll have to exhume the coffin to make sure it's not damaged and Dr. Blessing's remains haven't been touched," Marquette said.

"But that is not the duty of the police, sir."

“I'll contact the cemetery management to arrange this. If there are any expenses, they will be billed to the Blessing Foundation. Meanwhile, I'd like to thank you, officer, for notifying us immediately about this bad business. "

"Do not mention it. Must."

"Carried out with meticulousness."

The cop slouched back to his car and drove off, certainly headed for the nearest donut shop for lunch.

Donald Marquette went to talk to the cemetery administrators. Since there was no obvious sign on the outside that anything had actually been removed from the grave, exhumation would have come at a cost. Marquette didn't protest. They would do it the next morning. Marquette would have liked the matter to be resolved much more quickly, but the idea of personally grabbing a spade and getting busy right away was hardly appealing.

Once he made arrangements with the cemetery management, he found a phone booth and called Baxter Brittle.

Baxter was not in the office at Tome Publishing, which was not surprising.

Marquette tried again by dialing the home number and answered an answering machine. Again, no surprises. It was very early for Baxter.

However, there was another way to contact him without physically going to his house and getting him out of bed. After that terrible, but ultimately wonderful night when everything had changed, Marquette had convinced Baxter of the need to establish an immediate and always open link between them, in case there were any unpredictable developments. They had had special telephone lines installed and bought cell phones. Baxter hated his cell phone and had explicitly asked Marquette to try all other means of communication before resorting to the cell phone. For his part, Brittle had made a point of always keeping it on. Twenty-four hours a day. He would never touch the switch on the appliance. She wouldn't have buried him under piles of pillows.

Marquette dug his hand into an inside jacket pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He opened the door. He pressed the key programmed to automatically dial the Baxter number.

It rang repeatedly, but finally Baxter's voice, distorted and hoarse, came from the other end.

"Tell me, my dear."

"Baxter, are you sober?" Marquette asked.

“I have a crazy headache from last night's drinking. It takes me a drop and a pill, after which I'll be very lucid. I will be right back."

"No. Wait up. I have to talk to you. "

"Agree. This is something very important, I assume. "

“If not, I wouldn't have disturbed you, Baxter. I am one who keeps his word. "

"I am pleased to. I'm just sorry there are problems. What happens?"

"Mick and Theodore are back in town, haven't they?"

"Yup. Like I told you last week. They returned from their Caribbean adventure in great shape and tanned. "

"I still wish they weren't back here in Baltimore."

When they talked on the phone, they always took care not to talk too explicitly, keeping as vague as possible. Paranoia was a useful condition when one was forced to deal with sensitive matters such as the coverage of a theft that degenerated into a murder.

"They still have their usefulness." The annoyance that the hangover caused Baxter Brittle began to show in his voice, along with some irritation. "Please come to the point, my dear boy."

“A certain tomb has been desecrated. I just wanted to make sure that some of our friends aren't engaged in such troubling activities. "

A pause of silence.

Then a short laugh.

“Perhaps the occupier rose on the third day to ascend to heaven. I always thought he suffered from a superiority complex. He believed he was Jesus Christ. "

Marquette's reply was harsh. “This is not the time for your bad jokes, Baxter. I want you to investigate. You understood me?"

“Certainly, my dear. However, I don't think there is any reason to panic. "

“Don't panic. Only extreme caution. "

“All right, all right. Now can I go and cure my pains? "

“Yes, but call me back. And as soon as possible. "

"Should I use this hateful contraption?"

"No. You'll find me in the office. "

“The first good news of the day. Hi."

Marquette switched off the cell phone.

He found himself returning to the cemetery and the desecrated grave. He paused thoughtfully beside the cross, staring at the lawn and the rough earth.

Marquette shook his head and laughed.

That episode had given him a fantastic idea for a horror story.

He felt much better. He walked back to his car, his hands tucked into the comfortable silk-lined pockets of the Italian sports jacket.

22

Many and many years ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

There lived a girl you may know
with the name of Annabel Lee;

And this girl lived with the only thought

To love and be loved by me.

EDGAR A. POE, "Annabel Lee"

Dr. William Blessing, risen from the grave, stood at the door of the house where he had once lived, waiting for the living to answer the intercom.

The crow was gone and never showed up again. So much the better. After a miserable night on a park bench, he had returned to him clutching more hundred-dollar bills in his beak. She had used them to buy new clothes and makeup in one of the downtown department stores.

Looking in the mirror in the men's room, his eyes fixed on the flaky, cracked skin of his cadaveric face, he had applied a dyed undercoat. Then, following a strange instinct, he drew a clownish smile on his face with black pencil and clown stars around his eyes.

After a pause for reflection he had decided that this was not an ideal disguise.

He had resigned himself to using more tinted primer to cover the deepest scars and lacerations. The fresh meat chore performed the previous evening had helped fill the cracks around the battered nose. However, despite his background, he looked older than he had been at the time of his death.

As a result, Delmore Blessing, a distant but intimate cousin (by mail order), was brought to life by the extinct William Blessing.

Now, on the steps outside, waiting for the door to open, what remained or was now in the place of his heart seemed to beat faster. The excitement of seeing Amy was intense.

The sound of her voice on the intercom had almost paralyzed him. He was grateful that he had been able to speak and tell his story, plus honestly. Fortunately, his appearance and voice had changed enough for him to hide his true identity.

Be calm, he urged himself.

This meeting must take place solely for the purpose of obtaining information.

What an agony!

His voice had been so sweet and sad. He had felt the insane urge to tell her the truth.

Amy! I'm back! I rose from the dead to do justice!

But he knew it wasn't possible. He had already had to leave her once, against his will. How could he tell her who he was knowing that he would then have to separate from her again ... When?

Soon.

Very early.

The door opened.

He saw her look out cautiously at the entrance, the safety chain still attached.

Oh, how beautiful she was! He was overwhelmed by such a surge of emotion that he feared his heart would break.

He stood as far away from the door as possible, his hands, empty, in sight at his sides. He nodded to her.

"Good morning."

"Good morning," she replied hesitantly.

"Thank you so much for trusting me," she said. “And I must apologize for not notifying you of my arrival in Baltimore. The truth is that until yesterday evening I didn't even know that today I would be in the city. I thought it might be a good time to introduce myself to her, explain who I am and how she could help me ... and how I might help her. "

"I only wish William ... Bill ... had told me he had a cousin ... with whom he wrote ... and to whom he confided such personal secrets."

"I'm embarrassed. But you see, I need to tell her these things ... to convince her that I don't want to hurt her. "

He smiled, and felt the makeup covering his face and dry, tight skin cracking as his facial muscles moved.

"Hurt me? No, of course not. It's just that..."

"Believe me, I understand you perfectly."

"Come in, please."

"Thank you."

He unhooked the safety chain on the door and stepped aside.

As he crossed the threshold he had to appeal to all the willpower in every fiber of his being to resist the urge to embrace her. He wanted to hold her close, feel life in his arms again. Feeling what he had lost near again.

He entered and stood in the hall. He had been about to automatically proceed to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, but stopped, obediently awaiting instructions.

"Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?" Amy offered.

"Yes thanks."

"This way."

As she overcame the shock of being in the presence of the woman she loved again, Blessing had to make a statement.

It wasn't the same anymore.

A spark was missing in his being. She looked less radiant. That spark had been extinguished.

And it was not surprising.

He felt his anger rise again. She wouldn't risk losing pieces there, in front of her. The presence of Amy and the anger that burned in his body would have strengthened the firmness of his will.

Amy led the way to the dining room table.

“I'm making some coffee. A Kenyan blend that I really like. Do you want to taste it? "

"Coffee and not tea?" he asked.

She looked at him curiously. "Yes why?"

“Oh, forgive me. It's just that William told me about his passion for exotic teas. It is strange to find her drinking what had been her favorite coffee. "

"When I drink coffee ... I feel closer to him," she explained. “Besides, it helps keep me awake. I've been oversleeping lately. "

"It seems that sleeping a lot helps to overcome difficult times and to heal wounds," he said. “In any case, a nice cup of coffee is fine. Thank you."

Amy went to the kitchen. As he waited for him to return, sitting in his dining room, tears came to his eyes. He had never really loved that room. He'd always thought he looked too ... too ... American. He much preferred the European style dining rooms. Yet now there was no other place in the world where he wished to be.

Blessing held back the tears.

Amy came back holding a tray, placed it on the table and turned to look at him.

"Why don't you take off your glasses?"

"Ah ... these?" he said touching his sunglasses. "You know, I have eyes ... very sensitive to light."

"Like Vincent Price in Ligeia's Tomb," she replied almost without thinking.

“Ah, um, yes. Sure, one of the classic Roger Corman films from Poe, ”Blessing pointed out.

Amy started pouring the coffee. "According to Bill, one of the best."

"Already. Screenplay written by Robert Towne and not Richard Matheson, the author most commonly associated with the Poe-inspired cycle of Corman films. I must confess that Charles Beaumont's version of the Haunted Palace has always been one of my favorites. " Blessing, without realizing it, laughed. "But this is most likely due to the fact that the film was actually based on an old story by HP Lovecraft."

"But you like Poe, don't you?"

"As I told you before, I was the one who introduced William to ..."

"The film that we enjoyed watching together the most was perhaps The Crow in Corman's version ... although even in this case the reference to Poe is rather limited," said Amy. "But I think Peter Lorre was fantastic in the role of the crow."

"Yes, it's true. I have to admit, though, that talking birds have bored me a bit lately, ”Blessing confessed.

He poured a drop of milk into his cup.

«He has coffee with milk. Just like Bill. "

"Apparently it's a family vice."

"There is actually a strong similarity."

"Yup. They pointed this out to us several times when we went out together. "

Blessing takes a sip. He could feel the warmth of the liquid, but he could not taste the taste. His anger grew.

"You said you want to talk to me."

"Yup. I live in Vancouver, British Columbia. When I heard of William's death, the funeral had already taken place ... I'm terribly sorry I wasn't there. "

"I was actually quite absent from the ceremony myself," she said.

“Maybe I could have given her some comfort. William's sudden and violent death left many things unspoken. I don't know how things were going between you at that time ... but I just know that every time she wrote to me over the last few years William seemed unable to talk about anything but her ... and his feelings for her. . He loved her very much. "

“You don't need to remind me. I know. I never doubted his love… ”He sighed. “I loved him too. And I still love him. "

"Love transcends death."

"Yup. Now I know."

There was a pause of silence.

"William had always hoped he could share everything with her," Blessing resumed finally. “But he confided to me that there were many things in his life that he had never talked to her about. Nothing terribly exciting ... Just details, do you understand? I believe I am here to fill in the small gaps. I'm here to tell you some things, small things, sure, but maybe important, about your husband. " Sigh. "I realize that if all this is too painful ..."

He tried to look up.

Amy Blessing was staring at him.

There was a light in his eyes. A light that hadn't been there before.

"Yup. Yes… I'd like to, ”he said. "Go on, please."

Blessing took a sip of coffee. He told his wife things about himself that he had never told her, that he had been too busy to tell her. Their life together had somehow been left incomplete, absolutely without any real need. He had loved her very much, but he had never been good at confiding; now he was determined to leave her with a bigger part of himself.

He told her of some failures, of how his first stories had been rejected by various publishers. Of a bad year at university, before being sure that he wanted to dedicate his life to the literary mission he felt he had to carry out. He told her about the relationship difficulties he had had with some people, about the silly and stupid things he had done. He had told her all the good things during their short, too short, marriage. But in life he hadn't revealed all his faults and weaknesses; now he felt he had not been fair to her. Amy had to remember him for what he really was.

Finally, an hour later, realizing that he still had a lot to say, but that he was prevented from doing so by a great weariness of mind, he broke off.

"I'm sorry. That's all I can remember right now, ”he said. "There are certainly other things William told me ... but perhaps I will be able to tell him about them on another occasion."

He looked at her again, afraid to see a look of disappointment on her face. Disappointment with the flawed man she married. Maybe even a little relieved to have been freed from the burden of having to spend a lifetime with him.

Instead, he looked happy, despite the veil of tears in his eyes.

"Thank you. This is really… very important to me, ”he said. "Now, somehow, I feel ... I know Bill even better."

He nodded. "Good."

"But she has to stay! You can rest if you want ... there are several guest rooms upstairs. "

"No. I got a room in a hotel here in Baltimore. "

"Please! Leave your room and come and stay here with me! "

“I'm afraid I can't do it. And please don't ask me why. "

"Agree. As you prefer."

"Now I have to go. I'll call her. So I'll tell you when I can come back. "

"I can not wait."

"One last thing. During my stay in the city I would like to contact some people. For personal matters. Related to literature. I'm referring to people involved in a commercial operation that if I'm not mistaken is called Tome Press. "

"Ah, sure! The Tome Press. Of course. My friend and partner Donald Marquette works closely with them. He will certainly be able to help you. "

“The problem is that I have to move very carefully. I can't explain why right now. But you have to trust me. That's why I was so happy to be able to talk to you like we did today, Amy. Please be patient. I'd rather get some information directly from you and not involve other people. "

She looked confused, but nodded. "All right. If that's the price I have to pay to hear more wonderful tales about William, then so be it. "

"Can you tell me how I can contact these people?"

"Yup. I have some business cards they left me. It was just recently, at a dinner party. "

"If you could lend them to me ..."

"Of course. I don't know what to do with it. Do you need them now? "

"Yup. Unfortunately I have to go. "

"Very well."

He went to his office and returned with a series of business cards, all decorated with symbols of the occult in relief.

He took them and got up to leave. It was tiring and painful, but it felt like it was falling apart. He had to get away before the rips of decomposition got too deep.

"Thank you so much ..."

"I'm the one who thank her," Amy replied, and before she had time to say or do anything else she hugged him. His wife's warm, soft flesh against his had the effect of an electric shock. Her perfume, the perfume of talc mixed with the scent of a female, shook him like no spiritual or physical experience had ever had before. She was soft and tender, she felt the curls of her hair brush against his cheek and the life that was in her pulsed like a feverish dynamo of possibilities, of wonders, of boundless light in a dark and nihilistic universe.

For a moment he feared that he would literally dissolve into a pool of tears.

He managed to pull himself together and remain unperturbed.

"I'm so glad he came," she told him. "Promise me you will come back."

"I promise you."

He gently broke away from Amy and took his leave, hearing Amy's farewell echoing in his mind like the last notes of a splendid symphony.

He found himself walking aimlessly down the street, clutching the business cards she had given him. He felt a sense of vertigo. Was it the sunlight? Did not know. He felt like a citizen of the night, unearthed and returned to the light ... yet the light did not burn or corrode him, as it did for Christopher Lee in classic Hammer Dracula movies. Oddly, he felt the opposite, as if the sunlight increased his power and understanding of things. Undeniably, he was now a creature of the night. But that didn't imply hatred for the day.

Eventually he found himself on the campus of Johns Hopkins University.

He sat down on a bench in the shade of a tree.

He looked absently at the passing students. He recognized some boys and girls. His students. God, they were young and fresh and full of energy. Now he regretted how hard he had been with some of them, and how little he had tried to get to know them. Maybe if he tried to understand them, they would understand him better. He could have entrenched himself in the life of the university, that sacred and prestigious institution. And write under a pseudonym. He could have avoided the absurdity of death and resurrection.

He should have started a family. A normal family.

A young man with a paperback Dean Koontz book in one hand and a soda in the other settled himself against a tree trunk. He began to leaf through the book carefully, looking for the page he had reached, then immersed himself in reading.

Slowly, as she watched the boy, an awareness dawned on Blessing: she somehow resembled Amy, with her curly hair, dark eyebrows and the shape of her chin.

And in other ways he resembled William Blessing.

That student could have been their son.

Clutching the business cards in her hand, Blessing had to get off the bench and walk away, ready to beat the most desolate and infamous parts of the city, remembering what her and Amy's intentions had been that night, before violence and atrocities befell them. .

They will pay! he told himself.

The ransom will go through revenge.

23

I could no longer have doubts about the sentence prepared for me by the monastic ingenuity in torture. The inquisitors had become aware of my awareness of the well - that well whose horrors had been destined for a daring rebel such as I - the well, inspired by hell, and generally regarded as the Last Thule of all their tortures.

EDGAR A. POE, The pit and the pendulum

The cross it was a new nightclub.

One of those places born elsewhere, which for a time take root to the pulsing of disco music in a delirium of glitter and amphetamines, are fueled by alcohol and endless hours of the night, and are probably destined to proceed further to change address or simply to dying of a spastic and unnatural death.

It was at the end of an alley in the heart of downtown Baltimore, squeezed between office buildings, shops, and restaurants that had already been closed for several hours. A neighborhood that is anything but residential. Hidden in a reinforced concrete canyon, the place allowed those who frequented it to produce terrible and wild noise until dawn. In the absence of public peace to disturb, there was no danger of being accused of criminal behavior.

Or anyway, not of that kind.

At the opposite end of the entrance was an emergency exit. In theory it was supposed to be open only in case of emergency, but that evening, as often happened when the inside of the room got too hot, or the bathrooms were panting too full of carnal activity, one of the patrons went out into the cool and dark space that along some stone steps led into an alley parallel to that of the main entrance.

It was Evelyn Nichol, Marquis de la Cinque to his brethren.

My God, he thought, piercing the cool night air with his face wet with sweat. It's hot in there for a weekday.

Evelyn pulled a pack of Virginia Slims out of her sleek black clutch bag on one side of her red plastic jacket and lit it with a zippo decorated with a death's head. He contributed to Baltimore's air pollution by blowing smoke into the already hazy alley, surreal in its evanescence.

His head was spinning. Too many strobe lights. Too much pounding, aggressive and bad music: NIN, Prodigy, Ministry and all the others, a megamix of anger and despair. Too many drugs, too much alcohol and too much dancing.

He tried to relax, swaying on his stiletto heels, letting the cool air rise under his miniskirt and lower the temperature of his tight, very tight panties. She lovingly smoothed her nylons, once again admiring her perfectly rounded calves and thin ankles.

The strange thing was that, although he personally had a preference for men, the Marquis looked much better when dressed as a woman. Especially when she wore makeup. He possessed a rare quality that placed him halfway between a transsexual and a transvestite.

Yes, he used to cheerfully admit, Rocky Horror had a big impact on my adolescence.

At one time, before meeting the Goths, Evelyn Nichol had made a good part of her income by prostituting. Luring men was easy and pretending to be a woman was always fun. But ultimately it was a crude, rancid and lousy practice, with the constant threat of disease hanging over your head. As a result, when Tome Press started earning enough money to buy the clothes he wanted, he stopped beating. He liked to seduce and flirt, but he had cut the throbbing hands and baritone grunts, the savage love trade.

Yup! he exulted in himself, raising his arms to the sky as if to receive latent and hidden powers. A new world is opening up before me! I've been on the ground too long with my face in the mud! Now my eyes turn to the stars!

In reality the Marquis was conquering a completely different form of power. He was discovering that he had some talent in the field of accounting. Who would have thought that! At Tome Press, whose turnover was booming and the behavioral rules imposed on employees were based on absolute tolerance, he could have become a top executive, helping to guide the company towards the exciting prospects that would arise from his association. with the Blessing legacy. What an adrenaline rush that fateful evening when a wealthy author had met his death and the Goths had finally been able to begin to aspire to greatness! Besides, he was still free to go out and party as he pleased and liked.

No.

Errata corrige.

Party was obligatory!

Having a party was part of the philosophy of Tome Press itself. Mick Prince's streak of drug trafficking in itself involved going to dinners and parties with hand-picked business associates. It was a wonderful ride, Byzantine, exciting and exhilarating, but most of all incredibly profitable.

God, now he not only had access to the best drugs ...

But also to the most beautiful women's dresses!

What a wonderful dream life, the Marquis thought, filling his lungs with the thick and rich smoke of tobacco, then letting it escape through his nostrils. And all this for crushing like a cockroach an arrogant son of a bitch who had screwed up his head.

And then there was the darker side of the matter. But that was a free choice. He had no doubt that Tome's increased income and increased success were due in part to occult practices. But the truth, he reflected, was that all these stories of Satanism and occult worship were in themselves amusing.

The marquis smiled and threw away the cigarette butt.

Time to go back to doing four jumps. And then maybe fish for a nice fish to take home ...

"Mr. DeMille," he whispered, straightening his wig. "I'm ready for the first floor!"

He reached for the door, ready to plunge back into the thunderous, delicious cacophony, but was blocked.

A hand came down from above, slipped into the back of her dress, grabbed him by the back of her bra and pulled him up.

The marquis felt as if he had been hooked by a crane hook. He barely had time to realize what was happening that had already been brought to street level, carried over the metal railing.

"Hey, what the ..."

A second hand grabbed him.

He felt an arm tighten around his neck and somehow managed to gag him. He was dragged, kicking and panting, first down the alley, then across the deserted street where he emerged.

The Marquis lost both stiletto heels.

Adrenaline rushed through his body. Was it because of the drug dealing? Had there been some misunderstanding, or some late payment? What the hell was going on? He knew Mick Prince was back in town. Was it a joke arranged by him?

There was a bad smell in the air. Smell of blood, of rotten flesh, of putrefaction ...

He realized that he had been transported to a construction site, at the entrance to which a sign bearing the word DANGER had been placed. In the night a Caterpillar bulldozer came into view as a giant resting insect. The smell of asphalt, earth and sewer hung in the air.

Suddenly the Marquis found himself looking into the depths of a narrow, dark excavation. Far, far below, he glimpsed vague shapes of spikes rising up from the under construction foundations of a building. His captor suspended him over the chasm.

"No!" he shouted, his voice muffled by the gag.

Now it dangled, kicking, over the abyss.

“But yes, Evelyn. I apologize: Marquis. "

The Marquis, full of terror, with the unhealthy air coming from the excavation that rose up his thighs sheathed in his stockings, somehow managed to compose himself. He tried to speak but could not make his words understandable due to the gag.

He was trying to say he had a lot of money in his clutch. But the attacker didn't seem interested in money.

"'In the confusion,'" recited the Man of Darkness, "'waiting to fall, I did not immediately understand a rather frightening circumstance, which, however, a few seconds later, while still lying prone, caught my attention. It was this: my chin rested on the prison floor, but my lips and the top of my head, though apparently at a lower level than my chin, rested on nothing. At the same time my forehead seemed to be immersed in a sticky vapor and the peculiar smell of decaying mold rose to my nostrils. I reached out an arm and shivered to find that I had fallen exactly on the edge of a round pit, to determine the size of which, of course, I had no means at the time. Feeling the bricks just below the opening I managed to free a fragment and let it fall into the abyss. For several seconds I listened to the reverberation of his collisions against the walls of the excavation; finally, after a considerable interval, I heard the dreary sound of the shard plunging into the water, followed by a loud series of echoes. '"

"Mmm!" complained the Marquis.

"Do you know why this is happening to you, Marquis?" asked the Man of Darkness.

"No," replied the marquis in a muffled voice.

“Well, I have to decide whether to tell you. After all, whether you know it or not, what's the difference? You are but a shred of half-light in a sea of darkness, in my view. "

The Man of Darkness remained silent for a few moments, as if reflecting.

The marquis was seized by a sudden attack of dizziness, despite avoiding looking down.

It was as if he felt the emptiness beneath him.

Finally, the Shadow Man spoke.

«The passage I recited to you. Do you know what it's taken from, Marquis? Let's do like this. If you give me the right answer, maybe you won't fall too low tonight. What do you say?"

The marquis nodded frantically.

The Man of Darkness placed his feet on the edges of the excavation.

Christ, how strong this is, to keep me suspended like this, thought the marquis.

"If you scream, I'll quit right away," the Dark Man warned, releasing him from the gag.

«But first tell me something, Marquis. Where is your good mate Baxter Brittle on this wonderful evening? "

"At home. In his bar. "

"As I thought. I just wanted confirmation. So, let's hear your answer. What is the passage I recited to you from? "

The marquis shivered.

A piece of asphalt broke off the edge of the chasm and fell into the void.

"Help ... give me some help."

"You have high demands, you know? Let's say it's taken from ... a famous horror story. "

The marquis blinked.

He hadn't read many horror stories in his life, a fact he always tried to hide from other Goths. A concern that, it seemed, would soon no longer affect him.

"Er ... Shining?"

"Wrong," said the Man of Darkness.

She put the gag back over his mouth.

And he dropped his victim into the chasm.

The marquis swooped down, screaming.

He had the impression of falling for an infinite time. But suddenly it hit the bottom and it was as if from the darkness a mallet had risen from below, hitting his guts.

The darkness turned red and the curtain, or rather the curtain of the dressing room, slammed shut.

When he regained consciousness, the Marquis felt a vague but upsetting pain, but above all a feeling of emptiness under his chest.

He felt the successive waves of liquid bathe his face. It bristled with clay and murky, stagnant water. He could taste blood in his mouth.

He tried to move but was unable to. It was as if a giant stiletto heel was exerting pressure on him, pinning him to the ground.

Suddenly, a few inches from his face, a match struck.

The Man of Darkness, his face hidden by the twilight, stared at him from above.

He continued to quote: '' Under my gaze the crack opened rapidly; a fierce and swirling wind blew; the whole globe of the satellite suddenly appeared in my sight; my brain went dizzy as I watched the mighty walls crumble and crumble to dust; then a long, tumultuous scream rang out like the voice of a thousand seas; and the deep, dark pool at my feet closed sadly and silently over the remains of Casa Usher. '

The Marquis opened his mouth. He felt the blood gush. "Who are you?"

"Haven't you figured it out yet?" Those books you stole ... Your share of the loot ... reminds you of anything? " asked the Man of Darkness.

"Poe's books," panted the Marquis.

"Don't worry. I got them back today. I have my means. "

The match went out.

Against the background of the constant buzzing in his ears, the Marquis heard a squeak. Then the sound of something crawling.

A second match struck. This time it was much closer. "Haven't you recognized me yet?" Of course not, how could you. You've probably never met a man who has returned from the dead to take revenge, have you? "

There was something squeaking nearby, at the edge of the area lit by the flashing light thrown from the match. The dull ache in the Marquis's head gave way to understanding. He pushed the thought hard as it formed in his mind, but the name escaped his lips anyway.

"Blessing?"

«That's right, Marquis. That's right. Apparently there are indeed forces aimed at justice in this universe ... as long as you want to get hold of them with sufficient determination. "

The marquis turned his head and tried to move again. He looked over his shoulder and understood the reason for his forced immobility.

It was impaled on one of the reinforced concrete reinforcing steel bars at the bottom of the foundation excavation into which it had been pushed.

"Help me," he begged. "Call ... help ... the nine ... one-one ..." he gasped. "Help!"

"You know what, Marquis? The ending of the story The well and the pendulum. Do you remember what happens? "

The marquis let out a lament.

"Of course not. You don't know anything about Poe. You don't give a damn about Poe. Those early editions of his works have no meaning to you, other than their dollar value. Well, Marquis, the protagonist of the story is a prisoner of the Spanish inquisitors. Torquemada and the others. Locked in a cell, he is tortured with the pendulum ... a sharp object that swings back and forth, back and forth, as it slowly descends downward. Then there is the well. He risks falling into the well, you understand. But in the end he is saved ... And I have always wondered what would have happened if, instead, he had fallen. Would it be carried away by an underground river? Or would he simply have stayed there, in agony, devoured by sewer rats with razor-sharp teeth? "

The match went out.

The squeaks and wet crawling grew louder. The rasping sound of small paws.

"Hungry rats," explained the Dark Man. «Good night, Marquis. Sweet dreams."

Something nibbled the Marquis's ear.

The muffled screams were music to his ears. Darker than dark music and harder than hardcore music.

In the alley, Blessing leaned against the brick wall and listened, composing herself, regaining her energy. And they made two: the Count and the Marquis. Four were missing.

A black shape appeared from the sky and landed on his shoulder.

"Crow ..." he said to the bird. "Crow ... now I can do things ... there are forces ... I lean towards them ... and I can control them ..."

A last, heartbreaking scream and then from the bottom of the abyss came only silence, accompanied by a breath of mist, like spirits on the run.

"Sure. As I told you: everything is in willpower. It's the one that holds your body parts together, ”the crow explained. “Pure willpower. Your love survives. And your anger… ”The crow cocked its beak and looked in the direction of the excavation. "Mmm. Who knows if they left something. I'd gladly have a snack. "

"Do I still have ... enough willpower ... to face another one tonight?" Blessing asked.

"How would that be? I really hope so. You are on track. I would say to continue. "

"I don't know ... I don't ..." Blessing looked down at her hands. "Now I'm a killer."

“I would rather say a special messenger intent on doing the work of the Universe; that's all, 'replied the crow. “You're just doing what you have to give, taking advantage of an opportunity that most people never present. So don't worry, man, or your nose will come off again. And maybe the ears too. You want to see Amy again, don't you? "

Blessing was silent for a few long moments.

“I can do things…” he finally stated, “that no human being should have the power to do. Am I damning myself because of my anger? "

“Think about what they stole from you. Not just Amy, not just your life ... but your rightful place in history as well. And now they would like to spoil your name by associating it with garbage, ”said the crow. “You still have a big bill to settle, William Blessing. But you are also in the service of forces that, without you, could do justice in ways you would find less satisfying. "

"I ... I ..."

"Kill them, those bastards," said the crow. "And leave their souls at the mercy of the darkness they worship." The crow flew off into the night.

William Blessing nodded and walked back into the haze that enveloped the harbor, looking for a bar.

24

I had tolerated as best I could Fortunato's thousand offenses, but when he degenerated into an insult I swore revenge. You, who know well the nature of my soul, do not suppose however that I have uttered threats. Sooner or later I would have revenge, that was certain, but the very resolve with which I made this decision precluded the idea of risk. I had to not only punish, but punish with impunity. Wrong is not redressed when the punishment falls on the avenger. Likewise, it is not repaired when the avenger does not reveal himself as such to the one who offended him.

EDGAR A. POE, The barrel of Amantillado

"There are two cases!" Baxter Brittle warned, looking up from his usual post behind the counter. "Either this wallpaper disappears, or I'm leaving."

The leftovers from a bad Chinese takeaway meal of kung-pao shrimp, moo goo gai pan, and greasy rolls lay on the table in front of him. He lifted a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale and poured the last few drops of foamy beer into a traditional-style glass mug. Everything smelled of sesame oil, kept burping, risking to regurgitate hops and malt, and began to feel a little nauseous. He was holding a fabulous horror novel by a very talented young author who had asked him to publish a special edition of the book a few months in advance of his official publisher's distribution of the commercial version. Baxter was determined to grow rapidly as a publisher so that he could independently publish original novels by unknown authors, without having to limit himself to collections of short stories and special editions, the crumbs left him by the great houses of New York. Shit, Baxter thought; all that was needed was money, a raw material whose availability had recently been growing in the offices of Tome Press.

Yeah, life was good.

But that wallpaper just didn't fit him. Yellowish and decorated with lilies. He decided to have it removed, and perhaps bring back to light the original wood that covered the walls (properly treated, of course) to bring out the trinkets, collectibles and framed photographs.

The bar was anything but crowded. The bartender on duty that evening, busy drying some glasses, laughed. "Do you know all of Oscar Wilde's maxims, Mr. Brittle?"

“Yes, and I also have some of my own in my repertoire. But only fools rely solely on original material. We intelligent people, on the other hand, know how useful plagiarism is. "

"I think that's the biggest compliment," said the young man, who sported a mustache.

"In my opinion, the highly esteemed Edgar Allan Poe was also guilty, moreover always ready to accuse others," Brittle said. He looked down at the sickening remnants of food. He suddenly realized that he needed something stronger than the dark English ale he was drinking, and that he needed to consume it elsewhere. "Joe, my boy," he said, standing up. “Would you be kind enough to get this stuff out of the way? There's enough to fix tomorrow's lunch if you like. And don't go around saying that Cork'd Sailor's owner isn't kind to you. "

The bartender made a deep, ironic bow. "Oh, master, thanks for the leftovers."

Baxter Brittle stood up, smoothed his long coat, and picked up the soy sauce-stained manuscript.

“Ah, Joe, one more thing. I'm waiting for visits. Later a man in a long black coat may pass. His name is Mick. Let him go down to the basement. I'm warning you because I'm afraid I might be distracted by this captivating novel ... and other things, and I might not hear him knock. "

"You can count on it, Mr. Brittle." Joe moved to the opposite end of the bar, where a group of students looked like they were about to order another round of beers.

Baxter Brittle walked to the door of his private lair. Ah, the comfort of his own piece of heaven, he delighted as he descended and inhaled the familiar essences of sandalwood and hash oil, of candles and rose water. His refuge looked more and more like a Maxfield Parrish painting, Baxter concluded, turning on the lights. All a flourish of Roman columns, satin curtains and openwork curtains, colorful Persian carpets and Greek amphorae with peacock feathers. Where once there had been horrible and cheap orange and brown sofas, now there were divine sofas and sofas, adorned with countless silk cushions.

Alas, if that very special basement had once hosted countless parties reserved for the Goths and their friends in a period of more intense socializing, now, given the great pace at which business was proceeding, the very activity that had made possible the improvements to the local led to a much less frequent use. Baxter Brittle was simply too busy curating his growing Tome Press empire. More and more often he had to give up his position behind the bar to stay in the new offices rented by Tome Press a few blocks away in the same street to house the new employees. By now Baxter used that wonderful place above all as a refuge, a place to relax and indulge in his particular vices.

He inserted Planet Dog's latest dub compilation into the new stereo with surround sound system. The place was filled with a pulsating rhythm like the beating of a heart.

Baxter moved his head in time with the bass. "And now a nice cocktail."

He licked his lips and walked over to the altar.

The altar had prospered and grown with the success of the Tome Press. He no longer sported just some meager magical symbol, a pentacle here and a goat's head there. It was now a veritable pantheon of gods, saints and demons, from Hitler to Shiva, from Lucifer to Jeffrey Dahmer. Large votive candles burned. The bittersweet taste of the wine used for the rites still rose from a series of fallen goblets. Baxter lit more candles, then inserted a couple of incense sticks into the lap of a fat buddha and lit them too.

"So you'll burn your balls, brother," he said to the unflappable buddha.

He chose the quality of incense he preferred from a humidifier: an aromatic Cuban cigar, an El Presedente, no less. He lit it by bringing the tip to the flame of a scented candle.

Then he opened the cabinet under the altar.

Neatly lined up he found a series of bottles of absinthe with handwritten labels.

He chose one, then walked over to the sink of the new kitchen-bar. He poured the liquid into a chalice, smelled it ... Ah! ... then raised it and toasted the altar and, more generally, all his dominion.

"I'm afraid I have only one way to cope with temptation," he announced. "Give in to them!"

The digital drums coming out of the stereo speakers approved with a roll. The high alcoholic drink did not take long to exert its effects on his body, giving him that incredible, illicit sensation of warmth and radiance, at once seductive and psychedelic, which was the exclusive prerogative of absinthe. Of course, in the long run he would have to give it up, contenting himself with good wine and beer. Prolonged use of absinthe, in addition to warming the heart, could kill. The burden of success would undoubtedly save him, Baxter reflected. Who had more time to get drunk all day now that there were far more profitable businesses to pursue? But the time for renunciation had not yet come.

He took the manuscript and the chalice and sank into a comfortable armchair in front of his private hearth, the delightful altar lit by candles. He felt much better now. Perfectly at ease. He looked at the wicks of the candles, engaged in their eternal dance, and gave himself up to the hypnotic comfort of the scents, the absinthe and the calm he derived from the knowledge that the rewards of work and ambition were pouring down pouring down upon him. he.

Sure, having money was nice, but what he valued most were the material things, the comforts, and the future scenarios that money could buy.

And then there were things that couldn't be bought with money, things Baxter Brittle now owned.

Next to him another recent purchase: a sturdy custom-made bookcase in polished oak wood with glass doors. He looked inside, admiring his Gurdjieff books, including some early editions. His books by Aleister Crowley, his ancient volumes of archaic knowledge. But the most valuable and most important pieces were the books, magazines and documents that occupied the upper shelf, entirely reserved for them.

Given his fair knowledge of the field, he had been quick to get hold of the better part of the booty on that fateful evening at the Blessing house. Not even dear Donald Marquette had done better than him, although he had come into possession of a greater number of volumes. Even under conditions of altered consciousness, as he undeniably had been that evening, Baxter had been able to choose and select with great skill.

And now he admired his precious relics.

It had been in his best interest to help Mick and Theodore, as well as the Marquis, to sell their share of the booty. He'd only charged a small fee for facilitating contact with a handful of West Coast traffickers, book fair pirates (invariably fat and smelly) who paid cash and never asked questions. He himself could have made a good cash by selling the pieces he had taken, but like rare works of art, Blessing's most precious treasures were well known in collectors' circles, and certainly insured for substantial sums. From that point of view it was as if the books were radioactive, extremely dangerous to be put into circulation. But kept in his special library, they were a constant source of ... well, he didn't know exactly what, for Baxter. finding himself for once at a loss for words. But it was undoubtedly a pleasant feeling.

He loved admiring the new collection by candlelight. Meditate on its meaning, on Poe's literary legacy. Bask in the reassuring warmth of history and genius.

He took another long sip of absinthe and pondered, amused, the irony of fate.

Poe! What a poor and miserable man he had been. Yet he had invented literary forms on which other authors had built authentic fortunes, who had limited themselves to applying the formulas he created and imitating his way of using words and language.

What had he once read about Poe's most important contribution to literature? Ah, sure. It wasn't an intuition that Baxter had thought thoroughly at first, but rightly so it was true.

The critic had pointed out that Edgar Poe had been the first fictional author to transfer the entire palette of techniques and licenses of poetry into prose. Rhythm, metrics, assonance, tropes and so on. Poe had used the entire repertoire at his disposal in the stories. And that was the reason why his works still retained a certain modernity of style, despite the typical frills of the nineteenth century. Because, ultimately, Poe had created a style that is still absolutely current.

As he stared at the volumes in the cabinet, Baxter Brittle wondered casually if he shouldn't reread Poe.

Perhaps he would, once he reached a position that would allow him to delegate more of his growing responsibilities to the Tome Press ... And perhaps he would resume writing. Yeah, business had got him overly involved. They were creating a real industry, thanks to Donald Marquette's brilliant editorial talent and Mick Prince's original ideas in the field of marketing.

Why not claim a piece of the literary pie for yourself?

Undoubtedly less gifted authors than him regularly appeared in the bestseller charts, idolized by readers around the world ...

Idolize ...

Baxter Brittle wondered what that kind of success tasted like. Exquisite, sure. Absolutely exquisite ...

Suddenly a current swept the flames of the candles, extinguishing them.

Suddenly the room filled with fading shadows.

Baxter looked around.

He felt the current. It was cold and made him shiver.

A presence.

"Is there anyone?"

He tried to get up, but he had drunk more absinthe than he intended and found himself too drunk to move from his chair unless he concentrated hard on the task.

He fell back, gazing with bleary eyes at the darkness into which the basement had fallen.

A figure emerged from the darkness.

“Hi, Baxter. You are admiring the latest arrivals in your collection, I see. "

Baxter narrowed his eyes. "Mick? Mick, is that you? "

She had called him that evening asking him to meet him. Yes, it had to be Mick, engaged in one of his grisly pranks.

What a scoundrel.

“Come and have a drink, Mick,” Baxter said. "I know you don't particularly like absinthe, but I'm sure we'll find something more akin to your taste."

The figure took a step forward. He wore a dark coat, but not at all gorgeous or fancy like Mick Prince's. The man was preceded by a strange smell. Once, during one of their alcoholic raids, the gang visited a slaughterhouse. Tanned skins, rotting carcasses, bones and animal glue. They had filmed some of the most interesting post mortem images, bizarre overlays of light, shadows, and distorted death positions. But the most vivid memory Baxter still kept was the stench of the place, a strange, otherworldly but immediate message from the dead to the living; made of instinct and promise, as if he admonished: «We are now the flesh beyond the flesh. The glare of blood. The resonance of what has been. Take your time. But soon you will join us ».

Now, strangely, despite the incense and the taste of the absinthe, Baxter caught a hint of that smell.

“No, Baxter. I'm not Mick. And I won't have anything to drink, thanks. "

The figure stopped. He crossed his arms across his chest. “I'm someone you once asked to meet. Maybe I should have paid more attention at the time, grabbed a pen and paper and answered you. Maybe things would have turned out differently. Or maybe not."

The fog in Baxter's mind prevented him from rapidly processing his thoughts. "How did you get in here?" he asked, realizing that the visitor was a stranger.

“Now I have the means… skills… things that I can do… Now. What qualitative word, don't you find? Mine won't last long now. To tell the truth, in very concrete terms, mine now is a projection of the past, the persistence of a shadow. "

Baxter was confused, but the faint stench of decay he'd smelled in the air had warned him, triggering an automatic fear. Fear cleared his head enough for him to rise to his feet, the goblet of absinthe still clutched in his hand.

"Who are you?"

As he formulated the question he put down the goblet and took half a step back.

“Someone you never thought you'd meet again, Baxter Brittle. I'm here for two reasons. "

Baxter backed cautiously to a dresser. He opened one of the drawers, slowly and stealthily slipping a hand into it, keeping it hidden behind his back. He had always been paranoid about any intruders into his inner sanctum and had taken precautions. Apparently, it had been a wise move. He felt an immediate and serious danger. However, and thankfully, he was too drunk to panic.

Take it, he urged himself, only slightly more lucid. Grab it and everything will be fine. Take it and everything will work out in the best way.

The man was talking. Talking took time, a good thing under the circumstances. Baxter knew that if he was forced to report the incident, the fact that the dead man escaped would not be a particular problem. After all, it was a case of self-defense, wasn't it?

“I don't know what you're talking about. But then again, I don't even know who you are, do I? " Baxter asked.

The figure took another step forward.

His face was illuminated by a convergence of halogen light with that thrown by the candles.

He was pale and cerulean. He had many injuries and appeared slightly shrunken, but retained a certain elegance. The eyes were hidden by dark glasses, which the man at one point took off.

The eyes were dark but familiar.

When the consciousness of the intruder's identity formed in him, Baxter suffered such a shock that for a moment his hand interrupted the search for the gun. His mind rebelled against the image transmitted by the eyes.

"Blessing?"

"Exactly, Baxter."

Baxter Brittle burst into laughter. "But these are things that only happen in particularly hateful and banal horror stories!" he exclaimed. "I refuse to believe it."

“I thought so too, Baxter. But all in all, it could also be that you and I are simply hateful and banal characters, don't you think? Trapped in a bad, cheap add-on novel, forced to play a part in the tedious work of an author even more desperate than we are! "

Baxter couldn't hold back a new laugh. "No, it's just a hallucination." He shook his head.

“A piece of cartilage you couldn't digest? No, Baxter Brittle, I am not a Jacob Marley who came to call for a ghostly redemption. And I know Ebenezer Scrooge. And you, boy, have nothing in common with Ebenezer Scrooge. " The Man of Darkness shook his head, filled with sadness. “Redemption has nothing to do with it, Baxter. I'm here for one reason only ... to take revenge! "

Donald Marquette's phone call.

... The tomb...

... desecrated ...

And now, before him there was a man in a dark suit who bore a disturbing resemblance to William Blessing.

Baxter Brittle had always been an atheist. He had always considered his explorations into the occult world an exercise in psychological self-manipulation. A fun, a method for hypnotic control of one's own person and of others. He had always been convinced that all powers resided within the person, and that ceremonies and rites were but means of freeing them. Everything else was a game, a fashion. A particular taste for interior design.

If nothing else, the occult had always offered a good excuse for alcohol and drug use.

But now, he thought, he had proof before him that he was wrong.

His mind buckled.

But it didn't break.

"Mamma mia," he said. “And so you came back from the grave to take revenge. But why are you angry with me, dear doctor? "

He put his hand deeper into the drawer.

“You helped take my wife away from me; my wife ... and all the rest of my life », the man explained peremptorily. “Now you want to appropriate my name and reputation. And besides, you've got hold of things that belong to me, and that I want back now. "

"And what are these things, my dear Mr. Corpse?"

"The items you stole from my library."

"What do you want to do? Take them to your grave? " Baxter laughed. "There's no light to read over there."

"Would you do me a favor, Baxter?"

"A favor? Of course."

"Tell me where can I find the man whose name is Mick Prince."

"All right." Baxter gave him the address of Mick's house. “You'll find Theodore Melvins there too. They are the ones you seek, Blessing. Not me. It was Mick who shot you. And Theodore raped your wife. As for me ... I just wanted to be your friend! It was just a ploy to get to know you. Just this."

"But it was you who came up with the plan."

“The plan was mine, sure. But it all went wrong. I assure you that my intentions were good. I was absolutely in good faith. "

The Man of Darkness, who answered the name of Blessing, stood still.

Baxter's fingers found the gun. His hand closed around the butt, and his index finger rested on the trigger.

But he decided to wait, curious to see what that ... that ... that being meant to do.

"The intentions are the sidewalk, Baxter Brittle," William Blessing said. «You are already in the middle of the road. It's my duty to give you a little push. "

Shit, Baxter Brittle cursed mentally.

He aimed the gun and fired.

The two men stood a little over fifty centimeters from each other. It wasn't difficult to aim. Three bullets hit the Dark Man in quick succession. Baxter saw bits of meat and shreds of clothing detach from the man. But William Blessing did not fall to the ground.

Instead, he just stepped forward, grabbed the gun and snatched it from his attacker's hands.

“I'm sorry, Baxter. You just made your life so much more difficult. "

Baxter, panting, turned, trying to free himself.

The Man struck a blow with his free hand and sent Baxter plunging into darkness.

He woke up in a dark environment.

He felt vague pain in his head, but more than anything else he realized the persistence of the effects of the absinthe. He was still drunk.

For a moment, Baxter Brittle felt bewilderment and confusion.

Where was he? He was sitting, with his back against a rough and strange wall. He saw a faint glow pierce the darkness from above. In front of him, hidden from his view, he could hear something scratching and ticking in the dark.

Then he remembered everything.

Poe's books. The gun...

William Blessing rose from the grave in revenge, standing before him.

"No," he begged.

He tried to get up and heard a metallic rattle. His hands and feet were immobilized. God, what were they?

"Chains?" he asked incredulously, out of breath. "Where am I?"

A scrape. Something wet falling to the ground.

The glow of a candle, a glimpse of darkness above him.

"'At the farthest end of the crypt,'" intoned the voice, "'another, less spacious, appeared. Its walls had been lined with human remains, stacked up to the overhanging vault, as was customary in the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this inner crypt were still decorated that way. From the fourth the bones had been removed and lay mixed on the ground, forming at one point a heap of considerable height. Beyond the wall revealed by the removal of the bones, we glimpsed another niche, just over a meter deep, a meter wide and nearly two meters high. It appeared to have been built not to perform a specific function, but rather formed by the interval between two of the colossal supporting columns of the ceiling of the catacombs,

"That's enough!" Baxter yelled. He found himself laughing maniacally in spite of himself. "Where ... where are we? What kind of place is this? "

A scrape, as if someone were working the concrete with a trowel.

"A very useful tool, this," Blessing said. "We are in the unfinished room below your basement."

"Under the basement?" Baxter squinted in the darkness. Yes, he could smell damp walls, cold cellar smells ... and something else ...

Ancient decay. Dead meat. Old rat carcasses, perhaps?

"Yup. Everything was ready. I didn't have to do anything but take possession of it. "

That scraping again.

And a metallic clink.

"Did you recognize the source of my quote, Brittle?"

Baxter produced an intoxicated laugh. "Amantillado's barrel."

«A perfectly structured story, don't you think? Given the opportunity that this place offered me, I could not resist the temptation to stage it. "

Brittle laughed as he struggled to keep the panic at bay.

He was still alive, and as long as he was, there would be hope.

Besides, there was one thing that Blessing, or whoever that madman was, couldn't know!

Carefully, taking care not to rattle the chains and make his jailer suspicious, Baxter Brittle reached into his inside jacket pocket.

Yup.

Wax.

Sheltered and safe in the pocket was an electronic device. Baxter Brittle laughed to himself. Oh, Donald, my boy! Marquette, dear friend, thank you!

The mobile phone.

He would call for help using his cell phone.

He laughed. "Walled alive!" Brittle said. "What an originality." He took his hand out of his pocket. "At this point, Blessing ... or whoever you are, my question is: where is the Amontillado?"

A glow. Baxter saw that there was enough gap left in the wall to accommodate just one more brick.

Two eyes, illuminated by the light of a candle, stared at the prisoner through the opening.

“No Amontillado, Baxter. I am sorry for you. Rather, I've thought of something you might like much more. I took the liberty of leaving you a few bottles of what seems to be your favorite drink. "

Baxter laughed. "Absinthe! You left me absinthe ... Oh, what pity! " He looked around. "Too bad I don't see anything."

"Next to you is a candle with matches."

"Very kind of you."

"'For God's sake, Montressor!'" Quoted Blessing.

"'Yes,' I said, 'For God's sake!'"

«'But to those words I waited in vain for an answer. I got impatient. I called out loud.

"'"Lucky!"

"'No reply. I called again ...

"'"Lucky!"

"'No answer yet. I stuck a flashlight in the last remaining crack and dropped it inside. In response I heard only the tinkling of bells. My heart squeezed in my chest; because of the humidity of the catacombs. I hurried to finish my job. I forcefully placed the last stone in the opening; I fixed it with mortar. On the outside of the wall I erected the ancient bastion of bones again. For half a century no mortal has disturbed them anymore. Rest in peace!'"

"Good boy!" complimented Baxter Brittle. "Excellent. Much more incisive than Vincent Price's reading. A real undertaking. "

He clapped, the chains rattling.

"Goodbye, Brittle," Blessing said.

The last brick began to slide into the square. Then, suddenly, he stopped. It was pulled out. The eyes reappeared. "Ah, I forgot. I wanted to warn you that you are in good company. "

"Adieu!" Baxter greeted.

The last brick was placed, dampening what little light had so far penetrated his damp grave.

Baxter immediately began probing for matches and the candle. Reaching out he found the candle. He grabbed it. He took the wick between his fingers. He continued to feel with his other hand, looking for the matches he had been promised. At first he found nothing; then, moving his hand outward and describing a wider arc, his fingers struck a small box whose contents made an unmistakable noise at his touch.

He took it and placed it on his lap, doing his best in spite of the iron bracelets that clasped his wrists.

Immersed in total darkness, he felt the effects of alcohol wane for the first time. He felt a raw, burning and menacing terror at the base of his spine.

Baxter desperately needed a drink.

All the more given the awareness that absinthe had at his disposal.

Yes, he would light the candle. He would find bottles of his favorite quality of Amontillado. And then, unlike poor Fortunato, he would have managed to escape that prison. After all, all he had to do was pull out his cell phone and call Marquette. What if Marquette hadn't been reachable ... Mmm. What to do? Call the gang members? Yes, perhaps, but in case things got really bad, he wouldn't hesitate to call the police.

Hello, my name is Baxter Brittle. Help. They bricked me up alive!

Carefully, Baxter pulled out a match. He rested his head against the side of the can and rubbed. The blaze exploded magnificent, a beacon of hope, and the smell of the sulfur seemed exquisite to him. Carefully, restraining his impatience, he brought the match to the top of the candle. He touched it.

The wick ignited almost immediately. He threw a bright, bold light across the niche.

Baxter raised the candle to improve the lighting and immediately saw the bottles he had been promised.

They had been placed in the arms of a corpse, evidently long dead. The flesh was tainted and showed the underlying bones, but the body retained character traits, primarily the hair, sufficient to make it recognizable to Baxter.

Besides, he still had the ritual dagger stuck in his chest.

The punk girl! Christ, when Mick promised to take care of the corpse, Baxter figured he was going to drag him out and throw him into the bay, or something. He would never have suspected that he intended to bury him right in the premises below his bar!

The eyes had decomposed, reduced to obscene dark sockets staring at him over a pile of distorted cartilage, the remains of a nose. The eye sockets looked straight ahead and pointed directly in Baxter's direction, as if to say, “There you are, Baxter. Come and get a drink. '

Baxter was seized by a paroxysmal panic attack. He lost his grip on the candle.

The wax cylinder fell to the ground and died, plunging the tomb back into total darkness.

Silence enveloped him like a shroud, interrupted only by the frantic beating of his heart.

How about it The sound of Poe's heart: ... a low, monotonous, rapid sound - a sound like that of a watch wrapped in cotton wool.

He got stronger - stronger - stronger!

And the husky sound of his own terrified breath.

"Hey, party guy," he thought he heard a voice come out of the deep throat of the night. "Let's go to the most authentic Gothic!"

Then he heard the sound of a bottle crashing against the wall, the hiss of a blade pulled from one side ...

You're in good company, Blessing had said.

And the rasping shaking of old bones and dried meat coming towards him was like the flapping of the wings of a predatory bird.

25

IS finally the spirit of PERVERSITY arrived, as if to make my fall final and irrevocable. Philosophy ignores this spirit. Yet I am not as certain of the life of my soul as I am of the fact that perversity is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary faculties, or feelings, which govern man's character. Who has not found himself, a hundred times, committing a vile or foolish act, for no other reason than the knowledge that he should not have?

EDGAR A. POE, The black cat

Donald Marquette's cell phone rang.

Marquette was standing by the window staring thoughtfully down the street, sipping strong coffee with a splash of milk and feeling weirder than he had ever experienced before in his life. It was in that instant that the insistent, irritating ringing of the marvelous fruit of technology in his shirt pocket was activated like the engine of an artificial heart.

It was morning in the Blessing house. Outside the sky was overcast and the day looked hot and muggy, and threatening black clouds were gathering on the horizon. The electric smell of the storm hung in the air.

Donald had come to his office early to get to work. He hadn't slept well the previous night. The few hours of sleep had been marred by nightmares he could not remember exactly. And so he had decided to get up and start his day earlier than usual. He did not think he would be able to write that day, which he still used to do at home. No, there were some practical issues to settle that day, related to the fact that he now held control of the literary legacy of Blessing, the rights to the Blessing name and everything in between. Fortunately, Amy had stopped going into that office. The memories he induced in her were too painful. He had a secretary, but he had asked for permission that morning.

Donald Marquette opened the door of his cell phone.

"Ready?"

Silence.

A scraping noise, an echo ...

"Ready!" he said again, exasperated. That morning he was nervous, to the point of wanting to refuse any form of communication.

But given the situation, it would have been a very unwise move.

"Ready? Oh, I'm sorry, Donald! I'm Roscoe! Roscoe Mithers! "

Donald's heart seemed to skip a beat. "Oh yes. Good morning, Mr. Mithers. "

“Let's talk you and call me Roscoe, Donald. I hope you don't mind if I called you on this number. Answering machines answered the other numbers and ... I thought it was better to contact you on your personal line anyway. "

"Yes sure. You did very well. I'm glad to hear from you so soon. "

“Of course I got your proposal. And I in turn have some ideas to submit to you. But I want to be clear right away ... I'm very, very interested. As Ricardo the vampire says, I think I've found something to sink my teeth into! This afternoon I will be in a meeting with the upper echelons. I will present your ideas and some of mine. I think there is a good chance of setting up a very profitable operation; and given the fact that we are a multinational with tentacles well inserted in every media sector and every commercial sector, with infinite possibilities in terms of rights and licenses, I think we will be able to find a very satisfactory agreement for both parties. Of course we will have to work out the details of the deal with your agent, but I don't think there will be any problems. "

Of course Donald could have proposed the Blessing legacy elsewhere. There were contracts to be respected. And then the anthologies, the novels ... but other possibilities lay ahead and, in the person of Roscoe Mithers, Donald Marquette saw boundless opportunities.

"Have you had a chance to take a look at the rest of the material, Roscoe?"

“Yes, sure, Donald. What can I say? It is excellent. You know, I can't pretend to deny that all this constitutes an opportunity not to be missed also for my career in the company. Of course, I would also like to publish your individual works as well as those proposed in collaboration with Blessing ... "

Yup!

"... and since I will manage the operation, I promise to support them with equal strength and conviction."

Yup! Yup!

"But I can't do anything if I don't get the okay from above first, and some tips from the sales and marketing directors too."

“I understand, Roscoe. When will you let me know something? "

“Late in the afternoon today or tomorrow morning. In any case after the meeting. "

"Agree. Thanks, Roscoe. I'm waiting for news."

"Okay. See you soon, Donald. May the Golem be with you! "

They broke off the communication.

Marquette was always quite irritated by the way Mithers always related everything to the Dark Sunset universe. As far as he was concerned, the only reason that had prompted him to have anything to do with that crap was the money and the possibilities of advancing his career. But Roscoe Mithers was the ideal person to help Marquette realize his ambition: to indissolubly tie his name to that of William Blessing.

From such a springboard (which is also very profitable) his work could have taken off towards stratospheric heights.

Donald Marquette.

A nice name to read regularly in the bestseller charts!

The phone call put him in a good mood. He sat down in the leather chair and felt a rush of vitality. He threw down the rest of the coffee, letting the caffeine drop him into a sublime trance.

The opportunities were endless, he thought.

The future was boundless.

The cell phone rang again.

This time he pulled it out of his pocket more quickly, wondering if it was the New York editor again.

But it wasn't Mithers.

"Marquette?" a cold, hoarse voice asked.

"Yup."

"There is trouble."

"Mick?"

"Yup. Something is going on, man. The Count and the Marquis. Fuck you. And I can't track down Baxter. Disappeared. Without leaving any traces, and he hasn't even packed his bags or taken his passport. "

Marquette's eyes widened. "Fuck you? What do you mean, I don't understand. "

"Dead. Killed. Like ... in one of my stories. "

He had never heard Mick Prince speak like that.

His nerves were on the edge of his skin.

He was afraid.

“Something is going on, man. I feel the bad vibes, ”Mick said. "Theodore wants to get out of circulation again, get out of Baltimore, and I'm starting to think it's a good idea too."

"Dead?" Marquette asked. "But how..."

Mick told him everything.

"The police won't come to you," Mick said. “I found out because we were in the Tome offices when they came looking for Baxter. We ran away and we have to keep running before they start trying to blame us for the killings. Hey, tell me something. Did Baxter ever tell you about ... about enemies Theodore and I know nothing about? What do I know, another group of Goths, or something like that? "

And your enemies? thought Marquette. You're the criminal psycho who kicked us all into this situation.

"No. And then you entered the scene long before me. "

“Shit, man. Don't try to put the blame on me. "

"Listen. We shouldn't talk about these things on the phone. "

"Shit. You're fucking right. " Marquette caught the paranoia in Mick's voice. "Do you want to come here?"

"Yup. But first I have to fix some things. Can you stay calm for a while waiting for me? "

"Yes sure. But don't be too late. "

“Listen to me, Mick. I can only tell you to grit your teeth and hold on. The stakes are too great. "

"Already. A real fucking witch hunt. "

The conversation was over.

What did he mean by those last words?

Marquette's head was spinning. He leaned against the desk. In the distance, he heard the sound of the door bell. He sat down. Someone else would open. Someone else ... He had to concentrate to absorb what was happening ...

He had thought the violence would end after that terrible night. He did not disdain the advantageous results of crime, far from it, but by his nature he did not like violence and certainly did not enjoy it. He'd always felt that violence was an instinctive response from poorly gifted minds, and he'd vowed to let Baxter and his henchmen handle that aspect of the matter, just in case. That night ... he had really been beside himself.

Baxter has disappeared.

The Count and the Marquis ... dead?

And the desecrated tomb ... He should have interpreted the episode as a warning. Someone was hunting them. Someone aware that the story of Blessing's death was more complex than it appeared on the surface. Someone crazy and unexpected. A bolt from the blue.

He could call the police, sure. But he would have to tell them too much. Too many things he was directly involved in: robbery, rape, murder ...

No. He had to handle the situation himself.

One step away ... One step away from making every writer's dream come true. Success, wealth ... fame!

Perhaps even literary immortality.

In high school, the editors of the school yearbook had asked him what his ambitions in life were. The answer, printed under the photo of the smiling teenager in the Dubuque high school yearbook, was: "I want to be a world famous writer!"

Donald Marquette clapped his hand hard on the desk.

"No," he protested.

It was so close to success that you could taste it.

Nothing would stop him.

Anything!

Suddenly the intercom rang. "Donald?" It was Amy's voice. “Donald, are you up there? I received a delivery that is unbelievable. "

"Sorry, Amy," he said into the microphone on the set. “I can't come and see right now. I have to run out. I'll stay away for a while. "

26

Then, the air seemed to get thicker, perfumed by a
occult thurible

Swung by seraphim whose footsteps resounded
on the carpet.

"Unfortunate!" I shouted. «God offers you - by means
of these angels grants you

Truce - truce and nepenthe from the memory of Leonore;

So drink, drink this nepenthe and forget
the lost Leonore! "

The crow said: "Never again."

EDGAR A. POE, "The Crow"

He checked his nose, ears, appendages.

Everything seemed firmly in place.

The previous night's abundance of flesh and blood had been like a boon. Dawn had illuminated a dead man in excellent health, in better shape than ever. Now, sitting in the park on a bench from which he could see his terraced house, he imagined he could smell the scent of spring flowers growing in neat rows in the flowerbeds, feel the warm pressure of the sun on his gray, swollen skin.

As if I were really alive, William Blessing thought. As if I were truly human, and not a vengeful wrapper of pseudo-life busy waving a bloody fist at the eternal night.

A flutter of wings.

The raven settled beside him on the bench.

"Hello champion!" the crow complimented him. “We gave him a good shake. Killer Marquette is headed for the cemetery. And maybe he'll stop by the hardware store to buy a spade. You have plenty of time to go talk to Amy. "

"To talk to her for the last time," Blessing whispered.

He bowed his head and put his hands to his face. “Suddenly I'm so tired of this whole thing. The pain never ends and all this will not serve to extinguish it. "

"Hey, calm down, man," the crow said. "Am I wrong or did I hear the sound of your nose falling into the drink?" You've gone too far to stop now. You have to pick up the pace, that's all! You haven't closed the score with your killers yet, let alone the brute who raped your wife… ”The crow's voice turned poisonous. "... Or of the killer who wants to do the same for your art!"

"Marquette," Blessing hissed. He was filled with rage again, cold and pure.

“Didn't you ever notice how he touched her as soon as he had the chance? The accomplice laughter ... the bond he was trying to establish with her? You must have had some inkling of the fetid lust that monster emanated in the presence of your wife. It is not so? All the more reason to throw old Pallas at you, don't you think? The student who undermines the teacher through physical elimination. "

Blessing nodded. "Yup."

“Then go do what you have to do. Why?" The crow clapped its beak and its eyes seemed to burn. "Why do you have to do it!"

William Blessing got up from the bench and walked towards what had been his home.

The crow flew away in the opposite direction, to follow the movements of their enemies.

The boxes lay on the living room floor, all open.

Amy Blessing was still holding her kitchen knife.

She looked at them, still incredulous at their content.

The books...

The magazines...

Letters and memorabilia ...

The Poe collection ...

There wasn't everything. He knew it by instinct. But the bulk had been recovered, including the most important pieces.

The artifacts had been placed in boxes, sealed with tape, and shipped via a local courier.

He bent over one of them. The comforting fragrance of ancient parchment and old printed paper moved her, filling her with awe and a strange awe.

They rang the door again. He was delighted to hear William's cousin's voice on the intercom. He let him in immediately.

"An absolutely incredible thing has happened!" she announced. "Look."

The man looked the same as the previous time, but who knows why he seemed stronger, no longer betraying traces of hidden fragility.

He knelt beside the books. He touched them.

"Yes," he said. "Good. Very well. They went home. "

Amy had the strangest of feelings. "You don't seem surprised to see them."

He stood up, holding a copy of the Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque in his hands, smoothing the cover with love. "I told you I had to do some chores in Baltimore, Amy."

«But then ... it was you! Did you send them these books? "

“I recovered them. Yes, Amy. I trust you now to take care of it. And return them to the collection they belong to. "

"Of course ... but how ... how? ..."

“I can't tell you, Amy. But rest assured, I am working to protect the memory of your husband and everything to which he has dedicated his life so passionately. And I still have a lot to do ... "

“Well, I'm delighted to have these books back. William loved them ... and I'm very attached to the collection too. But it's not just this. William hoped to save them for the benefit of posterity. He intended to create a foundation ... "

“That's what you need to remember, Amy. And I can confirm it; he also wrote to me in some of his letters. "

«Look, let's have a cup of coffee ... You must stop here with me ... You must tell me everything. And then he has to talk to Donald. You absolutely must know each other. "

“No, thanks, no coffee. I have to go, ”the man said. “But first, Amy, I have to tell you one last thing. There is something your husband wanted to tell you ... something he wanted to give you. "

The man in the dark coat explained in a low voice what it was.

27

Let us now keep in mind the points to which I have drawn your attention - the peculiar voice, the unusual agility, and that surprising lack of motive for such a singularly heinous murder - and examine the carnage itself ...

EDGAR A. POE, The murders on the Rue Morgue

Mick Prince threw a lamp at a mirror. The glass shattered, causing a shower of splinters to fall on the fine antiques that furnished the underground lair. The air was heavy with incense. The glow of a candle. A movement of drapes.

Mick Prince gasped. “Damn bastard, son of a bitch. Better for him if he left my money down here somewhere. "

Theodore Melvins took a sip of wine from a bottle he found abandoned in a corner. "Maybe he just disappeared with everyone's money."

"I'll find him," Mick assured him.

"Maybe ... maybe he's dead, like those other two balls."

"I'll find it anyway," roared Mick Prince, tearing off a sofa cover. "And then I'll fucking kill him again."

It must be here! thought Mick. He pulled a knife from his boot and began to attack the pillows. The stuffing flew everywhere, but found nothing.

Once, while drunk (a rather common condition in Brittle's case), Baxter had hinted that he had set aside a "reserve" to deal with any emergencies, stored here and there in several places. Given the rate at which its financial resources had increased recently, those reserves must now have been quite substantial. The day before, when they had spoken and decided it would be wise for Mick Prince and Theodore Melvins to leave town again for a while, Baxter had promised them the money he owed them. Mick was supposed to drop by the night before to discuss strategy and collect that money. And it had been his firm intention at that point to reveal his most ambitious plan to Baxter, obtaining additional funds for its execution. Mick had been particularly irritated by the disappearance of Baxter, who perhaps had brought with him the capital that could form the foundation of a huge fortune, because it had happened just as he was about to embark on a brilliant undertaking. The petty crimes and drug trafficking he had combined with Tome's business had been useful both for him and for the publishing house. But now that he could rely on deadly steel muscles like Theodore's, Mick Prince realized he had to start thinking big. brilliant undertaking. The petty crimes and drug trafficking he had combined with Tome's business had been useful both for him and for the publishing house. But now that he could rely on deadly steel muscles like Theodore's, Mick Prince realized he had to start thinking big. brilliant undertaking. The petty crimes and drug trafficking he had combined with Tome's business had been useful both for him and for the publishing house. But now that he could rely on deadly steel muscles like Theodore's, Mick Prince realized he had to start thinking big.

"See, BB," he would have said to Baxter, amicably putting one arm around his shoulders, the mug of ale in the other hand to further seal their bond. "It's very simple. Now that Tome, of course in collaboration with our good friend Donald Marquette and the Blessing legacy, will begin to market its products, tying our financial fortunes in particular to the positions in the bestseller charts achieved by the published books, I have thought about what could be the best way to guarantee us a substantial slice of the market. What do you think it is? "

And Baxter would have shook his head absently, breathing absinthe vapors into Mick's face to say, "I don't know, Mick." “But eliminate the competition, of course! Clear the way for our success. It's really simple, after all. With my knack for burglary, Theodore's mercenary qualities and our joint knack for murder ... all we need to do is ... visit other horror writers whose books sell as well as ours, if not even better, and make them disappear from the face of the earth! Of course we will make sure we get first signed editions before we kill them, and I have no doubt that looting their homes will prove to be an extremely profitable business.

And Baxter Brittle would comment, “What a great idea, my friend. Please, please take some souvenirs for me. But don't get autographed with dedication, please! "

Mick Prince had worked out the plan while he was in Antigua with Theodore, out of circulation and having a good time. It seemed to him the ideal method for promoting improved results in the publishing industry. Mick wondered why organized crime hadn't thought of it before. The execution of the plan could even have marked the first step in the development of a new potentate in the field of media. Yes. Drugs, racketeering, prostitution, gambling and bestsellers! Shit, that was a brilliant idea!

And he himself would, in the long run, be in an ideal position to sell his books to big publishers. Just like Donald Marquette promised. He could have become one of the authors selected for the series they talked about: William Blessing presents: Eyes gouged and sliced, by Mick Prince.

God, what a trip that would have been!

"Have you found anything?" he called to the other end of the room.

"No, shit," Theodore replied. "Just a few bottles and old fucking videos!"

"Keep searching. There must be something! "

Mick walked over to the altar. Crazy Baxter worshiped that corner of the basement. Perhaps he was convinced that a plastic Satan would be enough to protect the money he had hidden.

"Excuse me, brother," Mick said, addressing the image of the goat's head against the backdrop of a pentacle decorating a cloth. "I need that grain."

He swept the surface of the altar with one arm. Idols and icons fell to the ground. He removed the red vestment of the altar. Under it he found a chest of drawers. Mick began rummaging in the drawers.

Yes, yes. Now that the Enemy had been defeated, the world was his.

After that night in Blessing's house, when he discovered the real reason that had brought him to Baltimore, he had finally felt like a free man. Mick Prince had always felt the presence of an Other, a terrible enemy, since his time in reform school. He had never met his parents, probably a whore and his pimp, as he always thought. Yet he had never entered the orphanages that had hosted him, nor had he endured the adoptive parents to whom he had been entrusted several times. It was only when he was arrested for drug dealing in the San Francisco Bay Area at the age of fourteen that he found out how much he enjoyed reading. And in particular he loved to read crazy and disturbing stories, fiction and otherwise. He was equally happy to read the Marquis de Sade or Clive Barker, books on Holocaust and Khmer Rouge or Stephen King novels. He devoured them all.

It was really a great passion, that for books.

Most outlaws (and that was what Mick Prince considered himself: an outlaw) spent their time gambling, going to women or whatever. What a waste. Reading, on the other hand, was the best. You could dedicate yourself in the cell or out of the cell, it made no difference. Books were books, and you could read them wherever the fuck you wanted.

Mick pulled one of the drawers to him with such violence that it ripped from the runners and spilled all its contents of candles on the floor. He picked one up, lit it, and used it to light up the darker corners of the dresser and see if anything was hidden.

Anything.

Shit!

A black fury took possession of him. He began to kick and crack the altar, chipping away at the balsa and plywood. The anger subsided just as abruptly as it had assailed him. Now that the Enemy was dead, Mick had better things to do than go out and beg for change.

He had goals!

He had dreams!

The Enemy had always been the protagonist of his nightmares. Ever since he remembered. A dark form, hidden in the dim light, which insisted on making everything go wrong in Mick's life.

Of all the horror and occult tales he had read, the ones Mick had encountered the most trouble with were those of Edgar A. Poe. He had also once read a biography of Poe. Christ, what a bastard of man he had been! No wonder how many enemies he had. The character Mick most identified with was the literary performer Rufus Griswold. Good old Griswold had told the truth about Edgar, that was certain. The A between the author's first and last name stood not for "Allan", but for asshole.

Still, it was a shame that he had rushed to sell his share of the Poe collection. That money would certainly have done him more convenient now.

"Hey, Mick!" called Theodore from the other end of the room. "We have company!"

"Baxter?"

Mick's cry was half out of anger, half out of relief.

If it really was Baxter Brittle, his appearance would solve a lot of problems. They could have gotten the money they needed and then adios, amigos! Adios Baltimore!

“No, friend. It's not Baxter. "

Mick spun around, frowning. The long black coat described a bow.

A man stood in the gloom next to the entrance to the room below the basement. He was dressed in black and his face was hidden by the darkness.

Something else seemed to move behind him, where the darkness was deepest.

"Who are you?" Mick demanded to know, taking a slow step, thrusting his chest out and using the deepest, most menacing tone. "How the fuck did you get in here?"

"I came down the stairs," replied the figure. “As for the first question, Mick… That's your name, isn't it? Mick Prince? "

"Yeah," Mick agreed, trying to decide what the hell to do in that situation.

A finger pointed to his large, coarse companion with a scarred face. During their recent "vacation" Theodore had expanded his collection of tattoos and piercings. Now the earrings hung from her lobes like trinkets from a Christmas tree made of muscle.

"And you ... you are Theodore."

"So?" Theodore retorted.

"Yup. I recognize you both. I would never want to blame the wrong people. It would be a pity. Such a pity."

"Listen, dude, do you want to tell us what you want from us?" Mick urged. "We are working!"

"Yeah, and apparently you're helping me," the man said.

He took a step forward.

The man wore sunglasses despite the low light in the basement. His hands were buried in the pockets of a long dark coat.

"I am the dead man whose wife you raped, Theodore," he announced. "And I'd like to apologize in advance for my lack of imagination in your case."

A hand emerged from the coat holding a Heckler and Koch. The scabby index finger pulled the trigger and aimed a bullet straight into Theodore's groin.

Theodore screamed.

He doubled over and fell to the ground, writhing.

"Shit!" cursed Mick.

He pulled out his knife.

The barrel of the gun oriented itself again and aimed it.

“I wouldn't do that if I were you, Mick. I would advise you to stay quiet for the moment and let me take care of our Mr. Theodore. I'm undecided whether to let him go on living deprived of his masculine attributes ... or whether to send him straight to hell deprived of his masculine attributes. What do you think, Mr. rapist? "

Theodore only managed to produce a series of agonizing laments.

"As you want."

The gun moved again.

This time the bullet tore through the victim's head. Blood and gray matter poured onto the floor like a particularly repulsive stream of vomit.

"This is the kind of piercing I like best, Theodore," said the Man of Darkness.

Theodore's body jerked, twitched, kicked ... and then stood still.

Mick Prince trembled. He took a step back, trying to decide what to do.

Dead man? Did he say he was the dead man?

What the fuck are you talking about? Mick Prince did not know yet, but the man had killed Theodore, that was clear, he had seen it with his own eyes. He drew on his experiences with violence in prison and on the street, as well as with countless other delightful forms of human expression. Hadn't he always heard that it was essential to keep a cool head when others lost theirs?

And so Mick held up his hands to show he wasn't armed. He knew he had to buy time. After that, perhaps he would be able to react appropriately. If he had gained enough time, he would have had some chance of being able to screw the mysterious madman in front of him.

"Shit, man! You and I have no unfinished business, whoever you are! "

"Oh, no? So why did you shoot me? "

It was then that Mick Prince understood.

It didn't make any sense, but he understood nonetheless.

That son of a bitch thought he was William Blessing!

It had to be like that. Because there was no way that piece of shit could really be Blessing! He had shot Blessing himself ... and then Marquette, heaven bless him, had smashed his skull with that torso.

“Dude, when I shoot someone ... they die. He really dies. "

“I certainly can't contradict you, Mick. I am dead, in fact. Really dead. "

"You ... would you be William Blessing?"

"Exact. Who would be able to recognize his killers in a still unsolved case ... if not the victim himself? "

"Christ." Mick's mind seemed to twist at the very idea of what he seemed to guess. But he remained calm, cold, still believing, deep down, that there must be a rational explanation. In the meantime, his first and only priority was to keep breathing. "So ... you just ... came out of the grave, got yourself a gun and started hunting down the ones you think would kill you ..."

In that instant he caught the vibration.

It was in the air ...

The electric charge he perceived late at night, when his exasperated senses picked up that smell ...

The smell of the Other ...

Of the Enemy ...

Mick froze, unable to move. It was absurd: he found himself staring into the eyes of a man who had just killed his partner ... and who claimed to be a corpse returned to life.

And suddenly, every fiber of his told him that this was the thing, the entity he had feared meeting all his life, the force that disturbed his sleep, his anathema, his nemesis.

But he held out.

He had been tough all his life, and he intended to stay tough.

"Back from the dead, huh?" he managed to reply. "That gun looks alive to me instead."

"It works. That's what matters. "

Something clicked in Mick's mind.

"Shit. You are the one who killed the Count ... and the Marquis ... "

"Yes, I have a mission to accomplish."

"And Baxter ... what happened to it?"

"I'm afraid Baxter has also met his fate."

“All right, damn it. I've been waiting for this moment all my life. I felt you wandering around in my mind since I was a kid, you always had it with me. I do not know why. Maybe it was you who made me who I am. I only have one question for you. "

The Man of Darkness remained silent.

"Tell me one thing: who is my real mother? Why did he abandon me? I have to know. " Mick's eyes betrayed the same surprise at saying those words.

“So there are two questions. Besides, I think you've mistaken me for a psychotherapist. Instead I'm your gravedigger. "

"So what are you waiting for? Let's get it over with and stop wasting my time. "

"You're really tough, huh, Mick?"

"Yes," Mick replied. "Hard to the bone."

"You are scared?"

"Fuck you!" Mick hissed scornfully.

"I like your courage, Mick," said the Man of Darkness. “I like your attitude. So I'll tell you something: I want to give you a chance. You seem like someone used to getting by and fighting in the streets, don't you? "

Despite himself, Mick felt a surge of pride. "You bet."

"If you beat my boyfriend, I'll let you get out of here alive."

"Your boyfriend?"

"'When the sailor looked in,'" quoted the Man of Darkness, "'the gigantic animal had grabbed Madame L'Espanaye by the hair (which was loose, as she was combing it) and made the razor dance around her. on the face, imitating the movements of a barber. The daughter lay on the ground, motionless, unconscious. The old woman's screams and attempts to wriggle out (during which her hair was pulled out) had the effect of turning the orangutan's peaceful intentions into anger. With a single firm swipe of his muscular arm, he nearly pulled her head off her body. '

"So," said the Man of Darkness. "First test: where did the passage come from?"

"Easy. I read it.The murders of the Rue Morgue. "

"Excellent. Then you've already met my boyfriend. "

The Man of Darkness stepped aside.

In the darkness behind him, the movement Mick had previously perceived was repeated. A presence, a shape that perfectly suited the darkness ...

And a mass of hair.

It was a monkey. A primate ... an orangutan.

Ungainly, ugly and hunched, but unusually large and powerful in appearance.

'What do you say, Mick? Beat my boyfriend and you are free to leave. "

"Then send it on, I have no time to waste."

The Man of Darkness let the beast pass.

Slumped and menacing, the orangutan advanced, long arms outstretched. It smelled of offal and wild. Mick was grateful for the bulge he felt in his boot: his snap knife, the quintessential street fighting weapon.

The orangutan grimaced and retracted his lips to his teeth, turning to look at the Man of Darkness as if waiting for instructions.

Mick quickly retrieved the knife and pulled the blade out in one smooth motion.

But with a lightning swipe of his giant arm, the huge primate swung the blade from Mick's hand, breaking his wrist.

Grabbing his wrist with his other hand, Mick let out a cry of pain.

The orangutan took a slow step. Showing his sharp yellow teeth, he raised one arm. Between his fingers he held an old free-blade razor.

Then, in his mind, Mick heard the primate speak. A low, muffled hum, the Other's coarse voice wedging into his head to chip his last coherent thoughts.

Mick, old chap, the orangutan said, I'll tear you apart.

When it was all over, the orangutan shrank from the remains of what had once been a man, threw away his razor-sharp work tool, and plunged back into darkness.

The shadows changed.

The figure that emerged from the darkness was no longer a primate, but a bird of prey.

A crow. "There is a lot of raw material to draw from there, if you need a touch up of plastic surgery," the bird advertised.

"I see," Blessing replied.

«If I were you I would take advantage of it. Your appearance is not right. "

"I don't feel right inside either."

"One more, then we'll be done and you can rest."

Blessing nodded.

Yes. The Rest. He still had only one dose of justice to administer. And he had told Amy everything there was to say.

Occasionally, during their life together, he had written poetry for her. Some he had given to him. Others, on the other hand, had kept them for himself, collecting them in a single volume given their thematic coherence. At the time of his murder she did not even suspect the existence of that little book, nor had she read any of the poems contained in it.

He had hidden it behind Shakespeare's complete work and some books by Keats and Shelley.

That was the revelation he had made to Amy as his cousin.

"Come on, come on," said the crow. He settled on the remains of the corpse, sipped a drop of blood and pecked at a few bits of meat. "Who can say you won't meet Amy again?" You should still look your best. Come on, help yourself! It will give your cheeks a little color! "

The crow returned his attention to the sacrament meal.

At the edge of the pool of blood, William Blessing knelt.

But his gesture was not a prelude to any form of prayer.

28

"Prophet!" I said. «Son of evil! prophet, bird or
devil you are!

Storm-sent or storm-tossed here
on the shore,

Desolate but indomitable, in this deserted enchanted land,

In this horror-haunted house
tell me the truth, I beg you ...

Is there, is there a balm in Gilead? tell me, tell me, you

I implore! "

The crow said: "Never again."

EDGAR A. POE, "The Crow"

The tomb was empty.

Donald Marquette stared at the coffin the gravediggers had pulled out of the pit. What he saw shocked him.

The coffin had filled with earth, which of course had been removed. The lid had been smashed, split in half, splintered.

"It's the strangest thing I've ever seen," said one of the gravediggers, scratching his head. "It almost looks like the corpse punched him through from the inside!"

The sun had just set and a breeze stirred the leaves of a nearby tree. There was a strong smell of loose earth and exhaust fumes in the air from the diesel engine of the old truck on the adjacent street.

"But that's impossible, of course," continued the neglected-looking man, who smelled of sweat mixed with beer and cigarette smoke.

"I want to hope!" retorted another, taking a step back.

"Obviously impossible," Donald Marquette agreed. "The important thing is to have discovered that the tomb has been desecrated and the body stolen." He turned to the cemetery night watchman, a wrinkled old man who was eating a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich. "Whom should I turn to to report the fact, to what authority, other than that idiot of a street cop I spoke to yesterday?"

The old man wiped the mayonnaise from his thick mustache. “I really don't know. As far as I know, such a thing has never happened before. " He took off his cloth hat and scratched a lonely tuft of hair in the center of a now bald head. A cloud of dandruff and dead skin fell on his shoulders. “The police already have their pockets full with the living in the evening. In my opinion, you should file a complaint tomorrow morning. " He shrugged. "Better talk to the day shift."

It had taken Marquette all day to get the exhumation going. The work had begun relatively early only following his insistence and the offer to pay a premium. And despite his irritation with the cop from the night before, he wasn't so sure that alerting the cops was still a good idea. They would certainly have forced him to answer a new, long series of questions about the circumstances of Blessing's death.

The cool of the evening had begun to caress his bones like the slimy tentacle of an octopus, and he already thought it was quite a success that he had not yet succumbed to panic. A new thought had begun to buzz through his head like a line of endlessly repeating music: What if Blessing had really come out of the grave alone?

What if he came back from the dead to avenge his wife, to recompose the Poe collection, to drag those who had killed him away with him?

Nonsense, of course.

Pure madness.

Something was happening, this was evident. The Earl and the Marquis had been killed, Baxter was gone, and now this grave matter. That there was a common thread was undeniable.

But it was certainly all the work of well-to-do people. Maybe a rival, death-obsessed Goth group, or Baxter himself, and hundreds more could be made. When dealing with a bunch of morbid and disturbing characters like the Goths, was there any wonder at the stealing of a corpse every now and then? Who knows. The staging might even have been staged by that lunatic Dark Sunset, or even Blessing's editor. He felt like he was reading the headlines: Dead body of a decaying horror writer found in the New York Times review office.

Great advertising!

Yes. What was that philosophical and scientific principle?

Of course. Occam's razor.

The simplest answer to a question was always the right answer!

And a corpse with two bullets stuck in vital organs and a smashed skull, declared dead beyond a shadow of a doubt and full of embalming ointments, was certainly not the ideal candidate for breaking free from a sturdy oak coffin buried under two. meters of earth and stones!

"Can't we do anything now?" he asked the chief of the gravediggers.

"I'm afraid not," the man replied. He spat a mouthful of chewing tobacco on the ground. “What a strange story. He was a horror writer, wasn't he? "

"Yes," Marquette confirmed.

The fronds of the trees now banged against each other in the breeze, which was turning into a rather stiff wind. The stars and the moon were obscured by dark, menacing clouds, heralding another storm. Nothing strange in an area where the weather was always capricious; but in any case in a cemetery a source of some unease.

"Mr. Poe has been here for a century and a half and has never attempted to get out of his grave," the guardian informed.

"As far as you know," said one of the gravediggers.

"People usually come out of graves when they are pissed off," one of the others joked, leaning on the spade and smiling. "Why on earth would Poe have left?"

"Probably to reclaim his copyrights!" snapped the guardian. “That poor fellow died without a cent in his pocket. Not like our Mr. Blessing. I saw the funeral and the coffin. Mr. Blessing was rich. He didn't need to recover some money to take to the afterlife. "

Marquette had a fit of rage.

"That's enough!" intimate. “We are at the scene of a crime. Blessing's grave was violated and desecrated, and her body was stolen. It's a hateful desecration and I want the guilty to be discovered. " His voice was sharp and deep. Marquette had found that he had gained considerable authority and self-confidence in the past few months. Killing a man had undoubtedly matured him. "It's going to rain. Cover the pit with a plastic sheet. There may be clues and clues for the police. "

"Right," the guardian agreed. “And I'll keep my eyes open. There could be walking corpses around. "

"If you see him, tell him to come back here to his place!" the wittiest gravedigger added.

Marquette turned abruptly and stalked away.

Whatever was going on, he didn't like it at all. He'd already warned Mick and Theodore to get out of sight. They were all in danger. He felt it in the air.

He shuddered as he walked back to his car.

A large drop of rain fell on his forehead.

It was time to retreat to safer territories. Time to take that vacation he'd been thinking about for some time. He could have done business by telephone and fax even if he were elsewhere. And in the meantime, he would let things calm down.

The problem was that he would have to convince Amy to leave too. If he was in danger, Amy could be too. And there were many, many reasons why it was important for Amy Blessing to stay alive and healthy.

Why did he love her?

Is that so? he wondered as he hurried past the cemetery gate and ran to the car. From the sky an icy rain now fell like a beating drum.

Donald Marquette smiled sadly to himself as he opened the door of his flaming BMW, soaking up the delicious scent of new cars.

Already.

"Love" was always a very useful word.

Thunderous thunder rang outside.

Amy Blessing woke up.

She was sitting at the table in the room that housed the Poe collection, the book crushed under her chest. She felt the salty wetness of tears on her cheeks. The laser-printed sheets of paper, which William had carefully bound himself, were still damp. Her hair was down and untidy. She could smell her own body, mixed with that of the candles she had lit and placed around her on the table, next to the copy of the New York Times she had browsed in that same room last week, to feel close to William and things that he loved to do, and despite the terrible memories evoked by that environment.

She had fallen asleep.

He had brought with him the book he had found, the volume of poems that William had intended to give her, because he wanted to read them in that special place, the place that William had filled with the author's poetry that had meant so much to him.

The lavender candles were almost entirely consumed. He had only slept for a short time. But how did it happen?

Then he remembered.

He looked down at the page the book was open to. The very short poem that occupied it recalled the days they had spent together in a mountain cottage beside a beautiful lake. One morning, after a delicious breakfast of blueberry pastries, she had cut his hair. The inside of the house still smelled of pastries she had just baked, and she had felt alive and full of energy enjoying the flavor of a cup of fine Earl Gray tea. Looking out at the blue of the lake, the green of the pines and the bright red of the berries on a bush beside the veranda, he had confessed that he had just grasped the real meaning of eternity. Eternity could not be measured between birth and death, because it was not linear at all. Eternal life could be known if one's life was filled with the authentic depth of the feelings that life itself offers. Every moment of the present became eternity. But the key, he explained, was being truly in love and being able to look at the object of one's love in the beauty of that moment.

Forever.

Forever was a foregone conclusion for lovers.

And then William said he was truly and eternally in love with her. Forever. For eternity. Now as then.

He had expressed his feelings beautifully in the poem, and she had been overwhelmed with emotion as she read it. She had cried for a long time, bitterly, leaning on the singular book as if to want to get as close to it as possible. She had cried, burying her face in her arms folded on the table.

And she fell asleep.

He closed the book and rubbed his eyes. She felt strange.

"Enough for tonight," he whispered to himself. He would take the volume with him to the bedroom and place it on the pillow next to hers in the large double bed.

William's pillow.

So he could read another poem tomorrow if he thought he had the strength.

Outside, the night seemed particularly dark and impenetrable. Then she realized it was raining and that thunder had woken her.

A flash lit the window. The light persisted for a moment. Then it faded.

A moment passed.

Then thunder again.

He had a teapot and a cup in front of him. Of course the tea had cooled. He took the cup.

He kept getting a strange sensation. Very strange. Something was wrong. He had had some absurd dreams, of which he remembered nothing. It seemed that they were hidden from the consciousness of his memory by a diaphanous and opaque curtain. Beyond that veil there seemed to be moving shapes of which he had a vague memory, but none of them was tangible ...

However, she felt very close to William. It was as if her death had been the dream from which she had just awakened.

The pain of the violence, the trauma of that night ... there were whole lengths of time he couldn't remember anything about. Like some kind of alcohol-induced blackout.

A phenomenon of repression, the psychiatrist who treated him had explained. A perfectly normal and healthy reaction. It was the mind's way of dealing with things too terrible to accept. She had not heard the shots that had killed William, nor seen which of the evil men had lifted Pallas's torso, using it to smash her husband's head.

She had woken up in the hospital, already sedated. He was still on antidepressants. Her friends and family had all been kind and very comforting, but nevertheless from the moment she learned of William's death she felt as if she were wandering on the bottom of an ocean from another planet, shrouded in gloom. Sometimes he regretted having decided to stay in the house in the city center, but on the other hand he could not even imagine leaving it.

Another flash, this time more intense. It threw a wave of light to the other end of the room, which had previously been plunged into darkness.

Something was wrong there.

There was something very wrong with that end of the room!

The melancholy and sadness, the feeling of loss, were swept away by a rush of adrenaline. Amy stood up, walked over to the wall and hit the switch. The spotlights arranged to illuminate the most important pieces of the collection came on. The farthest one had been oriented so as to illuminate the bust of Pallas, dominated by the stuffed crow. But the bust had been taken away by the police to perform fingerprinting and as a murder weapon. The crow had also been removed, but Amy hadn't bothered to ask why, or where it had been moved.

Yet now they were there.

The white marble head of Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom.

The black bird.

Intact. A defiant look in the eye.

As she stared at the two objects petrified (had Donald brought them back to the library? And if so, why had he done it?) Amy heard the door on the ground floor slam shut.

He heard the sound of footsteps rapidly climbing the stairs.

"Amy! Amy, are you home? "

It was Donald's voice. He was agitated, he called out shouting.

She rushed to the door of the Poe room and opened it.

"Donald!" he called. "I'm here."

The house was brightly lit. He had turned on all the lights. He ran up the last few steps, eyes wide, deeply troubled.

"Amy? Are you OK?"

"Well, yes, I think so ... but I'm very upset."

He grabbed her by the shoulders and panted, "What happened?" He looked behind him into the library. "What are you doing in here, Amy?"

«The bust of Pallas. The crow ... Was it you who brought them back here? "

"What?"

Donald pushed her aside and bolted into the room, his eyes turned to the far wall. Amy watched as Donald stared in astonishment at the torso and the stuffed bird. Then he noticed the boxes Amy had moved to the library. The boxes of books that he had opened and brought up from the upper floor, but had not yet emptied.

He approached the books, as if in a trance, bent down and touched the backs of some with his hand.

When he looked back at her, his eyes were filled with amazement; he seemed almost in shock.

"These books ... These are ..." Donald shook his head, as if he wanted to realign parts of his brain that had become disconnected. "I mean, these are part of the stolen collection ..."

"Yup. Isn't that amazing? They delivered them this morning, after you left! " he informed him. “They went home, to the place where they should be. But I have no idea who brought the bust and the raven back here. Are you perhaps ... "

He shook his head, again trying to put his mind in order. "No. No, Amy. " He took a step towards her, took her by the arm. "But these books delivered this morning ... do you have any idea who can? ..."

Donald noticed the hand-bound little volume of poetry on the table beside the candles. He walked over and turned it around.

'A book of poetry by William Blessing. I didn't know anything about this! "

"No, in fact. William intended to give it to me ... It was his cousin who told me where he was hiding. "

"His cousin?" Donald asked. "I didn't know he had a cousin you're in contact with."

“It's called Delmore Blessing. They hadn't been dating much lately. But he knows a lot about Bill, things I was unaware of too, ”Amy explained. "It was Delmore who retrieved the books."

"Retrieve ..." Donald echoed. "But ... how did he do it?"

"I do not know."

"How did you meet ... this person?"

“He came by to see me… yesterday. He intruduced himself. We have talked. I wanted to tell you, but he asked me not to tell you anything. Not immediately, however. He said you would meet in due course. "

Donald grabbed her by the arms. He stared into her eyes with an intensity that Amy had never seen in him before.

"Amy," he said. “Listen to me very carefully. You are in grave danger. And, consequently, I could be too. "

"Danger? But why? How?"

“A madman, perhaps this very man who came to see you, although he can't say for sure, is committing a series of atrocities in Baltimore. Atrocities connected with William Blessing. "

"Atrocity? What do you mean?"

“There have been… murders! And Bill's body… ”He looked away, biting his lip, giving the impression of being greatly torn. "IS..."

"My husband's body? What happened? Tell me! " he demanded, on the verge of a fit of hysterical tears. "Tell me what happened to my husband's body!"

"It was stolen."

"What?"

"Yup. I have to report the fact to the competent authorities. But tonight ... Listen to me: tonight we should go somewhere else. Get out of here. You are not safe in this house. "

She still hadn't been able to fully grasp the meaning of Donald's words. «Stolen ... Stolen from the grave? But why? Who could have done such a thing? "

“Amy, your husband had a long, busy life before he met you. He may have had secrets that he never revealed to you. God only knows what strange acquaintances and acquaintances he had. Maybe he's wronged someone ... Maybe he's involved ... I don't know ... someone's curse. These are all things we can find out later. But now you need to quickly prepare a bag. I will take you to a hotel, take you to your room and take one next to yours. And maybe we'll call the police as a precaution. I don't know exactly what's going on, but I'm absolutely certain we have to get out of this house! "

"But I live here ... And I have to protect ..."

“I'll notify the police. We can also hire a security guard or something. Amy, everything in this house will be safe, I promise you. But we have to go! "

Something deep inside her not only rebelled against the idea of leaving the house, but led her to look at Donald Marquette with new eyes, to see him as a different person.

A little voice seemed to whisper in her mind: Who is it that really hides many secrets?

"If there is something to fear, why can't we just call the police from here and ask for protection?"

"Not enough, Amy," she replied, shaking her head vigorously.

«In this case ... if we can contact a security company ... why not do it now, and from here? Can't we call them and get someone to come? " He made a sweeping gesture with his arms. “This collection, these books and memorabilia, were things William cared a lot about. Now that they've been returned, I don't want to risk losing them again. "

“All these items are worth nothing compared to you. To your safety, to your life. " Donald seemed to be under great stress, as if something had been weighing on his conscience for some time and he was just beginning to fully exert its pressure.

Amy shook her head. “Why should my life be in danger? I don't understand, Donald. If you want me to leave my home, I need to know exactly what makes you think I am in danger. "

For a moment Donald was at a loss for words.

“This man… this self-styled cousin of William… it sounds strange to me. He could be the danger. He could be crazy! "

"If he had wanted to hurt me, he could have done it on two occasions already!" Amy said firmly. “Now you have to tell me everything you know. I demand it. Why do you say I could be in danger tonight? "

Amy was beginning to feel like she was emerging from a thick fog. And what he saw differed enormously from what he had ever imagined. Until recently, he had wanted to know nothing but the chemically induced amazement of melancholy, the only shield of protection against an existence that he did not feel like facing. Now, however, he was coming out of sleep and becoming aware of a strange world; extremely strange. "Tell me! I have to know. "

Donald opened his mouth but couldn't make a sound. His eyes darted left and right, filled with panic and indecision, but without an answer to Amy's question.

Then a voice came from the door of the room.

“Yes, Donald. Maybe you should tell him. "

29

“Mr. Valdemar, can you tell us what yours are now
feelings or your desires? "

EDGAR A. POE, The Truth About Mr. Valdemar's Case

“Let these words be our farewell, bird or
evil creature, ”I cried, rising.

“Return to the storm and the plutonies of the night!

Do not leave any black pen as a token of
lie expressed by your soul!

Leave my loneliness intact! Drop your torso
over my door!

Remove the beak from my heart and your figure from the door! "

The crow said: "Never again."

EDGAR A. POE, "The Crow"

His heart was beating fast, insistent and pounding in his chest, and his ears seemed to ring and echo non-stop in a dizzying tinkle of disjointed words, fears and conflicting feelings.

However, when that voice came from the door, the words hit him like a slap in the face from the cold hand of the night. Donald Marquette was shaken from his state and recovered a fierce concentration.

He turned his head in the direction of the door.

In the doorway stood a man in a long dark coat. He wore a hat, the brim pulled down to his forehead. The collar of his coat was turned up and hid the lower part of his face. Much of the rest of the face was hidden behind a large pair of dark glasses.

Donald Marquette found his tongue.

"Who are you? How did you get in? "

The panic and fear seemed to have vanished, erased by a mighty rush of adrenaline. He seemed to have regained control. He sensed nothing but a dark threat in the figure standing at the door, but something deep, instinctive, a kind of atavistic survival instinct took over in him.

Amy's reaction was much less alarmed.

"Delmore," he said, moving towards the man. "What a pleasure to see you. He was right! I found that book of poetry… ”Amy strode back to the table and lifted the booklet to show it to the stranger. "Do you see?"

"I'm glad," the Dark Man burst out. "Have you already had occasion to read any of them?" His voice was noticeably softened.

"Yup! Sure. They are wonderful. It's like ... It's like William was returned to me. Now I can resign myself to the idea of not having him next to me because I know what his true and deepest feelings towards me were. And I know it will always be in my heart. "

The Man of Darkness nodded. "This is ... this is what William would have loved to hear you say, Amy."

Donald Marquette heard the break in the man's voice. Maybe because of the commotion, maybe because of something else.

"I assume this is the mysterious cousin, isn't it?" Donald asked, his voice full of suspicion and distrust.

“Oh, yes, sorry. Delmore, this is Donald Marquette. William's colleague. He stayed to continue his work and to help me manage the inheritance ... and a lot of other things. "

"Yes, sure," the man said. "William wrote to me about him." His voice hardened again. “And it is with Donald that I want to speak. That's why I'm back here tonight, Amy. I was hoping not to disturb her. Would you like to leave us alone, go and do some business upstairs? Maybe play the piano a bit? Too bad the evening is so bad and rainy outside. But she could still go see a friend. I'll gladly call you a taxi if you want. "

Donald was assailed by a ferocious doubt. "Does it have anything to do with the Blessing inheritance?"

"In some ways, yes," replied the Man of Darkness.

“So why ask Amy to leave? She is still directly involved. I have nothing to hide from Amy when it comes to managing the estate. If he wants, he can stay. "

The Man of Darkness shook his head. "I'd rather you leave us."

"Amy." Donald spoke in a tight, hard voice. “Everything I've told you about… the reasons I wanted us to get out of this house until we could be sure we were safe… it all started with the appearance of this man. I'm afraid he is behind everything that's going on. He is the man we must fear! "

"But ... But why?" Amy turned to face him, vehemently. “He told me a lot of things. Somehow he managed to recover the books ... "

Donald turned to the man who called himself Delmore Blessing. 'William Blessing's body is no longer in his grave. Was it you who stole it? "

The Man of Darkness spread his gloved hands, pleading. “Amy, please. He must go now! "

Amy shook her head and her gaze grew colder. "What? Is it the truth? Was it you who stole William's body? Is she the cause of Donald's worries? Is that so? "

"You must trust me, Amy!" Judging by his voice, the man seemed on the verge of despair. "Go! Go away! Now!"

“William always told me that truth is the hardest thing to accept, but it's always the best. Because it always creates a bond between the righteous and destroys the wicked, ”Amy hissed. “Are you evil, Delmore? Is he pouring out his wickedness on the memory of his cousin? "

"No, Amy! No, I swear to you. "

The Man of Darkness raised his hands in a gesture of supplication.

"So what would be the question that you can't talk about in my presence?" he claimed to know.

Donald felt a strength in her voice he had never suspected in Amy Blessing.

"Let's hear it," Donald said, already mentally busy trying to find a way to buy a few moments to call the police. He could snap out of the room and dial 911 on the cell phone he had in his pocket. He regretted not calling security before he returned to the house. "What do you have to hide from Amy?"

The Man of Darkness turned to stare at Donald Marquette. Suddenly he seemed to take the form of an animated statue, cold and detached ... yet something intense burned in him.

"Very well. You leave me no choice, Amy. I was hoping to spare you this experience, but I'm short of time. "

Slowly, the man took off his hat.

Then he lowered his collar.

Lastly, he took off his glasses.

The man's features were vague, waxy and ill-defined. More than the face of a normal human being, his resembled the impressionistic representation that a sculptor might have given. He was shedding flakes of skin and had scab-like lesions on his cheeks and neck. Marquette noticed that half of one ear was gone, while the other ear was at an odd angle to the head.

The eyes, though slightly veiled, nevertheless burned with identity and personality.

An identity that Marquette had recognized but still couldn't bring himself to accept.

"Amy," William Blessing said. “In the future, I want you to remember this episode as a dream. A dream, Amy. Do you understand me? I don't want it to become part of your inner reality. "

"But I don't…" Her voice came out muffled and horrified. "I do not understand. He looks like ... Now he looks even more like ... his ... "

"There is no cousin, Amy," revealed the Man of Darkness. “I am William Blessing. It's me, your husband. There are ... unfinished business. I don't know how, I've been given ... a second, short chance. " He looked at Donald and his eyes seemed to be burning, hard and fiery. “To make things right. To protect my memory, my legacy ... and you, Amy, from further atrocities. "

Donald Marquette shook his head with conviction. He felt the madness already nibbling at his heels, but that strength he had found within himself, that vital instinct that had taken possession of him, that had safeguarded him in moments of catastrophe, returned to assert itself.

“No, Amy. It is a trick. A deception. It can't be William Blessing. William Blessing is dead! " he shouted.

The Man of Darkness shook his head sadly. "I never claimed to be alive, Marquette."

She took a step towards him, pointing her index finger at him in a gesture of accusation.

“I killed them all, Donald. All your mates, the Goths. I erased them and the ruin they wanted to bring to my home ... and maybe even to literature. Vengeance? Maybe. Justice? Without a doubt! And now I have to close the account with you. "

"William ..." Amy called, her voice trembling. "Bill ..."

Donald took a step back, but before he could get away the Man of Darkness darted forward.

A cold, waxy hand tightened around Donald's throat.

"No!" Amy shouted. "No!"

The man's arm and hand were incredibly strong.At that distance, caught in his grip, with the smell of the grave still upon him and the strong, contemptuous sense of the otherworldly that the man emanated, Donald could no longer deny, to despite the resistances of the more rational part of himself, which was really William Blessing.

Feeling suffocated, he reached out a hand to that face. A flap of skin peeled off under his fingers.

Groping, desperate, Donald threw himself against the arm that held him, trying with all his might to detach that hand from his throat. "It was this infamous," said the Man of Darkness. “It was this infamous who killed me, Amy. This hideous traitor we had taken into our home, whom we had trusted. It was he who introduced the forces of chaos and corruption into our lives! "

"Help ... Amy!" Donald managed to squeak. "Call the police!"

"No!" Amy Blessing yelled

Donald's vision began to blur and turn red as he continued to struggle desperately. He caught Amy's movement out of the corner of his eye. Next to the entrance was a chair, an antique. It was said that it once belonged to Edgar Poe. Amy grabbed her chair and ran over to them. With his face transformed into a horrified and confused mask, he forcefully threw the chair against the back of the man who claimed to have risen from the grave.

With a loud, sharp noise, the antique broke apart, splintering.

The deadly grip on Donald's throat loosened. He flung himself back, escaping the attacker, holding his neck as if to help get air into the lungs that desperately demanded it. He staggered, hitting the table.

A gun! Because he didn't have a gun!

The Man of Darkness stood still and motionless; the attack from behind had done him no harm, but it stunned him.

"Amy!"

"People don't come back from the grave!" Amy shouted. "The dead are not raised!"

"But it's me ... Amy ... It's me ... Bill."

Amy spoke in a high-pitched voice, stunted by tension and disbelief. “If you really are my husband, then my husband was not killed! I didn't see him die, ”he said. "But if so, if you are Bill ... then you must be mad! Bill Blessing would never, ever hurt anyone. Never. He was a kind, civilized person. Not ... not a monster! "

For a moment the Man of Darkness looked unsteady on his legs. She moved her arms in an awkward, spastic, uncertain gesture, turning to Amy Blessing. "Amy ... You don't understand ..."

Donald thought he saw Boris Karloff playing Frankenstein's monster, reaching out mercifully towards light and compassion.

A shred of skin broke off his face and he fell to the ground.

The strongest part of Donald Marquette, the part attached to survival and still able to understand, suddenly grasped the reality of the situation on a deeper level than his mind would ever be able to. He sensed the true nature of that being, the truth of his assertion, the tremendous danger it represented, the meaning imprinted on the dark foundations that supported the universe ... the meaning it had for him ...

And what he could have done to save himself.

The part of him that wanted to survive, that dark instinct, forcefully repelled the horror of the moment and rushed to attack: "You're right!" Donald shouted. «You cannot be Blessing! Blessing would never, ever commit murder. Blessing would never inflict pain! His work is proof of this. Sure, he wrote about death and destruction, but adopting the moral scheme of comedy, tragedy, man's inner greatness. It certainly did not fall into the absolute banality of the tale of revenge, into the melodrama of minor authors! "

The Man of Darkness turned to him.

Donald caught a shadow of doubt in her eyes.

A larger flap of skin broke away from his forehead and he tumbled to the floor. A thick red fluid slowly began to gush from the gash in his face, as from a purulent sore.

Yup! his instinct cried. You are there!

"No!" protested the Man of Darkness. "Punishment! There must be punishment ... prevention! "

"You are crazy! Whoever you are, you are crazy. Prevention of what? " He jumped to the side, avoiding the man's attack and moving to Amy's side, putting his arm around her waist as if to offer her comfort. She clung to him, squeezed him, terrified by the dark specter they had before them.

"You need help!" Amy said. "Let us call someone who can help you!"

"Punishment!" roared the Man of Darkness, more and more of a hunched creature, an evil imitation of Basii Rathbone playing the hunchback Richard III. He advanced slowly, but his movements now seemed to cause him pain. He limped. "Prevention!"

“I didn't do anything to harm Amy! I have only done good things to protect the memory of William Blessing's legacy. His books will continue to be successful thanks to my work. His name will remain in the bestseller charts, his short stories and novels will be studied in schools. He will be remembered by posterity ... kept alive by values such as goodness, virtue and love, values of which he stood as personification in his best works, ”Donald Marquette said. "Whatever you are, you are an instrument of madness, a shabby and dark thing, wreaking havoc in the home of friends, of people who believe in William Blessing's literary and spiritual legacy!"

The Man of Darkness held out a hand.

"Please! Don't hurt us! " Amy shouted. “Anyone… Whatever you are… must know that William Blessing was full of love and good will. Not of homicidal fury and revenge! "

Two fingers of the outstretched hand broke off and landed on top of each other.

«Amy ... No. I must ... There are forces: destiny, love, memory, justice, will. And forces that I must fight ... the evil, the darkness ... I have returned to counter the darkness. I'm back ... for love! For your sake. For the love of my art ... For everything my work represents! Values! The virtue! The art! Beauty! " He let out a groan, turning his head to the ceiling. "Oh, time! Oh, poetry! Oh, muses! " he invoked. "Give me the words I need to convince!"

"Haven't you read the newspaper articles, monster?" Donald Marquette asked, infusing the tone of his voice with just the right amount of irony to make his remark poisonous. «Gothic writers are kind people! They are civilized people. They shape the darkness to allow the passage of light. Besides, William Blessing ... or whatever I address to the part of you that thinks it's William Blessing, this whole thing stinks. It stinks of the recklessness, of the coarseness typical of the literature you despised so much! Weren't you an avid supporter of the subtle? Of a latent horror? All this, however ... my poor Blessing ... seems to have been taken from a horror film of the lowest level! "

The Man of Darkness gurgled.

He trembled, seemed shaken by a shiver.

Part of his face began to sunk. The entire left side began to melt, revealing the dark skull below. Small white worms crawled out of the eyeballs.

Willpower, including Donald's dark instincts. He is losing his willpower.

"Amy," the creature gasped, pus leaking from the gash that had been its mouth. "Amy ..."

He lost his jaw, which folded and fell like an overheated candle, hitting the floor and staining it.

The Man of Darkness also lost his nose, and another passage opened from which liquids of corruption spilled.

Now it gave off a decided stench of rottenness and putrefaction.

Amy let out a strangled moan. His grip on Marquette loosened. She collapsed, letting go.

She was passed out.

Amy collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

"Reckless bastard!" accused Marquette. "Look what you've done!"

The one eye still intact turned downward to stare at the beautiful woman lying on the floor. The creature let out a long howl of pain, the origin of which was to be traced far deeper than any mouth, throat or diaphragm.

“You know what, Blessing. He never really loved you, ”Donald told him. “He confessed to me… Yes. He just had a kind of fixation on you as a father figure. A psychological weakness. You have always been just deluded. "

Will, the voice in his mind urged. Deprive him of his will!

“That's right, Blessing. She told me. And we flirted a lot, even when you were alive. Behind you. We flirted and laughed together. And we kissed! Did you know that? Those sweet, sweet lips joined mine. " Marquette laughed heartily. «And I understood ... I understood how much he wanted me. And I understood that when your old and decrepit loins would no longer be able to satisfy her, she would come to me ... To me! "

"No..."

The corpse continued in its disgusting decomposition.

“You know, Blessing, you really are a sight! You look like the evil witch from the Wizard of Oz! The only difference is that I didn't have to use the water to get the better of you, just the truth! "

With a sigh of freeing organic gases, the dead man's bones gave way and the decaying mass crumpled in on itself, reduced to a mound of crepuscular material among the scattered clothing on the stained and soaked carpet.

For a moment Donald Marquette was stunned staring at the hideous pile of corrupted matter.

He's gone, his dark instinct told him. It ended up worse than a balloon with holes in it.

Then Marquette burst out laughing.

The laughter gushed from deep inside, as if it were generated by the same instinct that had saved him. It permeated his spirit, passed through his soul and reached its innermost parts. It climbed higher and higher, moving through his body until it reached his throat and then his mouth, from which it exploded dark and maniacally.

A cosmic joke!

The famous horror writer ...

... risen from the grave!

And there it was: nothing more than a bucket of greasy entrails that stained an oriental carpet!

"I won!" he exclaimed. "The boy from the Midwest has finally redeemed himself!"

The mound of organic remains had no reaction.

Marquette was flooded with intoxicating hilarity.

“And you know what's the funniest thing of all, Blessing? That you have turned into the most trite of horror clichés. What do you think of this, huh? The cover of a bad comic! Something that looks like something out of a film destined to never see the big screen. "

The heap of broken bones and clotted humors did not reply.

Laughter was the outlet of that dark instinct; the sensation was truly intoxicating. He felt like he had finally discovered himself. He had glimpsed his own destiny. He felt that new power reverberate within him like a song that had just found a performer. It filled him with the excitement of discovery, strength, resolve ... and a growing euphoria filled with passion, need and desire.

Seeing death touch him without grasping him had triggered a sudden and irrepressible lust in his glands.

He looked away from the pile of death. (Oh, what other truths did life hold, which until then he had denied! The scenarios that by virtue of this awareness opened up before him were now infinitely wider than mere creativity and richness. What bold dimensions awaited him!) eyes on Amy Blessing. His prostrate body was incredibly carnal; her long hair spread outward with erotic abandon and her mouth was ajar, as if she were sucking the member of an invisible demon.

She reached out and touched the soft but firm roundness of her buttock, covered by the fabric of her dress. Then, excited as he had never been in his life, he let his hand slip under her long woolen skirt, up her thigh, past the elastic of her panties ... to rest on the sweetest and most shocking flesh she had. never known. The secret ... the forbidden ... the sublime ...

"See, Bill," he said. “Here we are dealing with the whims of fate. In fact, I am the more gifted writer of the two. But by usurping your world ... and limiting myself in obeying, I should specify, the laws of nature, I will be able to rise to the greatness that is due to me, exploiting your successes as a springboard ... and dragging your works towards immortality in the wake of mine. I believe that posterity would soon forget you. My novels, however, will be remembered, I assure you. And I will be able to write them in absolute luxury, pampered by success. "

He felt the acceleration of his heartbeat, the throb in his temples. The smell of Amy reached his nostrils strongly and he felt the desire growing inside him, turgid and complex. He pulled his hand out from under Amy's skirt and began to unbutton her sweater.

He laughed again.

Amy was still unconscious and sensed that she would remain unconscious for a long time. He found it impossible to control himself at that moment: it seemed part of the very nature of his dark instinct that he had to mock the vanquished.

May it be.

“Ah, one more thing. Thank you very much for bringing me Amy. I don't think it would have taken whole years spent scouring the world to find such a splendid flower to plant in my bed! " She opened the sweater, revealing a black lace bra. It wasn't white! God, how agitated he had been in the night, tossing and turning endless times, unable to sleep, just imagine that moment.

A peek. A palpatine. What harm was there? Then he could dress her up, put her back in order, put her in bed, and put a bottle of wine and its tablets on the bedside table. The next day he would tell her that she had risked an overdose, that she had squirmed all night, screaming, in nightmares. Terrible nightmares. Unimaginable!

“My dear Bill, what a lucky man you were! What a sweet fruit to savor. What a nice treat we have here! You don't mind if I have a small appetizer, do you? " He laughed. "Of course not. After that, I'll pick up the crap that's left of you and throw you away. The authorities will never find out what happened to William Blessing's stolen body. Never. And they won't mind it. After all, it will only add to the legend. Yes. I'll make sure to pass the news to the National Enquirer. TOMB OF WRITER HORROR DEFINED! And all the supermarkets in the country will start displaying paperback editions of your books on the shelves next to the checkouts. "

She pushed aside the black lace to the side and down.

Amy's right breast nipple was perfect. Absolutely perfect! Pink and succulent, well designed and turgid.

His fingers trembled slightly as they reached out to touch him.

He touched the nipple with his fingertips. The sensation he felt was electrifying, exactly as he had imagined. He felt the blood flow like a raging river towards his groin.

"Quickly, Blessing," he said. “Very soon I will be able to suck this sweet bud. Soon..."

Something tightened around her ankle.

With strength.

With great strength.

"But what? ..."

He turned his head and looked down, taken by surprise.

A hand was wrapped around the leg. Half flesh and half skeleton. But under his eyes, as he stared at her in horror, he saw the cartilage and flesh reassemble, recompose, regrow and return to take the shape of a complete hand.

Beyond the hand, half of the face rearranged itself back to stretch over a skull that stared at him with empty eye sockets. Flaps of skin vibrated like sea anemones. Veins and arteries materialized, skin reformed, hair and hair sprouted from a protoplasmic broth.

"No!" Marquette yelled.

He raised his fist and struck the skull on his macabre smile. The spine gave way and the head fell back, breaking away from the precarious pivot. He had just raised his left foot to free his ankle from the grip of the dead man's hand when he heard croaking at the other end of the room.

He looked up.

He saw the bust of Pallas, back in place. But what was above the torso was far more troubling. The stuffed crow had also reappeared, perched on the marble head ... but now it was getting bigger and blacker as it spread its wings.

His red-veined brown eyes flared. The bird leapt forward. It flapped its wings twice and swooped down on Marquette, knocking him backwards.

As the crow hovered around the room, Marquette put a hand to her face and saw that it was bloody. He started kicking again, finally managing to free himself from the dead man's hand.

The crow veered and returned in his direction.

But instead of attacking he landed on the ground between Marquette and the door.

You're not going anywhere, man, he seemed to threaten.

Marquette hesitated only a second.

Then he dashed for the door, propelled by the voice of his dark instinct, ordering him to flee immediately.

The crow stood still, his eyes fixed on him.

Marquette prepared to kick him off, but before he could get his foot down he was grabbed from behind by one arm, a stringy arm with exposed muscles and covered in isolated patches of skin. The arm pulled him back, further and further back, and he smelled the tomb again. But this time it was different; it was the smell of another tomb: his own.

Donald Marquette was thrown at the table. The documents and books placed on top flew to the ground. He made a superhuman effort in an attempt to wriggle out, exhausting any residual strength he still possessed. But the creature, which now had very little of human, kept him pinned where he was.

"I brought something I found in your friend Baxter Brittle's lair," said the reassembled corpse, speaking hoarsely and harshly in his ear.

Marquette saw the object appear and caught its metallic reflection.

He had seen it earlier on Baxter's absurd altar. It was a dagger, elaborately decorated and carved. A dagger of the kind used for animal sacrifices ... and who knows what else.

A ritual dagger.

"No!" Donald Marquette yelled. "You can't do it ... You can't ... Please ... Please!"

"No, Donald," the voice replied coldly. "You do not understand. I will grant your wish! I promise you. You'll have exactly what you've always dreamed of! "

The knife described a silvery arc as it swooped down on him.

It stuck into Donald's lower abdomen up to the height of the handle.

Pain washed over him, fierce and relentless.

Donald watched in disbelief as a gush of his own blood stained the documents still scattered on the table surface.

The images began to dance before his eyes, creating a stroboscopic effect. He looked down and saw the monster's hand pull the knife up, its guts pour out and fall back onto the sheets. He was amazed to see that the papers were actually a copy of the New York Times Book Reviews, open to a page he knew well.

"That's it, Donald," the dead man's voice whispered in his ear. "You always wanted to be on the Times bestseller list, didn't you?"

Then the dark instinct soared upward to claim him, enveloping him like the thick fog of the bay gathering in an alley in Fells Point.

William Blessing held the body until he felt the escape of the spirit. Then he let go of the corpse and the handle of the knife. Donaid Marquette, quite dead, first fell on the table, then collapsed to the ground, carrying the knife.

The crow settled on the wooden surface.

"He was the last," Blessing said.

"The last one," agreed the crow.

"Now I can ... I can rest."

"Yes," said the crow. "And I can go on ... to continue doing what I have to."

Blessing looked at her hand. It was covered in leather again. Sure, he was in a sorry state, but there was no doubt that it was a hand. He lifted it and felt his face.

Yes. For the most part he had recovered.

Yet, now that he had completed his mission, he felt his resolve again fail. He knew he had reservations, but he was determined to endlessly be reduced to a heap of hideous remains in his own home.

No, now he had to move to another house. His new home was the cemetery, where he knew he had to return.

"I have to go back to my grave," Blessing said.

"Like everyone, sooner or later," replied the crow. “But nothing lasts for eternity. You will see."

William Blessing turned and looked at his wife. Amy lay sprawled on the floor, still unconscious.

"I can't leave her like this, with such a memory."

"No," agreed the crow. "You have the power to fix things, Blessing."

William Blessing nodded.

He walked over to his wife. He bent down and straightened her sweater, buttoning it. Then, with extreme care and reverence, he lifted her up and took her in his arms.

William Blessing carried her upstairs. He laid her on their bed, gently resting her head on the pillow. Now that his anger had subsided, he felt only love. Love burned bright within him, acting as a binder for his precarious body.

Amy's beautiful hair fanned out across the embroidered pillow. She was so beautiful that it took the little breath away from the dead man. She looked like the princess from a fairy tale, as she rested, waiting for her prince's kiss.

He placed a hand on her forehead.

“Rest, Amy. Rest for a full day. Dream. Remember how I was. Don't remember what I had to become. "

He felt his powers stir in him, and then he began to act on his wife.

William Blessing was overwhelmed by a wave of intense feeling.

"Now I have to leave you, Amy," she whispered. “When you wake up, the horror will be gone; and you will heal quickly. You will get well soon. And I can just leave you my name if you want it ... and a blessing. A blessing so that you can continue to live your life aware of the value, meaning and beauty you have given to mine. "

William Blessing bent down and, with lips decomposing again, kissed the flushed cheek of his living wife.

As Blessing passed the door of her old office, on her way to the cemetery and eternal rest, the crow landed on her left shoulder. Then the phone rang.

Without being able to explain why, William Blessing stopped and listened.

"Blessing Enterprises answers!" Donald Marquette's cheerful voice came from the answering machine. "We can't answer your call right now, but leave a message after the beep."

Beep.

"Donald!" called "a voice. “I'm Roscoe Mithers! Yes, I know it's late, but the meeting went on and then I went to dinner with the editor. This is the most exciting day of my life. Everyone was thrilled with your ideas! They welcomed them from first to last! And they accepted some of mine too! All the division directors were there, and it so happened that the general manager of the media department of the West Coast office, who was in New York on business, was also present. There is much, very much interest in taking full advantage of William Blessing's name and legacy. And we are not just talking about books, but also about movies, television, videos, merchandising, concessions ... The rights for the production of the statuettes alone will amount to a staggering sum! Your idea of associating your name with Blessing's for the publication of four-handed books sent everyone into raptures. And they want me to be responsible for the whole operation!

“But best of all was the immediate approval I got from the publisher over dinner for my idea: a series of William Blessing books as part of the Dark Sunset series, but written by you. Union of forces, Donald! Synergy! A brilliant marketing strategy, don't you think? The possibilities are endless. So please call me back. I urgently need to talk to you. Call me as soon as you can in the morning, at the office, or even tonight, at home. You have the number. Wake me up! No problem. Jesus, Donald! I had no idea how big this whole operation was going to be. You are a genius. I owe you! May the sun always shine ... "

Blessing picked up the receiver.

"Ready?" Mithers said. 'Is that you, Donald? I knew if you talked long enough you would answer. Have you heard everything? "

"That's enough," replied the dead man.

"Hey, who's talking? You're not Donald. "

“I am the executor of William Blessing's literary legacy. Donald Marquette had to resign. "

"A sudden decision, no doubt about it," Mithers replied, not making an effort to mask his doubts about the situation, fearful that someone was somehow trying to make his shoes.

"A major issue arose and Marquette found himself unable to carry out his duties."

“But we had an agreement. We were discussing the details, ”Mithers objected.

'Have you signed a contract? A written agreement? "

"Not exactly, but a deal is a deal."

“Yeah, I guess it is. Even in the case of a pact with the devil. Indeed, especially in that case. "

At the other end of the line there was a long pause of silence as Mithers tried to work out an answer. He was beginning to have a bad feeling. The strange voice on the phone sounded mixed with damp earth. There was a thrill, the editor thought. He could almost imagine that at the other end of the line there might indeed be a zombie, or some other creature resurrected from the dead from the pantheon of Dark Sunset.

"Mr. Mithers," the eerie voice continued. “Any agreements you believe you have made with Blessing's executors are void. Revoked and terminated. He understands me?"

“Frankly, no, I don't understand. Who exactly is she? Where is Marquette? All this does not make sense."

“But you do, Mr. Mithers. Everything makes perfect sense. And I want to make it clear to you. "

A shockwave of horror rippled down the telephone line, sweeping the optical fibers and crashing down on Mithers between breaths. A barrage of images of death assaulted his mind. His hand tightened so tightly around the phone that the receiver cracked. He could not help but tremble helplessly as Death, in all its forms, boiled in his brain, chilling his blood. He began to cry and dribble from the corners of his mouth, his soul pierced by cold and incandescent slashes of terror.

Now do you understand why it is impossible to carry out your projects? the voice seemed to be asking from somewhere behind his left ear. It would be very bad for your health. Now sleep.

As if suddenly dropped from a gallows, Mithers fell unconscious, panting.

In Baltimore, the crow glided over the desk. "I'm impressed," Blessing complimented. “You are truly taking our hand as a resurrected avenger. Too bad you weren't killed by lynching by a mob of thugs. "

"Do you think he got the message?" Blessing asked, hanging up the receiver.

'He will never understand why,' replied the bird, 'but the mere sound of your name will evoke in Mr. Mithers a very personal and uncontrollable form of terror. It won't be long before I start considering changing jobs and fields of activity. "

"Already. I also need to switch activities at this point, ”Blessing said.

He paused for a moment in the Poe Room to draw sustenance from what remained of Donald Marquette's earthly dimension. The bracket.

Then William Blessing went out into the night, headed for his appointment with the grave.

Epilogue

And the crow, never flying, sits still, sits still

On the pale bust of Pallas above my door

And his eyes look like those of a dreaming demon

And the light of the lamp casts its shadow on the ground

IS my soul from that shadow floating on the floor

It will never rise - never again!

EDGAR A. POE, "The Crow"

1849

He felt the heaviness of the mist on his body that came from the bay as he lay in the alley of Fells Point.

He woke up and was immediately shaken by violent tremors. The cold; a terrible cold. It pierced him mercilessly like the blade of a knife. The man shivered frightfully as he got up and trudged over the pebbles. His teeth chattered.

The smell of the sea and the smell of rottenness were strong and seemed to fall on him like a wet patina. Waves of heat and cold and violent horror left him in the throes of a paroxysm of shivers and flushes, shivers and flushes ...

Trembling, he emerged from the alley and saw the fog enveloping old buildings and piers, the languid movement of the dark waters ... High above, above a carriage drawn by a pair of horses, he noticed a bird, huge and black, moving away in the mist flapping their wings.

Not far from him a man wearing a suit, with a waistcoat and a top hat walked arm in arm with a woman, a cap on his head and a tasseled umbrella in his hand. In the street the smells of horses and that of a market mingled.

As he limped in the direction of the couple, his knees gave way. Panting and shivering, he fell into a puddle of mud.

He couldn't even get to his knees, and fell on his back. The oblivion of unconsciousness swirled around him like a swarm of angry, winged fragments at night.

What's My Name? asked a voice. What's My Name?

A second voice answered, but he was unable to hear.

«Lord! He hurt himself?" the man asked.

"No, I'm fine," he replied, somehow managing to get up. “I'm just… wet. And cold because of these damned rains. Something to drink! Here's what I need. Something to drink to warm me up. Could you tell me where I can get a drink, sir? "

"Of course. Over there is Gunner's Hall. Today is election day, and there will be many people busy voting, ”the man said. "There you will find something to drink ... And help too, if you need it."

"Yes," he muttered as he turned and staggered in the direction of the building the man pointed to. "Away from my enemies."

As he limped along the road the fog of Fells Point began to penetrate his mind again ...

"Mr. Poe," called a voice. “Drink up, Mr. Poe. You must drink this water. "

He awoke and saw the blurred image of a man dressed in black, with thick whiskers, offering him a glass of water. He was immediately seized by pain, devastated by fever and profuse sweating. Seeing that he had awakened, the doctor pressed the rim of the glass against his lips, letting a drop fall on his dry tongue. Much of the water dripped from his mouth onto his pajamas.

Poe, he thought. My name is not Poe!

But if his name wasn't Poe, he thought, shivering alternating with pangs of pain, what was his name?

A little more water in his mouth, then they allowed him to recline on the pillow. He could smell lye and sickness in the air: he was in some old hospital.

As he drifted off to sleep, scraps of memory came back to his mind ... all accompanied by spasms of pain and endless melancholy.

Virginia, died of tuberculosis. A long, agonizing agony.

The long and terrible battle against alcohol, that angel of relief against the torture of a life of hardship and grief ...

Alcohol, demon of despair, which gave him headaches and heartburn, excruciating pain and endless depression ...

The sporadic islands of liberation that were the verses and the stories, the reviews and the articles, in a sea of pains and troubles.

That was his miserable life.

And it was the life, now he knew for sure, of Edgar Allan Poe.

The man woke with a start and sat up in bed. "But I'm not Poe!" scream. "What am I doing here?"

“I am Dr. John J. Moran. You're at Washington Medical College in Baltimore, ”the man informed him. “He was found in a semi-conscious state at Gunner's Hall. She is not well at all. He was delirious. "

He tried to get out of bed. He was immediately surrounded by nurses. He had to go home to Iowa ... get back to work.

"I have to get back to work!" he shouted. «Work awaits me! I have to become a successful writer! This is the dream of my life! "

The figures surrounding him held him back, forcing him to lie back on the bed. “But you are a writer, sir. He is also a well-known poet. Now calm down! It must remain stationary. In the conditions in which it is found it is not advisable to get excited in this way. "

The strong hands of the nurses were quickly replaced by leather straps that tied him to the bed posts and prevented him from moving, except for the most useless ones.

As he sank into oblivion again, he heard the doctor whisper, "The sad and unstoppable devastation of the alcohol demon holds him tight in its clutches."

No! he thought.Anger! Poe died of anger!

And I'm not Poe!

No, my name is Donald Marquette!

But he couldn't get the words out. The numbness of the senses stretched over him and claimed him. He could not help but mutter nonsense.

He felt as if he were floating in a sea of darkness and confusion. The bewilderment and delirium were too great to allow for feelings of regret, reflection, or repentance over the blood and pain he felt weighing upon him like a boulder.

Once again he emerged from his confusion.

"God help my poor soul!" he gasped, moving his head back and forth.

When he heard the words out of his mouth, he recognized them immediately. It had been Poe's last words. He opened his being and prepared himself for the coveted relief of nothingness and death.

But death, however, came on black wings.

He carried him away, spinning him like a sailor clinging to a wreck after a shipwreck, at the mercy of the maëlstrom. Down, lower and lower, towards a deep and dark core ...

And that core suddenly came to life.

Blinking, he found himself looking out a window. Beyond the glass, the forests and the thin fields of an icy late autumn. The sky was obscured by heavy dark clouds. The room around him smelled of camphor and dusty sadness. There was a feeling of heaviness in his chest.

The black bird that had drawn his attention soared into the air and alighted on the roof of a porch, from where he stared at him with piercing brown eyes tinged with crimson.

"A bird!" he heard himself exclaim. "I told you! Look at the black bird! "

The image reflected in the glass was the face of a child.

He saw through the eyes of a child!

"Edgar!" a woman's voice called. “Come away from there. Come and sit next to your poor dead mother! "

"Damn," a man's stern voice swore. "I already understand that this will cause us trouble."

Turned.

On a bed, surrounded by people wearing early 19th century clothing, lay a dead woman.

Inexplicably, Marquette realized it was Poe's mother.

Who was now his mother too ...

He remembered his dream ... his nightmare.

A sudden thought struck him: So it had to be ... 1811? Or 1812?

What am I doing here?

And as his mind worked the question, the shocking answer was already taking shape.

He was approached by a woman. “It's a crow, John. There's a big black crow out there! "

"Then drive her away, that damned beast," the evil, frowning man ordered. "It's a bad omen!"

Donald Marquette's soul through Edgar Poe's eyes stared at the creature that had carried him there.

Trapped!

He was trapped in the body of a child condemned to live a life of unimaginable agonies, depressive crises and destitution!

Trapped in some kind of hellish and infinite time vortex!

Live and die ... to relive ...

In that cursed being ...

Extreme revenge ...

For his sins ...

He thought he heard the crow talking to him.

"You are now a world famous writer, Donald," he said in a sharp, disturbing voice. "What you've always wanted!"

He leaned against the cold, dark glass of the window and was able for a moment to speak through that child's mouth, knowing that he would never be able to do so again, nor to influence in any way the environment or the fate of the individual in which he stood. found.

He was condemned only to suffer, forever.

"Pray for me," Donald Marquette begged, addressing the dark fate that had condemned him to sink into that hell, "for I am a damned soul like never before."

"How long?" he asked the crow, aware that that fleeting moment of full awareness was coming to an end. "How long?"

The bird stared at him and for a moment his eyes became human eyes. Eyes that had known immeasurable grief.

How long? cried Donald Marquette's tormented soul. How long?

And the bird opened its beak to speak.

The crow said: "More and more!"

one

Down through that part of the evening that is neither night nor day, the big black bird comes, final y, to the old cemetery in the old city on the river. Such a long flight back from the places where the dead wait, marking time until they've forgotten what time is, until they've forgotten even themselves and nothing remains but these earthly stones and the moldering skeletons they signify, and even these wil pass in time.

The crow descends through the low, thin clouds that have lingered behind an afternoon thunderstorm, fading blue sky traded for gray. A woman walking along Prytania Street hears the bird's grating cry, looks up to see a violent smudge of ebony against the summer twilight, crosses herself, and walks a little faster past the crumbling wal s of Lafayette No. 1 Cemetery.

Maneuvering between magnolia branches, brushing against stiff dark leaves like dripping dragon scales, the crow follows instinct and duty. With nothing that could be called thought, but with something more than the simplest bird impressions, the crow understands the immediate and undeniable task before her. She understands the terrible things that must be done before she can return to the clarity of her carrion life.

And so the crow finds the smallish mausoleum near the center of the cemetery.

The pale gray marble is fresh and polished, not yet blasted by the delta sun and angry Gulf storms, a modest jewel tucked between its ancient, weathered neighbors. Around it are monuments placed over the course of more than a hundred and fifty sweltering years, fallen crosses and angels with broken wings, inscriptions wom smooth as silk.

And then this newcomer, at once tasteful and decadent: a tomb that speaks of the wealth of its dead, but speaks also of their otherness.

The crow lights upon the vaulted roof, her talons gripping the slippery bronze acroterion above the sealed door. The acroterion is cast in the reclining form of a pretty young man, hands bound above his head, ankles bound as well, and a gag tied tightly across his mouth. His head is bowed, his eyes closed in perfect supplication.

The crow shifts nervously, impatiently, from one ebony claw to the other. Standing on the bronze boy's shoulder, the metal still years away from the streaking stigmata of verdigris, she caws once more: for herself, for the dim uncertainty she feels. Then she folds her wings, and the resurrection begins.

So much damage to a corpse after death, the slicing ministrations of pathologists and undertakers. Because this man died violently there was an autopsy, organs removed, divined, dumped back into their cold cradle of meat and bone. The application of glue to seal eyelids and hold fingers together, lips sewn neatly shut, caustic chemicals painted on or pumped into this body sealed beneath the crow. All these things she must undo before the soul can be returned, and the bird carries the knowledge of these tasks in her skull, knows them now as she knows the sweet, greasy smell of roadkill on summer asphalt miles away, as she knows the simple routine of her life.

A silent flash of lightning far away, toward the swamps where the storm has retreated. The crow blinks her weary eyes and pecks once at the bronze sculpture.

The sound echoes softly through the necropolis around her. There's a faint scratch where her sharp beak struck the burnished metal, and she pecks at the boy's shoulder again.

It makes a sound she can feel through her feet, a sound that reverberates within the marble confines of the mausoleum, growing louder in the dark spaces along the walls, louder still inside the newest coffin on its granite pedestal, amplified instead of dulled by passage through stone and steel.

Selective, though, this magic She has come for one man, and one man only. The man who sleeps beside him will hear nothing, his ill-used, pieced-together body remaining in stasis, indifferent to what has begun. The crow's dagger beak strikes the acroterion a third and final time, and now there is movement inside the mausoleum, inside the newest coffin.

The thread that holds the dead man's thin lips closed tugs itself free, drawn out through needlepoint incisions, and falls away. The cyanoacrylate that holds his eyelids closed, that holds his fingers together across his chest, becomes brittle and then becomes no more than dust. These things are simple though, and the crow shudders, captured now in the dark and irreversible process she has started.

The long incisions in the abdomen reject their stitches also and begin to heal, flesh knitting as if in time-lapse photography. The crow cries out again, giving up parts of herself to the accelerating restoration of the body below, life chasing death. Even the bird's mind understands the wrongness in these actions, the violation of an order more primal and sacred than all the religions of mankind, but she is helpless to withdraw.

She huddles on the mausoleum roof and feels her life borrowed, the measured draining of her life for the working of these magics.

There are escape clauses built into the fabric of the universe, undeniable rules that have brought her here. The crow knows none of this, only that she should be moving, flying swiftly and high and far, far away from this soulless place where the memory of life lies pinned beneath heavy stone.

moving, flying swiftly and high and far, far away from this soulless place where the memory of life lies pinned beneath heavy stone.

Still more stitches ravel, and the body bleeds not blood but an acrid hemorrhage of embalming fluid, milky spray from opened arteries. The heart is shocked rudely back to life, pumping alien liquid through desiccated veins, and this time the crow does not caw, she screams as the body beneath her expels four gallons of embalming fluid into its coffin. A pulsing stream from the carotid, from an incision in the upper arm and another in the groin, until the circulatory system is completely empty, purged, and the Lazarus heart pumps only formaldehyde-stinking air.

As the open arteries knit themselves closed again, another trick is turned and the crow trembles on her perch, sick and maybe dying; she would believe herself dying if she understood death as such. Blood from the genetic memory of pickled cells, water from wine, pours from the heart to fill the parched pathways of arteries, veins, and capillaries. The crow spreads her wings in sudden panic and pain, black feathers against the growing night, as the lips of the dead man part. Col apsed lungs heave, then expand and contract, forcing more bitter fluid out past his rouged lips, fighting to draw precious breath for the first time in five days, coughing, vomiting death. The crow folds her wings again, hurting, but this part is done, at least; this part is over.

The bird crouches on the immaculate bronze victim and listens and waits for whatever has to happen next. Far away, toward Lake Pont-chartrain and restless waters the color of bad coffee, there is the gentle, threatening sound of thunder.

He has no memory of waking, only the sudden, jolting knowledge that he is awake, the impossible pain of the first breath. There's something fil ing his mouth, and his cold tongue struggles to push it aside, to spit out the sodden, cottony mass. His eyes are on fire, like when he was a child and caught pinkeye and his mother held a warm washcloth to his face to soften the crust that sealed his eyes shut. If she were here, she might do that for him now, might take away his confusion and pain.

But she is not here. Jared Poe, who knows little else, knows this much: that he is alone, beyond alone, somewhere more solitary than alone can ever be. Smothering in that certainty, he exhales, a jagged, rattling sound that could be final breath instead of rebirth, and he opens his eyes.

Even the diffuse light around him is blinding after so profound a night, after such complete and perfect darkness. Jared Poe shuts his eyes again, tightly, before the glare burns away his thin lids and leaves him helpless to stare into it forever.

I was dreaming, he thinks. I dreamed I was flying. A useless little thought mired in so much agony, the pain that soaks every inch of his body, coalescent with the stinking wetness around him. His chest heaves, a sudden, involuntary gasp, the contraction of too many unused muscles at once. His back arches as the air is forced out again.

Something vile fills his throat, fluids driven from his lungs or stomach or both, now spilling out of his mouth.

I was flying above New Orleans with black wings, he thinks. The next gasp makes him bite his tongue, a little harder and he might have bitten it in half. His mouth fills with cleansing, living warmth, iron-water taste to wash away the bitter burn of chemicals. He rolls onto his side, coughing, reaching for the shreds of dream already fading, slipping from him before he can be sure they were even his. Flying above New Orleans, and then a clearer thought, like drawing that first breath again- I was dead.

Jared Poe screams inside his coffin, puts the oxygen forcing its way into his unwilling lungs to good use. He screams against the hateful flood of memory, the images that follow from what he cannot deny- I was dead. Flashpowder revelations as unwanted as the life flowing back into him and the death leaking out. The big Cuban motherfucker with the. 35 Magnum tattooed on his right arm, the Virgin Mary on his left, and when Jared looked down, the hand shoving the sharpened spoon into his gut.

Pushing it in, the metal going deeper and deeper, twisting. Another scream and the sound of steel bars sliding shut inside the carefully constructed hell of Angola.

Lockdown. Jared's stiff hands clench. He pounds the padded satin walls of his new prison.

A little farther into himself and the stale library smell of the courthouse comes back, the condemning sound of the gavel and the vindicated mutter of the crowd as the verdict was read aloud, the doughy fat woman with ill-fitting dentures who read the words to the judge, all the faces he didn't know.

"That's far enough-" Jared Poe is making words with the screams, with his fury and the impact of his fists against the walls of the coffin. "That's fucking far enough! I don't want to see any more!"

But there is so much more to see, so many more little supernovas going off behind his eyes, and every explosion is another secret he wants to keep from himself, another piece of the almighty shitty puzzle he's trying not to solve.

The cigarette and sweat smell of the police car, the handcuffs biting into his wrists.

"We ought to just drive over to Algiers," the cop in the passenger seat said. "You know that, Henry? We ought to just drive this faggot pervert son-of-a-bitch right over the river

"We ought to just drive over to Algiers," the cop in the passenger seat said. "You know that, Henry? We ought to just drive this faggot pervert son-of-a-bitch right over the river and let him suck on a gun. Blow his murdering brains out." The cop behind the wheel just laughed, is laughing still, like the frantic wings of black birds in burning cages, and Jared feels the metal of the coffin begin to buckle around him.

But not yet, for here comes the last and worst memory. He's climbing the stairs to their apartment on Ursulines, his and Benny's apartment, and he doesn't want to see but it's already out before there is any hope of denying the acid rush of images. His key wrestling with the stubborn lock, the door swinging open on so much red, red like lipstick and roses and carnations, oh, God just let it be anything but what he knows it is. The groceries he's carried from the French Market slipping through his arms, scattering across their foyer that smells like a slaughterhouse. The same smell as the time he did a shoot in a slaughterhouse, the red stench that had stayed in his nostrils for weeks afterward.

"I won't, I won't, I won't," he mutters, a helpless litany to gods he has never believed in. " I will not see this again."

The coffin bursts, shatters like something made of Elmer's glue and Popsicle sticks, and Jared is falling. A very short fall to the stone floor as hard, as cold and senseless, as the sight of Benny scattered across their bed, his hands and feet still neatly trussed, thoughtful Boy Scout knots joining wrists and ankles that are divided from everything else, from the careless litter of limbs and organs...

"Oh, fuck, oh, fuck me," Jared whispers through ragged sobs and oily tears that drip from his face and pool on the marble floor. "Benjamin," he sighs, and there is more pain in those three syllables than his body could ever hope to contain. The coffin shrapnel raining down around him clatters like brittle bones or jackstraws.

He isn't sure how much time has passed since he opened his eyes, since he began to breathe again. The tiny stained-glass window set high above the mausoleum door has gone from the darkest shades of green and cobalt blue to black, so he knows only that it's night now. Another night in this little city of the dead, and night in the world of living men beyond. Jared sits with his back against the stone wall and stares at Benny's coffin. This is all he has done for all the minutes or hours he hasn't bothered to count. He hasn't been able to bring himself to touch it, the mahogany glinting faintly in the gloom, the brass and rotted spray of flowers on its lid. He doesn't need to touch it to know it's real.

There comes the faint, sharp sound of scratching overhead. Jared looks up, realizes he's been hearing the sound all along, ignoring it the way he has ignored the aching emptiness in his stomach, the dryness in his throat. The way he has ignored everything but Benny's coffin, still sitting undisturbed beside the ruin of splinters and twisted metal that was his own.

Jared closes his eyes again. There are no more tears left in him to cry, only the hurt that rolls over and through him in endless ebony waves, battering him as smooth as the stone at his back. There is only hurt and loss and the bottomless, churning anger.

As he sits listening to the restless sounds above, busy little claws like Morse code or impatiently drumming fingers, Jared begins to comprehend that it is precisely this anger he must embrace now. This anger that will get him up and moving, that might hold some purpose. There can be no response to the loss he has suffered, no sane answer but oblivion, and now that's been stolen from him too. But the rage is a thing beyond him, a thing that wants out, a hungry beast that can be fed and sated.

All these things he hears hidden in the scratching at the roof of the mausoleum.

Now he remembers the dream of midnight wings, the dizzying dream of flight, and he rises on legs as stiff as scarecrow sticks. He stands in the dark and listens to his heart, to the faint rumble of traffic on damp streets, and the black bird calls to him.

If the door to the mausoleum was bolted, the crow has seen to that too, and as Jared pushes at the metal he feels the first hint of a physical strength he never knew in life. The tall door swings open as if it is made of plywood, disused hinges squealing loudly for a teeth-gritting instant. Then there is only the gentle sound of the light rain again, gathering on the roofs of the voiceless inhabitants of Lafayette Cemetery.

Jared looks back once, his eyes running over Benny's elegant coffin and the shattered mess where his own lay, before he steps out into the night. He pushes the door shut so he can't see anymore, so that nothing can get in. He lingers there a moment, his face pressed against the cold, wet metal, taking some vague comfort in the steady warmth of the raindrops. Then the bird caws, loud and harsh, and he turns around. The four steps leading up to the mausoleum are decorated with a scatter of votive candles and flowers in various stages of wilt and decay. Someone still comes here, he thinks. Lucrece, and maybe others-perhaps the core group of fans he retained after the incident, what the press called the "sicko contingent."

The bird lands on Jared's shoulder, damp feathers pressed against his neck as if
retained after the incident, what the press called the "sicko contingent."

The bird lands on Jared's shoulder, damp feathers pressed against his neck as if there were some shelter there. The night stretches out before him, past the cemetery walls, stretches the way a great sable tomcat would stretch. Something out there is vaster and more confident than this fetid city and its infinite corruptions, perhaps even vaster than his loss.

Jared begins to listen to what the bird has to say.

Sometimes, like tonight, the man in the big house by the river calls himself Jordan.

There is a river called Jordan in the Bible, and he likes the names of rivers. Sometimes he calls himself Joseph Lethe, for another river and what it means, and sometimes he's Stanley Hudson. But these are secret names that he never tells anyone-except those few he's chosen. Those he's sure will never be in a position to spread the word, to give away his names carelessly, like telephone numbers on filthy fag-bar rest room walls.The newspapers do not know his names. To them he is the Bourbon Street Ripper, a flashy moniker earned for the first one the cops found, years and years ago.

He is sure that name sells more papers than any of his real ones could. Lies always sell better than the truth. He always reads about what he has done in the papers, but he never saves the things he reads, the official police comments and the wild speculations of illiterate journalists. That, he thinks, would be like taking a trip to Manhattan and buying an I (heart) NY T-shirt.

Death is not cheap, despite what the world may believe or how it behaves. It is actually quite expensive; he has been able to finance his research only because his mother left him drilling rights to some land in Texas. Perverse to the end, she'd waited until after the oil bust to die, so there was not an enormous amount of money from the sale of the land. But it is enough. His needs are not great, except where his research is concerned. He will not cheapen death.

From his high window, the man who is Jordan tonight can see the river winding silent and powerful through the stormy night, a fat brown snake sliding between the levees. The most powerful thing in the world, a river like that.

He waits for another flash of lightning and closes the curtains before the thunderclap. There is unfinished work here, and he cannot remember what distracted him. Something at the window or down in the streets, but whatever it might have been, it's gone now and the one he brought home with him is waiting. He doesn't always bring Them home, only the very special ones, the ones who have gone all the way and so deserve more time, more attention. The ones that have the most to teach him about what They are, what abominations They have become.

Like this one: stretched out on the shiny steel operating table in the highest room of his house on the river. It watches him as he turns away from the window, watches him with wide eyes that are still very aware. He is always amazed at Their tolerance for physical and psychological pain. Another part of the mystery, another thing that excludes them from humanity and makes Them so dangerous.

But not half so dangerous as he. No, not even one quarter that dangerous.

This one, for example. This one with the Louisiana driver's license that claims its name is Marjory Marie West, that has an F recorded for its sex. This one that he's already started upon, but still it watches him, alert, aware, as if waiting for a chance to escape. As if there could ever be such a chance. Even though he sliced out its tongue before the Demerol wore off, cauterizing the slippery stump so it wouldn't bleed to death. Even though the tongue floats in its neat jar of formalin in plain sight. It's still hanging in there, this thing, and this is important.

The man runs bloody latex-gloved fingers through his oily black hair, pushes his straggly bangs from his flat blue-gray eyes. He selects a scalpel from his tray of surgical instruments.

Some of the instruments he has ordered from medical supply houses or bought as sets in antique stores. Others he has made himself, the ones he couldn't buy because no one's ever needed them before.

On the table, it watches him, this sexless creature that would hide itself in the world of men and women, the black and white world of opposites and opposition. He knows it is not merely evil, knows that's the sort of shit a crazy man might think.

There is no evil. Rather, it is alien, viral, and he must be careful in his campaign if he is to succeed. If the world is to be free of these monstrosities once and for all.

The man who is Jordan tonight checks the restraints, the strong leather straps and steel buckles. Soon he will pull back the sheet, all that hides its impossible body now that he has removed the deceiving clothes. And it watches him, and the thunder growls its useless protest from somewhere above the house beside the river.

Just because the man keeps no scrapbook doesn't mean he has no memories. A scrapbook would be tawdry, tasteless. There is nothing tasteless about the records he keeps in his head.

scrapbook would be tawdry, tasteless. There is nothing tasteless about the records he keeps in his head.

It's been seven years, seven long red years like a bolt of scarlet lace, since the sweltering August morning when his work first made headlines. That one had been a cross-dressing hustler known on the streets of the Quarter only as Josie, barely nineteen, though "she" could have passed for twenty-five Most of what he left was found stuffed into three garbage cans outside a tourist bar on Bourbon Street Most of what he left, because it had taken a lot of blood to cover the wal s of the filthy al ey next to the bar.

There had been no witnesses, but plenty of talk from the two garbagemen who found the dented cans crammed full of meat, and photographs of the parts he left hanging from a fire escape like strings of Christmas popcorn.

That wasn't his first, of course. Only the first that he'd wanted Them to see.

"There comes a point," he wrote in one of his yellow legal pads, "when you must show a little of yourself to the enemy in exchange for Their fear. Fear must surely weaken Them."

So four days later he left a second body in a hotel on Rampart, a fat transvestite named Petey, plump discard floating facedown in a tub of soapy water and blood, naked except for his precious lingerie and high heels. A hotel maid found this one. When the police were finally done with her, the man had read, she moved back to Chicago.

Petey's real name turned out to be Ralph Larkin, a happily married father of three who ran a hard-ware store in Metairie and was a long-standing member of a local chapter of the transvestite "sorority," Tri Ess.

The man can still remember how Petey begged for his life, how he swore he didn't know anything about the Invasion or the Cabal or even the Gay Mafia, but They all lie. Even the pretenders, the hetero pricks hiding hard-ons inside satin panties, the ones who only want to dress up in ladies' clothing and know they'll never be fit to cross over. Jordan suspects that They are all controlled by implants, nanites hidden in the sinus cavities or the rectums, miniscule robots that would look like BBs or bird shot, if he could ever find one. Jordan suspects that the nanites are programmed to teleport out of any body that is captured or killed. . . or perhaps they simply dissolve, leaving no trace.

It's almost midnight now, and the transsexual on the operating table has lost consciousness again. He has broken ammonia ampules beneath its nose three times already, shocking it back into the world, but this time it may be slipping away for good.

He sighs, lays aside the speculum and the long probe with fishhooks soldered along its length, and looks down at his notes. A dark smear of gore mars the close-ruled yellow paper, making it hard to read what he's written; Jordan knows he'll have to copy the page over again later.

Its chest abruptly expands, sucking air, revealing the faint crescent scars beneath the breasts.

The scars no one is supposed to see. But he sees everything. When it exhales, there's an uneven, wet sound from its chest. Its eyes flutter weakly open to gaze at him one last time. This one is very, very pretty, but he quickly and expertly pushes aside anything like sympathy. He's done enough experiments to know that the compassion and regret he sometimes feels are just chemically induced reactions, triggered by genetically engineered pheromones excreted in their sweat and tears.

"It's not too late," he says, although that's a lie, of course. It has been too late for this one since he bought it a drink just after sundown. "It's not too late to come clean. I can be merciful."

And then it's gone and Jordan is alone in the room, and there's nothing for him to think about but the smell of its bladder emptying on the tabletop.

His memories are as clear as the words he puts on paper.

Sometimes, when the answers he seeks seem forever out of reach, the memories are his only comfort. Reassuring memories of his resolve and his boldness and the harvests of his dedication.

Hardly a week after the fat man in the tub, Joseph Lethe picked up one of the Quarter gutter-punks, a baby queen he lured into his car with a vial of crystal meth and drove all the way to Arabi before he pulled over and put a bullet in the kid's head. He never asked for a name and the boy never volunteered one. The boy was wearing tacky thrift store drag, '70s retro polyester and a black wig that fell off when Joseph pulled the body from the passenger seat. He chained the corpse to the rear bumper of his car and drove unpaved back roads through the bayou until nearly dawn, the lonely places between cypress and tal whispering grass, no one to see but the birds and alligators.

He'd wrapped the raw and featureless thing in plastic and left it under an oak in Audubon Park.After that, he decided to become Jordan again for a while, as he watched the city begin to draw the connections he'd left for it to make. As he watched the fear settle over the Quarter's gay populace like a theater curtain falling halfway through a
city begin to draw the connections he'd left for it to make. As he watched the fear settle over the Quarter's gay populace like a theater curtain falling halfway through a film. He walked the streets and smelted the fear, like fresh pomegranates and old gardenias, as it ripened.

So there could be no mistaking his message, he did one more. A postoperative female-to-male transsexual, castrated, its surgically constructed genital abomination sewn up inside its mouth. That one had read his signs well enough, had even been interviewed by a local TV news crew investigating the Ripper slayings. That one had claimed there was someone preying on the city's transgendered community, a serial killer. Seeing that made Jordan proud: He hadn't been misunderstood by those that mattered. Never mind that the police were so fucking apathetic or incompetent they couldn't find their reflection in a mirror. The point was that They understood. They would spread the word that They were no longer free to infiltrate the city unopposed.

He'd meant to stop then, to slip back into his old habits. Taking the occasional strays and freaks, the ones that would never be more than missing persons, missing but not missed.

But the fleshy, sweet smell of Their fear was intoxicating. Now, sometimes, he thinks that might have been a trick to lure him into the open: an actual chemical They secreted to addict him. Given enough time, after all, even the cops might come around.

It had been like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube when he tried to stop the public displays. Instead, he hunted farther afield and less often. And the years rolled by and he has learned. Even if Their numbers have not diminished appreciably, at least They know that he knows.

And he knows that They are afraid of him, because if They weren't, he would be dead by now.

Jordan finishes cleaning up the vivisection table, runs all the instruments through the autoclave and puts away the new tissue samples, some floating in jars of formalin, others stored in Tupper-ware containers and stashed in the antique refrigerator rumbling noisily to itself in one corner of the room. After he has wrapped the transsexual's body in blue plastic garbage bags and duct tape, he returns to his seat by the window.

The man with river names opens the curtains again and looks down at the black crook of the Mississippi, the glittering lights of the city reflected in it. Later he will carry the body out to his car, but first he will allow himself time to reflect on what he has seen tonight. And the other things on his mind, the dreams he's started having: dreams of flying high above the infected city of New Orleans. Dreams of black feathers and a familiar face he can't quite seem to place.

A barge on its way to the Gulf of Mexico flashes a slow beacon, and he watches without blinking as it passes in the rainy night.

When she has finished her small dinner, the olives and French bread and dry bit of tuna fish, Lucrece clears the table, puts her dirty dishes in the sink, and sits down again, very still in the straight-backed wooden chair, watching the clock above the stove until the sun goes down. There's been rain off and on all afternoon, and now it's on again, spitting against the roof of the apartment.

The sound makes her sleepy, so she listens a little harder to the music from the stereo in the next room, Nick Cave like worn velvet wrapped around rusty gears growling "Do You Love Me?" So much sadness in that voice and those words, but so much courage too.

When the shadows have grown big enough and dark enough to fill the courtyard outside the window, Lucrece leaves the kitchen. Her bare feet are almost silent on the hardwood floors as she walks along the short hall leading to the big front room that looks out onto Ursulines. The persistent dark has found its way in here too. She takes a book of matches from the glass-block coffee table and lights a sandalwood-scented candle. The warm pool of light pushes the night back to the dusty corners of the room, and Lucrece pauses at her gaunt reflection in a mirror, the huge mirror in its ornate cherry frame, something Benny found in an antique store on Magazine Street and gave to Jared for his thirtieth birthday.

Lucrece cautiously touches her pale face, traces the hard lines of her high cheekbones, her full lips painted the same kohl black as her eyelids. She can see that the circles under her eyes have gotten a lot deeper since the last time she noticed, or maybe it's the way she's holding the candle. In this light she looks so much like him, the same pallor that Benny spent years cultivating. Lucrece wears it honestly, the dues of so many months spent away from the sun, of near-fasting. She has to close her eyes and turn away from the image in the mirror, the ghost-reflection of the woman her brother wore like a change of clothes: she cannot bear to see that reflection alive and breathing while he lies so cold and alone.

"Jesus," she whispers, standing motionless for a moment as the sickening blend of déjà vu and vertigo slowly fades. She concentrates on the sound of the rain, on the

"Jesus," she whispers, standing motionless for a moment as the sickening blend of déjà vu and vertigo slowly fades. She concentrates on the sound of the rain, on the words Nick Cave is singing in the dark apartment.

Benjamin and Lucas DuBois were born in Pike County, Mississippi, in a town so small and ugly it was usually left off the maps. Identical twin boys bom to a girl too young and frightened to care for them, and so when she finally ran off to Pensacola with a traveling evangelist, they went to live with their Great-aunt Isolde. She owned a rambling derelict of a mansion just off what passed for the town square, a house built twenty years before the Civil War and showing every sun-bleached decade of its age.

Their mother never returned for them, though sometimes she sent postcards. These were almost always gaudy religious scenes: their favorite was a 3-D picture of the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah. Hold it one way, and you could see a pair of wicked-looking spire-topped cities crumbling beneath angry skies; turn it the other way and the Hand of God hovered over a fiery orange mushroom cloud.

When she was a girl, Aunt Isolde had gone away to college in Starkville, and she taught the twins how to read and write before they turned four. She read aloud to them from the books that filled her house- Treasure Island and Wuthering Heights, all of Dickens, Dracula and Ivanhoe and Mark Twain. She taught them history and the lives of the saints, geography and a little French. In return, they wrote plays and acted them out for the old woman, raiding trunks for costumes, improvising their sets from the musty Victorian furniture.

One Christmas, the year they turned twelve and Aunt Isolde turned sixty-three, the twins performed two scenes from Antony and Cleopatra. They learned all their lines by heart and even made costumes on an old Singer sewing machine they'd found in the attic. Lucas played Cleopatra, and for the death scene they used a live rat snake they'd caught hibernating in the cellar. Aunt Isolde was delighted, shouting, "Bravo! Bravo!"

until she was hoarse.

More Christmases passed, and the pretty boys grew into prettier, disturbingly perfect teenagers, their hair dark as anthracite coal and their eyes the muted green of dogwood leaves at midsummer. They hardly ever left the house and its vast, overgrown yard except to run errands for Isolde, and they knew the rumors the people in town whispered behind their backs. How unnatural it was for two boys to be raised by an old spinster lady in her creepy old house, not even attending a public school, much less church. The townspeople had never liked Isolde anyway, because she'd kept herself apart from them even as a young girl, had spent too much time with books and not enough with boys.

Sometimes, as the twins were walking quickly along the red-dust road that connected their house with the rest of town, other children would hide in the bushes and throw rocks or dried-up cow pies at them, calling them sissies and weirdos.

Lucas always wanted to run, would tug at his brother's shirt sleeve and beg him not to stop, not to listen. But Benjamin did listen, and sometimes he stopped on the path and hurled the rocks back. Once he hit a boy named Jesse Ader-holdt in the head and Jesse and his friend Waylon Dillard chased them all the way back to the house.

When they reached the rickety old front gate, Lucas crying and screaming for help and Benjamin yelling at him to shut the hell up, Isolde was waiting with a baseball bat. Jesse and Waylon stopped in the road, stood safely out of reach shouting profanities while the old woman led the twins inside.

"You dried-up old cunt," they yelled. "You goddamned old witch! You better protect those little queers or we'll kill 'em." Then Waylon Dil-lard shouted that his daddy was in the Klan and, if he wanted, could have their house burned to the ground. Eventually they went away, skulking back toward town. But Lucas lay awake that night, thinking about fire. When he did drift off to an uneasy sleep just before dawn, he dreamed of men in white sheets on horses, and crosses burning.

The summer the twins turned sixteen, Isolde died of a heart attack in her sleep.

After the funeral, which no one else attended but the priest, some women came to the house with a sheriffs deputy and said the twins couldn't stay there alone. They were still minors, and they would have to go to foster homes-maybe two different foster homes, because it would be hard to find a family who'd take two teenage boys.

"We're gonna let you boys stay here until we talk to the social worker in McComb.

Give you time to get your things together and all," the deputy said. That night the boys took a few clothes and books and all the money Isolde had kept in a mason jar beneath the kitchen sink. Benjamin used kerosene from the toolshed to start the fire.

They left the suicide note Lucas had written nailed to a pecan tree.

They hid for a while in a blackberry thicket atop a hill half a mile south of town, held each other and watched the red glow of the burning house rage against the midnight sky, wiping out the stars. There were sirens, and Lucas imagined he heard men shouting. Neither of them said a word.

After a while they crawled out of the briars and walked away, through the woods
men shouting. Neither of them said a word.

After a while they crawled out of the briars and walked away, through the woods to the highway. The twins hitched a ride as far south as Bogalusa, where they bought bus tickets all the way to New Orleans.

The bedroom that was her brother's, and her brother's lover's, has become Lucrece's church. After, their grave, this is her holiest of shrines, and one by one she lights the dozens of candles until the room is bathed in soft golden light. Then she sits in her corner beside the canopy bed: another uncomfortable chair. She folds her arms about her chest, hugs herself tightly. She's put everything here right again, everything just exactly the way it was before the long nightmare began, the one she still hasn't woken from. The black-and-white photographs on the wall are the portraits Jared took of Benny in his latex and lace wedding gown, the corset underneath pulled so tight that Benny looks like an insect, so fragile, so easy to break.

These were the centerpieces in Jared's first big gallery show, the one that snagged him a write-up in the Village Voice, that caught the attention of collectors as far away as Amsterdam and Berlin: people with money to spend on art.

There were photographs of Lucrece in that show too, of her and Benny together, but she couldn't look at those anymore. Jared had posed them together, the twins as inverted mirrors, dressed in restraining costumes that recklessly, elegantly swapped their genders back and forth, that rendered them even more interchangeable than the work of their genes. By the end of the first shoot, eight hours on nothing but cigarettes and bottled water, Lucrece was nauseous, dizzy, and less certain of her tenuous identity than she'd been in years. She started crying and Benny held her until the world bled slowly into focus again.

Now she's staring at the photograph above Benny's dressing table, the steel frame shining dul y in the candlelight. Benny stretched out on a rough and crumbling concrete floor, his head turned so sharply to the side his neck might be broken, a satin blindfold hiding his eyes, his blackened lips parted ever so slightly. Sometimes Lucrece wishes for the strength to tear the photographs from the walls of the room, to burn them and this whole goddamned building with her inside. Set a cleansing, erasing fire, as she and Benny had done so long ago. In the life before, two lives before, when she was stil a frightened teenage boy cal ed Lucas on the run, with the future stretching out endlessly in front of them.

Now the future is a cinder-block wal that she could touch if she had the nerve, a cold dead end to the ever-narrowing avenue of her life.

But Lucrece knows she doesn't have the nerve, the strength to make that final gesture, to close the distance dividing her from her brother and put an end to the loneliness.

She has the strength to bear this pain forever if necessary, and the strength to hold these memories, and she wil ask nothing more of herself.

The clock on the chiffonier ticks off the last minute before midnight. Lucrece sits up straight and continues to pretend that she's only waiting for Benny to come home.

The setting sun was a hazy firebal sinking into the vast expanse of Lake Pontchartrain as the bus carrying Benjamin and Lucas crossed the causeway they thought would never end. It was like something from a fairy tale, something from one of the books gone to ash in Isolde's library, a bridge spanning the gap between their childhood and the dangerous, wonderful city that lay ahead.

At that moment Lucas leaned dose to whisper into his brother's ear the only thing he'd ever kept from his twin, the one secret so heavy he'd never imagined it would ever become words and cross his lips. But he understood that there was a wild magic in this crossing, and if he didn't speak it then, it might stay locked inside him forever. And after it was out, Benjamin only smiled his easy smile and kissed his brother on the cheek.

"Did you think we didn't know?' he said, and Lucas was too shocked to answer, too overwhelmed by his confession and Benjamin's casual response, by the world slipping past so fast outside the window of the bus. "Well, we knew. We thought you knew we knew."

Lucas managed to shake his head.

"Jesus," his brother sighed, an exasperated sound, but he was still smiling. "You can be a dense little thing, can't you?"

"Then you don't hate me for it?" Something slipped across Benjamin's face so fast Lucas almost missed it, anger put back in its black box before it could do him harm. Benjamin shook his head. "We're both freaks, Lucas. We're nothing like these others..." he whispered, motioning at the people in the seats around them. "And that's our power."

Lucas closed his eyes. As the bus rolled off the causeway and into New Orleans, Benjamin whispered an old story, one they had invented together years ago, about two identical fairy brothers, changelings left for human children and taken to be raised by a kindly old woman in a house ful of riddles and dust and fat scuttling spiders.

kindly old woman in a house ful of riddles and dust and fat scuttling spiders.

Lucrece is almost dozing in her chair when the tapping at the window begins, the French windows behind the bed and al its black linen drap-ings. At first she thinks that the sound must be coming from the door in the other room, someone knocking at the door to the apartment, someone wanting in, and she whispers his name before she can stop herself.

"Benny?"

Then the sound begins again, sharp, like smal stones hurled against the glass, almost hard enough to shatter it. Lucrece stands up. Her legs are weak and the smal hairs on the back of her neck are prickling, a cold sweat blooming wetly beneath her dress, across her forehead and upper lip.

There comes a rumbling sound like thunder, except Lucrece knows it isn't thunder; it is much too contained and close for thunder. It rol s slowly across the roof, and she looks up at the ceiling as the windows are blown open by a sudden violent gust. The candle flames flicker, and the room fil s with the smel s of rain and hot wax and ozone.

"Benjamin?" she says, louder this time. The storm seems to draw its breath, and for a moment there is only the sound of the rain coming in the window, falling on the bed and floor, peppering her face.

And then the sound of wings, and she almost screams as the huge crow lights on the headboard and the windows slam themselves shut behind it.

"Jesus Christ," she gulps. The bird caws loudly as if in reply, puffs out its black feathers and shakes tiny beads of water all over the damp bedspread. As it cocks its head to one side, beak like an assassin's dagger, Lucrece wonders what her sorrow has conjured from this haunted city, what dark spirit might have come to wonder at her vigil. She takes one step toward it, leaning forward. The crow blinks and caws again, spreads its ebony wings. Lucrece steps back and crouches at the edge of the bed.

"Who sent you?" she asks. "Who sent you to me?"

"Lucrece," a voice behind her says, a voice as familiar and as alien as anything she could ever imagine, a voice that carries everything it's felt and everything it's seen wedged fiercely between every word. She's too afraid to turn and see, her heart going mad inside her chest, but she knows that despite her fear she will have to turn around sooner or later. Like Orpheus or Lot's wife, never mind the penalty of seeing. The not-seeing is a thousand times more horrible.

"Jared," she says, whispers more quietly than a whisper. "Is it. . . ?"

"Yes, Lucrece," he says. "Yes," and she turns to see.

Jared has been fol owing the bird for what seems like miles, down the wet streets of leering, suspicious faces and cars that honked when he didn't get out of their way. He thinks that the bird has put something inside him, a burning thread so bright it could blind him and blot out the rest of the world, a hungry cutting thing that has dragged him through the storm to this place he never would have come on his own.

When the crow led him to the Quarter, he'd stood for a while across the street from the apartment, silently watching the bedroom window through the rain. He wondered at the dim flickering light visible through the lace curtains, at who might live there now that he was dead. Then the bird leaped into the air from its perch on the lamp post and the wire coiled inside Jared pulled taut again, and he followed the black wings.

Downstairs the security door was standing open, so that anyone might walk in off the street, any crackhead with a gun, or thief, or kil er. He'd pul ed it shut behind him and the iron bars clanged hard and hol ow like the door to a prison cel .

And now he stands in the doorway of the bedroom where Benny died, and Lucrece is on her knees in front of him. The crow is watching him from the bed. He feels the wire in his soul slacken and he swallows, still tastes the chemicals, still tastes stale death like a hangover, an aftertaste like old vomit and alcohol and cigarettes.

"Why?" he says. The voice seems to come from somewhere nearby, but not really from his throat or his tongue. Jared can think of nothing else worth asking, nothing else that could possibly matter except that one word, "Why?" and so he says it again.

Lucrece seems incapable of answering him, stares unbelieving and speechless.

She looks so much like Benny it hurts to see her there, Benny's impossible, identical female twin. Jared feels as if he's falling, holds on to the door frame for some support, but there's nothing to combat the vertigo sucking at his bare feet. The apartment, this fucking room, kept like an altar because she's too weak to let go. The bird seems to smile, and he wishes his hands were around its neck.

"Why, Lucrece?" he says in a mean growl that he can feel as well as hear. Jared closes his eyes, presses his forehead hard against the wall. He marvels that he feels the pressure of the hard wood against his brow. "What have you done to me?"

"Jared," she says again, repeats his name like something holy. When he opens his eyes, she's rising very slowly to her feet, moving as slowly as a dancer underwater.

She extends one hand tentatively toward him and he feels his knees begin to buckle, so
his eyes, she's rising very slowly to her feet, moving as slowly as a dancer underwater.

She extends one hand tentatively toward him and he feels his knees begin to buckle, so he grips the wall more tightly.

"You should have left me dead," he moans, the rage rising from his guts like puke, rage almost smothering his words. He slams his head into the door frame and Lucrece screams.

"You should have left me dead. I am dead and you should have left me dead."

"Jared, I didn't do this," she says. He knows all her courage comes from the fear that he might hurt himself again, might damage her precious voodoo prize from the grave, so he smacks his face against the wall. Something cracks and he leaves a dark smear of blood on the white paint.

"Yes, you did! You and your fucking magic games, Lucrece... you sent that fucking bird to dig me up."

"Jesus, no, I swear..." She's coming toward him as if her fear doesn't matter, as if there's simply no alternative left for her. Jared almost feels sorry for her, almost ashamed, if there was any way for him to reach those feelings through the suffocating anger. The candlelight glints off the tears running down her cheeks, off her bright, wet eyes. Then he is fal ing, final y, but he fal s very, very slowly. Sinking, so that by the time she crosses the room, he's huddled with his broken nose squashed against the wall, tasting his own blood.

"God, Jared." Lucrece puts her arms around him, pulls him close to her. He can smell her, tea rose and spice, her clean dress, her sweat, her fear crackling around him like an electric current. She holds him very tightly and when she speaks her voice sounds as weak as an old and dying woman's.

"I've never lied to you, Jared. You know I've never fucking lied to you..."

"But why, Lucrece? Jesus Christ, why?" Then there's a sudden, stabbing pain between his eyes, a raw and grating sound, and the flesh on Jared's face feels more than alive. It has begun to move and shift, and he thinks of maggots first, that maybe his skull's full of maggots where his brain used to be, and now they're eating their way out through his face. There's an audible pop as skin and bone and cartilage writhe. He sees that Lucrece has covered her mouth with one hand.

"Oh, Jared," she whispers, her voice swollen with terror and awe. He reaches up, expecting to find a thousand tiny larval bodies spilling from his nostrils, a cold gush of rancid fluid. Instead there's only his nose, his perfect, unbroken nose. Not even a drop of blood, and Jared stares at his fingertips as if they've betrayed him too, as if this is just another lie.

"What's happening?" she asks, her voice as brittle and jagged as a broken light bulb. He can only answer by pushing her away, shoving her so hard she loses her balance and sprawls over backward as he fights his way back to the solid, incontestable wall.The crow is still watching him from the bed. Jared imagines that he can see its hold on him, the shining wire running from its livid breast to his heart, strung like fishing line, the hook buried so deeply inside him he can never dig it out.

"You, you black motherfucker!" he screams. The bird blinks at him. "You did this, didn't you?" Jared's hands grab frantically at empty air, grappling for a link as intangible and undeniable as memory. "Let me go!" he screams, struggling to his feet. "Send me back where I belong!"

The crow only caws once, an annoyed, impatient sound, and hops a few inches farther out of his reach.

"Jared, please, stop." Lucrece is reaching for his ankles, sobbing as he kicks her unwelcome hands away. "Can't you hear what it's telling you? For God's sake, stop and listen to it, Jared."

But something inside him has burst, something ripe and festering, and the dark, acidic fury is out before he knows it's found a way. It pours from him in a wild and mindless flood and he tears a picture from the wall, only dimly aware of what he's holding, and hurls it at the black bird. The frame crashes against the footboard and explodes in a shower of glass and splinters.

Now he is staring into Benny's eyes, at the face in the ruined black-and-white photograph staring back at him. The shot that was printed in the Voice, Benny with his hands bound behind his back, out of sight, and the softest hint of a snarl on his lips.

The figure against a shadowy backdrop, blazing wings stretched wide behind him, stark projected wings that seem to grow from Benny's bare shoulders. Jared named the photograph The Raven, and Benny complained how obvious that was, and that it was a very dumb joke.

"Oh." His voice is just another bit of flotsam thrown out in the scalding cascade.

"Oh, fuck you."

"Please," Lucrece says, begging now. Begging him to please stop as he seizes the Tiffany torchere by the door and throws it like a spear made of bronze and stained glass, driving it through the center of the photograph. And he smiles for the crow now, a vicious razor smile so wide he thinks it might split his head in half, will
stained glass, driving it through the center of the photograph. And he smiles for the crow now, a vicious razor smile so wide he thinks it might split his head in half, will surely slice open the corners of his mouth. The bird squawks and retreats to the safety of the headboard.

"You think that's fanny? Huh, you think that's fucking funny?"

Then Lucrece is standing in front of him, putting herself between him and the crow, and his anger switches focus in the space between heartbeats.

"Get out of my way, bitch."

"No," she says, her voice low and firm and sounding male now, the way it sounded when Jared first met her and Benny at a gallery opening uptown. "No, I won't.

Whatever's happening here is happening for a reason, Jared."

"No, Lucas" he says, all the emphasis he can find loaded on top of that discarded name, such a simple, easy weapon lying there conveniently. Lucrece flinches but doesn't move. "It's just a fucking joke. Just a goddamned sick joke on all of us, by a sick-ass, twisted universe. Don't you get it, Lucas?"

"You know it's not," she says, glaring, and the heat gathering behind her eyes is almost a match for his anger.

"Jesus, you never did have a sense of humor." Jared turns away from her and rips another of his photographs from the wall, smashes it against the floor. The glass and steel cut his hands and they heal immediately, like flesh in a time-lapse film. He turns around again slowly, raising his palms so that she can see the gashes sealing themselves closed. So that he can see the look on her face.

"Then please, darling, by all means let me refresh your memory." Jared moves so fast he knows Lucrece doesn't see it coming, shoves her stumbling back into the bed.

He drives words at her like nails, each one sharper and harder than the last, as if his voice alone could crucify.

"'But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only... that one word, as if his soul in that one word did outpour. Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered-'"

Lucrece slaps him, the sound of her palm loud against his cheek, and Jared pauses in his recitation long enough to laugh at her, long enough to savor the stinging sensation her hand has left behind.

"Leave me alone," she growls. Jared slaps her back, hits her hard and she trips over the lamp and falls onto the bed. And he remembers now how good the violence can feel, the cleaning release, and he leans low over her like a movie vampire.

"Till I scarcely more than muttered: Other friends have flown before-'"

Lucrece drives her knee into his crotch and uses her other foot to push him off of her. "I said to leave me alone, you son of a bitch!"

Jared releases her, falls in a heap at the foot of the bed, crumples next to what's left of the lamp and The Raven. Lucrece rolls off the bed, breathless, expecting another attack and ready for it this time. But Jared doesn't move, just stares blankly at the photograph, at the torn ghost of Benny still trapped inside the remains of the frame.

The crow silently watches them both from its perch on the headboard.

"I didn't kill Benny," Jared says, speaking to Lucrece or to no one at all, his anger spent for the moment. The sound of his voice makes her shiver despite the adrenaline hammering through her veins, such a flat and hollow sound, like someone speaking from the bottom of a deep, dry well.

When she answers him, she speaks as carefully, as soothingly, as she can manage.

"I know that, Jared."

"Yeah," Jared says, "I know you do." He starts pulling the photograph out of the broken frame, brushing away powdered glass from the image of his murdered lover, her murdered brother. The crow caws again, flaps its wings loudly, but Jared doesn't look.

Instead he stares down at beautiful, lost Benny.

"Jared, you can understand what it's saying, can't you?"

His head turns very slowly toward her, as if he's reluctant to look away from the photograph for even a moment, as if he's afraid it might dissolve. His eyes are as far away and empty as the sound of his voice, and she wants to hold him again, wants release from all these months she's spent alone, no company but her own selfish, devouring sorrow. But Lucrece does not move, glances instead at the bird.

"It's brought you back," she says, "to find out who did do it, and stop them from ever doing it again."

The crow seems to regard her warily, maybe a glimmer of mistrust in its small and golden eyes, and so she says to it, "Am I wrong?"

"No, Lucrece," Jared says, answering before the bird has the chance. "You're not wrong. I can hear it too. I don't want to, but I can hear it just fine."

"I can help you," she says, still watching the crow, the mistrust mutual now. "If I can understand what it's saying, then I can help you. I know things about what

"I can help you," she says, still watching the crow, the mistrust mutual now. "If I can understand what it's saying, then I can help you. I know things about what happened to Benny, things they wouldn't let me say in court."

The crow flies the short distance to the foot of the bed and perches on the footboard above Jared, looks from him to Lucrece and back to him again, its eyes as sharp as its beak, somehow nervous and confident at the same time.

"I can't let you get involved in this, Lucrece," Jared says, hugging the photograph to his chest now, stroking its smooth surface as if there is something there more precious than mere paper.

"Bul shit," she answers. "I'm already involved."

He can't think of anything to say to that, nothing that would convince her, but he knows well enough that she can't follow where he has to go. So Jared Poe sits quietly on the floor of the room and listens to the rain falling outside on Ursulines and the less comforting rhythm of his Lazarus heart.

two

Detective Frank Gray has been watching the Weather Channel for the last half hour, too drunk to give a shit that he's seen the same local weather report three times already; too drunk to bother changing it over to something else. He takes another long swallow of Jim Beam directly from the pint bottle and returns it to the safe cradle between his legs. At least the bourbon still feels the way it should, the only thing left in his life that hasn't found some way to betray his trust. It burns reassuringly in his belly, adds its part to the mist he keeps between himself and the world. There's a tropical storm somewhere in the Gulf, a great spinning swirl of white against blue on the satellite photographs. He's managed to understand that much. But the storm and any threat it might represent are far away from him, like everything else, like the rain drumming steadily against the window of his shitty apartment. Frank takes another drink from his bottle, sweet fire in his mouth, blazing down his throat. He closes his eyes when it reaches his stomach, and in the drunken darkness the hustler is there waiting for him.

The kid said he was twenty-one, and Frank knew it was a lie but didn't push the issue. He'd gone into the bar after his shift for a beer, the first drink on his way down into the long drunk of the weekend. It was a nameless place on Magazine Street, just a sign that read bar and a neon four-leaf clover over the door, neon beer signs in the dark windows, Patsy Cline on the jukebox. Frank ordered a Bud and was sipping it at the bar when he noticed the kid watching him from a corner booth, sitting there alone, an army surplus duffel bag occupying the seat across from him. When he looked back a few minutes later the kid was still there, still watching him. There was a bottle on the table, though he didn't seem to be actually drinking from it.

And then the kid smiled at him, a practiced shy smile, and looked back down at the table, picked at the label of his beer bottle.

The pushy, nervous voice in his head said, No, Frank. We don't shit where we eat, man, but he'd learned a long time ago how to keep that voice in its place. It was only another minute or two before he went over to the kid's booth.

Up close the kid looked a little bit older than he had from the bar. Blond hair shaved down to his scalp, Huck Finn freckles under his eyes and across the bridge of his nose.

His eyes were the vacant blue of an October sky.

"Hi," Frank said. The boy said hi back to him, looked up for just a second, a quick smile for Frank before he went back to picking the label off the half-empty bottle of PBR. Frank pointed at the duffel bag and asked, "Coming or going?"

"Coming," the kid answered. "I just got in from Memphis this afternoon. On the bus."

"Memphis, huh," Frank said, and before he could say anything else the kid whispered, "So, you want a blow job, mister? I'll blow you for twenty bucks."

Frank glanced over his shoulder, automatic caution. The place was empty except for the two of them and an old woman sipping a Bloody Mary at the far end of the bar.

The bartender was on the phone and had his back to them.

"Jesus, kid, you don't waste any time, do you?"

The kid shrugged, pulled the rest of the label off the brown beer bottle. "What's the point in beating around the bush?"

"I might be a cop," Frank said.

The boy smiled, smoothed the ragged label on the tabletop. "Oh, you're not a cop.

You don't even look like a cop. I've given cops head before, and you don't look like a cop to me."

"Real y?" Frank sipped at his own beer, glanced over his shoulder again. The old woman was saying something he couldn't understand to the bartender, who was still on the phone and ignoring her. "Maybe you should be a little more cautious."

The boy sighed then, looked up at Frank, and all the flirt and pretense was gone from his face, a hint of annoyed impatience at the corners of his mouth.

"Look, man. I gotta take a piss. If you want a blow, I'll be waiting for you in the
from his face, a hint of annoyed impatience at the corners of his mouth.

"Look, man. I gotta take a piss. If you want a blow, I'll be waiting for you in the John, okay?"

As the boy stood up and pushed past him Frank stammered, "Yeah, uh, sure," but the kid was already halfway to the rest room door.

If asked, Frank Gray would be hard put to think of anything he had ever wanted but to be a cop. He spent his childhood on a steady diet of television police dramas, everything from syndicated episodes of Hawaii Five-O and Dragnet to Starsky and Hutch and Baretta, Police Story, Mod Squad. These were his cowboys, his heroes, his models of what was good and what was masculine.

And, if asked, he would also be hard put to remember a time when he was not attracted to men: these men in particular, with their navy blue uniforms and shining badges and forceful self-assurance. He never passed through a time of sexual confusion, the tentative courting of girls he wasn't actually attracted to, the belated discovery that men and only men were the proper object of his sexuality. Everything was clear from the beginning, and he never saw any conflict between the objects of his lust and his desire to be a cop.

But this naivete did not even survive his academy training. He didn't need anybody to pull him aside and tell him, "Frank, faggots are not welcome on the force." He saw the hatred in his fellow cadets and recognized it for what it was, absorbed an acute awareness of the silence he would have to keep like priestly vows of celibacy if he was to have both these things, sex with other men and the badge, without having to endure any lessons firsthand. He saw others who were not so sharp, and that was enough for Frank.

By the time he came on the New Orleans PD as a beat cop in the Fifth Ward he understood the fine line he would have to walk, and he kept his arms out straight, placed one foot carefully in front of the other. Shortly after he entered the force two officers were busted after trading leniency for sexual favors from male hustlers in the Quarter. Before their subsequent hearings and dismissal Frank saw the other things that happened to them-the threats and beatings and humiliation-and he took note.

Four years later he was promoted to the rank of homicide detective, four long years he'd spent walking the walk, talking the talk, and satisfying his hungers with his hands and pornography, and even the pornography was a big risk. He knew that, and he kept his magazines in a locked strongbox in the back of a closet and never bought anything from the local newsstands or porn shops. Everything arrived at a post office box he kept in Bridge City under a false name, sexual care packages in anonymous brown paper, the magazines and videocassettes that served as surrogates for anything like actual companionship or satisfaction.

He learned the masquerade, the smoke-and-mirrors game, and prided himself that no one suspected a thing. He dated fictitious women. Whenever the guys were going on about some woman or another, Frank was always right up front, his lines as well rehearsed as any actor's on opening night. "Oh, man, did you see the titties on that bitch?" somebody would say, and Frank would clutch at his crotch and grin on cue. He knew every queer slur and joke, excelled in the phony swish and lisp and limp-wristed pantomime. He had looked the other way on more than one occasion when he saw cops beating up on fags. The machismo was just another part of his uniform, after all, just as easy to put on and take off again as his hat and shoes, and if there were ever doubts, well, that's what confession was for.

It was all easy enough to rationalize. If they'd just show a little fucking self-restraint, if they'd act like men, nobody would know and this shit wouldn't happen to them.

But sometimes he would catch a glimpse of his thin face in the bathroom mirror or a store window and there would be only the mask, no vestige left of the man hiding underneath. He would have to stop then, would have to lean against a wall or sit down until the vertigo passed. There was a ballooning sense that he was somehow slipping out of himself, that the man he saw reflected had already consumed the real Frank Gray. And even this was something small enough to dismiss. Shit, it was a stressful fucking life and he couldn't expect not to feel it every now and then. He told himself it was just something else that came with the territory and if he had to have a few drinks before bed to keep the nightmares away, so be it.

The boy in the bathroom stall smelled like sweat and sunlight, and Frank tried hard to concentrate on those delicious smells instead of the sour stink of urine and deodorant cakes. He sat on the toilet seat, his hands savoring the soft bristle of the kid's scalp, holding back, wanting it to last, knowing it might be weeks before he allowed himself anything this wonderful again, weeks before he was desperate enough to risk it.

When he finally came, Frank leaned over and kissed the kid's scruffy hair, tasted salt and Vitalis. Tiny bursts of orgasm still lingered somewhere between his dick and his brain, and he didn't want to open his eyes, let in the ugly light of the rest room, the uglier reality of his situation.

"Jesus, I knew you were a fucking cop," the kid said, and when Frank did open his eyes the kid was holding his service revolver, had slipped it from its ankle holster and was

"Jesus, I knew you were a fucking cop," the kid said, and when Frank did open his eyes the kid was holding his service revolver, had slipped it from its ankle holster and was pointing it at Frank's chest.

"So, since you went and lied to me, maybe I got a little bit more coming to me than just the twenty, huh?"

Frank swallowed, his mouth and throat gone suddenly dry, feeling like a goddamn fool, stupid enough to let this punk catch him off guard, his pants around his ankles and his shriveling dick dripping cum into the toilet bowl, the barrel of his own gun aimed straight at his heart.

"Just give that back to me before someone gets hurt, okay?" Like he really thought there was any chance of that happening.

The kid shook his head and smiled, used the back of his free hand to wipe his mouth, careful not to take his eyes off Frank.

"What?" Frank asked him, fear and exasperation fighting for control of his voice.

"You think you're actually gonna shake down a policeman with his own fucking gun and get away with it?"

"Do all the other little piggies know you're a faggot?" the boy said. Frank punched him hard in the face, sent him crashing backward into the locked door of the stall.

The revolver tumbled from his hand and clattered loudly on the filthy tiles. He grabbed the kid by the collar of his T-shirt, slammed his head hard against the door.

The boy slumped into a whimpering heap. Frank moved slowly, reaching for the gun with one hand and pulling up his pants with the other. He shoved the .38 back into its holster before he stood up and kicked the kid once in the stomach, once in the face for good measure.

"You stupid little shit. If I ever see you again... if I ever so much as fuckin' see you again, motherfucker, they'll be dragging the river for the parts the alligators didn't want. Do you understand me?"

The kid coughed out a mouthful of blood and Frank Gray kicked him in the guts again.

"Answer me, fucker."

The boy managed a choked strangling sound and half a nod. Frank kneeled beside him and stuffed the twenty he'd earned into a back pocket.

"I'm going back out there, and I'm going to finish my beer. You're going to stay right here for a while." Without waiting for a response, he left the kid curled fetal and moaning beside the toilet.

Frank takes another drink from his bottle and watches the lazy counterclockwise spiral of the storm tracking across his television screen. The weatherman points to the tattered delta and barrier island coast of Louisiana and says something Frank can't hear because he's turned the sound down all the way. It's better to hear the rain, he thinks, better just to listen to the fucking incomprehensible rain.

He's always heard stories of hustlers robbing cops, stealing guns and badges when the cop wasn't looking, or trying to blackmail them later on. Fuck that, he thinks drunkenly, remembering the fear and surprise shining like a fever from the kid's eyes.

Fuck that to hell and back again. But there's another voice in his head, the voice that tried to stop him from speaking to the boy in the first place. Sometimes the alcohol muffles it to a whisper, but now it's loud and it says, Yeah, it's easy for you to talk that macho crap now, Frank Gray. But you were ready to shit yourself today, weren't you, buddy?

Frank fumbles for the remote control and turns the volume back up until he can't hear anything above the meteorologist's nasal voice

The heavy drinking began a couple of months before his promotion to detective, when Frank was still just a beat cop working the Iberville projects east of Canal Street.

His partner was a young black woman named Linda Getty, a rookie he'd been working with only a few weeks when they got the call, what he would always remember as the Bad Call. It was a rainy Shrove Tuesday and for Frank that afternoon would mark the moment that his descent began, his piecemeal disintegration to this place of self-loathing and boozy rot.

"This domestic shit is the worst," Frank said.

Linda nodded, flicking the butt of her cigarette out the window of the squad car as he answered dispatch.

"Yeah, we're only a couple of blocks from there now," he said into the radio handset, and turned the car around. Now, whenever he thinks back on the four or five minutes before they reached the maze of tenements bordering St. Louis No. 1

Cemetery, it always seems that there was some vague sense of foreboding, something more urgent than the usual dread of getting himself in between two people who hate each other as bad as married couples can. But that's probably bullshit and he knows it, like someone seeing St. Paul in a bowl of gumbo just before they almost choked to death on a crab shell, making something out of nothing for the sake of consolation.

like someone seeing St. Paul in a bowl of gumbo just before they almost choked to death on a crab shell, making something out of nothing for the sake of consolation.

"I know you must have heard this a hundred times in training," he said to Linda, talking fast like he always did when he was nervous, "but this mundane shit is a hundred times more dangerous than, say, robbery calls or drug busts. At least you go into those expecting someone to take a shot at you or something. Shit like this, you just never fucking know what to expect."

"I hear you," said Linda, trying to sound tough and sure of herself. The way that Frank remembers it, he wished she really did.

A small crowd had already gathered by the time they pulled up outside the graffiti-covered red brick building, people in the muddy yard and a few standing in the street looking at something on the blacktop. Distrusting, resentful faces turned toward them as they got out of the car. Frank remembers thinking that at least the rain had stopped.

"What the hel you gonna do about this?" a woman said, a short woman almost as wide as she was tal , with mint-green curlers sprouting from her hair. Frank could hear a man's voice from one of the apartments, loud and crazy.

"You folks need to go on home," he started, and then he heard Linda gasp, the sound someone makes when they've just seen something a hundred times worse than they've ever imagined anything could possibly be.

"Don't you be tel in' me to hush up and go away," the fat woman scolded, strident, angry. "I done asked you what you gonna do about this!" But Frank had already turned his back on her, was staring at Linda standing on the other side of the car, one hand over her mouth and her voice filtered through her fingers.

"What is it?" he asked. "What's wrong?" But she was already pointing at the thing he'd noticed in the street as they'd pulled up to the curb. A fucking dead cat, he thought. Jesus, she better not be pul ing this scene on me over a goddamn dead cat in the fucking road.

Linda fumbled for her cigarettes, lit one and inhaled frantically to keep from vomiting, a trick he knew well. "Frank!' she mumbled, "Oh, God. Oh, look at it."

He stepped around the back of the patrol car, trying to keep his eyes on the restless onlookers and the general direction he'd heard the man's voice coming from, trying to get a better look at whatever his partner saw lying in the street.

It wasn't a cat. He saw that a second later, a glimpse of the small brown body between the figures huddled around it, naked skin and sticky red smeared across the blacktop. The baby was maybe six months old, and Frank didn't have to ask to know that a car had run over its head.

Linda was leaning against the car, coughing, repeating, "Oh, God, oh, God," over and over like a prayer between puffs, like maybe there was some way to forget what she'd just seen, a trick that would allow her to unsee it. Someone in the crowd laughed then, a dry, hard laugh that Frank remembers as clearly as the broken body. And then the first gunshot and he could move again, the spell broken. He remembers yelling at Linda to get her shit together, pull it together right then or he was going to kick her fucking ass.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, wiping her mouth and reaching toward her holster.

"But Jesus, Frank..."

"There ain't nothin' you can do for that poor child," the fat woman shouted at them from the other side of the patrol car. "You best be worryin' about the ones he ain't killed yet." And Linda glared at the woman, squinted through the tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, spilling down her cheeks.

"Listen to the lady," Frank said. He leaned past his partner into the car, trying to sound calm as he grabbed the radio mike. "Hey, we need some fucking backup out here!"

He paused before going on, took a deep breath and wondered if the operator could hear his heart pounding away in his chest, could smell the blood and adrenaline straight through the radio.

The man who had fired the shots was waiting for them on the second floor, had barricaded himself inside with his girlfriend and her three children. One of the kids was the dead baby in the street- the fat woman had told them that when Frank had finished radioing for backup. The guy's name was Roy and he'd been smoking crack all day. The fat woman had also told them that. They both drew their guns before starting up the iron-and-concrete stairs to the second floor, where they crouched just past the top of the stairway, Linda pressed flat against the wal , Frank a few feet closer to the door, a lot more exposed.

Almost five minutes had passed since he'd called for assistance and they still hadn't even heard so much as a siren. Frank's hands were sweating, slick around the grip of his pistol. They could clearly hear the man and woman inside, screaming at each other, and the terrified voices of the children, but there had been no further gunfire. On the way up Frank had glimpsed movement through a broken window. He'd guessed it was the same window from which the baby had been tossed.

"Shit," Linda hissed behind him. "Where the fuck are they, Frank? We shouldn't even be up here without backup."

"Just shut up a minute, okay?" he snarled at her, bracing himself against the iron
even be up here without backup."

"Just shut up a minute, okay?" he snarled at her, bracing himself against the iron railing, setting himself up for a clear shot if the door to the apartment opened and there was anything at all in that asshole's hands.

When he shouted to the people inside, he could hear the strain in his voice, the fear coiled there. It made him feel almost as sick as the sight of the dead kid had, the tire tread pattern pressed into the pulpy mess where its brain and skull had been.

"Roy? Roy, can you hear me in there? This is the police. Put down your weapon and open the door before anybody else gets hurt-"

"Hey, fuck you, motherfucker!" a male voice boomed from behind the door. The black paint was coming off the metal door in big, ugly flakes, and Frank could see a lighter, older shade of black revealed underneath. He remembered these details so clearly.

"I ain't doing nothin' for no goddamn City of New Orleans cops! You gonna get your lyin' cracker ass back into your police car and leave me the hell alone or I'll blow this bitch's brains out!" And then the woman screamed again.

"Jesus, Frank, where the hell are they? They shoulda fucking been here twice already."

He didn't have an answer for her, but he knew they were in over their heads.

"I don't know, okay?" he whispered, struggling to sound calm against the panic gathering in his belly, filling his insides like cold lead. "But we're going to have to back off and just wait..."

"Back off and wait for what, Frank? Nobody's coming, and he's ready to kill those people in there. There are children in there, for Christ's sake."

"Hey, motherfucker!" the man's voice boomed again, a ravening, mad-dog voice that Frank knew there could never be any reasoning with. No answer to that voice except force, force enough to kill before it would back down. "Are you deaf or what? I said, get the hell off the goddamn stairs or I'm gonna pop this bitch in the fuckin' head!"

"It doesn't matter," Frank said, speaking to Linda as loudly as he dared. "There's nothing we can do by ourselves." He called out to the man behind the door, "Okay, Roy, we're going to back off now and leave you alone just like you said. But I want you to do some-"

And then the shotgun made a sound like thunder trapped inside a metal box and wanting out, tearing its way free, and the black door was blown completely off its hinges. There was no time for them to get out of the way-Frank saw that at the same instant he saw Roy raising the Mag-10 Roadblocker for another shot. The woman was sprawled at his feet. Frank could see that she'd been caught between Roy and the door when the monster Ithaca semiautomatic had gone off, that the blast had cut her in half.

Roy was covered in the woman's blood, and the air was thick with smoke and a settling crimson mist.

"Stay down!" he screamed at Linda, stealing precious seconds to aim before he fired his revolver twice, both shots catching Roy cleanly between the eyes. The huge man jerked backward and his spasming fingers squeezed the Roadblocker's trigger one last time, but the shot went wild, blowing a hole in the ceiling above his head, adding plaster dust and more smoke to the haze already billowing from the doorway of the project apartment. Roy stumbled backward, tripped over a coffee table, and fell dead to the floor."Mother Mary..." Frank whispered, but he couldn't even hear his own voice for the ringing in his head, the smothering echo of the shotgun.

"Are you okay back there? Linda, are you okay?" She didn't answer, but he was already up and moving, advancing on the doorway, the barrel of his .38 not moving from Roy's prostrate form. He'd fallen backward and both his feet were sticking up in the air, his expensive athletic shoes soaked in blood, his own blood and the woman's.

Frank stepped carefully past the buckled, broken door; the hole blown in the center was as big as his fist and he knew it was fucking amazing he wasn't a dead man. He stepped over the shredded mess slumped in the door, something that had been a human being hardly a minute before. The floor was slippery and he steadied himself by leaning against a wall. That was covered with blood as well, and his hand came away red and sticky. There was no sign of the other children. Frank guessed they were hiding somewhere in the apartment.

"Linda, I could really use your help up here," he shouted, leaning cautiously over Roy's corpse. "We gotta find these kids."

He noticed that there were two neat punctures just above the bridge of Roy's nose, a widening pool of blood and gray matter on the floor beneath his head. Both of his eyes were wide open, staring blankly up at the ceiling or God or his killer. The shotgun was still clutched in his hands.

"Linda? Did you hear me?"

When she finally answered him it was a weak, uncertain sound. He looked slowly over one shoulder, reluctant to turn his back on this crazy man even now, even when there was absolutely no way he would be getting up again. Frank stared out through the
over one shoulder, reluctant to turn his back on this crazy man even now, even when there was absolutely no way he would be getting up again. Frank stared out through the clearing fog of smoke and dust, the doorway of the apartment gaping like a ragged exit from some backwater recess of hell.

Linda was sitting at the top of the stairs, her back against the brick wall of the building, surrounded by a spreading puddle of her own blood.

"I think I got hit," she said, her words already mired in dulling shock. "Frank, I think the bastard shot me."

Frank almost slipped in the dead woman's intestines on the way out, barely managed to catch himself. Even from a distance he could see the blood jetting from the wound in Linda's thigh, bright red arterial gouts in time to her heartbeat, spilling her life out onto the dirty concrete. Linda was staring at the wound dumbstruck, as if it amazed her, as if it was the most incredible thing she'd ever seen but no part of her, nothing that could have happened to her.

When he reached her Frank dropped to his knees and looked at the hole, her brown skin and pink muscle chewed to hamburger. He had no idea how the blast could have missed him and caught her until he saw the jagged piece of shrapnel sticking up out of the wound, a piece of the door that must have sailed right by him.

"Listen, I've got to get you an ambulance," he said, stripping off his shirt for a pressure bandage.

"And while I'm gone you're going to have to keep some weight on this." She nodded listlessly. She's gonna fucking die right here, Frank thought as he wrapped his shirt tightly around the hemorrhaging wound. She's gonna bleed to death right here before I even get to the fucking car to cal for help.

"I think I'm okay," she slurred. "It doesn't hurt that bad. I think I can walk."

"Shut up, Linda," he said, tying the sleeves of the shirt, finishing the bandage. "If you don't sit still and keep pressure on this leg you're not gonna have to walk anywhere ever again. You'll have angels to carry you wherever you want to go."

She looked at him, blinked, and smiled, a stupid junkie kind of smile. Then she was pulling something off her finger, pressing it into his blood-smeared right palm.

"Please, Frank," she said, "tell Judy I'm sorry, okay? Tel her I stil love her. You'l do that, right?"

He stared down at the ring, a simple white gold ring, trying to understand what she was saying to him.

"If something happens... if I don't make it. . . you tell Judy I said I was sorry." Linda folded his fingers closed around the wedding band.

Frank took a deep breath, knowing there was no time for his surprise or the pampering of his own fears. The bandage was already soaked through. He put both her hands on it and pressed down hard, and she almost passed out. He slapped her cheeks until she was conscious enough to keep her own hands over the shotgun wound.

"You keep your hands right there, Linda, and you're gonna be just fine. Ain't nothing gonna happen to you if you do what I say. Do you understand me?"

"Yeah," she said, sounding very faint and far away from him. "Yeah, I know what you mean, Frank."

"I'l be right back, I swear. I'm only going as far as the patrol car, okay?"

"Yeah," she said, and he left her there and descended the steps to the crowd of people still milling about in front of the building. The fat woman with the green curlers looked at him and grinned, showing a bright silver tooth right up front.

"You leave anyone alive up there, young man?" she asked him as he stepped between their bodies. He didn't reply, ignored them all. It had started to rain again while he and Linda were upstairs and he felt the drops cold against his skin, washing him clean. He gripped the ring in his hand and walked toward the car, praying to no God he believed in that he could at least reach it before he puked, praying that he could get help before she died alone up there.

As he reached the curb there was the sound of thunder off toward the river, a rumble like muffled shotgun fire, and the urgent wail of approaching sirens.

Linda Getty didn't die, but she almost lost her leg and would walk with a limp for the rest of her life. Frank visited her only once in the hospital, when he returned the white gold ring to her. Linda accepted it as if she were taking back a confession. She was in fact doing something very much like that, Frank knew. Linda resigned from the force while she was still struggling through physical therapy, and Frank moved effortlessly up to homicide.

But not before he learned that there had been at least two squad cars within minutes of their location in the Iberville projects that afternoon. Both had reported engine trouble to dispatch when the call for assistance had come in over their radios.

And when Frank got back to the station that day, he found that someone had spray-painted dyke in fat red letters across the front of Linda's locker and taped used and bloody tampons to the locker's door.

painted dyke in fat red letters across the front of Linda's locker and taped used and bloody tampons to the locker's door.

He stood looking at it for a while, his old familiar fear of discovery wrestling an outrage he'd never felt before, not in all those times when he'd gone along with the idiot queer jokes or turned the other way when someone was roughing up a fag, all those times he'd played along for fear of arousing suspicion and drawing the bullies' wrath his way. He stared at the desecrated locker and saw Linda Getty slumped limp against that wall, her life pumping out of her, the blood staining her blue cop pants black. She hadn't even fucking cried, had calmly slipped the ring off her finger.

Tel her I stil love her.

The ring was still tucked in his shirt pocket, and the sticky blood staining its smooth metal surface was so much like the crimson graffiti slur splashed across the locker door. Later Frank would know that if each man is given only one moment when redemption is somewhere within his reach, that moment in the locker room had been his, his one chance to change the course of his life. A handful of seconds when everything was suddenly made so clear, as simple as the resigned tone of Linda's voice coming through the pain and shock.

And then Donovan said something behind him, "You gotta be careful who you ride with, Frank," just like that, and the anger rising inside him was drowned in the fear, the cold, watery fear that had put out so many fires before and would smother a thousand more. Frank turned and faced Joe Donovan, a heavyset man with acne scars, and the words were on his lips, the right words, but when he spoke they slipped away and all that came out was, "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you can't be too careful, can you?"

"No," Joe Donovan said, "you sure as hel can't, buddy." He smiled with the reaffirmation that he was speaking to one of his own, someone who understood that sometimes sacrifices had to be made for the sake of maintaining a greater purity. "It wasn't nothing personal, Frank. You know that."

"Yeah," Frank replied, "yeah, sure."

So the next day, hung over and exhausted from long hours filled with drunken nightmares where he was forced to face down Roy the psycho crackhead again and again, Frank went to see her and return the ring. When he arrived there was another woman in the room, a skinny white girl with a jewel in her right nostril and tattoos on her arms. Linda whispered something to the girl and she left them alone, glancing suspiciously at Frank as she passed him on her way out to the hall.

Linda's eyes were as glazed with the painkillers as they had been with pain the day before, her voice flat and raw, sludgy. She blinked at him and attempted to smile. Frank fished the ring from his pocket. He'd washed the blood off it, and it shone dully in the white light of the hospital room.

"Thank you," she croaked.

Frank shrugged. "No problem. Hey, they treating you all right in here?"

"Everything a girl could ask for." She did smile then, a tired and honest smile that made him glance down at the scuffed toes of his shoes.

"Well, you let me know if you need anything. I gotta get back to the station. All the goddamn paperwork from yesterday. You know how that shit goes." She nodded, then reached out and touched his hand.

"Frank, you did know, didn't you?"

He didn't answer, looked nervously from his shoes to her to the door, just wanting to get the hel away.

"No," he said, and that part was the truth, he hadn't.

"Shit. I'm sorry. I thought everybody knew."

"You just rest and get better, okay?" he said. The girl came back then and stood in the doorway, silently announcing that his time was up.

"Thanks," Linda croaked again. "You saved my ass out there."

"Hey, just doing my job, right?"

"See you soon," she whispered as the drugs pulled her back down toward unconsciousness, releasing him, his duty done. Frank made it all the way to the elevator before he started shaking so badly that he had to sit down.

He often dreams about Roy the psycho crackhead these days. A very simple dream, a short-subject sort of dream where he's watching from somewhere outside himself but still close enough to smell the gunpowder and his own terrified sweat.

The details are always so much clearer than anything was that afternoon in the projects, edited and retouched for his viewing pleasure. The loud, mechanical sound of the Roadblocker ejecting the spent shell and chambering the next, the one with his name on it. The parchment yellow nicotine stains on Roy's teeth. The blue-gray loops of the dead woman's exposed intestines.

Sometimes in the dreams it all goes down the same way it did the first time and Roy takes two in the head before he can get off another shot. But sometimes it goes other ways-Frank's revolver jams, or he's one second too slow, or his aim is just a few

Roy takes two in the head before he can get off another shot. But sometimes it goes other ways-Frank's revolver jams, or he's one second too slow, or his aim is just a few inches too far to the left or the right-and old Roy gets his second chance after all. The blast never hurts, or at least Frank never remembers the pain when he's finally awake and dripping cold sweat in the safety of his bed. There's only the impact, the mangling, bone-crushing force that takes his breath away, drives him backward and over the flimsy railing.

Sometimes he falls for a long, long time, like Alice dropping down the rabbit hole to Wonderland. And sometimes he only seems to fall for an instant before he jerks awake.

But so far he's never hit bottom.

Frank Gray finally changes the channel on the cruddy thirteen-inch Zenith he got from St. Vincent de Paul's and finishes the bottle of bourbon to an episode of The Untouchables he's seen at least a dozen times before. Through the sleepy alcoholic fog cushioning his brain the scratchy black-and-white violence is comforting, the screech of tires and ricochet of machine gun bullets as reassuring as a lul aby.

He has to piss but thinks he can hold out a little longer, at least until the next commercial break, before he stumbles off to find the bathroom.

The pressure from his bladder reminds him of the kid from the bar, Huck Finn sucking dick for twenty dollars, makes him remember the surprise on the boy's face when he punched him. Like they all think it's gonna be so goddamn easy, having your cake and eating it too, taking advantage of someone and then robbing them in the bargain. He wishes he'd hauled the kid in for soliciting. Let him scream about faggot cops all he wanted, no one would have ever believed him anyway. At least it's nice to tell himself that, and when he's this drunk he can almost believe it, can almost pretend no one whispers behind his back or snickers or suspects him of being anything but one of the boys.

Frank closes his eyes as the credits roll, thinks maybe he can put off pissing long enough for a nap. Outside the rain falls from a black sky, and the sound of it follows him down to a deep and mercifully dreamless sleep.

three

An hour until midnight, and Jared and

Lucrece sit together on the floor of the bedroom. Lucrece has carried away the broken pictures and poured herself a glass of scotch. The crow watches them from the bed. Sometimes it squawks loudly, as if it's preparing to announce something urgent; each time they turn and watch the bird, waiting for something more, until it's clear it has nothing else to say for now.

Occasionally Jared begins crying again, deep, racking sobs that seem as if they will tear him apart, and Lucrece holds him until they pass and he is silent.

"I don't understand what I'm supposed to do," he says. Lucrece looks at the big black bird, guarded reproach in her eyes as if maybe she thinks it hasn't done its job and she'll have to fill in the blanks it has left.

"What has the crow told you?" she asks Jared.

He just stares at the bird on the bed, watching its vigilant eyes. In a little while he answers her, speaking slowly, as if he's uncertain of the words or the way they fit together.

"Because there are scales and Benny's death left them unbalanced." He stops, remembering a statue of Justice outside the courthouse where he was sentenced to die, the ageless bronze woman blindfolded and holding her sword and balanced scales.

The memory of her and the sick irony there makes him laugh.

Jared sneers at the bird. "No," he says. "It's more than that. If all that was required to bring back the dead was a little injustice, the fucking graveyards would be empty."

The crow caws in response.

"It's not the injustice," he says to Lucrece, to himself and the bird. "It can't simply be the injustice, can it?"

"Then what?" Lucrece whispers, afraid Jared knows the answer, more afraid he doesn't. She knows, has heard it in the bird's grating voice; she could tell Jared but knows that he should be the one to see it for himself.

"Fuck you both," he mutters, and she holds his face gently between her hands. His skin is cold. The coldness hurts her like a bad memory, or a memory so good it hurts to recall.

"It's your pain, Jared," she tells him, not letting him look away from her eyes. "It's your pain that is creating the imbalance, your pain that has to be satisfied before order is restored."

"That's bullshit, Lucrece. . . do you even know how ridiculous you sound?"

She ignores him. "Not just the pain, though. Your love for Benny. That's part of it too. That's the part you were supposed to carry with you to the other side. It's the pain

She ignores him. "Not just the pain, though. Your love for Benny. That's part of it too. That's the part you were supposed to carry with you to the other side. It's the pain and anger that you were supposed to leave behind. There's no room for them among the dead."

Jared pushes her away then, the sneer dissolving into hateful laughter, an ugly, predatory sound that Lucrece would hardly believe is human if she weren't seeing it come from his lips.

"There's no room for anything among the dead, Lucrece, except the hungry worms."

She cannot look him in the eye now, cannot face the ebony glimmer there. She knows that it's part of what he has become, part of what he will have to do if he is ever to find peace, but that knowledge makes it no easier for her to face.

"You can hear the crow, Jared. You know I'm telling you the truth."

He doesn't say anything. When she raises her eyes and looks back at him Jared is watching the bird perched on the footboard of the bed. His lips are pulled so far back that his teeth look like fangs, bared for fresh meat.

"An avenging angel," he snarls. "So the gods can rest easy and still keep their hands clean. Is
that what you're saying?" The bird ruffles its feathers and shifts from foot to foot.

"That's al there is to it, isn't it? Find the bad guys and make them pay, so my niggling soul doesn't disturb the spooks roasting down in hel ."

The crow tucks its wings close to its body and huddles as if it expects Jared to strike it.

"Yeah, wel , you tel me what good that does Benny, you black-hearted son of a bitch.

You tel me that it's going to fix what some depraved motherfucker did to Benny and maybe then I'l want to play along with your little game."

Lucrece can feel his fury in the close atmosphere of the bedroom, more immediate than the storm outside, can feel his anger crackling through the damp air around them.

"Nothing's going to help Benny, Jared. Unless you can find peace and return to him, nothing's ever going to help Benny." The last part catches in her throat like broken glass, but she knows it must be said.

"Right now Benny is alone, Jared, alone in the cold and the dark, waiting for you to come back to him."

And she braces herself, ready to feel his fist or ready to put herself between him and the bird again. But Jared sits very stil and stares at the crow, the muscles in his face relaxing by almost imperceptible degrees.

"Ah, God" he says softly. She wants to hold him again, wishes there were words that she could say.

"But that's not all, Lucrece. If you can hear what he's saying, then you know that's not all."

"Yes," she says, because she can understand the bird voice, its shrill, uneasy mind, the way she understood the thoughts that Benny never spoke to her out loud, the way she knew when his dreams were troubled.

"You're supposed to know who killed him," Jared says to the crow, spitting out the words like a bad taste in his mouth. "That's the way it's supposed to work. You drag me back here and show me. But you can't show me the kil er, can you? You can't show me shit!"Lucrece risks one hand on Jared's right shoulder and he turns on her, the glare meant for the bird. She thinks maybe she can see hell locked up in those eyes, the pupils dropping straight down forever.

"I'm right, aren't I? It doesn't know, any more than the goddamn police knew."

"The crow is doing what it was made to do, Jared. Whatever else is going on here, it's just a crow and there are limits to its..." and she pauses, knowing how she must sound to Jared, pragmatic, irreligious Jared, that this is all just a bunch of crazy voodoo nonsense to him.

"There are limits to its powers. There's something else going on here, something that's getting in the way, that we have to figure out and get around."

Jared buries his face in his hands and she thinks that he's about to cry again.

That would be better than the anger, something she understands more intimately. She's spent all her life since her brother's death in the company of sorrow. She has become sorrow's most cherished concubine.

"I don't understand any of this," Jared says.

"And you mustn't waste your time trying," Lucrece replies, hoping that there's at least a little solace in her voice now. "You can get lost if you spend too much time trying to understand how this could be. You have to simply accept that it is."

"How do you know these things, Lucrece? Can you just tell me that? Can you tell me why you understand what this fucking bird is saying?"

She pauses again, knowing the answer but afraid to turn it loose, faced suddenly with her own fears and self-doubts. Knowing that her response will bind her to this mystery with knots that no fingers, mortal or undead, can ever unravel.

"Yeah," she answers at last as she takes her hand from Jared's shoulder and
mystery with knots that no fingers, mortal or undead, can ever unravel.

"Yeah," she answers at last as she takes her hand from Jared's shoulder and begins unbuttoning the front of her dress. "I think that maybe I can." She pulls the dress down past her thin white shoulders, revealing the severe black silk corset underneath. Lucrece turns around so that Jared can see her bare shoulders.

"I had it done about a month after Benny's funeral," she says. "I hoped that the pain and the healing would help me begin to heal some..." Her voice trails off as she feels his eyes on her back, tracing the intricate pattern of scars there. The picture the scalpel drew into her skin, the cutting that she meant to be a raven, after Jared's photograph.

But the artist only had a picture of a crow to work from and didn't confess that he'd cheated on the design until later, after the gauze and surgical tape were hiding his fresh, weeping work.

"I think that's why I can hear your crow, Jared."

"Oh, Lucrece," he says, and his fingertips graze the crisscross of puckered white tissue.

"It helped a little," she says, and pulls her dress back up, hiding the cutting. "Maybe it's going to help a lot now. Maybe it's going to let me help you."

Jared rises and stands above the crow, and the bird cranes its neck to look up into his face.

"If you brought me back here for nothing, you bastard," he says, "I swear that you'll die very, very slowly."

"I think it's time to cut the macho bullshit, Jared," Lucrece says, her fingers working the last of the dress's pearlescent buttons. "And if you care, it's a she."

Jared glares down at her, uncomprehending, and the crow caws softly.

"The crow" Lucrece says. "It's a she."

Jared rolls his eyes. "Pardon me," he says.

The crow tells them that there's a little time then, and so Jared rests awhile in Lucrece's arms and listens to the rain, coming down harder now, playing the roof of the building like a perfect and soothing percussive instrument. He closes his dead man's eyes and tries to pretend that these are Benny's arms around him instead of Benny's twin's. She strokes his hair with her long fingers, fingers like Benny's grown softer and more hesitant, but close enough for the game in his head.

"I want to get this awful jacket off you," she says. "And this shirt." He is still in his funeral clothes, slit up the back for the morticians' convenience. "And then I'll find something else for you to wear."

Jared Poe met Benjamin DuBois at a gallery in the Warehouse District, a ramshackle barn of corrugated steel, punky masonry, and bare concrete floors set so close to the river that the air smelled like mud and rotting fish. It was a performance thing and he'd only gone because it was a friend's boyfriend's show and he'd run dry of excuses. With very few exceptions he'd always found performance art either a horrific bore or simply horrible, a last, pretentious refuge for talentless wanna-bes desperately trying to gouge a niche for themselves. Most of the time he'd end up feeling embarrassed for the performer, embarrassed for the audience trying to understand whatever foolishness was being acted out for them, and so uncomfortable that he'd sneak out halfway through the show.

And the scene that night was no exception, certainly not the worst thing he'd ever seen, but bad enough to make him wish he'd just made up a story about car trouble or leaky plumbing and stayed home. The artist stood on a small stage in the center of the warehouse, wearing nothing but an old alligator hide and a pair of expensive-looking loafers, reading aloud from the Wall Street Journal. Fortunately there was a bar and Jared stayed close to it, downing shots of tequila and trying to keep a straight face. But the mask became increasingly difficult to manage as the guy in the alligator skin droned on and on and the Cuervo worked its way through Jared's bloodstream to his brain.

In an effort to distract himself he began eavesdropping on a couple standing a few feet away from him, near the edge of the crowd. Jared had noticed right away how much they resembled one another, and the woman was so tall he thought maybe she was really a drag queen. They were speaking loudly to each other, almost shouting in order to be heard over the stock quotes being read through the microphone onstage, the nasal voice booming from speakers rigged high along the rusty walls. Both were dressed in impeccably tailored leather and latex Victorian costumes, their skin as white as chalk and their hair like black satin. To Jared they looked like some fetish freak's vision of Jonathan and Mina Harker, an unlikely juxtaposition of the prim and perverse, but they wore that vision well no matter how unlikely it might be.

"This is surely hell," the woman said. Her voice seemed to confirm Jared's suspicions about her gender.

"No, no," the boy said, leaning close to her ear and still having to shout. "This is a lot worse than that."

The boy wasn't exactly Jared's type. He'd always gone for the well-muscled submissives, the hard but yielding bodies that could take whatever loving tortures he

The boy wasn't exactly Jared's type. He'd always gone for the well-muscled submissives, the hard but yielding bodies that could take whatever loving tortures he might happen to devise. He'd always found the goth end of the S&M and fetish scene a little tedious, too much window dressing for his particular tastes. But this boy was something different, something so unexpected with his high, sharp cheekbones and hooded eyes, and Jared was taken completely off guard by the stirring in his jeans. He asked the bartender for another shot of tequila and took a cautious step closer to the pair. "Hell has better acoustics," the boy was shouting.

"And something worth hearing," the woman shouted back.

"Not impressed, I take it," Jared said, just loud enough to be heard, and they both turned and regarded him skeptically from kohl-smeared eyes.

"Oh, don't tell me," the boy said, one index finger held up for emphasis. "He's this poor, misguided fuck's lover and we've offended his feelings."

"Or maybe he's just a critic for some rag," his companion said. Jared realized, now that they were facing him, that the pair were identical twins.

"No," Jared said, smiling, playing the good sport to their jibes. "He's just the poor schmuck who didn't have any place better to be tonight, that's all."

"Oh," the boy said. "That's better. Then we don't have to make polite over this drivel." Jared shook his head, took a sip of his tequila before responding.

"Hardly. Can either of you make heads or tails of what's going on up there?"

The boy glanced back toward the gator-clad nude and shrugged."Wel ," he said after a moment, "we're of two minds on the subject. I think it's all an unfortunate misunderstanding. The real artist was held up in traffic or mugged or something, and this guy is just some unmedicated street person who conveniently wandered in. The similarity between his delusion and this crowd's expectation was so profound that no one's noticed yet. My sister, on the other hand, thinks it's a bril iant metaphor for the creeping gentrification of the-" His sister interrupted him with a sock in the arm, not hard, but he made wounded sounds and rubbed at his shoulder. "Do you have a name?" she asked, holding out her gloved hand to Jared as if she expected him to bow and kiss it.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry." He shook the extended hand. Her leather glove was as supple as silk and her grip through it was firm but not mannish. "Jared. Jared Poe. I'm a photographer."

"Jared Poe? P-O-E Poe?" the boy said, stil rubbing his shoulder and glaring sidelong at his sister. "That's a joke, right?"

"Nope," Jared replied, finishing his drink. "I'm afraid it's not. That's my real name."

The sister took a dramatic step back, spread her arms wide, and cleared her throat loudly before she began to speak, her voice broad and deeper than the unfortunate voice blaring through the speakers. She held her head high as she spoke, her eyes focused somewhere past the dust and rafters overhead, and delivered each syl able with stage-perfect diction.

"'But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing further then he uttered: not a feather then he fluttered-Till I scarcely more than muttered: "Other friends have flown before-"'"

Then a hippie standing behind them turned and shushed her. The boy rolled his eyes and muttered, "Oh, please, like you might miss last week's pork futures." The hippie scowled and turned back toward the performer.

"That was actually very good," Jared said, and the boy regarded his sister with eyes that were somehow jealous and proud at the same time.

"Lucrece is such a terrible show-off," he said.

"It's better than listening to that idiot," Jared said, using his empty shot glass to point in the direction of the Wall Street gator boy.

Lucrece sighed and offered Jared half a smile. "Well, that's a pretty sorry excuse for a compliment, mister, but thanks anyway." And then the hippie hissed,

"Shhhhhhhhh," louder than before, and her brother stuck his tongue out in response.

"If you people aren't interested in the show, maybe you should go elsewhere," the hippie said.

"He has a point," Jared told the twins. "If I have to listen to any more of this crap I think I'll puke."

The hippie shook his head as he turned back toward the little stage. "I honestly pity people like you who aren't open to new experiences."

"Oh, Jesus in a Ford pickup," Lucrece said, and she took her brother's hand and Jared's and towed them both through the haze of cigarette smoke and the whispering press of bodies toward the loading ramp that served as the gallery's only visible entrance and exit, leading them out into the night.

Outside, the sultry air felt almost cool after the crowded warehouse. They walked northwest along Market Street, away from the river and its fishy miasma.

When Jared suggested that maybe this part of town wasn't the best spot for a stroll
walked northwest along Market Street, away from the river and its fishy miasma.

When Jared suggested that maybe this part of town wasn't the best spot for a stroll after dark, Lucrece laughed a soft, low laugh and asked him which part of New Orleans was. The brother, whose name he still had not learned, produced a small silver flask of brandy they shared as they turned off Market and wandered between other derelict buildings, crumbling red brick walls and tin roofs separated from one another by streets neglected so long they were more pothole than asphalt.

The heady combination of the booze and the company of the twins distracted and disoriented Jared. Soon he was uncertain precisely where they were. Nothing looked familiar, or rather everything looked vaguely familiar-some corner of the Warehouse District that hadn't yet been made fit for yuppie habitation but had for the time being been left as a decaying signpost back to an era when the area had bustled with the noise and activity of forgotten industry.

"Where the hell are we going?" Jared asked finally, and he could hear the slur that had crept into his voice somewhere between the tequila and the brandy.

"What difference does it make?" the boy said, but, Luerece answered, "Our place.

It isn't far now."

They came to the mouth of a narrow alley half barricaded with the husks of two burned-out cars and an abandoned refrigerator. As the twins slipped ahead of him, forsaking the weak cover of the streetlights, Jared paused, leaned against the hood of one of the old cars, and tried uselessly to clear his head. He'd never been far enough north to have walked on thin ice, but he thought it must feel something like this, uncertain steps taking him farther and farther from safe and solid ground. The boy turned and looked back at him from the shadows, the darker slice between high, dark walls. "Are you coming or not, Jared? It's not safe out here alone, you know?" He sounded impatient and amused, distantly petulant, and Jared realized that his dick was hard again. Hard for this pretty, taunting goth boy dressed up like some William Gibson version of 1890s London, and probably hard for his haughty bitch twin as well.

"Really, Jared. Benny's right. There are bad people out here." The voice came from somewhere close behind him. He spun around too fast, almost lost his balance, almost fell face first onto the broken pavement. Lucrece was standing by the old refrigerator, although he could have sworn she'd been the one in the lead, had already disappeared down the alley in front of her brother.

"How... how'd you do that?"

She just smiled at him.

"Like I said before," Benny sneered from the alleyway, "she likes to show off. She read a book once, that's all."

Lucrece stepped past Jared, still smiling her secret smile, taking his hand again, and the three of them walked together into the gloom.

Jared's eyes are closed and he hasn't spoken for almost an hour. He is letting the memories settle down over him like silt on a muddy river bottom, like the rain falling out on Ursulines, falling on the roof and windows of the apartment. Lucrece has found a silver comb and is combing his long hair out across her lap.

"You have to tell me everything you know," he says at last, and the teeth of the comb hesitate, lingering in their gentle progress across his scalp.

"It's not much," she says after a moment. "I expect it's not much more than you know already, Jared."

He opens his eyes and watches Lucrece's face carefully as he speaks. "Harrod knew that I wasn't the killer, didn't he?"

She flinches when he says the DA's name, summoning the image of the gray-eyed prosecutor, John Henry Harrod, as shrewd as a butcher's cleaver or the grin of a hungry cartoon wolf.

"I honestly don't think Harrod really gave a fuck one way or the other. He needed a murderer and you were convenient. Nothing personal..."

"Bullshit," Jared says, closing his eyes again, knowing the acid tone of his voice hurts her and not wanting to see more pain on her face, knowing he's a coward to look away and looking away anyway. "Harrod was taking care of two birds with one stone. Get rid of the faggot artist and make all the faggot voters happy at the same time."

Lucrece begins combing his hair again, long smooth strokes as if she might still have a chance to calm him, to bring some stingy bit of comfort. Very softly she says,

"The killings haven't stopped, Jared."

Now he does open his eyes again, stares speechlessly up at her, unbelieving, as she continues.

"The television and newspapers aren't making much of it. They're trying to play it all down, I think, calling it a copycat killer. No one wants to think there could have been a mistake, especially since..." She pauses, turns her head toward the bed and the crow still perched on the footboard.

Jared finishes for her.

"Especially since the man they already put in prison recently got three inches of

Jared finishes for her.

"Especially since the man they already put in prison recently got three inches of sharpened spoon shoved in his guts and is buried in Lafayette Cemetery."

"Yeah," she whispers, and the black bird caws.

The twins lived on the entire upper floor of one of the two buildings that flanked the alley. Jared looked back the way they'd come, the dirty, dim light at the far end of the alley, while Lucrece unlocked a steel fire door with an old-fashioned brass key from her purse. Beyond that there was a staircase hardly wide enough for Jared to climb without having to turn sideways. There was another steel door at the top, this one with a small peephole and three deadbolts. Lucrece selected more keys, slid back the bolts one after another, and the door made a dry gritty sound as it swung slowly open. She felt along the wall just inside and flipped a switch, turning on a string of naked incandescent bulbs strung up high among the rafters.

"Jesus," Jared muttered as he followed Benny across the threshold. "Wow. You guys don't do things halfway, do you?"

"What would be the point in that?" Benny asked, but Jared wasn't listening to him, entirely too amazed at what they'd made of the second story of the old warehouse-the refuse of a city turned into impossible elegance, garbage molded into the most unlikely opulence. There were pieces of junked cars and unidentifiable machinery welded into tables and cabinets, semitranslucent curtains of expertly pleated plastic hung for room dividers, broken glass mortared into the walls, glittering like jewels. The only piece of furniture in the place that seemed to be serving its originally intended purpose was a huge canopy bed near the center of the loft. Everything was lacquered in shades of black and red that glimmered wetly under the lights.

"Have a seat," Benny said, pointing Jared toward an armchair near the bed.

"We'll get drinks." Jared obeyed, too drunk and stunned to do much else. The chair was upholstered in a deep crimson crushed velvet and its spindly frame had been fashioned from human-looking bones held together with epoxy and metal rods.

"Are these real?" he called after the twins, who were standing on the other side of one of the polyurethane curtains, indistinct, murky figures appearing to move beneath cold and oily waters.

There was the sound of ice cubes and Lucrece called out, "Yes, of course they're real." Jared stared down at the chair's armrests-long bones that ended in skeletal fists, one turned upward toward the ceiling, the other grasping for the bare floorboards.

"Real bones are a lot easier to come by in this city than artificial ones," Benny added.

"You know," said Jared, talking now because his voice was better company than his imagination, "there are people who would think this was some pretty sick shit."

Benny slipped through an invisible slit in the plastic, a drink in each hand. "And what about you, Jared Poe? Are you one of those people? Do you think this is some pretty sick shit?"

Jared accepted his drink, straight whisky over ice, sipped at it tentatively. Benny sighed loudly and shook his head. "Go ahead, silly. It's not laced, and we didn't bring you here to poison you."

The amber whisky burned pleasantly going down, a brand he didn't recognize, probably something more expensive than the stuff he was used to drinking.

"It is very, very impressive," he said, taking another swallow from his glass.

"Which?" asked Lucrece, who'd come up silently behind him. "Our apartment or your drink?"

"Whichever," Jared answered.

"We made most of it ourselves," Benny said, sitting down on the corner of the big bed closest to Jared. "Oh, but not this, of course," and he patted the bed. "We found this in an antique store on Magazine Street. Saved up for months, but it's been worth it..." He let that last thought trail off ambiguously.

Lucrece sat down beside her brother and sipped from her own glass. Again Jared was struck by their resemblance, male and female reflections of the same exquisite face. "So, Mr. Jared Poe, what is it you photograph?" Lucrece asked as she slipped an arm around her brother's waist.

"Well," he said, watching their every move. His erection was beginning to become uncomfortable, and he shifted in his chair of bones and velvet. "That depends on whether I'm trying to pay the bills or not. If the rent's due, it's mostly weddings and babies..."

Benny made a disgusted face and rolled his eyes.

"And the rest of the time?" Lucrece prompted.

"The rest of the time, well... I've been putting together a portfolio of nineteenth-century cemetery sculpture and architecture." Jared paused, then went on almost reluctantly, an ashamed or guilty admission: "And sometimes the people I find hanging out in cemeteries."

reluctantly, an ashamed or guilty admission: "And sometimes the people I find hanging out in cemeteries."

"Ah" Benny said, his eyes suddenly brightening, eager. "See, Lucrece? I knew he wasn't just another loser art fag."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't be quite so sure," Jared said, frowning. "You ever noticed how many people there are out there taking pictures of the local bone orchards?"

"The question" Lucrece said, speaking not to Jared but to her brother, "is whether or not he's any good."

"Whether or not his heart is in it," Benny added. He finished his drink, set the glass on the floor at his feet. The ice cubes clinked faintly against each other.

"What do you mean?" Jared asked, and Lucrece shrugged.

"Anyone can point a camera and click, Jared," she said. "Fucking Yankee tourists on the sightseeing buses do that every goddamn day of the week. The question is, whether or not you genuinely understand-"

"-the dead," Benny said, completing her thought. "After all, it's their houses that you're putting down on celluloid and paper, right?"

Jared watched Benny's eyes a second before answering, feeling suddenly lost and stupid, in too deep or maybe even completely out of his element. Benny's eyes were the same guarded, bril iant green as his sister's, the green of uncut emeralds.

"Right," he said at last, only half remembering the question. "Right."

"Because it isn't enough to appreciate the dead," Benny said. "To simply steal their likenesses and call it art. There has to be an-"

"-understanding," Lucrece said, and Jared realized their habit of finishing each other's sentences was beginning to give him the creeps.

"Any genuine aesthetic of the dead requires, no, demands that the artist treat them as something more than mere objects. They must be seen and portrayed as dynamic opposites of life, not empty vessels devoid of anything but the power to make us nervous, afraid of our own mortality."

"And he calls me the show-off," Lucrece said, distractedly stirring the ice cubes in her drink with one finger.

Jared was busy trying to process what Benny had said through the alcohol clouding his mind. He shook his head.

"No, I mean, that's really, um, articulate..."

"Yeah, ain't it amazing that someone can be this pretty and smart too?" Lucrece purred, smiling as she touched an index finger, wet with whisky and water, to her brother's lips.

"But surely we didn't bring him all this way just to talk shop, did we?" Benny asked her, and she shook her head and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

Jared's face felt suddenly hot, flushed, and he knew that he was blushing, and that the twins could probably see that he was blushing.

"That would be terribly, terribly rude," Lucrece said, and Benny turned his head, kissing her full on the lips now. The bulge in Jared's jeans responded as if an invisible line had been attached to the end of his penis and someone had just tugged at it sharply.

"I don't know," Benny said, pulling away. The stark light caught in a thin string of saliva linking their lips. "Maybe he's not up to it. Maybe we're wrong and he is just another poseur..."

Jared swallowed hard, his mouth and throat suddenly very dry. He wished his glass wasn't empty but wasn't about to break this moment by asking for a refill. He squirmed nervously in his strange chair.

"Or maybe he's not into boys," Lucrece said, her voice full of mocking regret, and her tongue flicked across Benny's lower lip. And then Benny whispered slyly, mischievously, "Or maybe he's not into girls."

"Bingo," Jared said. He'd set his glass in the upturned skeleton hand and covered his lap with his hands, embarrassed at his own embarrassment.

Lucrece sat back, scooting a couple of feet away from her brother, her face an almost comic mask of exaggerated rejection and disappointment. Benny let her go, but his eyes followed her retreat longingly. "Not even girls who used to be boys?" he said.

Jared caught the slicing, flinty edge of the question before Lucrece slapped her brother. It wasn't a playful slap, and the sound of her hand against his skin was very loud in the apartment.

"Bitch," she hissed, and Jared thought there was the faintest, calculated hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth.

"Touché," Benny said.

There are strings everywhere, Jared thought, not just on the end of my dick. This scene was something the pair had rehearsed over and over again, he realized, perfected in privacy and practice.

"Never mind," Lucrece said, getting up off the bed. "Fortunately I like to watch. You don't mind if I watch, do you, Mr. Poe?"

"Then you are identical twins?" he asked, wondering if perhaps that was pushing
don't mind if I watch, do you, Mr. Poe?"

"Then you are identical twins?" he asked, wondering if perhaps that was pushing her too far, if maybe this spot really was too sensitive for Lucrece and he was blowing his chance at Benny. But she just shrugged, tossed her hair to one side, and said,

"Once upon a time."

"Sometimes," Benny said, removing his leather overcoat, "I think my sister will never forgive me for not making the transition with her. For ruining the set, as it were."

"You never had the balls," Lucrece said, and now she was smiling, a careful, secret smile that said there was so much here that Jared could never even hope to understand half of it. "You never had the fucking balls."

As Benny began unbuttoning his vest Jared got up from the bone chair, moving slowly, as if he was being scored on every action and reaction, and joined the male twin on the bed. Lucrece left them alone briefly to pour herself another drink, then returned with the bottle and took Jared's place in the chair.

Jared rubs at his temples, wishing it were anything as simple as pain throbbing there.

He stands above the crow and the bird looks back up at him with mindful, eager eyes.

Lucrece is stil sitting on the bedroom floor behind them, holding the silver comb.

"Where am I supposed to start?" he asks, the question posed to the bird or Lucrece, to himself or all three.

"I'm not sure," Lucrece says. When Jared turns around, she's holding strands of his dark hair between her fingers, staring at them. The way someone might clutch a holy relic, he thinks, and the thought makes him feel sick to his stomach. What am I to her?

What does she think I've become?

"I think you're supposed to find Benny's killer and stop him. I think that's what you've been brought back for."

"And Harrod and the cops and that fucking judge, what about them? Aren't they part of this as wel ?"

Lucrece's eyes reluctantly release their hold on the precious strands of his hair, refocus on Jared standing at the foot of the bed. The bed he shared with her twin brother. The bed Jared first saw in that warehouse apartment so long ago. Lucrece's eyes look as hard and old as New Orleans itself, as wet as the night.

"I'm not sure, Jared. Maybe. But maybe not. The crow's supposed to know what happens next, and for some reason it doesn't."

"They set me up," he says. The bird looks away, pecks at the dark wood of the headboard.

"I think we have to be sure, Jared, before you do anything that can't be undone."

"Did the fucking cops bother to be sure before they arrested me? Before they told the goddamn papers I killed Benny? How sure were they, Lucrece?" He hears the sour, jagged tone wrapped around his words, the anger cranking itself up a notch.

"I don't think that you can punish everyone, Jared. A lot of people did a lot of stupid things. I think that you have to concentrate on what started it al ."

"But you don't know that, do you?"

She sighs, a broken sound like a death rattle.

"No, Jared. I don't know that."

Jared turns away from her, away from the useless bird, and there's his reflection watching him from the mirror above Benny's dressing table-a dead man's pallid excuse for a doppelganger, its skin like cold ashes. But there is fire there as well, bright vengeful coals in those dead and living eyes.

"Please, Jared. Just give me a chance to find out what I can. There are people I know who might be able to help."

Jared steps closer to the mirror and his reflection takes a step to keep up with him. There's a white Mardi Gras mask hanging limply from one corner of the glass, dangling by its elastic strap.

Jared picks it up, stares into the vicious, clownish grin molded into the creased and wrinkled leather. The mask has a smile no human face could ever manage, its thin scarlet lips curled back upon themselves, a black smear across the empty eye sockets like the face of a rabid raccoon. Jared bought the mask for Benny from a street vendor, their last Mardi Gras together, and he remembers Benny's emerald eyes glaring at him through those slits.

"Yeah," Jared tel s Lucrece as he slips the jester mask over his own, crueler face.

"You talk to your witchy friends and see what they say. I'm not going to hold my breath, but you go ask."

Now his eyes fill the space meant for Benny's, his own eyes like last night's fire that only needs to be stirred, that only needs a little tinder to become an inferno again.

There's nothing else in his face any more alive than this mask, nothing else but his eyes worth showing, so he leaves it on.

"In the meantime, I have some questions of my own, Lucrece. And I know the people who have the answers."

people who have the answers."

four

The gutterpunks clustered around the gates of Jackson Square talk quietly among themselves, as secretive as any cabalistic order. The rain has slacked off a little, enough for them to slip out from under the eaves and doorways and huddle by the tal iron gates. They've come together in the lee of the cathedral, this evening no different than any other, waiting for the commencement of another night's petty dramas and business transactions. Some of them are homeless and some of them only pretend to be because they envy the independence and self-confidence, the freedom, of those who are.

"But, I mean, you know, you don't think he's some kind of pervert?" the tal boy in the long black dress, the boy who cal s himself Michele, asks the others, glancing back over his shoulder at the man lingering outside the Presbytere.

"Jesus, wil you please get some kind of fucking due?" The girl who answered him lights a cigarette, exhales expertly through her pierced nostrils, and squints past the smoke at the man standing very still in front of the museum. "No offense, Mikey, but have you bothered to look in a mirror lately?"

"You ain't exactly David fuckin' Duke yourself," one of the boys says, and they al laugh. "You ain't, like, Jesse Helms's fuckin' dream girl yourself."

And Michele glances again over his lean shoulder at the man in the expensive raincoat. "I bet you he's got money," he says. "I bet you he's got a lot of money."

"You gonna blow him or you gonna rol him?" someone says and they all laugh.

"Beggars can't be choosers, Mikey," the girl taunts, then she goes back to reading a ratty paperback novel she's been carrying around for days. There's only one enticing word, Silk, printed across the cover, and the face of a white-haired girl staring out through a dream catcher.

Michele knows they're all still waiting for him to prove himself, to show that he's really one of them, not the new kid anymore. This is his first week on the streets, but already he likes it better than his old life in Shreveport. At least this way he gets paid and has some say about the men he has sex with instead of waiting terrified for his stepfather to stumble into his room every night, drunk and so loud there's no way his mother couldn't hear. But never a word from her, never so much as a question, her denial as thick as the Max Factor she caked on her face every morning to try to look twenty-five instead of fifty, as thick as the gray shroud of suburban despair he escaped with a stolen credit card and a bus ticket south.

"Gotta learn to take it like a man," his stepfather liked to tell him if he dared to cry. "It ain't no different than the way the world's gonna treat you. It ain't no different than the goddamn world."

"Watch and learn, Robin," he tells the girl. They all laugh again as he steps away from the crowd, feeling immediately more vulnerable, separated from the pack, on his own. The man in the raincoat notices him and smiles tentatively, drops the cigarette he's been smoking to the cobblestones and crushes it out under the heel of one of his loafers.

It can't be more than ten yards from the gates to the spot where the man is waiting for him in front of the Presbytere, a short obstacle course of tourists and street performers, but the walk feels at least three or four times that far. Michele is sweating by the time he's standing beside the man.

"You're very pretty," the man says, and Michele smiles cautiously for him. "But I'll bet you hear that a lot, don't you?"

You think I'm stupid? the bold, streetwise voice in his head asks the man, the big, brave voice he's spent the past five days cultivating. You think I don't know you tel that shit to every boy you want to sel you a little head? But he bats his eyes, just once, shy like the brainless girls at his old school preening for the jocks. "No. No one ever tells me that.""Well," the man says, "it sure as shit is a cruel old world, then, ain't it?" and in that instant the man sounds so much like Michele's stepfather that he almost backs out, puts his tail between his legs and runs back to the safety of the others, still watching him from the gates.

"Yeah," he says instead. "Yeah, master, sometimes it sure is."

Robin watches from her seat on the stone steps outside the square as the man leads Michele into the narrow alley between the Presbytere and the cathedral. Part of her feels sorry for him, the same part that feels sorry for them all. The weak part, she reminds herself, and so she keeps her thoughts to herself and concentrates on the rap music thump-thumping from the boom box at her feet.

When they're done the man gives Michele a twenty and grunts as he wrestles his zipper closed again. Michele wants to spit, wants to get the flat, briny taste of the man out of his mouth. Nice girls swallow, he thinks. He doesn't remember where he heard that but thinks maybe he saw it on a T-shirt once. He's still on his knees, and the old cobblestones of Père Antoine Alley reek of rotting garbage and magnolia leaves and the
that but thinks maybe he saw it on a T-shirt once. He's still on his knees, and the old cobblestones of Père Antoine Alley reek of rotting garbage and magnolia leaves and the piss of all the drunken tourists who've ducked into the alley to relieve themselves. The stones hurt his knees and he gets up slowly, checking to be sure he hasn't run his hose."I meant what I said," the man says. "I mean about you being pretty and all. You shouldn't even be out here on the streets. You should get yourself a decent job doing drag or something, you know? These streets wil mess you up, kiddo. No one stays as pretty as you if they stay out here very long."

Then Michele is alone, watching as the man walks quickly away from him toward the bright lights and noise and forgiving anonymity of Royal Street. Michele feels something cold against his face and he realizes that the rain's started again, just a light sprinkle so far, but there's thunder too and he knows it'll probably be pouring again in a few minutes. He looks down at the twenty in his hand, the crumpled wad of paper and green ink, and he thinks if he only had one of these for every time he went down on his fucking stepfather, shit, he'd have an apartment in the Pontalba.

He's heading back to the square, eager to show Robin and the others that he didn't wuss out, even more eager to be out of the stinking alley. Then the thunder rattles the sky above him again, rumbles like the growl of something vast and predatory, and Michele decides that he's at least earned a cup of coffee and ten minutes or so out of the weather. Just a short break before the next John, he tells himself. Maybe he'll buy Robin a cup too.

"Does the thunder scare you, Michele?" someone says, someone standing somewhere behind him. He spins around, stares into the shadows crowding the empty length of Père Antoine.

"No," he answers the darkness, and his voice sounds very smal and vulnerable, not the big street-voice at al .

"Not even a little?" the voice asks, insistent and unconvinced. "All that power above your head, like the sound of the sky breaking. That doesn't frighten you?"

"It's only thunder," Michele says, straining to see the speaker, and then the thunder comes again: closer, more immediate, as if it's heard what he said, his casual denial of its authority, and is angry.

"Then you're a very brave little... girl," the voice replies, and the speaker steps out where Michele can see him. Another tall man, wearing a black windbreaker, his hair soaked, hanging across his face in stringy wet hanks. Michele cannot see the man's eyes.

"Do you want something, mister?" Michele asks. This time at least he almost sounds like he has his shit together, almost sounds the way he imagines Robin would. Never mind that this guy is starting to seriously creep him out, that the urge to just turn and run back to the safety of the gates of Jackson Square and the company of the others is so strong it's almost impossible to stand his ground.

"I want..." the man begins, but his voice is lost in another clap of thunder.

"What?" Michele takes one step backward, wishing now that someone would come along, a bum or a haunted-streets tour or even a fucking cop, anyone to interrupt, to break the spell and get him moving.

"I want to talk to you, Michele," the man says. "There are things happening tonight that you and I must talk about."

"I don't have time for talk," Michele replies. "I have to make a living." When he turns around, the rain-dul ed lights of the square seem so close. Just a few steps and he'l be among people again, back out in the open.

"You'll be paid," the man says behind him, "if that's what you're worried about. You'll get what you've got coming to you. For your time."

"No thanks, mister," Michele says. "I think you've got the wrong person." Now he actually is walking back toward the others, and he's amazed at how much brighter the lights are after only a single step away from the man's oily, vacant voice. He's already beginning to feel a little silly at letting himself get spooked so easily, knows how Robin would rag him if she found out. You gotta get a thicker skin, girl, he hears her say, if you're gonna be turning tricks in the Quarter. There's a whole lotta weirdos out there...

There is the deliberate sound of footsteps behind him then, and a sudden pricking pain at the base of his neck. I've been stung, he thinks, Jesus, I've been fucking stung, remembering once when he blundered into a nest of angry red wasps behind his grandmother's garage. And then the light is far away again, farther than he ever thought it could be. In another moment it is gone and he's alone in a cold and perfect darkness.

The man who wears the names of rivers knows that he is no longer like other men, that some part of his fearful work has changed him forever and he can never return to the simple, painless life he lived before. Sometimes the knowing of this hurts him so badly that he sits alone in a dark room for hours and cries for the loss of himself. It is a terrible thing, he knows, to have had so little say in the course of his own life, to have had so many things decided for him before he was even born. To be a soldier in an army of light and blood so secret that there can never be any acknowledgment of his achievements or failures, not
decided for him before he was even born. To be a soldier in an army of light and blood so secret that there can never be any acknowledgment of his achievements or failures, not even the most fleeting contact with his brothers and sisters in arms, for fear of discovery.

The invaders are everywhere, and Their agents are everywhere. A moment of weakness, one slip, could mean much, much more than the mere loss of his life. He has dreams where someone (never, never him) has been weak, one of the other nameless, faceless soldiers working secretly in the corrupting cities of the world. In the dreams They walk the streets without fear, spreading the androgyne contagion, and the sky burns with the roaring engines of Their warships.

He often wakes from these dreams screaming, curled in his sweat-soaked bed, the choking smells of diesel and burning flesh still hot in his nostrils. But he does not resist the dreams; he understands that they are an integral part of his vision, part of what keeps him strong and certain and pure. He writes down the smallest details of each dream, everything that he can recall, in special black notebooks he keeps in a windowless room in the center of his house.

For almost a week now there has been a new dream, and he knows that it means there is even less time than he'd thought. He has powerful black wings in this dream, the wings of a fierce avenging angel, and they carry him high above the blazing, dying city of New Orleans. The streets below are filled with fire and lakes of blood that bum like gasoline. The writhing bodies of the creatures in Their truest form, Their primary aspect, cling to every wall and rooftop, Their smooth and sexless bodies white as bone beneath the night sky, the wet red holes between Their legs like the beaked jaws of squid or octopi. In the dream Their voices have joined together into a single, hideous wail and Their black and swollen eyes watch jealously as he passes above Them. The end of the dream is always the same, the part where the man with river names looks over his shoulder at the shadow of the crow falling swiftly across the land.

Michele wakes up in a place that smells like disinfectant and mold and latex. He's lying on a bare metal table and there's insane light, white and blinding light that stabs at his eyes and makes his head hurt even worse. He's dizzy and sick and only wants to go back to sleep. Michele closes his eyes, shuts out the hateful light, and then the voice says, "It's time for us to talk, Michael"

He's trying to think of what to say, something nasty and appropriate-something Robin would say-when he hears a brittle, snapping noise. Suddenly his sinuses are filled with the scorching reek of ammonia. He coughs and gags as the last merciful shreds of oblivion are driven from his reach and there's nothing left but the light hanging above him and the cold against his bare skin. And the voice.

"There," it says. "You can understand me now?" Michele tries to answer but his mouth and throat are too dry, not a drop of spit, and his tongue feels two times too big to be of any use.

"Just nod if you understand what I'm saying," the voice says, so Michele nods. He has realized that his hands and feet are tied firmly to the table with wide leather straps.

Then there is a glass of lukewarm water being pressed to his lips and he swallows a mouthful.

"The sedative does that sometimes. It'll pass soon and you'll be able to speak."

The glass returns and this time Michele takes a deeper drink, notices that the water tastes faintly of chlorine, like swimming pool water. But it feels like heaven going down his aching throat. As soon as the glass is removed he tries to speak, but there's only an unintelligible rasping wheeze where the words should be.

"Like I said, it'll pass," the voice of the man tells him. He can dimly make out the man's form now, glimpsed through the glare of the light and his tearing eyes.

"Where am I?" Michele croaks. The form moves back a little, out of the glare just enough that its face begins to solidify, its features begin swimming slowly into focus. A thin and haggard face, a face of a very tired young man who looks years older than his age. Michele blinks again, then sees the man's eyes, flat blue-gray eyes like a stormy January afternoon sky, eyes at once cold and filled with the threat of violence.

"I ask the questions," the man says matter-of-factly.

"Is this..." Michele begins, but he has to swal ow, his tongue working up a few precious drops of spit to wet his throat before he can continue. "Is it a hospital?"

"No," the man says. "But I did say that I'll be asking the questions, didn't I? You should save your strength. You're going to need it, Michael."

"Don't... don't call me that." Michele closes his eyes, remembering the face from Père An-toine, the rain-bedraggled hair and the sting in his neck, fear rushing up to overwhelm the confusion. It doesn't matter where he is, he knows. He's somewhere bad, somewhere very bad he shouldn't be.

"It is your name, isn't it? It is the name your parents gave to you." Now there is a small black flashlight in the man's hands. He uses it to examine Michele's eyes, just like a doctor, but Michele knows now the man isn't a doctor.

"It's not... my name anymore," Michele tells him, and closes his burning eyes when the probing fingers and black flashlight are taken away. "My name's Michele."

"It's not... my name anymore," Michele tells him, and closes his burning eyes when the probing fingers and black flashlight are taken away. "My name's Michele."

"But that's a girl's name, and you're not a girl, are you?" the man asks.

Michele ignores the question, as he has so many times in the past. "What are you going to do to me?" he asks. The man sighs loudly, and Michele feels the sudden gust of the man's breath blow cool across his bare chest.

"I am going to ask you questions."

"Is that all you're going to do? Ask me some questions?"

The man doesn't answer this time. Michele pulls cautiously at the straps at his wrists and ankles. The hard leather cuts into his skin like the blade of a dull knife.

"There's no point in trying to get loose. I'd just tie you down again. You must know that."Michele stops wrestling with the restraints and moves his tongue across chapped lips that taste like sweat and lipstick. He swallows again, careful to be sure he has control of his voice before he speaks.

"If you weren't afraid of me," he says, "you wouldn't have tied me up in the first place." In response the man makes a sudden, dry sound that's part cough and part angry huff, then slaps Michele hard. Michele's head snaps sideways, smacks roughly against the cold metal tabletop. His mouth fills with the taste of his own blood.

"I have to take precautions, boy, but don't underestimate me, and don't overestimate yourself." The man pauses and Michele can tell that he's panting now, his breath coming out fast and hard, furious staccato gasps and wheezes like a winded animal or a frustrated old woman.

"If I thought you posed any immediate threat to me or to anyone else I'd have killed you in that fucking filthy alley. There could have been cyanide in that needle, if that's what I'd wanted, just as easy. Easier."

The man pauses, gasps and wheezes his exasperation, and because Michele doesn't know anything else to say, because he's already pretty sure there's no way he's going to walk away from this, he says, "You're crazy, aren't you?"

Growling, the man lunges into the glare of the surgical light so that its glow crowns his head like a mad saint's nimbus. He seizes Michele's face in both his huge, clammy hands, one for either side, his thumbs poised above Michele's eyes like snakes readying to strike. The man's face is only inches from Michele's now, muscles straining against the rage inside. The man's breath smells bad, like rotten vegetables and wintergreen mints.

"You're going to have to do a lot better than that," he says, and his words seem to cling wetly to Michele's cheeks in spatters of spittle. "Jesus! Do you really think I haven't heard that before? You think that's all it's going to take to mess with my head?"

The man's hold tightens, his hands like a vise, steel jaws winding themselves closed. Michele thinks that maybe they could crush his skull like a punky old melon if that was all the man wanted, if he wanted this to end so soon, so easily. But Michele knows that the man doesn't want it to be over yet, that what the man wants could take a long, long time and be a lot worse than dying.

"It's just that I've known crazy men before," Michele says, having to strain against the grinding force of the man's hands to move his mouth. "They sounded a lot like you." "July second, 1947, motherfucker!" the man screams into Michele's face, as if that's supposed to mean something to him, supposed to explain all this away. "July second, 1947, you deviant little son of a bitch! You tell me what the fuck fell out of the sky that night if you want to live! If you even want the chance to get out of here alive!"

Michele swallows and thinks of his stepfather and his shitty little life in Shreveport, thinks of the freedom he felt stepping off the bus into New Orleans, of Robin and the others. He closes his eyes.

"They have medication for people like you," he whispers. The hand on the right side of Michele's face releases its grip and there's a brief moment's relief from the pain before the fist smashes down across the bridge of his nose and the world mercifully swirls away again.

The man stares helplessly down at the broken, bleeding thing he's made of the pretty boy's face, the blood oozing bright from the nostrils, spilling to the shiny silver tabletop to make scarlet pools on either side of his head. The unconscious face still painted like a carnival mask, mocking him with its lie of femininity. Mocking his weakness, the sad fact that he could be so easy to manipulate. Even after all his work, all his careful tests and observations, that he could be made to doubt himself so easily.

He looks down at the blood smeared across the knuckles of his right hand, his fingers still clenched, his nails digging themselves into his own flesh. The red stain of the boy's tainted blood says, You are so weak. You are so very, very weak.

The man steps away from the examination table and almost trips over a chair. It was such a risk, taking two in one night, first the transsexual, dead now and awaiting its burial, and now this molly boy, not even a larva yet, just a fucking child whore playing
was such a risk, taking two in one night, first the transsexual, dead now and awaiting its burial, and now this molly boy, not even a larva yet, just a fucking child whore playing dress-up. And the man knows he's not ever supposed to bring anything back to the house except the ones who have gone across, all the way across. He's broken one of his own most sacred rules because of the dreams and the things he saw from his window, the bird-things in the clouds above the river, above the city. Because he needed answers and he was too afraid to wait.

You get scared and you get sloppy, he thinks. You get sloppy and then you get dead.

"July second," he says quietly, and laughs a cold laugh at his own stupidity. His hands rub nervously back and forth across his trousers. "This one doesn't even know who I am, much less does it know July second. It doesn't know shit!"

He paces around the table, circling the boy like a hungry but indecisive shark, wondering how he ever thought this child could be of even the slightest use to him, knowing that it was a choice made from necessity, from blind desperation. If only he could drive the awful dream images away long enough to think more clearly or if he could figure out why it feels like something has changed tonight. Why after so many years of careful, painstaking planning and plotting the rhythm of Their movements, rhythms as predictable as tides or seasons or the phases of the moon, why suddenly everything seems so utterly changed. He cannot even remember precisely when he was first cognizant of this new sense of urgency, sometime after he brought the transsexual into his house, sometime after the tests and questions began.

Something from the sky, perhaps. The thunder? he thinks, trying to remember what he'd asked the child on the table about the thunder and if it might have been important. The man glances at the clock on the wall and realizes that fully three quarters of an hour have passed since he knocked the boy unconscious. How? How could it have been that fucking long? He checks his watch to be sure.

The man stops circling and stands very still. He closes his eyes, concentrating on a calm, small place he keeps hidden deep in his soul, a spot so deep They could never find it. Something for a rainy day he always thinks whenever he needs to remember that part of himself, and right now the rain is drumming hard and icy against the window of the room. There's peace in that space inside him, or as close as he will ever get to peace again. If he can have only a shred of that peace, he can get this shit under control again. And control is all that matters.

The man stretches the calm into something bigger and wraps that thing about him. He stands and listens to his heart and the clock on the wall, the rain coming down outside and the wet, uneasy breathing of the boy on the table. And slowly, but as steadily as the ticking cadence of the sounds filling his ears, he begins to see the simple solution written in the incontestable language of his resolve.

The man first saw Jared Poe two weeks after he'd killed the female-to-male transsexual who'd been interviewed on television. He'd always believed in providence, or something that might as well be providence, so he understood when he saw the flier thumbtacked to a bulletin board in the French Quarter coffeehouse. He was having a cup of black and bitter African coffee at his usual spot in Kaldi's when he noticed the piece of paper, black ink photocopied onto marigold yellow paper and stuck up alongside a dozen other fliers advertising rock bands and lost cats. He pulled the piece of paper off the wall and read it while his coffee cooled enough that he could drink it.

pained EXPRESSION was printed large across the top in a severe Gothic script. Beneath that was a photograph, poorly reproduced, of a figure on its knees, head bowed.

Someone else stood above with a bullwhip. The man was unable to identify the gender of either person.

He smoothed the flier out flat on the top of his table and read it carefully, repeatedly, so he would be sure not to miss anything important. Besides the heading and the photograph, there were a couple of paragraphs clipped from a review in the Village Voice announcing the discovery of "the worthy successor to Robert Mapplethorpe, Jared Poe of New Orleans." The article went on to describe the photographer's work as "sublimely twisted" and "derived but certainly not derivative... [Poe] understands the subtleties to be mastered in the complete deconstruction of gender and gender roles." There was a Warehouse District address printed below the photograph, a gallery called PaperCut, dates and times. The man, who was still calling himself Joseph Lethe then, folded the flier neatly and slipped it into the front pocket of his shirt.

The next Saturday he took a cab to the opening of Jared Poe's exhibition. PaperCut wasn't a real gal ery, of course, just an empty old warehouse with a little (and only a little) of the grime scraped away, a sign hung discreetly out front. Inside were maybe fifty or sixty people and a maze of pegboards on which Jared Poe's sepia-toned photographs were displayed, each matted on brown paper and framed in rusty steel or shiny chrome.

Joseph Lethe stuffed a five into the Lucite donation box by the door and kept to the fringe of the scattered clots of people milling through the exhibition. His heart had started beating fast when the taxi driver had turned off Felicity onto Market Street, and now he was drunk on the adrenaline and his racing pulse. Here he was, walking among
started beating fast when the taxi driver had turned off Felicity onto Market Street, and now he was drunk on the adrenaline and his racing pulse. Here he was, walking among Them and Their acolytes, androgynous bodies in latex and leather and fishnet stockings. Faces painted white as skul s, eyes as dark as empty sockets. Bits of metal and bone protruding from lips and eyebrows, jewelry like the debris of an industrial accident. They took no notice of him, the assassin in Their midst, just carried on with Their preening and posing. He had never felt half so powerful as he did at that moment, surrounded by the enemy and so clearly invisible to Them.

Joseph Lethe had brought one of his yellow legal pads and a mechanical pencil.

He stood before each of the abominations hung from the pegboards, astounded and entranced that They would allow Themselves to be displayed so openly, Their perverse likenesses put down on paper, flaunted. He made careful notes on the photographs, recording their titles and exhibition numbers, writing concise but careful descriptions of each and every one.

When he realized that someone was watching over his shoulder he turned around fast, one hand spread protectively over his notes. The intruder was a tal creature disguised as a woman, scarecrow-thin and pale as chalk, as if every inch of exposed skin had been airbrushed the same matte white. It was wearing a ratty black T-shirt with the sleeves and collar hacked away, skintight black stretch pants that revealed no evidence of its genitalia, if indeed it had any to conceal. There was a single red dot painted between its dark, thin eyebrows, like a Hindu woman's bindi.

It smiled, showing perfect, even teeth, and said in a velvety voice that was neither masculine nor feminine, "Do you write for a newspaper?"

"No, no," he replied, surprised at how calm his voice was, no trace of the panic welling up inside, the fear that he had been discovered after all. "I'm just a student."

"Oh," it said apologetically, and blinked once.

Its eyes seemed wrong in no way that he could put his finger on. He looked quickly back at the photograph he'd been busy examining when the creature had interrupted him. "He really is very good, isn't he?" the creature asked. "I mean, he's not just another bullshit wanna-be taking fetish snapshots for the lookieloo norms."

"Yes," Joseph Lethe agreed coolly, careful not to sound too enthusiastic. "He is good. He is, well..."

The creature finished for him. "Genuine," it said conclusively. "He is genuine."

Joseph Lethe stared intently at the photograph, praying the thing behind him would go away, that its curiosity was sufficiently satisfied. This print was titled Skylla and Kharybdis. Like most of the others he'd looked at so far, it showed two murky figures, one on either side of the picture. The figure on the left had both its long arms flung wide, its head back and its small breasts bared. The figure on the right had its back turned to the first and was curled into a hard knot of muscle and shadow. Something smal and hard and indistinct hung between them, suspended on a taut piece of wire.

"'God or man, '" the creature behind him whispered, "'No one could look on her in joy. '""What?" he asked. "What did you say?" He turned to face it again, but already it was moving away from him, inserting itself seamlessly into a small cluster of bodies farther along the aisle of pegboards.

He wiped at his forehead and realized for the first time how hot it was in the warehouse, that there was no air-conditioning, only huge and ancient-looking fans rotating slowly high overhead. He was drenched in sweat. Joseph Lethe clutched his yellow legal pad and moved along to the next print.

This one was titled The Pleasures of Teirêsias and was the first that he'd encountered with only a single figure, or what he at first mistook for a single figure. He leaned close and could see that it was in fact a double exposure, with two bodies occupying the same space. He thought perhaps there was a male body superimposed over a female, but it was hard to be sure. Both forms were draped with strips of raw meat and the viscera of slaughtered animals, and the figures stood in a dark slick of blood that had run down their naked bodies and pooled about their bare feet. Only their faces were clear, unblurred by the photographer's trick, their two heads, male and female, turned in profile to the left and right, respectively.

And he realized something else then. All the photographs so far had shown the same couple, a boy and a girl whose features were so perfectly matched that they had to be brother and sister, maybe twins. He felt a small chill across the back of his neck like a sudden gust of cold air. Joseph Lethe wiped at his sweaty forehead again, wiped his hand on his pants, and wrote down the title of the photograph.

Past a final divider of pegboard, toward the back of the gallery, there was a folding table set up where wine was being served in Dixie cups along with dry-looking slices of a white cheese on wheat crackers. Joseph Lethe knew better than to eat or drink anything here, so he ignored his parched throat. But he did approach the table and the people gathered there, all talking excitedly at the same time. He hung back at the edge, waiting for a good look at the artist himself, who was seated at the table. It had taken
people gathered there, all talking excitedly at the same time. He hung back at the edge, waiting for a good look at the artist himself, who was seated at the table. It had taken Joseph Lethe a little over an hour to complete his catalog of every photograph on display, forty-three prints altogether, and he held his legal pad tucked safely under one arm.Shortly after he'd realized that the same two models had posed for all the photos, he'd begun paying attention to the titles. There was clearly a pattern, and patterns were always the key to understanding, to putting a new part of the intrigue into context. Most of the titles had been taken directly from Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey, the rest named for other random bits of Greek mythology. Only one broke the pattern, so he knew it must be the means of access to this cipher of light and shadows. The crucial photograph had been given the incongruous title The Raven, a reference to the poem, he assumed, and a pun as well-Jared Poe's The Raven. But Joseph Lethe also suspected that indicated that the poem would prove to be the Rosetta stone for the entire exhibition.

The Raven showed the male model only, his face made up like a woman's. His hands had been bound with electrical tape and insubstantial wings somehow had been made to sprout from his skinny shoulder blades. It was the only photograph in which either of the models had been permitted to look into the camera. One corner of the boy's rouged lips was turned up in a snarl or sneer, an animal expression of threat or defiance, and his eyes sparkled with a wicked, secret glee-like the eyes of the creature that had spoken to Joseph Lethe minutes ago, simply wrong in a way he couldn't yet explain. He'd made a note to concentrate more on Their eyes in future examinations.

A breach opened in the crowd and he could see that Jared Poe was busy talking to a plain-looking woman taking notes. He was nothing like the monster that Joseph Lethe had prepared himself for, none of the expected cross-dressing or physical modification. The photographer appeared to be in his mid-thirties, maybe a little older, dressed simply in a black T-shirt and blue jeans. The only notable thing about his face was a two- or three-day growth of beard. However, there was only a fleeting second or two for Joseph Lethe to wonder that a man who appeared so normal could be behind the profanities he'd just witnessed, a moment of surprise before he noticed the figures seated just behind and to either side of Jared Poe.

They were the strange brother and sister from the photographs. There could be no mistake about that, and he felt as if he'd seen something he wasn't supposed to, as if he should look away or hide his eyes. He prayed that the shock of seeing the pair in the flesh had not shown on his face.

The woman was seated on the left and the boy on the right, holding the photographer's hand tightly. The models were wearing matching black dresses, simple clinging things that showed off the lines of their bodies, the scant differences of muscle and fat that distinguished one from the other. They were twins. He was certain of that now, and he was almost as certain that they were identical twins as wel , although he knew that natural opposite-sex identical twins were a biological impossibility. Then the woman raised her head and looked straight at him and there were those eyes again.

That indefinable wrongness in her outwardly friendly glance. The sudden heat he'd felt earlier in the evening returned, washing his skin in goose bumps. He flinched, barely managing not to look away. He felt as though she were peeling him with those eyes, removing the onion layers of clothing and skin and deception to see what lay underneath. Joseph Lethe felt sick and dizzy.

"You don't look so good," a voice said. He knew it was the creature that had spoken to him before, knew that there were two pairs of those terrible eyes on him now, probing his body and mind and soul, and that knowledge made him want to run.

The sensation of those eyes made him want to take steel wool and borax to his skin to be rid of their touch.

Instead he stood very still and kept his eyes on the female model. She smiled at him, a gentle smile that he knew was meant to put him at ease, to lull him into a false and treacherous sense of security, but he knew also that she'd seen the truth. She understood precisely who and what he was, and in a moment she would stand and point, or whisper into the photographer's ear...

"You don't look well," the creature said more loudly, somewhere very close. "Would you like something to drink?"

"I'm fine," he replied, turning away, pulling himself free of the female twin's gaze.

He imagined fishhooks imbedded just below his skin yanking free as he moved away from her, tiny bits of himself clinging to rusty metal. She would reel them in, would have them as proof of his existence. As he walked quickly back through the aisles of pegboard the photographs seemed to peer out at him now like accusing gargoyles, hungry sentinels that might spring to life at any moment to tear him to ribbons.

But he made it past them, through the door and out into the warm and sticky night. Joseph Lethe kept moving until he'd put a full block's length between himself and PaperCut, the things gathered inside, and those hideous photographs. Then he stopped, breathless, leaning against a telephone pole, his sides aching and the panic
and PaperCut, the things gathered inside, and those hideous photographs. Then he stopped, breathless, leaning against a telephone pole, his sides aching and the panic beginning to fade by degrees. He looked up into the summer sky, past the halo of streetlights and into the dim splash of stars, pinpricks so far away and all that hellish nothing in between. He shuddered, remembering the twin's eyes, her expression of smug triumph. It would come back to him again and again as surely as the constellations spread out above the delta and the winding Mississippi. It would be with him forever.

He'd fucked up, had allowed curiosity to make him careless, had walked straight into a trap set for him and him alone. It was so plain now, so fucking obvious, an elaborate banquet of misinformation and red herrings that They'd known all along would be irresistible to him. They'd drawn Their one nemesis out into the open, and now They'd seen his face, knew the smell of his fear.

From now on his work would be different. It would no longer be the simple game of him picking Them off at his leisure. He had become, in a single reckless evening, the hunted as well as the hunter. That They had allowed him to escape was an indication of nothing more or less than Their deserved confidence that They could take him whenever They were ready.

Joseph Lethe closed his eyes and became Stanley Hudson, hoping that the switch might buy a little of the time he needed. He kept his eyes shut until his breathing and pulse had slowed almost to normal again. Then he removed the folded sheet of yellow paper from his pocket and stared down at the photocopied excerpt from the Voice article. It only took him a moment to find what he was looking for, the brief mention of the photographer's studio apartment on Ursulines Street.

Stanley Hudson refolded the flier and returned it to his shirt pocket. He glanced once last time in the direction of the gallery and disappeared into the night.

Stanley Hudson spent almost a whole week locked away in his tall, dark house by the river, eating nothing that he had not purchased in a can and carefully microwaved first. He spent a week studying his explicit notes on Jared Poe's photographs, a week trying to find some way to turn the tables back to his advantage, to unravel the net that had been cast so expertly over him.

Maybe, he decided, the photographs weren't entirely useless after all. The exhibition itself was an act of misdirection, of that much he was now certain, but the individual photographs might still prove useful- if he could read between the lines, if he could even discover which lines to read between. He suspected that the answer lay in the placement and composition of the last print he'd seen, The Raven. It was meant to throw him off the track, but maybe in that act of bravado They had shown something far truer of Their nature than all of his experiments could ever hope to reveal. If he only had the actual print in his possession, or even a Xerox, if only he didn't have to work from memory and his ultimately inadequate notes, he might begin to understand its significance.

When he felt that he could wait no longer, that every day he spent huddled over his notes was another nail driven into the lid of his coffin, Stanley Hudson packed the simple, deadly things he needed into an old leather satchel he'd bought years ago in a junk shop, all the sharp and shining things that would be required, all his needles and wire and surgical thread. But because this move against Them was not meant merely to demonstrate his superiority, not meant merely to eliminate the immediate threat to his life and mission, he also packed an assortment of specimen jars and preserving fluids. Because in Their desperation to entrap him, They had carelessly revealed one of Their most terrible perversions of the natural order, and his work required that he must never forget his role as a scientist as well as a soldier.

The very last thing that went into the old satchel would serve no greater purpose than to show Them that he was not the fool they'd mistaken him for, that They had given him the clue that in time would be Their downfal . He laid the two pages he'd sliced from his thick paperbound edition of The Unabridged Edgar Al an Poe on top of the rest. Then Stanley Hudson snapped his black bag shut.

He waited until he was sure that the photographer was gone, that he wasn't just pretending to have left the apartment, before he stepped out of the recessed doorway where he'd spent most of the morning and crossed Ursulines. It took him only a couple of minutes to pick the lock on the wrought-iron security door, would have taken him half that long if he hadn't had to keep checking to be sure no one watched. The tumblers clicked and rol ed beneath his skil ful ministrations, and he eased the door open slowly so it wouldn't clang against the wal of the smal entryway before the stairwel , shut it even more careful y behind him. The stairs were wooden, so he slipped his shoes off and climbed them in his sock-clad feet. There was only one door at the top, and he breathed a hushed sigh of relief that there was no chance he'd be breaking into the wrong apartment. He pressed his ear against the door and listened, past discordant strains of rock music playing loudly inside and the thumping of his own heart, for some sign that he'd guessed correctly, to be sure he hadn't gone to all this trouble for nothing. After a moment there was the unmistakable sound of footsteps, someone
for some sign that he'd guessed correctly, to be sure he hadn't gone to all this trouble for nothing. After a moment there was the unmistakable sound of footsteps, someone walking across the creaky pine floors on the other side of the door, and Stanley Hudson went to work on the dead-bolt.

"I don't... know... what you're talking about," Michele slurs, his voice thick and syrupy from the numbing drugs the man has given him to keep the pain to a dull and distant roar. Michele has begun to think of the pain as The Pain, as a starving, fire-eyed thing with too many heads and too many mouths, chained to a wall, and the chain slowly coming free of the masonry. It seems now as if The Pain has been with him all his life. He knows now that there is only one way it will ever finally tear itself loose and gobble him up, like the Big Bad Wolf and he's just Little Red Riding Hood with an Adam's apple and a dick and there will never be peace anywhere again except in the acid darkness of its belly, the dissipating pit of its gut.

"I don't know..."

The man stops cutting then, abruptly, as if he's finally accepted that Michele is telling him the truth. The scalpel clangs loudly into the metal tray with all the other instruments and the man's red latex hands pass between Michele's eyes and the parts that have been cut loose and hang on hooks above the table where he can see them, has to see because the man took his eyelids right at the start.

"Of course you don't, child," the man says gently. Then he is filling a syringe with a clear liquid. He plunges the needle into the exposed muscles of Michele's abdomen, and The Pain lunges forward one last time. The sounds of its claws and the crumbling stone are very loud, drowning the raw world of meat and steel.

"But even unknowing pawns have their uses, Michael," says the man. Then he whispers indistinctly, something that sounds like "Forgive me," before The Pain opens its jaws wide and Michele slips easily, gratefully, down its gullet.

Stanley Hudson had thought he would find both the twins waiting in the apartment above Ursulines and was disappointed that there had been only the boy. It was the girl who had recognized him, who had violated him with her smirking, triumphant stare. But he would catch up to her later, he told himself, when he was finished with the boy named Benjamin.

He paused in the room where every surface was stained in complementary shades of red and black, paused and corrected himself. He would catch up to it later.

Benjamin had told him everything he wanted to know, had confessed how his identical twin brother had gone to Trinidad,

Colorado, six years earlier for the surgery, the final step in the conversion, surrendering its humanity for whatever dark rewards They promised Their disciples. It is approximately 260 miles due south from Trinidad, Colorado, to Roswel , New Mexico, he absently reminded himself, glancing once again past the slaughter on the canopy bed to the print of Jared Poe's The Raven. The dead boy still stared out at Stanley Hudson from the photograph, but any menace that face might have harbored had been negated by the cleansing rites of the knife.

He leaned down, reaching into the leather satchel at his feet, and removed the pages he'd cut from The Unabridged Edgar Al an Poe. He silently counted the lines as he scanned the opening stanzas of the poem. When he reached the twenty-sixth line, he marked it with a yellow highlighter pen he'd found earlier in Jared Poe's office. And then he read the line aloud.

'"Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before... '"

Twenty-six times two, he thought, is fifty-two, and he counted down to line fifty-two and subtracted six lines, one for each year since the living twin's conversion, and read line forty-six out loud as he traced over it in neon yellow.

"'But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door-'"

Stanley Hudson sighed wearily and stared again at the photograph watching him from the other side of the room.

'"With mien of lord or lady,'" he repeated slowly, satisfied that his message would be understood, that They would know he'd caught on, had made all the appropriate connections. He stood and walked around the end of the bed, stepping carefully over the boy's bowels and kidneys, the upper portion of his liver, and used a piece of Scotch tape (also borrowed from Jared Poe's office) to stick the highlighted pages to the blood-speckled glass protecting the photograph. Then he left the yellow pen in the mess heaped in the center of the bed, removed his surgical gloves, and went to the apartment's bathroom to wash his face.

That night when Jared Poe was arrested for the murder of his lover, Stanley Hudson had just allowed himself to become Joseph Lethe again. He watched the news reports on the old black-and-white television in his kitchen while he ate his dinner of canned beef stew, listened to the anchorman's account of the boy's grisly death and a short interview with a New Orleans homicide detective. At first he felt jealous and angry,
canned beef stew, listened to the anchorman's account of the boy's grisly death and a short interview with a New Orleans homicide detective. At first he felt jealous and angry, jealous that the credit for his work was going to the deviant photographer, though that was what he had intended. But then the reporter asked the detective if there was any connection between the death of Benjamin DuBois and the Bourbon Street Ripper killings, and although the detective refused to comment, Joseph Lethe had seen the hopeful, guarded glint in the cop's eyes. As the anchor segued into a story about an al igator attack in Bayou Segnette, he chewed a mouthful of mealy beef and potatoes and reminded himself that there were more important things than his pride.

By killing the twin he had scored a double victory against Them, had taken not one acolyte but two. Because now the photographer, who had been chosen to spread Their monstrous images, to subliminally disseminate Their lies through his perverse "art,"

would be locked away in prison, useless. And if the police believed that Jared Poe was also responsible for the other killings, then it bought Joseph Lethe a lot more time. He washed the stew down with a sip from a can of warm Canada Dry ginger ale and allowed himself a cautious smile.

Joseph Lethe wraps the boy whore's body in garbage bags and binds them together with a whole roll of duct tape, until the mess is contained in a neat package.

Because this one cannot be buried conveniently in the yard, because the yard is only for the ones that have gone completely across, he carries the body down all the flights of stairs that lead from his examination room to his garage and dumps it into the trunk of his car.

The thunder growls, reminding him of the storm and his visions. He opens the garage door and stares out into the storm-haunted darkness. There's still an hour left until dawn, plenty of time for him to finish the job. The fear and confusion, the dangerous uncertainty that plagued him earlier in the evening and threatened to erode his will, are gone now, washed away by the meticulous, familiar ritual of the boy's vivisection.

High above New Orleans a brilliant fork of lightning stabs down at the world.

Joseph Lethe sees the outline of a gigantic ebony bird spreading its wings wide above the rain-lashed city. A sign, he thinks, and a warning too. That something is coming, something new and terrible sent to stop him. Something that he must lure into the open so that he can confront it, destroy it, as he destroyed Their plans against him a year before. He closes the trunk, checks to be sure it's locked, and gets into his car.

five

"No," Lucrece says, but Jared is already through the bedroom window, following the crow. He doesn't pause to consider the unseen force that threw the windows open as the bird fluttered cawing above the bed. And he does not pause to question gravity or the distance down to the street; he moves now on instinct alone, an instinct that either he's carried back with him from the grave or flows into him from the crow. He hears the French windows bang closed behind him, shutting out the storm again, shutting out Lucrece.

There is a faint sense of vertigo, not of fal ing but of the risk of fal ing, and the commingled flapping from the long tails of the latex frock coat and the bird's broad wings.

Then there is a flat and solid rooftop beneath his feet. Jared turns, looking back toward the apartment. He can see dim, unsteady candlelight behind the curtains. He imagines movement on the other side, Lucrece coming to see if he's lying broken on the street, but the crow caws again, a harsh, demanding sound. Jared looks away, stares instead down at the bird perched on the edge of a sagging, leaf-clogged gutter.

"What now?" he asks.

The crow shakes herself, throws a crystal spray of raindrops from her feathers. She peers up at him, her eyes eager, impatient but indecisive.

"That's what I thought," Jared says, tasting the rain on his lips, the faint oily taint of petrochemicals in the drops. "You're turning out to be pretty goddamn useless, you know?" The crow blinks, squawks again, as if to say, I already dragged your sorry dead ass al the way back from hel , didn't I? She shakes herself a second time and looks south toward the lights of Bourbon Street.

"You can't find the guy who killed Benny, and you don't know why. Well, while you're figuring it out, I have some other scores to settle. Any chance you can help with that?"

The bird looks away.

"I think you have to," Jared says. "Maybe you're not supposed to, but I can make you. Because you know where they are, and you know they damn well deserve it."

The crow huddles into herself and emits a small, mournful croak. He sees that she is shivering, but he is no longer capable of anything like pity, least of all for this black bird that dragged him out of oblivion.

The rain is cold, though, and he does wonder a moment that he can still feel cold.

Then another wave of loss and anger washes over him, a thousand times more chilling than the storm, more bitter than the polluted rain. Hurt so big and heavy it can only cripple him or drive him on.

than the storm, more bitter than the polluted rain. Hurt so big and heavy it can only cripple him or drive him on.

"Is that all there is to keep me moving?" he whispers, suspecting that the bird doesn't have the answer but needing to ask anyway. The loss and the anger, he thinks, fingering the words like bullets, and says, "I'm wasting time, aren't I?"

The crow replies by spreading her wings and hopping from the rain gutter into the air above Ursulines Street, heading away from Bourbon. Jared lingers only a moment, glances one more time toward the apartment before he follows, moving like something only a little more substantial than shadow across the roofs and the empty spaces in between.

At first Jim Unger thinks he has screamed himself awake, but Julie's still asleep beside him, so maybe the scream never made it out of the nightmare, out of his throat.

He's shivering, drenched in slick, cold sweat. He fumbles in the dark for his cigarettes on the bedside table, lights a Camel, and inhales deeply, checking the LED readout on the clock radio. It says 3: 37 a. m. in squarish phantom-green numbers. Unger takes another drag off his cigarette. His head is still too full of the dream, the red cascade of images and sounds, and his heart is racing as though he's just run a marathon.

In the dream he was back in the apartment on Ursulines, the one where his part in the arrest and conviction of Jared Poe began. Except this time he was the first one through the door, the first one to see the blood and viscera dripping down from the walls and ceiling. In the dream he was the one to find the pages taped to the photograph and he was standing there, reading them out loud, just the highlighted lines-he can't remember them now, but in the dream they were so fucking clear-and someone was snapping pictures. The flash went off like white bolts of lightning, one after another, and he asked whoever was doing it to please fucking stop so he could fucking concentrate.

And then there was the sound of something at the window and he turned to see.

Behind him the idiot with the camera was still snapping away, flash, flash, flash, and he heard Fletcher saying, "Jesus, Jimbo, don't open it. Don't let it in here," and Vince Norris said, "Well, ain't this some pretty faggot shit we got here? Fuckin' sick sons of bitches, if you ask me."

"Shut up," he hissed, reaching over the bits of human body scattered across the bed, reaching for the windows to open them, to let it in so it would stop making those sounds, like the night coming apart at the seams, like a thousand sharp beaks or claws working at the glass.

"Jesus, Jimbo," Fletcher said. "You wanna let it in here with us? Is that what you want?" But his hand was already grasping the blood-smeared handle, already pulling one of the windows open wide. From the other side came an irresistible grinding force, and a sudden wet flood of entrails and feathers flowed in over the headboard of the bed. He caught a fleeting glimpse of something else out there, something vast and restless on scaly stilt legs before he woke up, the scream dying on his lips, mercifully taking any impressions of the thing outside the window away with it.

Unger gets out of bed, careful not to wake his wife, not to interrupt her dreams. He crosses the room to the coat hook on the back of the closet door, the hook where he always keeps his shoulder holster and service revolver. He takes it out and checks the chambers, all six loaded, then slips it back into its leather cradle.

Just the simple action helps a little, makes him feel more real, more grounded. He takes another drag off the Camel and looks over his shoulder, across the room toward the single window hidden behind the ugly purple drapes that Julie brought with her when she moved in. He can hear the rain pounding at the glass, enough like the sound in his dream that he makes the connection. A few seconds later there's a flash of lightning.

It's been almost a week since he got the news about Poe, how some big Cuban had cut him open and he'd died before anyone in the prison infirmary was able to stop the bleeding. Good fucking riddance, he said. Saves the taxpayers the cost of juicing the pervert bastard.

"You're a coldhearted SOB, James Unger. Anyone ever bothered to tell you that?"

Pam Tier-ney had said that, and he looked at her and smiled, thinking, Yeah, bitch, and everyone in this department knows you're a fucking bul dyke, but al he said was, "Honey, I don't get paid to be a sweetheart."

"Well, you'd sure be one sad, penniless motherfucker if you did," she said.

Detective Jim Unger sits down on the floor beside the closet door to finish his cigarette, within easy reach of his gun. He counts the seconds between each flash of lightning and the thunderclaps that come after, and he keeps his eyes on the window.

He'd been on the force almost ten years, had spent the last four of those on homicide, and in that time Jim Unger had seen some pretty awful shit. Gun-fights, knifings, strangulations, an ax murder, bodies hacked up and dumped into the bayous to be chewed on by gators and crawfish-he'd once seen the corpse of a woman that a perp had tried to dissolve in a bathtub full of muriatic acid. But nothing, absolutely nothing, had prepared him for what was waiting in the bedroom at the top of a squeaky stairwell
had tried to dissolve in a bathtub full of muriatic acid. But nothing, absolutely nothing, had prepared him for what was waiting in the bedroom at the top of a squeaky stairwell near the corner of Ursulines and Dauphine that muggy August afternoon. And nothing ever could have.

Vincent Norris was still his partner then, lanky white-haired Vince who'd moved from the wastes of north Texas to New Orleans to be a cop, who talked like a bad actor in an old cowboy picture. Vince had never learned to laugh at all the sick shit they had to deal with day in and day out, had never managed to set up that necessary buffer between himself and the job.

They reached the scene way ahead of the coroner, just minutes after a hysterical old woman had flagged down a patrol car. That was almost three months before Vince had his nervous collapse, or whatever the hell the doctors finally decided to call it, and left the force.

Vince phoned him once from the hospital in the middle of the night, his voice groggy from all the tranquilizers they had him on. He spoke quietly and very slowly, hesitantly, as if he was afraid someone might overhear.

"How you doin' out there in the real world, Jimbo?" he asked.

"Doing fine, Vince," Jim replied. "Doing just fine. Are they treating you all right in there?"

There was silence from the other end of the line, so long that final y Jim said, "Hey, Vince. You still with me, pal?" And Vince came back, but now he was whispering.

"They're giving me these little pills," he said, "Three times a day, Jimbo, these little red pills" and he paused again. Jim could hear the muffled tattoo of footsteps in the background before Vince continued.

"They don't help," Vince said, and now Jim was straining to hear him. Vince didn't just sound like he was whispering; he sounded like he was speaking into the telephone from the bottom of a very deep well, as if someone had dangled the receiver over the side of a pit and Vince's words were crossing all that darkness.

"I can stil see it, Jimbo," he said. "I can stil see what was up there."

Jim swallowed, his throat gone almost too dry to speak. There were goose bumps on his arms, like an allergic reaction to what he was hearing.

"You gotta trust those doctors, Vince. They know what they're doing," he said, trying for Vince's sake to sound as though he believed what he was saying.

"It takes a little time, but you'll-"

Click. The line went dead. Unger sat there for a while, sipping Scotch whisky and staring at the silent phone.

When Jim Unger was a rookie a desk sergeant told him, "You let all this bullshit get to you and you'll be picking petunias off the wallpaper." He had taken the advice to heart. He'd spent the years letting the things he saw, the atrocities that human beings were capable of doing to each other and to themselves, numb him, build up a thick callus around his soul. And maybe that's why he would only have nightmares about what they found in Jared Poe's apartment.

There were two squad cars outside when he and Vince arrived, their lights washing the darkening street red and blue. Vince went up the stairs first. A cop named Fletcher met them at the door to the apartment.

"You guys better brace yourselves good," he said, "'cause you ain't even gonna believe this one." Fletcher looked green, and he must have seen the unspoken skepticism in Jim's eyes, because he said, "My partner's in there puking. I ain't kidding you. This one is un-fucking-believable."

That was when Jim first noticed the smell, the cloying stink of blood and shit and raw flesh, the way he imagined a slaughterhouse might smell. Vince covered his mouth with one hand and mumbled, "Je-sus."

"I almost think someone used one of them wood chippers on the body," Fletcher said, shaking his head as he led them through the stinking apartment to the bedroom.

"Oh, goddamn," Vince Norris muttered, and he managed to get out of the doorway to the bedroom and halfway to the bathroom before he vomited, so at least he didn't contaminate the scene.

"I said I wasn't fucking kidding," Fletcher said defensively, and stepped aside so that Jim could get a better view.

Jim almost asked where the hell the body was, but he stopped himself as his first impression began to fade. A better question, he realized, would be where the hell the body wasn't. The walls, the furniture, the floor, the goddamn ceiling, everything was painted with a sticky, wet veneer of human gore. It was like looking into the belly of some bizarre and gargantuan creature whose insides just happened to resemble a bedroom. The only things he could recognize as actual human parts were on the big canopy bed: the victim's feet and hands, tied to the bedposts with nylon cord that might have been white once, but was now the same crimson as everything else.

He turned away, fighting his rolling stomach, determined not to be sick. "That's not even fucking possible," he said to Fletcher.

"If you'd asked me half an hour ago, I'd have agreed with you one hundred
even fucking possible," he said to Fletcher.

"If you'd asked me half an hour ago, I'd have agreed with you one hundred percent."

"I need a cigarette." Jim moved back toward the front door, trying to put some distance between himself and the smell. Vince was on his knees now, dry-heaving, and that sure as hell didn't help any. Jim leaned against a chair and lit one of the menthols he kept for the really bad cases, inhaled the smoke and stared at the floor and the scuffed toes of his shoes. The taste of the cigarette did little to mask the blood-and-vomit reek filling his nostrils.

"Where the hell's everyone else?" he asked Fletcher, exhaling. "There were two cruisers out there."

"They're downstairs with the old lady," the beat cop replied. "The one who found it.

She lives downstairs. I think maybe she owns this place."

"She found that?" Jim asked.

"Yeah. There was blood dripping out of her fucking ceiling, if you can believe that shit. She came up to see what was going on, found the door unlocked. They're trying to keep her calm until an ambulance gets here."

"But she didn't see anyone else up here? Just. . . that?"

"Not that she's told us about so far."

Jim sighed, breathed out smoke that tasted like cough drops, and looked over at Vince.

"You gonna be okay over there?"

Vince wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, started to answer, nodded instead.

"I know the coroner's office is just gonna love the mess you've made on the floor,"

Jim said.

"Fuck 'em," Vince muttered. Then he was gagging again.

"Find him a wet towel or something, will you?" Jim said to Fletcher. They heard the ambulance, and Jim took another drag off his cigarette.

"You may as wel take your time, boys," he said.

There was the sound of a toilet flushing from behind a closed door that Jim assumed led to the bathroom. A moment later the door creaked open and a younger officer he didn't recognize stepped out. The kid's face was the color of old feta cheese.

"Think you're gonna live through this?"

"Maybe," the kid replied, smiling weakly. "Maybe not." Vince slipped quickly past him and shut the bathroom door again.

When the paramedics started up the stairs Fletcher played interception and routed them back to the old lady's place. They gave her oxygen and a mild sedative, but nothing so strong that she wouldn't be able to talk when the time for questions came. The coroner's wagon arrived shortly after the ambulance. Jim Unger had stepped outside, hoping the night air would drive some of the fetor of the apartment from his nostrils, where it seemed to have taken root like a creeping red fungus. There'd been very few times when he'd thought of the air in the French Quarter as fresh, but this was one of them. After the abattoir upstairs, the ever-present background scents of sewage and river water, ripening garbage and mildew seemed familiar and soothing.

The coroner was a heavyset third-generation Irishwoman named Pam Tierney. Jim Unger knew she considered cops a necessary evil at best, thugs who were only there to keep her crime scene from getting trampled before the real detective work could be done. He'd actually seen her slap a policeman's hand for touching a coffee cup that lay near a body. "Just keep your hands in your pockets," she'd said. "I don't think that should be too hard for a bright young man like you."

She stood in front of him now, peering expectantly at the windows of the second-story apartment.

"Word on the radio is you got something special waiting for me up there."

"Oh, I think they ordered this one just for you, Tierney," he said, making no effort to hide his feelings for the woman. Jesus, half the ward knew she was a fucking dyke, that she was currently shacked up with some artist chick from New York City.

"So what are we waiting for?" she asked impatiently, and he shrugged his shoulders, flicked the butt of his third menthol into the gutter.

"Ladies first," he said, and followed her up the stairs, praying silently that this would be the day that old blood-'n'-guts Tierney finally took a ride on the porcelain bus. When they reached the door to the bedroom, Jim didn't look in again, stared back instead at Vince and Fletcher loitering about the living room. Vince still looked way too sick to care, but Fletcher rolled his eyes, shook his head.

Pam Tierney didn't say a word for a good three or four minutes, just stood very still, staring into the blood-soaked room. When she did turn back to Jim, the only sign that the sight had affected her was a loud, exasperated sigh.

"Wow," she said softly, and laughed, actually fucking laughed, a short, dry, unhappy sound that made Jim Unger want to hit her.

"Wow," she said softly, and laughed, actually fucking laughed, a short, dry, unhappy sound that made Jim Unger want to hit her.

"Any particular thoughts as to the cause of death, Detective?" she said, stepping around him, heading for the kitchen.

"How about a goddamn hand grenade?" Fletcher said as she passed him and Vince and his partner. The partner was sitting on a black leather sofa, looking through a photo album.

"Yeah, Fletcher. That's a real good one. You must've been working on that one all afternoon." Then to the partner, "Hey, what the hell are you doing?"

The kid flinched and looked quickly up at her, startled, his eyes wide as those of a little boy caught with his arm up to the elbow in a jar of Oreos.

"Unless you're some sort of freak of nature and were born without fingerprints, I'd really like you to put that down and get up off the couch. Can you do that for me?"

"Better listen to her, Joey," Fletcher said. "Her bite's a lot worse than her bark."

But the young cop had already set the photo album back on the coffee table where he'd found it and stood up so fast he looked like some sort of mechanical wind-up toy.

"Thank you," Pam Tierney said, and disappeared into the kitchen.

"What's her problem?" the kid asked.

"Her girlfriend's probably on the rag this week," Fletcher said.

At that moment Tierney's two assistants reached the top of the stairs, both of them loaded down with cameras and cases of forensic equipment. They stood in the doorway, looking lost and wrinkling their noses at the smell.

"Where's the body?" one of them asked, and everyone, even Vince Norris, started giggling.

"If you girls will try not to touch anything for about five minutes," Jim said, "I'm gonna have a few words with the Dragon Lady in there."

He found Pam Tierney at the stove, emptying a package of Community Coffee into an iron skillet. The gas flame licked at the bottom of the pan and the air was already redolent with the rich, scorched smell of burning chicory and coffee grounds.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked her, staring dubiously at the skillet.

"The guy who trained me up in Baton Rouge used to do this whenever we got a real stinker, especially the ones that had been underwater a while. Personally, I think it smells a whole lot worse than what's in there," and she motioned toward the front with her head. "But I can't have everyone puking al over the place while I'm trying to work." She adjusted the flame beneath the skillet and fanned the dark smoke toward the ceiling.

Jim coughed, squinted at her through the haze.

"Are you gonna try to tell me that shit in there didn't bother you?"

Pam Tierney turned to face him. He noticed that her eyes were watering, but he assumed it was from the sizzling coffee grounds.

"What do you want me to do, linger? Barf all over the floor like the Three Stooges in there? Fuck yes, it bothers me, but I'm the one who has to go back in there and pick through whatever's left of that guy."

Jim glanced back toward the bedroom. "I think it was a woman," he said. "There's black nail polish on the fingernails and toes," but Tierney shook her head. She left the stove on and squeezed through the narrow entrance to the kitchen, edging past Jim Unger. She barked some instructions to her assistants and they began setting up, unpacking. Then she turned back to Jim, still standing in the door to the kitchen.

"Come here a second, Sherlock. I want to show you something."

Jim groaned, but he walked across the room to where she was standing at the edge of the bedroom, pointing down at something lying near her feet on the gore-smeared floor."You ever seen one of those on a girl?" she asked him. Jim bent closer for a better look before he realized that the sausage-sized lump of meat on the floor was a penis with a small bit of the scrotal sac still attached. The head had a large stainless steel ring through it. Jim Unger felt the hot rush of acid and half-digested lunch forcing its way back up from his stomach and dashed for the toilet.

"That's what I thought," Pam Tierney called out after him, just before the smoke alarm in the kitchen went off.

As Jim Unger lights his second Camel a flash of lightning illuminates the room like noonday sun. Two seconds later the thunder catches up and the concussion rattles the windows of the house. On the bed Julie stirs. "What was that?" she asks.

"That was just thunder, honey."

"Oh," she says doubtfully, then, "Why aren't you asleep?"

"I had a bad dream." Though it is the simple truth, it sounds wrong coming out of his mouth. You thought you heard something. That's what you meant to say, wasn't it?

That's what you wanted to say.

"Oh," Julie says again, sounding more convinced this time as she rolls over in bed, turning her back on him.

"Oh," Julie says again, sounding more convinced this time as she rolls over in bed, turning her back on him.

"Just take it easy, Mrs. Poche. We're not in a hurry here," Vince said for the fifth or sixth time. The old black woman stared out at him through the fish-eye lenses of her spectacles. Jim Unger was losing interest, was staring through Mrs. Poche's lace curtains at one of Tierney's ghouls snapping photographs of the sidewalk.

"Shouldn't I call my lawyer?" she said again. Vince shook his head.

"You're not a suspect, Mrs. Poche," Vince said.

Why not? Jim asked himself. Why the hell not? It would make as much sense as anything else here.

"We just want to know if you saw or heard anything unusual this afternoon."

The old lady stared at Vince as if he'd sprouted a second head from the middle of his chest, then rolled her dentures back and forth in her mouth.

"There was blood drippin' outta my ceilin'," she told him. "I thought that was pretty damn unusual"

"She's got you there, Vincent," said Jim, closing the curtains. The downstairs apartment smelled like dust and medicine, the miasma of age, and it was starting to depress him.

"If you'll just tell us anything else you saw, ma'am, it'd be real helpful," he said to Mrs. Poche. She looked away from Vince, locked her bewildered gaze on Jim instead.

"It was awful," she said again. "I'm just glad none of my grandbabies were here.

Can you imagine if they'd had to see somethin' like that?"

"Ma'am," Jim interrupted, trying to sound polite but losing his patience, "did you see anyone come in or out of the apartment before you went upstairs?"

The old lady frowned and rolled her dentures.

Jim looked back up at the maroon stain on her living room ceiling. It was about as big as a large pizza, and he guessed it was situated somewhere just below the foot of Poe's bed. There was a much smaller, matching stain on the floor; sooner or later, the guy on the sidewalk would be in to photograph both.

"All I saw was Mr. Poe, and it's his apartment, so I don't see nothin' unusual about that. He comes and goes all the time."

"And what time did you see Mr. Poe leave?" Vince asked her, pretending to write down everything she said on the memo pad open across his knee.

"Oh, wait a minute now. If you're thinkin' Mr. Poe had anything to do with this, you're wrong, young man. Mr. Poe, well, he's a prissy boy, but he wouldn't kill nobody.

'Specially not Benny. Benny was his fella, you know?"

"What time did you see Mr. Poe leave the apartment, ma'am?" Jim asked, still staring at the stain on the ceiling. The room upstairs had been unbearable, but the dark stain seemed to have the opposite effect; his eyes kept coming back to it.

"Ain't nothin' at all wrong with bein' a prissy boy," Mrs. Poche said, crossing her wrinkled hands on her lap. "That's what Oprah said."

"Yes, ma'am," Vince sighed. "She's entitled to her opinion. But didn't you see or hear-""What I saw was all that blood drippin' outta my ceilin'," she said, pronouncing each word slowly, as if she'd decided the two detectives were hard of hearing. Then her front door opened and Fletcher said, "Come on, guys. I think we got him."

The first time Jim Unger saw Jared Poe, the photographer was sitting handcuffed in the backseat of a patrol car, staring straight ahead as if his eyes were focused on something far away that no one else could see. If those eyes had been empty, blank, it might not have bothered the detective, but they weren't. They almost seemed to glimmer in the shadows, and it was difficult to look at his face for very long.

"Another car picked him up all the way over on Conti," Fletcher said, "just wandering around talking to himself. He won't talk now, but his driver's license says he's Jared A. Poe and gives this place as his home address."

The man in the back of the patrol car didn't respond to the sound of his name. The front of his white T-shirt was stiff and crusted with blood, as were his jeans. His hands and arms were the color of dried rose petals.

"He's gotta be our perp, Jim," Vince Norris said. "The old lady said the boyfriend's name was Poe."

"Has he been Mirandized?" Jim asked Fletcher, and the beat cop shrugged.

"Probably, but what's the point of asking this fag anything? He's a total veggie, Jimbo."

"He's gotta be the fucking guy," Vince insisted. "Just look at all that fucking blood on him. You think he got that from a nosebleed or something?"

Jim stooped down next to the open door of the patrol car, close enough to smell the drying blood that soaked Jared Poe's clothing. "You've been placed under arrest,"

he said, "on suspicion of murder. Do you understand these charges, Mr. Poe?"

Jared Poe blinked then, just once, and turned his head slightly toward the three
he said, "on suspicion of murder. Do you understand these charges, Mr. Poe?"

Jared Poe blinked then, just once, and turned his head slightly toward the three officers. "I understand," he said. His voice came out brittle, like thin glass. "I understand,"

he repeated. "You think I kil ed Benny."

"Holy fuck, Batman, the fruit can talk," Fletcher said, and laughed.

"Vince, wil you please get him the fuck out of here before he blows this," Jim said, trying not to look away from Jared Poe's glimmering eyes.

"I'm right, aren't I?" the man in the back of the car asked them. "Al of you think I did that to Benny."

"Listen, buddy." Jim leaned closer, trying to sound calm, trying to sound reasonable.

"What do you expect us to think? We know he was your boyfriend and you got blood all over you. We got a witness that saw you leave the crime scene. I'm guessing we're gonna run some tests and we're gonna find out that blood came out of the guy upstairs. Now, if you didn't kil him, you better tell us where all this red stuff came from."

"I didn't kil him," Jared Poe said. He closed his eyes, turned away from the detective.

"Oh, yeah? Then I'm the goddamn Sugar Bum Fairy," Vince Norris sneered.

"Detectives," someone cal ed, and Jim Unger looked over his shoulder. The guy who'd been taking pictures of the sidewalk earlier was standing in the door to the stairwel . "Pam says she's got something up here you guys ought to see right now. What do you want me to tel her?""Tell her to hold her fucking water," he shouted, and the guy disappeared back up the stairs. Jim looked at Jared Poe, who stil had his eyes closed. There was blood on his face, too.

Long streaks of it, like Indian war paint, and a dark smudge across his lips.

"You could make this easier on both of us," he said, but Poe didn't answer him.

When Jim slammed the door of the patrol car a second later Poe didn't even flinch.

"Get him out of here," Jim said to Fletcher, and then to Vincent Norris, "Come on.

Let's see what kind of nasty shit the Dragon Lady's got waiting for us this time."

"Fuckin' wacko," Vince said for the third time as Jim handed the plastic evidence bag back to Pam Tierney. Inside the bag there were two pages torn from a book, "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. A couple of lines had been marked with a bright yellow highlighting pen.

"'With mien of lord or lady... '?" Jim Unger read out loud. "Is this even supposed to make sense? Like he was leaving us a message or something?"

"Maybe," the coroner said, frowning down at the pages. "Or he was trying to tell himself something, or the dead guy. Shit, who knows. I'm not a psychologist."

Jim glanced at the framed photograph again. Tierney or one of her boys had removed it from the bedroom. Now it sat on the floor, leaning against the coffee table.

There were crusty streaks of gore on the glass, partly obscuring the image inside, the winged androgyne snarling for the camera. They'd found the poem Scotch-taped to the front of the picture, and Jim didn't really give a shit what the killer was trying to communicate with the highlighted passages. There was an excellent partial thumbprint right in the middle of the sticky strip of tape.

"If the print matches, I'd say it's a pretty safe bet you got the right guy," Tierney said."Yeah," Jim replied. "Well, let's all just keep our fingers crossed." He glanced over his shoulder at the bedroom. Someone had turned on a floor lamp in there, and he could see the shadows of the men still working through the mess, shifting patches of darkness straining to pass for human, shadows stretched from floor to ceiling, as fluid and insubstantial as ghosts.

The next morning Jim Unger and Vince Norris questioned Jared Poe in a stuffy interrogation room that smelled like floor cleaner and stale cigarettes. What was left of the victim still awaited them in Tierney's office in the basement of the Criminal Courts Building. The autopsy was scheduled for one o'clock. With any luck they'd have a confession by then.

"Okay, Mr. Poe, let's just try to make this as painless as possible," Vince said, lighting a Pall Mall and blowing smoke at the tiled walls. "I can't say I slept real fuckin'

well last night and you sure as hell don't look like you did either, so I think we'll all be better off if we skip the bullshit."

Jared squinted at the detectives. There were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes, like bruises, and the fluorescent lights in the room lent his skin a sickly greenish cast.

He was unshaven and dressed in prison denim, a shirt that looked too large with a big stain on the front.

"That blood we took off your hands and clothes matched up with the victim's, Jared," Jim Unger said, placing a manila folder on the table between them. "And we have a shitload of fingerprints and a witness who puts you at the scene of the murder.

We know you killed Benjamin DuBois, Jared. Are you absolutely sure you don't want a lawyer present before we-"

"I said I don't need a lawyer," Jared replied, blinking at them.

lawyer present before we-"

"I said I don't need a lawyer," Jared replied, blinking at them.

"Yeah, I know what you said. But I have to be sure-"

"I didn't kill him." Jared closed his eyes, shielded them from the light with one hand. "I don't need a lawyer."

"We've seen the scratches on your back, Mr. Poe," Vince said. "What do you think we're gonna find under Mr. DuBois's nails?"

Jared Poe answered slowly, as if he was having trouble remembering how to talk, or what words were for.

"We had sex yesterday morning, before I left," he said without opening his eyes. "I didn't kill Benny."

"Then how did you get his blood all over you, Jared?" Jim asked, pushing his chair back from the table a little, trying to see Jared's face better.

"I found him," Jared said, and swallowed hard, like someone who was trying not to cry, or throw up. "I found him and I was trying. . . I was... Jesus..."

"So you admit you were there?" Vince asked. He was standing closer to Jared now, leaning on the table, the cigarette's filter clenched between his teeth. Jim thought he looked like a cartoon vulture.

"I was at the CAC. The Contemporary Arts Center on Camp Street. I'm. . . 1 was going to have a show there. I was there all day taking measurements."

"But you just said that you and Mr. DuBois had sex that morning," Vince interrupted.

"Yes, before I left."

"But no one saw you there? There's no one to corroborate what you're telling us?"

Jared moved his hand so that the bright light washed freely across his face again.

"No," he said after a moment. "No, I don't think so. But why.. . why do you think I would ever hurt Benny?"

"You tel us, Jared," Jim said, and Vince clicked his tongue loudly against the roof of his mouth.

"I don't have time for this crap, Mr. Poe," he said. "And Detective Unger here, he doesn't have time for this crap. You think a jury's gonna buy any of this? We've seen those pictures you take. That's some pretty twisted shit, Mr. Poe. It looks to me like you have a real hard-on for hurting people."

Jared Poe closed his eyes again.

"So how's it gonna look to a jury, hmmm? Normal guys who don't like to fuck other men up the ass, who don't get their jollies taking obscene pictures of boys dressed up like women? You know, I worked vice two years and I've never seen anything one tenth as disgusting as that stuff."

Jim Unger held up one hand to silence Vince, to signal that it was his turn now.

Vince grunted and turned to stare at the one-way mirror on the other side of the room.

"You can't tell us you'd never hurt Benny, can you, Jared? Because you hurt him on a regular basis. Isn't that right? Every time you fucked him you hurt him. Benny wanted you to hurt him..."

"What's the point in my telling you anything at all, Detective?" Jared Poe asked.

His weary bloodshot eyes made Jim Unger want to look away. "You've already made up your minds. The only thing you want to hear from me is a confession. All that's going to satisfy you is to hear me say that I did. . . that I did that to Benny."

"Seems pretty fuckin' reasonable," Vince said without turning around. "Under the circumstances."

"But it's never going to happen, Detective."

"Then you better have another good long think about that lawyer, Jared," Jim said, standing up, sliding his chair back under the edge of the table. "Because regardless of what you say or how many times you say it, you look guilty as sin to us.

And I'm betting you're gonna look just as guilty to the DA's office and a jury."

Vince dropped the butt of his Pall Mall to the floor and crushed it out with the toe of one shoe. "And we ain't talking about life in prison, Mr. Poe. We're talking about death by electrocution. You do understand that?"

"Come on," Jim said, reaching for the doorknob. "Let's give him some time alone.

I'm sure he's gonna figure this all out sooner or later. A man can't be up to his ears in his own shit and not smell something sooner or later."

Jim Unger finishes another cigarette and stubs it out in a ceramic ashtray the color of dead sunflowers, something Julie's niece made in school, a bright present filled with butts and tobacco ash and burned-out matches. There's another flash of lightning and he thinks about turning on the television. Maybe the weather reports would take his mind off the dream, off these things he shouldn't be remembering anyway, gnawing over like a dog with an old meatless bone. The storm is real, solid, immediate, the sort of threat he can at least comprehend, not like these haunted patches of memory trapped inside his head or the lie that there was something more he could have done for Vince Norris.

inside his head or the lie that there was something more he could have done for Vince Norris.

The news of Vince's suicide reached Jim the day after he heard Jared Poe was dead. It had been months since Vince's release from the hospital, but his mind was still broken, barely held together from day to day by pills and biweekly visits to a therapist.

He was living with his mother in Slidell, and Jim had kept promising himself he'd do more than check up on him, that he'd make the drive across the lake and spend an afternoon with Vince. But he'd put it off and put it off and finally the call came from a friend in the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Department. By the time Jim got to Slidell they'd already taken Vince's body away. There was only the blood he'd left behind in his bedroom and his mother, sitting alone and staring vacantly out a kitchen window at a backyard gone wild with dandelions and polk salad. There were still a few cops on the scene too, and one of them, a detective named Kennedy, took Jim aside.

"There's something in there I need your opinion on," he said, pointing down a long gloomy hallway toward Vince Norris's room. Jim had already looked in the room and he didn't really relish the thought of going in there again.

"What? Look, I don't really-"

"I know he was a friend of yours," Kennedy said. "That's why I was hoping you could help make some sense of this."

"Make sense of what?" but the detective was already on his way back down the hall, back to the room where Vince Norris had cut his own throat with a jagged shard of broken mirror. And Jim followed, wanting to be back in his car and putting as many miles between himself and this house as he could, as fast as he could.

The detective led him through the bedroom door and Jim was trying to tell him again that he'd already been in there, had already seen everything there was to see and didn't care to see any of it again, thank you, when Kennedy pointed at the low ceiling and then crossed his arms.

"That," he said, and Jim looked up.

The grade-school crude outline of a bird, a huge bird with wide outstretched wings and a beak like a dagger, had been traced onto the ceiling directly above the bed. The blood was already dry. Jim Unger stood speechless and staring, dizzy. Suddenly the room seemed cold.

"No note or nothing. Just this," Kennedy said. "We think he did it with his fingers, before he cut his throat. All the fingertips on his right hand were scraped raw."

"Can you keep this out of the report?" Jim asked, unable to look away from the unsteady maroon smears across the white plasterboard, remembering Vince's tranquilized voice over the telephone: I can stil see it, Jimbo. I can stil see what was up there. "If you know something about this, I'd like-"

Jim interrupted before he could finish. "I'm asking you if you can please keep this out of the fucking report." The hot surge of anger broke the spell. He turned away, better to see Vince's blood soaking into the shit-brown shag carpet and the bed.

"But-"

"Just say yes or no, Detective. But it doesn't mean anything, okay? Vince wasn't well. He had bad dreams."

There was a long silence between them while the other detective watched Jim, then glanced back at the grisly outline on the ceiling.

"Yeah," Kennedy finally replied. "Yeah. What the fuck. You got it." Jim said thanks, or he meant to say thanks, before he stepped back out into the hall. And there was Vince's mother, waiting for him, blocking his escape. She wore a dead woman's face, too much sorrow in her eyes for anything like life.

"You tell me," she said, and she sounded old, old as the festering swamps and the skies above them, old as the first mother who ever lost a son. "Vincent was so afraid and he wouldn't ever tell me or his doctors what he was scared of. But you know, don't you? I want you to tell me."

He could have told her, could have sat her down and told her about his own bad dreams, about the dripping red nightmare they'd walked into on Ursulines, details he suspected Vince had never shared with anyone. And it might have made a difference.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Norris," he said instead. "I swear to God I wish I did know, but I don't. I'm very, very sorry." Then he stepped past her and didn't stop moving until he was out of the house and across the weathered concrete driveway to his car. He looked back then, just for a second, and she was watching him from between the living room drapes, her accusing face grown as old as her voice had sounded.

He doesn't turn on the television, but leaves Julie sleeping on their bed and goes downstairs to the living room. He removes his revolver from its holster and takes it with him. He doesn't like to be too far away from it anymore.

Outside the house the storm is battering the city. Jim thinks he'll just sit in the kitchen and have a beer and watch it for a while through the bay windows, hopes that the alcohol will be enough to make him sleepy again. He has a prescription bottle of Valium in
kitchen and have a beer and watch it for a while through the bay windows, hopes that the alcohol will be enough to make him sleepy again. He has a prescription bottle of Valium in the medicine cabinet, little blue bits of calm, but he doesn't like to use them, doesn't like their unreal, detached brand of comfort.

The rain is making a sound like giant fingers drumming against the roof as he pops open the can of Miller and sits down. The gun lies on the table in front of him and he stares past it into the wet, storm-lashed night. The beer feels reassuring going down and he drains half the can in one long swal ow.

"You gotta get it together, Jimbo," he whispers, wiping his mouth. The night outside is lit by another brilliant flash of lightning. A split second of daylight pours over the world and he freezes, the can halfway to the tabletop, the back of his other hand still damp with beer and saliva.

What the fuck was that, before he can prevent the thought, before he can tell himself it was only a trick of the sudden light shining through the driving rain, just a mistake made by his tired eyes. The thunder rumbles overhead. Jim Unger puts the can down, picks up the .38, and steps around the table to the window.

What the fuck do you think you saw out there?

"Nothing," he says out loud, "absolutely nothing at all," but then the lightning comes again, crackles above the Metairie subdivision and makes a liar of him. Because what he thought he saw is still standing a few feet from the kitchen window, staring in at him through bottomless cat-slit eyes. Eyes punched into a grinning harlequin face, wrinkled flesh the color of something that's been in the tub too long.

"Holy Jesus..." he whispers. He brings up the gun, but the thing outside is faster, much faster. The glass shatters, explodes around him in a roar of wind and a drenching diamond spray of slicing glass and rain. Jim feels the gun slip from his grip, hears it clatter across the linoleum as he tries to protect his face from shards of flying glass.

Above the noise of the storm and breaking window panes there is another sound, a frantic fluttering, the terribly familiar sound of angry black wings. I'm still dreaming, he thinks as he stumbles backward into the table.

"Detective Unger," a voice says from somewhere very nearby, a voice that seems to weave its substance from the cacophony of unseen birds.

"Who the fuck are you?" Jim screams into the night sweeping through the broken windows. His arms and the backs of his hands are cut and bleeding, and he can taste blood in his mouth. But none of it hurts, not yet. There's no room in him for anything but the fear, a hundred times more demanding than the pain from any mere physical wound could ever be.

"I know it's been a while," the voice says. He realizes that it too is familiar. "But it hurts to think you could have forgotten me already."

"You stay the fuck away from me," Jim growls, trying to sound cool, trying to sound like he's not about to shit himself. He glances at the floor for some sign of the dropped .38, but the lights above the sink have started to flicker and the floor is covered with glass and water that catch the unsteady light and wink it back at him, making it impossible to find the gun.

"You don't seem very glad to see me," the voice says, coming now from somewhere behind him. Jim turns his back on the gaping hole where the window used to be, and the thing with the smirking harlequin face is silhouetted for a moment in the flickering light before it bleeds away into the shadows.

No way, no fucking way any of this is happening, Jim tells himself. It is a hollow reassurance at best.

"I've got a gun, you weirdo son of a bitch," he says, and takes a step toward the door that leads from the kitchen into the carport. There are things out there he can defend himself with, sharp things.

"No, Detective. This time I have the gun." Suddenly there is cold metal pressing hard against his temple.

"Don't waste precious time asking yourself how," the voice says, speaking directly into his ear now, and he knows there's no point anymore pretending that it isn't the voice of Jared Poe. No point pretending the dead man isn't standing in his kitchen with his own fucking gun pressed to his head.

"'Cause how doesn't matter right now. All that matters is whether or not I think you're telling me the truth."

He's shoved into one of the chairs, one hand on his shoulder as cold as the barrel of the .38, one hand as hard and indisputable as tempered steel forcing him to sit when every muscle in his body is telling him to run.

"I think you remember how this works, so let's try to make it as painless as possible,"

the voice says. Then strong fingers are tangling themselves in his hair, pul ing his head back so he's staring straight up into the pale grinning face. Now he can see it's just a cheap Mardi Gras mask, not a real face at al .

"You're not Poe," he says. "If you're Poe, take off the mask, you fucking coward."

"Wrong," the white face says without moving its lips, and the butt of the pistol comes down fast across the bridge of his nose, cracking bone, tearing cartilage. Warm

"Wrong," the white face says without moving its lips, and the butt of the pistol comes down fast across the bridge of his nose, cracking bone, tearing cartilage. Warm blood spurts down his chin. Jim Unger screams as the searing pain fills his head, but a thunderclap devours the sound.

"Now, see what you made me do?" The barrel of the gun is already jammed against his temple again. Jim gasps and more blood spills out of his nostrils and into his mouth, gagging him.

"You knew, didn't you?" the man behind the mask asks. "You knew I wasn't the one who killed Benny."

"Bullshit," Jim Unger coughs, spitting out a mouthful of blood and snot, blowing a finer drizzle of gore from his broken nose. His eyes are watering and it's hard to see the mask, just an alabaster smear now against the flickering dark.

"Don't lie to me, you fucking pig." Now the gun is pressed against the tip of Jim's chin, pointing upward. "I have no reason in the whole fucking world not to pull this trigger and blow your brains out, so don't you fucking lie to me."

Jim hears the weakness in the voice then, the strain of anger. A chink that might let him past the mask, might even give him a chance if he doesn't screw it up.

"What difference does it make?" he asks. "Even if we didn't get the killer, we got another sicko off the street, right?"

"You real y think this is al some sort of fucking game, don't you?" The hand holding the gun is trembling with rage that wants out, anger like a starving dog on a very short leash.

So much anger can make a person careless. Jim swallows, hating the bitter, salty taste of his own blood.

"Either way, I was just doing my job, right?" he says.

"Wrong," Jared Poe snarls back at him, a voice that could be Jared Poe's if such a thing were possible. The gun is suddenly past Jim's lips, chipping teeth as the stubby barrel is forced across his tongue. Thunder rushes from the sky to cover the deafening boom of the gunshot.

Four blocks west of Jim Unger's house Jared final y stops running, collapses into a row of oleander, and lies staring up into the rain, the belly of low, roiling clouds stained orange by the Metairie streetlights. Benny's mask is still clutched in his right hand. The rain has already washed most of the cop's blood off him, washes his own blood from the hundred scrapes and gashes left by his dive through the window.

Is there anything he could have said that would have stopped you from killing him? he thinks, but it sounds like Lucrece asking the question, Lucrece speaking from behind his eyes."What difference does it make?" he asks her, knowing that there won't be an answer. The crow lights on the ground beside the oleander bushes and Jared turns his head so he can see her. The water rol s off her black feathers; a single raindrop catches on the end of her beak and hangs there like a jewel until the bird shakes it off.

"And where were you, bitch? I thought you were supposed to be here to help me."

The bird caws and spreads her wings, blinks her golden eyes in a way that is somehow indifferent and accusatory at the same time. Not that Jared has to rely on anything as subtle as body language. Her voice would be impossible for him not to hear, not to understand.

"Yeah? Well, fuck you too," Jared says, and rolls over again to stare into the storm.

six

After Jared and the bird have left her alone in the apartment, Lucrece sits at the window and watches the rain filling the gutters on Ursulines. She knows that she should be moving, should be asking the questions that Jared's impatience and rage have kept him from considering, not sitting on her ass while what little is left of her world careens toward fresh disaster. But she feels too stunned, entirely too overwhelmed.

There's a limit, she thinks. Even for me, there must be a limit.

Since Benny's death her life has become a downward spiral toward a despair so complete and crushing that it could be the lightless bottom of the ocean, that absolute pressure on every inch of her body and mind and soul. She wasn't even given a chance to grieve for the loss of her twin, her bright shadow, before she had to begin fighting to save Jared's life and was thrown into the merciless arena of lawyers and police and courtrooms. And the press too, because it was just too good a story not to smear across every paper and tabloid and television news broadcast: the transsexual sister pleading for the life of the accused homosexual murderer of her cross-dressing twin.

When the police were finally finished with Jared and Benny's apartment, she was the one who scrubbed her brother's blood from the floorboards and windows, the one who dragged the gore-crusted mattress away and painted the walls that could never be cleansed of their stains. She felt like a traitor, covering over those last lingering traces of him. She was the one who handled Benny's funeral when the coroner's office finally
cleansed of their stains. She felt like a traitor, covering over those last lingering traces of him. She was the one who handled Benny's funeral when the coroner's office finally allowed what was left of him to be entombed in the plot Jared had bought the year before in Lafayette No. 1.

And Lucrece did almost all of it by herself, because while Jared had attracted plenty of art-crowd hangers-on and wanna-bes, the three of them had very few actual friends, people willing to stand by her through the shitstorm of publicity and pain that her life became in the days after Benny's murder. Those days that had turned to long months of the same droning, unrelenting hurt.

When the trial was over and Jared was sitting on death row at Angola, Lucrece was left to stand guard over the apartment. She gave up the old place in the Warehouse District. The only hope remaining in the world was that some overlooked bit of evidence would free her brother's lover before his execution left her finally, irrevocably, as alone as someone could become.

Against that day she had nothing but Jared's pearl-handled straight razor and the knowledge of her limits, the certainty that she would not be left lacking an out, a way to stop the pain when it was clear that there was nothing left for her to do. When there were no more stingy strands of idiot hope to dangle from, no more far-fetched fantasies of justice to keep her reeling from day to day.

Then Jared was killed in some sort of brawl, a fight with another inmate, or maybe he was simply attacked; she still isn't clear on the details. They didn't matter, anyway. All that mattered was that the end came a whole lot sooner than she expected and Lucrece was caught off guard. Jared was supposed to die after all the slow and impersonal rituals of legal execution, after the obligatory appeals and protests. Instead he bled to death in a prison exercise yard. Or so she was told. The news reached her in a midnight phone call from one of Jared's attorneys. For a long time afterward she sat staring at the telephone as if maybe it had been a mistake, maybe in a moment someone would call back and tell her no, it had been a different Jared Poe, sorry for the confusion. Or even a practical joke. Lawyers could be pretty sick fuckers, after all, and she'd have gladly forgiven them and laughed, she would have actually fucking laughed at that point.

Eventually she went to the bathroom medicine cabinet, where she kept the razor, and she sat on the toilet seat and stared at it the way she'd stared at the phone. She wasn't afraid of dying. If she ever had been, that fear had been stripped from her.

Lucrece folded the blade open and it glinted dully in the dim bathroom light. She even made a couple of tentative cuts along her arms, preparing herself for the pain of the deep longitudinal slashes that would be necessary to ensure permanent oblivion.

But then someone had whispered into her ear, so close that she could feel cold breath against her cheek. A single question from a gentle voice so much like Benny's that she let the razor slip from her fingers and clatter to the tile floor.

Who's gonna bury Jared if you go?

It might have been in her head, the product of a traitorous or cowardly imagination, a hallucination manufactured in a last-ditch effort to save her own hopeless life. But she waited, very still, patiently listening for anything else the voice might have to say.

"Haven't I done al that I can do?" Lucrece whispered back to the empty apartment.

"Haven't I?"

There wasn't an answer, although she sat there on the toilet seat for almost an hour longer, listening to the murmuring background noises of the creaky old building, the street sounds of the Quarter going on about its business around her. Without her, if need be. Eventually she picked up the razor and folded it closed, returned it to its shelf in the medicine cabinet. She was damned to a few more days of Me, a little more sorrow, by the image of Jared's lonely funeral, the casket being carried into the mausoleum and no one in attendance who wasn't paid to be there.

Outside the storm howls like a hungry giant. Lucrece puts one hand out flat against the win-dowpane. It feels like she imagines herself, polished flat and smooth, transparent and cold as the rain beating against it from the other side.

Why did I have to keep going after the funeral? That's a fair question, isn't it?

But there are no more answers now than there were that night when she sat with the open razor glinting at her feet. Only the mindless storm and the indifferent night, the sound of her heart, a restless reminder of her own irrelevant mortality.

If Lucrece had been any less warped by the world and her time in it, if she had not already been forced to accept so much loss and horror, then Jared's return might have been one step over the limit of what she was capable of enduring, the part of the story where the author loses her to disbelief and she closes the book for the last time. As it is, it only feels like the next impossible episode in a story that has grown ever more ridiculous since the day she was born into a body that wasn't even suited to her most basic needs.

That's the only truth she can read from the rhythm of the rain against the window, the only divination to be gleaned from the interlacing paths of water down the glass. Just the cruel, simple fact of her continuing survival and the comfortless understanding that
the only divination to be gleaned from the interlacing paths of water down the glass. Just the cruel, simple fact of her continuing survival and the comfortless understanding that there is still something left for her to do before she can finally let go and follow her twin."Please, Jared," she says, pulling her hand back from the window, letting the curtain fall back in place to hide the storm. "Give me the time I need to figure this out. Don't make me have to be here for nothing..."

And the thunder makes a sound like an old man laughing.

The Eye of Horus is a couple of blocks west of the apartment, a tiny curiosity squeezed in between a gallery and an antique store specializing in art deco lamps. By the time she reaches it Lucrece is soaked despite her black raincoat and umbrella. She stands dripping beneath a candy-striped awning, peering into the shop's single dusty window. The glass is decorated with two carefully rendered Egyptian hieroglyphs, stylized hawks bracketing Gothic letters that spell out the shop's name. Lucrece used to come here often, with

Benny or alone, when she was still designing clothing, used to buy what she needed in the way of feathers and bird bones from Aaron Marsh, the proprietor.

Sunrise is still a couple of hours away and the French Quarter is idling, drowsy, most of the soggy night's revelry over but the new day as yet undelivered. Lucrece raps her cold knuckles against the door again. A bell on the other side jingles faintly, but there's no sound or movement from within the darkened shop. She's starting to shiver. She stomps her feet against the sidewalk, realizes that the rainwater has gotten into her boots as well. She knocks harder, rattling the little stained-glass panes set into the door.

"Come on, Aaron," she says, "I know you're in there somewhere." She bangs at the door again.

This time a dim, yel owy light flickers on somewhere toward the back of the Eye of Horus and there are stumbling noises. Someone curses. A moment more and she hears the click of a deadbolt being turned before the door opens a crack, stil held by a safety chain. Aaron Marsh peeps out at her cautiously, like a rat, his scraggly white beard and blue eyes bright even in the shadows.

"What the hell do you want?" he growls past the chain. "Do you have any idea what time it is? Go away or I'll call the police."

"I'm sorry, Aaron," Lucrece says. He recognizes her then, repeats her name a couple of times and makes a disgusted, inconvenienced snorting sort of sound.

"Lucrece," he says. "Lucrece DuBois? What do you want?"

"I need to talk to you, Aaron. About crows."

Aaron Marsh snorts again, the noise a surfacing hippopotamus makes.

"I thought you were dead" he says gruffly, suspiciously, and Lucrece shakes her head."No," she says. "That was my brother. But that's why I'm here, because of Benny."

"But you just said that you wanted to talk about crows," he says, squinting to get a better look at Lucrece. His arched eyebrows are the same bristling snow white as his long beard.

"Please, Aaron. I'm freezing to death out here." She stomps her feet again, not entirely for effect.

He mumbles something to himself that Lucrece doesn't understand, but unfastens the chain and opens the door the rest of the way, stepping aside to let her pass. He's wearing a paisley housecoat and slippers, and his eyes are sleepy and alert at the same time. Lucrece steps gratefully into the musty, warm shop. Aaron shuts the door behind her, locks it again. The air smells like old feathers and dust bunnies, cedar and pipe tobacco-gentle, nostalgic odors from a time when her life made sense.

"You're dripping al over my floor," Aaron says, and of course she is, the water streaming off her raincoat and her hair onto the red and gold Turkish carpet. The dim lamplight from the back of the shop makes Aaron look only a little older than he actually is, somewhere on the brittle edge of sixty. He makes Lucrece think of a slightly deranged Walt Whitman. He takes her coat and holds it gingerly between two fingers, drapes it across a brass coat hook nailed up near the door, points to another hook from which Lucrece hangs her umbrella.

She glances about the Eye of Horus, which doesn't seem to have changed much since her last visit at least a year and a half ago. Rows of tall oak and walnut display cases and bookshelves line the walls, cases filled with painstakingly mounted skeletons of eagles and herons and a hundred different species of songbirds; taxidermied wonders, stuffed owls and ducks and a flock of extinct passenger pigeons, and his most prized possession in a case in the center of the shop, not for sale at any price but he can't resist showing it off: a stuffed dodo. There are jars filled to overflowing with peacock and pheasant and ostrich feathers, drawers occupied by every conceivable sort of egg, each carefully drained of its embryonic contents and protected in beds of cotton and
pheasant and ostrich feathers, drawers occupied by every conceivable sort of egg, each carefully drained of its embryonic contents and protected in beds of cotton and excelsior.

Before he moved to New Orleans sometime in the nineteen-fifties, Aaron Marsh was professor of ornithology at a small-town university somewhere in eastern Massachusetts.

And then there had been a sex scandal, a flunking student who got revenge by confessing to the dean or headmaster or whomever that he was Aaron's homosexual lover, and Dr. Marsh was out on his ass. So he'd come south, to a warmer, more forgiving place less prone to witch hunts, and he'd opened the Eye of Horus.

"Well, would you like some tea?" he asks grudgingly, but most of the crankiness seems to be gone now. "A hot pot of green tea will warm you up."

"Yes," she says. "I'd like that very much, thank you." Aaron shuffles past her toward the curtain of amber beads that separates the shop from a narrow flight of stairs leading up to his apartment overhead. Lucrece follows slowly behind him, admiring Aaron's treasures even through her mental fog of cold and fear. She passes the big dodo standing its silent, perpetual guard like a character from a Lewis Carroll story. Its glass eyes seem to watch her skeptically, ready to pounce if she makes a wrong move.

When Lucrece reaches the bead curtain Aaron is already at the top of the stairs speaking softly to someone. It hadn't occurred to her that he might not be alone, and she wonders if they'll have the privacy she needs to ask her questions. The stairs creak loudly beneath her wet shoes.

"I think you'll live," Aaron mutters. "Now go back to sleep and stop being such a bitch."

By the time Lucrece mounts the last arthritic stair to the short second-floor hallway Aaron has disappeared into the kitchen at the other end of the hall. To her right the bedroom door is standing open and there's a lamp burning on a small table by a huge, sagging canopy bed. An annoyed-looking young man is sitting up, blinking at her.

"It couldn't wait until morning?" he asks.

"No," she replies. "I'm sorry, but it really couldn't."

The man makes a dismissive gesture with one hand and lies down again, covers his head with a pil ow.

"I'm sorry," Lucrece says again, feeling awkward. Then Aaron is calling her from the kitchen and she can hear water running, fil ing a kettle. "Just ignore him," Aaron shouts, but she pulls the bedroom door closed and it creaks louder than the stairs.

The strong green tea does warm Lucrece. She sips her second cup while Aaron rambles on about the shop, holds the little china teacup in both hands and rolls it back and forth between her palms. The taste and smell of the tea is nostalgic too. She wonders if there's a thing left in the world that hasn't become tainted by her sadness.

"But you wanted to talk about crows," the old man says at last, peering at her from under his eyebrows as he blows on his own steaming cup of tea.

"Yes," she says, setting her cup on the table. "What do you know about crows and the dead, about crows and ghosts?"

Aaron frowns and tugs at his beard.

"You got me out of bed at four A. M. because you wanted to hear fairy tales?"

"It's very important," she says, stealing a glance at the grease-stained clock above the stove. It reads 4:20. She wonders how long Jared's been gone, where he might be now. Or maybe I imagined the whole goddamned thing, she thinks. Maybe I'm just a crazy woman wandering around in the rain talking about birds.

"Mythology and folklore are not my areas of expertise," Aaron replies, and slurps his tea.

"But you must have picked up a lot in your studies. You must have heard a lot of strange things."

"Strange things," he says, and laughs, closing his eyes a moment as if savoring the flavor of the tea or losing himself in some bit of memory. "Everyone sees and hears strange things, Lucrece. If they live a little while and keep their eyes open. Especially when one is a young boy in New England. Or an old man in New Orleans."

"Did you ever meet Jared Poe?" she asks, afraid she's losing her nerve. "Benny's lover, the photographer?"

Aaron narrows his eyes, blows on his tea again.

"You said crows."

"I know," Lucrece replies.

"I met him once," Aaron says, setting down his cup. "And I know he was killed in prison. I heard that on the radio a week or so back. The Bourbon Street Ripper killed in a prison brawl."

"Yeah." Lucrece begins to wish she'd gone to someone else. Someone more inclined to believe ghost stories than this outcast scientist, this snowy-haired man who might have invented doubt for his own particular pleasures.

"What's he got to do with crows, Lucrece?"

who might have invented doubt for his own particular pleasures.

"What's he got to do with crows, Lucrece?"

"Jared came back home tonight," she says, just like that, the whole thing out at once before she can change her mind. "He came back, with a crow."

Aaron Marsh doesn't say anything, just stares down at his cooling tea, the antique china cup decorated with cobalt blue sparrows painted beneath the cracked glaze.

"Why would I make something like that up, Aaron?" Lucrece whispers.

"That's not for me to say." Aaron sighs loudly and folds his hands in front of him.

"In India the crow is the bird of death. Many cultures make that connection. It's natural enough, since crows are carrion-feeders. Crows are seen to feed on the dead, so we get legends and traditions of the crow as a sort of guide for souls, escorts between the land of the living and the land of the dead..."

"But does anyone ever mention it working the other way round?" Lucrece asks him, and he looks up at her. His eyes are almost the same shade of blue as the birds on the little teacups.

"I suspect that you have acquaintances better suited to answer a question like that," he says. "There's no shortage of occultists and spiritualists in this neighborhood."

"But I trust you, Aaron, because I know you won't just tell me what I want to hear, or listen to me and only hear what you want to hear. You're a scientist."

"I was a scientist," he corrected. "Now I'm an old homo who sells pigeon feathers and powdered chicken bones to would-be voodoo priestesses."

"And apparently spends a lot of time feeling sorry for himself," Lucrece adds, not bothering to hide her growing impatience and doubt.

"Yes, wel ," Aaron says.

"I'm sorry to have bothered you." She gets up to leave, not wanting to waste any more of his time or hers, but Aaron immediately motions for her to sit down again.

"I can't tell you a great deal," he says. "But there's a German. Weicker, I think..."

He worries at his beard. "Hell. Hold on a minute. I'll be right back."

Lucrece sits back down as Aaron stands and leaves her alone in the kitchen. She sips her tea and listens to his footsteps moving along the hall and then down the creaky steps to his shop. The man behind the bedroom door calls out, "What the fuck does she want, Aaron?"

"I said to go to sleep, Nathan," Aaron Marsh calls back, his voice muffled by distance and the storm, the rain drumming endlessly on the roof, a car passing out on Dumaine Street. He sounds a lot farther away than just downstairs. In a few minutes her cup is empty, only a few black specks of ground tea leaves left in the bottom. Soon she hears him on the stairs again, and when he steps back into the kitchen he's carrying a dusty old book bound in black cloth with faded gold printing on the cover and spine.

"I was right," he says. "Weicker. Der Seelenvogel in der alten Literatur und Kunst."

Aaron holds the book up so she can see the title printed on the cover, even if the German doesn't make any sense to her. "He writes a good bit in here about birds as death spirits and images of death, images of the soul, psychopomps and what have you..." He trails off, flipping through the brittle old pages.

"And crows?" Lucrece asks.

"Almost all the Corvidae. Crows, ravens, rooks ... many of them are often portrayed as death birds. Ah, yes, here." He begins to read aloud, tracing a line of text with one finger. "'In habentibus symbolum facilis est transitus. '"

"I don't speak Latin either," she says. Aaron frowns at her, a very professorial frown, as though she hasn't done her homework or has been caught passing notes. But he apologizes and then repeats the line in English.

"For those who have the symbol, the passage is easy. '" He pauses, then adds like a footnote, "The passage from the land of the living to the land of the dead."

"And what's the symbol?" Lucrece asks him, but he only shrugs.

"That depends. It could be many things." He goes back to the book. "Weicker records something here, a bit of a fairy tale that he thinks may originally be Hungarian or Wallachian." Aaron reads slowly now, translating for her as he goes. "'These people once believed that when a person died, a crow carried his soul to the land of the dead.

But sometimes something so bad happens that a tremendous sadness is carried with it and the soul cannot rest. Then sometimes the crow can bring that soul back to the land of the living to exact vengeance against those responsible for its disquiet.

'"So long as the spirit pursues only those responsible, the crow protects it from all harm and it is invulnerable to harm by man or beast or any other evil spirits. But should the spirit turn aside from this narrow path, the crow may be forced to abandon it and the spirit will be left to wander the living world alone, forever, as a ghost or revenant. '"

Aaron pushes one finger at the bridge of his nose, force of habit, adjusting glasses he isn't wearing as he closes the book and lays it on the table between them.

"So," he says, "in this instance I suppose the symbol is the soul's pain and that pain's connection to the living."

"Jesus," Lucrece whispers, and stares down at Aaron Marsh's black book.

pain's connection to the living."

"Jesus," Lucrece whispers, and stares down at Aaron Marsh's black book.

"It's only a fairy tale, Lucrece. These same people thought that the souls of suicides came back as vampires."

For just a second she wants to tell him more, tell him every detail of Jared's appearance in the apartment and the thoughts she read in the crow's nervous bird mind.

Wants someone else, anyone else, to know the things she's seen and felt. The second passes. There might not be much time if she's going to help Jared.

"Thank you, Dr. Marsh," she says, sliding her chair away from the table. "It was very kind of you to try to help and I'm very sorry for waking you and Nathan..."

"A fairy tale, Lucrece. That's all," he says. She smiles for him, though it feels like a sickly grimace.

"I should be going now," she says. For a moment he looks uncertain, as if he might be thinking of calling a doctor or the police. But she steps past him toward the hall and he follows, mumbling about the storm, what he's heard about it on the radio.

Together they descend the creaky stairs and walk back past the moth-eaten dodo in its glass and maple prison. Aaron opens the door for her while she's putting on her wet coat and retrieving her umbrella.

"Be careful," he says as she steps across the threshold, into the rain blowing in under the awning.

"It's only a fairy tale," she tells him. He nods, a small, optimistic nod that says he at least wants to believe she means what she's telling him. "I'll be fine."

And then he says good-bye and the door to The Eye of Horus jingles shut again and Lucrece is alone on the wet, dawn-hungry street.

It's hardly an hour after dawn, and if Frank Gray has had worse hangovers, his head hurts too badly to let him remember them. His partner is driving. As the police cruiser turns right off Canal onto St. Charles, rain hits the windshield so hard he's amazed it doesn't crack. His head feels that brittle, as if simple drops of water could break it into a thousand pieces. His stomach rises and falls like the gusting wind.

"Christ, Wal y," he says, his voice ringing inside his head, bouncing off the wal s of his crystal skul . "See if you can miss one or two of those potholes, okay?"

Wallace Thibodeaux has been his partner for over a year, a burly gray-haired black man ten years his senior. And Wal ace Thibodeaux hates drunkard cops almost as much as he hates dirty cops. He has told Frank so on more than one occasion.

"So what was it last night, Frank?" Wallace says, squinting to see through the rain, using one hand to wipe away some of the condensation clouding the inside of the windshield. "Gasoline and turpentine? Aqua Velva with a Drano chaser?"

Frank stares out at the white-columned houses lining the street, half obscured by the driving rain, and grunts for an answer.

"Wel , sir," Wal ace says, "if you got anything in you left to puke up, you better get it done before we get to the park, 'cause I got a feeling this one's gonna be bad."

"I'm fine," Frank says, and rubs at the throbbing place between his eyes.

"Yeah, you look fine. Fine is just exactly how you look." A streetcar rumbles past, a blur of red and green and spinning wheels, and Frank moans.

"You drive like an old woman," he says. "We're getting passed by fucking streetcars."

"I can't see shit, Frank. In case you haven't noticed, we're having a goddamn hurricane."

Frank remembers passing out in front of the television, remembers the Weather Channel and the pretty white swirl of clouds on the blue satellite photos of the Gulf of Mexico. "Oh, yeah," he groans.

Frank half dozes for a few minutes. When he conies to, they're passing Tulane, its not-quite-Ivy League facade of respectability like a shield against the corruption and slow, inevitable rot pressing in from all sides. Wallace pulls in behind a tomato-colored Honda and parks, stares across the street, past the streetcar tracks, at the entrance to Audubon Park. There are already four patrol cars parked on the river side of St.

Charles, probably more inside the park. The rain dulls their strobing red and blue lights to something Frank can stand to look at.

"You sure you're gonna be okay, Frank?" Wal ace asks, buttoning his raincoat. "I don't wanna have to be explaining why you're puking all over the place."

For an answer Frank opens his door and steps out into what seems at first like a solid wall of falling water, rain that would make Noah proud. He is soaked to the bone in seconds. But the cold and the wet make him feel a little more alive, and he thinks that maybe he can deal with this after al .

Wallace has an umbrella but the rain's blowing right up under it. They cross the neutral ground, splashing through the ankle-deep puddles and swollen gutters, and they stop at one of the patrol cars. The cop in the driver's seat cracks his window an inch or two. "Did we beat the coroner?" Wallace asks the man inside the car. Frank looks up into the rain, opens his mouth, and sticks out his tongue like when he was a little boy.

"Did we beat the coroner?" Wallace asks the man inside the car. Frank looks up into the rain, opens his mouth, and sticks out his tongue like when he was a little boy.

But the rain doesn't taste the way he remembers, tastes faintly of oil or chemicals, and he spits on the asphalt.

"Yeah, I think so," the cop tells Wallace. "But I better warn you guys, if you ain't heard already, this is a messy one. I mean a real gut-churner. I'm just glad it's fuckin'

rainin' and the sun's not out, know what I mean?"

"Yeah," Wal ace says. "I know what you mean." Frank spits again, but the chemical taste of the rain clings to the inside of his mouth like fried-chicken grease.

The cop rolls his window up again and Frank follows Wallace into the park, between the masonry pillars framing the park entrance. The rain begins to taper off to a simple, steady downpour.

The fountain is only thirty yards or so into the park, marble and concrete and a verdigris nude for a centerpiece, a bronze woman balanced on a bronze ball, her arms spread wide as if she has summoned this storm for her own secret purposes. There are two bronze children at the edges of the fountain, small naked boys astride turtles, one on either side of the woman. The fountain has already been cordoned off with bright yellow crime-scene tape strung along an irregular ring of wooden barricades. The tape flutters in the wind, ready to tear free at any moment and go sailing away into the voracious storm.

Frank and Wallace flash their badges. One of the beat cops nods and steps aside just as a particularly strong gust seizes Wallace's umbrella and turns it inside out.

"Fuck," he says, and Frank manages a small laugh that makes his head throb.

"You were getting wet anyway, Wal y."

But Wallace just frowns humorlessly down at the ruined umbrella and tosses it to the ground, where it shudders and rolls about in the wind. The black umbrella makes Frank think of some sort of bizarre alien bat. He looks away, steps over the crime tape, and gets his first look at what's waiting for them in the fountain.

"Jesus H..." Wallace turns away, coughs into his hands. But Frank cannot look away. He stands staring at the pink-red water and the raw, floating things in it.

"Pretty amazing, huh?"

Frank only nods, doesn't turn to see who's spoken.

"Who got here first?" he asks, swal owing hard, struggles against the nauseous acid rising into his throat. It's only a matter of time until he loses, but at least he can say he fought the good fight, and maybe Wallace will cut him a little slack for the effort.

"Me and my partner. We didn't touch nothin'," the cop says. "Of course, with all this goddamn rain, I'm not sure that's gonna matter a whole hell of a lot."

"Who made the call?" Frank asks, biting down hard on his lower lip, a little pain against his rolling stomach.

"Right there," the cop replies, pointing beyond the fountain to an old man in an expensive-looking raincoat and green galoshes. He's sitting on a metal park bench holding a shivering Chihuahua on a leash. The dog is also wearing a raincoat, banana-yellow plastic The pair are completely surrounded by cops with umbrel as, huddled protectively above the old man and his little dog.

"He called 911 about half an hour ago."

Frank holds up one hand to silence the officer and takes a step closer to the fountain.

"They ain't paying me enough for this bullshit," Wallace says somewhere behind him, but Frank can't look away from the water stained the color of cherry Kool-Aid. It's almost like one of those 3-D puzzles, a senseless collage of reds and blacks and whites, and if he could just look at it the right way it might resolve itself into something human, something that might have once been human. A blue-gray loop of bowel, a mat of black hair like a patch of some strange algae, teasing bits that almost make sense of the whole.

"There's some Hefty bags over there," the cop says, and nods toward the gnarled oak on the other side of the fountain. "They've still got some blood and stuff on them, so I'm thinkin' the killer must have used them to haul all this mess here and dump it in the fountain."

Someone tugs at Frank's sleeve. He jumps a little, but it's just Wallace, one hand still covering his mouth and nose, only glancing at the fountain.

"Let's step back a minute, okay, Frank? Give yourself a break. You're starting to look kinda green..."

He pushes Wallace's hand away. Only one more step to the edge of the fountain and he's looking directly down into the stew of rainwater and meat, bone and gristle, organs and muscle hacked apart like butcher's scraps. The wind gusts hard enough that for a second Frank thinks it will lift him like a stray newspaper and toss him high to snag in the branches of the craggy trees or carry him far above the city, far away from the atrocity spread out before him. But when the wind dies down again he's still there.

"Jesus, Frank. Please..." Wal ace moans. Frank blinks, wipes the polluted rainwater from his eyes. That's when he sees the writing scrawled along the top edge of the

"Jesus, Frank. Please..." Wal ace moans. Frank blinks, wipes the polluted rainwater from his eyes. That's when he sees the writing scrawled along the top edge of the fountain, the clumsy leaning letters in something black and greasy, something the storm can't wash away. Words a foot wide, so that he has to walk around the fountain to read it all. Wallace trails close behind him, cursing Frank and the goddamn weather and the sick son of a bitch who would chop someone up and leave them floating in a city park."Poe," Frank says. At last he can look away, as if he's passed some sort of test. He stares up through the swaying limbs into the storm clouds rushing overhead.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Wallace gags on the last word and has to turn away.

"'On the morrow he will leave me, '" Frank begins, repeating what he's read in the oil-black graffiti, reciting now from grade school memories. "It's from Poe. You know,

'The Raven? By Edgar Allan Poe? 'On the morrow he will leave me as my Hopes have flown before. '"

"Whatever..." Wallace starts and stops, swallows before he can finish. "Whatever you say, Franklin." Then he steps away from the fountain, steps back across the barrier of tape, and vomits into the grass. Frank doesn't move, doesn't take his eyes off the clouds. In a moment he realizes that his head has stopped hurting.

In the kitchen of his big house by the river the man who is Jordan today finishes his breakfast of canned corned beef hash and canned creamed corn as he listens to the radio. The old portable Sony on the counter is the only radio in his house, and he's carefully wrapped all of it except the bent rabbit ears in three layers of aluminum foil, has drawn the appropriate symbols on the foil in red and black Magic Marker so he's absolutely certain there's no danger of errant signals or amplified cosmic rays or subliminal telepathic waves getting through to him from the Outside. He always keeps it tuned to WWOZ 90. 7 because jazz is the only music he likes, the only music he's relatively certain is free of Their influence.

But now he's listening to the news, mostly reports on the tropical storm that's about to be upgraded to a hurricane. Hurricane Michael. He thinks how appropriate that will be, vengeful heaven sweeping across the Gulf of Mexico toward the seething Babylon of New Orleans. If he really believed in God or gods, he might think of the storm as a divine reinforcement sent to counter the black bird-thing from his dreams and visions. But he is not a religious man, so the metaphor and its abstract comfort will have to suffice.

Jordan scoops up another forkful of the sweet yellow corn and listens as the soothing male voice reports the discovery of a body in Audubon Park just after dawn.

No details. No whisper of the time and skill he expended on the boy, but Jordan has come to expect that sort of carelessness. They're afraid to tell the truth, afraid to scare the masses living always between the rock of Their occupation and the hard place of his resistance.

"Sources indicate that the body was badly mutilated, but New Orleans police have declined to confirm or deny this information at the present. They have also refused to comment on whether or not there may be a connection between this crime and the Bourbon Street Ripper slayings."

That gets a cautious, guarded smile from Jordan, a self-satisfied smile that makes him feel a bit ashamed. Someone's noticed, he thinks. They can try to cover it up, but someone always notices.

"In possibly related news," the report says, "the body of Detective James Unger of the Sixth Ward's homicide division was found this morning in his home in Metairie, dead from a single gunshot wound to the head. Sources close to the police department report that Detective Unger may have taken his own life in the wake of his partner's suicide five days ago, though the possibility of foul play has not been ruled out. Both detectives were responsible for the arrest of Jared Poe, who was convicted of the brutal murders that became known as the Bourbon Street Ripper slayings.

"In sports today, the Saints lose their first preseason game-"

Jordan gets up and switches off the radio. He stands by the kitchen counter listening to his heart thudding in his chest, and his head feels light and heavy at the same time. What wrinkle in the game is this? Both the detectives dead, the detectives who had so expertly and unwittingly diverted any suspicion from Jordan, who fell for the clues he left behind in the Ursulines Street apartment. They were dutiful foot soldiers in his war. They got Jared Poe off the street.

They got the fucking pervert killed, Jordan thinks. That's what they did.

He knows he should have seen this coming. Dirty little reprisals for his recent actions, and surely something to do with the visions of the black, wicked thing above the city. The thing that is so close now he can feel it watching his every move.

Payback for Jared Poe's death, Their prized evangelist lost to Them, and someone has to suffer.

"Fuck," Jordan whispers, his voice unsteady, and he looks down at his hands.

to suffer.

"Fuck," Jordan whispers, his voice unsteady, and he looks down at his hands.

They've gone the color of cottage cheese and developed a tremor, but he isn't sure whether he's afraid or just excited that his campaign has drawn such powerful forces out into the open. Perhaps it is even pride that They could fear him so much. That he has hurt Them so badly and They have not attempted to take Their pound of flesh from him, have struck out instead against innocent and ignorant pawns. Men unknowingly in his service, soldiers taking the heat, buying him a little more time.

In the end it will all come down to timing. He knows that. Jordan turns away from the radio and begins clearing the table.

By eleven o'clock Tropical Storm Michael has graduated to Hurricane Michael and the television and radio stations have begun talking about evacuation procedures, breaking into soap operas and talk shows to track the storm's steady westward swath across the Gulf. Satellite pictures of a great white spiral with an ocean-blue cyclops eye, a vast organism of cloud and wind and lashing rain, rushing past Mississippi toward the Louisiana delta, the swamps and the wide, dirty river, all the bayou towns with flooded streets and downed telephone lines. Even the dark ancient powers nestled between rotting cypress stumps and moldering Vieux Carre rooftops take notice of this force and steel themselves against its arrival.

seven

The world's coming undone, Frank Gray thinks. The thought frightens him so badly that he tries to pretend it's just something he heard someone say once, nothing he's responsible for. But that's not the way it feels to him, standing beside his partner in Detective James Unger's kitchen with the storm whipping back and forth beyond the all-too-insubstantial walls of the Metairie house.

In the last twenty-four hours the world has somehow begun to unravel away around Frank like an old sweater, a few loose threads neglected too long and now the whole thing's coming apart at the fucking seams. Something that started with the kid in the bar maybe, the bathroom blow job gone crazy, the first step on a crooked trail that has somehow led him here.

"We should get going," Wallace says. Frank turns to look at him. Wallace looks sick, scared, fed up with this long day of blood and wind that's only half over. "Our asses got no business even bein' way out here."

That was true enough. But when the news about Unger came in from dispatch Frank had to see for himself, to hell with jurisdiction. He knew how important Jim Unger's testimony had been in convicting the man the NOPD sent up for the Bourbon Street killings. And now here's Unger, lying on the floor of his own kitchen with his brains splattered like tapioca all over the linoleum.

"What the hell's going on here, Wally?" Frank asks, but Wallace just sighs and stares out the shattered bay windows. The kitchen is drenched from the blowing rain.

"Jesus, Frank, it's not our case. It's not our goddamn problem what it means."

"Maybe not," Frank says.

"Ain't no fuckin' maybe about it, Frank. This is not our turf and Unger is not our case."

Frank stares back down at the body sprawled on the floor, still half seated in a chair tipped over backward so that its bare knees are aimed at the ceiling, the butt of the revolver protruding from what's left of its mouth.

"We got enough trouble of our own to worry about with that bullshit back at the fountain."

"Just think about it a second, Wally-"

But Wallace has him firmly by the arm and he's already leading Frank out of the house, past the annoyed-looking Jefferson Parish cops and the ambulance in the driveway, back to their car, parked by the curb.

"You didn't even like that son of a bitch, Frank," Wallace says as he opens his door. Frank's still standing in the rain, staring back at the house, trying to put the pieces together in his head. Trying to find a resolution for the basic contradictions and apparent coincidences bouncing around in his skull. Finally Wallace tells him to just get in the goddamn car, so he opens the passenger door and slides in as the Ford coughs noisily to life.

"So you gonna tell me what that was all about?" Wallace asks, pulling away from the dead man's house. The wipers come on, swiping like skeletal wings from one side of the windshield to the other, but they're practically useless in the downpour.

"I'm not sure," Frank says.

"Come on, Frank. Don't make me beg. My ass is cold and wet and I'm not in the mood for it today."

The entire world, unraveling like an old sweater, Frank thinks again. Never mind the care, the paranoid calculation, that he's put into keeping it all together for so long.

"Do you think Jared Poe was the Ripper?" he asks as Wallace stops for a red light.

care, the paranoid calculation, that he's put into keeping it all together for so long.

"Do you think Jared Poe was the Ripper?" he asks as Wallace stops for a red light.

"Do I. . . " Wallace begins. Then the light changes, a vivid blur of emerald green through the rain. They cross the intersection carefully, heading back toward I-10 and the city. "Oh, I see," Wallace says, wiping condensation from the windshield with one hand.

"You think Jim Unger poppin' hisself has something to do with this morning."

Frank wants a cigarette but he knows that Wallace is trying to quit and so he doesn't reach for the half-empty pack of Luckies in his shirt pocket.

"First," he says, "Poe goes to prison and the kil ings don't stop. I mean, yeah, okay, they stop for what? A few weeks or a month?"

"You ever heard of a copycat killer, Frank?"

"That's what I thought too. But that shit about the poetry they found with Benjamin DuBois's body, that never showed up in the press, Wally."

"You've lost me, Franklin," Wallace says as the Ford glides up the entrance ramp onto the interstate. "Man, I cannot see shit out here."

"There was a copy of 'The Raven' by Edgar Allan Poe found with DuBois's body.

Some lines were marked . .."

"You're sayin' that shit written on the fountain was from the same poem."

"Yeah," Frank replies. "It was."

"And you want to know how the copycat knows about the poem from the DuBois case."

Frank fishes the Luckies from his pocket and punches the car's cigarette lighter.

"I'm sorry, man," he says, but Wallace shakes his head.

"It's been what, a week since Poe was killed up at Angola, right?" Frank says, taking a cigarette from the pack and putting the rest back in his pocket.

"Yeah," Wal ace answers, cracking his window. The air rushing in makes a loud, unpleasant sound, and they both flinch at the icy drops of rain sucked into the car.

"That's about right."

"And the next fucking day Vince Norris cuts his throat. Vince Norris was Jim Unger's partner."

"Vincent Norris was also as crazy as a loon, Frank." Wallace makes circles around one ear with an index finger.

"Then we get the body in the park this morning . . ."

"If you wanna call that a body," Wallace says, and swipes at the windshield with his hand again.

". . . along with a line from 'The Raven,' and barely an hour later we hear that Jim Unger's dead."

"So now you're thinkin' maybe it wasn't Colonel Mustard in the library with the wrench after al ."

The cigarette lighter pops and Frank lights the Lucky Strike from its glowing red-orange coil.

"You're the most sarcastic fuck I've ever met, Wally," he says, trying to sound as though he isn't afraid, as though none of this shit's getting through his defenses.

Frank exhales and looks out
at the storm, the clouds, and the wind-tossed trees. The wind buffets the Ford and he can tell Wallace is having trouble keeping the car on the road.

"It's one of my finer qualities," Wallace says with a grin. "Keeps me from havin' to go suckin' on my own rod, like the recently deceased Detective Unger back there."

Frank takes another deep drag off his cigarette and watches the clouds, remembering what the storm looked like on the Weather Channel satellite photos.

When Jared opens his eyes the crow is still huddled on his shoulder, crouched close to his face as if maybe she can steal body heat he doesn't have to give.

"Where are we?" he asks her. The crow makes a soft bird sound deep in her throat.

It's still raining. Jared is starting to think that maybe it's been raining forever and his memories of sunlight are as unreal as his memories of life. He hasn't been asleep, but he feels as though he has dreamed. He doesn't remember leaving the row of oleander bushes in Metairie, but the street signs tell him that he's back in the French Quarter. The cobblestone street shimmers under an inch of water, a straight and narrow river fed by the sky and gutters and the crystal cascades falling from the roofs.

He wants to lie down in the street, imagines the water carrying him away in small bits and pieces, taking apart his body and mind, all the pain, until there's nothing left but a greasy, iridescent stain. Before long that would be gone as well.

"Hey, mister!" someone yells. Jared sees a black face gazing out from an upstairs window. The face floats and bobs inside a rectangle of shadow framed in pink stucco, and then the man shouts at him again.

"Ain't you got the sense to come in outta the rain? Ain't you heard there's a hurricane comin'?"

I ain't even got the sense to stay dead, Jared thinks. What do you expect from a
hurricane comin'?"

I ain't even got the sense to stay dead, Jared thinks. What do you expect from a zombie that ain't even got enough sense to stay dead?

"And why you dressed like that? This ain't Mardi Gras, you know! Hey! Your bird's gettin' wet!"

Jared waves at the man, turns away from the window. Rain rolls off Benny's black latex frock coat and is lost in the downpour, drips from the jester mask that Jared doesn't remember putting back on. He wades to the sidewalk and stands in the minimal shelter of an awning outside a shop that sells herbs and voodoo potions. There are no lights on inside the shop. Jared stands there a moment, staring at his reflection in the shop's display window.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing.. .

Jared touches the sharp chin of the leather face hiding his own. His reflection follows his example.

"You gonna get washed away, mister!" the man shouts behind him, and then laughs, a hoarse braying laugh. "Michael gonna wash you both all the way to the sea!"

A long black car rolls by, parting the river that flows down Toulouse Street, spraying the sidewalk and Jared as it passes. He turns, catching a brief glimpse of the driver through the Oldsmobile's window. The face is narrow, pinched, with hollow, hungry cheeks; that face tugs at his lazy memory and now Jared knows why he's come back to the French Quarter. Knows a name to put with the face: John Henry Harrod, the district attorney who personally handled his prosecution, the man who sat on the other side of the courtroom and nailed together his doom from scraps of coincidence and lies while Benny's murderer walked the streets somewhere, unpunished, exonerated by default, and free to kill again.

The Oldsmobile turns into a private driveway and Jared and the crow are alone again. For the moment, at least, the man in the window seems to have lost interest in them."I bet that son of a bitch isn't on the agenda either, is he?" Jared asks the crow.

He already knows the answer before she replies.

"Then we'll just take another little detour while you're figuring out exactly who the hell is," Jared says. The bird responds with an earsplitting caw-caw that makes Jared's head ache.

"Fine with me. Thanks for finding the asshole-I can take care of the rest myself."

He reaches up and brushes the bird off his shoulder. She flutters under the awning for a second before flying away through the rain toward the rooftops.

"Hey, man! There go your bird!" the face in the window shouts. Jared ignores him, walks to the spot where the car turned in, a black iron gate set into a high brick wal . Jared grips the bars and presses his face to them, stares through a thick grove of windblown banana plants and rhododendrons. He can see the Olds, parked and empty now, in front of a cottage almost completely hidden by the garden. The storm makes wet flapping sounds in the big leaves of the tropical plants, sounds like the desperate flippers of deep-sea things beached and drowning in air.

Just like prison, he thinks. The thought makes him take a step back from the bars.

No, sir. Not just like prison. Nothing is ever going to be just like prison again.

And scaling the wall is more of an idea than an effort, a problem he solves without knowing or caring precisely how. But he lands slightly off balance, slips, and realizes too late that someone has taken the precautionary measure of studding the top of the wall with jagged shards of broken glass, translucent teeth secure in cement gums, glass that slices his hands as he fal s. Jared lands in one of the rhododendrons and clutches his injured hands to his chest. There's a deep gash across his right palm and a puncture straight through his left. The blood flows out as if from stigmata and is immediately thinned by the rain, diluted before it drips to the broad green leaves and the dark and muddy earth. A ghost that bleeds, he thinks. What fucking good is that supposed to be? He squeezes his palms shut, squeezes hard against the pain. The big leaves overhead bestow a little shelter from the storm and Jared lies there until he finds the will to get up, the will to keep going. It helps to recall the thin face from the black Oldsmobile, the face from the courtroom, so he stares up into the angry sky and thinks about John Harrod.

Eventually, inevitably, they put Lucrece on the stand.

Early on, when his own attorneys had suggested her as a character witness, Jared had flatly refused. When they'd asked again, he had threatened to change his plea to guilty unless they shut up about her. No way he was going to put her through that.

"And besides," he'd added bitterly, "she's just another freak for this fucking sideshow.

What good is one freak's word in defense of another freak? We're all in this together, you know?"

So it was the prosectrtion who finally put Lucrece in the center ring, District Attorney John H. Harrod, who'd backed former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke in his 1991 bid for the governorship of Louisiana. Who'd more recently made political allies

Attorney John H. Harrod, who'd backed former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke in his 1991 bid for the governorship of Louisiana. Who'd more recently made political allies of Ralph Reed and his Christian Coalition and who'd gone as far as pledging to "clean up" the Quarter. Of course, he hadn't actually done much in the way of fulfilling that pledge: just a couple of porno busts staged for the media, the arrest of one shopkeeper who sold glass pipes, more hookers and hustlers spending the night in lockup.

Harmless token gestures amplified by the press and nothing much more, until one of the highest-profile homicide cases in the city's murder-haunted history had fallen into his lap. A string of brutal killings apparently committed by a man one local radio pundit had already labeled "a pornographer of the sickest sort, masquerading as an artiste."

The fact that all the killer's victims were drag queens, cross-dressers, or transsexuals made the matter a little delicate. After all, Harrod couldn't very well be seen as defending the sort of perverts he'd promised to rid the city of. But it had taken only a little semantic footwork to fix that. The very fact that New Orleans harbored the sort of deviant individuals who attracted sexual predators like Jared Poe was surely proof in and of itself that the city needed to be cleaned up.

And Lucrece had been only a little more grist for his political mill, one more life he could ruin in the name of wholesome family values. So he put her on the stand, the prosecution's last witness before they rested their case against Jared Poe. His lawyers objected, claiming Lucrece was irrelevant and prejudicial and still too grief-stricken by her brother's death to possibly be of any help to anyone. The judge overruled the defense's objection. Lucrece did as she was told, swore on the Bible she didn't believe in, sat up straight, and tried to make a brave face for John Harrod.

Harrod lingered over his papers a moment, pretending to ponder some detail or another, giving the jury time to get a good look at Lucrece. She'd dressed as conservatively as her wardrobe permitted: a plain black dress with a long skirt, her hair pulled back into a neat chignon. She had removed the omnipresent black from her nails and lips and wore none of her usual jewelry except a simple garnet ring that Benny had given her years ago.

It made Jared sick and furious to see her put on display like that, straining to pass as normal for a lot of norm motherfuckers who had already made up their narrow minds about her. To see her going through hell to try to save his ass when this trial was just a nicety anyway. He stood up, wrestling free of one of his lawyers.

"Please don't do this, Lucrece," he said, but the judge was already banging his gavel, calling for order. There were hands on Jared, pulling him back down into his seat."It doesn't matter what you say, Lucrece," Jared pleaded. "They'll make it mean whatever they want! Whatever they need it to mean! You can't save me!"

"Oh, Jared," she whispered, close to tears, and then the judge threatened to have Jared removed from the courtroom if he couldn't control himself That was enough to shut him up, the thought of Lucrece being left alone with Harrod, alone with his manipulating questions and innuendo and no one there who gave a shit what he said or did to her.

Harrod glanced at Jared and smiled, and Jared bit a ragged hole in his bottom lip to keep himself from telling the DA to go fuck himself.

"So," Harrod said, straightening his tie, "Ms. DuBois. You're the sister of the deceased, correct?"

Lucrece swallowed once and said, "Yes," very quietly.

"Excuse me, Ms. DuBois, but I didn't quite hear you and I'm afraid the rest of the court may not have heard you. Could you please repeat your answer?"

"I said yes," Lucrece said, and Harrod nodded.

"Thank you, Ms. DuBois. But the truth is that you weren't always Benjamin DuBois's sister, isn't that correct? You weren't born his sister."

Lucrece didn't answer this time, looked nervously down at her hands and then out at the crowded courtroom.

"Ms. DuBois? Do you need me to repeat the question?"

"No," she said. "I heard you."

"But you didn't answer me, Ms. DuBois." Harrod took a step closer to the bench.

"Were you born Benjamin DuBois's sister?"

"I guess that's a matter of opinion," Lucrece replied.

"Isn't it true that the name your mother gave you at birth, your Christian name, is Lucas Wesley DuBois?"

"I changed my name. Legally," Lucrece said.

"When you stopped being Benjamin DuBois's brother and decided to be his sister,"

Harrod said, looking toward the jurors' box as he spoke.

"Mr. Harrod, I am a transsexual. I underwent sex reassignment surgery years ago.

Is that what Jared's on trial for? My sex change?"

There was tense laughter from the crowd and Harrod smiled again, nodded, and turned to face Lucrece.

"No, Ms. DuBois. I just wanted to be sure that these men and women understood
turned to face Lucrece.

"No, Ms. DuBois. I just wanted to be sure that these men and women understood your relationship to the deceased, that's all."

"I was always Benny's sister," she said.

Speaking straight to the jury, Harrod responded, "I guess that's a matter of opinion." He was rewarded with a second round of laughter.

"Now, Ms. DuBois, how would you characterize your relationship with the accused?"

Lucrece hesitated a moment, aware that every question was a snare, every answer a weapon to be used against Jared.

"Jared is my brother-in-law and friend," she said.

"He's your brother-in- law?"

"He was..." and Lucrece stopped, took a breath, and continued. "He is my brother's husband."

"But not legally, Ms. DuBois," Harrod said. "Because marriage between two men, two homosexual men, is not legal in the state of Louisiana. So Jared Poe cannot possibly be your brother-in- law, now can he?"

Harvey Etienne, one of Jared's two attorneys, stood up and objected. He tapped the eraser end of a pencil against the table as he spoke.

"Your Honor," he said, "this line of questioning is immaterial. Unless I'm mistaken, homosexual marriage is not on trial this afternoon."

The judge frowned gravely, peered down at Harvey Etienne through his thick bifocals.

"I see no particular harm in allowing counsel for the prosecution to pursue this line of inquiry as long as Mr. Harrod does eventually get to the point."

"As I will shortly, Your Honor," John Harrod assured the judge.

"Then proceed, Mr. Harrod," the judge said, and Harvey Etienne sat down again.

"So . . . your brother and Mr. Poe were not married-"

"Benny and Jared were married," Lucrece growled, interrupting Harrod. "I don't give a shit what the fucking state of Louisiana says, they were married."

"Ms. DuBois," the judge said, leaning his black-robed bulk toward Lucrece, "I would strongly caution you to watch your language in my courtroom."

"I'm sorry," she said, not sounding it one bit.

Harrod coughed dryly into one fist and continued.

"Then, Ms. DuBois, would you say that you respected your brother's relationship with Mr. Poe the same as you would any legal marriage?"

"Of course I did. I do."

"Because in your opinion the homosexual union between your late brother Benjamin and Mr. Poe was as sacred as any legal, state-sanctioned marriage, am I correct?"

"Yes," Lucrece hissed. Harvey Etienne put one big restraining hand on Jared's shoulder.

"Tell me, Ms. DuBois, do you believe that adultery would be a violation of that union?"

This caught Lucrece off guard. "What?"

"Just answer the question, Ms. DuBois," Harrod said, standing very near her now.

"Do you believe that a marriage, even an illegal homosexual marriage like your brother's, would be violated by the sin of adultery?"

"What are you trying to get me to say, Mr. Harrod?"

"Al in the world I want from you, Ms. DuBois, is a straight answer to my question."

She watched him for a moment in silence. Jared could see how hard Lucrece was breathing, could see the fire sparking in her green eyes. Harvey tightened his grip on Jared's shoulder.

"Because if you do hold that union sacred, Ms. DuBois, I'd be very curious to know how you justified your own relationship with Mr. Poe."

John Harrod was resting one hand on the oaken rail of the witness stand, his eyebrows arched in expectation of her answer and a smug, victorious smirk on his lips. He bent close to Lucrece and spoke as low as he could and still be heard by the entire courtroom.

"I'm waiting, Ms. DuBois. I'm sure everyone in this room is waiting to hear your answer."

"Objection, Your Honor," Harvey Etienne said, standing again but still pressing down hard on Jared's shoulder. "This is immaterial and prejudicial, and the state has offered no evidence whatsoever to substantiate such a charge."

"Come on, Ms. DuBois," Harrod urged through a big Cheshire-cat grin. "Just tell the truth. That's all I'm asking you do. Just tell us the truth."

"Your Honor!" Harvey Etienne shouted, and the fat judge struck his gavel three times in quick succession. It made a sound like gunfire. He wiped one sweaty hand across his exasperated face and turned toward Harrod.

"I presume this is leading somewhere, Mr. Harrod," he said.

"It goes directly to motive, Your Honor." Then, looking over his shoulder at Jared and

"I presume this is leading somewhere, Mr. Harrod," he said.

"It goes directly to motive, Your Honor." Then, looking over his shoulder at Jared and his lawyers, he added, "And I have witnesses. Witnesses who will attest to knowledge of a sexual relationship not only between Lucrece DuBois and Jared Poe, but between Ms. DuBois and her own brother."

"You're a sick, hateful son of a bitch," Lucrece said. Leaning slightly forward in the witness box, she spat in his face. There was a brief shocked silence in the courtroom.

"That means a lot, Ms. DuBois," Harrod said at last, taking a handkerchief from his pocket. "Coming as it does from a confirmed sodomite such as yourself."

Jared lunged across the table, dragging Harvey Etienne after him, and the court exploded in a turmoil of shouting and camera flashes.

"You leave her the fuck alone, you bastard," Jared screamed over the pandemonium. "You leave her alone now or I'll fucking kill you."

Then Etienne was hauling him backward across the table, scattering briefs and legal pads. An expensive briefcase clattered loudly to the marble floor and vomited more papers. There were other hands on him, pulling him back toward the chair where he was expected to sit still and listen while John Henry Harrod lied and twisted the truth to fit his needs, while he hurt Lucrece. Jared lunged again and was rewarded with the sound of his collar tearing.

But Harrod had turned his attention away from Lucrece, took one cautious step toward Jared.

"It is true, isn't it, Mr. Poe? It's true that you killed Benjamin DuBois because you'd decided that you really wanted his sister and neither of them could keep their hands off each other. You were jealous, weren't you, Mr. Poe?"

"Shut up!" Lucrece screamed from the stand. "Please make him shut up!"

Jared tore free, tumbled headfirst off the other side of the table, and was on his feet in an instant. He caught a fleeting glimpse of one of the court bailiffs, and there was a sudden crushing pain across the back of his skull. As he fell there was only the sound of Lucrece crying and, much farther away, the wood-on-wood crack of the judge's gavel.

Angola Prison lies at the end of State Highway 66 by a sharp bend in the Mississippi River, surrounded on three sides by deep and drowning waters, hemmed in on the fourth by the rugged, rattlesnake-infested Yunica Hills. Eighteen thousand acres of Louisiana wilderness set aside for the punishment and rehabilitation of evil men and crazy men and men who are simply too stupid not to get caught.

As in so much of Louisiana, so much of the South, time has almost stood stil here.

Angola is not so different than the day it opened its gates in 1868, barely three years after the Confederacy surrendered at Appomattox. A vast cotton and soybean plantation on the banks of the river, hidden away from the rest of the world by all-but-impenetrable stands of oak and slash pine, a world with its own secrets, rules, and deadly rituals.

Jared Poe arrived at Angola on a muggy October day, an afternoon still plagued by summer's heat, but the sky was a bright autumn blue. As the bus carried him through the front gates Jared craned his neck to look back the way they'd come, straining for one last pointless glimpse of lost freedom through a wake of exhaust and red clay dust.

The jury had needed only two hours to find him guilty of Benny's murder, two hours to decide how and where the rest of Jared's life would be spent. The judge had taken even less time to decide how it would end.

Death row wasn't far from the front gates, just past watchtowers four and five, four concrete walls the same sickly green as pistachio ice cream or Irish Spring soap.

Jared wondered if they'd always been that color or if the merciless delta sun had faded them as it did men.

There was nothing notable about his arrival, a dull ceremony of chains and keys and paperwork that concluded with Jared being led to his cell through a gauntlet of six barred doors; above one of them someone had painted death row in tawdry crimson, on the off chance, he supposed, that a man might think he was somewhere else.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here, and all that good shit. The air in the cel block smel ed faintly of vomit, disinfectant, and tobacco smoke. Finally they locked him into the six-by-eight-foot cell that would be his last home. "Get used to it," the guard said as he slammed the door closed and electronic locks clicked solidly into place.

Jared sat in silence for the first five minutes, staring down at his prison-issue shoes, waiting for some small part of the nightmare to begin to feel real to him. When a voice whispered his name from the cell next door, he got up from his bunk and walked to the bars.

"Did someone say something to me?"

"Yeah, I said something to you, faggot," the voice replied in a heavy Hispanic accent. "You that Poe motherfucker, ain't you? You that fag son-abitch we been seein'

all over television, ain't you?"

"Yeah," Jared answered. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"Yeah, well, you just listen to me, Anglo. There ain't no television celebrities in

"Yeah," Jared answered. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"Yeah, well, you just listen to me, Anglo. There ain't no television celebrities in here. So you might have been some bad-ass spooky voodoo sonabitch down in New Orleans, but in here you just another piece of white meat waitin' your turn to ride Gertie.

Comprende?"

And then someone down the row of cells was yelling, "Why don't you shut your wetback mouth, Gonzalez? I got a fuckin' migraine and all I can hear is your big fuckin'

mouth jabberin' away down there."

"Hey, man! Fuck you!"

"No, Gonzalez, fuck you! Fuck you and your burrito-eatin' whore-bitch of a mama!"

Jared went back to his bunk and sat down, listened until Gonzalez and the other man got tired of yelling at each other, then listened to the other sounds, all the captive sounds inside the cement box. Eventually he began to make a mental list of the ways someone could kill himself in here if he really wanted to, if there was finally no other sane choice left. He stopped at fifteen.

The long weeks became months, days creeping by at a caterpillar's pace, but then so many of them were gone and Jared was at a loss to explain how the monotonous routine of television and pasty, tasteless meals could have devoured so much time.

He was allowed to leave his cell only for brief showers and calls from his lawyers, who made uncertain promises about his appeal. Lucrece called only once and he made her promise never to do it again. Never mind how much hope he might have gleaned from the sound of her, he would not have it.

"Christ, Jared," she'd said, "I can't just let you sit there and fucking rot."

"Neither of us has much of a choice in the matter. I love you, Lucrece, but please don't do it again." Then he'd hung up on her. There was no room for hope in this shithole. That's what those sloppy red letters over the door on the way in were meant to remind you, just some illiterate fuck's hateful idea of a joke, the allusion to Dante surely accidental, but Jared had learned a long time ago that intention and message do not always go hand in hand.

Jared also got three short trips a week outside the pistachio building, a handful of minutes at a time in the exercise yard so he could stare through the fence at the forested hills on the other side or the empty sky overhead before the guard herded him back inside again.

One day he'd been half asleep in his bunk, had been rereading a tattered Clive Barker paperback and dozed off, and then Gonzalez was calling him, a loud whisper through the concrete. Jared got up and found the small polished piece of metal that he could hold between the bars for a mirror so he could actually see Ruben Gonzalez while they talked.

"Hey, man. They took Hector." Jared watched the blurry reflection of his neighbor's face in the scratched and dented surface of the mirror.

"When?" Jared asked, because he was expected to ask, not because he actually gave a shit. Hector Montoni had been convicted of raping twelve children in Baton Rouge and Biloxi, of murdering the last three. He'd made videotapes of every one of the assaults.

"Jus' about fifteen minutes ago, man," Ruben said. "He's over there by now. He's in the death house by now." Gonzalez stepped away from the bars, out of the range of Jared's mirror. For a while he mumbled prayers in Spanish.

Jared went back to his cot and picked up the copy of The Great and Secret Show, read one paragraph before Ruben started calling him again. This time Jared didn't bother with the mirror. He lit a cigarette and sat down on the floor beside the bars.

'Two thousand volts," Ruben Gonzalez said. "That's a lot, huh? That's a whole lotta juice to shoot through someone, ain't it?"

"Yeah, it is," Jared said.

"They say it tears holes in your body, man. They say it jumps right outta your eyeballs like lightning and blows off the ends of your fingers. Jesus fuck, why don't they just fuckin' shoot us or
something you know? Somethin' a little more humanitarian."

"Humane," Jared corrected. "Something a little more humane."

"Hey, screw you, you faggot sonabitch. You just sittin' over there so goddamn cool, man, like a fuckin' ice cube 'cause you got them fat-cat lawyers workin' for you, right?

'Cause you ain't used up all your appeals."

"Maybe," Jared said, and took another drag off his cigarette, blew smoke through the bars.

"Maybe? What kind of macho bullshit is that, man?"

"Maybe I just don't give a shit, that's all."

Ruben laughed a humorless laugh on the other side of the wal . "Yeah, right. You gonna give a shit when they come to drag your murderin' faggot ass out to that van and drive you off to the death house. You ain't gonna be sayin' maybe then, asshole."

"Maybe not," Jared said, and crushed out his cigarette against the floor.

drive you off to the death house. You ain't gonna be sayin' maybe then, asshole."

"Maybe not," Jared said, and crushed out his cigarette against the floor.

"Fuck you, man." Ruben Gonzalez fell quiet for a while then, five or ten minutes, and eventually Jared heard him praying again and went back to his book.

A few months later Jared Poe was led out to the exercise yard for the last time. It was a sweltering late-August afternoon filled with mosquitoes and the threat of rain, thunderheads piling up off toward Weyanoke and the state line farther north. He stood near the fence watching the clouds, not smoking, just breathing cleaner air into his lungs, washing a little of the prison out of him with air that smelled like pine sap and sunlight.

And then the guard disappeared, the first time that had ever happened, and Jared was left alone. For the first time since the judge had read his sentence Jared felt an icy twinge of fear in his gut, a sudden rush of goose bumps along his exposed arms. He stood with his back to the fence and watched the dark doorway leading back into death row.

It yawned back at him like an open mouth, the toothless mouth of something ancient that could swal ow a man whole and leave no trace but his absence.

When the Cuban stepped through that black hole Jared knew this was a setup. He didn't have a fucking clue who the big man was or what business there might possibly be between them, but he knew it had to be a setup.

The man stood by the doorway a moment, staring across the gravel yard toward Jared. His dark eyes were filled with something that transcended hate, something that had lain a long time in the shadow of that gaze, getting fat on bad memories.

Even before he saw the stainless-steel glint of the sharpened spoon in the man's hand, he knew the Cuban was there to kill him.

"Why?" Jared asked. The man raised his head a little, flared his nostrils wide as if he were sniffing the air to get Jared's scent, to be sure he had located a proper object for his hatred and the damage it could do.

"You're Poe. You're the queer bastard that killed all those people in New Orleans,"

he said.

Jared had long ago become too used to the presumption of his guilt, far too numbed to the denial of his innocence, to bother contradicting the Cuban.

"I'm Jared Poe," he said.

"You killed my brother," the man said, and took a step closer to Jared. "You killed my little brother and left him floating in the river like garbage for the fish to eat."

Jared caught a glimpse of the guard watching from just inside the doorway, a pale figure in the gloom, his eyes much too fascinated by what was about to happen to look away."I didn't kill your brother," Jared said, surprised at how calm he sounded, how steady his voice could be with his death standing only a few feet away. "I know you're not going to believe me, but I didn't kill anyone."

"Liar," the man said, spitting the word out like a bitter taste, and then he mumbled something else in Spanish that Jared didn't understand. He moved quickly, and even if Jared had been inclined to run, even if what he'd told Ruben Gonzalez all those months ago had been a lie, there would have been nowhere to go. So Jared took one small step backward and braced himself.

The Cuban's makeshift dagger went in just above his navel, made a little popping sound as it punched through skin and muscle to the vital organs underneath. The Cuban pulled the blade out and drove it back in a second time. Jared's knees buckled.

He could feel the warm blood pumping out through his T-shirt, soaking into his jeans, spilling like piss down his leg. He saw it red and sticky on the man's hand and dripping in dark spatters to the white limestone gravel.

"I didn't," Jared whispered, sinking to the ground. "I didn't kill anyone."

"No, man," the Cuban sneered. "That ain't why they put motherfuckers in here, for doin' nothing to people."

The Cuban turned and walked away, left Jared kneeling in the dirt and blood, his life pouring out of the hole in his belly. He looked up once. The Cuban was gone and the guard was still standing in the shadows, watching, smiling. Jared fell over on his side, starting to feel the pain in his guts through the shock, and in a little while someone called for a doctor.

He supposes some people in his present situation-if in fact anyone has ever been in this crazy situation before-would have gone back to Angola and killed the Cuban. Jared cannot see the point.

The Cuban was as much a force of nature as this storm, a happenstance that killed him before the state of Louisiana could. Mostly; though, he can't imagine killing the Cuban because he doesn't blame the guy for killing him. The Cuban had genuinely believed he was killing the man who'd tortured his brother to death. In his place, Jared would have done- would do-the same.

Jared stands on the roof of the little cottage behind the glass-studded wall. The

Jared stands on the roof of the little cottage behind the glass-studded wall. The roof is only slightly pitched, and there is a skylight that must have been added fairly recently. The rain falls on him, a thousand tiny hammers every second, and rushes around his feet on its way to the overflowing gutters. The lightning and thunder dance above the city, all flash and bluster.

Jared kneels beside the skylight and looks inside.

In a room painted the color of dead violets John Harrod is fucking a black girl up the ass. She grips the shimmering silk sheets in both hands and bucks in time to Harrod's thrusts. Her mouth is open, but Jared can't hear her over the storm. Harrod's lips are curled back to show his perfect white teeth, the tip of his tongue protruding between them like a bit of some invertebrate trying to escape its shell.

Jared puts one hand against the glass. You bastard, he thinks. You goddamned hypocritical bastard. There are suddenly too many things in his head at once, images of Benny and the trial, the thing that the killer left of Benny, the Cuban and Lucrece and a smiling portrait of John Henry Harrod with his wife and two children. Jared pushes slightly against the skylight. He can feel that it would break very easily.

The crow lands on the skylight and caws loudly at Jared, loud even over the roar of the storm. The wind rips at them both, threatens to pluck them from this rooftop and fling them into the taller buildings, press them flat like stray leaves or newspapers against the old brick walls.

"What the fuck do you want?" Jared sneers at her from behind the mask, a sneer to match Harrod's down below. The crow tucks her wings close to her body, huddles against the glass, making a smaller target for the wind.

"I have to do this," he tells her. "That motherfucker isn't going to get away with what he did."

And then he hears Lucrece, her voice as clear as if he was back in the apartment with her, as if she were standing in front of him with no wind to rip away the sound.

"This isn't going to bring Benny back to you," she says, and the big black bird cocks her head to one side.

"So now you're a fucking ventriloquist?"

The crow loses her footing and is blown a few inches across the slick glass.

"It doesn't matter." Jared isn't sure whether he's speaking to the crow or Lucrece or both, and he doesn't real y care. "Because of Harrod, the monster that killed Benny is still out there somewhere ..."

"You can't do this," Lucrece says as the crow struggles to keep her grip on the skylight, her tiny claws skating on the glass. "Killing Harrod will only make a monster of you too, Jared."

He laughs at her, that she could possibly be so fucking naive after all she's seen, after her life and her brother's death. The laugh feels good, like he's coughing up something poisoned, something burning deep in his belly.

"Get a clue, babe. Haven't you looked in a mirror lately? We're all monsters."

"You can not do this, Jared," she says again.

"Watch me," he replies. With one arm he sweeps the crow aside, gives the wind a helping hand. The bird flutters away into the murky sky.

Jared smashes the skylight, one punch and it shatters just as easily as he imagined it would. The glass and the rain pour down on Harrod and his whore. Jared follows right behind.

He lands on his feet beside the bed. The woman is already screaming. There are jagged shards of glass protruding from her back and buttocks, and she's frantically scrambling away from Harrod, clawing her way toward the bed's wicker headboard. Harrod turns to face Jared, his trousers in a pile around his ankles and his wet, uncircumcised penis dangling loose inside its condom, already going limp, shriveling up like a salted slug.

"At least you wore a goddamn rubber, you filthy pig," Jared says. He's still laughing, practically giggling now; whatever's broken loose inside him is still getting out, a fury he's carried to the grave and back, and the laughter seems to make as much sense as anything else. "Wouldn't want to risk AIDS. That's a fag death."

"Who . . . who . . . who . . ." Harrod says, the word coughed out through the perfect, astonished O of his mouth.

"Wrong bird." Jared snickers and shoves Harrod, presses one hand against the man's bare chest and sends him stumbling backward to crash against a vanity. Bottles of perfume and tubes of lipstick clatter to the floor. One of the bottles breaks and the room is instantly filled with the sickly, funereal smell of flowers.

"Who . . ." Harrod says again. Now he has one arm up to protect his face.

"You're a slow learner, aren't you, Mr. Harrod?"

"Get out of here!" the girl on the bed screams. "Get out of here, motherfucker! I'm calling the fucking police!"

Jared ignores her and steps past the foot of the bed. Harrod is cowering in front of the vanity, nowhere left for him to run. His breath is labored, uneven.

"Look at me, John Harrod," Jared says. He is trying hard to stop laughing. He bites
the vanity, nowhere left for him to run. His breath is labored, uneven.

"Look at me, John Harrod," Jared says. He is trying hard to stop laughing. He bites down on his tongue, but that's funny too. Harrod peeks up at him, terrified eyes peering past the shelter of his hairy forearms, and that's absolutely fucking hilarious.

"I know a rhyme, John Harrod. Just a little nursery rhyme my mother taught me.

You're not afraid of a little nursery rhyme, are you?"

"Get out of my house!" the woman screams behind him. Harrod doesn't say a word.

"'There were three crows sat on a tree,

They were as black as black can be.

One of them said to his mate:

What shall we do for grub to eat?'"

"I said to get the fuck out of my house, you fucking weirdo! Now!" Jared hears the box springs creak behind him. He leans over and punches Harrod, feels the bridge of the man's nose break. Blood gushes down Harrod's chin, falls in bright spatters to the polished floorboards. Harrod gasps and cups his hands together to shield his wounded face."Sorry. But you really weren't paying attention, were you? I don't have all day.

There's a hurricane coming. . ."

"Who the hell are you?" Harrod whispers. He sounds as afraid as Jared has ever heard anyone sound, a complicated, suffocating sort of fear that Jared is gratified to hear."Well, that's the question, now isn't it? But where was I?" Jared scratches his head like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.

"What do you want?" Harrod begs. "Just please tell me what the fuck you want!"

Jared finishes the rhyme:

"'There's an old dead horse in yonder lane,

Whose body has been lately slain.

We'll fly upon his old breastbone,

And pluck his eyes out, one by one.'"

Harrod begins to cry. Jared kneels next to him in mock concern. "Jesus, that's an awful thing to teach a little kid, don't you think?"

Harrod makes a choking noise and looks at the blood in his hands.

"Now maybe if she'd read to me from the Bible like your mother must've done for you, maybe then I'd have turned out to be a good man just like you, Mr. Harrod."

"All right, you asshole, I've had enough of this shit!" Jared turns toward the naked woman on the bed just as she pumps the huge shotgun in her hands. There are shells scattered like candy across the rumpled sheets.

Jared drops to the floor and rolls away from the bed, away from Harrod. The boom of the gun is deafening in the small bedroom, thunder trapped and wanting out.

Jared knows he's been hit before he even stops moving. He staggers to his feet as she's reloading, ejecting the spent shells and slipping two new ones into the chamber. There's a hole in his side as big an orange and he gets a whiff of his own ruptured bowels.

"Jesus Christ, Harrod. Where'd you find this bitch?" Jared dives for the bed. The woman raises the shotgun, takes aim down the long double barrel, but a fraction of a second later he's wrestling the gun from her hands. She screams again and slides to the floor.

"This hasn't got anything to do with you, lady, so stay the fuck out of it and you're not going to get hurt."

Seeing his chance, Harrod kicks the tangle of his pants away and makes a dash for the door. He is gone before Jared can do anything but curse his pale, skinny, fleeing ass.

John Harrod slams the door behind him as he exits the cottage, the pied-a-terre where he's installed a succession of women for three years now, mostly blacks and Latinas. The storm seizes him immediately, broadsides him. He slips down the front steps and lands in a muddy heap between the Oldsmobile and the house. His ears are ringing from the shotgun blast and his mouth is ful of blood from his broken nose.

He almost panics when he reaches for the keys and his fucking pants aren't even there, but then he remembers the extra set tucked above the sun visor. He slides in behind the wheel and pul s the door shut, locking out the storm and the crazy son of a bitch in the white Mardi Gras mask.

John Harrod folds down the visor and the keys tumble out into his naked lap, cold metal against his bare thigh. He tries to start the car with the trunk key on his first attempt and it takes him a moment to find the right one. His heart is ticking off the seconds like a
against his bare thigh. He tries to start the car with the trunk key on his first attempt and it takes him a moment to find the right one. His heart is ticking off the seconds like a countdown. Then there's a sharp scratching sound and he squints through the rain beating down on the windshield. There is a big black bird standing on the hood of the car, staring in at him.

There were three crows sat on a tree,

They were as black as black can be . . .

"Oh, God," he mutters. He turns the key in the ignition and stomps the gas pedal. The car roars to life momentarily; then the motor coughs, sputters, and dies. The crow spreads its wings and caws loudly, hops toward him, and pecks at the windshield.

Harrod turns the key again, mashes the accelerator to the floor. This time the engine only chugs weakly a couple of times before it's quiet again.

The Oldsmobile begins to fill with the smell of gasoline and he knows that he's flooded the engine. When he glances out the windshield the bird is gone. Harrod breathes a nervous sigh of relief and tells himself to calm down. No way that fucker could have gotten the gun away from Tonya without getting his face blown off, he thinks. Al you gotta do now, buddy, is calm the fuck down.

And then something dark drops out of the sky and crashes down onto the hood of the Olds. The car rocks violently from the impact. Where the bird was seconds before, the man in the grinning white mask stands now, pointing the Remington shotgun straight at Harrod's head.

And pluck his eyes out, one by one.

Harrod screams, opens his mouth wide and screams like a woman, as the man turns the gun around and slams the butt against the windshield. It cracks, spiderwebs, and on the second blow caves in, spraying Harrod with diamond bits of safety glass.

The rain and wind spill through the hole. Harrod reaches for the .38 he keeps hidden beneath the seat.

"Benjamin DuBoisl" the man howls above the wind. He's stooping now, peering in at Harrod through the hole he's made in the windshield. "What does that name mean to you, you fucking coward?"

"It means you're a dead son of a bitch," Harrod says. He shoves the revolver through the hole and pulls the trigger and the gun goes off in the man's face.

"Fuck," Harrod grunts, wiping blood from his eyes, blinking through a blurry, red haze. The man in the mask is on his knees now, one hand covering his face; blood drips between his fingers, runs across the hood of the car.

"Now, you goddamn freak," Harrod growls. "Now maybe you'll tell me what the fuck you want."

The man lowers his hand slowly and there's a neat hole in the mask, right between his eyes. Blood flows from the eyeholes of the mask like tears.

"For you to be waiting for me, Harrod," the man says, raising the shotgun again.

"For you to be there waiting for me when I get back to hell."

The last thing John Henry Harrod sees is the barrel of the Remington 870P sliding in through the hole in the windshield, raindrops glistening on steel. He closes his eyes before the thunder.

Jared lies curled on the hood of the black car, his finger still wrapped tightly around the trigger of the shotgun. He never thought there could be pain like the pain behind his eyes, the hurt filling up his skull. The hit he took inside the cottage was nothing by comparison, an irrelevant, dull ache next to the pain in his head. He moves and the world spins. He is still again.

But the son of a bitch is dead. This is a small comfort, an aspirin for an amputation. Jared cranes to see the stump of Harrod's neck, a jagged few inches of spine jutting out between dead shoulders and then nothing, nothing but the gore dripping from the ceiling of the car. Everything inside the Oldsmobile seems to be covered in a fine crimson mist, a fog of blood and brains and vaporized bone. The only thing he can recognize as human is one ear stuck to the mangled headrest of the driver's seat.

Jared hears the crow before he sees her, the hoarse caw cutting through the whistling wind before she lights in front of him. She stares at him a moment, then stabs the hood of the car once with her ebony dagger beak.

"You have to get out of there," Lucrece says, and the crow pecks the metal again.

"He's dead, Lucrece. I killed him," he whispers to the crow. "He's dead."

"That doesn't matter now, Jared," Lucrece replies, her voice urgent, firm, frightened. "There will be cops coming soon. They can't find you there. Get up. Get moving ..."

He closes his eyes. The afterimage left by the pistol is still there, waiting, an
moving ..."

He closes his eyes. The afterimage left by the pistol is still there, waiting, an orange smudge in the pale dark. Lucrece doesn't say anything more.

When he opens his eyes again, the crow is gone. Her insistent beak has left a small dent in the hood, a flake of paint missing and the gray primer showing through.

Jared bites his tongue against the pain and drags himself off the car.

Lucrece is sitting alone at the kitchen table when she hears footsteps somewhere in the apartment. She's been clutching a single black feather for almost two hours now, a feather she found on the bedspread after she came back from the Eye of Horus.

She's still surprised that it worked, that the bridge between the crow and Jared was strong enough, that she was strong enough to make an actual telepathic connection. If it even was anything as simple as telepathy. All Lucrece is really certain of right now is the terrible vertigo and disarming emptiness that the effort left coiled inside her. That, and her relief at hearing Jared's voice again.

"I'm in here," she calls out, pushing her chair back from the table. There are more footsteps and the flutter of wings, so she tries to stand, has to steady herself against one corner of the table.

Christ, maybe I broke something in my brain, she thinks, fighting back a sudden wave of nausea. From the bedroom, there's the sound of breaking glass and Jared cursing.

"C'mon, you pussy," she tells herself. This time she manages to make it all the way to the living room doorway before she has to stop and brace herself against a wall to keep from falling on her ass.

"We gotta get you a goddamn cell phone, Jared Poe," she says, and laughs, but it's a hollow, anxious sort of laugh. "I don't think I want to try that particular trick again."

Another ten feet and she's made it all the way into the bedroom. Jared is lying facedown on the canopy bed with the crow standing over him, faithful as a television watchdog. The bird glances up at Lucrece and caws once.

Jesus, so much fucking blood, she thinks, flashing back on the first time she walked into the room after Benny's death-it's not that bad, but it's bad enough. Bad enough to trigger a lingering déjà vu that leaves her feeling even more queasy and disoriented.

"I'm not dead," Jared croaks, the way someone with a really bad hangover whispers, as if he's afraid even his voice will break the world. "I'm still not dead."

"Shhh . . . don't talk, Jared." She tries not to sound as frightened as she is, tries not to look away. But there's a hole in the back of his head that she could put her fist into, a shattered rim of white bone matted with drying blood and hair and clinging bits of gray matter.

Lucrece sits down on the bed beside him. She readies for his hand and he clutches hers, squeezes so hard that it hurts, but she doesn't say anything. She just squeezes back as hard as she can, and the crow looks at her approvingly.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Jared says, tries to laugh and starts coughing instead.

"You weren't supposed to go after them," Lucrece says. She only realizes that she's crying when she tastes a drop of salty water at one corner of her mouth. "The crow is here to protect you, Jared. But she can't, not if you-"

"But they're dead" Jared says, interrupting her. Then he rolls slightly to one side so that Lucrece can see the carnival mask still strapped around his face and the place where the bullet went in-a small black hole, no bigger than a dime. The blood vessels in his eyes have hemorrhaged, the scleral whites turned red, and his pupils are huge and dilated. Those terrible, hurting eyes and the mask, but there's nothing left that she can recognize as Jared. Only his voice, and even that seems somehow changed, older and some of the anger drained away, and whatever's left behind is much darker. Much more dangerous.

"And I can't be sorry for that. I don't give a fuck . . . what I was supposed to do . . .

I can't be sorry for that."

"You don't have to be sorry, Jared," she says, wishes she weren't crying, wishes he didn't have to see her cry. "But the person who killed Benny is still out there, and that's why you've come back. Not to get your fool head blown off trying to settle all these old scores with the whole goddamn world."

"The bird hasn't exactly been much help with the main matter," he says, and closes his eyes, and she's glad not to have to look into them, ashamed of her relief but relieved anyway.

"It's not her fault," Lucrece says. "I think there's something wrong about the killer.

Something that's getting in the way."

"You said that already," Jared mumbles. "Last night."

"The police found another one this morning. A body in the fountain in Audubon Park. The news didn't have a lot of details, but it's him, Jared. I know it's him."

"I'm not a goddamn detective, Lucrece. I don't know how to track down a serial killer.

I was just a photographer.. ."

"Then you have to find someone who is a detective. The cop who's handling this

I was just a photographer.. ."

"Then you have to find someone who is a detective. The cop who's handling this new murder, maybe him . . ."

Jared's grip on her hand relaxes suddenly, unexpectedly, and his eyelids flutter.

"Jared? What's happening?"

"Maybe I'm dying," he says, so quietly that she barely catches his voice over the wind howling down Ursulines Street. "Maybe I screwed up, and that's the only chance I get."The crow caws again and Lucrece moves closer to Jared. She brushes his hair back from his face, and when she begins to remove the mask he flinches, tenses, but doesn't stop her from doing it.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Jared."

Underneath the mask Jared's face is streaked with gore and dirt and there are livid bruises around both his eyes. His nose has been bleeding and there's a crust of dried blood caked around his nostrils.

"I'm going to clean you up a little, that's all." Lucrece looks past Jared to the crow.

She can still hear its thoughts. She follows its instructions exactly, moving slowly, and Jared lets her. The cutting on her back tingles, the scars in the shape of a crow, as they did when they were fresh and just beginning to heal.

"We're going to help you, both of us. And you'll find the son of a bitch who killed Benny."

"One way or another," Jared whispers.

"One way or another," Lucrece replies, and drops the ruined mask to the bedroom floor.

eight

The bad scene in Audubon Park was the perfectly shitty start to a perfectly shitty day. It's past three in the afternoon now and the hangover has found Frank again, even though he's already slipped into the bathroom twice for hits off the bottle of Jack Daniels he always keeps tucked safe inside his locker. Otherwise he's just been sitting at his desk since he and Wal ace got back from Metairie, pretending to make some sort of progress with the day's paperwork, the report on the murder in Audubon Park and stuff he should have finished days ago. His head feels like an overripe melon, ready to burst from its own weight.

"So you real y gonna skip out on the party at the chamber of horrors this evening?"

Wal ace asks. Frank opens one eye, glares past his typewriter and the clutter of unfinished reports and carbon paper. By comparison, Wal ace's desk is an exercise in obsessive neatness, more like some spinster librarian's desk than a cop's. Just the sight of those pathologically neat stacks and the freshly sharpened pencils in a souvenir Saints mug makes Frank want to punch his partner in the face.

"I think you and Tierney can probably handle the fucking autopsy without me," he says. Wallace shrugs.

"Shit, I don't even know what's left to autopsy, Frank. I mean, how's she gonna cut that mess up any more?"

Frank shakes three cherry Maalox tablets from a plastic bottle, four Bayer extra-strength from another, and pops al seven at once, chews them dry.

"That's disgusting, Frank," Wallace says, and starts typing again. Every time a key strikes paper Frank thinks that's the final straw and his head's going to pop.

"Jesus, Wally. Can't that wait?"

"I ain't gettin' behind with all this shit just 'cause you have a hangover, Frank."

"You're a damned considerate fuck, Wally," Frank says around the powdery mouthful of aspirin and antacid. He closes his eyes again and swallows the mess.

"Anyway," Wallace says, "if the evac orders come through, nobody'll be doing anything but wadin' outta here."

That morning the National Hurricane Center had posted a hurricane warning for most of southeastern Louisiana, from the coast as far inland as Baton Rouge. Michael was due to make landfall sometime between midnight and one A.M., unless they got lucky and the storm decided to kick the shit out of east Texas instead.

"One can always hope," Frank mutters. His mouth feels like he's just eaten a handful of bitter cherry-flavored chalk. He decides it's been long enough since the last drink for him to deserve another.

"I'm gonna go puke," he says, standing up, and Wallace just nods and keeps pecking away on his old Royal manual.

"Thanks for caring."

"Sure thing, Franklin," Wallace says and hits the return lever. The Royal's carriage pings and slams violently to the left.

"One day that piece of shit's gonna take off all your fingers, Wally," he says, and staggers toward the toilet.

staggers toward the toilet.

The cloying smells of stale piss and bright green deodorant cakes burn Frank's sinuses. For a few precarious moments he thinks maybe he really will puke. He leans against the sink and stares at the face in the mirror. Frank hasn't shaved since the day before, and his skin is the color of raw oysters. There are little beads of sweat on his forehead and upper lip, bags under his eyes that could pass for bruises.

"You're not lookin' so great, Frankie," he says, and turns the hot-water knob. The faucet whistles and then makes an ugly coughing noise before it starts spitting icy, rust-stained water. Frank dips his hands into the sink, splashes his face with the stuff. It smells like mud but it feels good. When he looks back up at the mirror, though, he can't say that he looks any better-just wetter.

"You're a fucking slob," he tel s himself "That's what you are."

Frank takes the half-pint of bourbon from the inside pocket of his blazer and unscrews the cap. "Cheers," he says, offering a mercy toast to the sick-looking guy in the mirror. That's when he sees the bird perched on top of one of the stalls, watching him.

A huge black crow like something from an old Hammer horror film. Frank almost drops the bottle.

"I need to talk to you, Frank Gray." For just a second Frank thinks the bird said that, the long second that it takes him to turn around and see the man in the black latex coat sitting beneath the room's single small window.

The man's wearing a leather hood, open zippers where the eyes and mouth should be, a slit for the nose. Frank thinks he saw something like it in a bondage magazine once.

"Who the fuck are you?" Frank reaches for his gun, stops halfway when the man pulls the shotgun out from under his coat and pumps it once.

"Please," the man says. "I've had enough of that shit today. All I want to do is talk to you. I swear."

"Jesus," Frank whispers, glancing at the door, at least five yards away. There's no way he could make it without getting his head blown off. "Someone else could walk through that door at any second. What are you gonna do then?"

"Deal with it when it happens," the man replies.

"I just don't want to get shot because somebody has to take a dump, you know?"

"Then we better get this over with quickly, Detective."

"Jesus," Frank says again. "Would you believe this is the second time in the past twenty-four hours someone's pulled a gun on me in the John?"

"You're investigating the murder in Audubon Park this morning, aren't you?" The man gets up slowly, keeping the barrel of the gun pointed at Frank's chest. The crow caws loudly and flaps its wings.

"I guess the bird's yours, huh?" Frank asks, sparing another glance at the crow.

"Something like that. Now answer the question."

"Yeah, me and my partner got that one. Sure. Now will you please point that fucking cannon somewhere else?"

The gun doesn't move an inch, and Frank tries to concentrate on being a cop, not just some scared asshole with a shotgun aimed at him. He notes the man isn't wearing a shirt under the jacket. No shoes either. He's wearing ragged black pants that might have been nice once. There's a pool of water at his feet, dripping off his body.

"You think it's the Bourbon Street Ripper, don't you?" the man says, but Frank's looking at the little window. Too small and too far off the ground for someone to climb through. And besides, it's locked from the inside. The rain beats on the dirty, fly-blown glass.

"What do you think?" Frank asks the man.

"I think you're stalling."

"No, I'm just trying to figure out how the fuck you got in here without someone seeing you. You and that bird aren't really what I'd call inconspicuous."

"It's a long story, and believe me, you wouldn't buy it if I did tell you. Now answer the question, Detective. Do you think the body in the park this morning was a victim of the Ripper or not?"

Frank nods slowly. "Maybe. I'm waiting to see what the autopsy turns up."

"So you think the Ripper's still out there? That Jared Poe wasn't the killer after all?"

Frank catches a glint of anger in the man's voice now, like sunlight off the blade of a knife."That's not exactly what I said."

"But is it what you think?" the man growls, and the crow caws again.

Frank sighs and looks at the bottle of Jack in his shaking left hand.

"You mind if I have a drink of this first?" he asks, and the man says no, so Frank takes a drink. Courage in a bottle. Right now that's precisely what he needs, because he's pretty goddamn sure there's no way this freak's just going to let him walk away no matter how many questions he answers.

Frank sets the bottle on the edge of the sink and wipes his mouth with the back of one hand.

Frank sets the bottle on the edge of the sink and wipes his mouth with the back of one hand.

"We thought it was just a copycat," he says. "It still might be a copycat. I didn't work the Poe case or any of the Ripper murders. So I'm a little new to this shit."

And then he notices the drops of blood that have started falling from underneath the man's long coat, a crimson trickle mixing with the rainwater on the filthy tile floor.

"You're bleeding." Frank points at the drops. "Why don't you just tell me who the hell you are and maybe I can help you."

"We're both looking for the same killer, Frank Gray," the man in the leather hood says. "And I don't really give a shit which of us finds him first. But I want you to know this-Jared Poe didn't kill anyone. Not Benjamin DuBois or anybody else."

"Is that a fact?" Frank replies, looking toward the door again, trying to think of some way to buy a little more time. "You need a doctor," he says.

"No, Detective. I need a goddamn undertaker."

The door to the rest room opens and the crow cries out, leaps into the air, and seems somehow to fill the whole room with the sound of its wings. Frank ducks for cover, dives for one of the stalls, reaching back for his pistol as he moves. The stall door slams wide open and he bangs his knee against the porcelain edge of the toilet bowl. He crouches, waiting for the freak in the mask to pull the trigger, waiting for the killing thunder of the shotgun.

"What the fuck are you doing in here, Frank?" Wallace asks, peering cautiously into the stall. "Who were you talking to?"

Frank's heart sounds like a kettledrum in his ears and every cell in his body is drowning in adrenaline. He feels more sober than he has in weeks. He shakes his head and returns his gun to his shoulder holster.

"If you didn't see him I think I'd better just keep my mouth shut, Wally," he says.

"You better not be gettin' the fuckin' DTs on me, Franklin. We got entirely too much crazy shit goin' down already without you seein' ghosts in the little boys' room."

Wallace reaches down to help Frank up from the floor. "The orders just came in to evacuate the whole goddamn parish. Everyone."

"Wonderful," Frank mutters. There's something greasy on his hands from the floor and he pulls a wad of toilet paper from the roll to wipe them.

"That ain't all. And you ain't gonna even believe this other shit. They just found the DA over on St. Ann, sittin' in his car with his head blown off. Somebody used both barrels on him."

Frank has to sit down fast or he knows that he's going to fall. So he just sits on the toilet, still holding the wadded paper, and stares up at his partner.

The shotgun, he thinks, and then, like tic-tac-toe: Vince Norris and then Jim Unger.

And now John Harrod. . .

We're both looking for the same kil er, the man in the black hood said, the man with a crow. The man who must have walked out through the fucking wal .

"It's gonna be a long night, Franklin," Wallace says. "You might want to get some coffee in you while there's time. I just made a fresh pot."

"Yeah," Frank says. He can still hear the sound of the crow's wings, the velvet flutter loud as the storm. "That sounds like a good idea, Wally."

Jared stands on the roof and stares toward the river, toward the place where the river hides behind cold and colorless sheets of rain. His body parts the hurricane like the bow of a ship; there's something inside him that's even bigger, wilder than the whirling demon of water and wind. He holds the crow close to his body, sheltering it from the gales."Nobody got killed," he says. Lucrece is there somewhere, approving, but he doesn't need an answer. There's nothing left to do now but wait and hope the detective eventually leads him to the man who killed Benny.

The wind screams. Jared strokes the bird's smooth feathers with his gauze-swaddled hands.

Frank is filling a Styrofoam cup from Wallace's scalding pot of coffee when the telephone on his desk rings. He lets it ring two more times, and a fourth, taking a tentative sip of the bitter brew, before he picks up the receiver.

"Yeah," he says. For a second there is nothing but silence from the other end.

"Hel o?"

"Gray?" a voice asks. "Detective Frank Gray?" The voice is male-Frank's pretty sure of that- but high, soft, almost androgynous. He wonders if it's being electronically disguised. Frank sets the cup down on the edge of his desk. The coffee tastes almost as bad as he expected.

"Yeah," he says. "You got him. What can I do for you?"

Frank hears something dry, like paper being slowly crumpled between callused palms. The caller inhales loudly, draws a sharp, uneven breath.

"The homosexual police officer who was at the fountain this morning?"

palms. The caller inhales loudly, draws a sharp, uneven breath.

"The homosexual police officer who was at the fountain this morning?"

The man drawls the word-"homo-sex-shul"- and Frank feels the sweat popping out all over his body, the cold, creeping sensation like icy spider feet up his spine

"What do you want, buddy?"

'To talk." The dry crackling sound comes through the receiver again.

"Yeah, wel , I'm real short of conversation right now, so unless you fuckin' get to the point in the next five seconds I'm hanging up."

"You wouldn't want to do that," the man says.

"Why is that, buddy?" Frank asks. The sweat is starting to make him cold.

Another pause, and then, "'On the morrow he will leave me as my Hopes have flown before,'" the man says softly.

"Jesus," Frank whispers. "Who the fuck are you?"

There's the dry sound again, and the voice continues.

"'Startled at the stil ness broken by reply so aptly spoken, Doubtless, said I, "What it utters is its only stock and store.. ."'"

"Look, freako. Tel me who you are or I'm hanging up right this fucking minute"

"No," the man says, and Frank can hear him smiling. "No, you won't. Because I'm the man, aren't I, Frank Gray? Not poor Jared Poe. Me. I'm the man"

"You're the fucker in the mask, aren't you?"

"I don't wear masks. Only They need masks. I have nothing left to conceal."

"I'm hanging up now," Frank says.

"I don't think so. I'd listen if I were you. Unless you want the photographs to go to the media."

"Excuse me?" Frank sits down in his chair. There's no sign of Wal ace, who was going down the hall for an update on the storm.

"Don't make me get sordid, Detective. I don't like to have to talk like that. To say those things aloud. But there are pictures. There have been plenty of opportunities . . ."

"Listen, fucker-"

"My name is Lethe," the man says. "Joseph Lethe. The body you found this morning, that was my work, Frank Gray."

Frank holds the phone away from his face as if he's just discovered it's crawling with some contagion or filth, holds it a foot from his face and stares across the disorderly assembly of desks and typewriters. This phone isn't wired, even if there were time for a trace. There have been plenty of opportunities, the man said.

"Jesus H. fucking," Frank whispers, and hesitantly puts the phone to his ear again.

"What do you want?"

"Good boy," the man says. "You want to know the truth, don't you, Frank?"

"You're saying you put the body in the fountain?"

"Oh, I'm saying a lot more than that, Detective. But not yet. Not over the phone."

And then the man named Joseph Lethe gives Frank an address and a time, and Frank scribbles it quickly on an old deli napkin.

"I don't have to tell you to come alone, Frank. Or not to talk to anyone else about our little conversation."

"Yeah," Frank says. "There's a goddamn hurricane coming, you know?"

"It doesn't matter. I can't wait any longer," the man says. "But cheer up. You're going to be a hero. How many faggot cops get to be heroes? You should be happy."

"Why?" Frank asks. A fat drop of sweat falls from his forehead to the top of the desk."Because I'm tired. That's all. It's been a long time and I'm tired. I want to stop now.

They know who I am anyway, don't They? So what's the point in going on?"

"But why me?"

"Because you're such a good boy, Frank. Because . . ." The voice trails off, is quiet for the time it takes Frank's heart to beat eight times and skip once.

"Mr. Lethe? Are you still there?"

"There was lightning here. Did you hear it?" The man sounds different now. The glee and smug self-assurance in his voice has been replaced by a distance, a sad uncertainty. "When I was a child, I was struck by lightning," he says. "I was struck..."

"I don't understand. Is that important?" Frank asks him. He sees Wallace coming back through the doorway from the hall, looking straight at Frank and shaking his head.

"Isn't it?" Joseph Lethe asks back, asks as though he really needs the answer.

Then the line goes dead and Frank hangs up the telephone.

"You don't even want to know," Wallace says, sitting down at his own desk across from Frank. "If those eggheads at the weather bureau are right, we're gonna be lookin'

for a new job soon, 'cause there might not even be a New Orleans when Michael gets done with us."

"Yeah, look," Frank says, standing up, not sure his legs will hold him, but he's standing up anyway. That was my sister on the phone, Wally. There's a family emergency and I have to go. I'll meet you back here later."

standing up anyway. That was my sister on the phone, Wally. There's a family emergency and I have to go. I'll meet you back here later."

Frank takes his raincoat off the coat rack near the radiator, where it's been drying since they got back from Metairie.

"You never told me you had a sister, Frank."

"We're not really very close," Frank replies, already halfway to the door.

"You don't tell me shit, Franklin. You don't tell me anything unless I ask . . ."

But then Frank's in the hallway and there are other voices, people getting ready for the storm, and he can't hear Wallace anymore. On his way to the car he remembers why the name Joseph Lethe sounded familiar. Something he had to read for high school, a book on Greek mythology, and it named the five rivers that divide the underworld from the world of the living. One of them was the River Lethe, the river of forgetfulness.

Joseph Lethe pulls off the tissue paper cover he put over the receiver to protect him from germs and nanites. He hangs up the pay phone, wads the paper, and lets it fall toward the wet asphalt of the parking lot. The wind grabs it and whisks it off before it can hit the ground. He watches it flying away, sailing high over the roofs of the few cars parked outside the K&B, into the low, uneasy sky.

"I was struck," he says again, wondering how long until there will be more lightning.

"I was struck."

And it's true. When he was a boy, barely eight years old and living with his family in Houma. Don't stand under a tree when it storms, his grandfather had said. His grandfather had told him that lots of times. But once there had been a thunderstorm and he forgot and hid beneath an old oak for shelter. The white fire came down and split the tree in two, cleaved it open and flowed through the earth into him. He can still remember that instant when he was full of fire. He came to some time later, lying in the rain, and someone had been standing over him, asking him his name over and over. Do you know your name, boy? Can you tel me your name?

But the lightning had left something inside him, something small and hard inside his head, and he couldn't remember his name. He knew other things, though. New things the lightning had wanted him to know. But not his name. That was part of the cost, his name. And he could never wear a watch after that, and compass needles acted funny when he was around. He didn't tell his parents, made the man asking his name promise not to tell, because he was okay and there was no need to tell them, was there? But they knew he was different after that day. They looked at him differently and spoke to him differently.

An old black woman-Julianna, who sold his mother tomatoes-said he wasn't right after that. She told his mother there was something bad inside him and that she knew a voodoo man in the bayou who could make him right again. That was the last time his mother bought Julianna's big red tomatoes or green frying tomatoes. But his mother looked at him differently, like she knew that everything the old woman had said was true. The faggot cop wil come, he thinks. Not because he real y cares who I am, but because he's afraid of what I know and what I might do with that knowledge. The same reason They're all afraid of me. Because I'm the man ...

A red Volkswagen sputters noisily past the pay phone, spraying muddy water from the flooded parking lot all over Joseph Lethe's shoes. He watches it go, stands there expressionless, water soaking right through his socks to his feet. Then he wipes his hands on his raincoat, and, safe in his knowledge and resolve, safe from the black wings spread above the drowning city, he crosses Napoleon Avenue to his car.

Lucrece is sitting on the couch in the living room paging through one of Benny's old Sandman comic books. There's nothing else she can do and so she's been sitting here for almost an hour pretending to read her dead brother's comics. But she's having trouble making any sense of the story; something about the King of Dreams and his crazy little sister looking for their lost brother. And there's a raven named Matthew. But she's having trouble following the plot from one issue to the next, her head too full of Jared, too full of waiting. The radio was on earlier but they weren't playing any music, just going on and on about the storm, so she finally turned it off. There's nothing she really needs to know about the hurricane that she can't hear through the plaster-and-stucco walls of the apartment. It's not as if she can run from it, can join the exodus that's already begun from the Quarter. So she'd rather not know the latest facts and figures, thank you very much, wind speed and expected landfal , tidal surge. She puts on a CD
instead, Black Tape for a Blue Girl's Remnants of a Deeper Purity. The strings and keyboards haven't helped her relax as she hoped they might, but they are a better backdrop for the sound of the storm than the anxious voices on the radio. The music makes her drowsy and she thinks about trying to sleep. It's been almost two days now since she's slept or eaten or bathed.

But Jared's out there somewhere, so there's no way she can sleep. She has to stop
or bathed.

But Jared's out there somewhere, so there's no way she can sleep. She has to stop herself from trying to send her mind out to find him every five minutes. Her nose has been bleeding off and on, and her head stil hurts from the last time.

There's a hard knock at the door. Lucrece jumps, almost cries out. But it's probably just the cops, she thinks, or the Red Cross or someone like that, someone to tel her she has to leave, and she isn't sure how she's going to convince them that she can't. That she has to stay, has to be here for Jared, never mind the goddamn storm.

She lays the comic book on the coffee table and gets up off the couch, smooths the wrinkles from her black dress without thinking. Whoever's out there knocks again, impatient, and Lucrece shouts at the door, "Just a minute."

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping. ..

"Jesus, girl. Give that tired old shit a rest, okay?" she mutters to herself, and crosses the room to the door.

It takes Frank almost half an hour to reach the address on Tchoupitoulas Street that Joseph Lethe gave him. The streets are flooding and already there are fatigue-green National Guard trucks and soldiers at roadblocks. His badge gets him through, but the wind buffets his car like a toy. Driving against the storm is like running in a nightmare, racing something huge and terrible that's right behind you and gaining, and your feet weigh at least three hundred pounds each. Only in this dream there are fallen trees and downed power lines, stalled cars and accidents, that have to be circumnavigated.

So instead of the fifteen minutes the man on the phone gave him, it takes Frank half an hour. And then there's nothing at the address but a vacant, weedy lot with one withered chinaberry tree separating it from the street. Frank parks against the curb and sits staring out at the tree, cursing the fucking storm and his fucking luck. Then there's a brilliant flash of lightning and he sees something silvery nailed to the trunk of the tree, flapping furiously in the wind.

I was struck . . .

Frank gets out of the car. The storm drags at him, claws at his clothes and hair with invisible, windy fingers, as if it would rather he not see whatever's stuck to the tree. But it's only a deflated Mylar balloon; it was once shaped like a heart and he can stil read FOREVER in big red letters. The balloon has been ripped open, flattened, and there's a plastic sandwich bag stapled to it.

Frank tears the bag free. The Mylar comes off too and is swallowed instantly by the storm. The hurricane tugs hungrily at the plastic bag in his hand as he heads back to the car, already drenched straight through his raincoat.

Inside his car the howling wind is muffled. Muzzled, Frank thinks, locking the door.

Inside the sandwich bag there's a folded page torn from a yellow legal pad. Frank removes it, unfolds it, smooths the page flat against the car seat. The paper is wet but the writing on it is in pencil, so that doesn't really matter. And it's only another address and another time, someplace on Millaudon Street on the other side of Audubon Park.

"Shit," he hisses and slaps his hand loudly against the sun-cracked dashboard. He remembers that day years ago in the Iberville projects when Linda Getty nearly bled to death while he shouted "Ten-thirteen!" repeatedly into the handset of his patrol car's radio. He remembers no one answering him, all because Linda was a dyke and they wanted her off the force. What if all of it, the phone call and that weirdo fucker in the crapper, all of it, is just a goddamn practical joke? Or worse. What if they know?

A branch comes off the chinaberry tree and crashes down onto the windshield, leaving a crack three or four inches long in the glass before the wind snatches it away again. Frank turns the key in the ignition, starts the car again, and pulls quickly away from the vacant lot before the storm brings the whole damn tree down on top of him.

You're gettin' paranoid, Frank.

"Maybe so," he says, and makes a wide U-turn on Tchoupitoulas, heading west toward the park. "And maybe not." His voice sounds brave, sounds certain, as confident as all the television cops of his childhood. But the fear filling up his belly and the prickling sensation on the back of his neck say otherwise. And a small but strident voice deep inside is telling him to get the hell out while the getting's good, that there's a fucking hurricane coming, for Christ's sake, and it's not like anyone would really blame him if he just let this one go for now.

Unless you want the photographs to go to the media, the voice on the phone said.

Frank doesn't think there are any pictures, but he can't be sure. He knows that he has no choice after all, that his apprehension is useless because it is irrelevant. That he's going to do whatever Joseph Lethe tells him because he has made secrets of his life, secrets that can maim, and now they're being held against his throat. He squints through the windshield as the useless wipers flail, and follows the unsteady beams of the headlights.

"Please tell me what you want," Lucrece whispers, hating that she sounds so

"Please tell me what you want," Lucrece whispers, hating that she sounds so scared. The hand in the latex glove slaps her again, slaps her so hard her mouth is full of blood. She lets it run down her chin rather than swallow it. The taste of her own blood has always made her sick.

"I ask you the questions," the man says. "That's the rule." The man with eyes the color of stone is kneeling over her, checking the knots he's made with the white nylon rope, the knots that bind her wrists and ankles tight. He has a pistol pressed hard against the soft spot just below her breastbone.

"I know who you are," she says. He pauses and looks back at her from beneath the greasy, dangling hair that keeps falling across his face. He brushes his bangs out of the way again, exposing his thin, hatchet-sharp face. He looks excited and expectant, and his hands are shaking.

"You're the sick son of a bitch who killed my brother," Lucrece says.

"I'm so much more than that," the man replies, and a nervous, shy smile creeps slowly across his face. "But you already know that too, don't you? I'm sure They've told you everything about me."

"Jared died because of you," she whispers, flinching, expecting the hand again.

But the man only smiles a little wider and hides his mouth with the latex-covered fingers of his free hand, as if he's suddenly realized that he's smiling and he doesn't want her to see, doesn't want her to know his excitement or the pleasure he's taking in this scene.

He moves his hand, slowly, and he isn't smiling anymore.

"Did They also tell you that it wasn't supposed to be your brother? Did They tell you it was supposed to be you and I sort of fucked things up?"

Lucrece shuts her eyes, not wanting to believe what he's saying, but she knows that he's telling her the truth. So many times she's wished that it could have been her instead of Benny, knows that if it had been her then at least Benny still would have had Jared. And now this crazy man is telling her that was his intention all along.

"But that's what we get second chances for, right, Lucas?" he asks her, and the way he says that name it's almost as good as another slap, almost as painful.

"You're already dead," she says. The words feel good coming out of her mouth, crossing her torn and swelling lips. "You have no idea what you've started or where it will end."The man bends over her. She doesn't open her eyes but she can feel him just inches from her face, can smell his breath like mouthwash and bad teeth.

"Is that what They told you, Lucas DuBois? Did They tell you I was just some psycho serial killer with a hard-on for transsexuals and little boys in women's underwear?"

When she doesn't answer or even open her eyes, he slaps her again, hits her so hard that her ears ring.

"Answer me, you dickless bastard!"

"A dead man," she says, and he hits her.

"No, no, no!" He rages above her like the storm, as though all the wild fury of the hurricane has been distilled and poured into this skinny, insane man. She ignores the pain in her head and reaches into him, tries to reach into him the way she reached out to Jared and the crow.

When her mind brushes against his, she screams. There's something coiled deep inside his skull, a serpent made of living fire, a writhing bolt of pure white heat that strikes out at her and sears its way back across her thoughts. Lucrece's body goes taut as a board, seizing, and she bites a ragged slash across her tongue.

"I'm the place where it all stops, Lucas! I'm the foil that stands for order against Their chaos. Against your chaos, Lucas DuBois."

But now his words flow around and away from her, repelled by the charge from the white-hot crucible of his brain. The memory of a blazing power that can split trees like cordwood and incinerate bone, something more than a memory. Something hotter than a star that snakes its way inside her, between each and every cell in her body, that squeezes itself between her molecules, between the subatomic particles of her, until there's no telling what is Lucrece and what is the thing pouring out of the man's mind.

Her eyelids flutter open. He towers above her, fire and steam pouring from every orifice in his skull. It drips like molten slag from his lips, flows like lava from his ears, and fal s sizzling to her skin. There's no pulling back, no breaking her link with this scalding mind. Her back arches and she can hear her vertebrae grinding against one another.

"I am the river," he says, and those fiery eyes are so terribly close now. But the last thought before Lucrece loses consciousness is not of this monster, this man infected by electricity and madness. Her last thought is of Jared, and she makes a tiny hole, a pinprick, in the fire and forces the thought away from herself, boosting it with the borrowed force of the lunatic's rage. Then there is nothing but the sound of static and merciful darkness.

and merciful darkness.

Joseph Lethe backs quickly away from the thing that calls itself Lucrece DuBois, the thing that They've constructed so skillfully of male flesh to mimic a woman's. He's breathless and frightened; there's no denying that he felt it reach inside him, felt its unclean mind pressed squirming against his own before it screamed and began to buck about on the floor and foam at the mouth. It had been reading his very thoughts, his soul.But there was something there it hadn't expected, something that shielded and protected him from its prying, alien attention. Something that struck back and left it helpless, unconscious, maybe even dead. He grips the stainless-steel butt of the gun tighter and jabs the snubby barrel between the thing's artificial breasts.

"You bit off more than you could chew, didn't you?" he says, gasping out the words.

"You're not even half as fucking smart as you think you are."

It's gone now, that part of it that laid his mind open like a gray Gulf oyster, but he can still feel it. Like some sticky, sugary residue left to ferment inside his head, and he itches in places he knows he can never reach to scratch. Joseph Lethe feels something cold and undeniable that he hasn't felt in a long time, something he is only supposed to inflict, not suffer himself. He feels violated.

So he sheds the name Joseph Lethe and becomes Jordan again, hoping the change will leave him cleaner, but it doesn't. Cautiously Jordan touches the transsexual's throat, presses two reluctant fingers against its throat. There's a pulse, a very weak, erratic pulse, but it's still alive.

"What were you trying to do to me, fucker? You touched me," and his finger tightens the slightest bit on the trigger of the pistol. "You've contaminated me." He wants to empty the clip into its poisonous black heart. Maybe then he would feel even.

Revenge isn't much, but he knows that he'll never be free of whatever wriggling, inhuman essence it has planted inside him, so maybe revenge will have to do.

"I am the river," he whispers, like a prayer, and the barrel of the gun moves slowly from the space between its breasts to a spot just beneath its chin. "I am the conduit for all that is pure, and you have polluted me."

But he can't kill it, not yet, not here. There's still too much it has to tell him about the nightmares and the black-winged creature chasing him across the sky. And it still has an important role to play in the trap he's set for the faggot police detective. It will die, but it has to die later, slowly, somewhere else. For the moment something else will have to do. Something more subtle, he thinks. "Something more poetic," he says aloud.

Jordan uses the barrel of the gun to push aside its skirt. His gloved hands expose its clever, deceiving sex. His penis stirs awake inside his pants and he bites down on the tip of his tongue. He's never done this, not even once. He's never allowed himself to be fooled by Their masquerade and so there's never been any danger of that sort of contact, that sort of weakness. He's known from the very beginning that it was part of Their game, like the spiny jaws of a Venus flytrap spread wide, waiting for the flies.

But this is different, Jordan tells himself. It has nothing to do with desire, nothing to do with anything as base as lust. This will be a message to Them that he will not be violated again, that to violate him is to invite the rape of Their own. It's ingenious, really. And he will take proper precautions to protect himself from anything inside it that might be meant for him, from any viruses or nanites that might have been installed during the final stages of its reassignment.

"I am the river," he says again, and his trigger finger begins to relax.

Jordan unzips his pants and checks the clock on the mantle to be sure that there's time, that he won't miss the detective, and then he lays the gun on the floor of Jared Poe's apartment.

Jared and the crow are watching Frank Gray from the front porch of an abandoned house on Millaudon Street. Across the street from them the detective curses and rips a second patch of Mylar from the bole of a pecan tree. Then he struggles against the storm and climbs back inside his car. "The killer's playing with him, isn't he?" Jared asks, and the crow answers him softly. Only her head is poking out of the front of Benny's frock coat.

"Keeping him busy. Baiting him ..."

And then Jared hears Lucrece, hears her so loud and strong that the force of her knocks him backward a few steps until he collides with the boarded-up front door of the old house. A voice without sound that rushes straight through him; not even words, just a crippling flash of Lucrece, Lucrece hurting and afraid for him, warning him. Then she's gone again. Jared slumps, trembling, against the weathered boards at his back, shaken and sweating beneath the leather hood she placed over his bullet-shattered skull.

"Lucrece," he whispers. Then the crow caws loudly, shifts impatiently inside the rubber coat. Jared looks up and sees that Frank Gray's car is pulling away, heading north up Millaudon Street.

rubber coat. Jared looks up and sees that Frank Gray's car is pulling away, heading north up Millaudon Street.

"If I lose him now, I might not get another chance," Jared says. The crow makes a sound that seems like confirmation. Already the detective's car is just a dim pair of taillights in rain.

"Jesus, Lucrece, be careful," he says. "And thanks." He steps off the porch into the waiting storm.

The second note has led Frank to a convenience store on a run-down stretch of Magazine Street.

All the windows have been covered with fresh yellow-brown sheets of plywood and the place appears to be deserted, the owners and employees having long since fled the hurricane.

Smarter motherfuckers than me, he thinks, and spies a third patch of Mylar nailed to the plywood. He can see that there's a small brown paper bag stuck up there as well.

The wind knocks him off his feet twice on his way to and back from the front of the store, sends him sprawling into the flooded street. There's almost a foot of frothy slate gray water flowing down Magazine Street now, and by the time he gets back into the car he's so wet he might as well have swum as tried to walk.

He sits behind the wheel holding another swatch of Mylar from another ruined balloon. This one says Congrats! in eager cursive. Frank tosses it into the backseat and takes a deep breath before he opens the paper bag.

This is the last one, he swears to himself. Unless there's something real y goddamn convincing in here, this is the last stop on this wild-goose chase.

Inside there's another plastic bag, and this one doesn't have just a note. There's an index finger as well, severed cleanly at the knuckle, a smooth bit of white bone showing on one end and a nail painted black at the other.

"Shit on me," Frank groans as he opens the bag and fishes out the carefully folded note. There's dried and not-so-dried blood on the yellow legal paper, crimson still tacky to the touch, and it comes off on his hands as he unfolds the page. There's the next address in the same handwriting. "Just in case you're doubting me," it says at the top.

Frank refolds the letter and drops it back into the bag with the finger, puts them both back into the paper bag and shoves the bag under his seat.

Out of sight, out of mind.

"Yeah, right," he mumbles, shifting out of park into reverse and backing away from the convenience store. "Whoever said that wasn't sitting on top of a goddamn severed human finger."

Frank puts the car in drive and rolls back along the makeshift tributary of the Mississippi that Magazine Street has become.

Lucrece wakes up very slowly, drifts by almost imperceptible degrees from a dream about Aaron Marsh and the Eye of Horus, a dream about the stuffed dodo in its glass case. Only in the dream the dodo bird was the one from Alice in Wonderland, the one from John Tenniel's drawings, with hands and a walking stick. And it had been not inside the case but standing next to her and Aaron, watching the rain fall through the shop's display windows.

"The race is over," Aaron said, and Lucrece said, "As wet as ever. It doesn't seem to dry me at al ."

And the dodo said very solemnly as it tapped its cane against the floor, "Everybody has won, and all must have prizes."

Lucrece is just about to ask the dodo if the thimble from the pocket of her dress will do, if it's a decent enough prize, when she smells ammonia and begins to cough herself awake.

She opens her eyes and there's a bright light somewhere close, so close that she can feel the warmth of its scalding bulb. The heat makes her remember what it was like to touch the man's mind, the man who forced his way inside the apartment, the man who killed Benny. She forgets the dream and remembers that sizzling flood of power from his mind, remembers his hands on her, the perfect wrongness of his soul.

She coughs again, her throat dry and rough as sandpaper. Then a plastic straw is thrust between her lips.

"Drink," the man says. He's standing very close. The straw bumps insistently against her teeth, stabs at her gums. "Drink," he says again.

She sucks on the straw and her mouth fills with lukewarm water. She swal ows and it helps a little, so she sucks another mouthful from the straw.

"That's enough," he says, and takes the straw away. It trails a string of thick saliva from her lips, down her chin.

Her wrists are still bound together, tied to something overhead, and she's hanging naked in the glare of the light. Both of her arms have gone completely numb from the weight of her body. She stretches her legs and the tips of her bare toes brush a hard, cold floor, like gritty concrete or sandstone.

weight of her body. She stretches her legs and the tips of her bare toes brush a hard, cold floor, like gritty concrete or sandstone.

"I was just saying it's a shame there's not time to do this properly," the man remarks.

The light seems to move, plays across her body. "I was just saying that you're a prize."

The air smells like dust and distant rain, mildew and oily rags. The ammonia is stil burning her sinuses. She can hear the storm outside, but now it sounds very far away.

"Where am I?" she asks him. Her voice sounds almost as bad as her throat feels.

"Where I need you to be, Lucas. At the nexus, at the heart of the snare."

"That isn't my name," she croaks, but he ignores her.

"I could learn things from you if there were more time. If I had time to do the whole procedure. But he'l be here soon and I've hardly even started."

It doesn't matter that she has no idea what he's talking about. Whatever it is, it means he's going to kil her. He's a predator and she is his chosen prey, stripped and hung up for the slaughter like a hog waiting for the blade across its throat. There's nothing else she needs to know."None of this is what you think," she says. "You don't have to do this again."

"Oh, it's exactly what I think," he says. She can almost see him standing in the shadows behind the light, a darker patch in the rough shape of a man. "It's much too late now for any more lies. I saw your back when I was . . . I saw your back. The scar."

"Nosy little fuck, aren't you?" Lucrece realizes that it's hard to get her breath, that she's slowly suffocating, as in a crucifixion. She might have been hanging here for hours.

"Tell me about the bird, Lucas. I dream about the black bird, and there's its mark on your back."

"You want to know about the black bird?" she replies, gasping for the air she needs to make the words, to remain conscious. "I can tell you about the black bird. Get me down from here and I'll tell you about the fucking black bird."

"I can't do that," he says sternly, reproachfully. "You know that, Lucas. I can't risk that. There's not time."

"Then I can't help you," she gasps. "Sorry. You'll just have to find out about the bird on your own." She sucks in another stinging breath and adds, "He's coming, very soon."

"I'm not afraid of you or any of Them," the man sneers, but she can tell that he is.

That he's very much afraid. "You can't trick me into letting you go by trying to scare me."She can taste his fear now. Because it is so fucking delicious, so sweet and ripe and maybe al she'l ever know of justice, Lucrece says simply, The crow is his vengeance, motherfucker, and you're her victim."

She expects immediate retribution, swift punishment served in exchange for the truth he didn't real y want to hear, a knife or a needle for her honesty. But the man just stands very still on the other side of the light. She can hear him breathing.

"Things fall from the sky," he says. "Shining, bleeding things fall from the sky and the fabric of humanity itself is altered. And They expect me to watch and do nothing?

Did They really think that not a single man would stand against Them?"

"You're insane," Lucrece whispers, and knows that if he doesn't finish it soon, she'll begin to cry. There's simply too much pain and she's too scared of dying alone in this stinking dark place. And she doesn't want the son of a bitch who killed Benny to see her cry. "Don't tell me about vengeance, Lucas DuBois. I am the whole world's vengeance against Their atrocities."

"No," she croaks, and swallows, shaking her head, wishing she had the strength to laugh, the strength to show him how ludicrous he is. "No. You're just a sad, crazy asshole who likes to kill people. And that's all you are. That's all you'll ever be."

And then there's the sound of metal against metal, the sound of small sharp things, and

Lucrece closes her eyes because she doesn't want to see.

By the time Michael's outer rain bands have crossed the ribbonlike barrier of the Chandeleur Islands the storm has become a monster even by the monstrous standards of hurricanes. Its swirling cyclone bulk blankets the coast from the mouth of the Pascagoula River all the way across the southeastern corner of Louisiana. Born somewhere off the west coast of Africa, it has grown from an embryonic disturbance, a disorganized fetus of showers and thunderstorms, and has traveled the trade winds almost six thousand miles to the Gulf of Mexico.

Now it is ready to spend its fury against the Mississippi delta. By late afternoon there are maximum sustained winds of more than 195 miles an hour, and Michael is upgraded to a category-five hurricane.

At its calm, unblinking eye Michael has lifted a mound of seawater a foot and a half high and almost fifty miles across, a storm surge pulled up by its violently low pressure and aimed at the already rain-glutted bayous, at cypress swamps and small towns barely above sea level to begin with. And at New Orleans, the red bull's-eye at the end
and aimed at the already rain-glutted bayous, at cypress swamps and small towns barely above sea level to begin with. And at New Orleans, the red bull's-eye at the end of its long odyssey across the Atlantic.

At 4:35 P.M. a tiny shrimp boat named Eloise, caught deep inside the storm, radios for assistance from its location somewhere in Breton Sound near Fort St. Philip. The captain reports that his ship's barometer is reading 26.10 inches; three days later he and his two-man crew will be found floating in the Gulf, but his report will be cautiously noted by meteorologists as the lowest pressure ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere.

At 4:57 P.M. a reconnaissance plane tracking the storm, dumping its load of instrument-laden dropsonde canisters into the eye of the hurricane, nervously reports a gigantic shadow, "like a huge black bird," falling across the" relatively calm waters of the fifty-mile-wide center of the storm. The pilot and crew will later dismiss the incident as a mistake, as nothing more than the shadow of their own plane or a trick of the clouds.

At 5:03 P.M. a weather satellite in geostationary orbit twenty-two thousand miles above the Gulf sends back color images of another shadow, an India-ink-black smudge that will eventually be described in an internal NHC report as "the crow anomaly." Less than thirty seconds later the satellite's computer vomits a frantic, senseless stream of data and shuts itself down.

Michael turns, dispassionate as cancer, unstoppable as fate, its silver-white back turned to heaven and its bruise-dark belly laid across the face of an angry, impotent world. And a terrible, raging night comes to the living and the dead of the city of New Orleans.

nine

The sixth note promised Frank that it would be the last. It has led him to this derelict hulk of a factory near the river, a towering edifice of stones laid before the turn of the century and abandoned now to rats and the homeless, to furry brown bats and the elements. He parks on a vast expanse of weed-fractured concrete, flooded now like everything else, a submerged forest of dandelions, thistles, and polk salad on the edge of the factory ruins.

Frank has to fight to get the door of the car open, wrestling against the zealous wind, and then he has to wrestle it closed again. For a moment the storm holds him at bay, pressed helplessly against the car, just another bit of debris at the mercy of the hurricane. He shades his eyes from the stinging rain and all the shit being hurled through the air and stares up at the corpse of industry sprawled out before him, its crumbling masonry and towering brick smokestacks silhouetted against the Erector-set framework of the Greater New Orleans Bridge and, farther on, the blue-black wall of the storm's turbulent heart. The sight of such a terrible majesty bearing down upon the city is almost enough to make him forget himself and whatever's waiting for him inside the old factory.

Almost. A man could go mad, he thinks, staring into the faceless countenance of such a thing, forced to acknowledge such a power. Something sails through the air and grazes his left cheek, slices a deep furrow and is gone, and the wind is lapping greedily at Frank's bleeding face.

He pulls himself along the rain-slick side of the car. Tiny wavelets crash against his pants legs. A sheet of corrugated tin whirls past overhead, a rusty guillotine spinning end over razor-sharp end, and Frank gets the message: Stay out here a little longer and you're a dead man. So he grits his teeth like a good cop and keeps going.

It's less than twenty yards to the closest door into the factory, but the storm knocks him down again and again, and once he gashes the palm of his right hand on a broken wine bottle hiding like shark teeth just beneath the water. Finally he reaches the building, solid brick and mortar to support him. A peeling metal door hangs crooked on its hinges, ready to be torn loose at any moment and sucked into the maelstrom.

Frank manages to pull it open a crack and immediately the wind rips the handle from his hands, slams the door back against the wall. He crosses the threshold and the storm lets him go, confident that the shelter of the factory can last only so long.

Frank stops just inside, faced with a darkness so absolute that the premature twilight framed in the doorway behind him seems brilliant by comparison. He's still standing in several inches of cold water, but at least he's protected from the wind and driving rain, and the noise of the storm is muffled by the thick walls to a dull and constant roar.He reaches into his dripping jacket and draws his Beretta 92-F from its shoulder holster. The gash in his hand hurts bad and is bleeding like a son of a bitch, but there's nothing to be done for it now. Of course it had to be his fucking right hand, no way he could have fallen on his left. He takes a Kel-light flashlight from one back pocket, not expecting it to work, expecting it to be full of water and the batteries drowned. But when he switches it on, a weak beam shines across the dark puddle of the floor. He aims it a little higher and there's a brick archway only a few feet to one side where the floor slants upward to drier ground.

aims it a little higher and there's a brick archway only a few feet to one side where the floor slants upward to drier ground.

"You better be here somewhere, motherfucker," he says. His voice sounds very small in the vast tomb of the building.

He steps through the arch. There is more light on the other side, velvet-soft shades of gray only a few degrees from actual black, but it's an improvement. There are tall rows of windows along the southern side of the building, the side facing the river and the oncoming storm, the last dregs of daylight filtering down to the floor through air thickened by its time inside the factory. Frank shines the Kel-light along the wall near the arch and sees a rickety-looking iron staircase bolted into the brick, leading up into the gloom, toward the second story of the building.

"Hey!" he shouts. There is a sudden, riotous flutter of wings from high above him; only pigeons or maybe swallows nesting in the rafters, but he can't help remembering the big black crow the guy in the mask had with him. A couple of charcoal feathers spiral lazily down, passing through the beam of his flashlight on their way to the concrete floor. When the birds are quiet again, Frank listens for any indication that he's not alone, that Joseph Lethe is waiting for him in the gloom.

"Listen, asshole! I'm tired of playing hide-and-go-seek with your dumb ass!"

But there's no response, no human response, only the incessant whistling drone of the storm outside and the subtler noises of the old factory.

"Jesus," he whispers. Keeping the flashlight aimed just in front of his feet and the Beretta's rubber grip squeezed tightly in his aching, bloody right hand, Frank Gray begins to climb the stairs.

There's a small landing at the top, a square platform of plate steel and cement that sags alarmingly to one side, and guardrails that have all but rusted away. As he steps onto it Frank realizes he is standing at least fifty or sixty feet above the factory floor. The tall windows waver on the opposite side of what seems like a bottomless void.

Through the filthy, broken panes, he can see the roofs of lower buildings along the northern shore of the Mississippi and the swollen river itself like some impossibly giant cottonmouth moccasin, the rough white-capped water for scales. But he looks away; there's already enough shit to deal with without worrying about what's going to happen when the river comes across the levee.

There's a steel fire door set into the wall. When he pushes against it the door creaks loudly and swings open. What he sees through the doorway almost sends him screaming back down the precarious stairs: a floodlight clamped to a sawhorse, its glare revealing a mutilated body suspended by its wrists from a steel hook. The corpse's bloodless legs are spread out in a wide inverted V, each ankle bound with white nylon cord that has been tied securely through iron eyes in the floor. The body has been completely eviscerated, slit from the genitals all the way up to the chin, and the blood-drenched floor beneath it is scattered with discarded organs and entrails, bluish loops of intestine and darker, meaty lumps he can't identify. The abdominal cavity is empty, a hollowed-out shell of muscle and cartilage and bone. There are literally buckets of clotting blood on the floor, plastic mop pails filled almost to overflowing, and, behind the floodlight, a small table covered with surgical instruments and stray strips of skin and meat. Where the body isn't smeared with blood and gore, its skin is the powdery color of chalk dust. But at least he can't see the face. Its head has lolled back, away from him, and the dead eyes, if they've even been left in its skull, stare toward the ceiling somewhere high overhead. It's impossible for him to tell if the corpse is male or female.

Frank swallows hard and wipes his sweating forehead on the back of the hand holding his flashlight. He didn't puke at the mess in the fountain in Audubon Park and he sure as hell isn't going to puke now.

"Lethe?" he asks. When there's no reply, he says, "I know you're still here."

There's movement to his left, then something fast he only barely glimpses from the corner of one eye. Frank doesn't take time to check his target or aim. He's acting purely on fear and adrenaline as he squeezes off three rounds from the Beretta. The nine-millimeter shells hit nothing but solid brick and the gunshots leave his ears ringing.

"Fuck," he mutters, and there are footsteps coming up fast behind him and hard, cold metal pressed to his temple before he can turn around.

"It's over, Detective. I win." Frank recognizes the voice from the phone call. "Drop your gun and take one step backward."

"If I drop my gun I'm dead."

"You're already dead, Detective, just as soon I want you that way. Now drop your fucking gun and the flashlight and do exactly what I said. One step back."

Frank lets the Beretta slip from his bleeding hand and it clatters noisily to the floor, drops the Kel-light and its lens shatters. He takes one step backward. The pistol muzzle pressed to his skull moves with him.

"Now turn and look at it," the voice says.

"What is the fucking point of this?" Franks asks. "Do you just want to see me scared? Is that it? 'Cause if that's all you want, you already got it, okay?"

"I want to see you dead, faggot," the voice says, the purring, effeminate voice
scared? Is that it? 'Cause if that's all you want, you already got it, okay?"

"I want to see you dead, faggot," the voice says, the purring, effeminate voice speaking directly into his ear now. "I want to see you dead and condemned for your crimes against your own masculinity. Turn and look at it, Frank Gray."

So Frank turns, slowly, to face the madman's butchery.

"This doesn't even make sense, Lethe," he says, trying not let the fear show in his voice. There might still be a chance to get out of this alive if he can stay calm, if he can stay cool.

"I'm Jordan now," the man says, and he steps around to stand in front of Frank but the barrel of his gun doesn't move an inch. There's nothing remarkable about him, a man younger than Frank expected and almost handsome in a gaunt, heroin-addled sort of way. Probably not the perfect match for an FBI serial-killer profile.

"But you are the same man I spoke with on the phone, the one who left the messages leading me here, right? The man who said he was tired and wanted this to stop?"

"Yes," the man says softly.

"So, what? Were you just lying to get me out here?"

"There's nothing here that you need to understand, Detective. Nothing at all. You are not an innocent."

And the man who has become Jordan pulls the trigger and for Frank Gray the world ends quickly in the cracking sound of thunder.

Jordan kneels beside the detective's still body and presses two gloved fingers to the throat, feeling for a pulse that he already knows isn't there. Then he examines the dark powder burns at the temple, lifts a loose flap of scalp and hair already matted with blood, and stares at the bullet hole a moment. He's never before killed anyone who didn't exhibit at least the behavioral symptoms of gender transgression.

And I still haven't, he thinks after a moment of quiet deliberation. This man had sex with other men, and isn't that a violation of gender?

Jordan nods, reassured. He places his gun in Frank Gray's right hand, folds the detective's palm around the butt of the pistol and carefully threads an index finger through the trigger guard. He uses the dead man's left hand to add a few additional fingerprints to the stainless steel barrel, and then he picks up the Beretta and steps away from the body. He glances from the gutted transsexual to the prostrate form of the cop like a sculptor admiring a finished piece. And it really isn't so different, he tells himself, the painstaking orchestration of matter into an arrangement that better suits his needs.

What the police will find here will suit his needs too, as perfectly as the body of Benjamin DuBois once did, as perfectly as the evidence he left in Jared Poe's apartment a year ago: a fingerprint lifted from a spoon with a strip of Scotch tape, a couple of pages of poetry. And this is so much more damning, so much more elaborate.

He feels a staggering pride that he has actually managed to pull it off.

But it isn't truly finished, not yet. There's one small touch left to add for consistency's sake

Jordan sits down in the space between the soles of the detective's shoes and the sticky, wet patch beneath the remains of the second DuBois twin and takes a black Sharpie marker from one shirt pocket. He's committed the whole poem to memory by now, all 108 lines of it, and that's something else to be proud of as he leans over the spot on the floor that he swept clean with a whiskbroom earlier in the day. He prints the lines as neatly as he can.

Stern Despair returned, instead of the sweet hope he dared abjure- That sad answer,

"Nevermore!"

When he's finished, Jordan goes back to Frank Gray's body and places the pen in his left hand, folds those fingers tightly closed around it.

Two birds with one stone, he thinks, and the thought makes him smile. It's good to be such a clever man. They'll all lose his trail now. Even if the cops believe that Jared Poe was guilty, he knows that they've begun looking for a second killer to explain the murders fitting the Ripper MO since Poe's one-way trip up to Angola. And a dead faggot cop is the perfect fall guy. Shortly before he reached the apartment on Ursulines, Jordan dropped a letter to the Times-Picayune into a mailbox, Frank Gray's confession to sodomy and the killings.

And the assassin bird sent into his dreams and visions by the others-it will lose him as well now that its link to this world has been severed. He saw the scar clearly enough on the transsexual's bare back. Without a living conduit the creature will lose his scent and be forced to return to Them empty-handed. But, just to be safe, hell move on. There's a road map of the Southeast in his glove compartment, and he's circled Memphis and Dallas, Atlanta and Birmingham. All his calculations aren't complete, but at least one of these cities will be right for his work. By the time They realize what's

Memphis and Dallas, Atlanta and Birmingham. All his calculations aren't complete, but at least one of these cities will be right for his work. By the time They realize what's happened, just how badly They've underestimated again, he'll be miles and miles away, hidden by the walls of a different city and the syllables of a different name.

Jordan looks back at the gutted corpse again and remembers what he told the thing before he killed it. It truly was a pity that he did not have more time. There was so much it might have revealed to him if only there had been the time to employ more subtle techniques. But then he thinks of those other cities again, those other cities on other rivers. He lets his eyes wander higher, up above the body and the white-hot nimbus of the floodlight. High above the abattoir this room has become, there are windows that have been painted over, windows painted black decades ago.

I have all the time I need, he thinks. And the world, when I am done, wil be as simple and solid as those panes, as perfectly, rational y opaque.

But then the shadow of something immense and winged stretches itself across the row of windows, the shadow of something a hundred times darker than any shade of paint, darker than the eye of man can even see. The color of absence, Jordan thinks as the windows explode and the ebony shards rain down over him.

Even as he falls toward the floor and the cowering man caught in the single pool of light, Jared knows he's too late, that the storm and his injuries have slowed him down enough that some crucial chance has been missed, that something has gone horribly and completely wrong. And then he sees her face, Lucrece's pale face staring up at him through the razor torrent of falling glass, and her eyes are as dead as any eyes that ever looked out blindly from the head of a corpse. In the instant it takes him to reach the ground he sees the rest of it, exactly what has been done to her and the body of the dead detective and the words printed neatly across the floor.

He lands as smoothly as a cat, dropping to all fours as the last of the broken windows smashes to powder against the concrete around him. The skinny, frightened man has fallen, cut and bleeding from a hundred different wounds, and is scrambling frantically away from Jared across the factory floor. The crow flaps past Jared, a living missile of sleek black feathers, and dives for the fleeing kil er.

"No!" the man screams as Jared stands. "No, I stopped you!" The crow has reached the man and is pecking viciously at arms and hands raised protectively over his head.

Jared looks back once at Lucrece and he knows that if anything but sour rage remained in him, even a faint speck of light, that the sight of her hanging there has burned it from him forever.

"I can't kill you slowly enough," he says, turning toward the man who murdered Benny, the man who killed Lucrece, the man he still has no name for. "Not to pay for half of what you've done to me and the people I loved."

The man swats wildly at the crow and scrambles another foot toward the open door."But I'm making you a promise, motherfucker. You can be sure that I'm going to try."

And then Jared sees the stainless-steel semiautomatic pistol clutched in the man's scratched and bleeding hands, sees the man's finger wrapped around the trigger.

Before he can even shout a warning, the gun goes off and the crow falls in a heap of broken bones and blood-soaked feathers. She shudders once and the gun fires again, blowing off her head.

It is as if whatever life-substitute has animated Jared's cells, whatever dragged him from the grave and kept him moving for two days, is abruptly taken away, the strings on the marionette severed in one clean snip. Jared falls, breathless, to his knees.

"No, I said!" and now the man is screaming at the top of his lungs and there are flecks of spittle flying from his thin lips. "I beat you! I beat you," and then the pistol goes off a third time, splattering what's left of the crow in two or three different directions.

Jared's vision blurs and begins to fade out around the edges. He struggles desperately with the zipper on the back of the leather hood but it sticks. Finally the fabric rips, tears free along a weak seam, and he pulls the mask off and collapses, curls himself into a fetal ball on the glass-littered concrete, a pathetic, hurting thing made of dead flesh unable to die.

The man with the gun is laughing, an awful, hysterical laugh that says everything there is to be said about insanity without using a single word. He turns away from the crow, apparently satisfied that she's truly, irretrievably dead, and he points the gun at Jared.

"What am I going to have to do before you start to take me seriously?" he yells.

"Before you figure out that you can't win? That I'm never going to fucking stop?" Then he gets a look at Jared's ruined face and recognition washes slowly across his deranged features.

"Oh," he says, all the laughter draining out of his voice, and he takes a step away from Jared. "No. You're not him. He's dead."

Jared opens his mouth to tell the man to fuck off, to ram the gun up his ass, but all
from Jared. "No. You're not him. He's dead."

Jared opens his mouth to tell the man to fuck off, to ram the gun up his ass, but all he manages is a dry, strangling sound.

"There are rules," the man says incredulously, unbelieving. "There are rules that even They cannot violate, rules that bind even Their hands. Jared Poe is dead and the dead stay that way.

"I have no idea what kind of trick this is, my friend. But it isn't going to work. I know better," and he pulls the trigger and puts a bullet in Jared's chest. Ribs disintegrate, become shrapnel, puncturing his heart and lungs. Jared rolls over onto his back, coughing up gouts of arterial blood.

"I know the rules."

The next shot tears into Jared's belly and the bullet shatters his spine.

"No matter how much They twist and bend them, no matter how They try to cheat the natural order . . . I am pure of mind and body and I know the goddamn rules!"

Jared vomits another mouthful of blood and stares helplessly up at the thin and raving man. He opens his mouth and the words come slowly, slogging their way out of him in a sticky red trickle.

"Then kil me," he croaks. "If you . . . if you know the rules . . . then kill me."

The man chews uncertainly at his lower lip. Jared can see his Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallows. He leans over and puts the gun to Jared's forehead, presses its barrel an inch above the hole Harrod's pistol has already made in Jared's face."No," he says a moment later. That's not why you're here. You're here to kill me, but you couldn't." The gun moves away as he stands up straight again.

"Whatever you really are, I need to know the things you know. I need to know about the bird and the visions They've made me see."

The man's eyes almost seem to glimmer, like a child gazing deep into a bag filled with Halloween candy or someone poised on the brink of an abyss who has just grasped the concept of bottomless-ness. He thumbs the safety switch on the gun and stuffs it into the band of his trousers.

And then there's the taut, staccato sound of ropes snapping and the man looks up, past Jared, and begins to scream.

Lucrece has no way of knowing how long she's been drifting in the gray places, minutes or weeks, floating weightless through mists the color of papier-mache, cold mists that smell faintly of brine and pressed flowers. There is no up or down here, and only the vaguest sense of her body. Occasionally she remembers herself, or recalls the memory of herself, and hesitantly touches fingertips to her face to be sure that she's still there.

There's a faint tugging sensation at her feet, and that's all that might pass for direction. When she stares off that way, squints hard to try to see something through the insubstantial tendrils of the mist, she thinks that maybe there's a light there, far away. It seems warm, a soft, faintly pulsating point in a place where all other points are the same. And it would be so easy, she knows, to go to it, to fall through millennia and distances past perceiving, to let it swallow her the way it's meant to swallow everything in the end. To give up the pain and the weight of being in exchange for a brilliant, flickering moment of peace before oblivion.

Lucrece folds her arms about her chest, pulls her knees up close to her body, and looks away from it.

"This is a bunch of hippie bullshit," she says, and her voice seems to fill the entire universe, all the empty space eager to be filled, the sulking mist jealous of the light and its hoarding appetite.

For an instant or an hour the light flares, bathes her in a wash of its comfort, a gentle cascade of heat filled with promises. Lucrece closes her eyes, or only remembers what it's like to close her eyes, remembering Benny and Jared, remembering the man and his sharp and cutting tools, and she shakes her head.

"No," she says. "You can keep it. I don't want it now."

The warmth is taken away and there's a sudden rustling, like a rain of autumn leaves. Something rubs itself brusquely across her face, something musty and dry that tickles and makes her flinch, and when Lucrece opens her eyes again she's standing in a grove of dead and withered trees.

The mist presses in close on every side, roils like alien storm clouds, as if this is only the most tenuous oasis and might be reclaimed at any moment. But at least there's solid ground beneath her feet, even if it's only cracked and barren earth that's never known rain. A breeze blows through the limbs and sets them to rattling, sweeps up an ashy dust that settles around Lucrece like a shroud.

And the trees are fil ed with crows.

A hundred or a thousand pairs of golden eyes, eyes like amber beads, watching her, patient as time.

"Send me back," she says, not asking, demanding, not caring if they can hear the anger
patient as time.

"Send me back," she says, not asking, demanding, not caring if they can hear the anger in her voice, the acid contempt. "Send me back to help Jared."

They turn as one, releasing her from their glare, and look together into the highest branches of the tal est of the trees. Lucrece looks with them and sees the one they've turned to face, perched above them al : a crow so black, so impossibly enormous that he might have been the very first, the incarnation of age clothed in ragged black feathers. His eyes burn with a hundred mil ion years of col ected sunlight and starlight. And he knows her name.

"I have the right to ask," she says.

The great bird spreads his wings and a raucous cry rises up from the others, a cry that Lucrece understands is laughter, bitter, wicked laughter at her temerity, that she would dare to demand what is theirs alone to give. She looks away, unable to bear the sound or the glare of those ancient, piercing eyes. She glances down at her bare, dusty feet.

Now there is something on the ground just in front of her, a barely recognizable smear of drying blood and feathers, and she knows that it's the corpse of Jared's crow.

The great bird folds his wings again, quieting the others, and she can hear him speaking inside her head.

One of us has already died for your brother, he says. A single sacrifice is sufficient for his soul.

She doesn't reply, can only stare at the dead crow at her feet, trying to recall what Aaron Marsh read from the old German manuscript, afraid to even wonder what has happened to Jared if his crow has been killed.

We wil not give another.

"For those who have the symbol," Lucrece says, "the passage is easy." She forces herself to look up, to face those judging eyes and again the court of crows caws and croaks its scorn for her.

"For those who have the symbol, the passage is easy," she repeats, and turns to show them the scar across her back.

They're screaming now, furious, insulted bird voices raised in confusion and outrage, anger to match even her own. Lucrece knows better than to turn toward them again. She imagines them descending on her, their stabbing beaks and battering wings punishing her impudence. But she's been torn apart before and there are things she's more afraid of.

Then I'll take you myself, woman, and we'll be done with this. But if you fail. . .

"I won't fail," she says.

Without warning, this small wasted patch of ground is split silently apart. Lucrece is plunging, ferried on strong black wings that have made this trip too many times to count. They pass through fire and chilling cold places that have never known light, soar above nameless starving atrocities that snatch at them with claws of iron and ivory. And in the end Lucrece has no time to regret or be afraid for herself, only enough time to prepare for whatever's waiting at the end of the journey.

Lucrece raises her head and opens her eyes, and the man who calls himself by the names of rivers fills his lungs and screams again and again. The knots he tied so carefully are unraveling and the ropes are ripping loose, snapping like sewing thread. In another moment her hands and ankles are free and she drops to the floor.

Jared has managed to roll over and he too can see her and the crow, as big as a raven, bigger, big as a fucking vulture, perched on her shoulder. He tries to move but his legs are paralyzed and useless and all he can do is watch as the organs heaped at her feet begin to twitch and slide toward Lucrece. The blood itself flows backward, pours over the rims of the buckets and flows like a retreating red tide across the floor. It al rises as if suspended on invisible wires, a puppet show for ghouls. Everything the man has taken from her, every bit of flesh and every drop of spilled blood, becomes a swirling, living cloud, rushing to refill the empty cavity of Lucrece's body.

She throws back her head and the sound that pours from her mouth makes the killer's screams seem as insignificant as a whisper. When the air is clean of her, when Lucrece is once again whole, the slash that his scalpels and bone saws have made closes itself up, knits itself shut with flesh that has become as fluid and impervious as water. She sinks to her knees, gasping, and the killer draws the Beretta and flips off the safety.

"Lucrece!" Jared shouts, but the gun goes off before she can move, blowing a hole in her left shoulder. The huge crow leaps into the air and flaps safely away into the shadows, and Jared watches as the bullet hole heals before his eyes.

Lucrece stands up then, and her lips are curled back from her white teeth in a terrible inhuman snarl, an animal smile for the man still pointing his useless gun at her.

"You're going to have to do better than that, Jordan," she says. "You're going to have to do a whole hell of a lot better than that."

He pulls the trigger again and the right side of her face dissolves in a spray of blood and splintered bone, a gaping wound that vanishes almost as quickly as it appeared.

Lucrece shakes her head and takes a deep breath; the smile never leaves her lips.

and splintered bone, a gaping wound that vanishes almost as quickly as it appeared.

Lucrece shakes her head and takes a deep breath; the smile never leaves her lips.

"That's a pretty goddamn cool trick, isn't it, Jordan?" She takes a step toward the man. "Stop!" he screams. "Stop right this fucking minute." Now he is pointing the gun at Jared.

"Oh, fuck this," Jared says. "Finish this tired bullshit, Lucrece. Get it over with."

"You can't kill him, Jordan. And you can't kill me." Before the man can move she takes the gun from his hand and flings it away into the darkness beyond the glare of the floodlight. "You're never going to kill anyone ever again."

Lucrece grips the man by the front of his shirt and lifts him into the air. She holds him almost a foot off the floor, his feet kicking uselessly at nothing.

"How does it feel?" she asks. "How does it feel to dangle with your life in someone else's hands?"

"I am the river . . ." he wheezes. She slaps him so hard that his upper lip splits and his front teeth snap off at the gum line.

"No, you're not, Jordan," she says. "But we've already been through all this once and I don't feel like saying it again. It really doesn't make any difference anymore what you think."

She drops him, but before the man can run she catches him by the back of his collar and shoves him to the floor next to Jared. He moans and tries to scramble away, but Lucrece holds him stil .

"I think we have to do this together, Jared," she says. "Or one of us is screwed."

From somewhere in the shadows the crow caws a coarse affirmation. And all around them the storm howls and bellows. Cold rain is blowing in through the broken windows overhead and the walls of the old factory have begun to buckle and groan from the force of the wind.

"Thanks for coming back for me, Lucrece," Jared says as she begins to grind Jordan flat against the concrete. "You didn't have to . . ."

"Yes, I did, Jared," she replies. "Yes, I did."

As the factory that has stood for more than a hundred years beneath the baking delta sun begins to come apart around them, as the floor drops away beneath them and the walls are broken by the hurricane's fury, they crush the life from the man that has robbed each of them of the thing that they loved above all else. Satisfied, the crow rises into the storm-maddened night and the circle closes in the shriek of twisting metal and the crash of falling bricks.

ten

Through the cyclops eye of the hurricane Lucrece carries Jared's body away from the ruin and rubble of the fal en factory. She fol ows the crow as it flies high above the devastated city, wades past overturned cars and the unclaimed corpses of the freshly drowned. When they reach Prytania Street, Benny is waiting for them just outside the gates of Lafayette No.

1. He smiles gently for them, the same gentle smile that Lucrece has kept inside her for so long, preserved in the imperfect scrapbook of her memories.

Benny bends and kisses Jared, presses his lips to his lover's. Jared's eyes flutter open and tears rol down his grateful cheeks.

"Is it over?" he asks.

Benny nods. "It's over."

And then Benjamin DuBois kisses his sister's cheek and the three of them walk together past the other monuments, al the other names engraved in weathered marble and granite, stone worn smooth by time and sorrow.

Outside the crumbling cemetery walls, as the backside of Michael's spinning eye wall reaches the city, the lull in the storm passes, and for the unfortunate living, the long night of rain and anguish begins.

epilogue

Amsterdam, one year later

Aaron Marsh nibbles on a space cake as he leafs through an ornithological tome in Dutch, which he is teaching himself from the inside out. He has a little flat high above Prinsengracht with a nice view of the canal if he leans out and cranes his neck a little.

The afternoon sky is like damp gray wool. An intermittent autumn rain spits against the thick glass of his window. He has come to love it here.

Aaron got out of New Orleans the night before Hurricane Michael hit, packing only the dodo in its oversized velvet traveling case and catching a Greyhound bus, the one form of transport that never seemed to stop running. At first he'd only gone as far as Birmingham, Alabama, where he stayed with friends and watched the destruction of his adopted home from afar. He felt very little emotion, even when he learned that the
as Birmingham, Alabama, where he stayed with friends and watched the destruction of his adopted home from afar. He felt very little emotion, even when he learned that the Eye of Horus was a total loss. The water had taken nearly everything and destroyed whatever it left behind. But he'd kept the place well insured, and the payoff might last him the rest of his life, provided he didn't live too long. The only things he really regretted losing were the books.

He found that he had no desire to return. This only intensified a week later, when he saw a news item from New Orleans about two bodies discovered in a warehouse near the river. They'd been on an upper floor and hadn't gotten washed away. Bodies were everywhere, of course, but these attracted media attention when one of them was identified as the cop who'd supposedly confessed to the new Ripper slayings.

There was some doubt about the cop's confession anyway. Several of his colleagues testified that he was a good solid detective, that they could alibi him for the dates of the murders, that the letter wasn't even in his handwriting. Suspicion fell on the other corpse, who turned out to own a Riverside mansion full of the flooded remains of some very sick shit. The cop was given a hero's funeral. The other fellow was still being looked into.

Thanks to a couple of persistent queer activist groups and a sympathetic reporter from the Times-Picayune, Jared Poe was finally and publically declared innocent of the Bourbon Street Ripper killings. When he heard of this, Aaron thought for a moment of beautiful, sad Lucrece DuBois and her strange predawn visit to his shop. He wondered what had become of her in the midst of all this hoopla. Mostly, though, he acted like the selfish old man he was, traveling where he liked, pleasing only himself, putting the pieces of his life in order. He has fetched up here in Amsterdam and believes he will stay. Tap. Tap. Tap. The rain must be getting harder. Aaron glances at the window, and his hand freezes in the act of turning a page.

It is only a small crow, but it's peering in at him as if it has urgent business here--
and perhaps it does. Even from this distance Aaron can see that it's carrying a tiny scroll of paper in its beak.

He stands up slowly, crosses to the window and hesitates only a moment before turning the latch. The window swings out and the bird hops in, glancing up at him almost apologetically, as if to say, I know I'm dripping al over the place, I'l only stay a minute.. .

"Make yourself at home," he says, holding out his hand. The crow drops the scroll into Aaron's wrinkled palm as if relieved to be done with it, stretches its wings and shakes out its feathers, glances around the room. It is just beginning to look comfortable when its eye lights upon the stuffed dodo in its gleaming glass case.

The crow gives a single strangled caw of horror, hops backward and disappears through the open window in a black fluster.

"Ah, well," says Aaron and unrolls the paper.

He recognizes the flowing hand at once; Lucrece DuBois came to him with plenty of shopping lists. There are five words only and room for no more, in ink the color of dried blood. But they are five words that will stay with him as long as he lives: Sometimes fairy tales come true.

1

“Time to pay off your debts, friends. To put things right. "

Wherever you looked in the room, there was garbage. Garbage and weapons. Among the garbage were old pizza boxes, with the long-dried tomato in patches much redder than blood and the hard cheese like burnt and crusted meat. The empty beer cans and bottles scattered on the tables gave the air a musty smell. Those present looked at the scene through a cloud of cigarette smoke, as if their eyes were clouded by cataracts. The light from the two standard lamps, covered by patched lampshades, cast a soft shadow in the wrinkles and reliefs of the faces of the men, some emaciated, others full and fleshy.

"They have to pay for Waco ..."

On two tables stood piles of magazines with titles like The Christian Patriot, White Pride, American Times.

"Paying for Ruby Ridge ..."

There was a small shelf with a few dozen tired-looking and heavily used volumes, such as The Turner Diaries, Mein Kampf, and other books on weapons and ammunition; one shelf carried a collection of manuals, published by a small publisher, on how to make a bomb or how to carry out an attack, plus a series called How to Kill and another called The James Bond of the Poor.

"Paying for Tim McVeigh ..."

The music playing in the background was loud enough for the listener to distinguish the words on the massive country and western beat:

The Jews will disappear and the niggers too,

We will have an America for you and me.

Yes, those bastards will cut the rope

When every American gets up and points the gun ...

"And we'll start making up for it with Senator Robert King."

But what immediately attracted attention in the warm, smoky room were the weapons. The accuracy with which they were stored and displayed contrasted sharply with the clutter of the rest of the room. Many rifles were neatly collected in racks, while others hung from plywood boards attached to either side of a large American flag.

"That liberal son of a bitch, in love with Jews and Negroes, an enemy of patriots ..."

Some weapons were legal, but not many. Several of them were automatic, such as several AK-47s, two Finnish Jati-Matics, a couple of Ingrams, an outdated but still working Linda Wilkinson, and two MK Arms 70 submachine guns. All guns were clean and oiled, and on small shelves or hung on the wall were full magazines. These in the room were the weapons for immediate use in the event of a raid. The others were in the armory, much more numerous.

"And we'll catch him when he comes to Hobie." Virgil Withers, known to his brethren, the Sons of a Free America, as Rip, leaned back and smiled. The whites of her teeth flashed between her thin lips. The rest of her face was anything but thin, but swollen and wrinkled, hateful and fattened by a diet of meat and cheese and plenty of carbohydrates. But by staying active, Rip was more than fat.

"Is King coming here?" The question had come out, in a cloud of smoke, from Junior Feeley's mouth, a bundle of muscles five feet tall and proportionately wide. The Sons of a Free America had given him the position of treasurer, because no one would ever dare try to steal the association's funds, and because he was too stupid to steal them himself.

“That's right, King comes here. Chip, "Rip explained, pointing to Chip Porter, who confirmed by shaking the beer bottle," has entered their website on the Internet, and now we know he's going to be in town, we know when and where. Read the itinerary, Chip. "

Chip read from a printout. “Tuesday 13th April, arrives in Hobie at nine, meets with the mayor in the town hall. At ten, visit the site of the flood ... "

"That bastard gave away our tax money so those damned river rats can rebuild," Sonny Armitage said. "And now he comes here to take credit, to collect more damn votes for his damn presidential campaign."

"Your uncle will rebuild his house with that money too, Sonny," Ace Ludwig reminded him.

"Well, my uncle was a jerk in his time buying a house here, that damned senator was another jerk to give him the money for being such an idiot, and my uncle is three times a jerk to take that money and rebuild. exactly in the same spot where in a year or two there will be another flood. "

"Amen," Junior Feeley nodded. "How are you going to defend King, Ace?"

“I'm not defending him, he's a shit traitor, and I'd blow his brains out like Reno or Billary or Ted Kennedy. I'm just saying Sonny's uncle got the money thanks to that dickhead and his damn law. "

"Okay," Rip said. “Now shut up and let Chip read. Go on, go on. "

"So, the senator is going to be there to have his picture taken for a couple of hours, then at noon they eat at Barney's Diner, then handshakes, crowds."

"Maybe we could have him poisoned by Barney," Ace Ludwig offered, and the others laughed.

"At half past one, he will talk to the chamber of commerce, questions, answers and various questions until half past three, then he starts visiting the small companies in the area."

'Five to one,' said Sonny Armitage, 'he doesn't go to the Peters' Gun Shop. We could tell Jimmy Peters to give him a 'Death to the King' sticker for free. "

Everyone laughed again, including Chip, who continued reading with a smile. “These visits are not yet scheduled: we do not know which offices and shops he will go to, or when, but we do know which company will be the last one before we get back on the plane at nine in the evening. It's the closest to the airport, on the outskirts of Hobie. "

"Do we have to guess?" Sonny Armitage asked, breaking the pause of silence.

"It's a children's home," Chip explained. "The Center for Becoming Friends, that's what it's called."

"Chip checked it out," Rip Withers said. “It has been running for about six months, two women run it, plus a third who lends a hand. This is our best chance. The other places are like computer centers, electronic warehouses, and they're all full of alarm systems or in buildings with even tighter security systems. This place has absolutely nothing. "

"Why?" Will Standish asked.

"There's nothing to steal," Rip explained. “Probably a couple of VCRs, maybe a computer or two for the kids to play. And then just toys. And the best part is that it is on the outskirts, with mostly houses around it, in a nice quiet block with almost no traffic after ten in the evening. Yes, brothers, it's the perfect place to blow up a bastard. "

* * *

Amy Carlisle hung up the phone and looked around, her head almost spinning at the news. Then, to recover, she pictured the room as it had been a few hours before and as it would be again in a few hours, crowded with cheerful and lively children that she just wanted to make more cheerful and more lively.

Sure, not all of the fifty-three children she, Nancy, and Judy looked after at different times throughout the week had genius IQs, but each one had something special, from one-year-olds just starting to form their first teens. words to the first and second grade children who spent a few hours with them after school, waiting for their parents to come and pick them up on their way back from work. Each of them had something different to offer, each of them was special.

Amy knew them all by name, and knew their tastes. More important, he knew what made them smile. When she saw their faces light up - the little ones at the sight of a colorful or loud toy, the older ones when they realized she was about to start reading their favorite book - Amy was sure that what she was doing was more than earning a salary.

She had never wanted to be a simple babysitter: hers had to be a real educational center, where children could not only pass the time but acquire new ideas and skills, and learn to socialize and make friends. She was responsible for them and felt them like her children, from first to last.

What made them even more dear to him was the fact that he could never have children. By the time she turned twenty-seven, she and Rick had decided it was time, and she had stopped taking the pill. But after a year of trying, his gynecologist was certain that the problem was his, not Rick's. They had been thinking about adopting, but the waiting list was very long and they didn't want to become parents at thirty-five or forty.

It was then that the idea of the center came to her. She had a degree in education and had also taught, the year she and Rick finished college. But although she loved contact with children, she soon became frustrated by the system's inability to deal with the problems she happened to see in her work. When a child had hearing, speech, sight, learning difficulties, it took months to organize the appropriate tests, and even more, once the diagnosis was obtained, to assign the student to a special program.

There were other problems as well. Amy had had several pupils who she was sure were victims of violence, but the effort to get the bureaucracy in motion on these suspects made the test delays look a joke. Those children were sad and in pain and she could do little about it. In spite of every effort she gradually became more and more depressed. Depression, plus the enormous amount of extra time she spent preparing for class had brought her close to crisis, and by the end of the year, much to Rick's relief, she quit.

For seven years he had worked in the administration of a school supply firm, and had learned to run a small business; at that time he had cultivated the idea of opening a center for children, but only when he learned that he could not have children did he begin to think seriously about it.

After so many sacrifices, six months earlier the Center for Becoming Friends had finally opened its doors; from all points of view, except financial, it had been a great success. Amy still managed to keep up with the expenses, but with the news she had just received, the situation could also improve.

"Is the last beast gone too?"

Amy turned around. Nancy Fowler was at the door of the room. "Yes," he replied. "Megan just left."

"And are you still here?"

"I was at the telephone." Amy smiled, trying not to find out the secret right away. “Nancy, I was thinking something. Do you know what would be great for this place? If we went on TV: full local coverage and something nationwide too. Don't you think it would help us to bring the registrations to the point we would like? "

"Sure," Nancy replied. "And how are you going to buy a few minutes at ABC for a hundred thousand dollars?"

"All four networks, including Fox," Amy continued, raising her eyes to the ceiling as if mentally formulating the strategy. "The half-past six news would be perfect, I think ... Parents are home from work, watching the news before or after dinner ... saturation on Hobie station, at six and eleven, with state coverage ..."

"Amy, what the hell are you talking about?"

Amy smiled. "About the phone call. Do you know any senators who are polishing their presidential image for the next elections? "

"King? Senator King? "

"Just him. He's coming to see the flood damage last month, plus he's going to visit a few small businesses in the area, probably to get some support for his Business 2000 bill that is about to be voted on ... And you know what one of them is. these small businesses? "

"No ... you're kidding!"

“Somebody from the press office just asked me if I'd mind - sorry, you know? - if you stop here and shoot something for television! "

"Oh, my God, my God!" Nancy was jumping with excitement. "When?"

“In four days. Next Tuesday. Around eight in the evening, they will stop by us on the way to the airport. Novak, the one I spoke to, was very sincere, he said they were going to do some shots of Senator King with the kids and the small business owners, and Let's Get Friends was a perfect match. "

Nancy frowned. "At eight? The children are all gone at seven. "

"It's not for sure. We could give parents an hour and a half for free, so maybe they can go out to dinner, or ... well, do something that can't be done with kids around. Anyway, we'll explain how things stand, and I'm sure many of them will be happy to see their little ones on TV with the senator. And as long as there are a dozen. The parents can come and get them around half past eight, and maybe they can see the senator too. "

“Sounds great to me. Listen, though, "and Nancy glanced at her watch," now I have to go get Karin from my mother. Call me at home, so we can agree on which parents to call, okay? "

Amy stared after Nancy as she left, feeling a little sorry for her. Nancy had a daughter, a lovely little girl, but what she didn't have was a husband. By the time she finally got a divorce from John Fowler ("That son of a bitch," he said, "he'd stick him in anything that moves and has a hole," and judging from the records the lawyers collected, he probably wasn't exaggerating), he'd gotten a good financial accommodation and custody of Karin, and John was allowed only one weekend a month with the baby. But now Nancy had been divorced for over a year, and hadn't dated anyone anymore. She had received many invitations, including a few single father of Let's Get Friends, but she had always politely declined, explaining why to Amy.

“They are all divorced. The only divorced person I know is John, and I don't want to take the risk of being trapped with another John. " She would only accept if she was sure that the cause of the divorce was the wife cheating on her husband, and not vice versa. And even then, it wouldn't have argued in favor of that man's ability to make a woman happy.

Maybe Amy wasn't lucky enough to have a child, but she considered herself very lucky to have a husband like Rick. In twelve years of marriage there had never been a disagreement that hadn't cleared up within the day. He had been faithful to her as she had been faithful to him, and he had never given her reason to doubt his love. It had been one of those loves at first sight that later proved to be eternal.

On balance, therefore, she could be called a lucky woman, and perhaps with this visit from Senator King her fortune would still grow. Advertising would bring in new customers, which meant a chance to scale up and hire more staff, and possibly generate unexpected profits.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find a single downside to this visit.

2

"Hey, wait a minute," said Will Standish, who served as the official historian of the Sons of a Free America. “Rip, are you saying we're going to blow up a kindergarten with the kids inside? Because if that's what you're saying, I'm formally opposing it. I am against it, absolutely against it. Think about how it would make McVeigh look. It's not good, Rip, it's not good at all ... "

"Calm down, Will," Rip Withers interrupted. In some ways Will Standish was something of a darling to him. Will was the eldest of the Sons and by far the most moderate on the decision-making board. He was the one who spoke best of them, and also knew how to write better than anyone else, which is why they had named him a historian, a qualification they preferred to that of secretary, which sounded too feminine for their tastes. “At that time all the children are out of the building, already by seven. The only ones on the spot will be those who run it, Senator Quisling and his ass-lickers, and a bunch of redheads, journalists and photographers. "

Will shook his head. “The children will be there. Rip, you know they'll make them stay. What would King do in a kindergarten if he can't be photographed with the little ones? "

"So how do you think they do it, Will?" Sonny Armitage intervened. "Are they renting children for that very evening?"

"Besides, Will, what does it matter if there are any?" Rip said. "They could be wherever we decide to hit him."

"Who cares? I'll tell you what matters, Rip. What image do people remember most of Oklahoma City? And I don't mean us patriots, I mean the American public. " No one answered, and Will went on. “Don't say it because you know it very well. It's that firefighter holding the dead baby. A single image like that and our cause takes a step back twenty years. Hell, man, even if no child gets killed, we'll always have bombed a kindergarten, Christ! What image is it? "

"You're going to be interested in the picture, Willie," Sonny said. “I think about the results, and a dead Robert King would be a big hit. It would be a top-notch warning to every one of those motherfuckers. Look, there have been civilian casualties in every war that has been fought, and when a guerrilla like ours is fought, it is inevitable. And it's not just us killing the innocent: don't you remember the baby up in Ruby Ridge? "

"If it was up to me," Ace Ludwig interjected, "I'd rather take him out with a single bullet, and I might as well."

“We've thought about it, Ace,” Rip said wearily, “but it's too risky. To have a clean escape route you would have to place yourself too far away, and then sideways you would not be able to peck him, he has too many bodyguards around. It should be done from above, and around that center there are no buildings more than three stories high. "

"Let's take him to town, then."

“Damn it, Ace, in town you'd be full of witnesses up to your ass. I know you want to shoot, and soon you'll have your chance, but not this time. This is up to Powder. "

Ace looked at the thin, pale man sitting in the corner of the room and made a contemptuous sound. Ralph "Powder" Burns was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees and his dangling scarred hands. "That one?" Ace asked. "That one has never blown anyone up."

Powder looked up at Ace, expressionless behind the metal-rimmed glasses. "Never had the opportunity. But do not worry. I can do it without problems. "

"Of course?" Ace answered. "All those burns and scars show us what safe hands we are in."

"Now our gunsmith will tell us what we're going to use," Rip cut short, gesturing to Sonny Armitage.

“We've been setting aside plastic explosives for a year. Now there is more than enough for the two bombs. "

"Two?" Junior Feeley broke out. "Who else are we going to blow up?"

"Only King," Sonny said. “But the center is divided into two sections, depending on the age of the children. There is a corridor that cuts the building in half. We don't know where our target will be, and so by placing two bombs on either side, we can't go wrong. "

"How big are these bombs?" Will Standish asked.

Powder shrugged. "Small. They might look like two wrapped books. For the detonation there will be two timers aimed at the same moment. "

"Can't it be done with a remote control?" Will asked.

"Less reliable."

“Okay,” Will insisted, “but just to say, couldn't you plug them into the timer and also have a remote that can block it, just in case, for example, we knew the visit was canceled? All in all, our target is King, right? It wouldn't make sense to blow that place up if he doesn't go, right? "

Rip Withers nodded and looked at Powder. "You can do it?"

"I would say yes. But you have to be close enough. Two hundred meters, let's say, that's the range. "

“Okay then, Powder, proceed to place them. You'll have to go in tomorrow night and fix them. I don't know when they'll send the security men, but the sooner we make it easier for them. Okay? So, we are understood. Powder, I want to see you and Sonny in my shack in ten minutes. And get someone to clean up this crap. This is a meeting room, not a pigsty. "

The assembly broke up. Outside, a dozen militiamen were leaning against trees or sitting at tables made of logs where they sometimes served rations. Altogether twenty men lived full time, while another ten lived with their families but spent weekends and many evenings there. They weren't on the council, but they had sworn to keep it secret anyway. The punishment for breaking the oath was immediate execution.

It had happened a couple of times in the past, but now, as he passed his men, Rip Withers felt he could trust everyone. They were one hundred percent devoted to the freedom their ancestors had won with blood.

Rip considered himself a Jeffersonian, although he would have some difficulty explaining exactly what he meant. The words to which he adhered, however, were those of Jefferson printed on Timothy McVeigh's T-shirt, on the tree of freedom that was occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants.

But the problem was that it was not the blood of tyrants that was shed but that of the people. And not just in episodes like Waco and Ruby Ridge. Hell, ordinary people were bleeding themselves drop by drop without realizing it, until they became zombies ready to do whatever the government ordered.

The school no longer taught the true values of God, country and family, but created many little radicals who only thought about saving those fucking forests. Television and movies had become a toilet, infested with queers and lesbians now presented as normal people, while those with a sense of religion appeared as a retarded moron.

Washington politicians were all big dickheads. The Democrats were trying to get money out of you to give it to the junkies and the sluts of the "welfare state", the Republicans wanted to give it to the rich bastards who paid you with one hand and took it back with the other. Rip Withers would gladly have placed a gun in the back of his head and blasted his brain over the dome of the Capitol. Those assholes weren't Americans, none of them. They had also forgotten the meaning of the word.

But Rip Withers no, he hadn't forgotten him, and neither would his brother Ray, nor would his son Karl. Ray wasn't the smartest in the world, but he was still his brother, and Rip loved him and knew perfectly well that Ray's heart was beating on the right side. Besides, he wasn't as foolish as Junior Feeley was, who had that kind of meanness that dared you to laugh at him.

No, Ray was slow and he knew it, and if you did, too. There was not an ounce of meanness in his brother, and for that he had made him vice president of the Sons. Actually the vice president had nothing to do, just take care of things if the president wasn't there, but Rip was always there, and always would be. If he died or something, Ray wouldn't happen automatically. There would be an election, and Rip was sure Sonny Armitage would win. Very well. Sonny was in many ways a strong one, and he would have done things well.

In a few years, if they survived this far without being wiped out by Clinton's armed troops, Rip hoped that his son Karl would be ready to lead the movement. The boy had become a true patriot ever since Rip snatched him from the clutches of his mother, that slut. She wanted to send him to one of those damned liberal state colleges, where they would turn him into a tree-saving jerk or a young Republican clone.

But that no longer bothered him. Karl was eighteen and that slut had had to let go of him, even though she hadn't let go of Rip's bank account after the divorce. Some Jewish lawyer had arranged things for her, probably taking a good part of it, and not just money, with that little circumcised pistol.

Well, good for her. However, all women were the same, only good for procreation, and worse for the poor fool who thought they were more than a wet hole in a dry bed.

No sir, there were no women among the Sons of a Free America. If anyone felt like it, they could go to Hobie or the Twin Cities to unload the balls, and be careful about using condoms, because anyone who got anything worse than crabs was dishonorably disbarred. Those married who weren't living all the time at home could let off steam at home, but the more time they spent in the Sons, the more likely they were to break up with their women. Patriotism, as Rip liked to repeat, is a jealous lover.

With pride, Rip noted that none of the men outside asked anyone on the board what the meeting's agenda was. Sure, they were curious, but they were good soldiers, and they knew how much they needed to know. At the right moment they would be informed, to let them participate in the joy of the operation. But until then, mouths sewn up: there is always the risk of something coming out accidentally, especially in bedtime chatter. Here's another reason to stay away from women.

Rip's cabin was a mere ten by three meters, with a sofa, a couple of chairs, a trunk, a tripod with a basin, and a telephone. For the shower, the beard and the rest, Rip shared the community latrine with his men. But the phone was there because he needed a private line, and sometimes he needed to speak to a small number of his comrades. This was the purpose of the folding chairs leaning against the wall. He opened two, then sat in his wooden chair and began to pray.

He never prayed enough, and this displeased him. It was Yahweh who had brought him to that point, just as he had brought Randy Weaver and his family to Ruby Ridge in Idaho. It is true that Vicki and their son Samuel had been killed by those bastards of the government troops, but Yahweh works through mysterious ways. Those victims had been the spark that had ignited the patriotic movement, and Waco had been the flame that had ignited the mice that had blown up the Oklahoma City federal building. It was all connected, everything a part of God's plan.

There was a knock on the door and Rip told the boys to enter. Sonny Armitage and Powder Burns settled into the folding chairs, Sonny astride with his arms resting on the backrest. "I want you two for this job," Rip announced without preamble. “We have three days before King shows up, and a day and a night before we place them. Start preparing them, Powder, and I'll give you all the help you need. "

“I don't need anyone. People don't know what they're doing, they'd make a crater out of this forest. I can do them by tomorrow evening. "

"Okay. If remote controls are a problem, don't care. "

«I can also make remote controls. But like I said, I don't guarantee they will work. "

"Just make sure the bombs work."

"Exact."

“Very well, then. Let's please Will and give him his remotes. Tomorrow night you two go to the place and place them. You have to place them where they can't find them, but where they can do the most damage. And you have to go in and out without a trace. "

"No problem," Sonny assured with the safety of dozens of successfully completed missions. Much was due to Sonny's nocturnal visits to the Twin Cities if the Sons continued to be supplied with food and ammunition. Sonny had been part of the special services: on a lucky night, he was able to break into a drugstore, disable the alarm system, blow up a safe, and come out with several thousand dollars.

True, much of the funding for the Sons came through meandering channels from a couple of St. Paul's entrepreneurs, but it was thanks to Sonny that they had an armory that would be the envy of any other paramilitary group, if anyone at the outside the Sons had news of it. And that was damned unlikely, since no one outside the group was even aware of its existence.

"All right then. Set the explosion for ten past eight. King has always made it a point of honor to be on time. There is no reason for it to change now. "

3

"Hi, monkey," Rick Carlisle said as his wife entered the room. He was sitting at the breakfast table, over a cup of coffee and the evening paper. Amy bent down to give him a kiss, and to receive one in return.

"This monkey wants a banana," Amy said. "He's starving."

"Well there's three slices of pizza left, they're hot in the oven."

"Three? ... You mean you killed five!" Amy shook her head. "The monkey and the pig."

"Why so late?" Rick asked, getting up and taking the pizza out of the oven.

After taking a slice, she sat him back down and curled into his lap, telling him as calmly as possible about the phone call and about Senator King's upcoming visit.

"My God, this is magnificent!" he exclaimed. «A fantastic advertisement for the center. You would never have been able to buy such a thing. "

“I know… but coming home I thought about it, and it seemed a little strange to put on such a thing, to ask parents to… how to say, to use their children, you know? It seems to me a bit of a commodification. "

“Look, I know that you are involved with children on a very high and pure level, but this is primarily business, isn't it? Parents love you. I am sure they will have nothing against commodifying babies for an hour or so. I mean, how often does an opportunity like this happen? Once in a lifetime, maybe. And the way you struggled to get to this point, it seems to me that you deserve it ... "

On Saturday, Amy and Nancy made their calls, asking permission to detain some children after eight the following Tuesday evening. Knowing the reason, all the parents agreed, and in the evening Amy began to receive phone calls from parents who even asked if their children could stay and attend the senator's visit. Amy was pleased to accept, and at the end of the day she calculated that she would have ten children in the preschool class and twelve in the kindergarten section, with the promise from all the parents that they would be picked up by nine.

He just couldn't imagine that things could get any better than this.

"Do you want to be quiet, for Christ's sake?" growled Sonny Armitage. He liked doing that kind of work, but on his own, especially if the one who was helping him was a big clumsy guy like Powder Burns.

Who knows how that guy had not already blown up, he with the whole complex who knows how long ago. If there was something on the floor, one could be sure that Powder's shoe would intercept it by tripping over it on time. Luckily Sonny carried the bombs, both of them, wrapped in wrapping paper, in his backpack. He hadn't worked with the model for years, and that shit had the stability of a rookie coming under fire for the first time.

Getting into the center was as easy as getting a Vietnamese whore to give you a blow job. The lock had yielded so smoothly that it probably hadn't left even a scratch in the mechanism. And to make things easier, all the blinds were down: they could have used normal flashlights instead of infrared viewers, but the viewers gave an unrestricted view, and there was no risk of a ray of light leaking through the blinds alerting a passing policeman. Even though that neighborhood seemed completely lifeless at this time of night. They had parked six blocks away and hadn't seen a single lighted window, a single passing car, a single living soul. The peace and quiet of the suburbs.

A peace and tranquility that would be noisily disturbed in forty-eight hours.

Along the walls of the entrance hall there were coat hangers and some desks, plus two bathrooms on either side of the corridor that led to the interior of the building.

To the left of the corridor, judging by the furniture, was the small children's sector. There were toys everywhere, as Powder soon discovered the hard way. The hooked perforated panels where children hung their things displayed name tags, names that, Sonny noted with disgust, encompassed the whole spectrum of the lower races: Jews, blacks, Hispanics, yellow faces ...

On the other side of the building was the elementary school area, with objects and games intended for older children. Each sector had a couple of bathrooms and at the back a kitchen area with a refrigerator, double sink and a microwave. In the preschool area there was also a small tub and a changing table. The names of the elementary sector showed the same mixture of races and religions.

"Do you have any idea?" Sonny asked Powder.

The other scratched his stubby chin, then walked over to the sinks, opened the cabinet door below, and reached out into the dark space. “I'd say below, in the space between the two sinks. Let's place them here. "

“Yes, so someone fills the tub with hot water and the tape comes off. The package falls with a thud and the kids say, 'Hey, teacher, what was that?' No, I don't think it's a good idea, Powder. "

Powder turned, peering around with her visor. "Down here then," he said, patting the refrigerator. "Back here."

«Isn't it that the fridge reduces the impact? I mean, it's quite heavy and ... "

Sonny broke off. Even behind the mask he caught Powder's unmistakably amused expression. "Look, Sonny," he said, "when the bomb goes off, whether that refrigerator is there or not is the same thing."

They placed the bombs inside the coils of the two refrigerators, but in such a way that they were not in contact to avoid suspicious vibrations. The spots were hot but not seared.

"Did you synchronize them?" Sonny asked.

"As much as possible. The timers may not be absolutely perfect, delay or advance by a couple of seconds out of forty-eight hours. But the first explosion is more than likely to trigger the other. "

"Boom, boom," Sonny said.

"That's right, boom, boom."

As they walked towards the hallway down the hall, Sonny asked Powder, "Don't you mind the idea that you could blow up children?" I mean, even if it's an accident. '

"No. I do not care. Have you seen the names ... A Christian school or kindergarten I wouldn't touch them, but this ... this is full of scoundrels. If there are also Christian children, why don't their mothers stay home and look after them? Why do they have to take them to this place? "

When they reached the door, they interrupted their conversation until they were out, closed it carefully, and returned to Sonny's van on their way to the complex.

4

The night before Senator King's visit, Amy Carlisle had a hard time falling asleep. It was long past midnight when she got up silently, trying not to wake Rick, and went into the kitchen to make a tea. He turned on the radio, but at that hour the only station that clearly arrived was what Nancy called "the freak channel," in which a certain Wilson Barnes rattled off his racist ranting from midnight to six in the morning. Even at a low volume that angry voice seemed to fill the kitchen, and Amy, with a grimace, ended up turning off the radio.

He had barely taken a few sips when Rick appeared in the doorway. "What's up?" he asked, then raised a hand. “No, don't tell me. Let me use my psychic powers. Are you worried. I see a white-haired man in a dark suit, surrounded by other men dressed in dark ... This man looks vaguely ... yes, here, senatorial. "

"Damn, is it that obvious?"

"Why don't you go back to bed?" Rick said, stepping behind her and rubbing her shoulders. "I could make you relax ..."

"With that special method you have?"

"Me and my little friend."

She felt something push against her back. "Your little friend is growing up."

"And he promises to become even more so, if he is shown adequate appreciation and enthusiasm." Rick leaned over to kiss her close to the ear. “I love you, Amy. Seriously, I love you. Don't think about tomorrow. Come to bed, yes? "

She went, and they made love, at first softly and delicately, and as her body relaxed her desire grew, until it reached the point where the tension of the day was forgotten, transformed into the tension of the night, the feeling of being pushed to the edge of a wide open cliff over the abyss, and then, finally, of falling, breaking the tension, surrendering in the moment, letting the red of the blood spread all over her body, filling her sides , her belly, her breasts, and then up, her shoulders and face, and down her arms, until the burning blood bursts out forming red wings that support her carrying her out of the abyss, up from the darkness of the abyss to the deep and blacker velvet than the sky, soaring in sleep ...

And Amy, sated with pleasure, slept and dreamed of flying, still flying, but like a bird. She could feel the wind hissing through the feathers of her wings, kissing her black eyes, eyes as bright and numb as onyx, open against the flow of air. Its strong wings carried it at great speed across the night sky.

Above, the dots of the stars glittered, lights fixed and constant, vast and eternal. Below, the artificial lights of men, fleeting like their life, faded as it swiftly passed, vanishing as soon as they were caught with the gaze, born and dead in a single moment, in a single breath of eternity.

And with that eternity he felt one. It was a steady, steady black star, moving in an orbit of its own around the earth, seeing the dim lights flicker beneath it, looking for the ones that were extinguished in a flash but still emitting a dull but angry red glare. These were the ones he could speak to, to whom his hoarse verse would speak endlessly. These red souls, who refused to die, needed his knowledge, his power.

Yes, there was one down there, like a quivering cigarette butt in some dangerous alley. It bent its wings slightly and began to descend, down towards that red eye.

But the closer she got to him, the thicker and graying the air, and now she felt as if she were flying through thick ash that clung to her feathers, weighing them down. The air currents carrying her vanished, and she found herself falling rather than gliding. He spread his wings completely, tried to flap them, tried to get up to lean again on the current, but the gray dust, the heavy ash on his feathers did not allow it.

And he fell.

He fell toward the red dot, still visible to his coal-black eyes in the dead gray air. She fell, and as she approached the ground and the red soul that refused to die, the red dot became clearer, it became a human figure whose face was turned up towards her, a dead face whitened with ash, cut from tears of anger and hatred and from the refusal to accept fate, tears that flowed from that being's eyes and down his cheeks and lips, so as to make his face appear a white mask, with eyes and black.

And a moment before falling right on that face, just before hitting him with such force and terror as to put an end to the dream and return, drenched in sweat and terrified, to reality, he saw that that turn was his.

The next morning Amy had almost completely forgotten the dream, she would only remember it much later. There was too much to do to think about dreams.

He worked with Nancy Fowler and Judy Croft in the preschool area most of the day, occasionally moving to the elementary section to check the work of the cleaning company, busy polishing the center for the senator's visit. In the afternoon, when the elementary school children began to arrive and many of the mothers came to pick up the little ones on their way home from work, the cleaning team moved into the other room while Judy checked that the work continued without bothering the children.

Judy was a pearl of a woman, and Amy had been lucky to find her. In her early sixties, she had been a registered nurse for twenty years, and until a few years earlier she had worked in the office of Dr. Garber, now retired. Even though they had never had a medical emergency at the center, it was reassuring that there was someone who knew what to do in case of need.

At four o'clock, most of the children left were primary school children. Judy, with her massive size, had stayed with the little ones while Amy and Nancy took care of the others. Amy was playing a game with Ashley Corcoran, DeMarole White, Polly Phelps and Pete Grissom, while other children took turns playing with the Gameboy that one of them had just received as a gift.

Brenda Tran was at the computer with her little brother, Charlie, who was watching, waiting her turn with her eyes fixed on the screen. What cute children, Amy thought with a hint of pride. They owed their intelligence to the geniuses of their parents, originally Vietnamese who had made their fortune with a chain of software stores that, which had started in Hobie, was now spreading throughout the Twin Cities area.

But as she looked around she thought that she could find something special and wonderful in each of her children. For an hour, for two, for six hours a day, she was a mother who took care of her children, taking care of them, teaching them, making them grow, protecting them from dangers. She was proud of them all. He loved them all.

At half past five the pizzas arrived for everyone and it was a kind of party. Amy just hoped that the tomato sauce and peppers didn't get too deeply into the freshly cleaned carpets. When they had finished eating, they played a little more, but at six the phone rang. He was a collaborator of Senator King. "Mrs. Carlisle, I'm sorry to call you so late, but there's been an unexpected setback."

Amy felt her heart beat faster. She understood what the man was going to tell her the moment he showed up. “Senator King is unable to come to your center this evening. He had to leave immediately for Washington for a sudden vote. He asked me to apologize and to assure you that he will call you personally tomorrow morning.

"Oh, okay," Amy replied. "I see." And it was true, but that did not alleviate his disappointment.

“I assure you that the next time the senator comes to the Hobie area - and I promise he will - the center will be the first stop on his visit. Excuse me if I leave you now, but I still have a dozen more calls. I have to tell you, though, that we have notified the media, so you won't have the bother to find them all in front of the door. "

"Thank you," Amy said, thinking it would be anything but a nuisance to find reporters and cameras in front of the door. "And thanks for calling."

“Thanks to you for understanding. Until next time."

"Until next time."

The children, and Nancy, quickly realized that something was wrong when they saw Amy's expression. "Amy ...?" Nancy said.

Amy forced a smile. "Well, the good news is we won't have to share dessert with reporters." He briefly explained the situation to the children, who did not hide their disappointment, and moved on to the other sector to break the news to Judy Croft.

“I'm very sorry,” Judy said, “but I can't say I'm surprised. With politicians, I never believe in anything until I see it. Are you going to warn the parents? "

"And how do I do this? Certainly many of them have made other commitments. "

"Maybe they'll hear about the senator's change of plans from the afternoon news."

This was the case with several parents, who learned the news from the only Minneapolis station that gave it. The others heard nothing. Nor are the Sons of a Free America.

5

That evening, at half past seven, Powder Burns, Sonny Armitage, Will Standish and Rip Withers drove into Hobie in Rip's dark green Plymouth Acclaim, a car chosen for its elusive features. With some lighting the dark green appeared blue and in full sun, black. The body style was indistinguishable from dozens of other models. Just what Rip needed.

The intention, upon arriving in Hobie, was to stop a few blocks away from the kindergarten and await the explosion, but Rip wanted to walk past it first to make sure the visit was going according to plan. When they saw that there were only three cars, and no limousines or television vehicles, they realized that something was wrong.

"Did you get the day right?" Powder asked from the back seat as Rip pulled up to the curb and stopped the car.

"Of course I got it right," Rip said. "Don't talk nonsense."

"Well, somebody must have been great," Will said, and Rip could hear his voice shaking. “Or they found the bombs and canceled the visit. God, maybe they're watching us right now! Maybe it's a trap ... "

“Damn,” Rip interrupted, “if it were a trap there would be more cars. On this fucking road it's just us! No, they just canceled. I can't believe it ... That dickhead, that fucking bastard fagot cowardly shit face! "

"Okay," Will said. "What do we do now?" Rip, we need to stop this. Look at those cars, there are people in there, maybe kids. "

"Don't fret, Will," Rip replied, trying to keep calm. What upset him was not the prospect that the bombs would go off anyway, but the fact that they had missed their target and it could take months for King to come back around, years before such a smooth opportunity to take him out. "Fuck," he said, thinking aloud. "I should have let Ace shoot him this afternoon."

“Rip,” Will said, “forget this, it's about the future; here we have a problem, and we have it now. We need to stop those bombs. Come on, Powder, get out that remote. "

"But yes, yes, I have it here, don't be afraid." From inside the Powder jacket he pulled out a contraption similar to an old-fashioned television remote control, with a retractable antenna.

"Are we close enough?" Will asked.

"Sure, sure ..." Powder pulled out the antenna to its full length. “Just point it through the window. Cut off the contacts, and we can go back in there and get them back when the hell we want. "

He pressed the button, then frowned. "Oh shit."

"Thing?" Will asked. "What's up?"

"Well, this red light, it seems to me, should go on."

"You should? Not sure? "

"Yes, I'm sure, I'm sure it should."

"And what does it mean if it doesn't light up?"

"It means it didn't work ..." Powder shook her head in perplexity, then closed the antenna and turned the contraption upside down. "Maybe the batteries aren't good."

"The batteries? You mean you haven't put new batteries in? "

“Well, they were new, but they had been inside for quite a while. It happens that they don't work. "

"And can't we get new ones, Christ?"

Rip started the engine again. "There was a supermarket a few blocks ago," he said wearily. “They will have batteries. Now relax, Will. They're betting on ten past eight, and there are twenty-five minutes left, we have plenty of time. "

They reached the shop and Powder refilled the device.

"Will it work now?" Will asked.

"I do not know. We're not in range yet. "

"Then let's go," Will urged. "Let's move, come on!"

Rip turned to Will, placing one arm on the steering wheel and the other on the backrest. “Will, listen to me. Nobody tells me what to do, neither you nor any of my men. I am your senior officer and you are bound to address me with all due respect to the rank. "

Will swallowed and nodded several times. "Okay, I'm sorry Rip, I mean, Colonel, I'm sorry."

"I told you we have plenty of time to cancel the mission, and as a soldier you must obey your commander, who now orders you not to open your mouth except to answer direct questions, yes and no, until we are out of Hobie. . " He raised an eyebrow. "Clear?"

"Yes, yes," Will said. Rip put his hands on the steering wheel and started up again.

They stopped near the school again. "Okay," Rip agreed. "Ten minutes. More than enough. Come on, Powder. "

Powder again extended the antenna pointing at it from the window, pressed the button again, and again muttered, "Fuck ..."

"What the hell is going on now?" Sonny said.

"The batteries had nothing to do with it," Powder replied. "Now I understand."

"What is that?" Rip asked as Will seemed there to get it on.

"The signal. It goes well through the windows, but the problem is the refrigerators. There is too much metal to get to where we placed them. "

"Oh, Christ!" Will exclaimed despite the silence imposed on him. Under the circumstances, Rip did not take it back.

Rip looked out the window at the Let's Be Friends Center, biting his lip. Eight minutes. And with Powder's rough timers, maybe even less.

And then Rip saw a window shutter open, and a figure looked out. It was a woman, and behind her she saw other small figures moving, and she knew that the woman and those children were already dead.

Eight minutes. Just time to get away from the area.

He looked away from the woman. See him too, he thought. That he saw them all. See the car, the license plate number. In eight minutes it would no longer matter.

"What do you do?" Will said, disobeying orders again. That didn't matter either. Eight minutes and Will wouldn't say a word on the subject anymore. All of them would be bound by that shed blood. Like it or not, the Sons of a Free America were about to take their first action.

Amy lowered the blinds as the car pulled away. He had thought it was a parent who had come to take his son, but instead it was four men who were probably lost.

She had become alert to the cars loitering around the center. There was always the possibility of a kidnapping, if not for money, for darker reasons that Amy didn't even want to think about. And there were specific procedures to follow whenever someone other than the parent was taking a child.

He roused himself from his thoughts when he felt a touch on his shoulder. "Would you mind taking a look?" Nancy asked her. "I have to run away to get Karin from the swimming lesson."

Amy nodded smiling. Hobie's sports center was on the doorstep: Nancy would be there and back in ten minutes. "Be careful," Amy warned. "There was a car with four men outside - they were probably just lost, and when I looked out they drove away - but keep an eye on them anyway."

Nancy nodded and went out greeting her with a wave of her hand. Amy didn't have to worry too much about her friend. They had taken a self-defense course together, and Nancy always carried an irritating spray in her bag.

Amy turned her attention to the children. There were only six left in the room: Brenda and Charlie Tran, who were busy with the computer again, Mary Alice Shearer, who was dozing in an armchair, Pete Grissom and Ashley Corcoran, playing a board game, and DeMarole White, who he fiddled with the toy kitchen, putting pots and pans into the small plastic oven. "One day I'll be a chef, like my dad," he had told her countless times.

"Tell me when what you're cooking is ready, I'm coming for a taste," Amy told her, receiving in return the flash of a smile that stood out white on her dark skin. For a moment she thought of going to see if Judy needed anything, but she didn't like the idea of leaving her little ones alone. And then surely Judy was doing just fine.

There were four children there now. Two, Mark Dreyfus and Shannon Pierce, were very small, and they were two treasures. They slept smoothly and were delightful when awake. Frank Boone was two years old: he always dozed off at six and went on sleeping until seven when his mother came to pick him up. Three-year-old Annabel Jorgensen, on the other hand, was an earthquake, or at least it had been until Judy put her in line.

Probably, Amy thought, it was Judy's age that had struck Annabel, whose parents were both in their twenties. One look from Judy was all it took and the little girl would immediately stop running, screaming or squirming. The reaction had left young Mrs. Jorgensen stunned, who, as a joke, but not so much, had proposed to Judy to move in with them as housekeeper night and day.

Seeing that all of her children were happily busy, Amy decided to give Rick a call at his architectural firm. She rarely bothered him, but he'd been working late on a project for several weeks and told her that hearing her voice was a welcome distraction. They were just lucky, he thought for the umpteenth time, to still be so in love after twelve years of marriage.

"Hi, it's me," she said when he answered her.

"So, how's the media blitz going?"

"They threw the can at us, didn't you know?" She told him about the canceled visit and he was as disappointed as she was.

"I'm sorry baby. Damn, this occasion would have been dynamite, for the business ... "

"What are you doing?" Will Standish exclaimed. "Rip, what are you doing?"

"I'm leaving. Believe me, you don't want to be around when the bombs go off. "

Will felt his heart burst in his chest. "We can't allow it ... There are children in there!"

"Already. I've seen them too. But now it's too late. "

“No, it's not late. Let's find a phone, let them know ... let's get them out now! "

“Will, when those two bombs go off, there will be cops, ambulances, fire trucks all over the neighborhood. And if they see us moving away quickly, they'll get suspicious. Now I am ready to sacrifice myself, like everyone here, but only if the martyrdom produces something. And blowing up that building doesn't give us any results. "

"Building?" Will replied. "That's not just a building ... we blow up children, little children!"

"Black children," Powder said. “Yellow children. That fucking place is kind of a miniature UN. "

"Pull over, Rip," Will said, trying not to show all the fear he felt. "I want to call them."

“There aren't any booths around, Will. Try to control yourself. "

"Rip, look what I jump down on the run if you don't stop." Will gripped the door handle.

The bullet inserted into the barrel made a deafening noise. Will gasped at the sound and felt the cold weight behind his ear.

"Give it a try, Will," Sonny Armitage said, "and you get there dead on asphalt."

Will knew Sonny enough to know he wasn't joking. She let go of the handle and put her hands in her lap, hoping her fingers would stop shaking so hard.

"All right. Okay, I'm not going anywhere. Put the gun away, Sonny, yeah? "

With relief he felt Sonny slowly lower the hammer of the weapon. "All right, Will."

"What's done is done, Will," Rip said. “I know you're upset, but you have to resign yourself. We tried to stop him, we couldn't. Now we have to accept it. "

They drove several blocks before Rip spoke again. "But there is one thing. After this, they'll know we mean it. They will know that we stop at nothing. Nobody is safe. Nobody."

A minute later, far behind them, they heard the explosion. Will felt his stomach tighten in a vise and his bowels loosen. Christ, no, he couldn't get it on. He tightened his sphincter, tried to resist, to push back the thoughts, not to see what was going on back there, to think about everything but what they had done.

But he was not able to. He saw it all in his mind, and wondered if the others were seeing it too, and if they had gone so far on their dark path that they saw nothing else and felt nothing but their sinister satisfaction.

The first explosion occurred in the area of the little ones. Amy was talking on the phone with Rick when there was a deafening bang and the wall that separated her room from the living room shattered like glass, raining splinters big and small on her and the children. For a moment it was like being in a tornado, with a wind so strong that nothing could resist it.

Amy was thrown back to the opposite wall and hit her so hard that for a moment she passed out. But she continued to feel the debris storming her. The pain instantly brought her back to reality.

She could barely see through the cloud of dust and smoke, but looking towards the source of the explosion she thought she saw a distant street lamp where the wall should have been. So not only the wall between her and the hall was destroyed, but all the walls.

The entire preschool area was gone. Judy. The children.

Amy frantically looked around for her babies and crawled over the rubble, shouting, “Children! Children! Where are you?" He heard someone moaning, someone else crying, and headed for those voices. At one point he saw an arm sticking out of a pile of debris, a dark-skinned arm with plastic wristbands. DeMarole.

Amy grabbed his hand, and the arm gave way, too easily. There was nothing attached. The bracelets tinkled down one arm and slipped off the other end, lost in the darkness.

A scream erupted from Amy's throat, an inarticulate sound, speechless and thoughtless, a primal cry. My children, he meant. What happened to my children ...

He pulled himself to his feet and staggered toward the other voices. There was Brenda Tran, bleeding from a dozen bad wounds, but she was alive. He grabbed her, trying to ignore her moans of pain. He didn't even think it could be dangerous to move it. She only knew that this was a bad place, a place that had hurt her children and she had to find them, find them and take them out.

Now followed the sobs that came from the back of the room. Dragging and supporting Brenda with her right arm, Amy reached out with her left to find the baby in the ruins of that nightmare. Finally, in her buzzing ear, the screams became words. "Mum mum..."

Here I am, he thought. Mom is coming.

He found it wedged under a piece of what had been the inner wall. He set Brenda down as gently as possible, and pulled the metal panels away from Pete Grissom's body with the force of despair, anger and motherly love.

Pete's legs were both broken, and Amy slung him over her shoulder trying to be quiet, then picked up Brenda and looked through the dust into the dark. At the far end of the room was the emergency exit. The path was relatively clear, and once there, all he had to do was push the handle, and they would be out, out of this ugly place. Then he could lay down the children and go back inside to find the others.

He staggered to the door, holding and carrying the children, and paused for a moment to regain his strength for the final push to freedom. He stopped for only a second, next to the refrigerator.

At that moment, the second timer of Powder Burns clicked 8:00:00.

The bomb exploded with more force than the first. Amy didn't hear the sound of her own death, didn't have time to feel more pain than she already felt. He died feeling only the pain of loss, the pain of broken love.

She and the children who were with her disintegrated, transformed into a damp red cloud that at the same instant dried into dry dust. Of the building, what the first explosion had left standing was gone.

What was left of Amy was gone.

6

Rick didn't hear the first blast on the phone - the line dropped first. But he heard the roar from eight kilometers away.

There in his office he was unable to figure out which direction it was coming from, but the fact that it had occurred the moment the communication went down alarmed him. When he tried to call back, a recorded voice informed him that the number he formed was out of order.

And then he heard the second explosion.

He grabbed his jacket and rushed down the stairs without waiting for the elevator, ran to the car in the parking lot and headed downtown. He began to hear sirens before he had traveled a kilometer.

Officer David Levinson was the first policeman to arrive at the scene. He was on patrol less than a kilometer away when he heard the first explosion and saw the lightning. He immediately reversed gear, switched on the flasher and siren, and raced toward the area.

He was a block from the center when he thought he saw some shapes moving in the dust of the gutted building. But then the glow of the second explosion blinded him, the roar hit his eardrums and debris rained on the roof of the car. He stopped immediately in the middle of the road until his sight returned.

A mass of smoke and dust rose skyward, and Levinson got out of the car and walked towards the building. His first thought was of the people he had thought he saw moving. But the closer he got, the less it seemed possible to find them still alive.

The building was razed to the ground. Nothing remained but dust and rubble, and a few flames scattered here and there, which flickered uncertainly, as if disappointed at finding nothing to burn. There, he realized, was the Let's Become Friends Children's Center, which he passed three times a day. She lived in the same neighborhood where Amy Carlisle and her husband lived, she saw them very often. And that was Amy's center, destroyed, almost disintegrated. God, what had happened?

He ran back to the patrol car and started to sound the alarm, but he already heard the sirens and saw the lights of the oncoming emergency vehicles. Spotlights lit up the sky before descending on the destroyed building, and when he looked up at the cloud of smoke, it seemed to him that it was moving up and moving strangely, spreading out and forming a vague shape in the sky.

The silhouette of a bird, a bird with spread wings.

For a moment Levinson gasped. He could not help but follow with his eyes the shadow of the immense black bird that was rising higher and higher, remembering the story his grandmother had told him ...

But then in a gust of wind the black cloud swayed and began to unravel, and Levinson was no longer sure he had even seen it. Maybe he had imagined it. He hoped so.

The first fire brigade vehicle pulled over and stopped, and the commander ran over to him, magnified by his waterproof clothes, and asked if anyone was inside.

"I don't know," Levinson replied. "I thought I saw something moving in the building ... but then the second explosion came, and ... the building wasn't even there."

The chief turned to his men as more police cars arrived, followed by an ambulance. “Team One, look for any survivors. Two and Three, connect the hydrants. "

"Could it have been a gas pipeline?" Levinson asked.

The other made a face. "Do you smell gas?" Levinson shook his head. "Me neither. No, this wasn't gas. "

Levinson stepped aside as the firefighters made their way through the rubble. Then he informed the other policemen of everything he had seen, except for the black shadow that had risen from the site of the explosion.

Dan Trotter, an older detective who had been part of the LAPD bomb squad before coming to Minnesota, shook his head. “It wasn't an accident. Two explosions, two minutes apart ... And do you know what was going to happen here tonight? "

Levinson knew this, and so did everyone else. “Senator King. But the visit was canceled. "

"But sadly they haven't canceled that too," Trotter said. “Or maybe they just thought: who cares. This is your area, isn't it Dave? " Levinson nodded. "Do you know if there was usually someone at this hour?"

Levinson didn't seem to have seen cars in the small parking lot on his half-past eight laps. “Normally not, that I remember. But there are cars tonight. " He pointed to the clearing where two vehicles lay overturned and crumpled by the violence of the explosion.

Suddenly they saw a woman running towards them. Her face was very pale under the artificial lights, and her voice showed the effort he made to control her. "Where's Amy?" churches. "And Judy ... and where are the children?"

"Amy ..." Levinson said. "Was Amy Carlisle in there?"

"Oh, Jesus ..." the woman murmured, then began sobbing on the verge of hysterics. "My God, there were ten of them in there."

"Ten children?" asked the fire chief, who had returned as soon as he saw the woman. "Or ten in all?"

“Ten children. Plus Amy ... and Judy. "

Now the situation was becoming chaotic. Three cars arrived almost at the same time, with parents picking up their children, followed by others within minutes. Although the medical staff had no injuries to help, they had to do their utmost to take care of the startled and in some cases hysterical parents, who had to be physically prevented from rushing into the rubble to dig in search of their children.

"It was plastic," Trotter announced to David Levinson. "And in quantity."

Levinson looked at the firefighters who had begun to remove the debris. "Will they find anything? At least some remains? "

“Maybe, but it's unlikely. You saw what effect it had on steel, wood and glass. Meat and bones are much more vulnerable. The only hope is that someone, or some piece of someone, was left under a piece of wall after the first explosion. As for finding someone still alive, you can forget it. The power of that stuff is incredible, it is capable of vaporizing a human being. " Trotter shook his head. “The only thing that can be said is that the action is immediate. Nobody will have suffered. What if ... "

Trotter paused and looked over Levinson's shoulder. Levinson turned and saw a man getting out of a car. He was shocked. He recognized Rick Carlisle immediately.

"Rick," she said, walking to meet him. He didn't know what to say. The devastated space ahead of them was all too telling.

"Rick ..." he repeated. "I'm sorry. I'm infinitely sorry. "

7

David Levinson's work day ended at eleven. He had stayed on the spot doing what he could to help out. There was so much to do. Parents and family members had been the main problem, but the media made things even more difficult.

By nine o'clock the mobile television studios had descended on the usually quiet neighborhood like crows on the carcass of an animal. Under the harsh light of the cameramen spotlights, the reporters besieged the poor, heartbroken family members with their microphones, asking what they felt. Some shunned interviews, while others tried to cooperate, trying to find words that expressed the pain and horror they felt.

Levinson felt nauseated. The straw that broke the camel's back was a reporter who kept tailing an Asian woman who had made it clear she was not going to speak. The man did not stop insisting. "Madam, please, wait, we want to talk to you, tell us what you hear ... Hey, don't you speak English?"

He followed her with the operator beyond the yellow police tape, squeezing her between two cars. "Madam, please tell us how you feel."

That bastard was now in Levinson's territory; the agent walked over to the man, put his hand on the camera lens and snatched the microphone from his hand, disconnecting it from the cable. “How the hell do you think he feels? Now get your ass to the other side of that tape immediately or I'll stop it.

"Hey, man, I'm just doing my job!"

“I'm not his friend, and I'm doing mine. Now move! "

He seated the woman in a police car and held her close while she continued to cry. "Both of my children," she sobbed, and Levinson felt his stomach and throat go cold. What could be said, what could be answered to so much pain, to a loss that would never fade, even in the midst of a moment of joy? A fist had tightened around that woman's heart, and it would clench it until her last day of life.

At half past ten the federal investigators arrived, there being no longer any doubt that the destruction had been caused by a bomb. The small fires had been extinguished and the firefighters had searched carefully through the rubble, but found no one alive. As Trotter had predicted, not even the remains of the victims had been found.

Another half hour and the family members went home or were taken to the hospital for the night, and put under sedation. Levinson had heard that Judy Croft's husband had suffered a heart attack and was in critical condition.

Now Levinson watched as investigators collected debris and dust samples and took measurements under the bright spotlight.

"Finished the shift?" Dan Trotter asked him. Levinson nodded. "Order to stay?" He shook his head. "Then why don't you go home?"

"I don't know," Levinson replied, but he did. His empty house would make him think even more about the emptiness of this scary place.

"Take a coffe? Maybe with a donut? "

"Yes, gladly."

They got into Levinson's car and drove to an all-night bar, where the waitresses were friendly but never too curious. Tonight, Levinson thought, their discretion will be tested.

But they just smiled and waved at the two policemen, took the order and asked no questions. Levinson sat down at the table and took a long sip of coffee.

"Do you know why I left Los Angeles?" Trotter asked. “It was getting too violent. Every time you walked around there was some bastard putting a bomb in a bank or a public office, hell, even schools. And so I told my wife, what the fuck, let's get out of here before I leave you a widow. I have two kids, it was becoming a shit place to raise them.

“And so I came to Hobie, got a promotion, even though the salary went down, but with the difference in the cost of living, I hardly noticed. I was happy, things were much less violent here. " He shrugged. "And now this." He pulled a notebook from his pocket and leafed through it. “Two women, ten children, and four still weren't in school. Gone in a flash. The worst thing that ever happened to me. The most heinous, hideous, disgusting crime I have ever seen committed. And I don't even know if we'll ever find out who did it. " He closed his eyes and shook his head.

"I left Detroit for the same reason," Levinson said. “All those murders after a while were starting to be too many. That stench ... it stops in your nose, you can't get rid of it anymore. It is like a fisherman who stinks of fish, or a farmer who stinks of manure all his life. I stank of corpses, you know. It began to suffer ... well my private life. "

And the consequence had been that he and his wife had begun to drift apart, and he hated that distance. He wished his relationship with Carol was perfect, and that wasn't possible in Detroit. She had seemed happy to go with him to Hobie, and he had hoped that things would turn out for the best, but the situation was now beyond recovery. Three months after the move she had left him and returned to Detroit. But he didn't want to talk to Trotter about this.

“And so they wanted to kill Senator King,” Trotter said, looking out the window, “and they didn't care if they killed a bunch of kids in the meantime. Do you have any idea who they might be? "

"No. But I know the mentality. I know how they think. " He smirked. "I know who they hate."

"Who?"

"Myself. The Jews. But they also hate blacks and Chicans and Vietnamese and Japanese and anyone with a skin or religion different from theirs. They hate anyone who is different. "

The waitress arrived and Trotter chewed a bite of her coffee cake for a long time before asking the question. "Have you had any such problems on duty?" Levinson didn't answer, and Trotter went on. “Between us, I've heard rumors. I just want to understand if they are true. "

"There are some colleagues," Levinson replied slowly, "who, I have the impression, don't particularly like Jews."

Trotter grunted. "But why don't they quit and go with those damned paramilitaries?" He made a face. “My wife's maiden name is Rachel Rabinowitz. You go to the synagogue, I don't. But I still see how some of the guys look at me. And so ... "his tone became more serious," do you think those militiamen are involved? "

"Maybe. In these parts there are several. "

“He seems to like the woods in the north, doesn't he? Only they are as good and calm as mice in church. I know of nearly a dozen different militias within a hundred and sixty kilometers of Hobie, and all they do is train and recruit and stockpile weapons. But those motherfuckers, as far as I know, do everything legally. "

"And even if it weren't," Levinson said, "after Ruby Ridge and Waco all the authorities, local and federal, think twice before setting foot in one of those gun camps and making some arrests."

"You bet. Those stoned are happy when the tension mounts. For them it is an opportunity to become martyrs for the cause of the white Christian brotherhood. "

"So you think it was one of those militias?"

“Certainly no private individual can have enough plastic explosives to raze a building like that. No, this was organized by someone who knew what he was doing and had all the means to do it. Real professionals. "

"So you think the feds will investigate paramilitary groups in the area?"

"No I do not think so. I don't think they'll have the guts because they won't want to create the opportunity for another accident. If they had solid evidence of militia involvement, then perhaps they would act. But ask questions? Searches? Examine arsenals? No, they won't. Indeed, unless something happens, it would not surprise me if the matter were definitively dismissed as the work of unknown persons. "

"I heard her die," Rick Carlisle said. "On the phone, as soon as the line went down, that's when she died."

He and Nancy Fowler sat in Nancy's living room. It was two in the morning. When he had no more doubts that Amy had been killed in the blast, Rick had managed to establish a certain calm and stifled the agony of pain by cooperating with the authorities in every way possible.

They remained, he and Nancy, sitting in the police van for half an hour answering questions, first with Hobie's chief detectives and then with a federal investigator. Nancy had been able to give the names of all the children who were in the center when the blast occurred, and Rick had reported the final phone call and the sound of the blast he had heard immediately after the breakdown.

They hadn't been able to say more except that Amy had seen a car with four men in front of the building minutes before Nancy came out. No, there was nothing to suggest that something had been placed in the building ... No, they had not noticed any signs of forced entry ... No, nothing unusual had happened ... No ... no ... no...

When the interrogation was over and the two of them were left alone, Nancy said she had to take Karin home. The little girl had been with an agent since Nancy arrived. "Look," she said to Rick, "if you don't feel like going home tonight, I can settle you in the spare room." The offer had been made quite simply, and Rick accepted it with a weary nod.

And now that they sat over two cups of tea, the events of the evening seemed almost a dream. How is it possible, Rick thought, that such a cataclysm upsets your life and a few hours later you can sit calmly and drink tea as if nothing had happened?

Still, there was nothing else they could think of or talk about. They quickly concluded that the target was Senator King. "They'll find out who did it," Nancy said. He closed his eyes and frowned. “Amy probably saw them. I wish I'd asked her more about them: what they looked like, what the car was like. I would like to..."

"If they don't find her," Rick said in a low voice, "it's almost like she's not dead, that she just went somewhere, and someday maybe she'll come back." He looked at Nancy and saw the look of surprise and pain on her face. “No, I know it's not like that. I'm not crazy, I know what happened. But like this, without ... without the body, it is as if she was still out there, still ... still alive in a certain sense, even though I know very well that she is gone. "

They were silent for a while, and then he said, "Do you know what I hope?" I just hope it was immediate. I hope he didn't understand anything. Because if she understood ... if she understood children ... I don't know how she could have died knowing this.

“I don't think she could have died. Knowing this."

I want ... I want to go back ...

Wait up

No ... it's not fair ... I have to right the wrong. I can't rest until I'm fixed.

Not yet. Wait up.

I can not wait! It hurts too much to wait! It hurts me, it hurts them ... Oh God, the sound of their screams ...

Wait, Amy, wait.

The crying, the voice calling mom ...

Soon.

Soon.

8

“Friends, welcome back to the second hour of the Wilson Barnes Show. If you were already listening, you will know what I talked about tonight. Explosions that shook the Wilson Barnes Show venue itself, the splendid Hobie, in Minnesota. A children's center, my friends. Yes, that's right, a children's center was destroyed. Two adults and ten little ones lost their lives, they were made to crumbs, my friends.

“The federal authorities are already there… and I say 'already' with a hint of irony, because in a scenario that is far from unlikely, someone who knows a lot might say they were there before. Let's look at the facts ...

“Senator Robert King, god of ultraliberals, was supposed to visit the center at eight last night. But the senator has not arrived: he has returned to that sewer that goes by the name of Washington. At ten past eight, friends, two bombs went off in the children's center. Now, what should the common person think? What would the media want you to think?

“They'd like to make you think that some ugly and bad conservative reactionary, maybe one of those terrible militias, friends, is responsible. These people are so bad, so unscrupulous, that they are capable of blowing up children in order to murder one of their political opponents! So let's hunt down these monsters! Let us not rest until these organizations of right-wing fanatics are destroyed to the last, until we have taken away all their dangerous weapons and put their leaders in jail, that is their place!

“This is what they would like you to think, my friends. But we are Americans, we don't buy this bullshit, right? Let's look at the facts ...

“If this was a plot to kill Senator King, it sucked as a plot. There were dozens of opportunities to do this today. He has found himself out in the open on half a dozen occasions. Bombs could have been planted all over the place, or a sniper could have taken it out without difficulty ... I'm not saying it would have been a good thing.

"And where did these terrible reactionaries put the bomb?" In a children's center, on the last stage of the day, the stage that was most likely to be canceled! And when the bomb goes off, King isn't even there! They say he had to leave for a vote, but will that be true, friends?

“Or maybe he knew from the start that there was a bomb there?

"Did you know who placed it?

“Wasn't he part of a conspiracy to tarnish the reputation of the conservative right, and the militia movements in this country, to the point that they could never hope to rise again from the dust of the Become Friends Center?

«Did he perhaps contribute to the staging of an attack intended to discredit the right, by sacrificing ten innocent children? Isn't the government capable of doing such a thing?

"Well, he was able to shoot Vicki Weaver in the face when the only weapon he wielded was his creature ... He was able to cause a firestorm in Waco, in which over twenty children died ... Hell, what do you want ten more to be?

“Tell me, friends, what Bill Clinton and Teddy Kennedy and Janet Reno and Robert King are not capable of!

“And mind you, it wasn't a home bomb made with fertilizer. No, this bomb, according to experts who saw the destruction, was plastic. The same type of plastic explosive, I might add, that the US military has in abundance.

"And the children? A whole rainbow coalition, my friends. Jews, Gentiles, Orientals, blacks ... almost as if it were programmed like this, as if these children were sacrificed to make sure that thanks to the liberal Jewish media everyone in the United States hated those responsible for this hideous act.

“And indeed horrendous was this act, and not only for the killing of innocent children, but in a deeper sense. Am I accusing someone, friends? No, I'm just asking questions. You will hear plenty of accusations from the government and the liberal Jewish media in the coming weeks. And when you hear them, don't forget that there is a very real possibility of government involvement, of people so power-hungry that they are willing to sacrifice everything, even the life of small creatures, in order to achieve its atrocious ends. . "

Leaving the radio at six in the morning, Wilson Barnes returned to the attic downtown where he lived alone. He poured himself three fingers of Tennessee whiskey and sipped it as he dialed a familiar number on the phone.

"Yup?" a sleepy voice answered.

"It's me," Barnes said. "Did you sleep? Have you heard before? "

"I heard."

"Did it look good?"

"Yup."

“I believe it, it was. I continue like this. I pass the line to the brothers of the other radios. And I expect a sign of appreciation. "

"Usual place."

"Nice to do business with you," Wilson Barnes concluded, and hung up before Rip Withers could say more.

9

The following was a day of other rhetorical speeches and exercises. The news of the explosion was given at the opening of every news bulletin on all national networks, and by the morning it was known that federal investigators had found traces of cyclonite, the active ingredient in the C-4 plastic explosive.

The mainstream press soon concluded that the destruction of the Become Friends Center was the tragic consequence of an attempt by right-wing extremists to assassinate Senator Robert King. In a statement issued this morning, the president promised the total commitment of every federal police authority in the search for the perpetrators of this "ruthless and terrible attack." Press commentators weren't quite as sure, though, sharing the fears Dan Trotter had expressed to David Levinson about the government's reluctance to enter the fortified camps that housed most paramilitary groups.

The ultra-conservative media followed another path, the one suggested by Wilson Barnes. Less extremist radio hosts with a wider audience urged their listeners not to jump straight to the conclusion that if it was a conspiracy, it was a leftist conspiracy. That the government was involved, they said, seemed unlikely but not impossible. But there were always left-wing extremists, and they were much more dangerous because they operated alone. It was quite possible that one of these "mavericks", supplied with information on the senator's programs, had wanted to discredit the right by organizing such an attack.

But the more extremist commentators fully adopted Wilson Barnes's thesis, suggesting in unequivocal terms that Hobie had been another Oklahoma City, a government-sponsored terrorist act to destroy its strongest enemy, the patriots of the white Christian militias. This theory was reinforced in the afternoon, when news broke that one of the victims had seen a car with four men on board, immediately transformed by radical commentators into the hated "men in black" of the federal government.

But all over the United States, only in the field of the Sons of a Free America could the truth be heard.

At one o'clock, just after the noon ration, Rip Withers had gathered all the members of the Sons in the indoor gym, where speeches were held in addition to training exercises. And Rip was now engaged in this business.

“You've all heard the news on the radio by now. As far as I know, you may have heard more. But now I'm here to tell you the truth. " He looked at his men, all tough and trustworthy soldiers, who listened attentively as they sat on the benches.

"The truth is what makes us different from them," he went on. “They lie to people, they lie to each other. I don't mean to lie to you. I'll tell you the truth. Your staff has made the decision to end the life of anti-American traitor Robert King. Our intelligence service told us that there was little chance that the safety of the children would be jeopardized in the attack. But as you know, the information is not always accurate. There were children present and, equally damaging to our cause, our main target was not. "

The reaction was the unwanted one he had expected. Most of the men listened without showing any emotion, but some appeared troubled, if not shocked.

“It was a tragedy, but it sent a message. Nobody is safe. In our struggle, we must be as ruthless as the government that shot down innocent children with shotguns and firebombs. And if the only way to prove it was something like what happened last night, so be it.

“I wish it hadn't happened. I wish it were possible to erase what was, but it is not possible. It's over, it's over, and now we must not just resign, but find a way to use it to our advantage. If you've heard Wilson Barnes last night, you know he's shown a way.

"Now, if there's anyone among us who can't stand the idea of what happened, let me know right away and ... we'll find a way." Rip looked at Will Standish, sitting at the back of the room with his head bowed and his gaze fixed on the ground. Then he looked at the others who were uncomfortable at the news, but they too seemed reluctant to speak.

"Well then. You know the rules. For those who betray their brothers, with words or deeds, the only punishment is death. Now we have another secret that unites us, how we unite our beliefs and our dedication to the cause. Be faithful. Be loyal. And the day of victory will come, by the will of Yahweh. "

A few isolated amen rang out, then others joined, and soon all the men were standing in the gesture of greeting the white Christian patriots. Will Standish was also standing at attention and waving, though Rip saw little enthusiasm in the gesture.

And finally Rip Withers smiled and returned the salute proudly.

Weeks, months passed, and absolutely nothing happened. The investigators had not the slightest clue from which to start, if not the residues of C-4, and the authorities were still unwilling to force the situation, with the risk of provoking violent reactions that could lead to a bloodbath. The apparent success of the Befriending Center bombing led Rip Withers to truly believe that Yahweh was with them, and the fact that they had not received any nuisance was a sign from Him that it was time to do something more.

The time had come for another explosion, one that would shake the wicked and treacherous government to its very heart.

10

Meanwhile, the dust remained.

By the time the investigators collected the last samples, when the few fragments of human remains were recovered, when the media took their photos and footage, the dust remained, a variegated relief map of a vanished village.

Gray as ash in some places, or the pale ivory of the bones, or reddish like rust or dried blood. Thin as powder, thick as gravel, place and people had mixed together, becoming one in a thick blanket of dead lives and dead dreams. The plastic tapes arranged by the police were now in tatters and faded by the sun which had reduced their vivid yellow to the color of jaundiced skin.

At once a cemetery, a monument and a place of execution, the place kept drawing people. After nearly six months, they still wore flowers and stuffed animals. They prayed, cried, looked at the dust.

Someone bent down to pick up a handful, then letting the dust that had been a place of love and the subjects of love that had occupied it fall back into his fingers. The voices that had laughed, the legs that had run, the faces that had smiled, the hands that had looked after, everything was now dust, grains that clung to the fingers like so many memories.

* * *

No one, except Rick Carlisle, remembered that that day in late October was the anniversary of the founding of the center. The memory had taken him by surprise, despite himself, because he was trying to forget everything about the center, the explosion.

He had tried, with all his heart, to forget what had happened to Amy. But it was deep in her heart that Amy remained.

That evening, on Halloween night, the children were walking around the houses in disguise asking for sweets. But those who lived near the Become Friends Center stayed away from the site, making long laps to avoid it. Every child knew it was inhabited by the ghosts of those who had died there, and the situation was certainly even worse around Halloween.

The police patrol had been doubled for the two nights of "trick or treat", and David Levinson had offered to do double shifts. He didn't mind the idea of extra pay, and it also gave second shift agents the opportunity to hang out with their children.

He had just finished the night shift, and he felt like a good spirit watching over all the kids dressed up as vampires or clowns or comic book characters of the moment. By ten o'clock, however, they were all safe in the house, probably in their bedrooms, gorging themselves in secret.

What a difference to Detroit, he thought as he headed for the coffee shop to take a break. Devil's Night was far more active than a Halloween in Hobie. Here the most he had to do that evening was to warn an older boy who wanted to take away the loot from one of the younger ones. Not a single car on fire, not a rape, not a murder.

Yet it was dark and evil everywhere, he thought as he slowly passed the site of the explosion. Who knows when they would have decided to pave the damn lot full of dust and rubble. Halloween was enough to give goosebumps, even without having that hell hole in your way.

In any case, this was far from the time of year Levinson preferred. When he was little he had always hated Halloween. It usually coincided with the biggest fair his father attended, which was held in Florida. His mother followed him to take a vacation and that meant David and his brother had to spend five days and four nights with grandfather and grandmother Levensohn.

The grandfather had never wanted to change the spelling of the surname from the traditional Russian form, citing a family connection with the Russian Jewish writer Michal Levensohn. He and his grandmother had come from Russia and used Yiddish between them, a habit David found strange and very unpleasant. He didn't like not understanding what others were saying, knowing that they could understand him instead. It seemed to him unfair and very selfish.

But what made him shiver, in his grandparents, were the stories they told about the country. It was not so much the anti-Semitism of the Tsar's troops and the Cossacks that frightened him. All in all, he was used to that, even if those who hated Jews in his school and neighborhood did not go at him armed with sabers. It was the tale of Abraham Levensohn, his grandfather's uncle, and the raven who drove him.

Even now, when he thought about it, he shivered. There are things that shouldn't happen in real life. Some, like prejudices, are wrong but they are endured and tried to change them. Others, like that attack, are abominations, appalling atrocities. Against these things we fight with all the might.

But still others are unimaginable, like a dead man coming back to life, whatever the reason.

Or was that also true? Were there even more unimaginable abominations than a dead man returning to kill? What if the dead were raised to avenge those abominations, as did Uncle Abraham?

Levinson shook his head. Forget it, he told himself. That damned story came back to him every Halloween, and it was probably no truer than the other legends Grandma Levensohn told him, the legends he later found in books on Jewish folklore.

But he had never found the raven story, and it was the one she told him with the most conviction.

He saw the lights of the cafeteria ahead of him. For the quarter of an hour he was allowed to sit without a steering wheel in front of him, perhaps a nice cup of coffee and a slice of cake would have sent Grandma's old fairy tales away. Only at midnight would he have to get back on the road.

And the dust remained.

He waited while the street lamps turned all their undulations to a uniform gray, like a sea on a day of suffocating calm. But when the men's watches beat the announcement that it was midnight, that the night was at the center of its own darkness, that the pendulum between sunset and sunrise touched the lowest point of its stroke, something black fell from the black of the sky, gliding and whirling as it approached the earth, as it approached the dust that remained, awaiting its arrival.

He slowed down his descent, as if resting for a moment on the air, and from his black body, with feathers as shiny as lacquered, or as if carved in jet, two legs emerged, looking for a support. They found him on one of the stakes that held the tattered police tape, and the obsidian daggers of his claws stuck into the wood.

The raven stood motionless in the wind that fluttered the ribbon but had no effect on its feathers. The crow watched with eyes of glowing coal, watched the wind dance in the gray dust, the waves of that dry sea rise and fall.

Then the wind passed over the waiting sea of dust and left it, passing beyond shaking the dead leaves, making the window panes tremble. Above the dust, the air stopped, dead.

But the dust kept moving.

It was as if the wind continued to blow, but from all sides, towards the center of the ocean of dust. And the dust began to pile up, to grow into a form that first suggested, then replicated, a human likeness. A head, two arms, a trunk, two legs, everything rose slowly from the dust as if it had always been there, just waiting for the moment to arise to be recognized by being placed upon it, watching the woman reclining to which her dark will gave form, or the will of the soul that still inhabited it. The image took shape as, in the ancient tale, God had formed Adam from the dust of the earth.

But this was not Adam, and no creator blew the breath of life into his nostrils. The breath, however, erupted with a cry of birth and rebirth, as the dust became flesh and muscle. The ash became bone, blood that flared up like a fire, giving life to the being in a gasp of pain, with an explosion of agony, and the memory of how he had died and why he was returning now.

11

And as Amy Carlisle's body reformed from its own particles and desire, Rick Carlisle dreamed of this reconstruction, while his soul, still one with hers, witnessed the rebirth from that womb of dust.

He saw her face emerge from the debris of the deserted lot like a woman rising from the sand in which she was buried. He saw his mouth full of dust, and he saw that dust explode from his lips into an ashen cloud, he saw his eyes widen in pain and horror, and he thought he was seeing the instant before the end of his life, the moment when he understood that she and, above all, her children, would die.

Rick opened his eyes and sat up abruptly in bed, still seeing the image of Amy in the shadow of the walls and ceiling. He was awake, he knew he was awake, but Amy was still there in front of him, with dust and ash falling off her, showing intact flesh, bare pink skin, shoulders and breasts untouched by the explosion that had torn apart.

She was whole, but her face was still gripped by the anguish she must have felt in her last moments. How could that happen? he seemed to say. How could I have let that happen?

She was there, naked, against the wall of her room, looking at her own body, sweet and strong as he had always seen it; then she looked around, and finally she looked at him.

"No ..." he murmured, and then repeated it more forcefully: "No!"

That was a dream, a vision, a torture of the mind born of his desire to still have her alive. There was no reality in that. It was only a childish dream of his desire, and he closed his eyes, squeezed them tightly, and opened them again.

But she hadn't disappeared. It was still there, only slightly more blurry, farther away, receding under his eyes until, just a few more seconds, and its shape was gone and only darkness remained.

No. It was impossible. She was gone. He would love her forever, but she was gone and he knew this was a cruel joke of his love. There was no return. Life and the "unknowns" who had planted their devices of hatred in Amy's heart had taught him that. There was no return to a world that kills love.

Something moved in the bed beside him.

He slowly reclined on his side and put his arm around his wife. "Are you OK?" she asked in a sleepy voice.

"Yes ... a dream."

"Mmm." She took his hand and pressed it to her chest. «Don't worry ... Go back to sleep. I love you."

He closed his eyes, trying hard not to burst into tears, trying to put truth into words. "I love you, Nancy ..."

For a moment she had seen him, she had seen Rick looking into her eyes, and then he was gone and she was left alone, with a pain she had never felt so badly in all her life, stronger than when she died.

Back then, the physical pain had been nothing. A flash of light, a moment of tearing away from the earth, from life, from thought, from his own body.

But not from the pain, not from the pain of knowing what had happened, what he had lost. That pain alone had survived, perhaps mixed with something else. Maybe to love.

But now, standing there in the dust, she felt not only the agony of knowledge, the torture of loss, but also the most excruciating physical pain she had ever felt. Every atom of his body twisted, shook. She stood up, thinking that the cool of the night might cool her down. She couldn't believe that her flesh looked so intact as her senses screamed that the skin had been ripped from her, that her body was a single gaping wound, oozing rot like a purulent bubble.

Slowly the pain subsided, began to pass as if evaporating in the night air. And finally she breathed and it didn't hurt anymore. He moved, touched himself: he was gone.

But what was left? She was alive, but how did that happen? There had been a bomb ... Had the explosion ripped off her clothes and left her unharmed? But then where had that pain come from? And the children, the children were dead ...

That thought pierced her soul like a stab. Oh God, if there was a God, they were all dead, dead, gone. Had they been taken away or were they mixed with that dust?

He looked around, saw all his dreams, the things he had loved, reduced to dust and ashes. But she was there, naked and alive. Why? What had happened? Who had done this?

And then he saw the bird, huge and black, perched on the stake. The pearls of his eyes were fixed on her, and his head tilted first to one side and then the other, as if waiting for her to speak, ask a question, cry, scream, ask if they were in heaven or outside. 'hell.

And she stood there looking at the crow, without understanding, lost in the ruins of her first life, in the madness of her second.

It was just past midnight when David Levinson got the message on the radio. He had just refreshed himself with several cups of coffee and a piece of cake when he received the news that a naked woman had been seen near North Spruce and Oak Street. An elderly lady who was walking the dog had reported her, and Levinson was the closest agent.

North Spruce and Oak. God, he thought. That was the site of the Become Friends Center. All he needed was a grief-driven mother who had returned to the place of her child's death, a naked woman rummaging in the ashes. Good. He had a blanket in the trunk, and a pair of handcuffs if necessary.

No wonder parents lost their minds. The most frustrating thing in the world must have been knowing very well which groups those responsible for the death of your child belonged, also knowing that no one was dealing with it. The safest way to madness.

As he crossed North Spruce Street he saw it. Completely naked, in the middle of the devastated area. He couldn't see her face, but there she was, legs slightly apart, arms at her sides.

That slender, agile body seemed to be traversed by an electrical tension. At least he wasn't carrying a gun or a knife, and that he was hiding a weapon was out of the question.

He pulled the car to the curb, determined to walk towards her. If he had seen the police car he might have tried to escape, and he didn't feel like chasing a naked woman through the sleeping streets of Hobie. He got out of the car and pulled a heavy brown blanket from the trunk. Then he walked towards the woman, approaching her from behind, walking slowly through the dust.

He was a few steps away when he saw the crow. The bird was perched on a pole about twenty meters away. But despite the distance between her and the raven, Levinson had the distinct, absurd feeling that the two were in communication. The woman's long black hair prevented Levinson from seeing her face, and for a moment she wondered what she would do if she turned and showed him the face of a Halloween skull, obscene in its nakedness.

He rejected that fantasy, and stopping a short distance from her, said softly, "Madam?" holding out the blanket.

The one who turned to him and looked at him was far worse than the face of a skull. It was Amy Carlisle's face. A sheen of gray dusted her face and body, but her purple eyes were clear.

Suddenly the blanket felt so heavy that he could no longer hold it. But he feared that if he dropped that delicate balance of stillness between him and Amy Carlisle and the raven it would dissolve. It was as if they formed a scene from a dream. It can't be true, he told himself, and if the composition had moved, if the line that connected the three of them had broken, who knows what other, stranger, more terrible dream would have replaced that.

But then Amy Carlisle opened her mouth and spoke to him, in Amy Carlisle's voice. "What ... what is this?"

She looked scared, unarmed, lost, and he went back to being a policeman and no longer a terrified child who is dreaming; he walked over to her and gently placed the blanket over her shoulders. Then he looked again at the crow, who was quiet but watching them with an intensity that said more than words, and suddenly he thought that he understood what had happened and what was going to happen again.

She remembered Grandma Levensohn's story about old uncle Abraham and the crow all too well.

12

"What's happening to me?" Amy Carlisle asked. "I ... I don't understand."

"Tell me your name," said the policeman who held her in his arms. She thought she recognized him, but her mind ... It was all so confused that she wasn't sure she even remembered her own name.

"I…" She looked at the man staring at her, then at the crow looking at her from the pole. “My name is Amy Carlisle. And this place is mine ... or at least it was. " He shook his head, remembering. “They killed my children. And they tried to kill me too. But they didn't succeed ... I don't know how ... "

"Amy," the cop said. "Tell me something. Tell me the last thing you can remember. "

She looked into the dark and tried to remember. “It was… it was tonight. There was a terrible explosion ... The walls gave way and the lights went out and the children were crying. " He remembered DeMarole's arm, the small detached arm, and he bit his lip, rejecting the memory.

“I found two. I was trying to take them out when I saw some lights, far away, and then ... I don't remember anything else. "

“Amy, this is David Levinson. We know each other. I am a policeman. Do you want to come with me? Get something to wear, eat something. "

"Okay," he nodded, even though he wasn't hungry. "And then you will help me find them, yes?"

David Levinson's expression grew even sadder. "Come on," he said, and guided her to the service car, making her sit in the front seat. He got behind the wheel and started the engine. "I'll take you to my house," he explained. "Get out of here."

"Will you help me find them?" she asked again.

“Amy, I can't. The children are gone ... They are dead. Everyone."

"I know. I mean, find those. See, I survived. I alone am the only one. And so I have to ... put things right. "

He looked in the mirror and saw that the crow was following them, slowly flapping its wings. “I think I should go home. I think I should ... My husband, Rick, must know that I am ... that I'm fine. "

"We'll deal with it later."

After a few blocks Levinson turned on the transceiver. "Jean, about that report," he said. "It was a joke. Little boys with an inflatable doll. I made them dislodge. " From the other side came words that Amy didn't understand, and then Levinson spoke again.

“Jean, there is one more thing. I have a problem ... visceral. I'm stopping every ten minutes, and I'm broken. Is there another car that can replace me until six? Then I'll reciprocate. " Jean said something more and Levinson concluded, “Great, thank you. Then I'll go home. '

He continued driving up to a row of buildings on a dead end street in a quiet neighborhood.

As they entered the garage, Amy saw the crow alight on a lamppost in front of the house.

When they were in the kitchen, Levinson lowered the curtains before turning on the lights. "I'll find you something to wear," he said, and led her to a bedroom at the end of a short corridor. Here too he closed the curtains before turning on the lamp.

"These were my wife's," he said, handing her a blouse, a sweater, and a pair of jeans. “They should go. There's a bathroom there if you want to get the dust off first. Take your time, change and then come. We need to talk."

When he was out, Amy dropped the blanket and went into the small bathroom, where she took a shower. The sensation of the water was neither hot nor cold. She could barely feel it getting wet, even though she could see it washed away the dust. Then he dried himself and put on his clothes.

Even of these he could barely feel the weight on his skin, which seemed to belong to another. She looked in the mirror, studying her face and hair carefully. It seemed to her that, if she looked closely, she made out a tiny network of lines on her face, even on her cheeks and forehead, where she had never had a single wrinkle. Its skin looked like the underside of a leaf, a mosaic of tiny cells so delicately put together it was only noticeable on extremely close examination.

And then he saw that the eyes also showed the same kind of surface, and when he examined the other parts of his body, he found that it was the same also for the nails and the smoother skin on the inside of the arms and thighs. Those almost invisible marks were everywhere.

When he reached David Levinson in the living room he saw that he had prepared a tray with sandwiches, biscuits and fruit, and a teapot. "Something to eat?" he asked, but she shook her head.

"No thank you I'm not hungry. Of food no, but of answers yes. " She sat down next to him on the sofa. "What happened? Why am I alive? Why are they all dead and I'm not? Can you tell me, David Levinson? "

He looked at her for a moment, as if he didn't know what to say. Then he shook his head and looked away. When he looked back at her, his expression was determined, almost harsh. “I can tell you something, Amy Carlisle. I can tell you things that will not make the matter clearer, which may leave us even more disoriented. But about why you're alive ... Amy ... I'm sorry ... but you're not alive. You died six months ago. "

What the hell was he saying? "Six months?"

"Yup. Now you are dead. You move, you think, yes, but you're not ... really alive. You were brought back here with a purpose. "

She wanted to react, give him a slap, tell him he was crazy, and instead it was as if she felt the confirmation of something she already knew deep down, something that had been communicated to her in silence and secrecy, from something dark and hidden.

The Raven. The crow had something to do with this.

"I know your anxiety," Levinson said. “I know you want to know what happened and who is responsible for it and all. But first, please let me tell you a story my grandmother used to tell me. I think it can help you know who you are.

"And what you have to do."

13

“My family, the Levensohns,” David began to relate, “lived in Kishinev in Moldavia, under Russian rule. The turn of the century was a terrible time for Russian Jews. We had fewer rights than others, and the authorities did nothing to prevent pogroms, mass attacks on our communities.

“At the time of the 1903 Kishinev pogrom, my grandfather was a boy. A mob attacked the Jewish community and devastated it for two days in a row. Local leaders instigated the aggression, and the Tsar's soldiers did not even pretend to oppose it. Many Jews were killed, many wounded. The Levensohn family was one of the most unfortunate, and perhaps the most unfortunate of all was Abraham, my grandfather's uncle.

“He lost his wife and three children. My grandfather managed to escape it: his mother kept him hidden in a latrine for two days. Every now and then he peeked through the cracks in the wall, and so he saw it all and survived to tell it.

“Uncle Abraham was a big man in his fifties who had started working as a candlemaker and now owned his own factory. He was an energetic and tireless entrepreneur. When the riots began, non-Jewish competitors saw an opportunity to end his commercial success ... and his life.

“They beat him, stabbed him, but he survived despite his injuries. Eventually the soldiers and police came out to disperse the rioters, and my grandfather was able to get out of the latrine and saw what happened next. Uncle Abraham was probably already dying, but lucid enough to grasp the truth of what had happened. He grabbed the reins of a Cossack captain's horse and accused him and his men of collusion with the attackers. 'You killed my family, more than these stupid and greedy bastards,' he said. 'Your fault is greater.'

“It was the truth; in reply the Cossack took out his saber and lowered it on Uncle Abraham's neck, almost cutting off his head. Uncle Abraham fell to the ground dead. Of the bystanders, no one said anything. Who wanted another pogrom?

“And so they buried their uncle and his family in the cemetery on the bank of the Byk River. Its competitors regained control of the candle trade, and the soldiers, police and Cossacks awaited the next pogrom, when they would turn their heads away and let more Jews die. But that wasn't going to happen.

“The cemetery was very busy in the following weeks. People went to pay homage to their relatives, but after a while they began to just recite the Kaddish in the synagogue. My grandfather, however, continued his visits to the cemetery, often at night, when he had finished work. His mother had been killed, and he sat by her grave most evenings until he was sleepy and went home to his father.

“One evening he was sitting at his mother's grave when he heard a verse coming from above; looked up and saw a crow descending towards him. He landed on Uncle Abraham's gravestone, a few pits away. Then my grandfather saw that his uncle's grave was beginning to shake and crack, and Uncle Abraham came out of the earth. The wound that had killed him seemed healed, only a whitish scar remained where the saber had struck.

“My grandfather, of course, was terrified, but he was petrified, unable to escape. Uncle Abraham looked at the crow, and the crow looked at him, and they stayed so long. Then the resurrected one saw my grandfather and smiled, a smile that wanted to reassure him but that terrified him even more.

"Then the crow took off and walked slowly towards the area where the Russians lived and where the barracks of the soldiers and policemen were. Uncle Abraham followed him. My grandfather, who wanted to see what would happen, went after him.

“While the uncle was passing through the streets, all the Jews who saw him fled screaming and closed themselves in the house, where they remained to pray until dawn. But they had nothing to fear from Uncle Abraham, nor from the crow.

“The bird guided the dead man and the boy to the house of the candle merchant who, with the help of his sons, had beaten and stabbed his uncle and helped kill the family. With a kick, Uncle Abraham broke down the door and entered. My grandfather heard screams and shots, and other indescribable sounds.

“After a while the police came and there were more shouts and noises of fighting. Several policemen ran out and continued to flee. One of the men, my grandfather saw, had a part of his face ripped off.

“Then there was silence and Uncle Abraham came out of the house, his clothes dripping with blood and shreds of flesh, terrible on his face. Some policemen who had posted outside shot him with rifles. The bullets hit him but he didn't fall, he didn't even stop.

“Nor did he fall when a soldier struck him with his saber in the same spot where the blow that killed him had fallen. He snatched the saber from his hand and with a single blow cut off his head. Then the crow took off again, headed for the soldiers' barracks, and Uncle Abraham followed him.

“Someone must have warned the soldiers, because they were all out in force, with a line of riflemen. The captain of the Cossacks, on horseback, commanded them, and when Uncle Abraham advanced towards them, the Cossack waited until he was a few meters away and ordered them to open fire.

“Two dozen bullets hit the body of his uncle, who staggered for a moment but did not fall. Then the riflemen dropped their weapons and fled. The captain of the Cossacks had not escaped, and neither had his men on horseback. They all drew their sabers, and the captain charged at a gallop with his sword raised. But when he lowered it, the dead man grabbed the blade and yanked the captain off his back. He held him down with one foot on the ground and stuck the two sabers he was now holding in his eyes, killing him instantly.

"The horsemen attacked, and Uncle Abraham turned into a mad dervish of destruction, cutting the horses' legs and crippling them, then slashing the riders, severing heads and arms and legs, receiving countless wounds, none of which could stop his carnage.

“In a few minutes the riders were all dead, the road was deserted. Nobody dared to face the dead anymore. Then Uncle Abraham cut off the head of the Cossack captain, stuck it in his own saber and walked along the wide deserted streets towards the cathedral, the seat of the archbishop of Bessarabia. Here Uncle Abraham planted the saber with the Cossack's head in the wooden door of the church, leaving an unambiguous message for the archbishop and the tsar.

“The crow flew back to the old city and Uncle Abraham and my grandfather - more and more astonished - headed to the cemetery on the river bank. And here the dead man stretched out on his grave. My grandfather saw the earth open and his uncle sinking, disappearing. Then the crow sent a call and flew away across the river. "

14

“My grandfather told this story to his wife. It was she who told it to us - he would never have done it - at first perhaps with a certain pride, but then, I think, to scare us. "

"It's ... it's just a story," Amy said, hoping it was.

“I thought so too. But the look on my grandfather's face every time my brother or I talked to him made me realize it was true. That was the look of someone who has looked into the abyss. "

“And you think the crow we saw brought me back to life? It's ridiculous. It is not possible."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because I'm alive! I have never died. I ... I lost consciousness, I don't know how, I moved away from the place of the explosion ... "

“And you've been out and about for six months without anyone noticing you even though your picture was all over the papers and the news. And then you went back there, naked and covered in the dust of the center. With a crow that apparently accompanies you wherever you go ... "

She pulled back the window curtains, and the crow was out there, perched on the lamppost.

Levinson sat down next to her, took her hand and turned it around so he could see the inside of her arm. "Look at you," he said. "Do you see these? Do you know what these fine lines are that mark your skin? They are the marks of your pieces, Amy. The crumbs of your body scattered and then reunited. The pieces that came back together tonight, from the dust, when the crow appeared. "

Amy pushed Levinson away with such force that she slammed him violently against the arm of the sofa. "No!" he exclaimed. "No it is not true..."

“You are very strong, Amy. Did you see how easily you pushed someone big like me away? Have you ever been so strong? "

"I'm not dead," Amy murmured, her head spinning.

"Yes, Amy, I'm sure you are," he said, moving across the room. “I'm so sure I'm going to do something now that, if I'm wrong, will destroy my life. See how sure I am. And then there will be no more doubts. "

In one motion he spun around, pulled the pistol from its holster, raised the hammer, and pulled the trigger.

Amy moved to throw herself at Levinson and had covered half the distance when she felt the bullet hit her in the chest. The impact only slowed her down for a moment, and she was immediately upon him, snatched the weapon from his hand and pushed it backwards. Levinson hit the wall with his head, rolled his eyes, and slid unconscious to the ground.

Amy stared at the still smoking gun she was holding, then dropped it and brought her hands to her chest to touch where the bullet had hit. In rapid succession there had been a sensation of searing heat, then cold, and finally nothing more. He saw the hole in the shirt, blackened at the edges. He unbuttoned it, feeling as if in a dream; she had been hit in the chest and felt no pain. Open the shirt.

The wound was still closing, a circle that was getting smaller and smaller until it vanished completely, leaving only a clearer trace, a slight hollow, which also disappeared before his eyes. She had been shot, shot in the heart, and she was still alive.

Or dead.

Then the truth overwhelmed her, the truth she had suspected, and now she was certain. The feeling that the millions of fragments were dispersed again in the silent explosion of her awareness lasted a time that seemed infinite, but then she regained control of herself. He had opened his eyes: not to what she was, but to why.

She was a daughter of death, returned to give life not to another life, but to another death. She hadn't been able to be a mother, but now she would be: the Mother of Vengeance.

Her children, the ones she could see as her children, had died with her, but her heart had survived, her wild mother's heart, a heart that knew the blackest and deepest, most unnatural pain, that of the parent who outlives his own child.

The old Jew's story had shown her the way. The Raven had brought him back to life to carry out revenge. No, for justice. To restore order to things.

But the old Jew knew who had killed his wife, his children, himself. She didn't have this advantage. He could walk the streets knowing where to go, who to look for: she didn't. First he should have known the names of the monsters who had killed his children. Maybe that cop could help her.

He knelt beside Levinson and listened to his steady breathing. There was a large bump behind his head, but he was not bleeding, and his expression was calm.

It reminded her of Rick's face asleep next to her, when the first light of the morning was just beginning to outline his features. Oh, God, what could he do for Rick? If she really was dead, there could be no more room for her in his life. And yet, she loved him as always, as forever, beyond death, she would love him.

But Rick wasn't the reason she came back. She had returned for her children, and for those who had killed them.

"Wake up," she said softly, gently shaking him by the shoulder. He moved and muttered something, then opened his eyes and looked at her.

"Hey," she whispered. "You're quick…" He looked at the half-open shirt with the scorched bullet hole. "She's alive." He smirked. "And this shows that ..."

"That I'm dead. Yes, you were right. Now I know. The Crow brought me back here because there are bills to settle. Justice for my children. "

Levinson nodded, then grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “And I have no doubt that you will succeed. Strong and fast as you are ... insensitive to bullets, the nightmare of every militia. "

"Militia? What do you mean?"

"That apparently a paramilitary group - or someone involved with it - planted two bombs to take out Senator King."

"Will you help me find them?"

"And how? I am a policeman, I cannot go beyond the confines of the law, I cannot adapt it to my idea of justice. "

"But I do." She tried to smile at him. "I'll need a place to stay." He touched the hole in his shirt. "And other clothes."

"And much more." He thought for a moment, then nodded. "All right. But you don't have to tell anyone about me. And let's be clear that if I get my hands on these bastards first, they're mine. The law and the courts will take your revenge. I do not give up on this. It is by this code that I live. "

She pursed her lips and nodded slowly. "So it's a competition ..."

"If that's how you want to see it."

"Yup."

"Good. There's an extra room here, I'll settle down there. Will you need to sleep? "

She thought about it, trying to gauge her body's needs. "I do not know. I'm not sleepy now. "

“You can still take my bedroom. All the clothes my ex-wife left are in that closet. "

"How am I going to get around? The Raven can fly, I can't. "

"Come on, I'll show you." He led her back into the garage. Earlier, in the dark, Amy hadn't noticed the long shadowed silhouette on one side of the room. Levinson turned on the light and pulled the cover off, revealing the slim black lines of a sports car.

“It's a 1964 Studebaker Avanti. A classic, a gem. I've been working on this little girl for years, and I finished just a week ago. I haven't even registered it yet. It's a ghost car. Now, if you draw a couple of license plates somewhere, you're on horseback. " He pointed to some old Minnesota license plates affixed to the wall. "Look see what the previous owner left."

“God,” Amy exclaimed, “it's beautiful. Thanks ... I'll keep it with the utmost care. "

"Do what you have to do." With a screwdriver he fastened a couple of three-year license plates to the Avanti. “Maybe that's why I've spent all these years working on it… to make it ready when you need it. Now, after this night I can believe everything. Let's go back inside. There is another thing I want to show you. "

He led her into a large basement stocked with shelving. There were cartons labeled on the floor and three drawer filing cabinets on one side. "My little fortress of solitude," he explained. "One of my hobbies is tracking down anti-Semitic groups, and there are many paramilitary organizations among them." He chuckled. “Maybe someday I'll write a book about it. There is tons of data here, but it's all stuff I've never had the time to correlate or sort, I've only been able to collect it. "

He stroked with a smile a computer placed on a large desk next to the filing cabinets. “With this, I have access to a number of sites that I would not be allowed to contact at home. Don't say it around. But it could be useful. "

“Frankly,” Amy replied, “I don't know if I want to sit at the computer. Meanwhile, I don't even know how much time I have. And then ... I feel I have to act. Tell me, if you were me, where would you start? "

Levinson was about to answer when there was a knock on the basement window. “I believe there is someone else who can answer you. Maybe you can do without my documentation after all. " He took a set of keys from his pocket. "You better get changed before you hit the street," he said. "That bullet hole looks a little suspicious."

Alone in Levinson's bedroom, Amy scanned the wardrobe, looking for something dark and inconspicuous. Towards the back he found a suit that would be perfect for getting in and out of the shadows unnoticed. A plastic case covered a pair of black trousers and a long-sleeved top, also black, of a totally opaque elastic synthetic material.

To complete the outfit he slipped on a pair of low black ankle boots, and went out into the living room. Levinson's eyes widened when he saw her, and his gaze ran to her breasts, highlighted by the snug material of the top. "Maybe you will need ... a jacket or something."

He took a black leather jacket from a closet. "This ... will keep you warmer," she explained with a little embarrassment, handing it to him.

"Thank you," she said, both pleased and troubled, still seeing herself capable of arousing a man's interest. He put on his jacket but didn't zip it up.

"And now?" Levinson asked.

"I'm going now."

“You will need something, something to… defend yourself. I can't give you a gun, but maybe this can be useful. " He handed her a knife in an ankle sheath. She pulled it out and saw that it was a six-inch blade slightly curved. The handle had a series of finger holes, like a brass knuckle.

"Thanks," Amy repeated, adjusting it to her ankle and lowering her trouser leg back over it. Then he turned and walked through the kitchen to the garage. Here he raised the door and got into the car. He started the engine and went out in reverse.

The engine, contrary to what he had expected, was very quiet. Good. Surprise would have been one of his weapons.

The Raven was still perched on the lamppost; he turned to her, spread his wings, lifted one paw, then the other, as if ready and eager to take flight. Amy stared at him. "Go on," he said. "I'm ready too."

The big bird spread its wings and launched itself into the night sky, flying over the houses on the street. Amy followed him.

15

The Crow flew over the expanse of Hobie's houses, ignoring them, with the black pearls of his eyes fixed on a red light before him, like the red glow that had been the woman's spirit mixed with dust, the red glow that had attracted her. look. The Crow flew high above the earth, in constant search of the burning souls who had no rest, those who needed justice before they could proceed, to be able to pass into the territory of Death.

But the light now following the Crow was not the glare radiating from a tormented soul, but an artificial glow, the highest red light in a series dotting a radio antenna, lights rising like the words of hate that they emanated from that metal tower and then exploded like lava from a volcano, spreading burning poison into the air that sent it wherever a machine could pick up the waves and translate them back into words.

The wings moved in a slow, steady beat, approaching the building that housed the station and the transmitter that carried Wilson Barnes's message to a nation of hate, minds ready for hate.

* * *

"... the time has come to stand up, to be heard, and if words are not enough, if they cannot convince those who must be convinced, there are other ways of speaking, my friends, other ways of being heard, to cry out in a voice of thunder against this evil, oppressive, pro-Judaic, liberaloid, godless government, against the men who run it, let the puppets in the White House and Congress both those who in the shadows, behind the scenes, hold their wires.

"But do they pull the strings for white American Christians?" God, no. You are the forgotten ones, the ones to be burdened with taxes, to take away the money to give to the black junkies and the single mothers and the Mexicans who clandestinely cross the border to steal your jobs and the Vietnamese who ruined their country and now want to destroy our! Well, it's time to stop these traitors to America, these traitors to Christianity, and I'm sure you know how!

“I saw you did it! I know who you are and I know what you believe in, and that is what we should all believe. Jefferson himself said it: the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants. And when you do, you have to be ruthless.

“Now, my friends, when you tend your gardens - and I know that many of my listeners have their gardens, they live on their land - you try to eradicate the weeds. And sometimes, when you spread poison to kill pests, you also happen to kill good, harmless insects. But if your vegetables are overrun with lice, do you say, 'Oh, better let them live because I might accidentally hurt a beautiful butterfly or an innocent ladybug or earthworms that enrich the soil'?

"Certainly not. You kill the invaders, you uproot what is destroyed, and if you kill some innocent, this is the price that must be paid to ensure a good harvest! I know that you are willing to make the sacrifice, because I know your hearts and your souls ... I know who you are, you true patriots, and you have my support and my prayers ... "

* * *

I know who you are ...

Amy Carlisle listened to the voice of Wilson Barnes and followed the flight of the Crow with her eyes. Above the rooftops she saw the red lights of the radio tower and knew where it was taking her.

The hands of the clock on the dashboard pointed to quarter past two. Wilson Barnes was halfway through his show, pacing listeners with their favorite themes. Well, Amy thought, there would be a new theme tonight. If the public wanted blood, they would have it.

It was obvious that Wilson Barnes was aware of the militias, and most likely knew who was responsible for the attack. He was their hero.

The Crow alighted on a sign above the entrance to the building, with the radio logo and the words SEAT OF THE WILSON BARNES SHOW. Amy walked past the entrance and parked a block away, then walked back down the deserted street.

Through the glass door he saw the burly guardian sitting at his counter reading a newspaper. The doorbell rang and the man looked up, initially suspicious. But when he saw her he smiled, nodded, and hit a button on the console. With a hum the lock clicked; Amy pushed the door and entered.

"How are you?" The guard, according to the tag on his chest, was named Donald. "A little early, huh?"

She looked at him curiously.

"Maybe you'd like to warm up with me first?" Donald continued with a grin. "The boss still has ten minutes left before the network sends the news." He gestured to the radio beside him, from which Wilson Barnes's voice continued to spew invectives.

Now he understood. The man had taken her for one of Barnes's whores, who evidently allowed herself a little distraction in the middle of the night. "Of course?" He answered. "I'm glad to warm up a little."

As he walked around the counter, Donald's eyes widened. "Holy God," he exclaimed. “One of you finally said yes. Man, I can't believe it. God be thanked for this news. " With a laugh he began to fiddle with the zipper of his trousers. "But don't tell Mr. Barnes, huh?"

«Lips sewn. Let it go, I'll take care of it, ”she went on, kneeling in front of him.

He brought his hand to his ankle, found the handle of the knife, and hit the fat man's face hard. The heavy brass handle reached his temple and Amy felt a crack and saw him collapse like a dead fish, slide into the chair and crash into her. Without difficulty he slipped out from under that heap of flesh.

Returning the knife to its sheath, he lifted Donald and returned him to the desk. Not yet used to her strength, she had hit him much harder than she intended. She didn't know, nor did she care, if he was dying or just passed out. He arranged him so that he seemed dozing off, and then consulted the building guide posted next to the elevator.

The meeting rooms were on the ground floor, the offices on the first floor and the study on the second. He used the stairs, not wanting to announce his arrival.

He walked slowly down the corridor on the first floor until he came to the glass wall of a lighted study. Wilson Barnes was there, sitting at a table covered in black velvet. A single stem lamp illuminated the work area. Another table, cluttered with newspapers, magazines, and books, was to his left. A microphone hung in front of him and a headset covered his ears. He was partially with his back to her, facing another window beyond which a series of colored lights could be seen. Probably the study of direction.

His voice, warm and deep for that surprisingly gaunt build, rang out from the loudspeakers set down the hall. There was no escape here from Wilson Barnes. Nor would there be a way out for Wilson Barnes.

Amy waited for the clock above the control panel to strike two fifty-nine when the news was only a minute away. Donald had said he was going to be on the network, and that most likely meant there was no one else besides Barnes and whoever was in the control room.

From the next window in the corridor, the control room, he saw that there was only one man at the control console. When Barnes finished speaking and the technician established the connection to the network, Amy opened the door and entered the control room.

The technician turned to her in surprise. "Are you new? Where the hell did Marie go? " he asked irritably. "You have five minutes, make sure you hurry up and do things right, okay?"

Ignoring him, Amy leaned over the console and peered into the study through the glass. Wilson Barnes was watching her. He looked uncertain at first, but then a scary grin came to his face which, Amy thought, must have been a smile. He turned off the microphone, took off the headphones and stood up.

Surprised, and then immediately amused, Amy saw that she was wearing neither pants nor underwear. His small penis was erect, albeit weakly. He took hold of it with his right hand, and with the other hand motioned her to enter.

It wouldn't let him down.

Amy turned to the technician. "Will he mind if I do you first?" churches. Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed his hair and slammed his face on the console once, twice, thrice, until his body went limp and slipped under the counter.

When she returned her eyes to Barnes he was gaping at her, the wretched bird at half mast, as if in honor of the fallen comrade. With a single gesture Amy reached down to grab the knife, raised it, and with her brass fist shattered the double glass that separated her from the other.

Barnes gave an exclamation of surprise, but hesitated only a moment as Amy walked through the shattered window, pushing aside the sharp shards of glass with her bare hands. The man jumped to the table on his left, threw some papers into the air and grabbed a 357 magnum; holding it with two hands he began to fire.

She felt the bullets one after another penetrate her chest and push her backward. But with two steps forward for every backward step the bullets forced her, she grabbed the gun by the barrel and snatched it from Barnes's fist. For a moment the two stood staring into each other's eyes, then Amy tucked the gun into the waistband of their trousers. "Do you have any more bullets?" churches. "I'll need them."

His mouth growing wide open in amazement, Barnes turned and started to run for the door, but she grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. With one arm she turned him towards her, and dragged him, kicking and gasping, the bird dangling like a popped balloon, to the velvet-covered table.

He slammed it hard on it, pinned to the back holding it by the throat, and brandishing the gleaming blade with the other hand. "Do you see this? It could be the last thing you see, Wilson Barnes. But not because I think I'm killing you. No. Because if you don't tell me what I'm sure you know, I'll take your eyes out.

“I'll ask you only once. And if you don't answer me, I'll start cutting. " He brought the knife over Barnes's testicles and placed the tip on it. He jumped and froze.

"Exact. Right here. And if you don't answer me the second time, I'll cut your tongue, Wilson Barnes, so you won't be able to utter those words, those killing lies. "

Barnes let out a yelp of fear and humiliation, and when she looked down, she saw a trickle of urine spread across the table. “The third time I'll cut off your fingers, all of them, so you can't write your lies. The fourth time the eyes, so you will not be able to see words and letters to answer written questions. And finally I'll pierce your eardrums, so no one can tell you hit the stumps once to say yes, twice to say no.

“I'll cut you off forever, Wilson Barnes. I will not kill you but I will banish you from the realm of the living so that you will never be able to communicate again. "

She got so close that their faces almost touched. “That's more than my kids had, Wilson Barnes. Do you remember them? Do you remember? "

"Wh ... who?" Barnes gasped, his throat dry with fear.

"My kids. Do you remember the innocent? The innocents who sometimes have to die if you want to clear the soil of parasites? I want to know who cleared the ground, Wilson Barnes. I want to know who killed the children with those bombs. "

"I don't ... I don't know, I really don't know, I swear on the Bible, I swear by Jesus Christ almighty ..."

Amy felt her features harden, and pressed the blade flat against Barnes's scrotum, until the man groaned. Then he turned the knife over so that the sharp blade cut into the flesh.

The groan turned into a scream. "What are we going to do?" Amy asked. "If I have to tear an innocent to pieces to get what I want, I will." He held the knife stained with his blood under his eyes. Then he reached out and turned on the microphone with the tip of the blade.

"Who did it, Wilson Barnes?" churches. "The tongue. I promised you. "

The man continued to whine, his eyes tightly closed. Then Amy touched his lips with the tip of the knife, pushing it slowly and gently into his mouth so he could taste her own blood.

Wilson Barnes's eyes widened and he almost shouted back. "Children! The Sons of a Free America! Please ... I beg you, don't hurt me ... It's the truth! "

Amy had heard the echo of his voice from the control room. She put the knife in front of his eyes again and forced him to close them again. Then he moved the microphone directly over Wilson Barnes's frightened face, and placed the flat blade over his closed eyes.

"Who? Tell me again. Tell me who those bastards are. "

"The Sons ... of a Free ... America," he panted. “That's the truth. It was them, it was them, I swear ... "

He kept stammering as she took the knife out of his eyes and loosened his grip on his throat. Eventually he fell silent and began to breathe more deeply. And then he opened his eyes and saw the microphone an inch from his lips, with the switch in the on position.

"This confession was offered to you by Wilson Barnes," Amy announced in a formal tone.

Barnes grabbed the microphone and turned it off. He looked around in panic. "You ... you lit it," he accused her.

"Yup. And you better not leave it off for too long. If there's one thing listeners hate it's gaps in broadcasts. The holes and the lights. I suspect you'll see holes soon. " He moved some papers across the desk and took out a box of .357 bullets. "Thanks for the info. Now, if I were you I would try to mend relations with your friends. "

He turned and walked out of the study, walked down the hall, down the stairs and across the hall past Donald still unconscious. All the way through the loudspeakers, Wilson Barnes's voice, shocked but persuasive, followed her.

“Here is what could happen, my friends, if this government moves forward on the path it is taking. As this dramatization has shown, government agents - even female ones, inspired by abortion feminists - could raid a radio studio - and even your homes! - and torture you until you confess ... until you tell things you didn't want to reveal, such as the names of groups you are in contact with, like this fictitious organization that the character I was playing was forced to name .. . It could happen here, my friends, and so take care to protect your freedoms, and ... "

Amy had to recognize him, that man knew how to cover his ass. But he didn't think that story would help him to calm the Sons of a Free America, whoever they were.

As he opened the outer door, a red-haired girl with prominent breasts tried to enter. Amy took her by the raincoat and pulled her out with her, closing the door until the lock clicked. "Forget it," he said to the woman. "Trust me, you're the last person in the world Wilson Barnes would like to see right now." Then the Sons of a Free America came to mind and she smiled, a smile that made the whore take a few steps back.

"That is," he corrected himself, "perhaps the penultimate person he'd like to see."

The Crow was perched on the parking meter next to the Avanti and Amy nodded to him. "I had a name," she told him. "Now I only need the people who use it ..."

16

The night shift fell to Junior Feeley. He hated guarding at night. There were a thousand strange noises in the woods surrounding the complex, not to mention the anti-personnel mines placed in the immediate interior of the perimeter. If anyone managed to get past the three-meter-high fence topped with barbed wire, they would have to face the surprises of Powder Burns.

Junior did not have to go around the perimeter nor would he have done so if ordered, for fear of mines. But thanks to the thick wooded belt that surrounded the complex, the only point that worried Rip Withers was the main entrance, which was accessed by a narrow dirt road, reachable in turn by a little-traveled state road, known above all to hunters.

And so Junior was standing at the gate just watching the dirt road. In order to have more to hear than those disturbing noises, he had brought a small transistor that he listened to at low volume. He was hearing Wilson Barnes when a very strange thing happened. When the news was over, there was a long silence, and Junior thought that maybe the batteries had run out. But then he heard a woman's voice say something about a tongue, which made his ears prick up.

And suddenly Barnes screamed the name of the Sons of a Free America and Junior almost hit him. That name was a secret, damn it, nobody was supposed to hear it. They were the White Oak Hunting Camp, so the sign said to anyone who came close enough to read it. And now that asshole Wilson Barnes, with thousands and thousands of listeners, was screaming that name.

Then the woman said something more and fuck if Wilson Barnes didn't repeat the name again and said it was them, they did who knows what. And then the woman said that was a confession. Junior Feeley didn't know what the hell was going on down there but he knew damn well that Rip and the others needed to be informed, even if they would kick his ass for listening to the radio on duty.

When he ran into Rip's cabin and knocked, it wasn't he who opened it but his brother Ray. And inside there were Rip, Will and Sonny Armitage all around Rip's radio, listening to Wilson Barnes's show. Ray silenced Junior with a gesture.

They already knew everything: he had abandoned the place in vain. He was going to get into serious trouble now, unless he invented something else to justify his arrival.

Wilson Barnes was speaking, but now he had his usual tone. But it didn't seem like Rip, Will and Sonny were very happy with what they heard. Rip and Sonny were furious, and Will looked scared. Ray had his usual expression. There was a commercial break and they argued.

"That fucking rabbit," Sonny said. "Damn, Rip, she screwed us up."

"Other than that," Rip nodded. "That piece of shit."

"But what happened?" Will asked. "Who was that woman?"

“I don't know, we'll find that soon. But now we have to deal with Barnes. Ray, call Ace, tell him we have a job for him. " Only now did Rip seem to notice Junior Feeley. "What the hell do you want?"

"I, here ..." Junior thought quickly. "I heard something, I thought I'd come and report."

"Heard what?"

"Someone walking around ... outside the fence."

"Like!" Rip jumped to his feet. "Why didn't you shoot?"

"Well… I didn't want them to run away, so I came to call someone."

"Here we go!" Rip ordered, grabbing a weapon from the wall, and the others followed.

Junior Feeley was a coward, and he knew it. He had participated in many fights, he had beaten a number of men, he had even killed a couple with his own hands, but he didn't like the idea that he could get hurt. Big and big as he was, he always found someone to challenge him. But he hated pain, even though he liked to inflict it.

Especially to women, because he was not afraid of them. Only with them could he be tough without having to worry about a reaction. Unfortunately women were excluded from the Sons camp, there were none. He knew that was the right decision, but that didn't stop him from always feeling as horny as a hedgehog.

But now Rip would be mad at him: that was what he had to worry about. All the floodlights lit the area in front of the gate brightly, and Rip, on the watchtower armed with his AK, peered into the surrounding bush. "Send a search party!" he shouted.

Junior opened the gate as Sonny reached the dorm to gather half a dozen men, who ran out of the fence with their weapons and dispersed. They returned after ten minutes, shaking their heads and looking dubiously at Junior.

"Nobody was out there, Junior," Sonny said.

"I felt something," Junior insisted. "It must have been a deer."

“Fuck,” Rip said, “like we don't have enough problems already. Next time use that fucking head, Junior, signal with a fucking flashlight, understand? "

Wilson Barnes wondered if he could make it to the car. Not so much for the pain in his testicles, although they still hurt and the cut, even if limited, burned. But his legs were shaking so hard that he didn't know if they would hold him all the way.

Christ, what a nightmare night. Not just the crazy one, but also keep talking for another three hours, until the program ends. Thank God Phil, the coach, had recovered too. He had a broken nose and probably a mild concussion, but he had managed to carry the show to the end, dabbing his nose with cotton until it stopped bleeding.

Donald, that incapacitated caretaker, had fired him during a commercial break, and had found very persuasive arguments to get him to keep quiet about the incident, just as he was sure of the technician's silence.

And so, unsteady on his legs, Wilson Barnes walked towards the front door, passing the empty caretaker's desk, wondering who the hell that woman was. Not the police, but maybe a federal agent really, as he told the radio. He should have talked to Withers as soon as possible, convinced him that nothing serious had happened, that knowing the name of an organization doesn't mean ...

And halfway through this thought, as he was about to open the car door, the first bullet hit him, penetrating his back, right through his right kidney and exiting a hole that threw a spray of blood and piss on Wilson's shiny Buick. Barnes. He stood there for a moment, not understanding what was happening, and then he felt the second blow take him in the shoulder, spinning him around and crashing into the door. He slid to the ground and found himself sitting on the asphalt of the parking lot.

Then he saw the man, leaning out of the window of a dark green car, a hundred meters away. He was holding a rifle, aimed at Wilson Barnes, who could not help but shake his head and mutter words that he could never hear.

The man fired again and Barnes felt his stomach explode. Barnes moved his fingers feebly, trying not to take his eyes off the man, to tell him with his eyes that there was no need for him to do this.

But then the man raised his head from the rifle's telescopic sight and smiled at him. He said a single word, but loud enough for Barnes to hear.

"Talker."

Between the time Barnes assimilated the word and the time the man aimed again, Barnes concluded that he would have no way of explaining anything to Rip Withers, that Withers had already made up his mind.

Wilson Barnes did not hear the shot that killed him, nor did he see the bullet hit him between the eyes.

17

Amy Carlisle had not yet returned to David Levinson's house. After the radio station she got back in the car and reached the site of the Center Become Friends; here she had stayed to watch until the first light of dawn had turned the black of the dust and ash to gray.

She had never gotten out of the car. He hadn't even opened the door or the window, until a bit of a breeze began to come from the east, as if carried by the rays of the rising sun, moving the dust, lifting it off the ground. Then he lowered the window glass, breathing deeply, as if absorbing the atoms of the essence of his children.

Fill me up. Be with me. Come inside of me and don't go away anymore. Give me strength.

Now they were in her, one with her, the children she had never had, the children who would never grow up. He had the bitter taste of their pain and love and lack on his tongue, the husbands and wives and fathers and mothers that would never be, the lives that would never be lived.

Because of those. Because of the Sons of a Free America, who proclaimed their freedom by killing children, stealing not just years but future generations.

She bowed her head and cried, but the tears did not come. Perhaps, she thought, there was only dust left in her. And perhaps those who had made it knew that it was not necessary for tears now, but for blood.

He had poured it out and would have poured much more before he could finally rest. But before he got back on their trail, there was one thing he had to do. She knew she shouldn't, but preventing it was impossible, it would be like trying to stop the yellow sphere of the sun from emerging from the horizon.

Rick Carlisle loved the house he built with Amy.

Nestled in the trees, it was minutes from the city center but seemed isolated, so much so that it was possible to leave the curtains open and walk around the house naked without being seen by anyone. The one floor went up under the trees, and when they sat together on the small back porch they could feel like they were living in the heart of a forest.

Now Rick lived there with his second wife, Nancy, who had been friends with Amy, and his daughter Karin.

At times it seemed strange to him, as if he were cheating on Amy, but after her loss both he and Nancy had needed someone, and it was only natural that they found comfort in each other's company.

Rick initially wanted to sell the house and move elsewhere. Everywhere he looked he thought of Amy. His things, his influence, his presence were everywhere. But Nancy had dissuaded him. “It's not so physical,” she reminded him, “as it is mental. You have to take note, Rick, Amy will be with you forever. You will always feel the sense of loss, only it will become less painful over time. "

After his marriage to Nancy, he had only kept a photograph of Amy on a shelf in the living room, somewhere out of sight. When she had seen her, she had only noticed that she had always liked this portrait of her friend. Rick had been glad she hadn't been annoyed. Now that, painfully, she had put away all her things, she needed something from Amy to remember her. He had had a small tombstone placed in a cemetery outside the city, knowing full well that there was nothing underneath. The tombstone said AMY CARLISLE - ADORED WIFE, and underneath it were the years of birth and death, but he knew she wasn't there. He had been to visit her only once. Amy's memorial would be his heart.

The alarm rang, sparing him more painful memories. He kissed Nancy as she woke up and together they got ready for the day, and they got Karin ready for school. Rick was planning to work at home that day. After breakfast, when Nancy and Karin were out, he was left alone at the kitchen table with his coffee, and thought about the last time he'd been sitting there with Amy. They were both thrilled by the senator's visit, but not a day had passed since then that Rick hadn't cursed the man. If only he hadn't canceled the visit, the bodyguards might have been able to find the bombs. But that cancellation had broken Amy's heart, it had ended her life.

She turned her mind away from that last day and thought of her kindness, her grace, how much she had loved him. And as was so often the case when his thoughts went to her, he found that he was crying, softly, with tears running down his cheeks to the corners of his mouth where he could taste them.

And then he felt he had to see her, he had to see, touch what remained of her in that house; he got up, went into the living room, took the framed photograph. Amy, in full light, with her bright brown hair, her purple eyes half closed to the sun, her smile just for him.

Tears blurred his vision and he looked away from the picture in the window.

The image remained. Amy's face, no longer in the light but in the shadow, looked at him from the other side of the glass.

He felt his heart go cold, and he squinted convulsively to clear his sight. He caught movement, but now that thing looking at him was gone. She ran to the window and looked out, but saw nothing but perhaps a faint stirring of the bushes that hid her house from the street.

He rushed to the door, flung it open, and ran out, but there was only a large black crow gliding through the trees and descending towards the street. He opened his lips to call Amy, then hesitated and closed them again.

Amy was dead. What he had seen was only the image of the photograph that stopped on his retina. For sure. It had to be like that.

Yet he had seen her eyes. Though tears clouded his gaze, those purple eyes had stared at him with love and longing, and something else. No, it wasn't an optical phenomenon. It was Amy that he had seen outside the window. Or his ghost.

Maybe that was the explanation, since he couldn't find another that made sense. What did that look ask of him? There was something deeper, an emotion that wasn't just sadness.

Then he understood. Why do ghosts come back? For an unhappiness that doesn't let them rest. For an unhealed injustice. For an unsolved murder. Amy's ghost had returned to tell him what to do to give her peace. If the police weren't able to do it, he would.

He had to do it, for Amy.

He continued to push the accelerator hard, although his eyes were full of tears. Now that he had seen Rick surrounded by the affection of his new family, he had to get it out of his mind. He was not her husband, he was her widower, a widower who had remarried to a woman Amy had loved as a sister. Time would heal Rick's pain. He had a family that loved him, he would get over his loss.

Arriving at David Levinson's house she found him in the kitchen, in a bathrobe, with a cup of coffee. "Give me your hands," he told her.

She handed them to him and he sniffed her fingers. "Good. No cordite. Then you didn't kill Wilson Barnes. "

She tried not to be surprised. "Who is Wilson Barnes?"

“As I expected. I don't know anything, I haven't seen anything ... Who am I hosting? A fugitive? "

She nodded. «From death. I have to use your computer. "

After a half-hour search he found a trace. Sons of a Free America did not appear, but Free America led her to a Usenet message from alt.militia.freedomfight, sent by a certain WJ Standish. Among other things he said:

Too many times our freedoms and, in some cases, our precious lives, have been crushed by the current government. We must all work to ensure that there is still a Free America, and to be Sons of a Free America, at the cost of paying with blood.

Standish's address was wstandish@rangenet.com. After further research, Amy discovered that Rangenet was a Grand Rapids-based server covering the northern and central Minnesota area. It was time to locate Standish. Searching the region's phone books, he found a William J. Standish in Hobie. But when she dialed the number, a recorded message informed her that the number was not in service.

There was another Standish only in the Hobie area, Dorothy J., in Kilton, a town five miles from Hobie. Amy tried to call but got no answer. He decided to go to Kilton that evening.

The rest of the day was spent studying the material collected by Levinson. William Standish's name still appeared in a few letters to the editor he had written to several "patriotic" magazines. The address was simply Hobie, MN, and the most recent letter had been published over a year ago.

It was almost dark at five, and Amy left for Kilton without seeing Levinson who, she supposed, must have gone out on patrol. He hadn't bothered her all day, except to ask her if she wanted to eat something. She had declined the invitation.

As she drove, the Raven flew ahead of her, as if leading her way. Even though he knew where he was going, he found his presence reassuring. The same comfort that a Christian feels in the presence of the cross.

Dorothy Standish lived in a trailer set up on a small plot at the edge of the woods. As she approached the door of the mobile home after leaving the car in the driveway, Amy noticed that the metal structure showed signs of rust in several places, while the corrugated sheet that covered the base of the trailer was even rotten here and there.

Even before knocking on the door she saw the old woman looking at her from the opaque glass of the window. The door was ajar and Amy saw the interior room filled with cigarette smoke. In a low, catarrh voice, the woman asked Amy who he was.

"I'm Margaret Evans of Publishers' Clearance," she replied. “I'm looking for William Standish. Is he relative? "

"What are you looking for?" asked the other.

"He won a prize in one of our lotteries, but we couldn't find him at the address we have."

The old woman's face cleared just a little. "What is it that won?"

"Well," Amy hesitated, "in order to disclose it, I would have to speak personally to Mr. Standish or his proxy."

"I am the mother," Dorothy Standish said, finally taking the cigarette out of her mouth. "It is not enough?"

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Standish, but I can only deal with third parties if Mr. Standish gives us written permission. Do you know where we can find him? "

«Now there isn't. It cannot reach it. What is it that has won? "

“I told you, I can't. Maybe he could get in touch with us. Do you plan to see him soon? "

The other nodded. "Tomorrow. Come to see me tomorrow. "

"Well, then if I give you my phone number you can call me, and we will arrange for the delivery of the prize."

“Look, tell me what it is first. How do I know it's not one of those things where you win an apartment in Florida, but then you have to pay for it, one of those tricks there? "

Amy nodded and smiled, as if declaring herself won. “I see there is no way to convince you, Mrs. Standish. Okay: your son won five hundred dollars. "

"Five hundred?" His expression was a mixture of greed and irritation. “I thought you guys were giving ten million dollars. So says the advertisement. "

“Ah, that's Ed McMahon's. We are a much smaller company. But our first prize was fifty thousand, a lady from St. Paul won it. "

"Wait here," Mrs. Standish said, closing the door. When she returned she had a pen and paper and a new cigarette, and wrote down the name and number that Amy gave her. Then, without another word, he closed the door for good.

Amy had invented the number, like the name. If Standish had tried to call, he would have thought that his mother had written it wrong. But then Amy would have it. And then she would get all the information she needed, the names of the other killers, and where to find them, these Sons of a Free America. And then their only freedom would have consisted in deciding whether or not to scream at the moment of death.

18

At eight o'clock the next morning, Amy Carlisle returned to Kilton and parked four blocks from Mrs. Standish's trailer. He hid in the trees behind the mobile home, where he could keep an eye on the approach. And she waited, sitting on a fallen log in the twilight of the wood. Beside her the Raven lay motionless on a twisted branch.

So he could also rest, even if he didn't even know if he needed it. He had no idea what his body was capable of, but since he hadn't eaten a bite or closed his eyes for a single minute of sleep since his resurrection, he suspected his powers were formidable.

He stood there as the sun reached its zenith and then began its descent falling back into darkness. It wasn't until about six o'clock that a car stopped in the street and someone got out. Amy clearly saw a tall, thin man with an almost corpse-like complexion, walking with his head down, as if carrying the weight of a great sin on his soul.

Amy moved across the lawn with the lightness of the wind and curled up under the window of the mobile home. Voices from within produced a murmur that was at first indistinguishable, but when she tuned her hearing to their rhythms, she found that she could perfectly understand what mother and son were saying.

When he peered inside he saw them sitting in the smoky, cluttered room. Ms. Standish was sitting in the chair in front of the TV, her eyes on a string of pearls that a salesman was offering from a home sales channel, but with the sound off. His son must have been about forty-five, going up and down that cramped, cluttered space.

"I can't stay now," William Standish said to his mother. “I mean, the bombs weren't enough, did they even have to shoot Barnes in broad daylight? And that's nothing compared to what they have in mind. I absolutely can't enter it, mom, I can't. "

She looked as if she was about to cry but the old woman kept her gaze fixed on the screen. It was as if he didn't hear his words at all.

"I say, I believe in what I have said and written in the past, but so ... I never imagined how it would end, all those dead children, and not at all ..."

If Amy's dead blood had ever flared up after her return, now it turned to ice. That was one of the men, those Sons of a Free America, the ones who had killed her children. His own words condemned him. Triumph, anger, hate, that was what Amy felt. She wanted to break in through the window and break his neck. But he had to wait. Revenge wasn't what she needed now, but information.

“I have to get out. I know the Sons will try to kill me but maybe I can. If I say what I know, they will protect me. "

"Who is it that will protect you?" Mrs. Standish finally asked.

"I ... the government," William Standish replied in a voice so low that Amy could barely hear it. "Or the press ... Oh, God, Mom, I don't know, I really don't know what to do ..."

The man burst into sobs but his mother said nothing to comfort him. She took her eyes off the screen and looked at him. “Do you know what it's like to be a Standish? Have the blood of patriots in your veins? "

He rubbed his eyes. “I know, Mom. I know… ”Then he ran to the door and swung it open. Amy snapped but it was already too late. When he turned the corner of the trailer he saw that it was already in the car, and was backing up the driveway. The only way to follow him was the Avanti.

Protected from the darkness, she ran to her car with a speed that amazed her. When he reached the Avanti he was not even out of breath. He started immediately and drove in the direction where Standish had disappeared.

There were several ways out of town, but he didn't have to speculate, the Raven flew high, always in sight, moving effortlessly, just as Amy had run. There were advantages, he thought, in death.

He reached Standish's car, an off-white Ford Tempo, in a few blocks. Between her and Tempo was a van, but she didn't try to get past it, thinking it would cover her.

As they pulled onto the four-lane road leading to Hobie, Amy noticed that the van followed Standish whenever he overtook, and then re-entered behind him. This repeated itself until she concluded that the pickup truck was following him too.

Who were they? Policemen? Or maybe the Sons of a Free America didn't trust one of them to the point of being stalked? More likely. The bumper carried a sticker with IMPEACHMENT PER CLINTON, and the rear windows the American flag in decal. He would soon find out if William Standish was being stalked by his friends.

They entered the city, which now seemed asleep. At six in the evening most of the shops and offices closed, and the streets were almost deserted. A light turned yellow and Amy prepared to shoot if Standish tried to burn it. But the Tempo stopped, and so did the van. Thanks to the street lighting, Amy could see the upper face of the man behind the wheel in the rearview mirror of the vehicle.

He was looking straight ahead, but she recognized the face instantly. He stiffened, set his teeth in a grimace. It was one of the faces he had seen in the dark car as he leaned out the downtown window, one of the four men who had been there that fateful night.

He resisted the urge to plant the Avanti in the back of the van so violently that it snapped the man's neck. There was no rush, he told himself. Now he had two. One of them would speak, and then both of them would die.

The green returned and they started again. In front of them stood the Hobie Sentinel building, the tallest building in the city center, with its eleven floors. The offices ranged from the fourth to the eighth floors, while the presses occupied the first three. Amy had brought the children there the year before.

An underground garage opened to the side of the building, and William Standish walked into it. This meant only one thing, which meant putting into practice the threat of telling the papers everything. And that meant Amy had to get her hands on him first.

Then, when he was sure Standish wouldn't notice he was being followed, the van pulled into the narrow garage entrance as well. Amy followed, but the man, instead of continuing to the parking lot, stopped at the end of that narrow concrete corridor, blocking her way. The passenger door opened and the driver jumped out and ran out around the corner.

That son of a bitch had set her up. The ramp was so narrow that he couldn't even open the door enough to slide out. In a fury, he lowered the glass and began to slip out of the window.

He had screwed her, Sonny Armitage thought as he ran up the stairs to the upstairs elevator. Who knows who the hell was that slut who had been following him since he walked into town. Maybe she was just one who worked the night shift at the newspaper, but with what she was about to make witnesses she didn't want any, and the van, stolen that evening, could also sacrifice it.

Rip had done well not to trust that one, he thought as he pushed the elevator button to stop at his floor on the way up, with Will aboard. He had done well, especially in terms of how he had behaved that night they blew up the center. They would have to get him out there and then, and they would have saved themselves a lot of trouble. When a man showed signs of weakness, he had to be silenced, and if he was one who knew everything Will Standish knew, he had to do it "with extreme prejudice."

Sonny Armitage liked those words very much. Extreme prejudice, yes, against blacks, Jews, bean eaters, yellow muzzles, and all the liberal wimp that they were all brothers under the fucking sun. No, fuck you, Sonny was full of that bullshit.

In Vietnam he had fought together, with the "black brothers", more interested in seeing where the next poor Christ came from to cheat than to kill the enemies. They were animals, subhuman, and so were the yellow muzzles. If the niggers were apes, the yellows were monkeys, almond-eyed little monkeys that shot out of the jungle like ghosts. Sonny had never admitted it, but they had given him a squeeze. Had they fought like men, in the open, instead of hiding in the leaves or in their tunnels like mice, he would have had a little respect for them. And then, when he got home, he found them there too. He liked killing Americans so much that now they had come to kill their economy too.

Finally Sonny heard the elevator stop and the doors open. And there it is. Will Standish, in all his ballless glory, looking at him like someone who no longer knows where he is.

"Hey, Will," Sonny said, flashing a smile and a knife blade. "Are you going to buy the newspaper?"

Will tried to unwrap it but Sonny easily shoved it against the cabin wall. The doors closed and Sonny blocked the elevator. Then he stuck the long blade of the knife between Will Standìsh's ribs.

"Fuckin 'piece of shit traitorous liberal fennel of a rabbit," she whispered in his ear, holding it to keep it from falling, and dragging the knife sideways until it hit Will's ribcage. Then he pulled it out. He felt the hot blood run down his knuckles and thought it was a pleasant sensation. It was the blood of a traitor, a traitor who licked the ass and sucked the dick of tyrants.

"Traitors don't have to die easily," he said, and dipped the blade again, this time in his belly, and twisted it in small circles. Will didn't even have the strength to scream, but he opened his mouth as if to say something. Sonny smelled of piss and shit and laughed. "Mommy will have to wash your underwear, Will," he grinned, then hit the stop button and hit the button on the top floor of the garage. Will would leave him there. No one would find him until the next morning.

He chuckled as the elevator went up. "The journey is slow, Will, but it's fun, isn't it?" He turned the knife over again, enjoying Will's incredulous grimace, and pulled it out the moment the door opened to the floor.

"He can't play with his mates."

The soft female voice whirled Sonny, who found himself in front of a woman, the one who was behind the wheel of the sports car he had blocked. She was dressed all in black, and her purple eyes were narrowed in a lethal expression, but she was smiling with regular white teeth. The hands, abandoned at the sides, were empty.

Sonny didn't understand what the hell he was smiling about. He was the one who had the knife. He held it up, still dripping with blood, unsure what to do.

The woman looked at the blade and shook her head. "He runs with scissors in hand," he said, and suddenly the smile went out like a candle flame. “And it kills the children. There are three infractions. We will have to punish you. "

"Fuck you too," Sonny snarled, throwing himself at her with the knife, but she was quicker than he could have imagined, and stepped aside sending him rolling on the concrete pushed by her own momentum.

The kick in his ribs emptied his lungs. It hurt more than any kick he had ever received in a fight so far, and it had been a lot. Enough of this bullshit, she thought as she gritted her teeth in pain and rolled onto her side, putting her hand behind her back where she held the gun, forget the games, it's too fast, shoot, shoot now, shoot now.

He fired from the ground, three shots in quick succession that took her in full - one in the abdomen, one in the chest and one under the chin - and threw her back.

But he did not fall. She remained standing for a moment as if bewildered. The bullet holes were clearly visible on her clothes, so she must have hit her for sure, but the one where the bullet had entered under her chin - and he had seen it, damn it! - was gone. It had simply closed.

The moment of bewilderment was enough to take the gun out of his hand like a child. He threw it into the dark and could hear it sliding on the concrete for a long time. Then he slipped the survival knife from its ankle sheath, inserted his fingers into the holes in the handle and crouched next to Sonny.

"Look at me," she said. "Do you know who I am?"

"Yes," Sonny said, terrified, but even more terrified to show it. "You're a shitty whore."

She raised her fist and hit him in the stomach, so hard that there was the sound of a rib snapping. He gasped in pain. "No." He shook his head. "Look better. Do you remember me? You've probably seen my picture in the papers. "

Jesus Christ. It couldn't be true. But it was.

"You are ... that," he stammered. "What we have ..."

"The one you killed," she completed. “But it wasn't just me. You also killed my children. I was supposed to protect them and you killed them. You and the others. The Sons of a Free America. " The name came out of her lips like spit. "Now I want to know who the others are and where they are."

"I don't believe it," Sonny gasped, his head spinning. “That's not true, it's not happening. I'm dreaming, or it's a trick. "

"Well, if it's not happening, if you're dreaming, it won't make any difference to you to tell me or not and—" She hit him again, this time in the jaw. When the first stab of pain passed, he felt several teeth moving in his gums. "... And you'll save a lot of pain from your dream."

“If it's a dream,” Sonny said, swallowing a mouthful of blood, “then screw you. You can also kill me. Anyway I wake up. And do you know what I do then? I'm going to find some other little black guy, some little Jew, and I make them squirt those pig eyes, and me them ... "

He didn't finish the sentence. The knife dropped again, this time not on the handle side but on the blade, straight into his open mouth, bleeding, screaming.

19

"Then wake up," Amy whispered. "Wake up in hell."

The fury with which he had lowered the knife had been such that the blade had pierced the vertebrae of the man's neck and planted itself in the floor. He tore it off and stood up.

William Standish was still breathing, his eyes wide open and his hands, red with blood, pressed to the deadly wounds. Amy stepped into the elevator and locked the doors, then looked him straight in the eye. "You're dying," she told him. “But you have the opportunity to help bring justice. I know you want to do that. Tell me, then: where are they? "

The last words Will Standish had managed to articulate were: "Forgive me" and "Tell my mother I tried." If indicating the place had been impossible for him, with untold effort and suffering some name had been able to do so. Rip Withers. Junior Feeley. Powder Burns. Chip Porter.

"Yes, I forgive you," Amy replied. "Yes, I'll tell him." She held his bloody hand for a minute longer, until the breathing stopped and her eyes stopped moving. Then she had dragged him out of the elevator, composing him on the concrete floor with his arms at his sides.

She stopped next to the other body, took the money out of her wallet, and spat in his face. Then he had run up the stairs to the street.

It was nearly midnight when he parked the car several blocks from Mrs. Standish's trailer. When she reached the door she knocked softly, and the voice of the television fell silent from inside. He knocked again.

He heard a shuffling footstep approach the door and the porch light came on. Mrs. Standish's face appeared through the glass, then the door swung open and Amy smelled the smoke and the woman's breath.

"You again?" What is he doing at this hour? I told him about the money, and he doesn't care, he's got something else on his mind. "

"I know," Amy replied.

The other looked at her suspiciously. "He knows?"

“I think you'd better let me in, Mrs. Standish. Your son is dead. "

The woman's face lost its hardness for a moment. Amy pushed her aside and went inside, closing the door behind her. The only lights came from a table lamp and the television, plus the red glare of a battered electric heater.

"Sit down, ma'am," Amy said, and waited for the Standish to settle down on a small deck chair, take out a cigarette, light it, and take a long drag. “William died bravely. Honorably. She asked me to tell her she tried. "

"You're not from Publishers' Clearance."

"No."

"How did he die?"

“He had gone to tell the truth. To the newspapers. But a man stopped him. He killed him. Before he died, he told me who the other killers are, the ones who ... who blew up the children's center. "

For a long moment the woman said nothing. Then slowly his face twisted into an expression of deep disgust, and he shook his head in anger. "That little fagot," he said in such a harsh tone that Amy felt her mind burn. “That damn sissy, I should have killed him when I had her in my belly. I knew it, I knew it would ruin everything he got into ... Little coward ... "

Amy tasted blood and metal in her mouth. "He died trying to tell the truth."

“He died betraying the patriots! He wanted to report them all, right? All those good guys. His own father, peace be upon his soul, would have killed him with his own hands if he had known such a thing! "

"You're on their side ..." Amy murmured. "He supports them ..."

“Well, where the hell do you think Will got those ideas at first, Will? On TV? His father brought him into the Sons. His father was from the Klan, and before that his father, and there wasn't a single one of us who wasn't proud of it. " The old woman stepped on the butt in an ashtray and stood up. "And you think you're going to blurt out what he told you?" Hell, as long as I have breath in my body ... "

Mrs. Standish reached between the cushions of the sofa, and took out a revolver, small but large-caliber. The moment she pulled the trigger, Amy grabbed the gun in both hands.

The sound of the shot was deafening, and it was as if someone had hit Amy's hands with a mallet, but he snatched the gun away and threw it to the ground. Then he held out his hands so that the woman could see.

There was a hole and a black burn on the left palm, but within seconds it had closed under Mrs. Standish's eyes, and the burn had been absorbed into the white of the flesh. The woman looked at Amy's hand in dismay, then looked up. "You are the devil," he whispered.

Amy took her face in her hands. "Yup. I am a devil. And an angel. I returned from the kingdom of the dead for my children, and now you will go there to ask for mercy for yours. "

With his hands he jerked the woman's head back until her neck snapped. He rolled his eyes up and his face became as empty and dead as his heart.

He dropped it with a dull thud and listened for a few moments to see if the shot had been heard. She felt no reaction, and began rummaging through the trailer, opening drawers, reading letters and papers to see if there was anything to help her find the Sons of a Free America.

After about twenty minutes she concluded that the supporter of the Sons was carefully covering her tracks. There was not the slightest hint of any of the names Will Standish had given. Nothing in the other small bedroom, either, which housed a chilling collection of Ku Klux Klan mementos and a small library of racist books and brochures. At the bottom of a cabinet were two boxes of children's books, a sign that the Standish family had lived there for many years.

That trailer, Amy thought, had been where Will had grown up, where a kid who loved adventure books had turned into a man trained to hate, and only stopped when he saw where that hatred had led. . Perhaps he had only joined the militia to prove his manhood to himself and the world.

Of these people who lived to hate, two were already dead, plus the old one. This would have thrown them into fear. And soon she would destroy them all, she would make the scorched earth of that nest of vipers.

The idea of the fire reminded her of the heater she had seen. That would have been a good start. That den, at least, would no longer produce monsters.

He moved the stove to the side of the sofa, an assortment of shawls and dressing gowns hung on its arm. He turned it over and watched as the red-hot coil of resistance touched the filaments of the clothes. After a few seconds the arm of the sofa was smoking. A few more minutes and it would catch fire.

Amy exited the trailer, closing the door behind her. Become a furnace, he thought. That blows doors and windows out. Let the reign of fire and death begin.

Let the fire devour. And let the fear descend.

20

Amy came back to David Levinson's house at three in the morning. A few minutes later he came out of the guest room, in his dressing gown. "Well, at least this time I got a few hours of sleep," he said, and looked at her hands. “There is blood there. Could I know where it comes from? "

"No because?"

"If I were to find out that some murder was committed tonight, I would become very suspicious."

"So? What could you do with it? Are you planning to arrest someone who's dead? To explain to your superiors that it was Amy Carlisle, who disintegrated in an explosion six months ago, who committed them? "

“Amy Carlisle exists. So it didn't disintegrate. She evidently escaped the explosion and is now taking revenge. Here's what I'll explain. "

“Levinson, you're either with me or against me. If you are against me, tell me right away, that I am leaving and you will never see me again. But if you're with me, then let me. Let me do what I came back for. What do you answer me? "

Levinson was silent for a few moments, then nodded. "Just make sure only those who deserve it are hit."

«So it will be. And so it was. "

“That's what I was afraid of. And remember that if no one knows you exist, many have heard your voice. "

"What do you mean?"

“The Wilson Barnes program. The radio news shows the tape every half hour. I memorized it: 'Who did it, Wilson Barnes? The tongue. I promised you. ' And then: 'Tell me who those bastards are'. And finally: 'This confession was offered to you by Wilson Barnes'. Barnes tried to bluff, but evidently the Sons of a Free America didn't take it well. I - and the whole world - suspect they were the ones who killed him. "

"Who are the Sons of a Free America?" Amy asked trying not to show any emotion.

"Nobody knows. There is not the slightest trace, not even a rumor about them. They might be a paramilitary group, but who knows? This state has so many woods on private land that you could train an entire army in it and no one would know about it. What if the police or the FBI find out where they are? They are not connected to anything in particular, except perhaps to the death of Wilson Barnes. No, only someone unofficial could materially do something. " Levinson tilted his head. "Does it remind you of anyone we know?"

Amy didn't answer. "I'm going down to the basement."

The first attempt to find one of the names Will Standish had given her was already a great success. Chip Porter had her own site on the net, and by the time she finished perusing the content, Amy knew she had found the right one.

In addition to the photograph of a thin young man who had evidently electronically wiped a number of boils from his face, the site contained material that was disgusting in every respect, with Porter's short writings on the virtues of white supremacy, the usual bullshit about Jewish hands on the government, and dozens of links to other anti-Semitic and supremacist sites.

In addition to being a racist and telematics expert, Porter also showed a real passion for skinhead music. There were large sections of profiles of skinhead "artists" and CD reviews apparently only available by mail or at special events. Not only that, but Amy was surprised to discover that Chip Porter was also part of a musical group, the Shoktrupz. The band had not released albums, but the lyrics of their evidently best known song, White the Power, were available on the site, confirming them as inept and ignorant as Amy had suspected. There was also a photo of Shoktrupz, dressed in leather, all Aryans with shaved heads, accompanied by the band's program of activities, so to speak: one night in November, none in December and another in January.

The November date was for the following Sunday, a "Brotherhood of White Christians" festival held at a fair north of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a short distance from the Twin Cities. Nationally renowned speakers, bands on two stages, vendors, and food in two different buildings would participate. Anyone who hated "Jews, bastard races and all anti-Christians" was invited.

How to refuse such an invitation? But there were still two days left: in the meantime he couldn't sit idle, and so he started looking for the name that followed on his mental list, that of Junior Feeley.

The search for "Feeley, Jr." gave good results: the name Clarence Feeley Jr. appeared on a list of arms dealers. A few more minutes of searching and a weapons fair popped up to be held on Saturday at the Holiday Inn in Hobie.

The event was held every three months and a number to contact for information was indicated. Amy decided to wait until the next morning, a few more hours, to call.

In the meantime he did some research on Rip Withers and Powder Burns, but to no avail. The names were probably nicknames; Burns was a very common name in the area, and Withers were also by the dozen.

When he was done, he called the number for the gun fair. "It's my husband who told me to call," she said in an excited, anxious voice. "He wanted to know if Junior will have a counter at the show tomorrow."

"Junior?" repeated the man who had answered.

“Yes, Junior something. He told me his surname, but I only remember Junior. Is there a Junior who sells weapons? "

"Junior Feeley, perhaps?"

"Here! Yes, thank you very much, just that name. Yes, she wanted to know my husband, will he be there? "

“Yes, I think Junior has a desk. Usually it does. "

“Oh, thank you, thank you very much. I just couldn't remember the name, and my husband would be furious because he takes a day off to come there if this Junior is there, and if she didn't understand that Junior, he was angry with me. He says I forget everything and maybe he's right. "

"Okay okay. There's more?" the man asked impatiently.

"No, no, thanks, just this."

The other hung up without even saying goodbye, probably thinking he had just saved a fool from her husband's wrath. Great. May he be happy as long as he could, because his arms show would have a bang tomorrow.

By now the appointment was set between her and Junior Feeley. Place and now he already had it. She just had to decide what to wear.

21

He had to absorb the part well if he wanted to be accepted.

Tolerated, perhaps, more than accepted, at least at the beginning. Rick knew these people would be the most suspicious he had ever known, and with good reason. From the books he had read in his crash course on the paramilitary movement, he had learned of government agents infiltrating many groups to gather evidence and information. So his cover had to be rock solid. And perhaps he should have tested himself by doing acts that repelled him. But he would do what there was to do: anything but kill.

Rick had warned the firm's partners that he intended to take a couple of weeks off, and they hadn't had a hard time. Nancy hadn't been as tolerant. Now she was his wife and he was determined to be totally honest with her: he had told her what he had kept quiet about the partners, that he wanted to take the time to see what he could learn about those bombs. But he hadn't told her he'd seen Amy at the window. This he kept to himself.

Nancy's reaction had been absolutely negative, between the fear that something could happen to him and the substantial uselessness of the attempt. She had left slamming the door, but he hadn't followed her, even though she wanted to. She knew that if she did, if she succumbed to the weakness of a single moment, it would allow her to persuade him to give up, and she didn't want that.

He realized he had made the right decision an hour later, on his way back from a second hand shop where he had bought some clothes, when he heard Amy's voice on the radio. It had been recorded in the studio the night Wilson Barnes was killed, and when he heard it he joined the small number of those who knew how things were. The Children of a Free America knew it was about the bombs, but only he, Amy, and David Levinson knew who that mysterious woman really was.

The sound of his voice was such a shock that he had to pull over to the car, and he stood still and shaking as he listened to the rest of the story. What the hell could that mean?

The voice was Amy's, there was no doubt about that. Had she also appeared elsewhere - in that radio studio - in flesh and blood? And why? For him to know, for the whole world to know who had planted the bombs?

But he was the only one who saw her, and only he knew why her spirit had returned.

The idea consolidated him in his project; he started up again, preparing to disguise himself, to change his appearance, attitude, desires, to hate that oppressive government and all those who worked for the government. He would become one of them, and thus he would find the ones who killed her.

"They killed Sonny," Junior Feeley announced with tears in his voice.

Rip Withers looked up from lunch. "What?" "Sonny is dead," Junior repeated in a high, shocked tone that drew the attention of everyone else in the canteen. Rip felt a flush of heat in his gut, and blood rushing to his face. "Police?"

«No ... no one knows. I heard it on the radio, they ... "

The door to the mess hall crashed open and Chip Porter rushed in with a sheet of paper. "From the local news agency," he said, and handed it to Rip, who scanned it quickly, then reread it more slowly before addressing the men seated at the tables.

“Men, a horrible thing happened last night. First of all, I must tell you that there was a traitor among us. Our brother Will Standish was not a brother at all. He betrayed us. He went to the newspapers. " There was a sudden shouting full of anger, and Rip raised his hand for silence.

"There's nothing to fear," he continued. “It didn't get there. Sonny followed, with orders to liquidate him immediately if Standish showed any sign of capitulation. And so it was.

“But then something went wrong. Sonny was killed, stabbed. They don't say who did it, but Standish and Sonny are both dead. We can assume that Sonny sacrificed his life for the Children of a Free America. " He looked the men in the face, one by one. “We will not forget, and we will not forget that each of us may have to make the same sacrifice for our freedoms. It is a risky time and now that our businesses are growing, as our attempts to overthrow this wicked and wicked government begin to touch these scoundrels in their home, we need more than ever Jehovah's help to keep our courage alive. and the flame of our hearts burning. Let's pray."

After the collective prayer, Rip summoned Ray, Junior, Powder Burns, and Chip Porter to his shack.

"Good," Rip began. "One thing I didn't say, because to many of the men it wouldn't have meant much, and frankly I don't really know what it could mean myself, is that old Mrs. Standish is dead too." At the surprised expression of the others, Rip continued. “She was an excellent woman. He sent us twenty dollars a month for the cause. I talked to her a couple of times and I never understood how a woman like her could bring into the world a wimp like Will Standish. "

"He was good at writing," Ray said.

The comment was unanswered and Rip continued. “They found it in your trailer. Completely burned, but his remains showed that his neck was broken. The newspapers have no assumptions about everything that happened, but there could be two possibilities. One, Sonny stabbed Will and then Will stabbed him. "

"Impossible," Junior Feeley said. “Sonny would never have let him, especially after hitting him. You knew Will, just one little cut and he would have whimpered like a puppy waiting to die. "

"You're right," Rip nodded. “And that's why it doesn't seem too credible to me. There was probably someone else. Sonny kills Will and the other kills Sonny. Besides, knowing Will's mother was with us, this guy kills her too. " Suddenly Rip remembered the woman's voice on the radio. "Or maybe it's not a dude ... maybe it's a dude."

"Like?" more than one exclaimed.

“Remember that woman who was with Barnes the other night? The one who forced him to mention our name? "

"Are you saying a woman killed Sonny Armitage?" Powder asked incredulously.

"I'm just saying it's a possibility," Rip replied. "Nothing must be ruled out if you want to stay alive."

Junior grinned. "The day you see me looking over my shoulder because I'm afraid of a woman ..."

"... will be the day you get a lot smarter, Junior," Rip finished for him. “It makes more sense to fear a madwoman than a fawn running in the woods. I'm just saying we need to be alert. It could be anyone. Maybe some mothers went out of their minds and decided to go after the ones she thinks have something to do with bombs. "

"Wait a minute, Rip," Powder said. “A mommy freaks out, breaks into Wilson Barnes's study, evades surveillance, forces him to put our name on the air, then stabs Sonny, breaks Will's mother's neck and sets the house on fire. But who is it, Wonder Woman? "

"That's enough!" Rip cried. It was time to resume command. “I'm saying nothing should be taken for granted, understand? It could be a man, a woman, a gang of kids, your fucking grandmother, understand? She could be the last man you drank with, the last woman you fucked, the last Salvation Army lady you gave a nickel, that's what I'm saying, and that's all! I've been clear?"

A murmur of yes and sir filled the room for a few seconds, then silence returned.

"That doesn't change anything," Rip went on then. “As for the big shot, we will do exactly what we had planned, according to the times already decided. For everything else ... Junior, even if Sonny is gone, you will still go to the gun fair tomorrow. "

"But I need someone to help me," Junior protested. "I can't carry all that stuff alone."

“And you'll have someone. I'll send you Karl. "

"Karl? Jeez, Rip, I know he's your boyfriend and everything, but he'll be able to ... "

“He'll be perfectly capable of doing whatever he has to, Junior. He'll be fine with those gun cases. And if you take care of him, I'll consider it a personal favor. "

Junior Feeley nodded and tried to smile, but it wasn't easy. Damn, he would miss Sonny Armitage. They were friends. And Sonny was great at putting customers at ease, making them talk, and not just about guns. And to understand immediately who could be a probable affiliate. And then he understood it, accepted his faults, and his mere presence was a help to hook up some girl, one of those who were demonstrating with weapons: a field in which Junior had his difficulties.

And now Rip's boyfriend, a scrawny 18-year-old who looked like he'd have it on himself if you only bucked him, was after him. Well, he would have done what he could. Maybe after the fair he could dump it somewhere in the arcade and then go find a whore. This time he would have to pay, and the idea pissed him off, because when he was with Sonny he never had to. Damn, he would have missed it.

Yes, there was always the possibility that the boy was willing to do something. A man must be a man, all the Sons agreed on this. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea of putting one of those babes who attended the fair under the kid. In fact, he was getting hard, figuring out the details. Sure, Rip's boyfriend would warm it up for her, and when she got wet properly, he'd give it to her and Junior would enjoy it. All in all, the fair wouldn't have been too bad.

Sure, he would miss Sonny anyway. He was her friend.

22

"Arnie, I have to ask you a favor."

Arnie Bailey made an expression that meant Christ, what else is there? and looked at her. "What?"

"I'm not feeling very well," Cyndi said. "I must have eaten something that wasn't good for dinner last night."

Arnie held back a reply and motioned for her to come into his room. “I mean, are you telling me we got this far from St. Paul and now you don't want to do what you came here to do? I've already paid you half the amount, Cyndi, and also the hotel room and the daily allowance. And now I should have only one girl to show my weapons? "

“But no, I would never play a joke like Tracy. There's another one. "

"How about the agency?" At this time of the morning? "

“No, it's from Hobie. Her name is Arlene. I met her last night, she said she would like to have one of these introductions sometime, and it's not bad, maybe a little older, she'll be in her thirties. But he's got a great body, Arnie, I swear to you. And so I called her this morning and she said she would be delighted to do so. I can pay for it out of my own pocket, taking from the money you give me. "

“Well, that's your business. What I want is that it looks good in two pieces, nice tits, nice ass. "

“Oh, the breasts are fine, not huge but fine. The butt is fine too. "

“Let me judge this. Where is this Arlene? "

"Down to my room."

“Get her to come here. Christ, the fair starts in half an hour. "

Amy Carlisle was studying herself in the mirror in Cyndi Rose's bedroom when the girl called her from Arnie's room. She didn't particularly like what she saw.

The very high-cut red shorts and the silver bra that covered little more than her nipples left Amy exposed much more than she had ever shown in public. But that wasn't what worried Amy, but rather the flesh itself. Perhaps those very fine lines she saw, the marks of her reconstructed body, were visible only on very, very close examination.

At the right distance, not only would no one have noticed anything, but no one would have even recognized her: with that red wig and heavily made up face, perhaps even the Crow would have been fooled. No, the Crow no: he had recognized her even when she was reduced to dust.

Amy answered the phone. As he had expected it was Cyndi calling from Arnie's room. He assured her that she would come up immediately.

Cyndi seemed like a really good girl. Too bad he had to show (and not only) his body for a little money to a bunch of gun fanatics. Under the tough skin, the girl was naive: she had easily drunk the story Amy had told her the night before, when she learned that she was working as a "model" on the show for an arms dealer who owned a chain. of shops in the Twin Cities area.

"Listen, honey," he said, "you could do me a big favor ... My boyfriend is coming tomorrow, and I'll see you at the gun fair because that's why he comes, of course, to see me too, but he's crazy for weapons, so much so that on occasions like this you even forget me. And then I thought that if he sees me with little stuff on, you know how it is, and that I handle a good old big shotgun, well, I think it would send him so high that not only will he not think about all those weapons anymore, but she might even make up her mind to ask me the question ... Oh, no, I don't want your boss to hire me, I'm just saying I could take your place for a few hours, maybe in the morning. It might even be worth it, because I can pay you instead of taking your money. So you cash in twice and you don't have to do anything. What do you think?"

Cyndi had so readily accepted her hundred dollars for falling ill that Amy (now Arlene) regretted not offering her less, but on the other hand it was money coming out of the late Sonny Armitage's wallet, and she had another three hundred left.

Arnie welcomed her without ceremony, going straight to the point. "Okay, let's see what you have," he said, pointing to the jacket. She was glad that Cyndi was in the room too, who encouraged her with a smirk.

Amy unzipped her jacket and took it off, then pulled off her pants, Arnie studied her from the top of her hair to her toes, then gestured with her forefinger to turn. She did so, slowly, until she was back in front of him, who nodded his approval. “Okay, fine. Cyndi, explain what to do and what not to do, then go back to bed. You look like shit. "

This last comment put an end to the smile on Cyndi's lips, but she still performed the demonstration with several rifles Arnie kept in the room, showing Amy how to hold them, how to arm them and how to insert the magazines into the semiautos.

“Do it as loud as you can. It draws the attention of the boys, they love to see a girl maneuver a rifle, it's a phallic thing, or something. "

"You mean it's as if we were handling the ..."

"Exactly," laughed Cyndi. "Just that. Don't worry about the questions. Arnie answers all the questions, and he thinks about selling. "

"But do we really load the guns?"

"No, no. It is illegal, it seems to me. But we sell the ammunition under the counter. If you can think of anything else to ask, ask Tracy, she's the other girl, okay? "

Tracy was much less cordial than Cyndi, perhaps because she was younger and more of a rival than Cyndi. But the way she was, Amy considered, she had absolutely nothing to fear. Better this way: that she get all the attention, so she would be free to do what she had to do.

"Hey," Junior Feeley murmured. "Let's take a look at what's here."

Junior had left Karl at the booth while he took a tour of exploration among the girls. With over two hundred stalls in the exhibition pavilion, there also had to be a decent choice of flounder.

But as he walked through the aisles between the stands he realized that he had already seen almost all of them before: and they too recognized him, if as soon as they saw him they looked away. It was useless to try to approach them: they knew Junior's way of doing it, either from direct experience or from having heard of him in terms that left no doubt. What he was looking for was fresh meat. Fresh and stupid.

And he thought he had found it, in Arnie Bailey's pavilion, at the back of the vast hall. Two girls worked there, dressed in the bare minimum. One was a brunette Junior had already seen. Stacy, her name was, or Tracy, or something, and she once pulled out a knife when he tried to nail her to the wall for something quick. Not recommended, to stay away.

It was the redhead who attracted his attention, that promised interesting possibilities. She was a little older than the average model, but she had all her things in place, tall and slim as he liked them: and she already saw her fat ass placed over those tits. And then he loved reds, especially natural ones. This girl's hair looked like a wig, but what the hell, it was okay.

He decided not to tell her immediately but to come back later. It was nearly nine; the doors would open shortly thereafter, letting in hundreds of gun fanatics and potential proselytes. Junior knew that Karl alone would not be able to deal with all these people. The redhead would have to wait.

Rick Carlisle tried to make himself comfortable in the crowd waiting to enter the fair pavilion. Some of the waiting men talked among themselves, but many stood silently looking at the doors. The hunters, usually older, were gathered in small groups, with a serious and professional air, as if they were expecting to find something that would help them regain the aim that age made more inaccurate. Rick reminded Rick of his father's playmates.

Rick had nothing against guns. His father went hunting, and he too, as a boy, had been there often; growing up, however, he had lost interest in it. Many of the father's companions were good people, who respected the rules and brought the slaughtered prey to the table. The impression he got was that the older hunters around him followed that same pattern. For the younger ones, the speech was different.

Most of them were boisterous boys with shaved heads, Doc Martens and military jackets, people who most likely enjoyed targeting a human being more than a deer. There were several badges and badges of white power, and Rick also saw an SS insignia sewn on one sleeve.

There was also a contingent of men between thirty and forty, less frantic-looking than the younger ones, dressed mostly in camouflage suits and military caps. Some had badges identifying them as belonging to a paramilitary group, and under a camouflage jacket Rick saw a T-shirt that said NO TO GOS. One of the older hunters, also noticing the sign, asked the owner what it meant.

"Government occupied by the Zionists," replied the other angrily.

Jesus, what a jumble, Rick thought. Weapons bring together the weirdest people, from law-abiding hunters to neo-Nazis to paramilitary fanatics, all looking for something to bang.

And then from the double door came a rattling noise, as if someone were pulling the bolt, and at the same time a black shape broke off the roof, casting its shadow over the crowd below. Rick, like many others, jumped at the sudden movement, then saw that it was just a crow, as big as a hawk and black as night, which was evidently perched on the roof and was frightened by the sound of the doors.

Laughing, some of the men targeted the bird with an imaginary rifle or pistol as it glided toward the trees at the far end of the parking lot. They made "bang!", "Blam!" With their mouths, flicking their non-existent triggers with their fingers, then laughed again.

Then the crow turned and glided towards them, moving its wings with great ease and economy of movement, until it was right above them, with outstretched wings, supported by the wind, going neither forward nor backward. It hung in space as if by magic, as the sun suddenly disappeared behind the black clouds.

It was a disturbing scene, which was supernatural, and silence fell over the crowd. Then someone gave a nervous laugh, and a young skinhead raised his arms for another shot, opening his mouth to imitate the shot. But something in the raven hovering above them, with its wings spread like arms imparting a blessing or a curse, stopped him, and he lowered his hands with another laugh of discomfort.

Then the doors creaked open, and the raven moved off out of sight. The crowd, immediately forgetting that apparition, poured into the building.

As he walked through the pavilion, Rick was amazed at the quantity and variety of instruments of death on offer, many of which had nothing to do with hunting. Another thing that surprised him was the presence of several poorly dressed women, who in the various stands exhibited themselves and the weapons for sale, moving up and down, with a rifle or a pistol, in the limited space available. It was an effective attraction, as the tables stocked with models attracted most of the visitors. Rick, embarrassed by the girls' highly suggestive movements and attitudes, avoided their gazes, focusing his attention on the guns for sale on the counters and looking for some clue that would make him take a step forward in his search.

When Amy saw Rick, she froze for a moment. Then, knowing that the sudden stillness would only draw attention to her, she continued her assigned work, pinning and unloading magazines from the weapons she was carrying.

What was Rick doing there? He was not a hunter. If he was thinking of buying a gun to defend the house he now shared with Nancy, to protect his new family, why hadn't he just gone to an armory? And the way he was dressed, in those used and worn clothes, was not his usual one at all. It almost looked like he had disguised himself ...

Well, maybe it was just like that. He was disguised exactly as she was. They were both hunting, baiting the predators that would become their prey. He too was here to find those responsible for the bombs. Except Rick didn't have the defenses she did, and they wouldn't hesitate to kill him if they thought he was a danger.

Luckily she wasn't looking in his direction, nor the other half-naked women scattered here and there among the stands. Typical of Rick, he thought, and smiled. He had always had an embarrassing streak of Puritanism. He walked past her without looking at her, keeping his eyes fixed on the guns displayed on the table, and continued down the aisle towards the back of the pavilion.

"Do you like loading and unloading so much, beautiful?" a tall and thin man asked her, staring at her tits. "Or was that smile for me?"

"That smile," she replied, "is for anyone who buys a new weapon from Arnie."

"Little chance," the one said. “I have a stand over there too. But I don't have chicks to watch. " He laughed and patted the one who was with him on the shoulder. Then, with a last look of appreciation at Amy, who felt naked under his eyes, she walked back to her desk.

The morning went on in that oppressive way: never had Amy felt so exposed, like a piece of meat under the eager eyes of wolves. But as she was scrutinized by the passing crowd, she scrutinized the crowd herself, reading the names that appeared on the vendors' tags, hoping to find one that would tell her something: Rip Withers, Chip Porter, Powder Burns, whoever those bastards were, and especially Junior Feeley.

During the five-minute breaks, he prepared for them. Arnie had set up a curtain at the bottom of the booth that gave one of the girls a little space to sit and relax while the other attracted attention. Weapons and ammunition were also stowed behind the curtain, and Amy had taken all her intervals loading the weapons, then returning them to their containers.

He had already loaded a 9mm Weaver Nighthawk and filled four magazines, totaling one hundred twenty-five rounds, and a Cobray M11 / Nine, a semi-automatic submachine gun he intended to use while changing magazines at the Nighthawk. In retrospect, he loaded an old .45 Army to keep on hand just in case one of the others got jammed.

Now all she needed was Junior Feeley to show up, and gun fanatics would see a live demonstration of how their beloved toys worked.

23

Rick slowed down at one of the stands. There were several guns and boxes of ammunition on the table, but what caught his attention was a stack of paperback books. From the cover with a red background, a man and a woman pointed their rifles at an off-camera target, under the title The Turner Diaries: a book that was considered the bible of the paramilitary movements.

He picked up a copy and began to leaf through it, careful not to appear too interested and not to look at the people on the other side of the counter. "Ever read?" one of them asked, and Rick looked up. He was tall and burly, in a camouflage suit over a green flannel shirt. The tag on the lapel said "Clarence Feeley Jr."

"Yup. Few years ago."

"Yup? Did you like it?"

Rick smiled. “It's a great book. The story is beautiful, but what I like most is that it says things as they are. "

“It changed my life,” Feeley said. "And you, Karl?" he asked the boy who sat next to him, a beardless boy with an angel face and a pin with a picture of Bill Clinton on his lapel and the words "Wanted for treason."

"I liked it very much," he replied in a soft, shy tone of voice, hinting at a smile.

"Well, I lost my copy a long time ago," Rick said. "I'll take one." He handed Feeley a twenty and took the change.

"Are you shooting?" Feeley asked him.

"Partially yes. Not hunting, though. More than anything else, I'm interested in self-defense. Actually, I came to the show not so much for weapons as for stuff like this. " He showed the book. "But you're the only one who sells such things." He started to leave, hoping that Feeley would call him back, and was not disappointed.

"In what sense, things like that?"

“Well, you know,” Rick said, pausing, “a little more political stuff. They told me that certain groups had stands at fairs like this, militia, things like that. I expected better. "

“Well,” Feeley said, smiling, “you have to know where to look. Usually people are on the right side here, but it's better not to expose yourself too much. "

"Why? For that damned government? "

"Also."

“Fuck, they stick their noses all over the place. As you turn around, they tell you what to do and how to do it. Assholes. " He glanced at the boy. "Excuse me, son." The boy shrugged, with the air of someone who has heard much worse. "They gave me some."

"Yup?" Feeley said. "Guy?"

Rick looked hard at him. "And why do I have to tell you?"

"Duty, you don't have to fucking tell me," Feeley snapped. “It was to talk. What do you think, that I'm a fucking federal? Hey, asshole, you don't have to tell me anything. "

Rick shook his head. "I'm sorry. It's just that I have to be careful. " Feeley looked at him suspiciously and Rick gave a little laugh. "There are people who would like to find me."

"Do you mean that you are wanted?" Feeley said with a skeptical grin.

Rick looked around uncomfortably. “Well, it's not that I'm public enemy number one, but they say I'm a criminal, if believing that you have the right to be free in your country is a crime. Obviously yes. "

Feeley motioned for him to come closer. "What have you done?" he asked softly.

“Look, I don't want to talk about it with all these people around. You never know, do you understand? "

"Do you want a beer? I'll offer you a beer in exchange for your story. "

Rick smiled. “A federal would never have made such an offer. Accepted. "

"Watch out for the place, Karl," Feeley said to the boy, he walked over to the other side of the counter and the two walked together to the bar.

They sat down at a table at the back. The outside was barely visible, but Rick saw that heavy rain was falling from the black clouds, the ones that had begun to gather when the crow was seen. Feeley ordered the beer and Rick began to improvise using the details he had read from the books he had read on paramilitary groups and the patriotic movement.

“I just wanted to get out of the cage, you know? I had lost my job after six years, can you believe it? A nigger had blown it from me. And just when my wife was dying of cancer and so we had lost health coverage as well. And so he was quicker to leave. At that point I had no more reasons to wait, and so I said to myself: why not start from scratch? I was pissed off like a hyena at how things had turned out. I understood that the only one one can count on is oneself. But not many think so: just see how many prefer to squeeze the government, without enough balls to do it alone.

"And then I said to myself go fuck yourselves, I tore up my social security card, my driver's license, everything that bound me to that government of Jews and blacks. But if I took no interest in them, they wouldn't leave me alone. They arrested me for driving without authorization and registration, but by then I had read a lot. And I knew how full of shit this government was and I said go fuck yourself, you have no jurisdiction over me, and I didn't go to trial. At this point things began to turn crazy ... "

Rick continued the story of his story as a man against the system, of how he had half-killed the agent who had come to take him to the judge, of how he had stolen his car and abandoned it three states away, and had arrived in Minnesota. because he had known that there were many militias there, people who thought like him, places where he could disappear. He suddenly looked at Feeley oddly, then shook his head. "But why the hell am I telling you all this?" Who tells me I can trust? "

"What the fuck?" Feeley answered. "Do you think I am a traitor to my race?" Do you think I'll hand you over to the GOS? What the fuck! You want to meet people, maybe it's possible but it's not that simple. Well no. Anyway, what's your name? "

«I don't have a name anymore, I'm just a guy, a guy, understand? So I call myself Guy. Guy Adams, since Adam was the first man and Jahvé created him. Jahvé also made me what I am. My name is in honor of Jahvé. "

"Okay, Guy Adams, stick around after the show and maybe I can introduce you to someone who can help you, okay?"

"Do you have any contacts?" Rick asked doubtfully.

"If I have any contacts?" Feeley chuckled. “Wait, friend. Wait and see."

They finished their beer, discussing mostly what they hated most, but Feeley said nothing more about his "contacts." Well all the same. Rick could wait. He had put his foot in the door. It remained to be seen whether this was the right door.

The morning had been good so far, Junior Feeley thought as he joined Karl Withers at the counter. True, little had been done for sales - a second-hand deer rifle, a few boxes of cartridges and two books - and it was pouring outside, but Junior had found a pretty good redhead and a top-notch candidate for the Sons.

He was so pleased with this latest discovery that he told Karl all about "Guy Adams," and the boy seemed pleased with the news, even though it was always very difficult to understand what was going through his mind. Junior couldn't wait to get him fucked, only to see an emotion cross that little face of his with an eternal smile. Not that the boy was as retarded as his Uncle Ray, but he seemed aloof, as if he was floating an inch off the ground lost in his own dream world. The quality of the breed, Junior hoped, would come out when the war against the GOS began.

These reflections were interrupted by the thought that even though his capable belly was now full of beer, he had eaten nothing since breakfast. "Stay here," he said to Karl. "I'll get something to eat."

Junior arrived at the snack bar and got two portions of fried potatoes, two cans of Coke, two burgers for himself and two for Karl. If Karl needed one, he would eat the other. On the way back he decided to make a detour to the stand where he had seen the red. Maybe he could get acquainted.

There weren't many people in front of the woman's desk. Arnie was filling out a form for a skinhead holding a roll of bills. The brunette, Tracy or Stacy, was not in sight, but the Gran Rossa was nicely displaying her stuff for two prospective clients.

Junior pushed them aside and stood in front of the counter. "Hey, you're new here," she said to the redhead. “I've never seen you before. And I assure you that I'm sorry. "

The redhead continued to smile, looking at him and the nameplate with his name. He was holding a shotgun; he loaded it and pointed it at him, opening his eyes wide with an innocent air. Well, he thought, one who likes to joke, but she also felt a slight jolt in her testicles as she looked into the muzzle of the gun.

"Hey," he said. "Take it easy, redhead." He looked down at the tight shorts. "If you're really red."

"Don't be afraid ... Junior," she said, in a hoarse voice that somehow sounded familiar. Then he aimed the gun at the ceiling and squeezed the trigger, causing the blank shot to snap.

"Hey, hey, Arlene," Arnie called, looking up irritably from his papers. “Don't bullshit, okay? Don't point that fucking thing at people, Christ. "

"Nothing, man," Junior replied. "It's not loaded."

"Yes, but shooting misses ruins the weapons, Junior, you know that."

"Missing shots spoils a lot of things," Junior added suggestively, then lowered his voice for only Arlene to hear as Arnie went back to his work. "When I shoot, I always shoot with the magazine full." Grin. "So, what about you, are you really red, everywhere?"

Arlene raised a finger and set the rifle down on the counter, then turned and walked to the tent at the back of the stand. Just before disappearing behind it, he turned and said, in a voice that made him hard at once, "If you want to see some red, just wait a minute, Junior."

Fuck, Junior thought, what was he going to do, go out with his shorts open in front? Or maybe show it to him for a moment from behind the curtain? That yes he knew how to do. And he seemed to like it too. This was almost suspicious.

But then she came back, and she was no less dressed, but more dressed, she had put on a black jacket, and held a gun in each hand, and another gun was tucked into her shorts.

And he no longer smiled.

24

As Amy read the man's name, she felt her teeth clench. He'd noticed it before, when he'd first caught sight of it before the show opened to the public, but then it still wore no name tag.

And now there he is, delivered into his hands, Clarence Feeley Junior. Her face muscles ached, still smiling as she joked with him, holding him there. And now she was ready. Ready for him.

The man had lost his smile, not understanding what she was doing, and she leaned towards his ear and whispered, "I've always wanted to meet one of the Sons of a Free America."

The shocked expression confirmed beyond any doubt that she had found the right man. He raised the Nighthawk and fired repeatedly. His abdomen parted under the flurry and he staggered back, waving his arms, head thrown back. Splashes of blood shot from his body like devils fleeing from hell. She ended up with her fat backside against the opposite counter, and collapsed to the floor in a sitting position. The eyes, still miraculously alive, looked at her.

"You wanted to see red," she said, and fired seven more shots in the face, causing his brain to shoot all around.

"Get it!" someone shouted, and the roar of another shot hit the air. He felt a jerk in his shoulder and when he looked to the right, he saw the salesman he had spoken to earlier. He was behind his counter several stands away, and he was loading his shotgun again. He aimed it and fired again, catching her in the chest and throwing her back, sending her crashing into the skinhead behind her.

The boy shrieked and scurried away, protecting his head with his hands. Amy sat up and looked at her chest. The bra beneath the open vest was ripped open, but before her eyes the huge bullet hole that had opened her chest closed, and she leapt to her feet, firing at the man before he could insert another bullet. A trickle of blood appeared on his throat, and the man fell.

At this point all hell broke loose.

Rick Carlisle was near Junior Feeley's desk when the shooting began. He saw that Feeley was not there and thought he would use the opportunity to try to make friends with the boy. They had barely exchanged three words when the first shots were heard.

He jerked his head but saw nothing but the people between him and the source of the noise. Many tried to disperse, but given the crowded ward there was nowhere to take refuge. Several of them threw themselves to the ground, covering their heads.

Now that the view was clearer, Rick caught a flash of red hair and a tattered leather jacket. It was a woman, and she had just hit a man with a shotgun, who had fallen into a pool of blood.

Then another half-dozen guns fired almost simultaneously, bombarding the woman with bullets. Many missed and Rick saw some of those present fall, some hit in the head, some in the chest. Suddenly a barrage of machine guns snaked behind him, piercing the wall.

Rick dived across the table towards the boy, who stood there like a daze, and dragged him with him to the ground just before a second burst broke through the wall behind him. He raised his head from the floor and looked at the boy, lying next to him with an expression of astonishment. "Let's stay down," he said, and Karl nodded breathlessly.

Amy thought it looked like every son of a bitch with a gun had opened a box of ammunition, loaded it, and was shooting at her. When they hit, the bullets hurt, but she managed to stay standing as the shots tossed her from side to side.

At one point he saw an escape route, and also a way to better target his fire. The tables ran the entire length of the pavilion and were occupied only by weapons, some cardboard advertising shapes and the bodies of those who had been hit by the fire of his attackers.

She leapt to the nearest table and ran along the succession of white-covered counters, firing in the direction of the flashes she saw or those who were targeting her. Shots directed at her often hit, but whoever hit her paid for it instantly.

Her opponents' shot was not accurate, and Amy saw many fall just because they were between her and the pack of those who were shooting wildly. She had only needed to take out Junior Feeley and then go about her own business, but they had denied her that option.

Eventually he made his way to the door and with a leap he was in the parking lot, now as chaotic as the inside of the pavilion. A cold, heavy rain was falling, and the cars and vans skidded in the water trying to escape, bumping into each other in a hurry to get away from that slaughterhouse or to take the wounded to hospital. Amy darted through the confusion, splashing in puddles as she ran to the back of the building where the Avanti had parked.

But as he was about to turn the corner, he heard someone yelling "Troy!" and turned to look.

A few meters away, a man standing in the back of a truck was pointing the double barrel of a shotgun at her. She started to raise the Nighthawk, but he fired, and two shots went off the barrels that took her full in the face.

The pain was excruciating, beyond the endurance of a human body. He felt his eyes implode in his skull, his teeth shatter, his mouth, nose and forehead open inward. And in that moment she remembered the pain of the explosion, all the pain, physical and mental, and she fell back into darkness, hearing the triumphant cry of the man who had hit her.

He opened his eyes, his eyes reconstructed. He raised his head that had regained its shape from the ground and let the rain bathe it. Her reborn brain told her that the man had to die. And he got up.

The other, with the shotgun unloaded in his hands, stood staring at her with his mouth open, his face trembling, streaked by the rain like a river of tears. His fingers loosened their grip and the rifle fell at his feet, sending a deep toll of a bell to the bottom of the chest that immediately died.

Amy jumped into the back of the pickup truck and grabbed the man by the neck with her left hand. With her right hand she clawed his face with fingers as strong and cold as steel nails, and squeezed.

His index and middle fingers pierced his eyes, his thumb and two fingers pierced the sides of his face and tore the flesh away - lips, cheeks, nose, chin - leaving the bone exposed.

And Amy screamed. She screamed for the man she had killed, for the memory of her children and for her own pain, and she screamed for what she had become.

The raindrops were her tears, and they soaked the earth.

25

No one saw where the woman went after she killed the man in the truck. If everyone was panicking before, the sight of her getting up after the shot had destroyed her face, and tearing apart the man who had shot her, sparked all hell.

Some of those who had witnessed the scene remained, however, to report to the police what they had seen; one of the last who had seen her could only tell that she had disappeared around the corner of the building.

The police questioned Arnie Bailey, who was able to give very little information about his temporary model, other than the description, the name and the fact that "this is the last fucking time I let that bitch Cyndi do a fucking replacement. . "

The news was on all the evening news, even though the only shots were shot after the fact. The organizer of the exhibition examined a video he had made in the morning, but in the only scene in which she was seen, the alleged shooter appeared only for a moment, from behind, and at a distance of about twenty meters. The only fact they all agreed on was his approximate height and the fact that the red hair was most likely a wig.

The final death toll was ten dead and fifteen wounded. The bullets from the wounded did not come from weapons that Arney Bailey was missing. "I was there," he declared to the press, "and believe me, if he was aiming for something, he would hit you."

In addition to Clarence Feeley Jr. and Barton Douglas, the parking man, four others had been killed by the Nighthawk and Cobray. All of them were shooting at the woman. The other four dead, and all the wounded, had been hit by the "friendly fire" of those who tried to hit her.

The conclusion of the investigation was that it was a premeditated murder. The first victim, the only one the woman had shot not to defend herself, was Clarence Feeley Jr., a 32-year-old unemployed bricklayer who had suffered a series of arrests for sexual offenses, none of which resulted in detention. There were those who speculated that the murder was revenge for rape, suffered by the shooter herself or by a friend, and the police were questioning all the women who had filed complaints against Feeley.

What no one could explain was the impression that all witnesses had had, that the woman had been shot countless times, including a shotgun shot in the face, and had apparently escaped unscathed. Those who weren't there suspected he was wearing a bulletproof vest. The others, those who had seen, knew it was not so.

Rick Carlisle had seen. Defying common sense, he raised his head over the counter where he was taking cover with Karl, and through the crossfire he saw the woman at the back of the room, running over the tables firing. He had seen the bullets reach her bare legs, plant themselves in her back, one hit her head. The head had snapped, but she had stopped for just a moment, immediately resumed running as if nothing had happened, firing again.

There was something too familiar about the woman, and he knew as soon as he saw her what it was. She looked like Amy, she moved like Amy.

It was Amy.

The picture in the window, the voice on the radio, and now this. If he hadn't seen her hit by bullets that would have killed anyone, he would have thought she had never died, that she had escaped the explosion and had been in hiding for six months. But he had seen, and he knew he was not a human being. It was something strange and alien and unknown, and he was following the trail to them, to those who had destroyed his dream.

Rick was following that lead too, and he would keep trying to infiltrate. And now that slaughter offered him a perfect opportunity.

He had saved Karl's life, and the boy was aware of it. And when the shooting had stopped and they saw Clarence Feeley's bloodied corpse, Karl had said to Rick, “We have to leave. We can't be here when the police arrive, right? Junior told me about you, and ... well, I shouldn't be here either. '

Rick nodded. They made their way through the crowd and Karl drove him to a dusty dark sedan. "Get in," he ordered.

"Leave your weapons here?" Rick asked.

"There's no time."

"Thanks," said Karl as they exited the parking lot. "You saved my life. Dude, I thought I was high. I couldn't even move. "

"Not at all," Rick said. “My name is Guy. Guy Adams. "

He held out his hand and Karl shook it. "I know. Junior told me. My name is Karl Withers. "

"Junior? Is that what you called it? Maybe you were related? "

Karl shook his head. “He was just a friend, and one of… well, a friend of my father. Do you want me to take you somewhere? "

"Here, I was hoping Junior would put me in touch with people."

"Yes, he told me." He thought for a moment, then put the arrow on and went into a gas station, parking next to the phone booth. "I'll make a phone call," he said. "Wait here."

He talked for a long time, but Rick couldn't catch any of the conversation. When he got back in the car, the boy was smiling. "I'll introduce you to people," he announced, and started the engine again.

He had made it. He killed that fat bastard. She didn't know before if she could kill a man in cold blood, but she did. It was as if something had taken possession of his body, turning the pain and grief into anger. And while she was shooting him, while taking his life, he had felt the most liberating sensation his spirit had ever experienced, as if taking him off the face of the earth relieved his embittered soul of a burden.

But after he died, he had to kill again. Hers had been an automatic, animal reaction.

And it had been the easiest thing in the world, aiming for the chest and shooting, shooting them down one after another until he reached the back of the room.

But when she found herself in the rain holding the flesh of the man whose face she had ripped off, for a horrible moment she had the feeling that she had become a monster, like Uncle Abraham who walked the streets of Kishinev to track down the its victims.

Then she had fled. And now she was in David Levinson's garage, sitting in the dark. He tried to focus on his next step, the demonstration tomorrow, Chip Porter.

The kitchen door opened and the silhouette of David Levinson stood out. He was in uniform and had a gun at his side. She couldn't see his face but she could hear his voice.

“Ten corpses. You left behind ten corpses. " He turned and went back inside, closing the door behind him. After a few minutes she got out of the car and followed him into the kitchen.

She found him sitting at the table, a cup of coffee in his hand. Freshly shaved and freshly combed, it was clear that his shift was about to begin. He gave her an expressionless look, looking at the tattered jacket and tattered shorts. "You haven't done anything, have you?"

"I was hurt," she replied. "I was hurt, David."

“A lot of other people got hurt too, you know? At least, if what I've heard is true. That Feeley, he was your target, right? " She just nodded. "And you killed him."

"Yup."

"And what happened then? Did you realize that you liked it? "

"No! This is not the case at all. They started shooting at me. "

"But really? Just because you killed an unarmed man? God, what indelicacy! "

"I had to defend myself."

"And from what? From the risk of being temporarily punctured? But even assuming you were justified in shooting at whoever was shooting at you, innocent bystanders also got involved, Amy. "

"Innocenti," she repeated. "You mean like my children?" Like me? Like my friend Judy? " She sat across from him and looked him in the eye. “I came back to fight a war, David. And there are no innocent bystanders in a war. I killed the ones who wanted to kill me, that's all. If their bullets hit innocent bystanders, well those who killed them now died at my hands, and so I have already avenged their deaths. If I'm wrong, if it's all my fault, then the Crow will bring them back to life to get revenge on me. And so with the help of God, or the devil, I will fight the living and the dead if I have to, to do justice. "

Levinson looked at her for a moment, as if to plumb its depths. "Do you remember how it all started? With innocent bloodshed. I know what Junior Feeley was, a piece of shit on all counts. You could have killed him ten times while he was alone, I wouldn't have said anything. But he was your target, and as far as I'm concerned nine others died for nothing. "

"So what are you going to do, officer, arrest me?"

"I really don't think I can do that."

"No you can not. If you just try, David, if you try to stop me from doing what I have to do, I'll kill you. "

He slowly shook his head. "I don't think so, Amy."

“All right, maybe I won't kill you. But the Crow does. The Crow knows what needs to be done. " He raised his still bloody hands. "But he will do it with my hands."

Levinson stared at those hands for a long time. Then he reached his arm across the table and squeezed them in his fingers. "Do what you have to do," he said. "But don't become like them."

"It's too late, David," she said, taking her hands from hers. "I think I'm already much worse."

26

Rick Carlisle had never been to the Dallas Diner. He had never even been on that road, twenty-five kilometers northwest of Hobie. He was eating a slice of blueberry pie at the end of the lunch Karl had wanted to offer him. "The least I can do for those who saved my life," the boy had said. "And then we have to wait here for my father."

This one hour earlier. Karl hadn't talked much, and they almost always ate in silence. Rick got the impression that the boy wasn't particularly heartbroken over Feeley's death. His expression rarely strayed from the kind of benevolent disinterest he'd shown since Rick had first seen him.

Nor did he noticeably revive when a blue van pulled into the parking lot. Karl just pointed it out: "Here is my father."

Karl's father only went into the club, but Rick saw that another man remained in the vehicle. "Rip Withers," the man from the table introduced himself, and shook Rick's hand; then he sat down next to his son. "My boyfriend told me you saved his skin," Withers said, staring hard at Rick.

"I just pushed him to the ground when the shooting started," Rick replied.

"He jumped over the table, that's all," said Karl probably with all the animation he was capable of. "I would have stayed there for sure."

"Then I owe you my thanks," Withers said. "Karl is my only son."

"Don't worry," Rick replied and looked away simulating embarrassment.

“Karl told me he would need a little help. You and the government don't really get along with each other, huh? "

"More or less. There are some people who would like, let's say, to have a chat with me. "

"He is wanted."

"Yup. I was telling Junior that I was looking for a group of people who ... think like me. A place where those looking for me wouldn't come, maybe I could help out with what needs to be done. Contribute to the struggle, do you understand? "

"And his name is ..."

"Guy Adams. Now my name is this. "

"And the one from before?"

Rick shook his head. "No, I'm sorry. I swore to Yahweh that I would never utter it again or use it under any circumstances. That was the name of the GOS, to me. That man is dead and so is his name. I'm Guy Adams and there's nothing more to know. "

"Well, I'll tell you something, Guy Adams," Withers said. "One who does what she did when the shooting began, one who has a lot of discipline, can be alone or a good and brave soldier, well trained, who sees a boy in trouble and helps him without thinking about his own safety, or a federal. A cop or an FBI or something, prepared for situations like that. So, who are you, Mr. Adams? "

Rick took on the sternest, most serious expression he could put on. Then he stood up. “I'll tell you who I am right away, Mr. Withers: I'm a walker. Thanks for lunch, son. Glad to have been useful to you. "

He was already in the parking lot, walking briskly up the road back to Hobie when Withers caught up with him. "Hey," she said. "Hey, come on, wait a minute."

"I don't need this shit," Rick replied. "I've eaten it since I started walking, and I don't need any more from you, from someone who should understand what I feel ..."

"Damn it, alright!" She grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him. “Now listen to me for a minute! Do you know what it means to have the responsibility of dozens of men? Do you know how much I have to trust a person before taking them into our group, showing them where we live and work, talking about our plans? I must be convinced that that person is a brother, friend! I must be sure without a shadow of a doubt that this man is a true patriot, a true son of what will one day be a free America! So don't be offended with me when I'm just trying to preserve my men's lives!

"Well then," she said more calmly, when Rick had muttered a few words of apology. “I sincerely appreciate what you have done for my son. I believe you are a good person and that you are telling me the truth, but the decision is not just up to me. There are others I need to talk to. That is, if you are interested in it. "

Rick nodded. "Yup."

“Now Karl will take you back to Hobie. Tomorrow, in Eau Claire, there is a festival of the Brotherhood of White Christians. Find yourself there. There will be a band called Shock Troops, or something like that. The bass player is one of ours. Go to him and tell him who you are. He'll nod his head to you: yes or no, depending on what we've decided. If not, we won't see each other again. If so, when the demonstration is over it will bring you to us. But be aware that if so, you are one of us. You won't be able to leave the complex. You will be a soldier. Do you have something against it? "

"No. But I'll have a hard time getting to Eau Claire. It will be more than two hundred kilometers from here and I'm without a car. "

“It means that we will see how you are able to manage. Do you have money? "

Rick shrugged. “I have about twenty dollars left. I'll make do. "

"I'm sure. The only one you can count on in this country is yourself, my friend. "

Rick smiled bitterly. "Unless you're someone who doesn't have white skin."

"Holy words. Jahvé protect you. "

"He will do it. And so with you and your boyfriend. "

Withers went back to Karl, who had stood a little apart from his father overhearing the conversation, and said to the boy a few words that Rick couldn't hear. Then Withers got into his van and drove off. Karl smiled and nodded towards the dark car.

Upon returning to Hobie, Karl asked him where he could leave him. "It doesn't matter," Rick said. "Downtown will be fine."

“I wanted to thank you again, Guy,” Karl said as Rick got out of the car. “You risked your life for me, I'm really grateful to you. Whatever you think I can do for you, just let me know. "

Rick smiled. "You could put in a good word for me with your dad."

"I will do it. I hope to see you again. Yahweh bless you. " He walked away leaving Rick on the road.

The first thing Rick did was sit down on a bench and think about the next step. The best thing would have been to have a taxi take him to the Holiday Inn parking lot where he had left his car and go home for a night's sleep. He would leave early tomorrow morning for Eau Claire, leave the car away from the festival and ask for a ride.

But when he got up he noticed a familiar shape in the reflection of a shop window. It was Karl Withers, on the other sidewalk some distance away. He moved stealthily, as if he didn't want to be seen. To check this, Rick slowly turned in his direction and out of the corner of his eye saw the boy crouching behind a parked car.

It was evident that his father had given him the task of following him, controlling him without being seen. Luckily he had noticed, otherwise in a minute Karl would have seen him take a taxi, strange move for a penniless drifter. And if he followed him, he would quickly discover that all he had told was nonsense: when he took his car, and when he arrived at his luxurious home in the trees. Rick would have been lucky if they hadn't sent someone immediately to liquidate him as a GOS agent.

Instead he had to do what Guy Adams would have done: heading to the more modest neighborhood of the city, he chose a suitable hotel.

The room, small but clean enough, faced the front, according to his request. He turned off the light, went to the window and looked at the street where darkness began to fall.

Karl was there, on the opposite sidewalk, looking uncertainly at the Excelsior Hotel. He paced up and down for a while, then made up his mind and set off along the way he had come.

Rick smiled. He hoped he had passed the exam. But now he had to phone Nancy to reassure her, let her know where he was and where he was going, at least for all he knew. When he walked out onto the street, Karl was out of sight, but Rick walked several blocks to make sure he wasn't being followed.

Then he found a phone and called Nancy.

27

“Someone is after us. Someone knows about us. " Rip Withers glanced over the crowd. The number of the small council was getting smaller and smaller. Before Will Standisti had turned out to be a traitor and had been liquidated, but in the operation Sonny had also left his skin. And now that crazed bitch had taken out Junior and nearly killed Rip's son too.

And who was left? Ray, that Jahvé would protect his poor retarded soul, Powder Burns, Chip Porter and Ace Ludwig, who became a gunsmith after Sonny's death.

"It all started with that bastard Wilson Barnes," Rip said. “Wasn't it you, Powder, who said you didn't believe in Wonder Woman? Well maybe you better start believing it. It wouldn't surprise me at all if we found out she's the same bitch who killed Sonny and Will's mom too. "

"Do you believe that story that hit her and nothing was done?" Powder asked, less arrogant than usual.

"No. I think they were a bunch of clueless panicked people, shooting at anything that moved, and so many people were hit. Karl said it was a bloody madhouse, and he never saw her hit. Those assholes missed her, that's all. You know how people do when they panic. This is why I insist so much on discipline.

«But she was looking for Junior, there is no doubt about that. He was the first one he shot and killed him with determination. " The phone rang and Rip grabbed the receiver. "Yup? He hasn't come out ... How long have you waited? ... Okay, then come back here. "

Rip hung up and looked at the others. "Maybe something good came out of all of this ... some guy saved Karl's life." He told of Guy Adams and his dark past and how he had Karl stalked him. “Looks fine. I told him to go to the Eau Claire festival tomorrow. Chip, at the end of the day, he'll introduce himself to you. Just sign him yes and bring him here. But don't talk about anything important, don't say anything about the Sons. And make sure no one is following you, check that he's not wearing sensors or shit like that, rummage him up his ass if you need to. Once here we will see if he is sincere. Another soldier suits us. So, everyone agreed to let him come? "

The men nodded. "Of course," Powder said. "But the bitch? How does he know who we are? Barnes only knew you, Rip. "

“Exactly, and he didn't even know my name. No, I suspect she got her information from Will or Sonny. "

"Sonny would never have betrayed us," Powder replied. “He was fine. Will was a traitor, it must have been him. "

Rip nodded. “He probably mentioned a few names before he died. At least Junior's. "

"But who the hell is it?" Chip Porter asked. “A mad mother, like you said, Rip? Who wants to take revenge? "

"Impossible. There's no mother capable of killing Sonny with a knife or shooting Junior and then shooting her way through like she did today at that show. This is a professional, a government-trained one. I bet if she was captured or killed it wouldn't show her identity. A killing machine, that's what it is. One of Clinton's sluts. "

"It will be Hillary herself!" Powder laughed, but no one laughed with him. "So, what should we do?"

“Watch our backs, that's all. We can't help but wait for her to find us again. If you are red in you, however, you will not hook up with strangers.

"But we can do one thing, and I want it done." Rip paused for effect looking at them one after another. «We can anticipate the big bang program. See you next week. "

The men exchanged glances, and someone took a deep breath. "But will we be ready?" Chip asked.

“We can be. True, Powder? " Powder Burns nodded. “The way I see it,” Rip continued, “if they think they've found us, they'll expect us to stay out of sight, to keep our heads down, to do nothing but worry about the state of our hiding places. And this is the perfect time to strike. We do it quickly and heavily and it will be retaliation for the men who murdered us. "

"I understand," Ace Ludwig said, and Rip saw the enjoyment of the encounter in his eyes. "They threw the fucking gauntlet off and we pick it up and throw it in their face, right?"

"Quite right."

"When?" Chip asked.

Rip looked at Powder. "When do you think you're ready?"

"Well, today is Saturday ..." Powder thought for a moment, then nodded slowly. "Tuesday."

"Fuck, this Tuesday?" Chip said.

"Already. This Tuesday. I've had enough stuff, all I have to do is put it together, but I have to do it right. It takes time to do things properly. "

"Bird shooting is scheduled for Monday," Ace said. "Do you want us to cancel it?"

"No, men need their entertainment," Rip replied. "After the shot, we'll let them know."

Rip had no doubts that everyone would be happy to hear it. He knew the plan, but now the date was very close. It was a perfect target, occupied by all the worst scoundrels who threatened the principles of the Sons of a Free America: a local FBI office, a Civil Rights office, a Minority Business Development office, and an office of the supervisory body. alcohol, tobacco and weapons.

In short, the Floyd B. Olson Federal Office of Hobie, Minnesota, with its four hundred and fifty government employees, was an absolutely ideal target.

28

The next morning the fair parking lot was occupied in all of its four hundred places. Many had parked their cars in adjacent fields and along the road, and Rita and Billy Joe White, the organizers of the Brotherhood of White Christians festival, praised their white Christian Lord for the large turnout.

They had worked hard to find a place that would allow them and those like them to come together and profess their faith together and Frontier Fairgrounds had the advantage of being privately owned, so there was no city authority or board of supervisors to deprive them. of their sacred rights. The owner of the exhibition complex had simply told Billy Joe and Rita that if they shelled out the money and promised not to kill anyone, the place was theirs for two days and two nights.

The first building, the largest, was the meeting room. This was where the speakers would deliver their speeches and the musicians would perform. It welcomed over a thousand people and Rita and Billy Joe expected to see it full most of the day.

The second building was the exhibition hall, with all the vendors' stalls. Anything could be sold, except weapons, for which the Whites were not licensed. Better this way, since yesterday's great weapons fair in Hobie had certainly been visited by the devil, who in this case had presented himself in the form of a woman.

Rita wasn't too surprised. He had always said that weapons and half-naked women gave a satanic mixture and that was why every time Billy Joe went to a weapons show Rita always accompanied him, to keep him company and to keep him away from the clutches of those working whores. in some stands. In the hands of the Lord's servants, weapons could be a real blessing, but Rita didn't understand why they had to show her sluts, along with their bodies.

But even if no weapons were seen at the festival, there were plenty of books about them, alongside those on pure Christianity, the dangers of mixing races and homosexuality, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and the Journals. Turner, Billy Joe's favorite book right after the Bible. Rita had tried to read it, but she didn't like all the violence.

At eight o'clock Rita and Billy Joe wandered around the exhibition hall, greeting all the friends and many good people they did not know but whom they welcomed as brothers and sisters into the White Christian Brotherhood. Billy Joe, for the occasion, wore a freshly pressed dark green suit instead of his usual camouflage suit; the only concession to the private militia estate was an olive green cap and a tie with a cross and the motif of the American flag.

After a while Billy Joe was in a pleasant conversation with a man selling Nazi mementos and books exposing the so-called Holocaust hype, while Rita chatted with a couple who ran a recruiting desk for the Ku Klux Klan. The pavilion was filled with stands of the most diverse paramilitary groups, religious sects and white supremacist organizations, but there were also stalls of the most varied merchandise, from car stickers to caps and T-shirts, all with unambiguous lettering and images.

There were also music and computer stands, where they explained how to open their own website on the net (the one that the Whites had was managed by a nephew of Rita: she didn't understand anything about those things), and they sold a number of CDs and tapes of different content, from old style gospel to white country to this new skinhead music.

Rita noticed that there were many more skinheads than usual. She didn't like how they dressed and their music was scary, but they were always polite and kind to her and Billy Joe, and many patriots had started out as skinheads. They were always ready to shake hands, but only with each other or with blacks or sodomites, so there was nothing wrong with that. Boys are always boys.

A piercing whistle from an amplifier forced her to plug her ears as she looked up at the stage at the back of the room. It was there that lesser known bands would play all day entertaining the salespeople and their customers. The audience would vote for the best ensemble, and eventually the winners would perform on the main stage before Wild White West, a nationally renowned country rock band, concluding the day's activities.

The first competitors were preparing. Rita saw a banjo and a mandolin and regretted not being able to hear them, but it was already a quarter to nine and in a quarter of an hour the Sunday morning service would begin in the next room. Then, all of a sudden, the whole room seemed to shut up and Rita looked towards the main entrance to see who had arrived.

The first thing he thought was that he had never seen a woman like the one he was entering at that moment, besides, not accompanied by a man. She was dressed all in black, almost like a motorcyclist, and wore a pair of dark glasses that hid her eyes. She wasn't a skinhead - a little too old to be - but she had that arrogant attitude typical of so many of them.

Many eyes followed her as she walked, but she seemed not to care. A skinhead, about ten years younger than her, approached her, and even though Rita couldn't hear what the two were saying, she got an idea of how the boy's smile faded and how he walked away red in the face. "I don't know what he tried to sell you," he said to Billy Joe, who had also noticed the scene, "but she doesn't buy."

Rita didn't have time to see how other puppies would try to impress the mystery woman. It was nearly nine o'clock, and for nothing in the world she would have wanted to miss Reverend Johnny Harkins' sermon. That was a man who said bread to bread and wine to wine.

If Dorothy Standish's mobile home was the den where monsters were raised, Amy thought, the place where she was now was the high school where they graduated. What frightened her most was the apparent normality of the people wandering the narrow corridors and sitting at the stalls selling hate.

They were smiling, happy people: they laughed, they hugged each other, they shook hands. Some even had young children with them. Boys and girls as young as five or six wore T-shirts with words of hatred that made the stomach turn, or caps with supremacist symbols. Some even showed a swastika.

Especially looking at those poor creatures Amy could barely control her anger and disgust. But she was there for her children, not for those wretches destined to become by raising the beasts their parents were turning them into. And people like Amy would have to fight their battles against those hate-filled brutes who were trained there. Those parents weren't worthy of that name, he thought. They were just monsters that spawned other monsters. The nausea he felt was such that if he had something in his stomach, he would surely throw it up right now.

But his stomach was totally empty. She hadn't eaten anything, nor slept a wink, since she returned to the world. He was hungry only for vengeance, and the only sleep he longed for was that eternal rest that would be his once he satisfied not only his soul but also those of his children.

Now she had the chance to feed the fire of vengeance that burned inside her, the chance to enter their lair and find the perpetrators: Powder Burns, Rip Withers and how many others had helped, supported them. And then he would let that flame burn until it devoured them and her in a single eruption of white light.

Today it was Chip Porter's turn. Chip Porter of Shoktrupz. And when he found it, then rock and roll would begin.

But now was the time to pray: Amy learned this when she entered the building where the holiday service was about to begin. He would hardly get any clues about the Sons of a Free America from the speakers, but he couldn't walk around the stands all day. And then, after the gun fair, she was tired of sales counters and if anyone had been present at the chaos the day before she didn't want them to see her, even if she had changed her appearance, in an environment that could stimulate memory.

Listening to what Levinson had said, Amy had determined that there would be no shooting, at least not from him. He had the knife on his ankle and he would use it to kill Chip Porter, unless he found a better way.

Then Rita White, the founder of this hate festival, gave the floor to Reverend Johnny Harkins of the Church of the Brotherhood of White Christians. The reverend, with a ridiculous wig that defied the law of gravity and a ruddy complexion evidently the result of frequent intercourse with the bottle, played his role perfectly.

It began with a prayer calling for universal peace: a speech that would have been perfectly acceptable to a clergyman if he had not added that the peace he preferred would be achieved by the extermination of all but the white races and the destruction of all races. religions except true faith in the Lord. He also prayed for the swift liquidation of homosexuals, fornicators, racial traitors, tyrants - identified with liberals - and all those rulers who wanted to impose laws other than the biblical laws of Moses.

When the good reverend had finished his prayer and had invited them to pay an offering, he delivered an even more violent sermon, while taking care not to push the listeners to violence, "unless among us there are people who belong to Satan and not to the Lord, ready to address the authorities with the same vile and Jewish spirit with which those who hated Jesus falsely testified against him to the authorities of their time ".

The sermon ended, and the congregation sang a hymn that everyone knew, but that Amy had never heard, and that asked for the Lord's help to defend the white man's values.

Amy could not get rid of the sense of amazement that there were people in the world who believed in such things, capable of hating, using a vital and uplifting concept like faith to drag people to such an ignoble level.

When Harkins' ravings had ceased, the unworthy show continued with a gospel quartet. All dressed in white, the two men and two women sang their white songs of incitement to hatred and lynching. Listening to those words, the laughter and praise of a hateful and contemptuous god who had never been hers, Amy began to feel a hatred within her that she had never felt for anyone. Everything he had learned about love was forgotten, and so were David Levinson's words of caution. He had thought of approaching Chip Porter in a secluded spot, behind his van or behind the scenes of the makeshift stage, telling him who he was and then slitting his throat.

But now he had changed his mind. Now he wanted everyone present to see what the fruit of their prayers was.

The song said: We'll watch them burn ... Maybe it was possible.

29

It was early afternoon when Rick Carlisle arrived in Eau Claire. He had left the Excelsior Hotel at six in the morning, unable to sleep in that lumpy, unscented bed, and had set out on foot to the outskirts of Hobie where he had begun to hitchhike.

He'd had to walk miles before a truck driver picked him up and dropped him off in St. Paul. He had come to Eau Claire in a series of small stages, and each time getting the ride took longer.

After paying the five-dollar ticket at the entrance, they gave him a Brotherhood of White Christian badge which, they said, he had to wear at all times. "You need to get into this building and the one next to it where all the speeches are held," the man at the box office explained. «And this card is for voting the complex you like best. Watch out for puddles. "

The place made him nauseous. Ignorance and hatred were breathed in the atmosphere of the first shed he entered. Nonetheless, he bought a hot dog, the first thing he put in his stomach that day, and sat alone at one of the picnic tables next to the counter.

At the end of the pavilion, on a raised stage, a country group was playing, surrounded by a dozen spectators. It wasn't easy to make out the words above the guitar accompaniment, and when he caught a few lines, Rick was glad he couldn't hear all the lyrics.

Chewing on his gummy sandwich, he read the ballot paper and found Shoktrupz among the groups listed in alphabetical order. When he had finished eating, he went back to the cashier and asked him if he knew when the Shoktrupz would play. The man pointed to a handwritten sign posted on the wall.

The group he was interested in was not going to perform before four. Shit, that meant he'd have to put up with three more hours of that garbage or go to the other room to listen to the speeches. He sighed and wandered around the tables, trying not to look too closely at the wares for sale.

Amy sat patiently listening to everything, letting the music, prayers, speeches, and sermons mark her already burned soul, letting their hatred feed hers. But in the end he couldn't resist anymore and had to go get some fresh air.

He went outside and turned to the back of the building. Behind the fair space opened up the cultivated plots. Here, under the cloudy sky, on the wooden fence that divided the buildings from a field bristling with dry corn stalks, lay the Raven.

It could be none other than her Raven: the wind that rustled the oats didn't even move her feathers. He stared hard at her as she approached him cautiously, fearing he might fly away. But no, he would never be scared, he seemed unable to feel fear.

And in fact it remained motionless until only a few steps separated them. "Who are you?" Amy whispered, and the Raven didn't move. "Who sent you? God? The devil? Who gave you the power you give to me? "

No reaction. Amy smiled. "'Prophet anyway, whether bird or devil.' But Poe's was a raven, wasn't it? " She stared at him into the black depths of those stone eyes. "Bird or devil," he repeated. "Or maybe bird ... and devil." He touched his chest and spoke to the Crow the words he had once said to God in his prayers: "Use me according to your will."

The Raven's beak opened slowly, and Amy almost thought she heard a word or the beginning of a thought, when suddenly something flew over her shoulder touching the bird's wing. It rose into the air and in a tangle of black feathers disappeared among the stems of the field.

Amy snapped her head around and saw, ten meters away, a skinhead in a long military jacket. He had a second stone in his hand. "I thought he was going to catch you," he said with a smile that showed off his broken teeth. "And I don't think that's the kind of beak a woman likes."

Amy didn't answer, but kept her face expressionless, with just the shadow of a smile for the approaching idiot.

"I saw you were leaving," the skinhead said, throwing the stone over his shoulder. "I realized you wanted to stretch your legs and I thought you might want the company of a strong young Aryan male." He nodded towards the field where the Raven had disappeared. "Wilderness can be dangerous."

"Wild things ... I like them," Amy replied.

«I thought so. You don't look like all the other chicks running around in here, with all that Eternal Father thing, who don't give it up until marriage and stuff. Looks like you're more of the type who's here to have a good time. "

"What kind of fun?" she asked, leaning back against the fence in the most provocative pose she could imagine.

"Well, in the meantime, kick the asses of blacks and fags, which is already a lot of fun." He laughed almost embarrassed, surprising Amy. “And then there's the other fun, the one like Adam and Eve. It is also in the Bible. And also in the Song of Songs. Do you like sex? "

Amy nodded. "I like it. But, my boy, you won't find much here, with all those reverends and girls in white buttoned up to the neck. "

"That's right. But as soon as I saw you I thought, here is someone who seems to accept the body that the Lord has given her and who knows how to use it for fun. I'm right?"

Amy had had enough. "Well, do you want to spend the day talking or do you want to fuck?"

For a moment the skinhead gasped, then managed a smile that he must have thought macho. "Fucking seems like a good idea."

Amy gestured to the field. "Let's do it in there."

"Huh?" The boy looked surprised. "It's all wet ... and cold."

"I will warm you up. And with the cold, my nipples get hard as stones. Besides all the corn is dry, and we can spread the stalks on the ground. Like a nice mattress. " He licked his lips. "I want to hear them crunching and rustling as we do it ... if you're not afraid of the wilderness ..."

He gave a grunt that was meant to be a laugh. "Fuck no." Then he looked towards the shed. "But, you know, I have a van ..."

"Forget it," Amy said, walking toward the buildings. "If you're not man enough ..."

He felt himself grabbed by the arm and with a jerk found himself face to face with him. He had to restrain himself so as not to knock him down immediately: there in the open it was not good, someone could come. And that jerk was just a small anticipation of the highlight of the day, just a way to vent some of the hatred he had accumulated against those monsters, to release the sense of helpless frustration.

“I'll show you if I'm man enough. Here we go."

Still holding her by the arm, he led her to the fence and helped her over it; together they moved among the plants higher than their heads. In short, they were out of line of sight for anyone who could see from the buildings.

The ground was muddy but the cold had hardened and dried it in several places. After about fifty meters the skinhead stopped. "Fuck this camp bullshit," he said, "and fuck you too." He pulled back the flaps of his coat and unbuttoned the flap, pulling out his penis. "And now get on your knees and get busy."

Amy looked at the shriveled contraption sticking out of his fingers, then looked the man in the face. "Could it be cold," he asked, "or is it normally?"

The skinhead raised his arm to slap her, but when he dropped his hand he found it tightened like a steel grip. The crack of bones breaking was accompanied by a shrill scream.

She immediately released his hand and struck him with her palms open over his mouth. The impact threw him backwards, knocking him to the ground so heavily that mud splattered all around. Amy squatted on his stomach, placed her hands over his mouth again and squeezed, thrusting his shaved head into the ground.

He continued to squeeze and slowly the mud covered his neck, his ears, and had reached his temples when Amy heard the rustle of corn behind him. She looked and behind her was the Raven swinging in the breeze, clawed to a stem. But his feathers were still.

Amy looked back at the man lying in the mud and saw the look of horror with which he stared at the Raven. "It all started when you were a child throwing stones at birds," he said. "And you've been doing it ever since."

With one last push the head went completely under the ground and the mud crept into the eyes and nostrils; only Amy's wrists remained above the surface.

Below her, the skinhead's body kicked and jerked, but he soon stood still. And when she removed her hands from the mud and stood up, she saw a trickle of urine flowing painfully from the still uncovered penis. This too soon ceased and the man lay there, with his head buried and his body abandoned on the ground.

"A time to sow and a time to reap," Amy said, looking at the Raven. This sent a verse, but Amy made no sense of it, except perhaps a cry of triumph with a tinge of regret.

Why, he wondered, do you feel regret? Regret for what perhaps that corpse had once been? Or regret for Amy, once so full of love, and who today lived only for revenge?

"But it doesn't matter, does it?" Amy asked the Crow, and the bird flew up, returning to the fair. Yes, it was time to go back to where there was more work to do. She felt tired, but it was a tiredness of the spirit, not of the physical. More work to do. Many lives to extinguish. A long way even before you can find peace in rest.

30

After wiping the mud from her hands with water from a fountain at the back of the main building, Amy decided not to go back to the speech room but to wait in the other pavilion for the Shoktrup to start performing: according to the program they would start them in half an hour.

As soon as she entered, she saw Rick; his back was turned but she could see his profile. Her immediate reaction was one of exultation, and in that instant she realized there was no point in hiding that she still loved him.

But a moment later he slipped out behind a panel on which one of the vendors had displayed the caps and sweatshirts of his wares. From that vantage point she repressed the urge to run to him and let the predator's logic take over, asking the most immediate questions.

Why was he there? It almost seemed like he was following her. Was he following a trail that led him to Porter? Or perhaps he was groping, sniffing out clues?

Eau Claire, however, was too out of the way to be stumbled upon by accident. Maybe there was something he wanted the two of them to be together. Something that sent him there to help her.

His fantasies almost made her laugh. How it had changed! He was beginning to see cosmic meanings in something he would once have accepted as mere coincidence, however bizarre. Now, after being brought back to life by a large black bird, what could have seemed impossible to her?

She stood half hidden behind the panel, pretending to be interested in the religious books displayed on the next counter, until she saw Rick walking towards the stage. He followed him with his eyes and saw that he greeted a man with a nearly shaved head and an electric bass hanging from his neck. From the photograph she had seen on the Internet site, Amy immediately recognized Chip Porter.

Rick didn't shake his hand but walked over and said something. Porter nodded and smiled, then said a few words and pointed to the wall beyond which was the parking lot. Rick added more, turned and walked down the hall towards her.

Amy crouched down, slipped under the panel and moved into the other lane, waiting for Rick to pass. She followed him to the front door; when she saw him go out she counted to one hundred and went out too.

Rick had already come a good way down the road to Eau Claire. Amy saw a cluster of buildings and lights a couple of miles away, possibly a shopping complex. Better that way. She was glad he was leaving. What she had to do she wanted to do it alone.

But he couldn't help but wonder what Rick and Porter had been talking about. This at least indicated that he wasn't looking blindly: he had somehow contacted one or more of the Sons of a Free America and was approaching, just like her. She just hoped to get there before him and keep him out of harm's way.

He went back inside and stood behind the series of rows of folding chairs available to the public to rest for a while and watch the bands perform. The contingent of skinheads had gathered almost all there for the number of Shoktrupz. There were about fifty of them, and Amy was the only woman present.

One of them noticed her and walked over. Amy prepared to reject another approach, but the boy just said, "Look, have you seen my friend Pete around?"

"Pete?"

"Already. He said he used to come out to talk to you some time ago. "

Amy giggled. “Yes, he came out, but I have an idea that he was angry with how I answered him. He doesn't like it if someone teases him, huh? "

Pete's friend made a puzzled face. “Well, no, I'd say no. Did he say where he was going? "

"Just something about roast corn, I don't know, does that mean anything to you?"

The skinhead shook his head. “Okay, thanks anyway. Listen, are you busy later? "

Amy smiled. "Actually, I already have plans, I'm sorry."

The other nodded and returned safely to the pack of friends. Amy turned her attention to the stage. The band was almost done with their preparations. In addition to Porter's bass there was a lead guitar, an accompanying guitar and a drums; the group name was painted on the bass drum with a lightning bolt forming the final Z. Very original, Amy thought.

One of the guitarists walked over to the microphone. "We are the Shoktrupz!" he announced, and the skinhead audience cheered and howled as they repeated the name. “And we hope you like what you hear. If you like it, vote for us. If not… ”He paused briefly. "If not, you're a bunch of black Jews and queers!"

Twenty minutes of the dullest music Amy had ever heard followed, a combination of garage band, punk and metal, with the worst of each style. The language, however, was, surprisingly, quite contained, there were no explicit sexual allusions or swear words or blasphemies. But there were numerous references to blacks, Jews and queers, as might be expected from the introductory speech.

The audience followed enthusiastically, singing in chorus, shaking their fists in the air, jumping up and down, initially ignoring the puddles of rainwater they swooped into with each jump and then having a blast from the splashes they raised. Amy made her way to the side of the stage and studied the group's equipment. What she saw pleased her and hoped that the popularity the band showed they enjoyed would bring Shoktrapz to the main stage.

Judging by the enthusiasm with which the skinhead audience rushed to post their ballot papers at the end of the performance, it was more than likely that hope would not be disappointed. The counting of votes would be held at six. This meant she had an hour and a half to take a look around the main stage and get what she needed to make the Shoktrupz performance something she wouldn't easily forget.

Rick Carlisle, seated at a secluded table in the Neptune Diner, watched the street from the window. In front of him was a plate of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn that had cost him nearly six dollars and which he was ravenously devouring. He kept an eye on the road, in case he spotted Rip Withers' van or the car Karl used, though he hadn't noticed anyone following him, either by car or on foot.

However, if one of the two vehicles showed up in the Neptune parking lot, Rick intended to get up, leave a few loose change on the table and get out. If anyone asked him, he'd had a cup of coffee, the most he could afford.

But nobody came and nobody asked him anything, and he could relax, enjoying his lunch and observing the few passing cars. Among these he saw a low, black car with a tapered body speeding by, a model he hadn't seen in years. A professor had used it as an example in one of Rick's design courses. He tried to remember its name, and finally it came: a Avanti. It was surprising that there were still around. It was a style that had to go back to the sixties.

And so, when a quarter of an hour later he saw her passing again, in the other direction, he looked at her better. He had only had a split second to see who was behind the wheel of the sports car, but it was enough for him to feel a thrill that shook him from head to toe. The profile of the woman driving the car belonged to Amy.

At first she didn't believe her eyes, then she knew for sure it was her, and then again she didn't believe it. It wasn't Amy, it couldn't be. The voice on the radio, the picture in the window, the woman at the gun fair ... all this had to have a rational explanation, it was not possible that his wife had returned from the afterlife. He must have been the one to project the image of Amy each time, so strong was his desire to see her alive again.

It had to be like that. It was easier to think that his brain was playing tricks on him than to accept the idea that she was resurrected. He smiled bitterly at his reflection in the glass. He had to be careful to keep his sanity intact.

Otherwise he would have started seeing Amy everywhere.

31

As the audience began to arrange to hear Dr. Gary Skelton's speech and the evening concert, Rita White felt the presence of the Lord beside her: that was how she said when everything was going well, and that was certainly one of those days.

The turnout had been excellent, the reaction overwhelmingly positive and everyone was very kind, even those guys with shaved heads. Rita was a little disappointed as their ensemble had won the contest and would play in the main building right after Dr. Skelton's speech and before the Wild White West concert. On the other hand they had won, and they had won cleanly. At the next festival, he thought, maybe it would be better to use a jury.

Who knows how Dr. Skelton would have taken that music: sure it would have been better if he had won one of those beautiful gospel or country bands. But Mrs. Skelton hastened to reassure her: 'No, that'll be fine. As my husband always says, times change, and if we don't stay in touch with young people, in twenty years we will be just a bunch of dinosaurs that everyone will laugh at. And that is why I am pleased to hear these good young men play ». Mrs Skelton looked at the audience. “And I'm also glad that so many parents have brought their children. It is never too early to learn which direction the Lord wants to take us. "

"He's right," agreed Rita. "Quite right: you have to teach children well while they are still small."

"And before the GOS system reaches out and teaches the opposite of what is right."

"And we thank the Lord," Rita added, "that most of the parents who are here send their children to those fine little private schools that teach the principles of the White Christian Brotherhood."

"They will be the leaders of the future," said Mrs. Skelton, with such pride that even Rita felt proud.

He smiled and looked at the stage, where Billy Joe was fumbling with the microphone, trying to set it at the right height for his introduction. Fortunately, he and Dr. Skelton were of the same stature.

Behind Billy Joe the skinhead band was preparing for their number. They looked excited and happy and Rita thought that all in all it was okay, because their hearts were beating in the right direction and because Mrs. Skelton said they were good boys.

He looked back towards the hall and was happy to see how quickly it was filling up. The chairs were all occupied and people were starting to stand along the sides and back. It was going to be a great event, a true celebration of white brotherhood and superiority.

After a few minutes Billy Joe spoke a few words into the microphone to thank the audience and introduce Dr. Skelton, the man who, according to a widely tested joke, “would have been able with his speech to persuade Martin Luther to self-start. On the contrary, "and this too aroused warm laughter from the audience," he could convince Bill Clinton to be loyal to Hillary. " No doubt, Rita thought proudly, her man knew how to take the audience.

At this point Dr. Skelton took the microphone and gave a masterful speech followed by the audience with an "amen!" almost every sentence. Rita would put her soul in that man's hands.

He spoke of the resplendent city on the hill, an all white and pure Christian America where all men are brothers, a paradise on earth in preparation for heaven in heaven, a land governed by the laws given to Moses by the Lord, in which adulterers and homosexuals and witches are stoned.

When he had finished, after inviting everyone present to keep their faith strong and to fight for what was right by any means necessary, he sat down next to his wife amidst thunderous applause of an ovation that lasted five minutes, during which he raised to thank several times.

When the Shoktrupzes took over the stage they did so with the impetus of new Hitlers invading Poland. A series of deafening chords shook the walls and roof of the shed, and Chip Porter felt it get hard to play in front of so many people. The spectators must have been almost fifteen hundred.

At the first notes, the skinheads of the audience crowded into the area immediately below the stage, some dragging the girls they had known during the day behind them, transforming the few meters that separated the stage from the first row of chairs into a sea of rhythmically swaying shaved heads.

Billy began singing the first song, "Sailors on a Sea of Blood," with an intensity Chip had never heard from him. It was the voice of an angel descended from heaven, a pissed off angel armed with a sword, ready to kill. Kurt's drums thundered and crackled, sent flames and cannon fire, and Sandy's lead guitar said everything words couldn't express.

Chip felt reborn. They had never had a better audience. Even the old folks seemed taken by their music. Hell, they were almost all up too: the whole damn hall up for them. The kids rushed to the stage pushing to make their way and the skinheads let them pass, someone had taken him on the shoulders and from up there, clinging to the bald skulls, they had the best view of the whole room.

The girls were excited too: Chip would have been a good choice. In reality what he had spotted was a more mature one, dressed in black or dark blue, who had already seen their first number at four. He was making his way through the crowd, slipping to the side of the stage, probably because he wanted to be there when they were done. Not bad at all, with that bold makeup that made her look even a little dangerous.

He stopped looking at her, returning his attention to the music. It was great, maybe the start of a whole new story for him and the kids. Yes, perhaps the Sons should have overshadowed the Shoktrupz. He'd stay until the big bang was coming, but then, well, maybe he'd hit the road with Kurt, Billy and Sandy, maybe to LA, to see what happened.

What the hell, one works for the cause in the best way he can; Why did he have to sit and fiddle with computers for Rip Withers when he was capable of rousing audiences and drawing hundreds, thousands, and possibly even millions someday into the white power camp?

Chip closed his eyes and let the music take him, dragging him into the whirlwind of his dreams.

My God, Rita thought, trying to look over the heads of the boys. They were starting to heat up a little too much, jumping up and down in the puddles in front of the stage, splashing rainwater on her stockings and, what's worse, on Dr. Skelton and Mrs.

He gave Mrs. Skelton a mortified look, as if to apologize, but she gave her a smile of tolerance, barely rolling her eyes. Dr Skelton looked kindly at the stage and kept time with his head. Billy Joe, next to Rita, put his mouth to his ear and shouted, above the din: "These guys are good ... Excellent lyrics, excellent lyrics ..."

The group was supposed to be on the fourth or fifth piece, and Rita glanced at the clock to see how long they still had to go. She hoped all those young men up front would sit down when the Wild White West started playing: a one-hour performance was scheduled, and Rita knew she couldn't stand up all that time, especially with those sweaty guys all over the place. around.

The band finished the song and Rita thought maybe they would stop now, and instead they started another one. The bass boy and lead singer moved back to the microphones and sang in what they probably thought was a harmony. The lyrics talked of a certain fire in a certain hole, whatever that meant, and two of the boys kept chanting "Fire, fire, fire, fire" over and over as the soloist played the verse. They were probably referring to hell, but Rita wasn't sure.

Then, suddenly, there was a flash behind the stage, ten times more dazzling than if someone had taken a flash photo, and the speakers whistled for a second and then, after a thunderous pop, were lifeless.

And also the Shoktrupz.

There was a strong smell of ozone and the three boys in the foreground began to tremble. His eyes rolled into their sockets and the instruments fell from his hand, hanging from his neck.

Then smoke began to rise from their clothes, and the guitarist's long hair suddenly caught fire. Rita started to scream but she realized that it was not possible, that an intense vibration was rising through her body preventing it.

She felt the vibration in her heart, as if it were beating incredibly louder than ever, as if he was vibrating too, and she could do nothing to slow it down, nothing but remain motionless feeling the sweat that bathed all over her body. And then Rita felt her heart muscles go into fibrillation and, before she even knew what was happening, she was dead.

When his body collapsed to the ground the current continued to flow through him, stronger now that Rita's flesh was in direct contact with the water collected on the floor. Billy Joe stood next to her a little longer, but then he fell on top of her without even realizing it. The Skeltons followed, and so did most of those standing in front of the stage or sitting in the front rows.

Others, further back, felt the tremor of the tremor but were far enough away to escape. Among the overturned chairs, the slowest and weakest were pushed away and overwhelmed by the strongest.

But the skinheads, the children on their backs, the girls dancing and laughing, the older ones standing looking over the heads of those in the front rows, those still sitting on the metal seats, all their hearts jumped, they hesitated, stopped.

What have I done? Amy thought. What the hell did I do?

He had wanted to kill Chip Porter, sure, and it wouldn't have been a great loss if the other members of that infernal gang died too. And so she got a roll of copper wire and a wire cutter from a shop not far away. Then, as everyone watched the show, he'd set things right, unplugging the ground plugs from the amplifiers and plugging all the electrical tools into a deadly knot.

The shock had almost sent her long stretched out on the ground. She quickly shuffled to the wall and immediately felt the concrete floor vibrate with electricity. The music on stage had ceased, replaced by the screams and noise of the metal chairs tipping over.

Then, to her horror, Amy realized that the electricity hadn't stopped on stage. The floor, wet all over and with several puddles, was functioning like the wet sponge that the executioner places on the shaven head of the death row inmate sitting in the electric chair. The current was spreading in a death lattice.

On stage, Amy could see the fallen band members who kept jolting from the electric current. Smoke rose from their bodies and the flames still flickered in the hair left on the guitarist's skull.

And in front of them, in the crowded hall, there were piles of bodies on the ground and some still standing, all filled with the deadly shiver that ran through their flesh.

Amy ran to the copper wires and grabbed them regardless of the current that attacked her, trying in vain to put her already dead heart in fibrillation. The electricity tried to repel her but she resisted, untying the copper knot with her shaking hands, untangling it with a tug. The electricity that had literally filled the room ceased and only a spectrum of ozone remained, welcoming all those newly created ghosts into the afterlife.

Then Amy walked out from the back of the stage and looked at what she had done.

Returning from lunch, Rick Carlisle saw dozens of people rushing out of the main fair building. Some were screaming in anger, others in fear. He ran to the door too, hoping that whatever happened in there wasn't involved with the bass player who was to take him to the Sons of a Free America.

But immediately, from those who fled, he learned that his contact was dead. He kept making his way through the crowd until he was able to enter the hall, which he found in panic and confusion. The danger, however, seemed to have passed.

There were dozens of dead, among the overturned chairs and the pools of water. He saw the Shoktrupz lying inert on the stage, their faces frozen in the grimace of death, their eyes wide open, their lips drawn back as in a grin. The nausea that assailed him became more acute when he saw the smaller shapes of some children, but he pushed himself towards them in the hope of being able to do something.

A woman was holding a little girl in her arms, her head bowed, as if trying to give her breath back. He seemed to be crying, and even before she raised her dry eyes to him, she knew who he was.

"Amy," he said.

If he was able to do so much, if he was so strong, so powerful, so invulnerable, why couldn't he bring that little thing back to life? He felt the tears begin to form, but he could not get out; then she heard someone calling her by name and looked up: Rick.

He looked surprised to see her, but not shocked or shocked or terrified. And, which seemed most incredible to her, she didn't ask her what she was doing there or why she was alive. He asked her, quite simply: "What happened?"

But before Amy could answer him, a young woman made her way through the people who were still inside. In obvious shock, he stared at Amy and the baby, then knelt and held out his arms. Amy put the baby down there and the woman, her face flooded with tears, hugged her daughter to her under the gaze of Rick and Amy. Then he got up and staggered to his black future.

Amy looked at Rick, who was staring at her. He took a step closer to her and reached out to reach for her, but she backed away. "No," he said. "Do not do it."

"What is this?" Rick spoke as if in a dream. "What's going on?"

"I'm killing children," she replied softly, even before realizing she had said the sentence. "Oh, Rick ..." His words flowed like a prayer: "I'm killing children."

32

They heard sirens as soon as they left the building. Ambulances, fire trucks, police cars rushed towards the fair like flies on a hare that had been crushed on the asphalt. The firefighters were the first to enter, then immediately called the medical staff, who rushed in with stretchers. Someone cut the power from the whole building.

Rick and Amy walked away from the shed towards the parking lot, and got into the Avanti. "I saw you in this car," Rick said. “And I saw you at the gun fair. And it was you in front of my window, wasn't it? "

"Yes, it was me," Amy replied, looking out the windshield.

"How ... how did you survive?"

She waited a moment before answering. "I didn't survive."

For some reason he wasn't surprised by the answer. Evidently he already knew.

And then Amy told him everything. He told him about the Raven and David Levinson and his uncle Abraham, Wilson Barnes and the others, those he had killed.

"Chip Porter," Rick muttered when she finished. “He should have taken me to the Children of a Free America. They believe that he belongs to them, that he thinks like them and that he wants to join the organization. I got there partly by accident. Yesterday during the shooting I happened to save the life of their boss's son. "

"What's your name?" Amy wanted to know. "Burns? Withers? "

“Withers. I don't know Burns. The boy's father is Rip Withers. "

"Do you know where I am?"

Rick felt as if he was being slammed into the door by the force of demand; he felt that he would have no hesitation in going over his corpse to get his hands on those people. "No. Porter would have taken me there. "

"Curse! If only I had known ... "

They remained silent as people outside kept running away and screaming. To Rick it all seemed so unreal, as if the two of them were on a quiet island in the middle of a terrible hurricane. "Amy," he finally murmured. “I don't know what to say… I never expected to see you again. I ... Nancy and I, we ... "

"I know. It does not matter. I'm happy. I didn't want you to be alone. "

"But you are here now ... You are back and I ..."

"No. I'm not back, Rick. Not forever. I'm here to do what I came back for. "

"What is that?"

"Make him pay for it ... Put things back in order ... But I don't know, I don't know ..."

Rick understood exactly what he meant. What had happened that night was wrong, deeply wrong. “I'm sorry, Amy. I'm sorry for ... for everything. What happened to you, you and the children, and this evening ... "

He shook his head. The words couldn't convey what he felt, what he wanted to say. Perhaps it was better to talk about the task they had set themselves. “They have a shelter somewhere, I'm sure, a camp, a headquarters, something like that. And they are many. Porter would have led me there, but maybe I'll be able to get there anyway. And you can follow me. "

"Like?"

“They know I'm here and they'll soon find out about the… accident. Maybe they'll send someone else to get me. Now, Withers said Porter had a van here, that he would take me to them, probably the one they use for the gear, so they could come and pick it up. I could just ... wait, stick around the parking lot. And when they come to get me, you can follow us. "

She looked at him for a long time before answering. "Why do you do this? Why did you go after them? "

“For the same reason you do it, I guess. To be able to rest. And now I have one more reason: because I want you to rest in peace too, Amy. " His voice trembled and he felt his eyes fill with tears. “Oh, God, I love you. I never stopped loving you. And if you can't come back with me, if you can't stay, I want you to be happy and at peace. "

“I don't know if I'll ever be, Rick, or if… I'll just blow out like a candle when this is all over. But know that I love you too. I will always love you, whatever it is of me, because I believe that love can never really die. "

Then he took her hand and she did not withdraw it. But it was cold, as if no blood was circulating in it. "Let's look for the van," she told him.

The vehicle was parked near the building. They recognized him from the sticker with the group name on the bumper.

"You wait here," Amy said. “I'll keep an eye on you from my car. It may take some time. Promise me one thing. When you take me there, I may not jump right into action. I don't know what I'll need. And if dawn is too close, I won't arrive until the next evening. I want there to be darkness. But when ... something happens that makes you realize that I have arrived, I want you to stay away. Hide somewhere, get safe, don't try to help me anymore. Remember, Rick, they can't do anything to me. They have already done me enough. And when it's over, run away. Don't tell anyone what happened. Nobody would believe you, not even Nancy.

“And finally, take care of her and Karin. Do you promise me?"

Rick nodded. "I promise."

She looked at him for a moment longer, then turned and walked to the car. He followed her with his eyes; he would have liked to run to her, hug her, take her away from there, go away with her to somewhere warm and sunny and let her live, give her life back with his love. In a world where the dead can be resurrected, how could such a simple thing be impossible?

Yet it was. He knew with certainty, with the same certainty with which he knew that this thing would end up in the blood.

Ace Ludwig was behind the wheel of the black Chevrolet on his way to Eau Claire while Ray Withers kept pacing the radio stations looking for updates on what had happened at the Brotherhood of White Christians party. When the first news came, Ace had assumed that Rip had completely lost his mind.

"She's still that bitch!" he screamed. “That fucking government agent! This time they were after Chip ... fuck! Those bastards! "

The few initial news had been enough for Rip to reach that conclusion. He had ordered Ace and Ray to rush to the fair immediately to see if Chip was still alive. If not, they'd have to take the van back and look for that Guy Adams. “If anyone follows you, sow it and let me know. And once you have Adams, don't lose sight of him. "

"Don't you trust him?"

“He's not necessarily the one that worries me. Do as I told you. "

And so he and Ray had left. The news on the radio came in fits and starts, but by the time they reached the fair they knew that a group called Shoktrupz was performing when a sound system failure had resulted in the deaths of dozens of spectators. The latest news report specified that all of the band members had been killed.

The fair area was total chaos. It seemed that the Martians had landed, among the means of the televisions with their antennas and red lights, and the flashing lights of the fire trucks and police cars. Ace had never seen such an amount of cops all together and he never wanted to see them again.

He left the car on the road and he and Ray walked into the parking lot. Ace almost immediately found the van parked behind the main building. Sitting on the ground, leaning with his back to the door, was a man sleeping. From Rip's description it could be the Adams they were looking for.

"Hey," Ace said, touching him with his toe. The man opened his eyes and sleepily licked his lips. "What's your name?"

“Guy… Guy Adams. Who are you?"

“We are here in the place of the man you should have met. Do you know who he was? "

"Yup. Chip Porter. " Adams stood up. "Is he one of the dead?" he asked, nodding towards the building.

"It would seem."

"So ... are you taking me to Mr. Withers?"

"From Colonel Withers," Ray corrected him.

Ace silenced him with a wave of his hand. "Maybe. Did you see what happened in there? "

Adams shook his head. “I was outside getting some air. A group too noisy for me. "

"Not anymore." Ace tossed a set of keys to Ray. “Ray, you bring the van back. Come on, you can move. " Ray got into the truck and took him out onto the road, heading towards 94. Ace motioned for Adams to follow him and together they pulled out of the parking lot towards the street where Ace's Chevrolet was parked.

33

As dawn began to touch the eastern edge of the sky, the Raven alighted. Through winding back roads that passed through the woods, they had just emerged at the top of a hill when the bird descended from its flying observatory and perched on the dead limb of an oak. To Amy's right, a dirt road, barely large for one car to drive at a time, plunged into the forest.

Since the Raven was not proceeding along the road, Amy stopped the car in the trees, where it was not visible, and got out. The light grew by the minute, and she had nothing with her: this would be just a reconnaissance expedition, to make sure this was the right place, to estimate the strength at the bottom of the dirt road and to see what he might need to fight it.

He started a short run along the road, preceded by the Crow. After a quarter of an hour he found himself in front of a sign announcing the WHITE OAK HUNTING CAMP and drove straight ahead, considering that this would be ideal terrain for a paramilitary group.

As he emerged from a bend, he saw something metallic flash in front of him. He immediately left the path and continued his run among the plants. So she advanced more slowly but she was sure not to be seen by any sentries.

Finally he spotted a metal fence at a distance, three meters high and surmounted by barbed wire. Whatever it was, this place was certainly not a game reserve. Hiding in the bushes, Amy headed left following the perimeter of the compound.

Judging by the almost straight course of the fence, this place must have been huge, and just surrounding it with fencing and barbed wire must have cost thousands of dollars.

After a long stretch, not having discovered the entrance, he turned back and finally found it at the end of the dirt road. The gate was also as narrow as the path and protected by large trees on both sides. From where he stood he could see the buildings, and with relief he spotted among the many parked vehicles the black Chevrolet in which Rick had been taken away and the van that had taken the other. The Raven had driven it well.

The buildings, in a large clearing, were military-type structures painted a gray-green color that blended well into the vegetation.

There were three large buildings and several smaller barracks. Behind the cleared area, half hidden by trees, was a partially buried circular building, like a bunker.

To the right was a shooting range, with a series of targets at one end and benches at the other. Next to the gate rose a six-meter tower, which was accessed by a ladder. It was much shorter than the trees that surrounded it, but from that height it was easy to keep an eye on anyone approaching the entrance on foot or by car.

On the turret was a man on guard. She peered into the trees, but Amy knew she couldn't spot her dark shape in the thick undergrowth. The risk was that he would hear his footsteps on the dry leaves and so he advanced cautiously, trying to put his feet on the bare ground or on the moss.

There wasn't a soul in the camp and Amy decided to wait until they woke up to see how many there were. An hour after dawn they began to leave one of the larger buildings towards another building, probably the canteen. He counted twenty-four before he saw Rick appear with the man who had brought him there. With them were two other people, a boy not yet twenty and a man over forty, whose behavior made Amy realize that he was a boss, if not the boss himself.

He had to resist the furious urge to jump over the net immediately and attack them with his bare hands. There were too many, and they would overwhelm her and reduce her to impotence before she could eliminate more than three or four. No, she would return at night, she would surprise them in the dark, the same darkness that hid them and their crimes. She would come armed with enough firepower to take them all out. This time there were no innocent bystanders among the victims. And once it was done, she could find rest. She and all her children.

But now was the time to act, stop thinking about it. She carefully backed away from the fence until she was where no one could see or hear her anymore, and then she ran back to the car, skirting the dirt path.

It was nine o'clock when he arrived at David Levinson's house. He was sitting on the living room sofa, in his dressing gown. On the small table in front of him was an almost empty bottle of scotch and he was holding a glass with almost completely melted ice cubes at the bottom. He raised a pair of puffy eyes to her and poured himself another whiskey.

"Nice work," he said. His voice was low but there was tension. "That's your doing, isn't it, that Eau Claire thing?"

She held his gaze and nodded. "My work."

"Good." He took a deep breath and let himself fall against the back of the sofa. He gestured to the table. “Pour yourself a drink. You deserved it." He took a sip and smiled. “Nineteen people died, Amy. Four were children. More than at the gun fair, and the best part is that they're all yours, you didn't need the help of friendly fire. "

She said nothing and continued to stare at him.

“And I must tell you that I am proud to be involved in it. Give help and comfort to ... what do they say, someone who kills children? I'm a policeman, I should know ... "

"You're drunk."

“Yes, sir, I'm afraid so. But not enough, because I'm still pissed. If I were enough I wouldn't feel pissed off. And do you know who I'm pissed at? "

"With me."

"Already." He made a face halfway between a smile and a grin. "Because you don't give a damn about who gets in the way, do you?"

“Go to hell, David. You haven't seen those people, I have. They were monsters, from first to last, and they were turning their children into monsters too. Ten years more and they would have been ready to burn you at the stake because you are Jewish! "

“And how the hell do you foresee the future? Yes, maybe it would have been like that, but maybe not! Maybe they would meet a teacher, or a preacher, or maybe a Jew, who would put them on the right path! Christ, Amy, they weren't predestined! Seven years, eight, for Christ's sake! You had to fight your battle, not those that could, perhaps, take place in ten years ... "

«I repeat, they were all, all of them, crazy, deranged. Those children were ... preconditioned, David. They would have become exactly like the adults who were there. "

"And with this?" Levinson almost shouted. “Amy, here we are in America, here you have the right to become a total racist asshole. You have your own battle to fight. Don't pretend you're taking someone else's side. Someone has hurt you, your children: avenge yourself on them. Kill them, make them pay. But you can't kill anyone who agrees with them. And you can't clear your conscience by saying that thanks to what you've done there will be one less battle to fight tomorrow. "

He smiled bitterly. “The way I see it, you've given all the fucking rude right-wing extremists in this country a whole nice pantheon of martyrs. With these here we will fresco the ceilings of the churches! "

Amy could no longer hold his gaze. "I didn't want this to happen," he said softly in the silence that fell between them. "I meant to kill those onstage and that's it."

«This consoles me a little. Not very much, Amy, just a little. But I don't think it makes too much difference to the relatives of the victims. " He shook his head as if trying to clear it.

“When I was in Detroit,” he went on more slowly, “I looked too long into the abyss of horror. This is why I came here. I wanted things to get better. I wanted to live in a perfect little town with a perfect wife in a perfect marriage. " He closed his eyes. “And now it seems that old chasm is opening up again. Close it, Amy. Do what you have to and close it forever. No more innocent deaths, no more angels brought prematurely from earth to heaven. " He opened his eyes and looked at her. «Swear it to me. Swear on their souls. "

Amy knelt beside him and placed a hand on top of his, trying to ignore the little shiver that ran through him at the contact. "I swear. On their souls. No more innocent people will die. On their souls. " He got up, walked to the opposite wall and turned around. “Now I've found them, David. I know where I am. All together. I'll go back there and put an end to all of this. You know that nothing can stop me: why don't you help me? "

Levinson sighed. "Before making your decision, it will be better to have some coffee."

When he had made the coffee pot, while she was sitting at the table, he went to the door to the garage, opened it and turned on the light. "There's a lot of mud on the car."

"It was raining."

He walked around the car and went back to the kitchen. “There are no scratches. Thank you."

"You are welcome. I'll try to take care of it on this last trip. "

"You could take me with you, so I would bring her back safe and sound."

She smiled. “No, I don't think so. I'll mail you a note to let you know where to find her. "

He took some papers and a pen from a drawer and handed them to him. Then he took an envelope and stamped it. “If you set it today, I will receive it tomorrow. Will you make it? "

"It will all be over by tomorrow." While he drank his coffee, she wrote the directions to the road leading to the complex and described the thicket of trees where she planned to leave the car. He added words of thanks before signing it, then folded the paper, enveloped it, wrote the address on it, and put the letter in his pocket.

"If you're going to help me," he said then, "give me a hand to finish it quickly, I'll need some things."

"For example?"

"Ammunition. The weapons are in your basement. I have a Weaver Nighthawk, nine millimeters, and a Cobray M11 / Nove. A couple of hundred bullets each should suffice. Then I'll need some camouflage clothing. Dark. And adherent: I don't want to get entangled in the vegetation. It doesn't matter that they keep warm: I don't feel cold anyway. And also camouflage paint for the skin. " He thought for a moment. “Bring me some white too. A small tube of white. "

"Other?" he asked taking notes.

"Yup. A heavy cutter. "

«I have that. The other stuff I'll have to get. While I'm shopping, you save your strength. You'll need it. "

"Yes I know."

Amy went down to the basement, not because she needed to know more through the computer or Levinson's files, but to find the darkness. It seemed the right condition for her. Everything would happen in the dark that night.

She sat in the dark for a long time, looking for calm, peace, something to focus on and something to push her, a core of steel to support and strengthen her when darkness fell. He thought first of all of the children, of their smiling faces that would never smile again, of the laughter that no one would ever hear, of the lives that would never be lived.

She thought of Judy Croft, of the joy that the presence of children gave her, of her patience, cheerfulness and understanding, all erased in an instant.

She thought of her life, of her love, Rick, who was risking everything to take her to the killers. He prayed that he would survive and return to his new family.

The prayer formed spontaneously, but when she tried to focus on the divinity she had always believed in, when she tried to picture it, the traditional image of the Christian God seemed to alter in her thinking, it began to get darker and more indistinct, thus merging with a black figure, until before his mind's eye he saw the Crow, seated like an ancient statue, much larger than his present size, staring at her with his ebony eyes.

And what he read in those eyes was indifference. Black, emotionless, brilliant with reflected light and nothing else.

But how was that possible? That creature, god, demon, or incarnation as it was, had brought her back from the realm of the dead. Why would he do that if his very raison d'etre was that cosmic indifference?

No, he had brought her back for some other emotion. If not out of love for her, as she had always expected from God, perhaps out of respect for his love and how that love had been betrayed by those who had killed her and her children. And he brought her back so that she could right the wrong.

But was it possible that God wanted other dead, innocent children, children, however predestined to evil? No, definitely not. So, if not a messenger of God, who was the Raven? Amy had never believed in the existence of the devil, of an evil embodied in a figure, separated from the actions of men. She wasn't so sure of herself now.

Still, if the Crow was evil, wouldn't he want evil men like the Sons of a Free America to live and thrive? Why would he bring her back to kill them?

Perhaps, then, there was something in between good and evil, a more primitive, more remote deity, surviving from time immemorial, a force that demanded justice and used those who had been unjustly killed to achieve its ends, not a demon. but a god, a dark and angry god.

A ravenous god.

He would never be sure, but he would let that be his answer. It was as good as any other. And if Amy was damned for what she had done so far, so much the worse. It would go on its way. She couldn't be damned twice.

It would feed the black creature that was the Raven, feed her the justice she demanded imperiously and which she longed for more than love, more than life, more than the eternal rest she hoped for in the end.

34

“As soon as you step on it, you hear a click; then if you know what it is you stay there without knowing what the hell to do. If you don't know what that click means, or, more likely, you don't even hear it, just keep walking. And as soon as you lift your foot, boom. Your legs disappear in a red cloud, the bird and the balls end up shot inside your belly, and you die that you hardly notice. If you are lucky. Many of the men now know where they are, but there are some who can't learn it, like Ray. He is my brother, and he is a very sweet person, but as a pumpkin he is not too well supplied. So if you can't remember where they are, avoid the perimeter. However, there is no reason to go around those parts. "

Rip Withers was showing Rick Carlisle the Sons of a Free America complex, which he would officially join that evening. When they arrived early in the morning, Withers was there to greet him. He was shocked that he had lost Chip Porter, his computer and electronics expert, but he had been kind enough to Rick.

She had shown him the building where the men lived and slept, had given him a towel and toiletries, and had pointed out a cot. Rick had managed to sleep for a couple of hours before the others started getting up, and when he caught up with them, Withers had taken him under the wing for the field tour, starting with the gate, the fence and the minefield.

Then she showed him the various rooms of the building, including the common room, where there was a television, a VCR and an assortment of cassettes. There were also several books, nearly all of American history, weapons, and politics. There was also a pool table, a ping-pong table and several tables for playing cards.

The cafeteria, where they had breakfast and where Rick was introduced to the men as the new recruit named Guy Adams, was large enough to accommodate a hundred people, though Withers explained that there were about twenty living there full-time, and on weekends. they came to thirty. “Some still have their jobs, they have families. But today they're all here, to shoot and ... one more thing. "

"To shoot?"

Withers led him to a large room at the back of the canteen building. When he opened the door Rick heard the voices of the birds, some singing, others making louder noises. Several large cages contained an assortment of wild birds of all kinds, from pigeons to crows to sparrows.

“We do it every two or three months. For a week we set up nets and traps and put everything we catch in here. Then tonight we let them go and take them down. Someone manages to escape, especially the smaller ones, who whiz by fast and are a difficult target. But pigeons and crows don't have much of a chance with our shooters. They are good, our men. And you, Guy? "

"I'm sorry to admit it, but I haven't held a rifle since I went hunting as a boy."

"Didn't you join the military?"

“I tried to join the marines but they didn't get me. Look." Rick took off his right shoe and sock. “The little finger is turned down. As soon as they saw him they gave me lots of goodbyes and sent me home. "

“Well, don't worry. Here you will learn how to shoot. "

The third major building was an indoor training and shooting area. There were also thick mats on the floor. “Here we practice hand-to-hand combat. Many of ours are martial arts experts. Do you practice any? "

Rick shook his head. "The spirit is ready but the flesh needs some training."

"You will have it. Now I want to show you something really interesting. "

Withers made his way to the back of the open area, where a half-buried building was in the ground. The roof was of corrugated iron and the walls of brick. Concrete steps led down to a door.

"It's what we call the powder keg," Withers explained. “A pleasantly old-fashioned name. You could also call it an armory, but the other name gives us a sense of tradition. This is where we store weapons, ammunition, explosives ... "

"The explosives?" Rick repeated.

Withers smiled. "You bet. But here is the person in charge of the santabarbara. "

Rick turned and saw a man with greasy black hair and a scarred face, some pale, some red, coming towards them. "Hello, new," the man said with a nod of his head.

“This is Ronald Burns,” Withers said, “but we all call him Powder. You see why. "

"I put a lot of myself into my work," Burns grinned, raising his left hand and showing his little and ring fingers without the last joint.

"Are you at a good point?" Withers asked him.

The other nodded cheerfully. “Another couple of hours. We can load it up tonight after the shots. " He looked at Rick. “You arrived just in time for the fireworks, man. Have you already told him? " he asked Withers, who shook his head no. Without another word Burns went down the stairs to the powder keg, opened the door and entered.

"Don't you keep it locked?" Rick marveled.

“We don't need keys here. We're all brothers. If you start thinking you can't trust a brother, well it doesn't last very long. You see, once you get in here, you don't get out for two months. At that point we understood who a true Son is and who is not. "

"And what happens if you decide someone isn't?"

Withers pointed to another ladder, beyond the powder keg, which ended underground, to a point where the ground was slightly elevated. “That's the only cell we have in the camp. If someone turns out to be a traitor, we imprison them in there. Then there is the process. Then the execution. "

"Has this ever happened?"

Withers pointed to a spot in the trees. “Guy, there's a moss-covered area over there. And under that moss the ground is very soft. And at a depth of five feet there are three men. We thought they were good warriors, Christian and white, just like you. They weren't. They were Judas. They disappeared and then nothing happened. Neither sheriffs nor feds nor others ever came looking for them. But I really feel that I can trust you. Or at least I can trust you after we've discussed something. "

Oh fuck, Rick thought. "About what?"

"Ace told me he got the impression last night that you were being followed."

“Yes, he told me. But still he sowed it. I don't know why anyone would have to follow me. Maybe they were following Ace. "

"Maybe. So you don't know who he was? "

“No, I have no idea. If I knew I would tell you. "

Rip was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Okay. Okay. Well, now I'm entrusting you to some of the guys. A bit of gun instructions, what do you think? "

"How can you say he's not the one persecuting us, Rip?"

"It was a woman, Ace," Rip Withers reminded him. They were gathered in Rip's shack, with Ray and Powder, to discuss Chip's disappearance and the arrival of Guy Adams. "A woman killed Junior and had to deal with the Wilson Barnes thing."

"What if there are two of them?" Ace insisted. "What if it's two from the government working together?" Isn't it an incredible coincidence that he was at the gun fair and then also at the party of white Christians? "

'Why, no: I told him to go there. I wanted to see if he could find a way to get there and I needed some time to get him to follow him, to see if the story he had told held up, if he was meeting up with someone ... and he didn't. He said he was broke and went to sleep in a shack. And he didn't know he was being controlled. "

“Yet I don't like it. I traveled with him for nearly three hours last night, Rip, you don't. When you spend three hours alone in the dark with one, you end up feeling what it's like, and I don't like what I've heard. Besides, I'd swear I've seen it before. "

"Well, when you think of where, come and tell me."

"Damn, Rip, I don't think this is the right time for new people, with what will be tomorrow and ..."

"He saved my son's life!" Rip snapped. “Why the fuck would he risk his skin to do it if he's here to kill us? Let's keep an eye on him, okay, let's not leave him alone, but I owe him! " A thought struck him. "Rather. We tell him what happens tomorrow. If he is really with us he will do nothing. Otherwise he'll try to get away and sound the alarm, or cheat the project by tampering with the bomb. Just keep an eye on it and block it if it tries to do something. Agree?"

It made sense to everyone present and Rip sent Ace to assign two men to control Guy Adams. When he returned it was time to talk about what had happened to Chip Porter.

“We all know what Chip was like, that he would never have caused such a mess with electricity. Right, Powder? "

Powder nodded. "Certainly. He knew his trade well. Besides, he knew that the equipment was old, and he was particularly careful about it. What happened wasn't her fault. "

“In short, it's clear that they're after us and intend to kill us one by one. They've killed three so far and nearly busted Karl. Now we're going to respond big with this bomb, but that won't stop them. We have to find that bitch, and who she works with, and get rid of them once and for all. "

"How do we do it, Rip?" Powder asked. "We don't have a surveillance section or an intelligence service or anything like that."

“No, but maybe that bitch will come to us. I have an idea that whoever was following Ace and Guy Adams last night was the same person who shocked Chip. And if they were smart enough to track us down one by one, sooner or later they will be smart enough to find this place. "

"And bring the feds," Ace added.

"Not necessarily. I don't see clear about this: they were real executions, they didn't try to arrest them for questioning. Now we need a little luck. The next time we leave this place it will be tomorrow with the bomb and we will leave with a van and two cars with four soldiers each; and we'll all be armed to the teeth. So if this slut and who else she is with is going to attack us, she has to do it today. Tonight I want the guard doubled and nobody fooling around. We've come too far to screw everything up. "

Rick was hoping that Amy would come that night to get it over with. He felt contaminated among those people, as if a bit of their madness had stuck to him in the hours they spent together.

Some of them had talked openly about what they had done so far: the executions, as they called them, of Wilson Barnes and William Standish and - hearing this story had been terrifying - Amy's asylum bombing. A man named Ed Conover had told him as if nothing had happened while teaching him how to load and use an automatic rifle.

“Okay, you're good now, man. Now let's go to the shooting range and ... "

"Ready for the big game?" Rip Withers interrupted him when he arrived at that moment. "I'll take him to the shooting range, Ed." Withers loaded a weapon in a tenth of the time it had taken Rick. "Come on, Guy."

They left the building and headed for the shooting range. "Ed told you about our 'explosive situation'?" Withers asked, chuckling. “It's nothing compared to what will be there. You arrived just in time, Guy. The delivery team has already been formed, but you will be able to participate in the honor. "

"What, uh, what do you mean?"

“I mean the Olson Building in Hobie, where all the public offices are. There will be a nice surprise tomorrow. All the plastic explosives we have accumulated in the last year, minus, of course, the one used for kindergarten. By comparison, the Oklahoma City one will look like a firecracker. After that there will be nothing left, absolutely nothing standing. "

"Tomorrow?" Rick asked. His heart pounded in his chest.

“Tomorrow morning we go into action. Powder has finished putting the bomb together. It's in the warehouse. If it were to jump, I think we would all turn into jelly. " He laughed, sitting down on one of the shooting benches. "Okay, let's practice a little with those targets ..."

As he aimed at the black circle, Rick thought about what the hell he could do. He could turn quickly to Withers and kill him and then try to reach the powder keg. But several other gunmen were present and he didn't have the slightest chance of hitting them all before they shot him down.

What if he even managed to get to the warehouse? Would he be able to blow it all up, himself included, before they caught him?

Probably not. Rick knew nothing about explosives. No, a sudden attempt at sabotage would have ended in his death and that was it. At least the powder keg wasn't locked. Maybe he could slip away and devise a way to dismantle the bomb or find a phone, even if he hadn't seen any.

And maybe, just maybe, Amy would be there in time to do something to thwart that plan.

35

Evening had finally fallen. Amy Carlisle looked at herself in the mirror: the camouflage was perfect. It would be invisible, confused in the night.

Levinson had gotten her everything she'd asked for and more. The boots she wore were engineering masterpieces, very light and sturdy, and with them she could move around the forest like a ghost. He had also brought her a military belt for his knife and also a second spare knife.

He had also provided her with extra magazines for both weapons, which she could slip into her belt.

The effect of the camouflage tints was also perfect. The general color of her face was that of mud, obtained by mixing green and brown, but she had wanted to mark her eyes and the line of her lips in white, curving it slightly upwards as in the grin of a ghost. Finally he had added, under the eyes, a last touch of white, like two tears.

"I want to blend in with the darkness," he explained, "but I also want something to see, I want them to see their death coming."

It had produced a terrifying face, the face of death that was one with the night but stood out in the dark like an angry star ready to burn anyone who tried to stop it.

"Yes," he confirmed with a shudder. "It seems to me that you are ready." Then he smiled. "I just hope you don't stop on the road."

"I'll say I'm going to a Halloween party that's a little out of time," Amy replied, smiling too.

He accompanied her to the car and they loaded the weapons and the wire cutters into the trunk. Amy got behind the wheel and looked at Levinson. “I will probably never see you again. Thanks, David. I don't know what else to say. "

“Me neither, Amy. Really. It was ... a unique experience. "

"We never talked about it, but are you a believer?"

“I know where the synagogue is, but I've never been there since I got here. I'm afraid I was a rather lukewarm Jew. " He smiled. "But what I've been through lately I think has warmed me quite a bit."

"In any case, I want to ask you one last favor."

"If I can."

«Would you pray for me? In your temple? Pray for my soul, wherever and whatever it is. And for the souls of those who have died, the innocent. "

She didn't specify whether she meant those who had died with her or those who had killed her, but it made no difference to Levinson. "I'll do it," he said. "I promise you. For all of them. "

“Thanks, David. Goodbye."

The garage door opened and she walked out into the night, toward her goal, toward the end of it all.

She drove at a moderate pace so the cops wouldn't stop her on the road. On the outskirts of Hobie he posted the letter for Levinson in a mailbox and drove on, leaving the city lights behind, pushing the black Avanti along the winding side streets and through the black forests.

The Crow that flew in front of her appeared and disappeared from time to time in the headlights. Even though she no longer needed him as a guide, she was glad he was there. "Prophet anyway, whether bird or devil," he whispered, continuing to follow him.

When he reached the dirt path that led to the complex, he took the car off the road and drove through the trees to a small clearing beside a thick bush. Here he arranged the car by covering it with the uprooted branches, then took the weapons and the wire cutters from the trunk, put the full magazines in his belt and returned to the path.

The full moon made it easier for her to find her way. Its light fell through the bare branches at the bottom of the forest, tracing a pale trail for her. It was windy, and she thought it would help cover the sound of footsteps on the dry leaves. With any luck, they wouldn't know it was coming until she was standing next to it, and her knife stuck in her back.

Ace Ludwig was pissed. He knew very well that Guy had already seen him somewhere. If only it had occurred to him ...

That story of the fugitive did not really buy it. That one there was too refined, almost as if he were masked as a bum, like in a movie. And when she talked to him in the car on the way to the camp, she gave him all the right answers, but there was something wrong. The words were right but it was as if he didn't really believe what he was saying.

But where had she seen him? He was too young for them to do military service together, and besides, he was so clumsy with guns that Ace felt like he had never had any training. Fuck, he probably never even fought in his entire life. He looked too yuppie for that.

His hands were too soft too. Whatever he had told Rip, he was not a worker. Guy Adams was a desk type, with a beautiful wife, two cars in the garage, a couple of brats in an expensive private kindergarten ...

Ace froze. Here. Kindergarten.

He went straight to the meeting room and began examining the videotapes of the material Rip had recorded about the attack. After twenty minutes of searching he found what he needed and went to find Rip.

By now it was dark but the spotlights illuminated the field and the road leading to the gate. Near the shooting area they were setting up the bird cages.

He found Rip in the mess hall, talking to some of the men over a cup of coffee. She bent down to speak in his ear. "Where is Adams?"

"I don't know," Rip replied. "But don't worry, it's seven control."

"Good. I have something to show you about our new friend. " He got up and walked back to the meeting room. Powder and Ray followed them. "Look at this," Ace said, and pushed the button on the recorder.

A reporter stood in front of the smoking rubble of the Let's Become Friends Center. The explosion had recently occurred. The reporter was explaining that probably everyone inside had been killed; then he turned and said, “I believe this is the husband of one of the victims. Sir? Lord, would you like to tell us how to ...? "

A man appeared on the screen behind the reporter, along with a woman. He looked at the lens for a split second and looked away so quickly that his face in the harsh spotlight looked blurry and distorted by motion before disappearing. Ace flicked the remote and the scene rolled back, freezing on the image of the man. "Does it remind you of anyone?" Ace asked.

There was no doubt for any of them that the man in front of the camera was Guy Adams. Ace continued the tape. "He doesn't intend to comment," the reporter resumed, turning back to the camera. "It was, we believe, Richard Carlisle, the husband of the owner of the center, who is believed to have perished in the explosion."

Ace turned off the set and looked at Rip.

"That piece of shit!" he almost shouted, leaping to his feet red in the face. "Let's find him! We must find it immediately! " He went out followed by the others, but as soon as they outside they saw the man, who by now they knew was Carlisle, coming with the two men assigned to him by the direction of the powder magazine. The two kept their guns pointed at his head.

"What?" Rip asked frantically. "What did he do?"

"Nothing, I hope," one of them replied. "He went into the warehouse, and when we reached him he was fiddling with the bomb."

"Fuck!" Powder Burns barked, and dashed to the powder keg.

Rip walked over to Carlisle and looked him in the eye. "Richard Carlisle, huh?"

Carlisle smiled. “Friends call me Rick. You can call me Richard. "

Rip gave him a backhand that made him stagger. He took a few steps back but did not fall. "Slimy dickhead!" Rip hissed. "Traitor of shit!"

Men began to gather around. Ace saw Karl coming running, with a worried expression. Rip looked at the boy, then at the others. “We have a nice present, guys. A spy! "

Karl approached Rip restlessly. "Dad ... he, well, he saved my life ..."

“He saved your life to get here, you fool! It was all organized, he was in league with the bitch! " He looked back at Carlisle with a murderous look. "Well, let's get this nigger and Jewish friend shit to the cell and have a chat with him."

At that moment Powder Burns returned, pale and exhausted. "It's all OK. He just pulled a couple of wires, tried to bust the timer, but didn't have time to do much. "

"He shouldn't have had time to do shit!" Rip growled at the two men who were to keep an eye on him. "Are you okay now?" he asked Powder.

“Yes, I rearranged everything. No danger. "

"I want extra sentries tonight," Rip ordered. “Not just at the gate but four more to cover the perimeter. Karl, you are one of them. Go to the north end. Ace, you assign the others. Come on, bring him, ”Carlisle pointed and strode toward the half-buried cell at the bottom of the forest.

Now Rick's only hope of salvation was Amy. If he didn't come he was dead; and most likely he was dead anyway. After the bomb failure, they were now taking him to the cell.

As he had feared, it was not only a prison but also a torture chamber. They tied his hands and feet to a wooden chair with straps, while another strap pinned his head. There were four of them in the cell: Ray, Powder, Withers, and Ace, who had joined them after assigning guard duty. Everyone was armed, with guns in holsters, but what Withers was holding in front of Rick's face was a knife.

Rick tried to keep smiling but he was terrified. He hoped that whatever happened he wouldn't make it to himself, but he feared it was a vain hope.

"Do you see this knife?" Withers asked. Before Rick could answer, he had stuck it in his ear and ripped through the flesh and cartilage with a side tear.

Rick let out a short cry, but stopped himself and immediately gritted his teeth. Sweat began to bead on his forehead and he felt the warmth of the blood running down his cheek.

"You won't lose much blood," Withers said. “I just wanted to let you know that I'm serious. If you don't tell me what I want to know, first I disfigure you, then mutate you, then I'll kill you. You are worse than the enemy, you are a spy and a traitor. To me you are less than a piece of meat. You will die anyway but you can make it easier ... relatively easier. Now the first thing I want to know is: who do you work with? "

This was easy. "With my partner." Companion in life, companion in death.

“Not the feds? Police?"

“They don't even know I exist. I told you, it's just me and my partner. "

"Well ... who's the bitch?"

Rick paused. "Your mom," he grinned.

Withers was evidently familiar with interrogation. He didn't lose his temper as Rick had hoped, shortening it. He barely showed a twitch of his nostrils, then moved the knife to his other ear and cut again.

“I don't like it when you're being funny, Richard. Not even a little. I don't enjoy myself, and neither do my friends. Now I can cut your ears off making you look like a dog. I can work your chest with the knife and get you a pair of saggy boobs. And I can turn you into a woman in other ways too. You mean?"

"I believe it," Rick panted.

"Good. Now I want to know who that woman is. The woman who killed Junior, the one who made Wilson Barnes sing. " She grabbed the strap around his head and yanked to reveal his throat. "Who is it? I want to know who the fuck he is! "

"How do you not know?" Rick croaked with a tight throat. "You should know that. After all, you are the one who killed her. "

"What?" The knife pulled away from his throat and the strap loosened. Rick threw his head back and looked at Withers, who was staring at him, confused. "What would it be like, I killed her?"

"My wife, Amy ... Amy Carlisle."

Withers continued to stare. Then a corner of his mouth twisted into a smile and he burst into a horrible, catarrh laugh. "What are you saying? She's dead!"

"Exact. And then she came back. "

For a long moment, a look of dread gripped Rip Withers. Then his features hardened and he raised the knife within two fingers of Rick's right eye. "You're a fucking liar and liars happen to lose important things."

"I'm not a liar," Rick said with all possible warmth. “Your son saw that they hit her and kept walking. She burned your guitarist, she took the shock too and walked away with her legs. You can't kill her, Withers. " He managed to smile.

Withers swallowed hard and the knife slowly moved away from Rick's eye. When he spoke, his voice had a tremor that Rick had no trouble catching. “I don't care who the hell he is. If he comes here, he will die. If he tries to stop us he will die. "

"Will be difficult. As I said, she's already dead. "

"And you will follow her!" Withers said, standing up. "Right after the shots, whoever gets the most will finish you off, you wretched fag!" By tomorrow morning there will be another pit under the moss! "

"There'll be a lot of deaths by tomorrow morning, Withers."

"Put someone on guard for this asshole," Rip ordered Ace and left the cell followed by Powder and Ray. She couldn't stay near him for another second longer. He was afraid that piece of shit would push him too far and get himself killed. No, she still wanted him alive for a while, to think about death, about the idea of being shot down like a dog in the presence of the people she hated most in the world.

"What do you think, Rip?" Powder asked. "What do you think of what he said?"

He turned around and came face to face with Powder. "What do I think? I think, well, Amy Carlisle is resurrected as well. If she is capable of handling a weapon we are capable of shooting her and shooting her again, and again, until she is reduced to so many pieces that that bitch will never be able to put herself back together again! "

Ray looked down for a moment, thinking painfully, then looked up again. "But we have already done this."

Rip gritted his teeth. He couldn't find the words to answer. He was furious, anxious and frightened, for the spy, for the woman, for the attack the next day. There was too much to think about and worry about.

And so he decided not to think at all. Better to kill something. "Hey!" he exclaimed, feigning cheerfulness with the men who surrounded the cages in the area of the shooting range. "Who wants to shoot some birds?"

36

Amy had determined that the best place to enter the brightly lit area was the opposite side of the gate. There was nothing to suggest that the Sons of a Free America knew someone had discovered their lair and if those bastards were as inept in safety as they appeared in everything else, he would have no trouble getting in; and once inside the best thing would have been to attack them and take them out one by one, or a few at a time.

He wondered how Rick was doing. His mission had required more courage than it had taken her: he had far more to lose than her. If only she could stop thinking about him, being so anxious about him.

If only she could stop loving him so much.

While remaining outside the lighted area, he approached the fence in order to keep it in plain sight. At one point he saw something move to the other side and at first thought it was a deer. But when he froze and looked more closely he saw that he moved with the unmistakable gait of a man who wanders slowly and carefully.

So there were more sentries that night. Then more prudence was needed.

When he heard the first shot he threw himself to the ground, even though the noise was not close. Another shot followed, then more, and he realized they were coming from the lighted area near the sheds. Maybe Levinson and other cops had followed her and there was a shooting going on.

But it was not possible, the shots followed one another at too spaced intervals: it was probably a training or a competition. In any case, since not only the men on guard were around armed, his caution had to increase even more.

Finally he reached the point where the fence began to curve eastward, and slowly advanced through the dry leaves until he reached the metal fence. The barbed wire at the top glowed in the moonlight.

In a few minutes he made a sufficient opening. He abandoned the cutter and went inside: from then on he would need nothing more than his weapons.

Once inside he paused and listened, but heard only the wind and the shots from the south. He searched the trees with his eyes but caught no movement.

She could have headed straight for the buildings, through the trees in the center of the fenced area, but she thought that if she followed the perimeter she would run into the sentries and take them out one by one. Their attention was certainly directed towards the outside of the fence, not towards the inside. He therefore began to follow the net, keeping a distance of a few meters. The weapons were both slung and this left her hands free. It was not yet time to get attention: the knife would have been ideal.

He saw the first sentry after traveling two hundred meters. He was a big fat man, and he was carrying an assault rifle, advancing unaware towards her through the trees. As expected, he was looking in the direction of the net. Pulling out the knife, he hid behind a log and waited for it to come closer.

It was almost too easy. She only had to take one step to reach it as soon as it passed. Blocking his head with one arm and slitting his throat was a matter of seconds.

He wiped the blade off the dry leaves, put it back in its sheath, and took the dead man's weapon. He decided to use that first and throw it away as soon as it unloaded. It would have saved her a change of magazine.

On the other side of the complex, shots continued to come as she dragged the body into the bushes. Resuming his walk, he had traveled about fifty meters when he felt his foot land on something that was not the ground of the forest floor.

Before she had time to wonder what it could be, the world erupted in a blaze around her and intense pain assaulted her body. She felt her feet and legs tearing apart and like fists of fire penetrating her chest, tearing her bowels as if they were paper. He flew, his flesh ravaged, into the night sky, seeing the bow of blood splashing from his mutilated body. He fell heavily on his back and stared at the moon through the skeletal branches of a tree.

His pounding brain knew it had been a mine. A mine that had exploded under her feet and had torn her apart.

Then his eyes saw the Raven alight on a branch, so black that its shape eclipsed the moon. He seemed to be looking at her, even though his eyes were in shadow, and she knew her mission wasn't over. He asked no questions. He did not lift his head to look at his body to see if he was capable of standing up. He simply sat up and stood up.

Her clothes hung in tatters over her flesh, which had recomposed as if the mine had never exploded. The weapons he was carrying had been thrown away from the force of the blast, but when he picked them up they still looked functional. Even the knife, he noted with pleasure, hadn't lost its sharpness.

A rustle above her head made her look up; the Raven had resumed its flight south, towards the sound of gunfire and the lights. Amy set off again.

37

Powder Burns looked up in alarm. "Have you heard?" he asked Rip Withers who was standing next to him watching the shooting.

"What?"

"It looked like something up north, a shot or an explosion, something."

"No, you heard an echo, that's all," Withers assured him.

Powder thought about it. The sound had come right after a shot, Maybe Rip was right, it was just an echo. Yet he had something ... and the more Powder he thought about it the more confident he felt that it wasn't the rumble of the shot but an antipersonnel mine that had gone off.

It happened every now and then, but it was always a deer who had the misfortune to take the wrong step. With the sentries to the north, where they weren't used to patrolling, anything was possible, even if they were continually warned not to approach the net.

Powder tried to push the thought away by focusing on the men shooting the birds. There was a certain beauty to it, with the bird flying free in the floodlit sky, then the sound of the shot, and the animal flying away as the men noisily scoffed at the lack of aim. companion or, as it happened nine times out of ten, exploded in a cloud of blood and feathers.

Ed Conover took his seat and shouted, "Go!" A pigeon shot through the sky, zigzagged for a couple of seconds and then Ed disintegrated it on the first shot.

As he watched the bird dissolve into the air, Powder thought about the effect that landmines had and it occurred to him that there, around the perimeter, a few meters from those bombs, was also Karl Withers, the nicest boy, if not the smartest he had ever known; and it was that aspect, her not particularly lively intelligence, that now troubled him.

But yes, there was nothing to lose in checking. He could get there and back in half an hour. He would carry a torch and whistle one of their songs all the way so the sentries would know it was him. Better to take a gun too, you never know.

Phil Riley, who was much closer than Powder Burns, knew damn well what that noise was. Someone, or something, had run into a mine, and just thinking about it gave him goosebumps. He walked briskly towards the explosion, praying it wasn't one of the brothers.

Phil was not afraid of mines. Not that he remembered exactly where they were placed one by one, but he knew how far he had to keep from the fence to avoid blowing his balls. But some of the brothers were much less cautious than he.

If he was going to die, he wanted to do it for a reason, for a cause. He wanted to leave with as many Jews and blacks as possible. Make those bastards pay for it.

He slowed his pace as he came close to where the blast had come. And then he saw it, in the light of the moon. There was a small crater in the ground, certainly where a mine had exploded, but there was no body around. What the fuck was going on?

He leaned the rifle against a log and advanced cautiously towards the crater. He was kneeling looking down the hole, looking for signs of flesh or blood, when he heard the crackle of dry leaves behind him. He turned, and between himself and his rifle saw the worst nightmare he could imagine.

The figure was all dark. Her skin looked black under the moon, and her clothes hung in tatters from her slender frame. His face was almost black except for his eyes, two white circles with a dark spot in the middle, and his mouth, a pale painted smile. It looked like a crazy carnival mask. And he had a large knife in his hand.

Phil couldn't even speak. His mouth moved but no sound came out. Finally his mind cleared a little, enough for him to reach for the knife on his belt and extract it from its sheath. The black shape did not move.

Phil pounced on her and tried to scream, "Die, you nigga!" but the words came out strangled and incomprehensible. However, the blade entered the negro's belly and Phil jerked to the side and took a step back.

The negro didn't move. He just smiled; Phil could also see the white of his teeth surrounded by the painted white of his lips. Then he spoke, in the voice of a woman. "It's not okay to swear." The negro's arm snapped and plunged the knife into the same spot he had stabbed it. "Buzzard," he said, and tore the knife sideways, exactly as Phil had.

On Phil the effect was much more visible. He brought his hand to his hip to try to hold back the guts that poured over his belt, but to no great effect. Then he sat down, trying to get the warm mass that spread over his hands and forearms into his body. But, damn it, he couldn't, so it didn't work: could he have to die like that, for nothing, and at the hands of a shitty nigga? It was absurd that he should die like that.

He died thus.

* * *

Amy picked up the dead man's weapon, a good replacement for the one the mine had destroyed, and ran lightly through the trees.

It was not twenty meters that she saw another shape advancing towards her. Well, he thought. Another.

He slipped behind a stump and waited. The figure came to her height and when she peeked out from behind the tree she saw that he was just a boy, no more than eighteen. In his wide eyes you could see fear. The weapon he held in his hands looked immense. He was no taller than Amy, and perhaps he weighed less.

He looked innocent. Young and innocent and innocent. There was no other word to describe it. What had she promised Levinson? That there would be no innocent deaths.

But what could he do? The boy was armed, and if he fired, he would alert the others. His plan of catching them off guard one by one had worked so far, and there was no reason to change it now.

She had to stop him from shooting without hurting him.

Let's see how innocent he really is, Amy thought, putting her weapons down. She staggered out of her hiding place a few meters from the boy, holding her head down so that he couldn't see the painted face, and moaning: "Help ... please help me."

Yes, he was really innocent. He ran immediately, lowering the rifle. As soon as he was close enough she snatched it from his hands, threw it away and pointed the knife at his throat. “I don't want to hurt you,” he said, “but I can. I've already killed two other men. "

At these words the boy panicked, staggered backward, turned and ran. She caught up with him in an instant and was on top of him, dropping him to the soft forest floor. She trembled beneath her and tried to free herself; turning his head his face came into contact with hers, cheek to cheek, flesh to flesh ...

And a stream of images, more vivid than in the most intense of dreams, passed from his mind into that of Amy, who immediately knew his name, knew who her father was, saw his soul, what she had made of him, what it was ...

The flushed, angry face of a man looming over him, clenched fists, palms, hands outstretched, fingers as hard as wands. Be a man, damn, be a man, don't let those niggas put you down.

The hands, those big hands that rained like thunder and lightning, that pushed him away. Stop, dad, stop, don't hit her!

A woman sobbing, her face flooded with tears, a bleeding lip, black eyes. I saw you, how you looked at that black stud, how you peeked at that gorilla's cock, bitch, bitch, black bitch!

A game in the yard, and daddy, daddy coming out screaming, Out of my yard, damn jewish brat, and unsure But he's my friend, and daddy and jewish hands ain't your friends, lousy leeches that haunt this fucking country, niggas, filthy niggas and Jews, they're full of them the schools!

Jews, damned Jews, all their fault, and the fags and the blacks and the Spaniards and the Chinese and the Italians ...

Be a man. Be a man. I will teach you to be a man!

Dad's hands. Dad's hands. Dad's hands.

And then peace, a place of calm, the arms of the mother and her voice, tender as a kiss, that cries and tells him: He is not your father, he is not your father, you must never tell him, but he is not your father. ...

And then a name, the name of his real father, the name that his mother told him to forget but which he will never ...

Amy felt all the bitterness of the boy's life, the secrets and the hatred and poison they had instilled in him day by day until he succumbed, succumbed to it, and let his soul die.

She pulled away from him as if prolonged contact could poison her too. He stood there on his side and slowly sat up, shoulders hunched and burst into tears.

"Don't be afraid," she said, "don't worry, I won't do anything to you." Then he took him to a tree and tied him to the trunk, trying not to hurt him, with strips of canvas ripped from the suit and with the straps of the weapons. Then he gagged him making sure he didn't have trouble breathing.

"When it's over, I'll come back to free you." Then he resumed his march south.

She was running across the carpet of dry leaves when suddenly the Crow appeared in front of her. It fluttered down and landed on the ground as if to block her way. She stopped and the Crow drew walking a circle on the ground. Then he understood, he took off his weapons and placed them on the ground, took the knife and bent down in front of the bird that took off again.

Using the knife as a probe, he gently plunged it into the ground repeatedly until he heard a metallic click and felt the tip touch something hard. It was another mine, and he kept sticking the knife until he knew for sure where it was; then he began to dig for it. She wasn't sure what use she would make of it, but she could already see him throwing her like a Frisbee into the middle of the Sons of a Free America: an image that almost made her laugh.

She had just stood up holding the lead with one hand by the carrying handle and the other under the base when she heard a voice behind her. "Stop where you are ... Turn slowly."

She did as she was told and found herself standing before a tall, thin man with a scarred face and a pair of staring eyes behind his metal-rimmed glasses.

"Hello," she greeted, holding the lead in front of her so that the pressure plate was facing the man.

He began to back away, but she followed him, slowly reducing the ten-foot distance that separated them. "Wait a minute!" the man exclaimed. "Be quiet! If that thing bursts we're both dead. "

"Are you really sure?" Amy asked in a light tone very inappropriate to the gravity of the situation. He didn't want to suffer another explosion, but he wasn't afraid of it.

"Yes, yes," stammered the other. “I'm fucking sure. I know my traps, understand? "

"Your traps ...?" An idea crossed Amy's mind. "Was it you who planted them?" She came closer.

The man tried to back off again but ran into a tree. The contact made him jump. "Yes, it's mine ..." She looked around frantically for a way out.

"You're the bomb expert," Amy said slowly. "The one who put them in the center." The man didn't answer, too busy thinking about how to get out of that mess. Then it occurred to her. "Gunpowder ... Powder ..." He studied the scars on that terrified face more closely. "You are Powder Burns."

He neither admitted nor denied it, but began to slide his back around the trunk.

"No," Amy said, taking a step closer to him and making him freeze. "Do not go. I know someone who would like to see you, Powder. They will want to welcome you ... "

She pressed against him and for the third time in her life the world exploded.

This time she saw the results of the explosion on someone else, not just herself. The explosive charge shattered Powder Burns' chest, leaving the hollow arch of his shoulders, from which the torn muscles hung like festoons. For a moment Amy looked at the head that surmounted that arch, a face ripped off by the splinters, which had shot the lenses into the sockets and deep in the brain. Then the face collapsed, along with the shoulders, hitting the ground with a wet thud and Amy collapsed too, torn and dismembered once again.

And once again, miraculously, it was healed.

He picked up his weapons and started walking again, moving towards the depths of the forest. He had had enough of mines; the noise of the last one, not muffled by the ground, had certainly reached the ears of the others present in the complex. Now they knew. They knew someone had entered. And that killed.

38

It was the night David Levinson was off duty, but he wasn't resting. Tuned to the police frequencies, he was looking for any news he might connect with Amy Carlisle or with paramilitary groups. Forest fires, unexplained gunshots, explosions, anything like that, and he'd be there in a minute.

But in and around Hobie it was a quiet night. There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary and it was driving him crazy.

More than anything else he wanted to help Amy Carlisle put an end to this. He had been her accomplice, had helped her more than once to break the law, even contributing to the deaths of innocent people; he knew he would take that sin to the grave, where he would have to answer for ... something.

Before all this began Levinson thought that the dead were just dead. The Sheol of his ancestors was just that, the afterlife, the subterranean place where bodies rot and decay. But now he knew there was something more, some other place Amy had come back to do what she had to do.

He wanted to help her because he wanted to see justice realized. But there was also another reason. As absurd, impossible, even blasphemous it seemed, he was a little in love with that woman. Perhaps that was precisely why he was fascinated by it: it was impossible, inaccessible, and therefore safe.

He thought about pouring himself a drink, but decided it was best not to, in case he got some news and he had to move quickly. Rather, he put a cassette in the VCR. It was a copy of a shoot taken at the gun fair, the one from which the brief scene in which Amy could be glimpsed was taken. He looked mostly at her to see her, only to see the fleeting image of her from behind.

Yes, it was her. He recognized her by the way she moved. He saw her for two seconds and then the camera passed by. He went back and played the tape again, thinking of her, barely noticing what was passing in front of his eyes, at least until he saw Rick Carlisle crossing the frame from right to left, then exiting the scene.

Levinson grabbed the remote and walked back. Yes, it was Carlisle. There was not the slightest doubt. What the hell was he doing there?

And then the idea came to him that the vigilantes were not one but two, one alive and the other dead.

He looked up Carlisle's number and dialed it. If it turned out he had an interest in guns, which he doubted, it was explained. If not, or if he denied having been there ...

A woman answered, and when Levinson introduced himself as Agent Levinson, he immediately felt a moment of panic at the other end of the line. Before he could say anything else, the woman asked, “Are you okay? Did you find Rick? "

Oh shit, Levinson thought, but he just said, "Excuse me, ma'am, who are you?"

“I'm Nancy, his wife. Do you know where it is? "

“No, I don't know, but I think we should have a chat. Can I come to you? "

Before leaving he took his service revolver and a Winchester 1300 Defender, a seven-shot shotgun, which he slipped under the seat of the car. He didn't think he would need it for the new Mrs. Carlisle, but God only knew what Mr. Carlisle had gotten into.

39

When the second mine exploded, the one that killed Powder Burns, Tom Danvers had just missed a pigeon that had been shot down by Ace Ludwig on the second shot, just before it disappeared into the trees. As the boos for Danvers and congratulations for Ace went off and as Rip Withers was thinking of scolding him for not having to shoot at another's target, the roar was heard.

"What the fuck was that?" Rip exclaimed looking around for Powder Burns and thinking that maybe Burns had been right and that what they had heard earlier was indeed a mine. But there was no sign of Powder. Oh, fuck, and Karl was on guard down there.

"Ace," he ordered. "Go with someone over there to see what's going on and watch where you step." Ace nodded and chose five men, the flower of the Sons.

Ace did not protest that he was dismissed from the match. He had reached a full ten out of ten, a score that so far no one had matched and very unlikely would have been later. Apparently he was going to have the pleasure of taking out that fucking liberal tied up in the cell. And surely it would have made it an interesting operation.

Rip just hoped it wasn't Karl who had set foot on one of Powder's mines. If anything had happened to him, he would have torn Powder apart with his hands.

Then he thought of tomorrow's schedule and decided he would tear it apart later. Better yet, she would leave him bound and gagged inside the van to enjoy the result of his work up close.

What the hell, Rip thought. It was probably not Karl at all. Like everyone else, he had been told a hundred times not to get closer than three meters from the fence. Perhaps this time too it had been a deer. Everyone was a little tense, knowing what awaited them the next day.

He heard them coming into the trees. If they thought they were sneaking up, they needed quite a bit of additional training.

They moved in line, five or six to judge by the noise; Amy crouched among the logs pulling out the knife and placing herself where the last one on the right would pass. He heard a rustle high above him and imagined the Crow, his companion, his collaborator, alighting on a branch.

When the man passed he came out of hiding behind him, put his arm around his head and cut his throat. But unlike the other victims, the man had his finger on the trigger, and a spasmodic twitch of the hand sent a burst to chip the logs and fill the forest with the roar of the automatic.

Ace Ludwig had been well trained by the government he hated. As soon as he heard the first shot, he immediately flung himself to the ground, shouting: "Down!" to the rest of the team. The shots came from the right flank, where Tannahill was. The noise stopped and Ace saw, in the moonlight, Tannahill collapse to the ground and a shadowy figure slip away into the shelter of the trees.

"Three shots!" he yelled at Andy Brett, meaning he had to shoot three times to warn base camp. Then he got up and dived through the trees towards the one who had cut down Tannahill.

He saw the shape appearing and disappearing between the trunks, but without leaving him a clear line of sight; increased the pace. Now that he was closer, he leaned against a tree and aimed his weapon, waiting for movement.

The movement came, but it was higher than he expected. For a moment he thought that perhaps the intruder had climbed on a plant, but before the thought was fully formed he was already firing in bursts at the indistinct black shape that moved. He felt the first bullets sink into the wood, but his heart leapt as he heard them penetrate with a softer sound into something moist and yielding.

The fire stopped. In the silence that followed there was a cry, a human cry that seemed to come from behind the tree where he thought he saw movement. Then he heard something flicker down. From the noise he made when he hit the ground among the dry leaves, he thought that if it was a person it must be a bloody small person.

When he reached the dying thing, the moonlight was strong enough to show him what he had been shooting at. "Shit," she said when she saw him. "A fucking crow."

The bird appeared to be hit twice. One bullet had neatly severed one wing, which dangled attached to a tendon, while the other had hit him between the belly and chest, leaving a large red hole. He thought he saw the heart beating, black under the moon.

"Fuck you," she snarled, and placed her foot on his head, crushing it into the carpet of dead leaves.

"Ace?" It was Andy Brett, approaching cautiously. "What was it?"

“Just a fucking bird nigga. A cursed crow. But now he's dead. Tannahill? "

Brett shook his head. “They cut his throat. Is dead."

"Fuck!" The others were approaching too. Ace counted four with Brett. So Tannahill was the only one out of action. But where were the sentries? "There's someone here," he said, looking around. "Someone who's killing ours and heading for the camp."

They marched south towards the buildings and the lights.

When Amy heard the shots she thought she had been shot. An excruciating pain in her right arm forced her to drop the weapon she had taken from the dead man, and a grip in the stomach, like a fist of fire, caused her to fall to her knees and collapse to the ground. The pain was so strong that he could not help but stand there still wishing he would die. But that was just the beginning.

Suddenly he felt the pressure in his skull build up, as if the brain was expanding against the box of bone, as if the only relief could come the moment the head splits. The pressure increased even more. He felt his eyes pressing outward, as if they wanted to pop out of their sockets; his ears buzzed with the blood pulsing behind his eardrums, looking for an exit.

Then the head burst and there was only darkness.

When he woke up he had no idea how long it had been. Of the unbearable pain in the head, only a feeling of weight remained. He felt like he had taken a hard blow to the stomach and his arm was still numb and sore.

There was more, too, something different that he couldn't identify. He felt different, perhaps weaker. Yes, that was it. She was tired, very tired, exhausted. He had to try to get to the end so that he could finally rest.

He heard something coming from the north and scrambled to his feet. The dead man's gun was on the ground and she picked it up, but was baffled by how heavier it looked now. He started running.

More and more tired. It stumbled in the roots, got entangled in the brambles. The whole forest seemed to have allied itself with her pursuers, determined to stand in her way.

He swore under his breath and carried on. The lights of the field shone in the trees; he pointed his rifle forward, at all those Sons of a Free America that he would soon put to rest in the land of America. It was just that now, one last shooting, her against them all. But her bullets would kill, while theirs would only pass through and leave her unharmed. They would have hurt her, but she had already made a sufficient supply of suffering for all eternity. He would have endured these too.

Now he could make out the sheds among the trees, see something moving, men walking, peering in her direction, where she was hiding. Behind her, the footsteps of her pursuers on the dry leaves came closer.

It was time. He bolted out of his cover, pointed the gun at the men in front of him and pulled the trigger, knocking down two of them. But the others responded promptly to the fire. Suddenly something hit her arm and her weapon fell to the ground. She stood there for a moment, empty-handed, not understanding what had happened, while other bullets whistled past her.

Then the shooting stopped, without her knowing why. All he knew was that he had fire in his arm and that blood was soaking the remaining shreds of his sleeve. Something moved behind her but she lacked the strength to turn around and see what it was.

His head exploded into a sphere of pain and the whole scene around him flickered before his eyes. And as she collapsed to the ground the words crossed her mind:

I am a mortal being, subject to fall ...

40

Nancy Carlisle was in anguish when Levinson arrived at the house where she lived with Rick. When he calmed her down she told him all about Rick and his obsession with finding Amy's killers, adding that in the last phone call, two days ago, he had told her he had made contact with a Free America.

“Ms. Carlisle,” Levinson said, “I think you need to come to Central for the report. We need to start looking for her husband as soon as possible. "

"Do you think he's in danger?" she asked in a voice that trembled.

“Yes, I'd say it's very likely. The sooner we find it, the better. "

Yes, this was the most sensible way. He would search the entire force, call the feds, and find not only Rick Carlisle but also the bastards he and Amy were after. Probably the police could only have counted the victims when she was done, but at least Levinson had a chance not to hang around.

The road to the police station passed by the empty lot where the kindergarten once stood. As always it looked tragic and desolate under the light of the street lamps placed at both corners. Levinson glanced at the thick layer of dust that covered the ground and then, without thinking, clicked on the brakes.

"What's up? What's up?" Nancy asked in surprise. Levinson pointed to the rubble until she saw it too.

The dust moved, even though the wind had died down and no longer stirred the last of the dry leaves left on the trees. The whitish dust, the pale ash that had once been the Let's Become Friends Center and the people who had died there, was gathering in waves in many small mounds. The piles grew in height, extended into rounded cylinders, topped by smaller piles. As Levinson and Nancy watched, they were taking the shape of birds.

There were ten; their color darkened progressively from ash gray to such a deep black that they would have been invisible in the dark of night were it not for the reflection of street lighting on their shiny feathers.

Then the birds spread their wings, and even through the closed windows Levinson heard their noise, like torn paper, as these newly created creatures first moved. They broke off the ground in unison, beating the night air with their great wings, and headed north.

Without a word, Levinson began to follow them. Nancy Carlisle didn't protest.

"Wake up, you fucking bitch!"

The slap on the face made her regain consciousness. She was cold, more cold than she had ever been since she returned to the living. The pain in his arm had become unbearable and when he tried to move it, to put it in a more comfortable position, he noticed that his wrists were tied behind his back.

He blinked several times and saw that she was tied to a chair. Three men she didn't know stood in front of her. The one who slapped her was panting, his teeth clenched and his fists clenched. A .45 was tucked into his belt holster and a knife in the sheath hung on his left hip.

The other two also wore camouflage. One of them was armed with an assault rifle. Under the dark mustache there was a hint of a smile. The third was freshly shaved and vaguely resembled the first. The absent expression made Amy think he must be a bit retarded.

"So, are you awake?" said the first. "Look around you, bitch, do you see anyone you know?"

Amy turned her head. Beside her, tied like her on a chair, was Rick. Instinctively he spoke his name. "Rick ... oh God."

"Rick, huh?" said the first man. “So, Ricky, apparently you know our little friend. Why don't you introduce us? "

Rick looked scary. Both ears were cut off and congealed blood crusted his neck. He had a bruised face and a black eye. But he smiled at her anyway. “You already know it. But if you like formalities ... This is Ace Ludwig, Ray Withers and his funny brother Rip. "

Rip Withers. The first name William Standish had given her. He had it in front of him and there was absolutely nothing he could do to him.

"And the bitch, what's the name of the bitch?" Rip Withers inquired.

Rick continued to smile, but now he was smiling at Rip Withers. “As I told you, you already know her. You killed her. And my wife Amy. "

Rip Withers looked at him as if he thought he was mad, but then his expression cleared. "I understand," he said. "Now I understand. They didn't find your body but not because you disintegrated, but because you weren't in there. You obviously got out before it started and you've given yourself up for dead ever since, huh? "

"No," Amy replied. "I am dead. And I'm back. For you." He tried to free himself but the ropes were tight and he felt another painful sting in his arms. It seemed to her that all her strength had vanished, as if she had become another, completely different from the one the Raven had brought back to life.

"Well, you've had a great time so far," Rip said. “But the game ends here. Where is my son? "

"Who?"

«Don't bullshit me! My boyfriend was sentry over there! My son, Karl! What have you done to him? " The knife came out of its sheath and Withers brandished it before his eyes. "Tell me or I swear to Yahweh I'll cut your boobs and make Ricky eat them!"

“Your son is alive. I tied him up. "

"You already know that you must die, but if you hurt him it will be a long and painful affair." He turned to the man with the rifle. “Ace, he might have brought someone with him and a whole team is making too much noise. You who are the most silent, go find Karl. "

"What if I find some of your friends?" Ace asked.

"Kill them."

"Very well," Ace replied. "I'd love to nail something more than a cursed crow tonight," and he went out.

Here's what happened, Amy thought. The Crow was dead. That was why her strength had run out, that was why she had been wounded in the arm and lost consciousness.

What would happen now? Would she die a second time at the hands of that madman? If that had to be the case, she would make sure he never forgot her again: if she couldn't kill him, she could at least make him live in suffering.

"So, bitch," Withers said. "Tell me who else knows you're here."

"General Custer, Sixth Fleet, Terminator, Superman ..." She was about to continue the list but Withers hit her hard with the back of his hand.

"Haven't you realized yet that you don't have to bullshit me?" he said waving the knife in front of her nose. "I can promise you a world of pain, bitch."

“You know,” Amy replied, looking intently into his eyes, “your son is much nicer than you. Has this thing never made you think? "

Rip narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Will he really be your son?" I mean, the way you treated your wife, don't you think she must have sought some ... comfort from someone else? Someone nicer, kinder? Someone who was always present at family gatherings, parties, picnics? "

"Shut up," Rip interrupted. "Close that sewer ..."

But Amy knew Rip in spite of herself wanted to hear more and so she kept talking to him, but turning her gaze to her brother Ray, using the information she had obtained through psychic contact with the boy in the forest. “Personally, it seems to me that Karl looks much more like his real father than you do, Rip. What do you think, Ray? Are you proud of your boyfriend? "

Ray Withers looked confused and scared, on the verge of crying. Rip looked now Amy now Ray; when her haunted gaze rested on Ray, Amy knew for certain that the dose of anguish she had just injected into his soul would devour him while he lived.

"Ray?" Rip said in a tone of anger and fear, very close to losing control. "Tell this bitch who's full of shit ..."

It sounded like a prayer, but he found no mercy in Amy. “You know it's true, Rip… That's why Karl has never been as smart as you are. That is why it is not as quick of hands or mind and never will be. Because it's not yours. And of Ray. He's the son of your fool brother. But your brother is not stupid enough to refuse a little love when it is offered. "

"Ray?" Rip repeated. "Tell me he's lying ... just tell me and it's okay." She grabbed her brother by the arm and yanked him around, staring into his tear-filled eyes. Ray shook his head, as if not knowing what to say or what to do.

"Ray," Rip said again, and this time his voice was more menacing. 'Did you fuck Elizabeth? Tell me no ... Tell me the truth, Ray! "

"I ... I ..." Ray stammered and Amy felt sorry for him, but not so much that she tried to stop, if she ever could, the thing she had started. "I..."

"What do you?" Rip pressed him, and Ray replied with two words that said it all.

"I apologize..."

Rip stared at him for what seemed like an eternity. Then the stillness of the scene came to life and Rip's right hand, the one holding the knife, snapped towards his brother's belly.

Ray winced, his eyes widened and he began to pant. Staring incredulously at his older brother, he put his hands on his shoulders. "I'm sorry ..." he murmured, like a child. "I..."

But what he meant to add was not heard. His massive body slumped in his brother's arms and Rip accompanied him to the ground, pulling out the knife.

"Did I touch a delicate issue?" Amy asked gently. Her strength was now that of an ordinary mortal, but the fire of vengeance burned alive more than ever inside her, making her rejoice at the wound she had inflicted on the man who held her prisoner, on the man who had murdered her children. .

Rip Withers got up slowly, and the face he showed was one you see only in nightmares. "You ... damn ... whore!" he hissed through clenched teeth. He raised the bloody knife and seemed about to stick it in his eyes. He had to react quickly.

"You are just what I suspected," he said scornfully, without showing fear, which he did not feel. «You are not a soldier, you are a sadist. You should be ashamed to call this bunch of freaks a militia. But look at you. There is nothing military in either you or your operation. Now you'll probably stab us, right? Or will you torture us first to feel better? " He laughed in mockery. "You are mentally ill."

The speech had the desired effect. Rip Withers's expression was no less hateful, but the look of madness seemed muffled. "We're not sick," he protested. "And we are not sadists ... we are patriots!"

"Then why did you kill your brother?"

"He was a traitor!" Rip tried to control his anger. “He betrayed me and sooner or later he would also betray the Sons. He had to die. And you too. You are the crazy ones, defending a government that only wants to crush you and any citizen who is not Jewish or one of those inferior races that it uses against us. But the time of open war is approaching: the first real attack will be launched tomorrow. "

"Like?" Amy asked.

Rick answered the question, tired of Withers' delusional rallies. "They keep a bomb in the bunker that will blow up half Hobie tomorrow morning."

"Exactly," Withers confirmed. “From the government building. Too bad you won't see it. You will die now, as spies. "

He went to the cell door and ordered: «Prepare the firing squad! Jackson and Anders, get the prisoners to the shooting range! "

Two militiamen appeared armed on the threshold. Seeing Ray Withers on the ground, they looked at Rip dumbfounded. "Another traitor," he explained in a firm tone that allowed no reply. "Take the prisoners away."

The outside area was still brightly lit. Amy saw that the bodies of the two men she had killed in the final assault had been locked up in plastic bags and placed next to one of the buildings, surrounded by several men. Others were sitting on the benches of the shooting range with rifles on their knees, or returning from the dormitories where they had gone to arm themselves to form the firing squad. When Amy and Rick appeared they all looked at them with the same expression of open hatred.

41

Rip Withers took Amy and Rick and their guards to the shooting range, but he didn't take them to the far side, where the targets were. He stopped after twenty meters and turned towards them.

“I don't intend to have you tied to poles. You can stand here waiting for the bullets. If you fall first, we shoot you to the ground. You are more likely to get killed cleanly if you stay upright. I have nothing more to say except that I'm sure you will end up burning in hell and one day I'll look down from heaven and enjoy the show. "

He turned around and walked towards the other men, followed by the two guards. "Firing squad, take sides!" he ordered, and the men rushed to carry out the command.

Rick looked at Amy. "I really think we've come to the end."

"For now," she replied. "I have no idea what awaits us next."

"Maybe we'll both come back."

"No," Amy said, looking at the two rows of gunmen in formation. The first row knelt. There were more than twenty. “I don't think I'll ever come back. Having a chance to put things right is miraculous enough. "

"You're right," Rick nodded absorbedly. “It was truly a miracle. But maybe the miracles aren't over yet, Amy. You have to believe. " He smiled at her as the men readied their rifles. “I love you, Amy. I never stopped loving you. I am happy to be with you now. I've regretted a thousand times that I wasn't with you then. "

"You must not. One must never wish for death. Life is too precious. "

"It isn't when those who make it precious are gone."

Amy turned to the platoon. She wasn't going to tell Rick she loved him. He could not. He was still Nancy's husband despite the intertwining of reality caused by the Raven. "I'm happy to be with you too": only this he managed to say.

Rip Withers growled his command: "Ready to fire!"

Amy raised her eyes to the dark sky, far beyond the range of their lights and wished, prayed, hoped, wanted something to come down, a gigantic black bird from the darkness devouring them all, one huge Raven that would definitely place right from wrong. Not to all the wrong in the world, but to the one created by those distorted beings all gathered there within that grid.

Yes, that was the time for justice. Now, more than ever, was the Crow's moment.

His prayer was answered. He heard them before he even saw them. At first it sounded like the distant cries of children playing. He saw the soldiers stiffening to attention and slowly lowering their rifles into firing position. The voices grew louder.

Yes, he thought, it was the screams of children, Brenda Tran's shrill laugh, Pete Grissom's mocking cry, DeMarole White's restrained giggle. But as they grew louder the voices changed, becoming bird cries, hoarse cries that grew louder and louder, demanding to be heard.

Finally he saw them, a long line of black pearls against the topaz of the moon. They flew in a line, one after the other: their unity was immediately evident, as certain was, for Amy, their intention.

They descended, in the same formation they flew, into the space between the two of them and the firing squad. They touched the ground facing the armed men.

Amy counted ten. Ten ravens, one for each dead child. His heart leapt with emotion, but the cold of fear ran down his limbs.

Then before her eyes, Rick and those fake soldiers, the crows began to transform, growing, lengthening in one place, expanding in another, until with a shiver of horror Amy saw her children lined up between her and the soldiers. .

The image of them falling riddled with bullets as they had fallen torn apart by bombs made her snap towards them to protect them with her body. But they were only children for a moment, just long enough for Amy to run to them and see their faces.

They were faces full of sadness, faces of children charged with the adult awareness that they would never grow up, that they would never see their children running and playing. They were faces of tragedy with the delicate features of children, and for this reason even more terrible.

But those faces changed, grew more adult and rose higher as the bodies beneath them grew. They aged under Amy's eyes, living in the span of a few seconds those years they had been deprived of, until they were ten young men and women, fully grown, possessing all the strength that a loving care would have given them, ten robust bodies , naked without sensuality, creatures not of life but of some life beyond death, of some dark feathered justice that forbade things to end with two bound corpses lying in their own blood in a cold field of dishonor.

They didn't look at her. They took their silent and determined steps towards the two rows of soldiers. They walked with their heads held high, their fists closed, their eyes alive for that one night, full of the wrath of the just.

"Fire!" Rip Withers yelled, but his voice broke into a sob of terror. "Shoot! Hit them! "

The men aimed their weapons at the approaching figures and fired. The bullets reached their flesh but did not even slow them down; seconds and those young bodies were on their killers.

The rifles were snatched from hands trembling with terror and thrown away. The soldiers fell to their knees as the fists of supernatural force rained down on them. Some tried to escape but their pursuers, swift as the wind, caught up with them and wrapped steel fingers around their throats.

In the midst of the attack Rip Withers was petrified in astonishment and shock, until a young man with Asian features and golden skin grabbed him by the neck and began to choke him. And in the angry face of that young Amy she saw the eyes of Charlie Tran, who had returned from beyond to carry out the revenge she had not been able to perform.

"No!" Amy screamed, and was amazed herself to see all her boys turn to her. Their fists, ready to deliver deadly blows, came to a halt in midair. Their fingers, sunk into the flesh of their throats, loosened their grip, letting the air return to fill the lungs, the blood to spray the dying brains.

"Stop! You cannot do this, this is my battle. You cannot soil your souls with the death of these ... demented. It's me, not you, the one who came back to do justice. Their death must remain on my soul. "

He looked at them all, one by one, with pleading eyes. “I didn't come back to see you turned into murderers… I came back for love. Please don't. Give me your strength. Let me be your justice again ... "

One by one, the ten straightened up, let their opponents fall to the ground. None of these, trembling and terrified, seemed ready to fight again, after this attack of the invincible undead.

The ten figures walked slowly towards Amy, totally ignoring the men slumped to the ground. On each of their faces, Amy recognized the glowing eyes of a child.

They surrounded her, each with their arms encircling the shoulders of those nearby, bringing their heads close to hers, so that she could smell her breath, perfumed and ethereal like the purest of incense.

The love she felt for them was so overwhelming and deep it made her dizzy. Then the boys began to fade and at first Amy thought they were leaving. But then he saw that they were turning to dust, pale, light dust that fell like snow to the ground, gathering peacefully in piles at his feet, his children. His sweet children.

A cry rang out above; when he raised his head he saw the Raven resting on the roof of the half-buried building.

The Raven. I live. If so, then ...

She stretched out the leather ties that bound her wrists and felt them break as if they were made of paper. The force was with her again. The love for her children, their love for her, had restored her, had revived the Raven.

42

In a flash Amy freed Rick and picked up the nearest weapon, an assault rifle with enough firepower to mow down all twenty men who, battered and terrified, were slowly rising from the ground. Rick also found a weapon, with which he held the defeated soldiers at gunpoint, disarming them.

Amy joined him in collecting all the weapons; when all the guns were piled up he heard the sound of an engine coming from outside the gate. Another few seconds and he saw the lights of a vehicle approaching the complex along the only access road.

"Keep an eye on them," he said to Rick, pointing to the meager remains of the Sons of a Free America. He ran to the gate, catching up with him just in time to see David Levinson getting out of his van, shotgun in hand, ready for battle.

When he saw Amy armed, he lowered the rifle. "How did you get here?" she asked, opening the gate.

“We followed the ravens. But what..."

"We have?" Amy's question was answered when the passenger door opened and Nancy stepped cautiously out of the vehicle. Their gaze met and she saw first a sense of surprise, then of joy, then of shock. Nancy turned pale and seemed to stagger.

At that moment a shot broke the silence that had returned to cover the night. At first Amy believed that Nancy had been shot, but then she realized that the bullet had hit her, entering her back and exiting her stomach. He felt just a slight twinge of pain.

Amy whirled around, heard another burst and saw the boy, Karl Withers, running out of the forest, unharmed, looking over his shoulder, yelling for someone to stop, stop shooting.

But the other didn't listen to him. A bullet from the next burst hit Karl. Amy saw blood splash from the boy's left leg, and he fell to the ground. Another gust swept the ground beside him and suddenly everyone started running.

Amy sprinted to the trees from which the shots had come and heard Levinson's footsteps echoing behind her. To his left Rick ran towards the boy, shooting blindly, on the run, towards the woods. Then he knelt down, covered Karl with his body and tried to get him up.

Another burst shook the night and Rick stiffened and collapsed on top of the boy. Amy let out a scream of rage and opened fire at the trees, but she ceased firing when a figure, huge and black, entered her field of vision. The Raven flew like an arrow into the thicket of trees, launching its hoarse cry; Amy saw Ace Ludwig staggering out into the open as the Raven walked away.

Amy and Levinson fired in unison. Amy's barrage hit Ace in the stomach and Levinson's shotgun shot hit him in the neck, snapping it neatly and tearing his head off.

Amy immediately brought the muzzle of her weapon to the rest of the militiamen, but none of them moved. Only Rip Withers was slowly approaching Karl and Rick. Amy ran towards Rick, still aiming the gun at the dazed soldiers.

Karl had crawled out from under Rick and was not paying attention to his injured leg, worried as he was about the man who for the second time had tried to save his life.

"Traitor!" Rip Withers yelled as he walked over to the boy and Rick. "Bastard traitor!" he repeated more quietly, with tears in his eyes.

"Not another step," Levinson said, pointing the rifle at Withers. The man stopped, breathing heavily. It was all gone, his son, his army, his dream, everything.

Nancy and Amy came to Rick at the same time. A trickle of blood ran from his lips and Amy knew he had only a few moments left to live. He nodded to Nancy who, as if given permission, knelt beside Rick. Amy stood watching them.

Nancy hugged her husband in her arms regardless of the blood pouring from the bullet exit hole in her back. Rick barely moved his head to look at her. He smiled a little and Nancy, tears streaming down her cheeks, kissed his forehead, then his bloody lips.

Rick faintly turned his head and looked at Amy. Now the smile was gone from his face and after a moment even life left him. His dead eyes were fixed on Amy's, but she couldn't read anything there, neither the love nor the promise that they would meet again. They were none other than the eyes of a dead man, silent and enigmatic as the eyes of the dead always are and will be.

Nancy was shaken by a sob and looked at Amy, ignoring what had happened, how and why, knowing only that she would never fully understand. He made an effort to ask all the same. "What happened? What have you done?"

"I'm back," Amy replied, "to right a wrong." He looked again at Rick's face, then at the boy who had shown himself capable of redemption, the son of his killer, whom Rick had tried to save at the cost of his own life. "But it was Rick who did it." He shook his head. "I can't help but get it over with now."

He looked at Levinson, who had picked up an assault rifle from the heap and with it and his weapon kept the group of prisoners at bay. “David,” he said, “get Nancy and the boy out of here. Go get help. "

"And those?" Levinson asked, pointing to the men who sat on the ground or stood defeated but with eyes still full of anger.

She walked over to him so that the others wouldn't hear. "We'll lock them up in that bunker," he replied, nodding towards the half-buried building. Then he turned to the group and raised his voice. "Listen to me! We will imprison you for the time being. Then Agent Levinson will come back with others ... "

Maybe it was the thought of being imprisoned, or maybe the idea of being arrested by a Jew, but one of the men leapt to reach the heap of weapons. Amy had foreseen it and fired, reaching him in the chest before he was halfway through the course. He fell without a cry.

"No one else will try again," Amy warned calmly. “Now move. You'll all go into that bunker. '

"Madam," said Karl Withers, as Nancy helped him to his feet. "There are guns in there, and ..."

“I know what it is. There will be no problems. I intend to keep these gentlemen company until the authorities arrive. " He waved the barrel of the weapon in the direction of the bunker and the men set off. “The first one to try to escape died before he took five steps. Be careful how you move. "

Amy noticed that they were muttering among themselves and was sure they were thinking that once inside they could get hold of the guns and turn the tide.

As Amy and Levinson drove the militiamen to the bunker Nancy walked Karl through the gate and to David's car. Amy led the men down the stairway.

The interior of the building was much larger than one might think from the outside. One wall lined racks with a variety of firearms, while next to the other were ammunition crates. On other wooden crates, further down, the word GRENADE stood out and next to them were containers loaded with sticks of dynamite. There were also several glass jars filled with a gray material, and sealed paper packages.

But what Amy was looking for was on a table by the entrance, near the rifle racks. He made sure that none of the men approached as he led them to the side of the room where the ammunition was. Take all the bullets they want, he thought. Without a weapon they were of little use.

“Come on, gentlemen. Here. If you want you can sit on those speakers. I'm sure you're pretty tired. Just, please, don't you dare go near the guns. "

"Amy," Levinson said softly, "do you intend to stay here with them?"

"Exact." He did not lose sight of the men, who looked nervous and dangerous. Rip Withers was on his feet, like many of those who had not been injured in the legs in the attack. "But none of us will come out." She looked at him and saw that he was looking at her worried, perhaps with a little fear. "Don't worry, they won't hear anything." He pointed to a key hanging from a nail in the door. “Close from the outside. Immediately. And get Nancy and that boy as far as possible, ASAP. Thanks, David. " He smiled.

Levinson tried to smile back, but he had a lump in his throat. He turned, took the key and ran up the few steps, closing the door behind him. Amy heard the key turn.

He waited as long as he could. He pictured Levinson running across the clearing and out of the gate, helping Nancy get the boy into the vehicle, if he hadn't already. He would fumble with the keys for a few moments, then maneuver and take the road he'd come from, expecting at any moment to hear something behind him.

Here. The past time was enough. Now he was safe. Life was assured.

Time to think about death. The men began to move. It was inevitable that they would try to overwhelm her, even knowing that some of them would come under her blows. Then they would break down the door and flee before the Jew got back with the feds. So they thought.

Moving decisively, still keeping them at gunpoint, he walked over to a crate of hand grenades, stuck his fingers under the lid, and yanked it up. At the creaking of the nails coming out of the wood, the men looked at her in amazement: to open a box they would have to use a crowbar.

The grenades were arranged neatly like eggs in a plastic box and Amy took one. He pressed the safety with his left and with his right removed the ring. Now the bomb was armed. All he had to do was let her go and nobody could stop her.

"Now," she resumed, turning back to the prisoners who were watching her with a lot of eyes. "If any of you are wondering how I intend to maintain discipline ..." He raised both hands, the right with the bomb and the left with the rifle. «Here. And don't waste time running to the door. It's close." He walked slowly back towards the entrance and stopped by the table on which the box was placed.

"I'm sick of all this," she said, with infinite weariness. He wanted to sleep for a very long time. She wanted to fall asleep in Rick's arms and then wake up and see their babies around her, but she didn't know if that would ever happen. He hoped so.

"I died because of you," she resumed. «And because of you I am here. I bring you justice. But I pray for the salvation of your souls. " He looked down at the grenade.

"Because if you're damned, I'm damned too."

Amy looked into the large wooden crate that held the latest Powder Burns bomb. He then released the safety lever of the grenade and placed it in the multicolored jungle of wires and switches that surrounded the bomb's explosive load.

There was only time for the men to scream and Amy to close her eyes, hoping the darkness would stay with her.

Levinson saw the flash before he heard the roar and heard the roar before he felt the impact.

It seemed as if the entire forest exploded behind him, as if the ground were a huge blanket that someone had suddenly decided to shake. He nailed the brakes until the shock wave passed, but even at that distance of nearly a kilometer, a shower of debris hit the roof of the Blazer.

"Amy, it's ..." Nancy murmured when her trembling subsided a little.

“Yes, she's gone. They are all gone. " He looked at the boy. "All your friends."

The boy's eyes were filled with tears. “They weren't my friends. None of them ... none of them ... "

As they made their way to Hobie and his hospital, passing police cars racing in the opposite direction, Levinson told Nancy the whole story, or rather how much he knew about the story. When he was done she was silent for a while. Then he said, “I don't believe it. Amy wasn't dead. She and Rick ... the two of them planned everything. ' His voice was swollen with pain and humiliation. "Rick ... Rick has never loved me."

"What I said is true," Levinson replied. “And I think he loved you instead, as much as he could. But he also loved Amy. "

"He's with her now," Nancy said, and he felt pain and anger, and something he hoped could be love, in her voice.

He didn't answer, but thought: I hope so. God, Crow, whoever makes these decisions, please make it so.

43

The next morning, just before dawn, David Levinson was getting into his Blazer parked in front of the police station. Karl Withers was in the hospital, out of harm's way, Nancy Carlisle was sleeping with the help of sedatives, and Levinson had reported much less to his superiors and several federal agents than he actually knew.

It had taken hours to unravel his story. He stated that, as far as he knew, Amy Carlisle had survived the explosion, had probably walked away soon after in a state of amnesia, and when she had recovered her memory, she had contacted her husband. The two of them, without the latter's new wife knowing anything, had begun to hunt down terrorists and had ended their search by dying in the explosion in the paramilitary group's camp.

The story probably had more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese, but what appeared to be its core was substantial enough: the same gang of armed extremists who had blown up an asylum, then killed Wilson Barnes, William Standish and his mother, was at his turn blown up by the explosion of a bomb of his own manufacture.

According to Levinson's reconstruction, Amy or Rick could have been responsible for the deaths of Sonny Armitage and Junior Feeley. A more probable hypothesis for the deaths that occurred in Eau Claire, however, could be a revenge carried out by the leaders of the terrorists against a member, Chip Porter, found for some reason guilty of treason.

Well, he had done everything to keep Amy Carlisle's memory as intact as possible. He started the engine and headed home, thinking he would ask Trotter to help him retrieve the Avanti. Trotter wouldn't ask questions.

The site where the Become Friends Center once stood was not on the way to Levinson's house, but he wanted to pass by anyway, just to see if anything had changed. He was not disappointed.

The dawn light was beginning to illuminate the street as he pulled the van to the curb and got out. It was cold, but the mere sight of the sun's rays overlooking the horizon was enough to warm it.

There were seedlings, three, which had sprung up in the dust and ash, three saplings grown from seeds carried by the wind. A little more than a palm high, they formed the apexes of a triangle a few meters from each other.

As he approached, he noticed something he couldn't explain. Although it was November, with the temperature close to freezing, the seedlings were sprouting tiny green buds. In the dust, inside the triangle, several small flowers had sprung up.

There were ten of them, all of different colors. They were rooted in dust and ash, beauty born of destruction. Ten flowers.

Ten lost children.

Three trees.

Judy Croft. Amy Carlisle.

And Amy's husband.

With his sacrifice, Rick Carlisle had made no less than the two of them. He had earned that place. That tree.

Perhaps now that the culprits had been identified and the legal affairs settled, someone could do what nature had already begun: turn that place into a park, a memorial, with some play equipment, so that they could still feel there. children's laughter.

He looked up at the brightening sky, hoping to see a crow emerge from the east. Instead, a small group of sparrows descended on the sidewalk and began to peck at a few crumbs of bread.

He watched them until they flew away. And then, keeping the promise he had made to Amy Carlisle, he went to the temple for the first time in many years. There she recited the Kaddish, not only for her, but for those who died with her, for those who died for her.

He who makes peace on the heights of his kingdom,

May he make peace for us.

END

Table of Contents

The Crow: Quoth the Crow by David Bischoff

Prologue

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2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

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12

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14

15

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29

Epilogue

The Crow: The Lazarus Heart by Poppy Z. Brite
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two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
epilogue

The Crow: Clash by Night by Chet Williamson

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